We also know that other local creeds were
revised about the same time and in the same way. In the next place, the
occurrence of a revised Jerusalem creed in the _Ancoratus_ is natural.
Epiphanius was past middle life when he left Palestine for Cyprus in
368, and never forgot the friends he left behind at Lydda. We are also
in a position to account for its ascription to the council of
Constantinople. Cyril's was a troubled life, and there are many
indications that he was accused of heresy in 381, and triumphantly
acquitted by the council. In such a case his creed would naturally be
examined and approved. It was a sound confession, and in no way
heretical. From this point its history is clearer. The authority of
Jerusalem combined with its own intrinsic merits to recommend it, and
the incidental approval of the bishops at Constantinople was gradually
developed into the legend of their authorship.
[Sidenote: The rest of the canons.]
The remaining canons are mostly aimed at the disorders which had grown
up during the reign of Valens. One of them checks the reckless
accusations which were brought against the bishops by ordering that no
charge of heresy should be received from heretics and such like. Such a
disqualification of accusers was not unreasonable, as it did not apply
to charges of private wrong; yet this clerical privilege grew into one
of the worst scandals of the Middle Ages. The forged decretals of the
ninth century not only order the strictest scrutiny of witnesses against
a bishop, but require seventy-two of them to convict him of any crime
_except_ heresy. Another canon forbids the intrusion of bishops into
other dioceses. 'Nevertheless, the bishop of Constantinople shall hold
the first rank after the bishop of Rome, because Constantinople is New
Rome.' This is the famous third canon, which laid a foundation for the
ecclesiastical authority of Constantinople. It was extended at Chalcedon
[Sidenote: 451.] into a jurisdiction over the whole country from Mount
Taurus to the Danube, and by Justinian into the supremacy of the East.
The canon, therefore, marks a clear step in the concentration of the
Eastern Church and Empire round Constantinople. The blow struck Rome on
one side, Alexandria on the other. It was the reason why Rome withheld
for centuries her full approval from the council of Constantinople.
[Sidenote: 1215.] She could not safely give it till her Eastern rival
was humiliated; and this was not till the time of the Latin Emperors in
the thirteenth century.
[Sidenote: Second edict defining orthodoxy.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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