Letter of the Same Holy Synod to the Most Pious Emperor Theodosius the Great, to Which are Appended the Canons Enacted by Them.
(Found in Labbe, Concilia, Tom. II., 945.)
To the most religious Emperor Theodosius, the Holy Synod of Bishops assembled in Constantinople out of different Provinces.
We begin our letter to your Piety with thanks to God, who has established the empire of your Piety for the common peace of the Churches and for the support of the true Faith. And, after rendering due thanks unto God, as in duty bound we lay before your Piety the things which have been done in the Holy Synod. When, then, we had assembled in Constantinople, according to the letter of your Piety, we first of all renewed our unity of heart each with the other, and then we pronounced some concise definitions, ratifying the Faith of the Nicene Fathers, and anathematizing the heresies which have sprung up, contrary thereto. Besides these things, we also framed certain Canons for the better ordering of the Churches, all which we have subjoined to this our letter. Wherefore we beseech your Piety that the decree of the Synod may be ratified, to the end that, as you have honoured the Church by your letter of citation, so you should set your seal to the conclusion of what has been decreed. May the Lord establish your empire in peace and righteousness, and prolong it from generation to generation; and may he add unto your earthly power the fruition of the heavenly kingdom also. May God by the prayers (euchais ton hagion) of the Saints, [227] show favour to the world, that you may be strong and eminent in all good things as an Emperor most truly pious and beloved of God.
[227] On the whole subject of the prayers of the Saints see H. R. Percival, The Invocation of Saints. (Longmans. London, 1896.) I have the less hesitation in referring to my own work as it is, so far as I can discover, the only book in the English language devoted to an historical and theological consideration of the subject. Of course the subject is treated of cursorily in numerous theological treatises and dictionaries.
Introduction on the Number of the Canons.
(Hefele, History of the Councils, Vol. II., p. 351.)
The number of canons drawn up by this synod is doubtful. The old Greek codices and the Greek commentators of the Middle Ages, Zonaras and Balsamon, enumerate seven; the old Latin translations--viz. the Prisca, those by Dionysius Exiguus and Isidore, as well as the Codex of Luna--only recognize the first four canons of the Greek text, and the fact that they agree in this point is the more important as they are wholly independent of each other, and divide and arrange those canons of Constantinople which they do acknowledge quite differently.
Because, however, in the Prisca the canons of Constantinople are only placed after those of the fourth General Council, the Ballerini brothers conclude that they were not contained at all in the oldest Greek collections of canons, and were inserted after the Council of Chalcedon. But it was at this very Council of Chalcedon that the first three canons of Constantinople were read out word for word. As however, they were not separately numbered, but were there read under the general title of Synodicon Synodi Secundæ, Fuchs concluded they were not originally in the form in which we now possess them, but, without being divided into numbers, formed a larger and unbroken decree, the contents of which were divided by later copyists and translators into several different canons. And hence the very different divisions of these canons in the Prisca, Dionysius, and Isidore may be explained. The fact, however, that the old Latin translations all agree in only giving the first four canons of the Greek text, seems to show that the oldest Greek manuscripts, from which those translations were made, did not contain the fifth, sixth, and seventh, and that these last did not properly belong to this Synod, but were later additions. To this must be added that the old Greek Church-historians, in speaking of the affairs of the second General Council, only mention those points which are contained in the first four canons, and say nothing of what, according to the fifth, sixth, and seventh canons, had also been decided at Constantinople. At the very least, the seventh canon cannot have emanated from this Council, since in the sixth century John Scholasticus did not receive it into his collection, although he adopted the fifth and sixth. It is also missing in many other collections; and in treating specially of this canon further on, we shall endeavour to show the time and manner of its origin. But the fifth and sixth canons probably belong to the Synod of Constantinople of the following year, as Beveridge, the Ballerini, and others conjectured. The Greek scholiasts, Zonaras and Balsamon, and later on Tillemont, Beveridge, Van Espen and Herbst, have given more or less detailed commentaries on all these canons.
Canons of the One Hundred and Fifty Fathers who assembled at Constantinople during the Consulate of those Illustrious Men, Flavius Eucherius and Flavius Evagrius on the VII of the Ides of July. [228]
The Bishops out of different provinces assembled by the grace of God in Constantinople, on the summons of the most religious Emperor Theodosius, have decreed as follows: