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> The Anathemas of the Second Council of Constantinople (553 A.D.) |
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The Second Council of Constantinople was called to resolve
certain questions that were raised by the
Definition of
Chalcedon , the most important of which had to do with the unity of the two
natures, God and man, is Jesus Christ. The Second Council of Constantinople
confirmed the Definition of Chalcedon, while emphasizing that Jesus Christ does
not just embody God the Son, He is God the Son.
- If anyone does not confess that the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit are one nature or essence, one power or authority, worshipped as
a trinity of the same essence, one deity in three hypostases or persons, let
him be anathema. For there is one God and Father, of whom are all things,
and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit,
in whom are all things.
- If anyone does not confess that God the Word was twice
begotten, the first before all time from the Father, non-temporal and
bodiless, the other in the last days when he came down from the heavens and
was incarnate by the holy, glorious, God-bearer, ever-virgin Mary, and born
of her, let him be anathema.
- If anyone says that God the Word who performed miracles is one
and Christ who suffered is another, or says that God the Word was together
with Christ who came from woman, or that the Word was in him as one person
is in another, but is not one and the same, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word
of God, incarnate and become human, and that the wonders and the suffering
which he voluntarily endured in flesh were not of the same person, let him
be anathema.
- If anyone says that the union of the Word of God with man was
only according to grace or function or dignity or equality of honor or
authority or relation or effect or power or according to his good pleasure,
as though God the Word was pleased with man, or approved of him, as the
raving Theodosius says; or that the union exists according to similarity of
name, by which the Nestorians call God the Word Jesus and Christ,
designating the man separately as Christ and as Son, speaking thus clearly
of two persons, but when it comes to his honor, dignity, and worship,
pretend to say that there is one person, one Son and one Christ, by a single
designation; and if he does not acknowledge, as the holy Fathers have
taught, that the union of God is made with the flesh animated by a
reasonable and intelligent soul, and that such union is according to
synthesis or hypostasis, and that therefore there is only one person, the
Lord Jesus Christ one of the holy Trinity -- let him be anathema. As the
word "union" has many meanings, the followers of the impiety of Apollinaris
and Eutyches, assuming the disappearance of the natures, affirm a union by
confusion. On the other hand the followers of Theodore and of Nestorius
rejoicing in the division of the natures, introduce only a union of
relation. But the holy Church of God, rejecting equally the impiety of both
heresies, recognizes the union of God the Word with the flesh according to
synthesis, that is according to hypostasis. For in the mystery of Christ the
union according to synthesis preserves the two natures which have combined
without confusion and without separation.
- If anyone understands the expression -- one hypostasis of our
Lord Jesus Christ -- so that it means the union of many hypostases, and if
he attempts thus to introduce into the mystery of Christ two hypostases, or
two persons, and, after having introduced two persons, speaks of one person
according to dignity, honor or worship, as Theodore and Nestorius insanely
have written; and if anyone slanders the holy synod of Chalcedon, as though
it had used this expression in this impious sense, and does not confess that
the Word of God is united with the flesh hypostatically, and that therefore
there is but one hypostasis or one person, and that the holy synod of
Chalcedon has professed in this sense the one hypostasis of our Lord Jesus
Christ; let him be anathema. For the Holy Trinity, when God the Word was
incarnate, was not increased by the addition of a person or hypostasis.
- If anyone says that the holy, glorious, and ever-virgin Mary
[Note: The claim that Mary is "ever-virgin" is Roman Catholic folklore.
(Jonathan Barlow)] is called God-bearer by misuse of language and not
truly, or by analogy, believing that only a mere man was born of her and
that God the Word was not incarnate of her, but that the incarnation of God
the Word resulted only from the fact that he united himself to that man who
was born of her; if anyone slanders the Holy Synod of Chalcedon as though it
had asserted the Virgin to be God-bearer according to the impious sense of
Theodore; or if anyone shall call her manbearer or Christbearer, as if
Christ were not God, and shall not confess that she is truly God-bearer,
because God the Word who before all time was begotten of the Father was in
these last days incarnate of her, and if anyone shall not confess that in
this pious sense the holy Synod of Chalcedon confessed her to be God-bearer:
let him be anathema.
- If anyone using the expression, "in two natures," does not
confess that our one Lord Jesus Christ is made known in the deity and in the
manhood, in order to indicate by that expression a difference of the natures
of which the ineffable union took place without confusion, a union in which
neither the nature of the Word has changed into that of the flesh, nor that
of the flesh into that of the Word (for each remained what it was by nature,
even when the union by hypostasis had taken place); but shall take the
expression with regard to the mystery of Christ in a sense so as to divide
the parties, let him be anathema. Or if anyone recognizing the number of
natures in the same our one Lord Jesus Christ, God the Word incarnate, does
not take in contemplation only the difference of the natures which compose
him, which difference is not destroyed by the union between them -- for one
is composed of the two and the two are in one -- but shall make use of the
number two to divide the natures or to make of them persons properly so
called, let him be anathema.
- If anyone confesses that the union took place out of two
natures or speaks of the one incarnate nature of God the Word and does not
understand those expressions as the holy Fathers have taught, that out of
the divine and human natures, when union by hypostasis took place, one
Christ was formed; but from these expressions tries to introduce one nature
or essence of the Godhead and manhood of Christ; let him be anathema. For in
saying that the only-begotten Word was united by hypostasis personally we do
not mean that there was a mutual confusion of natures, but rather we
understand that the Word was united to the flesh, each nature remaining what
it was. Therefore there is one Christ, God and man, of the same essence with
the Father as touching his Godhead, and of the same essence with us as
touching his manhood. Therefore the Church of God equally rejects and
anathematizes those who divide or cut apart or who introduce confusion into
the mystery of the divine dispensation of Christ.
- If anyone says that Christ ought to be worshipped in his two
natures, in the sense that he introduces two adorations, the one peculiar to
God the Word and the other peculiar to the man; or if anyone by destroying
the flesh, or by confusing the Godhead and the humanity, or by contriving
one nature or essence of those which were united and so worships Christ, and
does not with one adoration worship God the Word incarnate with his own
flesh, as the Church of God has received from the beginning; let him be
anathema.
- If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ who was
crucified in the flesh is true God and the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy
Trinity; let him be anathema.
- If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius,
Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches and Origen, together with their impious,
godless writings, and all the other heretics already condemned and
anathematized by the holy catholic and apostolic Church, and by the
aforementioned four Holy Synods and all those who have held and hold or who
in their godlessness persist in holding to the end the same opinion as those
heretics just mentioned; let him be anathema.
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