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the common judgment of all the most holy bishops; therefore know thou, O Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, and thou, 0 Memnon, bishop of this city, that ye are dismissed and deposed from all sacerdotal functions as the originators and leaders of all this disorder and lawlessness, and those who have violated the canons of the Fathers and the imperial decrees. And all ye others who seditiously and wickedly, and contrary to all ecclesiastical sanctions and the royal decrees, gave your consent are excommunicated until you acknowledge your fault and reform and accept anew the faith set forth by the holy Fathers at Nicæa, adding to it nothing foreign or different, and until ye anathematize the heretical propositions of Cyril, which are plainly repugnant to evangelical and apostolic doctrine, and in all things comply with the letters of our most pious and Christ-loving emperors, who require a peaceful and accurate consideration of the dogma. (f) Creed of Antioch A. D. 433. Hahn, § 170.

This creed was probably composed by Theodoret of Cyrus, and was sent by Count Johannes to the Emperor Theodosius in 431 as expressing the teaching of the Antiochian party. The bitterest period of the Nestorian controversy was after the council which is commonly regarded as having settled it. The Antiochians and the Alexandrians attacked each other vigorously. At last, in 433, John, bishop of Antioch, sent the creed given below to Cyril of Alexandria, who signed it. The creed expresses accurately the position of Nestorius. In this way a union was patched up between the contending parties. But the irreconcilable Nestorians left the Church permanently. This creed in the form in which it had been presented to the Emperor was at the beginning and the end worded somewhat differently, cf. Hahn, loc. cit.,

note.

We therefore acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, complete God and complete man, of a rational soul and body; begotten of the Father before the ages according to His godhead, but in the last days for us and for our salvation, of the Virgin Mary, according to the manhood; that He is of the same nature as the Father according to His godhead, and of the same nature with us according to

His manhood; for a union of the two natures has been made; therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this conception of the unconfused union, we confess that the holy Virgin is Theotokos, because God the Word was made flesh and became man, and from her conception united with Himself the temple received from her. We recognize the evangelical and apostolic utterances concerning the Lord, making common, as in one person, the divine and the human characteristics, but distinguishing them as in two natures; and teaching that the godlike traits are according to the godhead of Christ, and the humble traits according to His manhood.

§ 90. THE EUTYCHIAN CONTROVERSY AND THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON A. D. 451

What is known as the Eutychian controversy is less a dogmatic controversy than a struggle between the patriarchs of the East for supremacy, using party theological differences as a support. Few passages in the history of the Church are more painful. The union made in 433 between the Antiochian and Alexandrian parties lasted fifteen years, or until after the death of those who entered into it. At Antioch Domnus became bishop in 442, at Alexandria Dioscurus in 444, and at Constantinople Flavian in 446. Early in 448 Dioscurus, who aimed at the domination of the East, began to attack the Antiochians as Nestorians. In this he was supported at Constantinople by Chrysaphius, the all-powerful minister of the weak Theodosius II, and the archimandrite Eutyches, the godfather of the minister. Eusebius of Dorylæum thereupon accused Eutyches, who held the Alexandrian position in an extreme form, of being heretical on the doctrine of the Incarnation. Eutyches was condemned by Flavian at an endemic synod [cf. DCA, I, 474], November 22, 448. Both Eutyches and Flavian [cf. Leo the Great, Ep. 21, 22] thereupon turned to Leo, bishop of Rome. Leo, abandoning the traditional Roman alliance with Alexandria, on which Dioscurus

had counted, supported Flavian, sending him June 13, 449, a dogmatic epistle (the Tome, Ep. 28) defining, in the terms of Western theology, the point at issue. A synod was now called by Theodosius at Ephesus, August, 449, in which Dioscurus with the support of the court triumphed. Eutyches was restored, and the leaders of the Antiochian party, Flavian, Eusebius, Ibas, Theodoret, and others deposed. Flavian [cf. Kirch, nn. 804ff.], Eusebius, and Theodoret appealed to Leo, who vigorously denounced the synod as a council of robbers (Latrocinium Ephesinum). At the same time the situation at the court, upon which Dioscurus depended, was completely changed by the fall of Chrysaphius and the death of Theodosius. Pulcheria, his sister, and Marcian, her husband, succeeded to the throne, both adherents of the Antiochian party, and opposed to the ecclesiastical aspirations of Dioscurus. A new synod was now called by Marcian at Chalcedon, a suburb of Constantinople. Dioscurus was deposed, as well as Eutyches, but Ibas and Theodoret were restored after an examination of their teaching. A definition was drawn up in harmony with the Tome of Leo. It was a triumph for Leo, which was somewhat lessened by the passage of canon 28, based upon the third canon of Constantinople, A. D. 381, a council which was henceforth recognized as the "Second General Council." Leo refused to approve this canon, which remained in force in the East and was renewed at the Quinisext Council A. D. 692.

