Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

epistie, exercised a controlling influence over this Council similar to the one of Pope Leo I. over the Council of Chalcedon. On the other hand, the Council emphatically condemned Pope Honorius as a Monothelite heretic. Monothelitism continued among the Maronites on Mount Lebanon.

The THIRD ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, held at EPHESUS, A.D. 431, and the FIFTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, held at CONSTANTINOPLE, A.D. 553 (hence also called the SECOND CONSTANTINOPOLITAN C.), issued no new Creed, but simply reaffirmed the previous Creeds and condemned certain heresies.

The Council of Ephesus condemned 'the impious and profane doctrines' of Nestorius in two of its six canons (can. 1 and 4), and indorsed the twelve anathemas of Cyril of Alexandria hurled against Nestorius, which are purely negative, and need not be inserted here.' The same Synod sanctioned also the letters of Cyril and of Cœlestinus of Rome to Nestorius, and incidentally (in can. 1 and 4) condemned Pelagianism in the person of Cœlestius, the chief pupil of Pelagius, on the supposition that he sympathized with Nestorius; but the Pelagian doctrines are not stated.

The Fifth Ecumenical Council, of 164 Bishops, occasioned by the protracted and tedious Monophysite controversies (which grew out of the Council of Chalcedon), confessed the Nicene Creed as explained and enlarged by the Councils of Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, indorsed the dogmatic edicts of Emperor Justinian, and condemned the three Chapters (τpía Kepáλɛa), that is, some writings of three departed divines of the Antiochian school, Theodore of Mopsuestia (the teacher of Nestorius), Theodoret of Cyros, and Ibas of Edessa (friends of Nestorius). The last two, however, had been declared orthodox by the Council of Chalcedon. The Fifth Ecumenical Council had a leaning towards Monophysitism, but the Sixth Ecumenical Council reacted again in favor of the dyophysitism of the Council of Chalcedon, and supplemented it by teaching the dyotheletism of Christ.2

The SEVENTH (and last strictly) ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, held, under the Empress Irene, at Nicæa, A.D. 787, and hence also called the SECOND NICENE COUNCIL, condemned the Iconoclasts, and sanctioned the ecclesiastical use and limited worship of sacred images. But this decision is recognized only by Greeks and Romans, while Protestants regard it as a relapse into a refined form of idolatry, condemned by the Second Commandment and the primitive Christian Church. It became a fruitful source of superstition, but stimulated also the development of Christian art.

1 See the Anathematismi Cyrilli in Mansi, Cone. Tom. IV. p. 1082 and Tom. V. pp. 85 sqq. (Greek and Latin, with the avaτporn of Theodoret, and the añoλoyía of Cyril), also in Denzinger's Enchiridion, pp. 27-31, and Gieseler's Church History, Vol. I. pp. 349 sqq. (Am. ed., only the Greek text). The ambitious, violent, and overbearing Cyril, who controlled the Synod, misrepresented his rival Patriarch of Constantinople, and leaned towards the opposite heresy of Eutychianism. Compare the refutation of Theodoret in Mansi, Tom. V. pp. 87 sqq., and my Church History, Vol. III. pp. 722-729. The Ecumenical Council of 431 was saved by its orthodoxy, otherwise it would have shared the disgrace of the infamous Robber Synod (σúvodos Anjoτpiký, latrocinium Ephesinum), held at Ephesus a few years later (449) under the lead of Dioscuras (Cyril's successor), where passion, intrigue, and uncharitableness ruled supreme. Gregory of Nazianzum, who himself presided over the Second Ecumenical Council, drew a sad picture of the unchristian spirit which disgraced the synodical assemblies of his day. But the Third Ecumenical Council stands morally as well as doctrinally far below its two predecessors.

