Furthermore those convicted of this heresy are no more to be permitted to have the rule of our monasteries, lest tares be sown and increase. And we give command that the most pious bishops Valerian and Amphilochius, and the rest of the most reverend bishops of the whole province shall pay attention that this decree be carried into effect. In addition to this it seemed good that the filthy book of this heresy, which is called the "Asceticon," should be anathematized, as composed by heretics, a copy of which the most religious and pious Valerian brought with him. Likewise anything savouring of their impiety which may be found among the people, let it be anathema.
Moreover when they come together, let there be commended by them in writing such things as are useful and necessary for concord, and communion, and arrangement (dispositionem vel dispensationem). But should any question arise in connexion with the present business, and if it should prove to be difficult and ambiguous, what is not approved by the most pious bishops Valerian and Amphilochius, and the other bishops throughout the province, they ought to discuss all things by reference to what is written. And if the most pious bishops of the Lycians or of the Lycaonians shall have been passed over; nevertheless let not a Metropolitan be left out of whatever province he may be. And let these things be inserted in the Acts so that if any have need of them they would find how also to expound these things more diligently to others.
Note on the Messalians or Massalians.
(Tillemont, Mémoires, Tom. VIII., Seconde Partie. Condensed.)
St. Epiphanius distinguishes two sorts of persons who were called by the name of Messalians, the one and the more ancient were heathen, the other were Christian in name.
The Messalians who bore the Christian name had no beginning, nor end, nor chief, nor fixed faith. Their first writers were Dadoes, Sabas, Adelphus, Hermes, Simeon and some others. Adelphus was neither monk nor clerk, but a layman. Sabas had taken the habit of an anchorite and was surnamed "the Eunuch," because he had mutilated himself. Adelphus was of Mesopotamia and was considered their leader, so that they are sometimes called "Adelphians." They are also called "Eustathians." "Euchites" is the Greek equivalent of "Messalians" in Hebrew. They were also called "Enthusiasts" or "Corentes" because of the agitation the devils caused them, which they attributed to the Holy Spirit.
St. Epiphanius thought that these heretics sprang up in the time of Constance, although Theodoret does not put them down until the days of Valentinian. They came from Mesopotamia, but spread as far as Antioch by the year 376.
They pretended to renounce the world, and to give up their possessions, and under the habit of monks they taught Manichæan impieties, and others still more detestable.
Their principal tenet was that everyone inherited from his ancestors a demon, who had possession of his soul from the moment of his birth, and always led it to evil. That baptism cut away the outside branches of sin, but could not free the soul of this demon, and that therefore its reception was useless. That only constant prayer could drive out this demon. That when it was expelled, the Holy Spirit descended and gave visible and sensible marks of his presence, and delivered the body from all the uprisings of passion, and the soul from the inclination to evil, so that afterwards there was no need of fasting, nor of controlling lust by the precepts of the Gospel.
Besides this chief dogma, gross errors, contrary to the first principles of religion, were attributed to them. That the divinity changed itself in different manners to unite itself to their souls. They held that the body of Christ was infinite like his divine nature; they did not hesitate to say that his body was at first full of devils which were driven out when the Word took it upon him. [276] They claimed that they possessed clear knowledge of the state of souls after death, read the hearts and desires of man, the secrets of the future and saw the Holy Trinity with their bodily eyes. They affirmed that man could not only attain perfection but equal the deity in virtue and knowledge.
They never fasted, slept men and women together, in warm weather in the open streets. But certain say that before attaining to this liberty of license three years of mortification were required.
The most well-known point of their discipline is that they forbade all manual labour as evil, and unworthy of the spiritual.
Harmenopulus in his Basilicæ (Tom. I. Lib. ix.) says that they held the Cross in horror, that they refused to honour the Holy Virgin, or St. John the Baptist, or any of the Saints unless they were Martyrs; that they mutilated themselves at will, that they dissolved marriages, that they foreswore and perjured themselves without scruple, that women were appointed as mistresses of the sect to instruct and govern men, even priests.
Although so opposed to the faith of the Church, yet for all this the Messalians did not separate themselves from her communion. They did not believe in the Communion as a mystery which sanctifies us, which must be approached with fear and faith, but only came to the holy Table to hide themselves and to pass for Catholics, for this was one of their artifices. When asked, they had no hesitation in denying all that they believed, and were willing to anathematize those who thought with them. And all this they did without fear, because they were taught they had attained perfection, that is impassibility.
Vide Theodoret, H. E., Lib. iv., cap. xi.
Photius tells us that John of Antioch wrote against these heretics.
St. Maximus the Abbot speaks of this heresy as still existing in the VII^th Century, and as practising the most abominable infamies. Photius bears witness of its resuscitation in his days in Cappadocia with its wonted corruptions. Harmenopulus remarks that a certain Eleutherius of Paphlagonia had added to it new crimes, and that in part it became the source of the sect of the Bogomiles, so well known in the decadence of the Greek empire.
[276] They were therefore Nestorians.
Decree of the Synod in the Matter of Euprepius and Cyril.
(Found in Latin only. Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. III., col. 810.)
The petition of the most pious bishops Euprepius and Cyril, which is set forth in the papers they offered, is honest. Therefore from the holy canons and the external laws, which have from ancient custom the force of law, [277] let no innovation be made in the cities of Europa, but according to the ancient custom they shall be governed by the bishops by whom they have been formerly governed. For since there never was a metropolitan who had power otherwise, so neither hereafter shall there be any departure from the ancient custom.
Note.
(Hist. of the Councils, Vol. III., p. 77.)
