Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

CONCILIUM ALEXANDRINUM.

Since the Easterners labored under a dissension not only of faith but also of minds, so that three Bishops sat in the single see of Antioch, Eusebius of Vercelli, coming to Alexandria, convened a Council of Bishops, in which, besides other matters, action was taken about οὐσία and hypostasis, because Hosius, Bishop of Corduba, in order to convince Arius, while he tried to explode the dogma of Sabellius, disputed Περὶ τῆς ὑποστάσεως, that is, about essence, περὶ τοῦ εἶναι, that is, about person; whence material was supplied for another contention. And indeed (as Saint Basil accurately noted), the Nicene Synod itself furnished fuel for this dispute with those words: But if anyone says that the Son of God is of another essence or hypostasis, that is, substance, him the Catholic and Apostolic Church rejects with an anathema. Where you see the distinction placed by the Council between essence and hypostasis, that is, substance; for if it held them as synonyms, it would not place each of them separately. And indeed the acts of this Council have almost perished; we shall nonetheless set down what pertains to our purpose from its Synodal Letter:

For we were the cause that those who accused some as affirmers of three hypostases, since such words were not found in Scripture and could therefore seem suspect, should inquire no further into the Nicene Confession. But nevertheless a question was raised about these matters on account of the pertinacity of wrangling: and they were asked whether, according to the opinion of the Arians, they meant the persons to be foreign, strange, and diverse from one another in substance, and thought each hypostasis to be by itself and apart, after the manner of the other creatures and of those who are born of men: or whether they understood diverse things, such as gold, silver, bronze? Or whether, as other heretics, they constituted three principles and three greatest Gods under these words? But they affirmed that they had neither said nor thought so. When we asked them, however, by what reason they said these things, or why they used these words at all, they gave the answer that they believed in a Trinity, not a Trinity in name only, but one which truly was and subsisted as Trinity: and that they acknowledged the Father, as one who truly was and subsisted; and the Son, as existing and subsisting; and the Holy Spirit, as subsisting and existing. They had not, however, said three Gods or three principles; nay, they would not even tolerate it, if anyone either said or thought any such thing: but they knew that there is the Holy Trinity, yet so that there is one Deity and one principle: and that they acknowledged the Son to be coessential with His Father, as the Fathers said, and the Holy Spirit not a creature, nor alien, but proper and inseparable from the essence of the Father and of the Son. Their interpretation and excuse having therefore been approved, we in turn also examined those who were being twisted by them into blame, as though saying that there is one hypostasis, asking them whether in the Sabellian dogma they were so understood, as wishing the Son and the Holy Spirit to be removed from the Trinity, as if the Son lacked essence, or the Holy Spirit did not subsist? And they too affirmed that they believed that the nature of the Father is not one thing, that of the Son another, and that of the Holy Spirit another. Nay, even those who had been accused of that crime, of introducing three hypostases, agreed with these in the same opinion; and in turn those who asserted one hypostasis acquiesced in the interpretation of those, and both factions alike execrated Arius, as an enemy of Christ; and Sabellius and Paul of Samosata, as impious men; Valentinus likewise and Basilides, as alien from the truth; Manichaeus also, as a contriver of evils. Finally, by the grace of God, after such an interpretation of the words, the best and most exact, which the Nicene Fathers had established, they all approved the faith, and decreed that the words of the same faith suffice, and above all are to be brought into use.

CONCILIUM NICAENUM.

Because scarcely one of the heretics doubted the person of the Father or His Deity, since that would be open atheism, therefore no Councils were convened about this; whence the first was concerning the Deity of the Son, whose history I shall weave partly with the words of the Council of Chalcedon, partly from the history of Nicaea itself. Therefore, when the most blessed Sylvester was Bishop of the Apostolic See in the city of Rome, under Constantine Augustus and Licinius Caesar, in the consulate of Paulinus and Julianus, most distinguished men, in the year 1030 from Alexander, or (as another edition has it) in the year 1306, on the 13th day before the Kalends of July, the month being, according to the Greeks, the 19th on that day, which is the 13th before the Kalends of July, in Nicaea, the metropolis of Bithynia, a Synod of 318 Fathers sat, although others say that fewer gathered there: Eusebius names only 250. But the subscriptions and names of the individual Fathers exhibit rightly the commonly received number 318, which some Saints also note to be mystical and prefigured in the army of Abraham, which consisted of 318 soldiers. But this one, although it was not only a general synod, but the first of the general ones, I have placed after the Alexandrian, because it was later in time, since it is clear from the Epistle of Pope Julius to Athanasius that the acts of the Alexandrian Council were produced at Nicaea.

And so, in this solemn assembly, the impiety of Arius and of the Eusebians, who held that the Son of God is less than the Father, nay, even His creature, was pierced through with the spear of the whole Church, by this eternal symbol, thereafter so often ratified and confirmed. — The Nicene Symbol:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten born of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, ὁμοούσιον, that is, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all things were made, both those in heaven and those on earth. Who, for us men and for our salvation, descended, and was incarnate, and was made man, suffered, and rose on the third day, and ascended into the heavens, and from there He is to come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. But those saying: There was a time when He was not; or: He was not before He was made, because He was made from non-existing things; or saying that He is of another substance; or that the Son of God is created, or convertible, such ones the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes.

Now, to pursue the history of the Council, the cause of this definition and tenor was that, when (says Athanasius) the Synod was intent upon removing the impious words of the Arians, and wished to employ expressions which were without controversy those of the Sacred Scriptures: namely, that He is the Son, and by no means from non-beings, but from God; and that He is the Word and the Wisdom, and by no means a creature or a thing made, but the proper offspring of His Father:

The Eusebians, according to their inveterate and perverse custom, wanted that phrase, to be from God, to be common and to pertain to men also, and that Christ differed nothing from us under that name: and a little after; There the Fathers, having observed their fraud and the cunning of their impiety, were compelled to set forth in clearer words what it is: to be from God, and to write that the Son is from the substance of God: lest to be from God should be thought common and to pertain equally to the Son and to creatures: and further on. When the Bishops again affirmed that this also ought to be written, that He is the true power and image of the Father, and like the Father and immutable in all things, and inconvertible and eternal, and subsists undivided in the Father, for He never was not, but always was, and subsisted perpetually with the Father as the splendor of light: the Eusebians indeed endured these things thus far, daring to contradict nothing, on account of the disgrace they had suffered in their refuted sayings, but in such a way, however, that they were detected muttering among themselves, exchanging nods, and applauding one another with their eyes. As if those things, to be like, and to be in God, and to be His power, were common to the Son with us, and nothing stood in the way by which those very things might also be adapted to us, because it was written about our likeness with God, that man is the image and the glory: and a little after: But (he says) the Bishops, having considered their hypocrisy and cunning (as Scripture says: deceit is in the hearts of those who devise evil), were themselves also compelled by necessity to gather the meaning of those things from the Scriptures, and to repeat and write in plainer words what they had said before, that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, so as to signify by that voice, by which He is said to be from the Father, not only like by likeness, but the same: Athanasius has many things about these there.

