Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, when strengthening the knowledge of the faith in his disciples, to the end that no one might disagree with his neighbor concerning the doctrines of religion, and that the proclamation of the truth might be set forth equally to all men, said: “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” But since the Evil One does not desist from sowing tares among the seeds of godliness, but ever invents something new against the truth, therefore the Lord, providing, as He ever does, for the human race, has raised up this pious, faithful, and zealous sovereign, and He has called together unto Himself from all parts the chief rulers of the priesthood, so that, with the grace of Christ, our common Lord, inspiring us, we may cast off every plague of falsehood from the sheep of Christ and feed them with the tender leaves of truth. And this we have done, with unanimous consent driving away erroneous doctrine and renewing the unerring faith of the Fathers, publishing to all the creed of the three hundred and eighteen [i.e., the creed of Nicæa], and to their number adding as Fathers those who have received the same summary of religion. Such are the [pg 518] one hundred and fifty who afterward assembled in great Constantinople and ratified the same faith. Moreover, observing the order and every form relating to the faith which was observed by the holy synod formerly held in Ephesus, of which Celestine of Rome and Cyril of Alexandria, of holy memory, were the leaders [i.e., Ephesus A. D. 431], we do declare that the exposition of the right and blameless faith made by the three hundred and eighteen holy and blessed Fathers, assembled at Nicæa in the reign of Constantine, of pious memory, shall be pre-eminent, and that those things shall be of force also which were decreed by the one hundred and fifty holy Fathers at Constantinople for the uprooting of the heresies which had then sprung up and for the confirmation of the same Catholic and apostolic faith of ours.
Then follow:
“The Creed of the Three Hundred and Eighteen Fathers at Nicæa.” The so-called Constantinopolitan creed, without the “filioque.”
This wise and salutary formula of divine grace sufficed for the perfect knowledge and confirmation of religion; for it teaches the perfect doctrine concerning Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and sets forth the incarnation of the Lord to them that faithfully receive it. But forasmuch as persons undertaking to make void the preaching of the truth have through their individual heresies given rise to empty babblings, some of them daring to corrupt the mystery of the Lord's incarnation for us and refusing to use the name Theotokos in reference to the Virgin, while others bringing in a confusion and mixture, and idly conceiving that there is one nature of the flesh and the godhead, maintaining that the divine nature of the Only begotten is by mixture capable of suffering; therefore this present, great, and ecumenical synod, desiring to exclude from them every device against the truth and teaching that which is unchanged from the beginning, has at the very outset decreed that the faith of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers shall be preserved inviolate. And on account of them that [pg 519] contend against the Holy Ghost, it confirms the doctrine afterward delivered concerning the substance of the Spirit by the one hundred and fifty holy Fathers assembled in the imperial city, which doctrine they declare unto all men, not as though they were introducing anything that had been lacking in their predecessors, but in order to explain through written documents their faith concerning the Holy Ghost against those who were seeking to destroy His sovereignty. And on account of those who are attempting to corrupt the mystery of the dispensation [i.e., the incarnation], and who shamelessly pretend that He who was born of the holy Virgin Mary was a mere man, it receives the synodical letters of the blessed Cyril, pastor of the church of Alexandria, addressed to Nestorius and to the Easterns,[189] judging them suitable for the refutation of the frenzied folly of Nestorius and for the instruction of those who long with holy ardor for a knowledge of the saving symbol. And to these it has rightly added for the confirmation of the orthodox doctrines the letter of the president of the great and old Rome, the most blessed and holy Archbishop Leo, which was addressed to Archbishop Flavian, of blessed memory,[190] for the removal of the false doctrines of Eutyches, judging them to be agreeable to the confession of the great Peter and to be a common pillar against misbelievers. For it opposes those who would rend the mystery of the dispensation into a duad of Sons; it repels from the sacred assembly those who dared to say that the godhead of the Only begotten is capable of suffering; it resists those who imagine there is a mixture or confusion in the two natures of Christ; it drives away those who fancy His form as a servant is of an heavenly or of some substance other than that which was taken of us,[191] and it anathematizes those who foolishly talk of two natures of our Lord before [pg 520] the union,[192] conceiving that after the union there was only one.[193]
Following the holy Fathers,[194] we all with one voice teach men to confess that the Son and our Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same, that He is perfect in godhead and perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body, consubstantial with His Father as touching His godhead, and consubstantial with us as to His manhood,[195] in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten of His Father before all worlds according to His godhead; but in these last days for us and for our salvation of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, according to His manhood, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten Son,[196] in[197] two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being preserved and concurring in one person and hypostasis,[198] not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have spoken concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and as the creed of the Fathers has delivered us.
These things having been expressed by us with great accuracy and attention, the holy ecumenical synod decrees that no one shall be permitted to bring forward another [pg 521] faith,[199] nor to write, nor to compose, nor to excogitate, nor to teach such to others. But such as dare to compose another faith, or to bring forward, or to teach, or to deliver another creed to such as wish to be converted to the knowledge of the truth from among the Gentiles or the Jews, or any heresy whatever; if they be bishops or clerics, let them be deposed, the bishops from the episcopate, the clerics from the clerical rank; but if they be monks or laymen, let them be anathematized.
(d) Council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451, Canon 28. Bruns, I, 32.
The rank of the see of Constantinople.
This canon is closely connected with Canon 3 of Constantinople, A. D. 381, but goes beyond that in extending the authority of Constantinople. With this canon should be compared Canons 9 and 17 of Chalcedon, which, taken with Canon 28, make Constantinople supreme in the East. For the circumstances in which the Canon was passed, see Hefele, § 200. The letter of the council submitting its decrees to Leo for approval and explaining this canon is among the Epistles of Leo, Ep. 98. (PNF, ser. II, vol. XII, p. 72.) For Leo's criticism, v. supra, [§ 86]. See W. Bright, Notes on the Canons of the First Four General Councils, 1882. A valuable discussion of the canon in its historical setting is in Hergenröther, Photius, Patriarch von Constantinopel, 1867, I, 74-89.