Additional source material: W. Bright, Select Sermons of S. Leo the Great on the Incarnation; with his twenty-eighth Epistle called the "Tome," Second ed., London, 1886; Percival, The Seven Ecumenical Councils (PNF); Evagrius, Hist. Ec., II, 1-5, 18, Eng. trans., London, 1846 (also in Bohn's Ecclesiastical Library); also much material in Hefele, §§ 170-208.

(a) Council of Constantinople, A. D. 448, Acts. Mansi, VI, 741 ff.

The position of Eutyches and his condemnation.

Inasmuch as Eutyches was no theologian and no man of letters, he

has left no worked-out statement of his position. What he taught can be gathered only from the acts of the Council of Constantinople A. D. 448. These were incorporated in the acts of the Council of Ephesus, A. D. 449, and as his friends were there they may be regarded as trustworthy. The acts of the Council of Ephesus, A. D. 449 were read in the Council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451, and in this way the matter is known.

The following passages are taken from the seventh sitting of the Council of Constantinople, November 22, 448.

Archbishop Flavian said: Do you confess that the one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is consubstantial with His Father as to His divinity, and consubstantial with His mother as to His humanity?

Eutyches said: When I intrusted myself to your holiness I said that you should not ask me further what I thought concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

The archbishop said: Do you confess Christ to be of two natures?

Eutyches said: I have never yet presumed to speculate concerning the nature of my God, the Lord of heaven and earth; I confess that I have never said that He is consubstantial with us. Up to the present day I have not said that the body of our Lord and God was consubstantial with us; I confess that the holy Virgin is consubstantial with us, and that of her our God was incarnate..

Florentius, the patrician, said: Since the mother is consubstantial with us, doubtless the Son is consubstantial with us. Eutyches said: I have not said, you will notice, that the body of a man became the body of God, but the body was human, and the Lord was incarnate of the Virgin. If you wish that I should add to this that His body is consubstantial with us, I will do this; but I do not understand the term consubstantial in such a way that I do not deny that he is the Son of God. Formerly I spoke in general not of a consubstantiality according to the flesh; now I will do so, because your Holiness demands it. . . .

Florentius said: Do you or do you not confess that our

Lord, who is of the Virgin, is consubstantial and of two natures after the incarnation?

Eutyches said: I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union [i. e., the union of divinity and humanity in the incarnation], but after the union one nature. . . . I follow the teaching of the blessed Cyril and the holy Fathers and the holy Athanasius, because they speak of two natures before the union, but after the union and incarnation they speak not of two natures but of one nature.

Condemnation of Eutyches.

Eutyches, formerly presbyter and archimandrite, has been shown, by what has taken place and by his own confession, to be infected with the heresy of Valentinus and Apollinaris, and to follow stubbornly their blasphemies, and rejecting our arguments and teaching, is unwilling to consent to true doctrines. Therefore, weeping and mourning his complete perversity, we have decreed through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been blasphemed by him, that he be deprived of every sacerdotal office, that he be put out of our communion, and deprived of his position over a monastery. All who hereafter speak with him or associate with him, are to know that they also are fallen into the same penalty of excommunication.

(b) Leo the Great, Epistola Dogmatica or the Tome. Hahn, § 176. (MSL, 54:763.)

This letter was written to Flavian on the subject which had been raised by the condemnation of Eutyches in 448. It is of the first importance, not merely in the history of the Church, but also in the history of doctrine. Yet it cannot be said that Leo advanced beyond the traditional formulæ of the West, or struck out new thoughts [cf. Augustine, Ep. 187, text and translation of most important part in Norris, Rudiments of Theology, 1894, pp. 262-266]. It was to be read at the Council of Ephesus, 449 A. D., but was not. It soon became widely known, however, and was approved at the endemic Council of Constantinople, A. D. 450, and when read at Chalcedon, the Fathers of the council cried out: "Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo."

It may be found translated in PNF, ser II, vol. XII, p. 38, and again vol. XIV, p. 254. The best critical text is given in Hahn, § 224. A

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