Concerning which word, indeed, Marius Victorinus, treating at length, says this:

By this one word, that is, ὁμοούσιον, all the poison of the Arian dogma is slain. O learned Bishops, o holy ones, o you who confirm the faith with the Spirit, the Word truly the Word of God, by which God and λόγος is shown to be from eternity and always, and of the same substance. It has therefore been spoken in Latin, ὁμοούσιος, whence it is also necessarily to be placed and treated in Greek.

So says he himself.

CONCILIUM CONSTANTINOPOLITANUM I.

It was convoked under Damasus as Pontiff and Theodosius the Elder as Emperor, partly for a cause similar to the one already treated, of assigning a Bishop to the Constantinopolitan see; partly also, but principally, to establish the Catholic truth against the Macedonians, namely the Pneumatomachi, as the same Council calls them, that is, the Adversaries of the Holy Spirit. For, as is evident from the sixth Synod, Macedonius denied Deity and dominion to the Spirit, and proclaimed Him a fellow-servant; but the greatest Emperor Theodosius and Damasus, the adamant of the faith, withstood. But it must be known that this Council was, and is, Ecumenical, one of those four to which the Greeks, and also Saint Gregory

the Pope, to which they defer as to the 4 Gospels; although in the number of Bishops it yielded to others, even to non-general ones: for they had been 150, but they were so few for this reason, because another council was meanwhile celebrated in the West and in the city of Rome by Pope Damasus, with the same sense and judgment on the same subject; so that consequently those are judged not two synods, but two parts of the same one. But this Council held the faith of the Nicene Synod ratified and certain with these words: that the faith of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers, who convened in Nicaea of Bithynia, should not be rejected or reprobated, but should remain firm and ratified. And with extreme execration and detestation it condemned all heresies and perverse and impious opinions, especially those of the Eunomians, or Anomoeans; likewise of the Arians, or Eudoxians; likewise of the Semiarians, or Pneumatomachi, Sabellians, Marcellians, Photinians, and Apollinarians. This by Canon. Then it adds its own Symbol, which differs from the Nicene scarcely in anything else; which, with greater clarity and description, concerning the person of the Holy Spirit, I add here. — The Constantinopolitan Symbol:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, creator of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, ὁμοούσιον with the Father, that is, of the same substance with the Father, through whom all things were made, which are in heaven and on earth. Who, for us men and for our salvation, descended from the heavens. And He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary: was made man, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was buried, and on the third day rose: He ascended to the heavens, sits at the right hand of the Father; from there He is to come with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there will be no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver; proceeding from the Father, to be adored and conglorified with the Father and the Son, who spoke through the prophets. And one Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins; we await the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. Amen

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our salvation, descended from the heavens: He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit, of the Virgin Mary, and was made man. And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. And He was buried. And He rose on the third day. He ascended into the heavens, sits at the right hand of the Father. He is to come again with glory to judge the living and the dead: of whose kingdom there will be no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, proceeding from the Father, to be adored and conglorified with the Father and the Son: who spoke through the holy prophets. And one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. We confess one baptism for the remission of sins: we await the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. Amen

CONCILIUM EPHESINUM.

Indeed I reckon that this does not greatly serve my purpose, since it is established that the heresy of Nestorius, against which the Council was gathered, was not so much about the Trinity as about the Incarnation, and more properly about Christ as man than about God the Word: for nowhere did it destroy the substance of God the Word (says Cassiodorus, lib. 12. cap. 1.). Because, however, some authors mix these heresies, which are in truth also near neighbors, and Nestorius himself furnished some foundation, at least by words of suspicion: for this is his own saying in the cited Cassiodorus: Do not glory, Judea, you did not crucify God. Also in Socrates you read, cap. 2., that very many confess Jesus to be God. I (says Nestorius) by no means confess a two-membered or three-membered God. Whence those who were around Cyril, re-reading more often the homilies of Nestorius, which he had put forth on this question, and judging from them that he was, as it were, blaspheming the Son of God, condemned him.

Be that as it may, the Council was assembled at Ephesus by the authority of Pope Caelestine, at the request and with the favor of Theodosius the Younger. More than 200 Bishops from the East convened, in the year of Christ 430, Caelest. 5., Theod. 19. In it the said heresy of the said Nestorius was condemned, with Saint Cyril of Alexandria presiding in the place and name of Pope Caelestine: and because Cyril had written 12 chapters against as many blasphemies of Nestorius, among which he said that the Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, and proceeds from the Father and the Son, Theodoret, contradicting, wrote that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father and the Son, nor from the Father through the Son; occasion was taken from the words of Theodoret that the Greeks, long afterwards, denied that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, although against Theodoret they always held that He proceeds from the Father through the Son.

But the doctrine of the faith, or the definitions of this Council, are none other than those which are contained in its Epistle to Nestorius. We subjoin (he says) to these our letters what you ought to think and teach, and those things from which it befits you to abstain. But he subjoins the Nicene Symbol thus:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, creator of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord, our Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten born of the Father; that is, of the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, ὁμοούσιον with the Father, that is, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made in heaven and on earth. Who, for us men and for our salvation, descended from the heavens. And He was incarnate, and was made man, He suffered: and rising on the third day, He ascended into the heavens, from there He is to come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. But those who say: there was a time when He was not: and He was not before He was born, and because He was made from nothing existing; or say that He is of another substance; or that the Son of God is convertible or changeable, them the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes.

He then subjoins the twelve Chapters or Canons, of which these pertain in some way: I. If anyone does not confess that God is truly Emmanuel, and therefore that the holy Virgin is the Mother of God, let him be anathema: IX. If anyone says that the one Lord Jesus Christ was glorified by the Holy Spirit, as one who used an alien power through Him, and received from Him efficacy against unclean spirits, and could also work divine signs before men, and does not rather confess that it is His own Spirit, through whom He wrought the divine signs, let him be anathema.

