What happened at the Council of Constantinople?

But the zeal of Theodosius was not merely negative. He supported Christianity, according to his light, more vigorously than any of his~predecessors. He completed what Constantine commenced, and far surpassed him in christian zeal and earnestness. Soon after his baptism he assembled a council, which met at Constantinople on May 2nd, 381. The principal objects for which this council was convoked were the following: — To give greater fulness and definiteness to the Nicene creed; to condemn heresies, such as those of the Arians, Eunomians, Eudoxians, Sabellians, Apollinarians, and others; and to take measures for the union of the church.

The second so-called general council consisted of 150 Eastern bishops, called together by Theodosius; and the bishops so declare in their letter which precedes the decrees, and ask expressly the confirmation by the Emperor of what they had decreed. They communicate their decrees and canons to the Western bishops in common, then assembled at Rome, giving Constantinople the second rank after Rome, but on grounds which refer merely to civil rank in each. They confirm the sixth canon of the Council of Nice as to the independence of the larger divisions of the hierarchical system. Their creed is the now accepted Nicene one, an article forbidden by Pope Leo being added. But the pope had nothing to say to the council; the popes did not accept its canons; but they are received in the universal church. Baronius seeks to invalidate one, but is corrected by Pagi, who shews it to have been universally received.

233 It is worthy of note here, that the article added to their creed is still rejected by the Greeks, who hold the creed as settled by the Council of Constantinople. And it is further to be remarked, that the general council of Ephesus forbade any other creed to be proposed to any one, and the great Pope Leo, the means of Dr. N.'s becoming a Romanist, this very article in particular. This added article, which came from Spain and France, is the great subject of division with the Greeks, though they do not believe in purgatory either, nor, of course, recognize the popes. Not only did Pope Leo formally forbid its being inserted, but had the Constantinopolitan creed engraved in Greek and Latin on silver plates on this account in the church. (Compare Pearson on the Creed, on the eighth article, where the authorities are cited.)

Under the heathen Emperors there were constantly provincial councils, and all was regulated within each province. When Constantine had succeeded in finally subduing the heathen Emperors, he took up the church, finding it distracted about Arianism and the time of celebrating Easter. He sent Hosius, his very particular friend, to Alexandria, the great scene of conflict, and wrote a letter to make truce between Alexander and Arius, saying they were disputing about trifles, but in vain. He then called the bishops from all parts to meet and settle the question. The ecclesiastics were not the movers in it. Constantine appointed the place of meeting, which was in his palace at Nice, and when they were assembled, came in in a splendid dress, on which Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian, expatiates, and on his fine figure, and with great airs of modesty took his place amongst them. He over and over again says to bishops in his letters, it was his pride to be their fellow-servant, and declares that he had undertaken with all the bishops to settle the question. It has been discussed who presided. It is a vain discussion. Constantine did. He had a little modest golden seat at the top of the room, and the bishops sat on seats down the sides. The first on the right said a few words of compliment to him, how happy they were to see him there; and then he opened the session with a long speech.

132 Nor was this all. As soon as he had done, neither his fine figure, nor purple robe and jewels, restrained the bishops: they began disputing fiercely. He soothed some, reasoned with others, encouraged and approved others, and so got all to sign the creed but five, who were banished, though some of them came round. And on a very strange explanation of "consubstantial" by the Emperor himself, Eusebius also signed the word. Strange to say, it had been positively condemned in a considerable Eastern council before. Afterwards a subsequent Emperor turned Arian, and all the bishops Arian with him. One Emperor was Arian in the East, and another Nicene in the West. The Easterns were all Arian, the Western Nicene; a few rare exceptions were true to their conscience. The pope was not at the council, it is said, through old age, but sent two presbyters; not only did they not preside, but never signed; first, Hosius, the Emperor's private friend, did that. Constantine, in his letter to Egypt after the council, recommending unity, repeats his having called the council, and undertaken the business. Though this council, under God's good providence, may have been in some respects helpful in stopping so horrible a doctrine as Arianism, yet a vast number of prelates, sound in the faith, were far from being satisfied, especially when Marcellus of Ancyra, a great stickler for the council, who even assisted at it, was condemned as a heretic, and deposed; having run, through his views on the subject, into denying the eternal Sonship of Christ, and being suspected of Sabellianism.

