Edward B. Pusey on the insertion of the filioque - There is one other allegation, which has often been interposed to hinder or bias the consideration of the doctrine of the Filioque, viz. that the Council of Ephesus forbade, it is said, any future expansion of the Creed. It did nothing less; as indeed it would have been extreme presumption in any number of men, however gifted, unless gifted with omniscience, to do this. It would go beyond a mere claim of infallibility as to any given doctrine. For it would require a Divine prescience, that no error would arise in the Church, against which it might be necessary to guard by any fresh definition. Almighty God, Who alone knows the future of His Church, could alone know this. The occasion of the oft-cited decree of Ephesus was this. Two Nestorian presbyters of Constantinople, Anastasius and Photius, had given commendatory letters, attesting the orthodoxy of two other Nestorians, Antonius and James, addressed to the Bishops of Lydia. There were at that time many Quartodecimans and Novatians, who wished to return to the Church. This James, deceiving, as Charisius alleged, some of the simpler sort, setting at nought the exposition of faith of the holy fathers at Nice, made them subscribe a Creed, of ostentatious orthodoxy on the doctrine of the Trinity, but using exclusively the Nestorian formula, conjunction with the Divine Nature, whereby the Nestorians evaded the doctrine of the Incarnation. Some, not named, had excommunicated Charisius, who, as Economus of Philadelphia, had excepted against this. They had also attested the orthodoxy of James. Charisius appealed to the Council. The exposition of the transformed Creed (as it is called in the Acts) was read, with the signatures of those who had been induced to sign it, as the true faith of orthodoxy, praying the most holy Bishop Theophanes to receive them into the most holy Catholic Church. These things being read, the holy synod defined that it was unlawful to propose or compose or put together another (ἑτέραν) faith, beside (παρὰ) that defined by the holy fathers, gathered at Nice with the Holy Spirit; and that those who dared either to compose or propose or offer to those who wish to return to the knowledge of the truth, either from heathenism or Judaism or any heresy whatsoever, another faith, if Bishops or Clergy, should be alien from the episcopate or Clergy, or, if laymen, should be anathematised. In like way, if any Bishops or Clergy should be detected, holding or teaching the doctrines contained in the exposition, brought before [the Council] by the Presbyter Charisius concerning the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten Son of God, viz. the wicked and perverted doctrines of Nestorius, which also are subjoined, let them be subject to the sentence of this holy Ecumenical Synod (repeating it). It is obvious, from the history itself, that the prohibition is to individual arbitrary acts. It is, that no one shall be allowed, and the Council annexes an individual penalty to the transgressors of their decree, degradation or excommunication. It is almost superfluous to say, that it was the substitution of a heretical Creed, which was proscribed. There is not an indication that the Council thought that they could fetter the free action of the Church, or meant to do so. Even with these limitations, all which is forbidden is, to substitute for the Nicene any such different Creed in receiving Jews heathen or heretics into the Church. It obviously could not mean to prohibit true additions to the Creed of Nice. For the only Creed, which the Council of Ephesus received, was the actual Creed of Nice, which they rehearsed at the beginning of this session. On that other construction they would have condemned the fathers of the Council of Constantinople, whose Creed they did not themselves receive. For these did add to the Nicene Creed, and require subscription to the Creed so augmented. It became the habit of Eastern heretics to allege this decree, which was framed on occasion of a heretical Creed, to protect their own heresies from condemnation. But the heretics did not except against Creeds only. They pleaded the Canon against any positive statement of doctrine, which was not contained, in terms, in the Nicene Creed. Eutyches, we saw, pleaded it against any enquiry as to his faith, made to him by Flavian. Some of the Bishops at the Council of Chalcedon had also taken part in the Robber-Council, and dreaded what might follow. They had themselves taken part with Dioscorus, in using the Canon for the unjust condemnation of S. Flavian. There was frequently the cry in the Council, especially from the Illyrian