CONCILIUM CHALCEDONENSE (GENERALE QUARTUM).

It comes closer to our subject, since the heresy which it condemned destroys the Deity itself from the Incarnation of the Word onward. For if from two natures one was made in the Incarnation, then it is no longer from that sincere one, at least in the Word. But the Synod was gathered under Leo I as Pontiff and Marcian Augustus; in the consulate of the same Marcian, as the Council itself testifies, Act. 1. It was proclaimed against the error of Eutyches, a Presbyter, or Archimandrite, who said that in Christ, after the Incarnation, there was only one nature, not that, one of the two having been removed, the other remained, but that from the two a third, or mixed, one was made.

On which occasion I have thought that readers should be warned that after the Fifth General Council a dissension arose among Catholics: for very many refused to receive the Council of Chalcedon, because of the three chapters issued in the Fifth General Council. The first, concerning Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia, whose impious writings are condemned there; and yet Theodore was not condemned in the Council of Chalcedon. The second, concerning Theodoret, whose writings against the 12 Chapters of Cyril are reprobated there; and yet the Council of Chalcedon, Act. 8., restored Theodoret to his see. The third, concerning the Epistle of Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, written to Maris the Persian, which calls Saint Cyril of Alexandria a heretic and praises Nestorius; and yet Ibas the Bishop was received in the Council of Chalcedon. But all this can move no one, except him who labors under ignorance of history: for the Council of Chalcedon did not receive the doctrine of these men, but their persons, because of course they afterwards repented, having embraced the Catholic doctrine; and the Fifth Council condemned not the persons, but the doctrine.

But the definition of faith published by this Council, in its own kind, is scarcely anything other than an explanation of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Symbols, which the Fathers renew by common judgment, expelling the dogmas of error; and we invoke (they say) the ineffable faith of the Fathers, proclaiming the Symbol of the 318 to all: and we also number as our own Fathers those who afterwards gathered at great Constantinople, 150 of them, and they too confirmed the same faith.

We define therefore, keeping the order and all the formulas which have been established concerning the faith: and we define that the exposition of the right and immaculate faith of the holy 318 Fathers, who gathered at Nicaea in the times of the Emperor Constantine of pious memory, shines forth from that Synod which was once held at Ephesus, whose presidents were Caelestine, Bishop of the Romans, and Cyril, Bishop of the Alexandrians, of most blessed memory: and that those things also are preserved which were decreed at Constantinople by the most holy 150 Fathers, for expelling all sprouting heresies and for the confirmation of our same Catholic and Apostolic faith, the Nicene Symbol of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers: we believe in one God, etc. Likewise the one hundred and fifty holy Fathers gathered at Constantinople: WE BELIEVE in one God, the Father almighty, etc.

Because, however, in the same Council the doctrine of Saint Leo the Pope, celebrated by it with wonderful praises, is received, it pleased me to insert here some of his chapters, which are, as it were, Canons concerning the definition of the faith, from his Epistle to Turbius of Asturica; who (as the Pontiff writes in the prologue of the chapters) comprehended all the condemned opinions in 16 chapters: and he subjoins: Let us too briefly retrace all things, lest any of these blasphemies should seem either tolerable or doubtful.

In the first chapter, therefore, it is shown how impiously they think about the divine Trinity who assert that the person of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one and the same, as if the same God were named now Father, now Son, now Holy Spirit: and that it is not another who begot, another who was begotten, another who proceeded from both, but that a singular unity is to be understood in three words indeed, and not in three persons. This kind of blasphemy they took from the opinion of Sabellius, whose disciples are also deservedly called Patripassians: because if He Himself is the Son who is from the Father, the cross of the Son is the passion of the Father, and whatever the Son endured in the form of a servant, obeying the Father, all of it the Father Himself took upon Himself. Which is without ambiguity contrary to the Catholic faith, which confesses the Trinity of unity as ὁμοούσιον in such a way that it believes the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit undivided without confusion, everlasting without time, equal without difference; which unity in the Trinity is fulfilled not by the same person, but by the same essence. — In the second chapter is shown the inept and vain fiction concerning the processions of certain powers from God, which He began to have, and which He Himself preceded by His essence: in which they also support the error of the Arians, saying that the Father is prior to the Son, because He was at some time without the Son, and began to be Father then, when He begot the Son. But just as the Catholic Church detests those, so also these, who think that anything which is of the same essence ever was lacking to God; whom, just as it is forbidden to call mutable, so also to call progressing. For what is diminished is changed, just as what is increased is also changed.

Councils V. VI. VII.

And these were Greek councils: the two former were celebrated at Constantinople, the third at Nicaea in Bithynia, where, as above, the first was held; but I do not pursue them, because they dealt more with persons than with causes. Nor is there lacking one who would say that the V Synod was not only not Ecumenical, but was not even ratified at some time: which one would wonder should have come into Baronius's mind, since it is expressly received in the seventh, that is, the second Nicaean. Moreover, some things of these councils pertain here for this reason, because each confirms the earlier Synods, on which one may see Marc. Ephes. discoursing at length, Concilii Ferar. Act. 6. And since the principal controversy with the Greeks in the matter of the Trinity is about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, I will bring forth from the VII Synod the Symbol of faith, in which it was expressly proclaimed by 350 Fathers and handed down as a dogma of faith that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. — The Symbol of the VII Synod, that is, of the second Nicaean:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, before all ages, through whom all things were made: who for us men and for our salvation descended from the heavens. And He was incarnate of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary and was made man. He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried: and He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. And He ascended into the heavens, sitting at the right hand of the Father: and He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there will be no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is together adored and co-glorified, who spoke through the Prophets: in one holy Catholic and Apostolic

Church. We confess one baptism for the remission of sins. And we await the resurrection of the dead; and the life of the age to come. Amen.

It is true that the Greeks at the Council of Florence denied to the Latins that the Symbol stood thus, and alleged their own codices, in which the particle Filioque was not read. But (as the Acts of the same session, sess. 5, have it) the Latins brought forward in the midst a certain most ancient book, in which the same very definition was written, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, etc. From which it is evident that the book itself agreed with the books of the Greeks in all other things. And besides, Cardinal Iulianus, who conducted the part of the Latins, produced a similar author, that is, an ancient historian, who among other things testified that the Symbol itself had been read in the VII Synod in this tenor.