133 However our point now is the Emperors calling the councils, and here the Emperor managed it altogether. The next council called general is that of Constantinople. Yet here we are at a loss to know why it is a general one. There was only a hundred and fifty Eastern bishops. The popes Leo, Gelasius, and Gregory rejected the canons, only accepting the doctrine. Yet the canons were always received in the early and are in the code of the canons of the universal church. The popes took no notice, and had nothing at all to say to it, when it was going on. Up to this Arianism ruled under Valens. Now Theodosius turned all the Arian bishops out. Here again Theodosius convoked the council, chose the bishop of Constantinople, and the council formally refers all its acts to his ratification. (See the first document in Hardouin, Conc., vol. 1, 807.)

After the death of Constantius, political interference ceased, and at the general council at Constantinople, A.D. 381, the sympathisers with Arianism were finally excommunicated and forced to form a small sect of their own.

In A.D. 381 the second General Council met at Constantinople (again in A.D. 382 and 383), which confirmed the decrees of the Council of Nice, and condemned Arianism and several other minor heresies. This brought the orthodox into greater power; but alas, few men can bear to be in power without abusing it. This was strikingly brought out in the otherwise worthy Ambrose. In a remote district the people, led on by a bishop, attacked a Jewish synagogue and a meeting-place belonging to some separatists, and both were destroyed. The emperor ordered the people to rebuild the edifices, or to pay a fine to the holders. But, on hearing this, Ambrose strongly opposed this being done, insisting that toleration of the Jewish religion was a persecution of Christianity! The emperor gave way, and would have let the matter drop; but Ambrose insisted that a solemn promise should be given that the guilty should not be punished, and again the emperor yielded.

58 But, during all this doctrinal discussion, another system had been forming itself. The emperor who first professed Christianity had transferred the seat of empire to Byzantium, from him called Constantinople. This had a double effect. It left the Roman prelate in a position of far greater political consequence, which became still greater when the barbarian inroads made the imperial power evanescent in Italy; though where it remained, in Ravenna and even Milan, there was independence of Rome, with which, through Turin, historians seek to connect the Vaudois. At any rate it was for centuries independent. The other effect was the making the see of Constantinople (which had not been even metropolitan, and was not of apostolic foundation) of such public importance, that it sought to rival Rome - as the city was called Nova Roma. For the reader must understand, that the boasted primitive Church was a sea of raging politics, avarice, and ambition; the general councils - assemblies of bishops called by the emperor to quiet the violent and seditious disputes of ecclesiastical and doctrinal parties, which disturbed and tore up the empire.