Bishops, We have all erred: may we all find forgiveness. When then the judges and senate proposed, If your reverences please, let the most holy patriarchs of each diocese choose in addition one or two, each of his own diocese, and having consulted in common about the faith, establish openly what seems good to all:” it was probably these same who cried out, We make no written exposition. A canon says plainly, that what has been set forth, sufficeth. The canon wills, that there should not be another exposition. Let the things of the fathers hold. Any how, after the Epistle of S. Leo had been read, and three passages made clear by aid of pas-sages of S. Cyril, there was no further question; but a written exposition, the tome of S. Leo, being found in harmony with S. Cyril and the Council of Ephesus, was accepted by that of Chalcedon. The Monophysites continued to plead the Canon against the Council of Chalcedon, which, against error, added to credenda, not to the Creed. Eulogius, Archbishop of Alexandria, (A.D. 581) shewed very clearly that the objection would lie to every Council which laid down any thing as to the faith, even the Council of Ephesus itself, as also to that of Constantinople : Again, the madness of heresy blames the 4th Council for setting forth an exposition, maintaining that any such attempt is wholly precluded by the first Council of Ephesus. And yet if, according to their idle speech, that Council had altogether forbidden making another definition, it would, before all others, have passed a sentence of condemnation against itself. For it does define what none before it defined. Nay its ή καθ ύπόστασιν ἕνωσις is a definition, not made by the elder Synods. Yea, and in the vain speech a false charge is brought against the Synod of the 150 holy fathers at Constantinople; for it, putting down the rebel against the Spirit, and adding the theology as to the Holy Spirit to the definition expressed at Nice, conjoined it therewith. For if the previous Councils, with their additions, escape blame, neither will those, after them, for the like acts have an unlike condemnation. So does this senselessness confuse and distort everything. For the Council of Ephesus wholly forbade that another faith should be set forth, whose dogmas were contrary to that at Nice; but what was defined by it being maintained pure and inviolate, to add what was required by circumstances was what it did itself. And this is the teaching of nature itself, and the tradition of the Church throughout is seen to acquiesce in this. Wherefore also at Alexandria, before the Ecumenical Synod was convened, the divine Cyril, having gathered there select Bishops and having framed a written statement of faith, sent it to Nestorius. S. Maximus, the Confessor, A.D. 456, had to answer the same imputation from the Monophysites, as to the confession of two natures of our Lord, and the term in two natures, in the Council of Chalcedon. He answers [in Opp. ii. 141, 142], How and with what reason do you accuse the holy Council of Chalcedon, although it manifoldly useth the words of the fathers, and abuse it and mock it as though it introduced another definition of the Faith?—If the Council of Chalcedon may be accused of making another definition of the Faith, on account of the words inserted in the Nicene definition, the same may be said against Cyril also, and the 150 fathers [the third and the second General Council]. How it should not lie against them, and should lie against this [of Chalcedon], I comprehend not.—For Gregory, the defender of the Faith, will not any more escape your accusation against those of Chalcedon; rather he will lie under it exceedingly, expressing distinctly what was deficiently said as to the Holy Spirit by the Council of Nice, ‘because,’ he says, ‘this question had not yet been mooted.’—If we may speak the truth, all the God-elected fathers after the Council of Nice, and every Council of orthodox and holy men, did not, through the introduction of words of their own, introduce another definition of the Faith, as you declare;—but they firmly established that one and the same faith which was laid down by the 318 fathers, elucidating and, as it were, explaining it in detail, on account of those who understood it amiss and misinterpreted it and its doctrines to their own ungodliness.” (On the Insertion of the Clause “And the Son” in Regard to the Eastern Church and the Bonn Conference, E.B. Pusey, pp. 75-81) books.google.au/books?id=EtcCAAAAQAAJ&dq=On%20the%20insertion%20of%20the%20clause%20inauthor%3APusey&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 04:29:00 +0000
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