From these things anyone will be able to see and admire the Church, inquiring with Solomon; who is this that comes forth, like the dawn rising, beautiful as the Moon? For plainly she, like the Moon, was little by little filled up, brought to roundness, that is, to perfection. Plainly like the dawn, she received in time increments of light, in this affair supremely arduous as it is supremely holy. For in the first synod and prince of the rest, the first Nicaean, only the Deity of the Holy Spirit was defined, and not too clearly, in these words: I believe in the Holy Spirit. In the first Constantinopolitan the procession was added: who proceeds from the Father. But in the second Nicaean, which is seventh in order, was defined His procession also from the other Person, and so from both, there: who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

GENERAL COUNCILS OF THE WEST.

THE COUNCIL OF BARI.

I pass over the eighth, which was celebrated concerning the rights of persons in the cause of Photius, at whose persuasion and by whose agency the Greeks began to think against the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, and to shun the Latins as bound by anathema, on account of the Filioque added to the Symbol. Whence Councils were no longer celebrated in the East, nor in the West commonly by both Churches, except those in which the Eastern Greeks joined themselves anew to the Roman Church, or at any rate action was taken about union.

Among these, however, the first to present itself is the Council of Bari, celebrated by Urban II in the year 1097, in which were agitated between the Greeks called thither and the Latins the controversies about the procession of the Holy Spirit that had been aired longer and earlier. But although the Acts of this renowned Council perished through the neglect of historians, it is nevertheless certain from Edmerus that there was a discussion with the Greeks about the aforesaid procession, and that the Greeks were refuted. All of which William of Malmesbury described the more freely, who relates not only that the controversy was agitated, but also that it was decided in favor of the Latins by Pope Urban, in these words:

And so, when it had come to the Council, the Apostolic, the space before the body of St. Nicholas being strewn with carpets and palls, himself clad in the very casula and pallium, ascended the tribunal; the rest sat with their cups. Therefore, while all claimed their own place from of old, Anselm, supreme in humility, sat down where he could. It had slipped from the mind of the Supreme Pontiff, amid the surging tumult, to assign him a place. But he was reminded of the error by the necessity of the question proposed by the Greeks, who wished to prove that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. While, then, attempting to resolve this question he stuck the more, with the Greeks on the contrary replying not improbably, remembering Anselm he cried out — to the voice heard the capacity of the heavens and the multiplicity of the crowd redouble like thunder: Father and Master Anselme, Archbishop of the English, where are you? He, when he heard himself called, stood upon his feet. Whom the Apostolic, addressing him: Now (he said) Master, there is need of your knowledge, need of the works of your eloquence. Come, ascend here and defend your mother the Church, whom the Greeks are striving to undermine. Succour then, as one sent here by God. Straightway all standing and sitting by turned their eyes and faces upon him, asking who he was; and, with those nearest lending their efforts, he was raised to the seat of the Apostolic, bidden to sit next to the Roman Archdeacon, whose custom it is to sit before the Pope: Let us include (he said) this man in our orb, as it were the Pope of another world. Nor did he disclose openly to all mortals what his race was, whence his home, of what learning, of what eloquence, how religious, how much he had suffered for fidelity to the Roman See. And the handling of the question was deferred to the following day, although Anselm would not have hesitated to answer at once. But on the following day, the assembly having been convened earlier than usual, he, raised on high, so handled the sides of the question, so penetrated and cleared of clouds the inmost depths, that the Latins testified their joy by shouting,

that the Greeks showed a ridiculous grief on their part: moreover, no one would depart destitute and empty of knowledge. The sense of that discourse, as time went on, he lucidly set forth in the book he composed, De processione Spiritus sancti. Then, when he finished his discourse, all turned their eyes and faces upon him: this one praised his faith, that one his knowledge, all his eloquence. When the uproar which his praise had stirred was calmed, the Supreme Pontiff, looking upon him, said: blessed be your heart and your spirit, blessed be your mouth and the speech of your mouth. And without delay, strengthened with the consent of all, he hurled the thunderbolt of excommunication against those thinking otherwise.

THE LATERAN COUNCIL UNDER INNOCENTIUS III.

It was held in the year 1215, the 18th of the said Pontiff, the most celebrated and most frequented of all that have assembled in Europe. For it was presided over by Pope Innocent himself; there were present the two Eastern Patriarchs, the Constantinopolitan and the Jerusalemite: the Antiochene, hindered by illness, sent his legates, as also did the Alexandrine, hindered by the Egyptians. Archbishops, both Greek and Latin, 70; Bishops 400; Abbots 120; Conventual Priors 800; all the Fathers together 1285. Legates of the Roman and Greek Emperors; Orators of the Kings of France, Spain, England, Jerusalem, and Cyprus. In it action was taken about recovering Jerusalem and, as concerns our matter, the following were defined about the divine unity and Trinity:

Firmly we believe and simpliciter we confess that there is one only true God, eternal and immense, almighty, unchangeable, incomprehensible and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: the Father from no one; the Son, however, from the Father alone; and the Holy Spirit from both equally, without beginning, always and without end. The Father generating, the Son born, and the Holy Spirit proceeding: consubstantial and coequal, co-omnipotent and coeternal, one principle of all things, Creator of all things invisible and visible, spiritual and corporeal, who by His almighty power, at the same time from the beginning of time, established from nothing both creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, the angelic namely and the worldly, and afterwards the human, constituted as it were common from spirit and body: the Devil also and the other demons were indeed created good by God in nature, but they by themselves were made evil. Man, however, sinned at the suggestion of the devil.

