Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XIV/The Fourth Ecumenical Council/Extracts from the Acts 7

Session V.

(Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. IV., col. 555.)

Paschasinus and Lucentius the most reverend bishops and Boniface a presbyter, vicars of the Apostolic See of Rome, said:&#160; If they do not agree to the letter of that apostolic and blessed man, Pope Leo, give directions that we be given our letters of dismission, and let a synod be held there [i.e. in the West].

[A long debate then followed as to whether the decree drawn up and presented should be accepted.&#160; This seems to have been the mind of most of the bishops.&#160; At last the commissioners proposed a committee of twenty-two to meet with them and report to the council, and the Emperor imposed this with the threat that otherwise they all should be sent home and a new council called in the West.&#160; Even this did not make them yield (col. 560.)]

The most reverend bishops cried out:&#160; Many years to the Emperor!&#160; Either let the definition [i.e. the one presented at this session] stand or we go.&#160; Many years to the Emperor!

Cecropius, the most reverend bishop of Sebastopol, said:&#160; We ask that the definition be read again and that those who dissent from it, and will not sign, may go about their business; for we give our consent to these things which have been so beautifully drafted, and make no criticisms.

The most blessed bishops of Illyria said:&#160; Let those who contradict be made manifest.&#160; Those who contradict are Nestorians.&#160; Those who contradict, let them go to Rome.

The most magnificent and most glorious judges said:&#160; Dioscorus acknowledged that he accepted the expression &#8220;of two natures,&#8221; but not that there were two natures.&#160; But the most holy archbishop Leo says that there are two natures in Christ unchangeably, inseparably, unconfusedly united in the one only-begotten Son our Saviour.&#160; Which would you follow, the most holy Leo or Dioscorus?

The most reverend bishops cried out:&#160; We believe as Leo.&#160; Those who contradict are Eutychians.&#160; Leo hath rightly expounded the faith.

The most magnificent and glorious judges said:&#160; Add then to the definition, according to the judgment of our most holy father Leo, that there are two natures in Christ united unchangeably, inseparably, unconfusedly.

[The Committee then sat in the oratory of the most holy martyr Euphemis and afterwards reported a definition of faith which while teaching the same doctrine was not the Tome of Leo (col. 562).]