The Second Ecumenical Council: Constantinople I
The Second Ecumenical Council was held during the reign of Theodosius the Great, A.D. 381. It is also referred to as the First Council of Constantinople. Of the Fathers attending it the most notable were Nectarius of Constantinople, Timothy of Alexandria, Meletius of Antioch, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa; and many other bishops from the East made up a total number of 150. Not even one bishop from the West attended it; nor did Pope Damasus in person or by a legate, nor does even a conciliar letter of his appear therein.[38] Later, however, they agreed and acceded to the things it decreed, including Damasus and the whole Western Church, and even to this day they accept and recognize this Council as a truly ecumenical council. It was held primarily against Macedonius, who was blasphemously declaring that the Holy Spirit was a thing constructed or created by the Son, secondarily against Apollinaris, and against the Eunomians, including the Eudoxians and the Sabellians, and against the Marcellians, and against the Photinians,[39] and in general anathematized every heresy that had risen during the reign of Constantius, of Julian, and of Valens, emperors preceding it. After correcting the glorification and adoration of the Holy Trinity which had been altered by the Arians,[40] it renewed the doctrine of the Nicene Council, on the ground of its being thoroughly Orthodox in all respects. Hence, in order to let it appear that it professed the same beliefs as the Council held in Nicaea, it did not draw up a creed of its own, but, by simply making a small change in the Creed adopted by the Nicene Council, and adding the clause “of whose kingdom there shall be no end,” on account of the heresy of Apollinaris the millenarian,[41] and by developing the meaning of Article 8 in reference to the Holy Spirit, and also by supplying what was missing in the remaining four articles to the end,[42] it made identically the same as that which is now read by all Orthodox Christians, as it is seen in this Second Council (p. 286 of vol. i of the collection of the Councils) and in the fifth act of the same council (p. 155 of the same volume). Nevertheless, although this Second Council did make these additions to and changes in the Creed adopted by the First Council held in Nicaea, yet the Councils held thereafter accepted the Creed of the First and Second Councils as a single Creed. As to why this Council made these additions, see the Footnote to c. VII of the Third. In addition to all these things, it also adopted and promulgated the present seven Canons pertaining to the organization and discipline of the Church, indefinitely confirmed by c. I of the 4th, but definitely by c. II of the 6th and by c. I of the 7th. (See Dositheus, p. 222 of the Dodecabiblus.)[43]
Notes
[38] One thing which occurred at this Council is particularly noteworthy as constituting a refutation of the imaginary prerogative of the present Popes of Rome, the claim, that is to say, that Popes have sole authority to convoke and assemble ecumenical councils. For, behold, the present ecumenical council is one which Pope Damasus neither convoked nor even attended either in person or by deputies, nor by the usual conciliar letter; yet, in spite of all this, all the Westerners concurred then and concur now in recognizing as a truly ecumenical council.
[39] Concerning each of these groups, see the Footnote to c. I of the present Council.
[40] For the Arians, as well as the Semi-Arians and Pneumatomachs, had altered the ancient glorification (or doxology) of the Holy Trinity to which the Church was accustomed. For instead of saying “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,” they would say “Glory be to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit,” in order that, by means of the difference of prepositions, the recusants might draw a distinction of the essence, rank, and honor belonging to the thearchic persons of the coessential and equally honorable Trinity. That is why Leontius the bishop of Antioch, who made himself a eunuch, though seeing the Orthodox Christians apply a conjunction to the Son, while the Arians, on the other hand, used the preposition “through,” and the preposition with reference to the Holy Spirit, passed over both the one and the other in silence, uttering only the end, that is to say the words “and unto the ages of ages” (Page 247 of the first volume of the Conciliar Records). During the reign of Emperor Anastasius surnamed Dicorus, when Trasmund, leader of the Arian Vandals blockaded the churches of the Orthodox in Africa and banished 120 bishops to the island of Sardinia, an Arian by the name of Barbarus (but according to others the one about to be baptized was called Barbarus), wishing to baptize someone, said: “So-and-so is being baptized in the name of the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit,” when, what a miracle! the baptismal font in the meantime had become entirely dry. (Dositheus, p. 446 of the Dodecabiblus.)