Likewise, cap. 2. We condemn and reprobate the little book, or treatise, which Abbot Ioachim published against Master Petrus Lombardus about the unity, or essence, of the Trinity, calling him heretical and insane, for the reason that he said in his Sentences that a certain supreme thing is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that it is not generating, nor generated, nor proceeding. Hence he asserts that he was building up in God not so much a Trinity as a quaternity, namely three persons and that common essence, manifestly protesting it as it were a fourth, because no thing is which is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are one essence, one substance, and one nature: but he confesses that a unity of this kind is not true and proper, but as it were collective and similitude-like, just as many men are said to be one people, and many faithful one Church, according to that: of the multitude of believers there was one heart and one soul. But we, with the sacred and universal Council approving, believe and confess with Peter, that a certain one thing is, incomprehensible indeed and inestimable, which truly is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, three persons together, and singly each one of the same; and that in God there is only the same Trinity, not a quaternity, because each of the three persons is that thing, namely the substance, essence, or divine nature, which alone is the principle of all things, besides which nothing else can be found; and that thing is not generating, nor generated, nor proceeding; but it is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Spirit who proceeds; so that there is distinction in the persons and unity in the nature. Although, therefore, the Father is another, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, yet not another thing, but that which is the Father is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the same entirely, so that according to the Orthodox and Catholic faith they are believed to be consubstantial. For the Father, by generating the Son from eternity, gave His substance to Him, according to what He Himself testifies: the Father, what He gave to me is greater than all; and it cannot be said that He gave Him a part of His substance and kept a part for Himself, since the substance of the Father is indivisible, as being entirely simple. But neither can it be said that the Father transferred His substance to the Son by generating, as if He so gave it to the Son that He did not keep it for Himself, otherwise He would have ceased to be substance. It is clear, therefore, that without any diminution the Son, by being born, receives the substance of the Father, and so the Father and the Son have the same substance, and thus the same thing is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeding from both.

THE COUNCIL OF LYONS.

In the year of Christ 1274, Michael Palaeologus, Emperor of the Greeks, greatly fearing for himself from Charles, King of Sicily and Naples — to whom Balduinus II, Emperor of the Latins of the East, had betrothed his daughter with the dowry of the Constantinopolitan Empire, should he obtain it by his aid — among other safeguards for defending his kingdom, had recourse to religion, and sent legates to Gregory X, then recently elected Pontiff, about entering into concord of the Eastern with the Western Romans, provided that he would turn away from him the expedition of Charles. Gregory, greedily embracing what was offered, in turn sent his own Legates to Constantinople, to the Emperor Palaeologus: Brother Jerome of Ascoli, who afterwards was Cardinal of the Roman Church and finally its Supreme Pontiff, Brother Remundus Berengarii, Brother Bonagratia Dalmata and Brother Bonaventura Mugellitanus, all four professors of the Seraphic Order of our holy Father St. Francis. When they had accomplished the business according to wish, the Greeks having been persuaded to concord and some nobles of the Greeks having been led with them to the feet of the Pontiff, Gregory celebrated the General Council at Lyons in the year 1274, in which, according to his mind and the definition of the Council, the Greeks issued the profession of the Catholic faith in this form:

I, George Acropolites, great Logothete, Nuntius of our lord, the greatest Emperor of the Greeks, Michael Angelus Ducas Comnenus Palaeologus, having from him a sufficient mandate for the things written below, wholly abjure every schism, and I acknowledge the subscribed truth of faith, just as it was plainly read and faithfully expounded, in the name of our said lord, to be the true, holy, Catholic and Orthodox faith; I accept it and profess it with heart and mouth: and I promise that I will observe it inviolably, just as the sacrosanct Roman Church truly holds it, faithfully teaches and preaches it, and that I will never at any time withdraw from it, deviate in any way, or dissent from it. Also the primacy of that sacrosanct Roman Church, as it is contained in the aforesaid series, and the obedience of that Church, coming spontaneously, in his name and mine, for him and for me I confess, recognize, accept and spontaneously embrace; and I promise and confirm by an oath corporally taken upon his soul and mine that he will do all the aforesaid things, both concerning the truth of faith and concerning the primacy of the same Church and their recognition, acceptance, reception, observance and perseverance: so may God and these Holy Gospels help him and me.

In that manner Gregory swore for Michael. From the same formula another Nuntius professed for Andronicus and the rest of the Greeks, but especially for the Metropolitans. For twenty-six Metropoles (if it is right to give credence to the letters of the same Andronicus) promised that they would obey the sacred sanctions of the Catholic faith and acknowledge the primacy of the Roman Church.

As far as the profession of faith is concerned, the Fathers, in the first place the Pontiff, prescribed it in this manner against the errors of the Greeks:

By a faithful and devout profession we confess that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two principles, but as from one principle, not by two spirations, but by one spiration. This the sacrosanct Roman Church, mother of all the faithful and mistress, has professed hitherto, this she has preached and taught, this she firmly holds and preaches and professes and teaches. This the unchangeable and true sentence of the Orthodox Fathers and Doctors, Latin and Greek alike, has. But because some, on account of ignorance of the irrefragable promised truth, have fallen into various errors; we, desiring to close the way to errors of this kind, with this sacred Council approving, condemn and reprobate all who shall presume to deny that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, or even with rash daring assert that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from two principles and not as from one.

Assisting at the sacred rites, which pertained to the confession of faith and the unity of the Church, with the Pontiff celebrating in the Church, the Orientals sang out the symbol of faith with the addition: Who proceeds from the Father and the Son, to the greatest exultation of the whole Church, in confirmation of all that they had said and subscribed before the assembly of the Fathers, and received the sacred synaxis from the hand of the Supreme Pontiff. Much more abundantly, however, the same is contained in the letters of Palaeologus himself, which he sent to the Pontiff through the aforesaid Nuntii of the Franciscan institute of the Apostolic See.

THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE.

Thus I speak, (says our Baronius) more in the phrase of others than in my own sense: for it is the Council of Ferrara, as much by auspices and indiction as by the multitude of sessions: which, although in all they were 26, yet 10 of these were held at Ferrara, where the Synod was also indicted and begun, only 10 at Florence, where it merely ended.

There was present at it John Palaeologus, Emperor of the East; Pope Eugene IV presided in the year 1438. And although in it action was taken about several and indeed most grave causes — the supreme power of the Pope, Purgatory, Consecration in and without leaven — nevertheless the principal article, and the one that stood the Council in the most and greatest examination, delay, and dissension, was that about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son; the Greeks denying it, such was their levity, not to say pertinacity, after there had already been agreement about this between them and the Latins in the Councils of Lyons, Bari, etc. I will set forth the doctrine of the faith of this Council a little differently from certain others among the Theologians, even of not bad repute; for in the first place I hold that it is not very faithfully reported that in it both Churches agreed, so that the Greeks, in their manner, would say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son: for the definition of the Council was received by both, and in it it is expressly asserted that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Moreover, in truth, so that it may appear with what faith this Council is cited in the present matter, especially by the adversaries of the Subtle Theology, who sell flowers for fruits and boast the skirmishes of soldiers for victory and triumph, I will give all the doctrine of this Council separately; first by parts: then jointly, since each part was of one language and of the same words.