The Greek Acts of the Fifth Council, with the exception of the fourteen anathemas on the three Chapters, are lost; but a Latin translation, concerning whose genuineness and completeness there has been much controversy, is preserved. See Mansi, Conc. Tom. IX. pp. 163 sqq., especially pp. 538-ES2. Denzinger gives the Canones XIV. de tribus capitulis (Enchir. pp. 58-73), and also the fifteen Canons against the errors of Origen (pp. 73-80), but the latter belong to an earlier Constantinopolitan Synod, held A.D. 544. On the Three Chapter Controversy, sce my Church History, Vol. III. pp. 768 sqq., and more fully, Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Vol. II. pp. 775-899.

3 The ἀσπασμὸς καὶ τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις, osculum et honoraria adoratio, but not ἀληθινὴ λατρεία ή πρέπει μóvy tỷ deig púoei, vera latria, quæ solam divinam naturam decet. See the decrce in Mansi, Conc. Tom. XIII. p. 378 sq. Also in Denzinger, Enchir. pp. 104, 105.

SYMBOLA ROMANA.

SYMBOLA ROMANA.

ROMAN SYMBOLS.

PAGE

I. CANONES ET DECRETA DOGMATICA CONCILII TRIDENTINI.

THE CANONS AND DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. A.D. 1563 ........

II. PROFESSIO FIDEI TRIDENTINÆ.

[ocr errors]

77

THE PROFESSION OF THE TRIDENTINE FAITH. A.D. 1564.......... 207

III. DECRETUM PII IX. DE IMMACULATA CONCEPTIONE
B. VIRGINIS MARIÆ.

THE DECREE OF POPE PIUS IX. ON THE IMMACULATE CONCEP-
TION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. A.D. 1854......

IV. SYLLABUS ERRORUM NOSTRÆ ÆTATIS.

...... 211

[ocr errors]

PAPAL SYLLABUS OF THE PRINCIPAL ERRORS OF OUR TIME.
A.D. 1864.........

V. DECRETA DOGMATICA CONCILII VATICANI DE FIDE
CATHOLICA ET DE ECCLESIA CHRISTI.

THE DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL CONCERNING THE CATHOLIC FAITH AND THE CHURCH OF CHRIST (THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE). A.D. 1870...

213

234

I. CANONES ET DECRETA DOGMATICA CONCILII

TRIDENTINI.

THE CANONS AND DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.

A.D. 1563.

[The Latin text after the editions of LE PLAT, RICHTER, STREITWOLF and KLENER, and SMETS, compared. It is also incorporated in THEINER's Acta genuina SS. Ecum. Concilii Tridentini, 1874, 2 Tom. The English translation by the Rev. J. WATERWORTH (R. C.): The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Ecumenical Council of Trent, London, 1848. The Scripture quotations are conformed to the Vulgate, and are printed in italics. The decrees of the Council on the reformation of discipline are foreign to this collection, and have been omitted also in Denzinger's Enchiridion. On the Council of Trent, see Vol. I. § 24, pp. 90–96.] THIRD SESSION,

SESSIO TERTIA,

[blocks in formation]

Hæc sacrosancta, acumenica, et This sacred and holy, œcumengeneralis tridentina synodus, in ical, and general Synod of Trent,— Spiritu sancto legitime congre- lawfully assembled in the Holy gata, in ea præsidentibus eisdem Ghost, the same three legates of tribus apostolicae sedis legatis, the Apostolic See presiding theremagnitudinem rerum tractanda- in,-considering the magnitude of rum considerans, præsertim ea- the matters to be treated of, esperum, quæ duobus illis capitibus, cially of those comprised under the de extirpandis hæresibus, et mo- two heads, of the extirpating of ribus reformandis, continentur, heresies, and the reforming of manquorum causa præcipue est con- ners, for the sake of which chiefly gregata; agnoscens autem cum it is assembled, and recognizing apostolo, non esse sibi collucta- with the apostles, that its wrestling tionem adversus carnem et san- is not against flesh and blood, but guinem, sed adversus spirituales against the spirits of wickedness nequitias in cælestibus, cum eo- in the high places,' exhorts, with the dem omnes et singulos in pri- same apostle, all and each, above all

1 Ephes. vi. 12.

« ÖncekiDevam »