[41] Led astray by the words in ch. 20 of the Book of Revelation (v. 3 to 7), where it says that Satan was shut up and bound for a thousand years, and that the righteous who participated in the first resurrection reigned together with Christ as kings for a thousand years, many men have imagined that after the second advent and common judgment take place, the righteous are to reign here on the earth as kings for a thousand years together with Christ, and thereafter to ascend to heaven; and on this account they have been called millenarians or millennialists. There have been two battalions of millenarians. For some of them used to say that during those thousand years they are to enjoy every enjoyment, and bodily pleasure; these men were followers of Cerinthus, a pupil of Simon, in the first century, and the Marcionists in the second century of the Christian era. Others said that they were not to enjoy passionate pleasures, but rather intellectual pleasures befitting rational human beings, of whom the leader was Papias the bishop of Hierapolis (in Euseb. Eccl. Hist, book 3, ch. 34) and others. Hence it is evident that Apollinaris became such a millenarian of the first battalion, as is plain from what St. Basil the Great says (letter 332), and from what the Theologian says (Discourse 51), and from what Jerome says (Book 18 on Isaiah). On this account in refutation of this heresy this Council added to the Creed of the Nicene Council that statement, which it borrowed from the sentence which the Archangel Gabriel spoke to the Virgin, viz.: “and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33). As for the thousand years referred to by St. John, they are not to come to pass after the second advent of Christ; and the kingdom of the Lord is not describable in terms of years, nor food and drink, as St. Paul said (Rom. 14:17): but, on the contrary, a thousand years are to be understood, according to those versed in theology, to mean the interval of time extending from the first advent of Christ to the second, during which Satan was bound, according to the words of the Lord, saying, “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the ruler of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). The first resurrection, by contrast, took place for justification of souls through mortification of infidelity and wickedness, concerning which Christ said “He that heareth my words, and believeth in him who sent me, hath life everlasting, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life” (John 5:24); and the Apostle said “If then ye be risen with Christ . . . set your mind on the things that are above” (Col. 3:1-2). And thereafter in this interval of time the reign of the righteous with Christ took place, being their union with Him through (i.e., by means of) the Holy Spirit, and the contemplation and enjoyment of His divine illumination, respecting which the Lord said, “Some of them that stand here shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 9:1).
[42] It developed and completed this Creed, as Nicephorus Callistus and others say, through Gregory of Nyssa, but as Dositheus says (p. 1028 of the Dodecabiblus) by the hand of Gregory the Theologian, who in the midst of this Council thundered out and theologically set forth these things through the Holy Spirit like a heavenly outburst of thunder: “If he is indeed a God, he is no creature. For with us a creature is one of the non-Gods. If, on the other hand, he is a creature, he is not a God. For (if so) he had a beginning in time. Whatever had a beginning, was not. But that of which it may be said that it was earlier non-existent, is not properly speaking a being. But how can what is not properly speaking a being be a God? Therefore, then, he is neither a creature of the three, nor one” etc. (These words were spoken in his inauguratory address.)
[43] I said that this Council anathematized every heresy that had risen during the reigns of Constantius, of Julian, and of Valens, because in spite of the fact that Constantius professed the eternity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, yet when once lured into the argument that the word coessential (or, in Greek, homoousian) was the cause of a scandal, owing to its not being in the Bible, he relentlessly combated those who held this belief. Hence he exiled, pauperized, and scorned many men of this belief, and assembled various councils and synods in the West and East against the doctrine of coessentiality. He showered favors upon the heretics, and elevated some of them to great thrones, who ordained their own friends ecclesiastics. Julian did everything that the emperors and persecutors preceding him had failed to do. Valens not only did whatever Constantius had done, but, being an Arian, he commenced a persecution of the Church that was worse than that inflicted by the idolaters. So that Lucius the bishop of Alexandria, who shared his views, even beat the ascetics of the desert themselves, and slew, exiled, and confiscated the property of the clergy. In fact, not only these emperors, but also the other heresies, and the Greeks and Jews had a free hand in their times, while the Orthodox Christians were persecuted. These three emperors kept persecuting the Church for forty years, until there remained but some few Orthodox saints to criticize the heresies, who, in the reign of Theodosius the Great, seized the opportunity to assemble in this ecumenical council.
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