THE CONFESSION OF THE LATINS.

Therefore after a long examination and the bitter dissension of the parties, in session 25, the last at Florence, the Latins, with the Greeks contending, committed their judgment to writing in this manner:

Since the Greeks calumniate us and object to us that we place two principles, or two causes, in the holy and consubstantial Trinity, therefore we commit our profession to writing in these letters: We believe in one God the Father and in one only-begotten Son born of the Father: and in one Holy Spirit having indeed His essence from the Father, just as also the Son, but proceeding also from the Son, since we profess the Father to be the one cause of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; of the former indeed by generation, of the latter however by procession. Moreover, lest we seem to believe that we distribute the identity and conjunction of the divine substance, and that that same substance differs from the hypostases and persons in reality, not however by reason alone: and also, lest anyone, believing, conceive in his mind that that one divine substance is divided into three parts, therefore we judged the word ex Filioque necessary in the symbol, professing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from one principle.

THE CONFESSION OF THE GREEKS.

When the Greeks had received the aforesaid letters, they weighed them most attentively for a whole space of two days: and while they would not concede by any reason that the Son was the cause of the Holy Spirit, they themselves also sent their judgment, committed to writing, to the Latins in this tenor:

Since the Latins profess that the Father is the one cause of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and contend with us that we should declare our judgment, whatever we think in this matter, in our letters, therefore we profess that the Father is the fountain and root of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, but that the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to the first Ecumenical Synod and the great Basil and Cyril, are divine offshoots, and also that the Spirit gushes from, is drawn from, comes forth from, is sent forth from, and flows out of the Son.

From which things (says Baronius) even the blind see, that these sentences are vainly and almost rashly twisted by some persons as though they were a definition of the Council; as when they contend that the divine essence is not distinguished from the persons formally, or from the nature of the thing, but only by reason: or when with equal vehemence they demand that it be granted to them, that the Holy Spirit would not be distinguished from the Son, if He did not proceed from Him. For, even if we grant that all these things are contained here, they do not make the faith, because they are not definitions of the Council: but opinions of the parties set forth on the one side and the other. It appears therefore, how little certain men look into the sources, content with the mere fame and name of the Council, not attending to where the things alleged are found, in a disputation or in a definition, which is of this kind:

THE DEFINITIVE BULL OF EUGENE IN THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE.

Eugenius, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, for an everlasting remembrance of the matter. Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth exult, for the wall has been removed from the midst, which divided the Western and the Eastern Church, and peace and concord have returned, Christ being the cornerstone, who made both one, joining both walls with the strongest bond of charity and peace, and binding and holding them together with the covenant of perpetual unity; and after the long cloud of grief and the dark and unwelcome gloom of long-lasting discord, the serene brightness of the desired union has shone upon all. Let mother Church also rejoice, who now sees her sons, hitherto disagreeing with one another, returned to unity and peace; and she who before wept most bitterly at their separation, let her now, from their concord, with ineffable joy give thanks to Almighty God. Let all the faithful everywhere throughout the world congratulate one another, and let those who are counted under the Christian name rejoice together with mother Catholic Church. For behold, the Western and Eastern Fathers, after a very long time of dissension and discord, exposing themselves to the perils of sea and land, and having overcome all labors, so that the sacred Ecumenical Council might be held, gladly and eagerly came together for the sake of the most holy desire of union and of restoring ancient charity, and they were by no means frustrated in their intention: for after a long and laborious search, at length by the clemency of the Holy Spirit they obtained the most desired and most holy union itself. In the name therefore of the Most Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, this sacred universal Council of Florence approving, we define, that this truth of faith be believed and received by all Christians, and that all thus profess, that the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and has His essence and His subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally, as from one principle and a single spiration: declaring, that that which the holy Doctors and Fathers say, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, tends to this understanding, that by this it may be signified that the Son also is, according to the Greeks indeed the cause, according to the Latins however the principle of the substance of the Holy Spirit, just as the Father also is. And since all things that are the Father's, the Father Himself gave to His only-begotten Son in begetting Him, except to be the Father, this very thing, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, the Son Himself has eternally from the Father, by whom He was also eternally begotten. We define moreover, that the explanation of those words, Filioque, was lawfully and reasonably added to the Creed, for the sake of declaring the truth and because of the necessity then impending. Which confession of the celebrated Council was written in Greek and Latin letters on one and the same leaf, so that on the right side it was read in Latin with the subscriptions of the Western Fathers and the seal of the Supreme Pontiff; on the other side, however, in Greek, with the subscriptions of the Greeks likewise and the seal of the Emperor himself.

PROVINCIAL COUNCILS.

THE FIRST COUNCIL OF TOLEDO.

In the year of Christ 405., the 1st of Pope Innocent, under the Emperors Honorius and Arcadius, Stilicho being Consul for the second time, a Council of 19 Bishops was celebrated at Toledo, in Tarraconensian Spain, who decreed most things pertaining to Ecclesiastical discipline, comprehended in 20 chapters. In the twenty-first Canon, however, concerning the Catholic faith, from whose title you will understand that what I have set down here about the time and the Princes, both ecclesiastical and secular, under whom it was celebrated, is ambiguous; concerning which may be seen Ambrosius Morales and Juan de Mariana, and after both, Cardinal Baronius, tom. 5. But whatever the case with these things at last, there is there set down in this tenor the Toledan Creed:

We believe in one true God, the Father almighty and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the maker of things visible and invisible: through whom all things were made in heaven and on earth; that there is one God and one Trinity of divine substance. That the Father, however, is not the Son Himself, but has a Son, who is not the Father; that the Son is not the Father, but is the Son of God of the nature of the Father. That the Spirit is also the Paraclete, who is neither the Father Himself, nor the Son, but proceeds from the Father and the Son. Therefore the Father is unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Paraclete not begotten, but proceeding from the Father and the Son. The Father is He whose voice was heard from the heavens: this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear Him. The Son is He who says: I came forth from the Father and have come from God into this world; the Paraclete is the Spirit, of whom the Son says: unless I go away to the Father, the Paraclete will not come. This Trinity, distinct in persons, united in substance, indivisible and undifferentiated in power and might and majesty; besides this we believe no nature to be divine, whether of an Angel, or of a Spirit, or of any power, which would be believed to be God.

