The Nicene fathers had been so much occupied with the consubstantiality
of the Son, that they had made no mention of the church in their symbol,
but contented themselves with saying, "We also believe in the Holy
Ghost." This omission was supplied in the second general council,
convoked at Constantinople, in 381, by Theodosius. The Holy Ghost was
there declared to be the Lord and giver of life, proceeding from the
Father, who with the Father and Son is worshipped and glorified, who
spake by the prophets. Afterwards the Latin church would have the Holy
Ghost proceed from the Son also; and the "filioque" was added to the
symbol: first in Spain, in 447; then in France, at the Council of Lyons,
in 1274; and lastly at Rome, notwithstanding the complaints made by the
Greeks against this innovation.
The divinity of Jesus being once established, it was natural to give to
his mother the title of Mother of God. However, Nestorius, patriarch of
Constantinople, maintained in his sermons that this would be justifying
the folly of the Pagans, who gave mothers to their gods. Theodosius the
younger, to have this great question decided, assembled the third
general council at Ephesus, in the year 431, and in it Mary was
acknowledged to be the mother of God.
Another heresy of Nestorius, likewise condemned at Ephesus, was that of
admitting two persons in Jesus. Nevertheless, the patriarch Photius
subsequently acknowledged two natures in Jesus. A monk named Eutyches,
who had already exclaimed loudly against Nestorius, affirmed, the better
to contradict them both, that Jesus had also but one nature. But this
time the monk was wrong; although, in 449, his opinion had been
maintained by blows in a numerous council at Ephesus. Eutyches was
nevertheless anathematized, two years afterwards, by the fourth general
council, held under the emperor Marcian at Chalcedon, in which two
natures were assigned to Jesus.
It was still to be determined, with one person and two natures, how many
wills Jesus was to have. The fifth general council, which in the year
553 quelled, by Justinian's order, the contentions about the doctrine of
three bishops, had no leisure to settle this important point. It was not
until the year 680 that the sixth general council, also convened at
Constantinople by Constantine Pogonatus, informed us that Jesus had
precisely two wills. This council, in condemning the Monothelites, who
admitted only one, made no exception from the anathema in favor of Pope
Honorius I., who, in a letter given by Baronius, had said to the
patriarch of Constantinople:
"We confess in Jesus Christ one only will. We do not see that either the
councils or the Scriptures authorize us to think otherwise. But whether,
from the works of divinity and of humanity which are in him, we are to
look for two operations, is a point of little importance, and one which
I leave it to the grammarians to decide."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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