COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

THE Second Ecumenical Council was assembled at Constantinople, A. D. 381, by the Emperor Theodosius the Elder, to appease the troubles of the East, occasioned by the various heresies of the Arians, and those of the Macedonians, and others. It was attended by 150 oriental Bishops, and Timothy of Alexandria and other persons successively presided in it.

The Council solemnly confirmed the Nicene Creed, but made some additions to the statements respecting the Incarnation of our Lord, and the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. It omitted the anathema at the end of the Creed, but added the Articles respecting the Church, &c. Further, it anathematized various heresies, and made some rules of discipline. The Synod addressed a letter to the Emperor Theodosius, informing him of their decrees, and requesting him to authorize the publication of them, which he did, by an edict commanding all Churches to be delivered to Bishops who held the orthodox doctrines of the Trinity. The Creed as enlarged by this Council has now universally superseded the original form of the Nicene Creed, but inasmuch as it professed to be and is substantially the same, not introducing any new doctrine, but only defining more clearly some articles of doctrine against new heresies, and adding those articles respecting the Church, which were probably omitted in the Nicene Creed only because

the particular object of that Creed was to counteract the Arian heresies respecting the Divinity of our Lord, the enlarged form still commonly retains the name of the Nicene Creed.

The authentic records of this Council are, the Synodal Epistle to the Emperor, the Creed, and the Seven Canons. Palmer's Treatise on the Church, vol. ii. p. 197.

THE CONSTANTINOPOLITAN CREED.

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, and made man, and crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried; and rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and is seated on the right hand of the Father; and will come again with glory to judge the living and dead; of whose kingdom there shall be no end. And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is together worshipped and together glorified, who spake by the Prophets. In one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. We acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins, we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Walchius notices only three ancient Greek copies of

this Creed. The first in the Acts of the Council of Constantinople, and the other two in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. He gives several old Latin versions of it; 1. From monuments of the old Roman Church, viz. the Code of the Canons of the Roman Church, the Sacramentary of Gelasius, the version of Dionysius Exiguus, and the interpretation of Isidore Mercator. There are various readings of no material consequence in these different renderings, but in none of them, nor in any of the Greek copies, do the words expressing the procession of the Spirit from the Son as well as the Father occur. 2. A Latin version from the Acts of the third Council of Toledo, A. D. 589, in which the words "Filioque" do occur, and 3. and 4. the Latin versions in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, in which they do

not.

The question respecting the insertion of the words "and from the Son" into the Creed is involved in much obscurity; indeed there is no satisfactory evidence as to when, or by whom, the addition was first made. As regards the doctrine itself, it is to be observed, that many of the Latin Fathers, as early as the beginning of the fifth century, assert in express terms that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as the Father (see quotations to this effect from Hilary, Ambrose, Paulinus, Augustin, Fulgentius, Prudentius, Leo, and Vigilius, in Pearson on the eighth Article of the Creed, and others from Augustin particularly, in Forbes' Instruct. Theolog. 1. i. c. 6.) None of the Greek Fathers, however, allowed in express terms that the Spirit proceeded (Exлооεúεσ0α) from the Son, though, as Pearson and others show, the expressions which they did use, of the Spirit's receiving of the Son, and being sent by the Son, were tantamount to what the Latins meant by proceeding from Him. The

Greeks however preferred, in the use of the particular word, proceeding, to confine it, as the Scriptures do, to the Father.

As regards the admission of the words into the Creed itself, it is hardly necessary to state, that they are not to be found in any of the Greek copies of the Creed as it was recited in many of the Councils in which the Greeks took a part. It is true, indeed, that in the Council of Florence, A. D. 1439, the Romans produced a very old Latin MS. as they asserted, of the Acts of the second Council of Nice, called the seventh General, in which the additional words were to be found; but this was probably a forgery, as in the original Acts of the Council in Greek, the words do not occur. It is now, however, generally acknowledged, that the addition was first made by the Latins, and the earliest instance of it that has been produced is that in the Acts of the third Council of Toledo, A. D. 589, mentioned above. This Council was held for the purpose of reconciling the Arian Goths to the Catholic Church, and was attended by the Bishops of the whole of Spain and France; and in the copy of the Creed inserted in the Acts of that Council, as it appears in most of the MSS. the additional words are found. It is right however to observe, that they are not found in all the copies, and Bellarmine himself (t. i. c. 21.) says expressly, that in this Council the Creed is read without the addition, and that the eighth Council of Toledo (to be mentioned below), is the first instance in which it occurs. On the other hand it is to be observed, that both in the speech of King Reccaredus to the Council, and in the Confession of Faith made by the Bishops and Presbyters of the Goths, the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father and the Son, without any intimation of this being different from the Creed, which if the

Creed had been produced in the same Council without the additional words could hardly have been avoided. The fourth Council of Toledo, A. D. 633, does not contain a copy of the Creed, but in the first chapter is a profession of faith by the Council, which, from the similarity of the expressions, Waterland, and other authors before him, suppose to be taken from the Athanasian Creed, which Creed Waterland considers to have been composed by Hilary of Arles, about A. D. 430, and which is now generally allowed to have been composed in France, and before the date of this Council. Other Councils of Toledo which do not contain the Nicene Creed itself, begin with a similar confession of faith, in which the procession from the Son as well as the Father occurs; as the sixth, A. D. 638, and the eleventh, A. D. 675. In the eighth Council of Toledo, A. D. 653, the Nicene Creed is inserted, as being that treatise of the true faith which was used at Baptism, and was recited in the sacred solemnities of the Mass; (the expressions are, unde sacræ sumpsimus nativitatis exordium—sicut denique in sacris missarum solemnitatibus concordi voce profitemur;) and in this copy the words, and from the Son, certainly do occur. They occur also in the copy of the Creed in the Council of Merida, A. D. 666, in the third Council of Braga, A. D. 675, as also in the twelfth, thirteenth, fifteenth, and seventeenth of Toledo, A. D. 681, 683, 688, and 694. In the Synodal letter of an English Council, A. D. 679, which is preserved by Bede, and inserted in the Collection of Councils, the Spirit is said to proceed in an unspeakable manner from the Father and the Son. In the copy of the Creed, as inserted in the Acts of the Council of Friuli, A. D. 791, the addition occurs; and Paulinus, Bishop of Aquileia, who presided in the Council, in his address to the Bishops, after say