THE THIRD COUNCIL OF TOLEDO (NATIONAL).

For it was gathered not from the Bishops of one Province, but also from all of Spain: indeed also from Gallia Narbonensis, as appears from the subscriptions of the Bishops: it fell, however, in the year of the Lord 589, the 32nd of Pope Pelagius, the 4th of the Emperor Maurice, and also the 4th of King Reccared, under whom, after the martyrdom of Saint Hermenegild, his elder brother by nature, the nation of the Goths was converted from Arianism to the Catholic faith; which the Bishops also confess of themselves, who attested their faith there in this tenor of words clearly enough; for they say:

Let everyone, therefore, who still desires to hold the faith and communion coming from Arius and retained even unto us, and does not condemn it with the whole intention of his heart, be anathema. Whoever denies that the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, was begotten from the paternal substance without beginning and is equal to the Father, or consubstantial, let him be anathema. Whoever does not believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and does not say that He is co-eternal with the Father and the Son and co-essential, let him be anathema. Whoever does not distinguish the persons in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and does not acknowledge the substance of one divinity, let him be anathema. Whoever asserts that the Son of God our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are, according to their Divinity, lesser than the Father, and has separated them by degrees, and has said that they are creatures, let him be anathema. Whoever does not believe that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one substance, omnipotence and eternity, let him be anathema. Whoever says that the Son of God does not know what God the Father knows, let him be anathema. Whoever assigns a beginning to the Son of God and to the Holy Spirit, let him be anathema. Whoever has dared to declare the Son of God visible or passible according to His Divinity, let him be anathema. Whoever does not believe the Holy Spirit, like the Father and the Son, to be true God and almighty, let him be anathema. Whoever holds the Catholic faith and communion elsewhere than in the universal Church, which the decrees of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan and first Ephesine and Chalcedonian Councils equally hold and honor, let him be anathema. Whoever separates or disjoins the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in honor and glory and Divinity, let him be anathema. Whoever does not believe that the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are to be glorified and honored together with the Father, let him be anathema.

THE FOURTH COUNCIL OF TOLEDO.

It was likewise celebrated by all the Bishops of Spain and of Gallia Narbonensis (hence called general by the Fathers gathered in it) in the year of Christ 633, the 8th of Pope Honorius, the 21st of the Emperor Heraclius, the 4th of King Sisenand, with 70 Bishops, Saint Isidore, Bishop of Seville, presiding. In it, besides other things, these were established concerning the Catholic faith:

According to the divine Scriptures and the doctrine which we have received from the holy Fathers, we confess the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be of one Deity and substance. Believing the Trinity in the diversity of persons, preaching the unity in the divinity; we neither confuse the persons, nor separate the substance. We say that the Father was made or begotten by no one; we assert that the Son was not made, but begotten, by the Father. But the Holy Spirit, we profess, is neither created, nor begotten, but proceeding from the Father and the Son. But that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God and the Creator of all things, begotten from the substance of the Father before the ages, descended in the last time from the Father for the redemption of the world, who never ceases to be with the Father. For He was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the glorious holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, and was born from her, the same sole Lord Jesus Christ, one in the holy Trinity, perfect in soul and flesh, receiving man without sin, remaining what He was, and assuming what He was not: equal to the Father according to His Divinity, lesser than the Father according to His humanity, having in one person the property of two natures. For in Him there are two natures, God and man. Not, however, two sons and two Gods, but the same one in both natures.

THE EIGHTH COUNCIL OF TOLEDO.

It was celebrated in the same city in the year of Christ 673, the 5th of Pope Martin, the 12th of the Emperor Constans, the 5th of Reccesuinth, King of Spain, era 691. There were present 52 Bishops, 22 Abbots, 10 Vicars of absent Bishops. The rest elsewhere: to this pertains the following confession of faith. — The Creed of the Council:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, the creator of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, that is, of the same substance with the Father, through whom all things were made, which are in heaven and on earth. Who for our salvation descended from the heavens, and was incarnate from the Holy Spirit, of the Virgin Mary, and was made man: and suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was buried, on the third day He rose again. He ascended into the heavens, He sits at the right hand of the Father, from there He is to come in glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there will be no end. We believe also in the Holy Spirit the life-giver, proceeding from the Father and the Son, to be adored and co-glorified with the Father and the Son, who spoke through the prophets. And one Catholic and Apostolic Church. We confess one baptism for the remission of sins. We await the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. Amen.

THE ELEVENTH COUNCIL OF TOLEDO.

Worthy it is, with which this enumeration of Synods may end, because of the outstanding confession of faith, which I shall subjoin here, and which the Scholastic Doctors hold in veneration and use even to this day. It was held in the year of salvation 675, the 7th of Pope Adeodatus, the 8th of the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, era 713. It decreed some things; but it taught more by this most celebrated Creed, which contains not only the faith of the Trinity, but, as it were, a commentary upon it. — The Creed of the Council:

