It is at least plausible to suppose that Cyril, whose orthodoxy was questioned by some, presented to the council his revised Jerusalem creed as a guaranty of his soundness; that it was approved
3. Theory by the council, and included in their as to Man- acts, just as that of Eusebius was by
ner of the Council of Nicsea, that of Charisius Sanction, by the Council of Ephesus, and that of Hosius by the Council of Sardica. When, at a later period, the need was felt in Constantinople of an expansion of the Nicene Creed, and it was sought for in the acts of the council, this confession was discovered, which offered a completion of the third section capable of a homoousian construction and valuable formulas in the second section. It was comparatively easy, then, when the council began to be received as ecumenical, to give out what purported to be its ecumenical creed as a completion of the Nicene, and to secure legislative and liturgical sanction for it, though not without opposition, which finally died out only in the sixth century.
The Constantinopolitan Creed is therefore, like the Apostles' and the Nicene, in one sense of the word " apocryphal." It is both older and later than the council whose name it bears— older in its
Constantinopolitan Creed Conversion
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
2eo
original source, later in its reception. The historical exposition of its text must rest largely upon the writings of Cyril and Atha- 4. Con- nasius, which will sometimes alter the elusion, conception of its meaning. The Fathers who received it from the second half of the fifth century as ecumenical did so because they knew how to employ its testimony against Apollinaris, Nestorius, and Eutyches. Thus also the statements as to the Holy Ghost must be accepted in the strictest homoousian sense, though their wording does not necessatily involve this; and the phrase " proceeding from the Father," historically considered, is an attempt not to answer the question as to the origin of the Spirit, but to condemn the Arian assertion that the Spirit was subordinate to and a product of the Son, by referring his origin directly to the Father, the primal radix of the Godhead. (Adolf Harnack.)
Bibliography: For a full list of the older literature consult: E. Kollner, Symbolik aller christlichen Confessionen, i. 1 sqq., 28-52, Hamburg, 1837. Consult: W. W. Harney, Hist, and Theology of the Three Creeds, 2 vols., London, 1854; C. A. Heurtley, Harmonia Symbolica, Oxford, 1858; idem, History of the Earlier Formularies of Faith, London, 1892; A. P. Forbes, Short Exposition of the Nicene Creed, ib. 1866; C. A. Swainson, Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, ib. 1875; F. J. A. Hort, Two Dissertations, II. on the Constantinopolitan Creed, ib. 1876; J. R. Lumby, Hist, of the Creeds, ib. 1880; F. Kattenbusoh, Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Konfessionskunde, vol. i., Freiburg, 1892; G. B. Howard, The Canons of the Primitive Church; with the Creeds of Niccea and Constantinople, London, 1896; J. J. Lias, The Nicene Creed; a Manual, ib. 1897; Harnack, Dogma, iii. 209-210, iv. 95 sqq., passim, v. 302- 303, vii. passim; F. Kunze, Das nicanisch-konstantinopolitanische Symbol, Leipsic, 1898; T. H. Bindley, (Ecumenical Documents of the Faith, London, 1899; VV. Schmidt, in NKZ, 1899, fcp. 935 sqq.; C. Callow, Hist, of Origin and Development of Creeds, London, 1899; A. G. Mortimer, The Creeds: Historical . . Exposition of (he . . Nicene . . Creed, ib. 1902; Neander, Christian Church, ii. 415 sqq., iii. 554 sqq.; Schaff, Creeds, i. 12-34 (history), ii. 57-61 (text); idem, Christian Church, iii. 687-689. Consult also: P. Caspari, in Zeitschrift filr lutherische Theologie, 1857, pp. 634 sqq.; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, ii. passim. Eng. transl., ii. 379 sqq., et passim.
CONSUBSTANTIATION: A technical term denoting the Lutheran view of the elements of the Lord's Supper, in contradistinction from the Roman Catholic view — transubstantiation. According to the Roman doctrine, the bread and the wine are by the consecration transformed into the flesh and blood of Christ: while, according to the Lutheran doctrine, the bread and wine remain bread and wine; though, after the consecration, the real flesh and blood of Christ coexist in and with the natural elements, just as a heated iron bar still remains an iron bar, though a new element, heat, has come to coexist in and with it — an illustration which Luther himself used in his letter to Henry VIII. Lutheran theologians repudiate the popular term " consubstantiation," in the sense of a permanent connection of the elements with the body and blood of Christ, confining this connection to the act of the communion. See Transubstantiation.
CONTARINI, con"ta-ri'ni, GASPARO: Italian cardinal; b. at Venice Oct. 16, 1483, d. at Bologne Aug. 24, 1542. \fU-r a thorough scientific and philosophical training, he began his career in the
service of his native city. In 1521 he was the Republic's ambassador to Charles V He accompanied Charles to Spain, later, after the sack of Rome, he assisted in reconciling the emperor and Clement VII., also the emperor and the Republic of Bologna. His accomplishments, but still more his mild resoluteness and blameless character, made him everywhere respected. One of the fruits of his diplomatic activity is his De magistratibus et repvblica Venetorum. In 1535 Paul III. unexpectedly made the secular diplomat a cardinal in order to bind an able man of evangelical disposition to the Roman interests. Contarini accepted, but in his new position did not exhibit his former independence. The disposition which Ranke (Popes, i. 118) calls " the collected product of all his higher faculties " governed his action also in the new field. At first everything seemed to work well. In 1536 Paul III. appointed a commission to devise ways for a reformation. The evangelical movement had made such progress in Italy that something had to be done, and it seemed best that the most influential be the agents. The decision was a bold one; Paul III., however, received favorably Contarini's Consilium de emendanda ecclesia, but it remained a dead letter, and his successor Paul IV., once a member on the commission, in 1539 put it on the Index, a deed which still embarrasses Catholic historians. What Contarini had to do with it is shown by his letters to the pope in which he complained of the schism in the church, of simony and flattery in the papal court, but above all of papal tyranny. But he came a century too late. Contarini in a letter to his friend Cardinal Pole [dated Nov. 11, 1538] says that his hopes had been wakened anew by the pope's attitude. He and his friends thought that all would have been done when the abuses in churchly life had been put away. This was the judgment of a diplomat of noble and virtuous nature, reared on the best fruits of antiquity and refined through the Gospel, urged on by a desire for peace and unfettered by dogmatic formulas. But he was soon to see the other side. In the year 1541 he was papal delegate at the diet and religious debate at Ratisbon. There everything was unfavorable; the Catholic states were bitter, the Evangelicals were distant. Contarini's instructions though apparently free were full of papal reservations. But the papal party had gladly sent him, thinking that through him a union in doctrine could be brought about, while the interest of Rome could be attended to later. Though the princes stood aloof, the theologians and the emperor were for peace, so the main articles were put forth in a formula, Evangelical in thought and CathoUc in expression. The papal legate had revised the Catholic proposal and assented to the formula agreed upon. All gave their approval, even Eck, though he later regretted it. This did little good, for the Protestants could see in it only Roman cunning; at home the cardinal fared still worse. His own position is shown in a treatise on justification, composed ut Ratisbon, which in essential points is Evangelical, differing only in the omission of the negative side and in being interwoven with the teaching of Aquinas. Meanwhile the papal policy