Two Thracian bishops, Euprepius of Biza (Bizya) and Cyril of Coele, gave occasion for a decree, praying for protection against their Metropolitan, Fritilas of Heraclea, who had gone over to the party of John of Antioch, and at the same time for the confirmation of the previous practice of holding two bishoprics at the same time. The Synod granted both.
[277] The text, as the side note remarks, "seems to be mutilated and depraved" in this passage, but the meaning is clear enough as given by Hefele in the note.
The Fourth Ecumenical Council.
The Council of Chalcedon.
a.d. 451.
Emperors.--Marcian and Pulcheria (in the east).
Valentinian III. (in the west).
Pope.--Leo I.
Elenchus.
General Introduction.
Extracts from the Acts, Session I.
Session II.
The Letter of Cyril to John of Antioch.
Extracts from the Acts, Session II., continued.
The Tome of St. Leo.
Extracts from the Acts, Session II., continued.
Session III.
The Sentence of Condemnation of Dioscorus.
Session IV.
Session V.
The Definition of Faith of the Council, with Notes.
Session VI.
Decree on the Jurisdiction of Jerusalem and Antioch, with Notes. Session VII.
Decree with regard to Bp. of Ephesus. Session XII.
Decree with regard to Nicomedia. Session XIII.
The Canons with the Ancient Epitome and Notes.
Excursus to Canon XXVIII., on its later history.
Extracts from the Acts, Session XVI.
General Introduction.
I should consider it a piece of impertinence were I to attempt to add anything to what has been already said with regard to the Council of Chalcedon. The literature upon the subject is so great and so bitterly polemical that I think I shall do well in laying before my readers the Acts, practically complete on all disputed points, and to leave them to draw their own conclusions. I shall not, however, be liable to the charge of unfairness if I quote at some length the deductions of the Eagle of Meaux, the famous Bossuet, from these acts; and since his somewhat isolated position as a Gallican gives him a singular fitness to serve in this and similar questions as a mediator between Catholics and Protestants, his remarks upon this Council will, I think, be read with great interest and respect.
(Bossuet. Defensio Dec. Cleri Gallic. Lib. VII., cap. xvij. [Translation by Allies].)
An important point treated in the Council of Chalcedon, that is, the establishing of the faith, and the approval of Leo's letter, is as follows: Already almost the whole West, and most of the Easterns, with Anatolius himself, Bishop of Constantinople, had gone so far as to confirm by subscription that letter, before the council took place; and in the council itself the Fathers had often cried out, "We believe, as Leo: Peter hath spoken by Leo: we have all subscribed the letter: what has been set forth is sufficient for the Faith: no other exposition may be made." Things went so far, that they would hardly permit a definition to be made by the council. But neither subscriptions privately made before the council, nor these vehement cries of the Fathers in the council, were thought sufficient to tranquillize minds in so unsettled a state of the Church, for fear that a matter so important might seem determined rather by outcries than by fair and legitimate discussion. And the clergy of Constantinople exclaimed, "It is a few who cry out, not the whole council which speaks." So it was determined, that the letter of Leo should be lawfully examined by the council, and a definition of faith be written by the synod itself. So the acts of foregoing councils being previously read, the magistrates proposed concerning Leo's letter, "As we see the divine Gospels laid before your Piety, let each one of the assembled bishops declare, whether the exposition of the 318 Fathers at Nice, and of the 150 who afterwards assembled in the imperial city, agrees with the letter of the most reverend Archbishop Leo."
After the question as to examining the letter of Leo was put in this form, it will be worth while to weigh the sentences and, as they are called, the votes of the Fathers, in order to understand from the beginning why they approved of the letter; why they afterwards defended it with so much zeal; why, finally, it was ratified after so exact an examination of the council. Anatolius first gives his sentence. "The letter of the most holy and religious Archbishop Leo agrees with the creed of our 318 Fathers at Nice, and of the 150 who afterwards assembled at Constantinople, and confirmed the same faith, and with the proceedings at Ephesus under the most blessed Cyril, who is among the saints, by the Ecumenical and holy Council, when it condemned Nestorius. I therefore agree to it, and willingly subscribe to it." These are the words of one plainly deliberating, not blindly subscribing out of obedience. The rest say to the same effect: "It agrees, and I subscribe." Many plainly and expressly, "It agrees, and I therefore subscribe." Some add, "It agrees, and I subscribe, as it is correct." Others, "I am sure that it agrees." Others, "As it is concordant, and has the same aim, we embrace it, and subscribe." Others, "This is the faith we have long held: this we hold: in this we were baptized: in this we baptize." Others, and a great part, "As I see, as I feel, as I have proved, as I find that it agrees, I subscribe." Others, "As I am persuaded, instructed, informed, that all agrees, I subscribe." Many set forth their difficulties, mostly arising from a foreign language; others from the subject matter, saying, that they had heard the letter, "and in very many points were assured it was right; some few words stood in their way, which seemed to point at a certain division in the person of Christ." They add, that they had been informed by Paschasinus and the Legates "that there is no division, but one Christ; therefore," they say, "we agree and subscribe." Others after mentioning what Paschasinus and Lucentius had said, thus conclude: "By this we have been satisfied and, considering that it agrees in all things with the holy Fathers, we agree and subscribe." Where the Illyrian bishops, and others who before that examination had expressed their acclamations to the letter, again cry out, "We all say the same thing, and agree with this." So that, indeed, it is evident that, in the council itself, and before it their agreement is based on this that, after weighing the matter, they considered, they judged, they were persuaded, that all agreed with the Fathers, and perceived that the common faith of all and each had been set forth by Leo. This is that examination of Leo's letter, synodically made at Chalcedon, and placed among the acts.