We confess and believe that the holy and ineffable Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is naturally one God, of one substance, of one nature, of one majesty also and power. And we profess that the Father indeed is not begotten, not created, but unbegotten. For He Himself draws His origin from no one, from whom the Son received His nativity, the Holy Spirit His procession. Therefore He Himself is the fount and origin of the whole Divinity. The Father Himself also, ineffable indeed in essence, ineffably begot the Son of His substance: and yet He begot nothing other than what He Himself is, God begetting God, light begetting light. From Him therefore is all paternity in heaven and on earth. We also confess that the Son was born of the substance of the Father without beginning before the ages, yet was not made: because neither did the Father ever exist without the Son, nor the Son without the Father. And yet not as the Son is from the Father, so the Father is from the Son, because not the Father from the Son, but the Son received generation from the Father. The Son therefore is God from the Father, but the Father is God, yet not from the Son. But He is the Son of the Father and God from the Father: yet the Son is equal in all things to God the Father, because He neither began at some time to be born, nor ceased. He is also believed to be of one substance with the Father, on account of which He is also called ὁμοούσιος to the Father, that is, of one substance with the Father; for ὁμὸν in Greek means one, but οὐσία means substance: which both, joined together, sound as one substance. For the same Son is to be believed to have been begotten or born not of nothing, nor of some other substance, but from the womb of the Father, that is, from His substance. The Son of God is also everlasting, since if the Father always was, He always had a Son of whom He would be Father, and on this account we confess the Son born of the Father without beginning: for we do not say that the same Son of God, because He was begotten of the Father, lacks some little portion of the nature: but we assert that the perfect Father begot the perfect Son, without diminution, without defect: because it belongs to Divinity alone to have no unequal Son. Hence also the Son of God is Son by nature, not by adoption, whom God the Father is to be believed to have begotten neither by will nor by necessity, because no necessity falls upon God, nor does will precede wisdom. In the Holy Spirit also, who is the third person in the Trinity, we believe that there is one God, equal with God the Father and the Son, of one substance, and also of one nature: not, however, begotten or created, but proceeding from both, and that He is the Spirit of both. This Holy Spirit also is believed to be neither unbegotten nor begotten: lest either, if we call Him unbegotten, we say two fathers; or if begotten, we be shown to preach two sons; who, however, is called the Spirit neither of the Father only, nor of the Son only, but at once of the Father and the Son. For He does not proceed from the Father into the Son, or proceed from the Son to sanctify the creature, but He is shown to have proceeded at once from both, because He is acknowledged to be the charity, or holiness, of both. This Holy Spirit therefore is believed to be sent by both, but He is not held to be lesser than the Father and the Son: just as the Son, on account of the flesh assumed, testifies that He is lesser than the Father and the Holy Spirit. — This is the recounted narration of the holy Trinity, which can be both called and believed not triple, but Trinity. Nor can it rightly be said that in one God there is a Trinity, but that the one God is a Trinity. In the relative names, moreover, of the persons, the Father is referred to the Son, the Son to the Father, the Holy Spirit to both; and though the three persons are thus said relatively, yet one natural substance is believed. Nor do we preach, just as three persons, so three substances: but one substance, and three persons. For that the Father is, is not in reference to Himself, but to the Son; and that the Son is, is not in reference to Himself, but to the Father. Likewise the Holy Spirit also is referred relatively not to Himself, but to the Father and the Son, in that He is preached as the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. Likewise when we say God, it is not said in reference to something, as the Father is to the Son and the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son, but God is said especially in reference to Himself. For if we are asked about each of the persons, we must confess that He is necessarily God. Therefore God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit is said in the singular; yet there are not three gods, but one God. Likewise also the Father almighty and the Son almighty and the Holy Spirit almighty is said in the singular, yet not three almighty ones, but one almighty, just as also one light and one principle is preached. Therefore each person is singularly confessed and believed to be one God, one and undivided and equal Divinity, majesty and power being theirs. Nor is it diminished in each one, nor increased in the three; because it has nothing less when each person is said to be God in the singular: nor more, when so often the three persons are declared to be one God. This holy Trinity therefore, by which the one and true God exists, does not withdraw from number, nor is it comprehended by number; for number is discerned in the relation of the persons, but in the substance of the divinity, what has been numbered is not comprehended. Therefore they intimate number by this alone, that they are mutually related to one another; and they lack number in this, that they are in themselves, for so does one natural name belong to this holy Trinity, that it cannot be plural for the three persons.

AN ENGLISH COUNCIL.

Four years after the preceding eleventh and last Toledan Council, that is, in the year 679, another was celebrated in England by the Venerable man Theodore, Archbishop of Britain (as Bede reports in the historia Anglorum), the rest of the Bishops of the island of Britain sitting together with him, the most sacred Gospels being set before them, etc., whose confession is this:

We believe constantly and confess, according to the holy Fathers, properly and truly the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

a Trinity in unity consubstantial, and a unity in the Trinity, that is, one God in three subsistences, or consubstantial persons, of equal glory and honor.

And after many things of this kind, which pertained to the confession of right faith, the holy Synod also adds this in its letters:

We receive the holy and universal synods, of the blessed Fathers acceptable to God, that is, those who were gathered in Nicaea, 318, against the most impious Arius and his dogmas; and in Constantinople, 150, against the madness of Macedonius and Eutychius and their dogmas: and in the first Ephesine Synod, 200, against the most wicked Nestorius and his dogmas: and in Chalcedon, 630, against Eutyches and Nestorius and their dogmas: and again in the fifth Council gathered in Constantinople, in the time of Justinian the younger, against Theodore and Theodoret and their dogmas against Cyril.

And a little later:

And the Synod which was held in the city of Rome, in the time of the most blessed Pope Martin, in the 8th Indiction, the most pious Constantine ruling, in the 9th year, we receive; and we glorify our Lord Jesus Christ, just as those glorified Him, adding nothing or subtracting. And we anathematize with heart and mouth those whom they anathematized: and those whom they received we receive, glorifying God the Father without beginning, and His only-begotten Son generated from the Father before the ages, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son ineffably.

These things they said, in which it is worthy of note, that this Archbishop and president of the Council, who so assertively pronounced that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and that according to the mind and faith of the holy Fathers and Synods, was a Greek; to the greater shame of those who afterwards dared to deny this, and preach the opposite as handed down to them by the Fathers, since he, being nearer to the ancients, both Greeks and Latins, brought forward both sides by citing them in favor of this.

THE COUNCIL OF GENTILLY.

Lest I leave anything in this kind unmentioned, I have resolved also to add this Synod of whatever sort as a supplement; for it treated in part of the procession of the Holy Spirit, as Ado and the Abbot of Ursperg report. It seems indeed to have been convoked chiefly to decide the case concerning the cult of sacred images: but indeed these two are cognate errors, and familiar even to the Greeks, especially at the time of the Council, which fell in the year of the Lord 767. It was done once on the occasion of a certain embassy of Constantine Copronymus, Emperor of the Greeks, to Pepin, King of the Gauls: since, however, Constantine was a fierce iconoclast, and an edict had already gone out from him against the sacred Images, on account of which he was ill spoken of among the Orthodox, he seems to have wished by this embassy to recover his reputation with Pepin, using also this argument, that if he himself had erred in impugning the images, the Latins likewise would have sinned in the addition of the Filioque. Wherefore the Council was convoked also for deciding this article, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son; nor is there any doubt that it answered him assertively, although the Acts of the Council do not exist. For concerning the images too it was so decided against Constantine, as seems to be gathered from the Roman Synod under Pope Stephen. — I could relate other Synods, in which the right and holy faith concerning the divine Trinity was not only expressly handed down, but also lucidly and clearly expressed, if it were permitted through the other labors undertaken; but since it does not avail, through time and leisure, therefore, Reader, let these excerpts from our Baronius, inserted here for your sake, suffice for you.