94

Cave cites this Confusion

Cave says on this question, "The fifth of the Constantinopolitan Councils, under. Mennas the Patriarch, about the year 541, was held by order of Justinian, to consider the cause of the Origenists. Certain monks of Jerusalem-Eulogius, Conon, Cyriacus, and Pancratius -had lately presented to Justinian a humble appeal complaining of the Origenist doctrines then abounding in the East, and demanding that certain chapters which they had extracted from Origen's writings should be by public authority condemned. The Emperor assented, and published a long edict against the errors of Origen, which having made public he sent to Vigilius the Pope, and to the other Patriarchs in the East, as Liberatus testifies, Breviar.,' cap. xxiii. p. 162. But not content with this, he commanded a Council to be called of the Bishops who were to be found in the royal city. The letter of Justinian, briefly setting out the doctrines of Origen, was read to the Synod, and the extracts produced by the Palestinian monks were discussed and condemned. The epistle of Justinian is given by Cedrenus, in 'Annal. ad an. Justinian,' 25, whence it was copied into the 'Concilia,' tom. v. p. 680. And some fragments of the acts of this Synod exist in Evagrius, 'Hist. Eccles.,' lib. iv. cap. 38, p. 414; who, however, strange to tell, mixes up and confounds these matters with the acts of the Fifth General Council, as also do Cedrenus and Theophanes. The cause of this error was perhaps simply this, viz. that the acts of this Synod, and of a former

* "Hist. Liter.," vol. i. p. 558. I have briefly referred to what Cave says already.

one, held in 536, and of a following Synod held a few years later, also under Mennas, were compiled together in the same codex with the acts of the Fifth General Council; and this seems to have been done soon after the time of the Fifth Council, because Evagrius himself wrote not more than forty years after the date of that Council. Many considerations, however, show that this Synod was certainly distinct from the Fifth Council. In this Synod nothing was considered but the Origenist cause. In the Fifth Council the cause of "the three chapters" and that alone was in discussion; nor was there even the slightest mention of Origen, or the Origenists, unless it was in the 11th Canon; much less was there any full consideration of that cause. Moreover, Evagrius himself clearly recognizes the difference between these two Councils, especially in that place where he relates that Justinian consulted the Synod, who had met, on the Origenist controversy, laying before them a copy of his letter, of this same appeal (that is, the appeal presented to him by the monks of Jerusalem), and what he had written on these matters to Vigilius. This sufficiently proves that Vigilius had not yet come to Constantinople; but he was there at the time of the Fifth Council, and had been there for some time previously. I know that Garnerius would have these words—τὰ πρὸς βιγίλιου περὶ TOÚTOV-understood as if Evagrius meant them to refer to the letter which Vigilius had written on these same concerns. But he produces no manuscript codex, nor any other foundation for his conjecture, except the corrupt version of Christophorson; so that one may

96

Further Proofs of Confusion.

well be astonished at this audacious correction coming from so candid and learned a person. But besides these, there are not wanting other arguments which show that this Synod differed toto cælo from the Fifth Council. These may be seen in Valerius' note on Evagrius, p. 111 (who, be it observed, puts back this Synod to the year 538), and in Garnerius, 'Dissert. de V. Synodo' (prosertim prout ad calcem Liberati habetur) caps. 2 and 6. As to the true date of this Synod he argues carefully (Ibid., cap. 1). Now, this date depends on the time of the coming to Constantinople of these monks of Jerusalem, and Liberatus expressly says, cap. 23, that they did not come until after Zoilus was ordained to the see of Alexandria, and he also asserts that Zoilus did not succeed to that see until the year 440.

"It was then, I believe, in this Synod under Mennas that those fifteen Canons or anathemas were passed against Origen and the Origenist doctrines, which both in matter and in words so closely resemble the nine anathemas which Justinian had just before inserted into his edict against Origen. These Canons are given in Greek by Petrus Lambecius, a man of repute in the republic of letters, from an ancient codex of the Vindobonensian Library. Stephanus Baluzius gives them in Greek and in Latin (Nov. Coll.,' 1548), but in his title they are called 'Canons of the Fifth Constantinopolitan Synod,' but for no other reason, I suppose, than this, that the acts of this Synod had been compiled in the same synodal codex with the proceedings of the Fifth Council, for they often passed under the name of the

Fifth Council, as we have just shown. Certainly Photius, writing of the acts of the Fifth Synod, mentions certain things done at an earlier date in the matters of Zoaras and of Anthimus of Constantinople, and also other things that were done, which, nevertheless, were included under the same Synod."

The witness then of Cave goes to show:

(1) That Origen was not condemned at all by the Fifth Council, unless it were generally by the insertion of his name in the eleventh Canon.

(2) That the "detailed proceedings" against him, which Dr. Pusey attributes to the Fifth Council, are clearly proved not to belong to that Council.

(3) That the "nine specific anathemas," by one of which a doctrine of Restitution was condemned, which also Dr. Pusey attributes to the Fifth Council, were not the Canons of that Council, or of any other council, but merely forms proposed by Justinian to the Home Synod.

Another learned ecclesiastical historian, who has gone into this question much more elaborately and at length than Cave, and who arrives at the same conclusion as to the point now in dispute, is Garnerius. He writes in his "Dissertatio de quintæ Synodo," cap. ii., Gallandius "Bib. Vet. Patrum," vol. xii., p. 168:

"The memory of this Council (i.e. the Home Synod of 543) has been obscure, because ever since the days of Evagrius, that is from the year 593, it has been confused with the Fifth Council, four councils having been collected into one codex, three of them local councils under Mennas, and one a general council under Eutychius; to

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Opinion of Garnerius probable.

this whole collection was attached the name of the Fifth

"And this is not a groundless or rash conjecture, but a probable opinion, to which the three following considerations add some force :

"I. Up to our own day, or at least up to the days of our parents, even that Synod against Anthimus, Severus, Petrus, and Zoaras, held under Mennas five years before the Fifth Synod, was inscribed with the name of that synod in the collections of Councils of Merlinus, Crabb, and Surius.

"II. Justinian's "profession of faith," i.e. three of his edicts de fide collected into one, each edict relating to its corresponding Council, appears to have given occasion to the collating together also in one volume the three councils, as if they were so many foundations for Justinian's faith.

"III. On this hypothesis it is easy to understand and to reconcile all that ancient writers have said about the Fifth Synod, which otherwise are irreconcilable, or at least so perplexing that learned men have been unable to solve the difficulties except by asserting that the acts of the Fifth Synod were "mutilated and corrupted by the Origenists."

Further on in this careful and elaborate treatise Garnerius calls attention to the various and conflicting opinions which have from time to time been held as to the condemnation of Origen by the Fifth Council, or by some other. He says: †-"As to the condemnation of Origen

* Vide Héfélé to this same effect, quoted at p. 103. † Ibid., cap. v.