contradicted by Vth General Council. 227

2. No blame attaches to Vigilius, that he wished "the three chapters" not to be condemned. Evil to the faith was dreaded both from their condemnation and acquittal. Their condemnation was desired by Justinian to disparage the Council of Chalcedon, which "had received Ibas and Theodoret, and had not blamed Theodorus when mention was made of him." The Orthodox Easterns desired their condemnation to repress the Nestorians; the Westerns feared that, lest the Eutychians should gain by the slur on the Council which condemned them. Evil as had been the course whereby Vigilius had attained to the Papacy, he was upright after he attained it. Bossuet gives the account briefly :

Vigilius, even when invited, was unwilling to attend the Synod; none the less it was held without him. He published the Constitutum,' wherein he disapproved of those things which Theodorus, Theodoret, and Ibas were said to have written against the faith; decreed that their names were to be spared, because they themselves were either received by the IVth General Council, or had died in the communion of the Church, and been reserved to the judgment of God; of the Epistle of Ibas he declared that, understood in its rightest and best sense, it remained unblamable, and of the three chapters he enjoined, that after the present definition, Ecclesiastics should raise no further question about them 10"

"These things Vigilius decreed of his authority. But after his Constitutum the Synod entered into the question of the three

228 Bossuet: Hormisdas formally consulted on

chapters, judged that a question might rightly be considered as to the dead; that the Epistle of Ibas was manifestly heretical and Nestorian, and throughout contrary to the faith of Chalcedon; and that whosoever defended the impious Theodore of Mopsuestia, or the writings of Theodoret against Cyril, or the impious Epistle of Ibas, which maintained the Nestorian doctrines, and did not anathematize it, but pronounced it correct, were altogether anathema'.

"Hereby they seemed not to spare even Vigilius, though suppressing his name; their decree was undoubtedly confirmed by Pelagius II., Gregory the Great, and other Roman Pontiffs.

66

These things show that in a matter of greatest moment appertaining to a cause of faith, the decrees of Councils prevailed over the decrees of Pontiffs, and that the Epistle of Ibas, defended by the judgment of the Roman Pontiff, was not the less proscribed as heretical."

3. The gravity of the wrong judgment of Hormisdas was increased by the critical circumstances under which it was given. Bossuet again condenses the history :—

"In the year 519, when S. Hormisdas was sovereign Pontiff, a great question arose, which must be diligently considered, since on both sides arguments are taken therefrom.

6

"The question was as to this proposition: One of the Trinity was crucified,' Unus Trinitatis,' or 'Unus ex Trinitate crucifixus est.' S. Proclus of Constantinople, soon after

1 Ib., Collat. v., p. 479, sq. See also Coll. vi., col. 545, sq. Coll. viii. can. 12, 13, 14, col. 575, sq.

And even Vigilius himself, if that be a genuine Epistle which P. de Marca published from a MS. of the Royal Library. Vid. Ep. Vigil. attrib. Ib., 595, and diss. P. de Marca de hac Ep. col. 601, sq.

8

Bossuet, Def., &c., ix. 16-18.

proposition "Unus ex Trinitate crucifixus est." 229

the Council of Ephesus, had, in an Epistle to the Armenians*, opposed this to the new Nestorians, when, Nestorius having been excommunicated, they screened themselves under the name of the older Theodore of Mopsuestia. These then, praisers of Theodore in public, defenders of Nestorius in secret, divided the One Son into two; separated the Son of Mary from the Son of God; introduced a quaternity for the Trinity. These, S. Proclus thought, might best be refuted, if they were to own that the Son of Mary was, not external to the Trinity, but 'One of the Trinity.'

"The Epistle of Proclus having been approved by an Eastern Synod, and praised by the Council of Chalcedon itself, was held in high esteem throughout the whole West also, after Dionysius Exiguus had translated it into Latin, and commended the care of Proclus, that, asserting Christ to be 'One of the Trinity,' he most aptly confuted the frauds of the Nestorians".

"This proposition, then, John Maxentius and other monks of the province of Scythia asserted against the Nestorians, and charged with Nestorianism those who rejected it.

"But Dioscorus, deacon of S. Hormisdas, and legate of the Apostolic See, being at Constantinople, writes to Hormisdas, that he thought that this proposition of the Scythian monks was to be rejected as new, heretical, and mainly asserted by the Eutychians'.