60 I have just run through the history of the Western or Latin hierarchical prelacy, to complete it; I return to the general history of patriarchs. The profession of Christianity by the emperor, and establishment of the capital at Constantinople, raised up, as we have seen, a rival to Rome. But the Greeks disputed about words; the Romans pursued unceasingly their end - the establishment of hierarchical supremacy; advancing a claim which no one knew; using opportunities to act in it, which others afforded them; and then making the ancient claim the proof of an ancient right. Another circumstance favoured this. Constantinople sought to extend, and did extend, its influence over the eastern empire, by arbitrating in disputes between bishops and between metropolitans. In the council of Constantinople, Rome, as Old Rome, was allowed the first rank; but Constantinople, as New Rome, the second. At that of Chalcedon, Constantinople was given the same rank, isa presbeia, as being the emperor's city. But this pressure of Constantinople on Antioch and Alexandria, threw these rather into the arms of Rome. Leo speaks of the three sees of Peter in a remarkable manner; and, in the endless theological disputes of the East, the quiet and steady good sense of the Roman west made Rome a continual arbiter as to doctrine. This (as in the case of Leo, a really able man, and, I am disposed to think, with right intentions, but, as a true Roman, always seeking political influence) gave them a decisive weight in all these questions. In Leo's person it took somewhat the form, in his letter to Flavian, of dogmatical authority. Still Constantinople and Rome contended for influence; and one had it in the West, because there was no emperor; the other in the East, because there was. But evil bore its fruits in judgment. Constantinople, in the purpose of John the Faster, put forth the claim of oecumenical bishop, on charges brought against the patriarch of Antioch which were tried at Constantinople. Pope Pelagius annulled all the proceedings on this account; but John used it again when he acknowledged the accession of Gregory. Gregory denounced him as a forerunner of Antichrist, and then took the well-known papal title of "servant of the servants of God." Though Rome (he would have it believed, on the authority of the council of Chalcedon) had a title to be called universal pope, he refrained through humility. But it did not end here. Gregory pursued his efforts to hinder the pretensions of Constantinople, and renounced communion with it. Maurice, the emperor, who resisted the influence of Rome, was murdered with all his family, and his murderer was congratulated by Gregory in the most fulsome way. Photius, the new emperor, in return for this made a decree, that, as Constantinople had claimed to be head of all the churches, Rome should be primate of all the holy churches.

The councils of the church also were too often made the mere instruments of the powerful either in the church or in the state, without the semblance even of a holy convocation of heavenly men. Here, too, there were exceptions: from the council of Nice proceeded the Nicene creed, and from the council of Constantinople the condemnation of Pelagianism.

When Athanasius had been condemned by the Councils of Tyre and Antioch, and banished, he first fled to Julius, who held a small assembly at Rome, and acquitted him; then to Treves, and the Emperor Constans got Constantius, emperor of the East, to call a council. This was held at Sardica. Athanasius, whose cause was to be tried, sat there. The Eastern bishops claimed that he should be excluded. This the others refused. The parties were equally divided, and the Eastern prelates seceded; the Western ones remained. The Eastern half at Philippopolis condemned Athanasius; the Sardicans acquitted him, and then gave for the first time an appeal to Rome. These latter canons Zosimus sought to foist on the African bishops as canons of the Council of Nice. But they were never heard of (as being those of a Council of Sardica) as of any authority, nor ever received in any way in the Eastern church.

And note, the giving then, which is what they do in honour of Peter, a title to Rome to require a re-examination on the spot in case of an appeal, or to take other measures, proves that he did not possess the right before. It was very convenient to Athanasius, as he had been thus acquitted by Pope Julius, and condemned in the East, to set up this power in Rome. This Council of Sardica and its canons were, however, no way recognised in the church; for three general councils, Constantinople, 381 (34 years after), Chalcedon, 451, Constantinople, 681, all decree what is entirely in opposition to the Sardican, namely — that causes should be heard by the provincial synods, with appeal to the patriarch to whose jurisdiction they belonged. It was Julius' successor, Liberius, who signed the Arian or semi-Arian creed, when Constantius, the Eastern emperor, had all his own way, and so did Hosius, one of the alleged presidents of the Sardican Council.

The truth is, that both Nestorius and Cyril were meddling with matters beyond their depth, and that both used unjustifiable language. But the orthodox East never received Cyril's anathemas. He signed their creed. The subsequent Council of Chalcedon alone gave credit to this Council of Ephesus, but declared Theodoret and Ibas orthodox, who had written books favouring Nestorianism; but a general council after that (Constantinople) declared these same books heretical, saving always the authority of Chalcedon. The Cyril party — very probably the Emperor's sister, St. Pulcheria, who was charged with incest, and had great power over the Emperor — persecuted Nestorius, who was banished to the desert and died in want.