Canons of the VII Ecumenical Councils

Interpretation.

This Canon is a special and particular one. For it says that, just as the Fathers of this Council accepted the Tome of the Westerners, that is to say, the definition confirming the holy Creed of the Nicene Fathers and anathematizing all those who hold beliefs contrary thereto, which definition the Western Fathers assembled at Sardica[53] adopted and promulgated, so and in like manner they accepted also the definition of the faith set forth by those assembled at Antioch.[54] Who confess one divinity of Father, and of Son, and of Holy Spirit, in the same manner, that is to say, as the Fathers who assembled in Nicaea.

Notes

[53] The reason why this Tome was issued is in brief as follows. Because Emperors Constantius and Constans had learned that Eusebius and his party were troubling the church and that they had deposed Athanasius the Great and Paul of Constantinople, they commanded that a Council be held at Sardica, a city in Illyria, to be made up of Western as well as Eastern Fathers. The Easterners, it is true, when going to the Council, wrote from Philippoupolis to the Westerners to deny Athanasius and Paul seats in the Council on the ground that they had been deposed; for they were enemies of the doctrine of coessentiality. But the Westerners replied to them that they had no knowledge of their being deposed or at fault. Upon learning these things, the Easterners left the Council and returned to Philippoupolis. The Westerners, though left alone, went through with the meeting of the Council and acquitted Athanasius and Paul, confirmed the faith of the Fathers set forth in Nicaea, without adding anything thereto or subtracting anything therefrom. So it is this exposition and confirmation of the faith that the present Canon calls the Tome of the Westerners alone, and not of the Easterners, because the latter had bolted.

[54] Socrates (book 2, ch. 10) relates that the adherents of Eusebius of Nicodemeia in the Council held at Antioch during the reign of Constantine, though they did not utterly condemn the faith set forth in Nicaea, in another style and other words composed a definition of faith wherein they appear to confess a single divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, which faith may be found in the work of Socrates in the same place. So it is this definition of faith that the present Canon says that the Council accepted (though this definition may have been first composed by the Eusebians insidiously with a view to gradually attracting the masses to the belief of the Arians, as Socrates himself suggests in the same place), which definition and Tome are mentioned also by Theodoret (book 5, ch. 9). For in the Conciliar letter which the present Second Council sent to the Romans mention is made of this. The letter says verbatim: “The details respecting the faith openly preached by us are such, then, as have been stated. Concerning them one may obtain a fuller understanding by consulting the Tome of Antioch made by the Council held there, and that set forth last year in Constantinople by the Ecumenical Council in which we confessed the faith more in extenso. Just as the twenty-five Canons, then, of the Antiochian Council were accepted, so too its above definition of faith has been accorded acceptance by this Second Council on the ground that it is correct (notwithstanding its having been insidiously put forth).”