"It is indeed certain that Peter Gnapheus or Fullo, the Eutychian heretic, was on that ground censured by Felix III. and the Roman Synod, that he said 'that One of the Uncreated and Undivided Trinity suffered and died. But Peter Fullo meant thereby, that One of the Trinity was said to have suffered for us in the Substance of the Deity, as Felix himself

4

Ep. Procli, C. P. ad Arm. B. P. vi. 615, Conc. iii. 117. Vid. Nov. Coll. Conc. Baluz., p. 94. Facundus viii. 4. Conc. Chal. P. 3, c. i., col. 827, 828.

6

Dionys. Exig. Præf. in Ep. Procli, B. P. vi. 612.

'Suggest. Diosc. ad Hormisd. Conc. iv. 1531.

Conc. Rom. 1 sub Fel. iii., col. 1097.

230 Scythian monks guarded their language, were

relates'; from which guilt the Scythian monks so shrank, that they always added (what S. Proclus too had said most accurately), 'that One of the Trinity was crucified in the Flesh',' lest they should seem to confound the Natures and to hold with the Eutychians. Wherein they much differed from Peter Fullo and from his followers, Anastasius Augustus and Theodora Augusta, whose tenets were proscribed, asserting that One of the Trinity suffered, not secundum quid, but absolutely;' but the Scythians asserted that 'He suffered, not absolutely' (whereby the heretics meant that He suffered in the Divinity too), but only secundum quid,' i.e. according to the Flesh.

"The question being mooted, the Scythian monks went to Rome, duly to consult the Apostolic See; Justinus Augustus and Justinianus, then Comes Domesticorum, write on the same matter, and Justinianus, being persuaded by Dioscorus, prays that the monks may be forthwith repelled, as unjust and turbulent persons. Presently, having considered the matter itself, as it seems, more gravely, he, in a second letter, thus inquires of Hormisdas: Some assert that Christ, Who was crucified in the Flesh for our salvation, ought to be spoken of as One of the Trinity.' He asks, 5 What ought we to follow, what avoid, hereon, since the language seems to occasion dissension? for the meaning among all Catholics is proved to be one.' He subjoins: For we believe that to be Catholic which shall be intimated to us in your religious answer.' Which profession, lest it seem to pertain to Papal infallibility, we notice that the end of the narrative is to be waited for; meanwhile we note bond fide what they object to us.

"Meanwhile, it is well to explain the mind of the Catholics hereon. First, then, the Scythian monks diligently expounded

Fel. Ep. 5, ad Zen. Ib. 1071.

1 Pet. Diac., lib. ad Fulg. int. Op. Fulg., p. 280. Paris, 1684.

2 Vid. Joann. Max. Prof. Fid. B. P. ix. 534, sqq.

3 Vict. Turou. Chron.

4

Ep. i. Justiniani ad Hormisd. Conc. iv. 1516.

approved by holiest and most learned of the time. 231

their faith to St. Fulgentius and his colleagues, holy Confessors of Christ, and to Ferrandus, and approved it to them, the holiest and most learned men of their time. This only you may observe in Fulgentius-that he prefers to say 'One Person of the Trinity,' rather than One of the Trinity.' ('Unus Trinitatis,' or 'Unus ex Trinitate ). Which difference is so slight, that those who differ only in this, you may rightly pronounce to be of one mind and altogether agreed. So that those monks, having duly inquired of these great Bishops, met not with blame of any sort, but with testimonies of brotherly love. And in truth the expression, 'One of the Trinity,' said indefinitely, what else is it than One Person of the Trinity,' as John Maxentius and Ferrandus the Deacon, and afterwards Facundus, an African Bishop, an eminent writer of that age, most fully declared'?”

"Ferrandus the Deacon indeed mentions three wrong meanings' in which the expression One of the Trinity' might be used; but those senses the monks most plainly rejected. Wherefore Ferrandus the Deacon ascribed it to the offence taken by some, that the expression, One Person of the Trinity' should be used rather than One of the Trinity,' whereas either term indifferently might be used aptly and harmlessly. But since the Nestorians abused the word 'Person,' and said that Christ, as a Legate, exhibited the Person of the Word, they, well knowing the Nestorian frauds, preferred the title One of the Trinity,' and preferred that phrase, in which the deceit of the Nestorians could less lie

Pet. Diac. de Incarn. int. Op. Fulg. Ep. 16, p. 217, sq. "Then in exile in Sardinia, during the persecution by the Vandals."

8

Fulg. lib. de Incarn., &c., ad Pet. Diac. Ib. Ep. 18, c. 10, n. 18, p. 296.

' Maxent. Resp. ad Ep. Hormisd. Ep. ad Anat. Diac. n. 14. 16, p. 506. Capitul., i. 3. Ib. T. x. p. 6.

1 Ferr. Ib. n. 16.

B. P. ix. 542. Ferr.

Facund. pro defens. 3