rely, not on the learning of his deputies, but on their faithfulness to the doctrine of earlier councils and fathers."

Constantine now determined, instead of the conference which had been intended, to summon an "ecumenical" synod-by which term, however, it would seem that he meant nothing more than one which should represent the whole empire; for no subjects of other governments were present." This assembly-the Sixth General Council, and Third Council of Constantinople -met in a room of the palace, which, from its domed roof, was styled Trullus. The sessions were eighteen in number, and lasted from November 7th, 680, to September 16th in the following year. The emperor presided in person at the first eleven sessions and at the last; in his absence, the presidential chair was unoccupied. At the earlier meetings, the number of bishops was small; but it gradually rose to nearly two hundred. Among them were George, patriarch of Constantinople, and Macarius of Antioch (whose dignity was little better than titular); while the sees of Alexandria and Jerusalem were represented by two presbyters. Twelve high officers of the empire, and some monks, were also present.b

The proceedings were conducted with a decency and an impartiality of which there had been little example in former assemblies of the kind, and the emperor sustained his part in a very creditable manner. The principal documents of the controversy were read, and extracts from the writings of the Monothelites were compared with passages intended to refute or to support them, or to prove their identity in substance with heresies which had been already condemned. At the eighth session, the patriarch of March 7, Constantinople professed his adhesion to the views of 681. Agatho and the Roman synod, and the bishops of his patriarchate followed the example. But Macarius of Antioch still maintained the doctrine of a single theandric will and operation—that, as the mind moves the body, so in Christ the divine will directed the humanity. He produced a collection of authorities in favour of

Hard. iii. 1077.

e

"Ib. 1049; Walch, ix. 391.

The sixth is the last which any Anglican writers acknowledge as a General Council.

y Hard. iii. 1055. On the word, see Baron. 680. 41, with Pagi's notes; Hefele, iii. 236.

2 Pighius, a Romanist, ventures to call the genuineness of the Acts in question on account of the part thus ascribed to the emperor! Walch, ix. 388-9.

See Gieseler, I. ii. 470.

his opinion; but the council, after examining these, pronounced them to be spurious or garbled, or, where genuine, to be misapplied,—as when words which had really been used to express the relations of the Divine Persons in the Trinity were transferred to the relations of the Saviour's Godhead and manhood. As the Syrian patriarch persisted in his opinion, declaring that he could not abandon it even on pain of being cut in pieces and cast into the sea, he was deposed and excommunicated, with a disciple named Stephen; and, while the emperor was hailed as a new Constantine the Great, a new Theodosius, a new Marcian, anathemas were loudly uttered against Macarius as a second Apollinaris and Dioscorus.h

The fifteenth session was marked by a singular incident. An aged monk named Polychronius presented a confession of faith, April 26, 681.

and undertook to prove its correctness by raising a dead man to life. He said that he had seen a vision, in which a person of dazzling brightness and of terrible majesty had told him that whosoever did not confess a single will and theandric operation was not to be acknowledged as a Christian. The synod adjourned to the court of a public bath, and a corpse was brought in on a bier. Polychronius laid his creed on the dead man's breast, and for a long time whispered into his ears; no miracle, however, followed. The multitude, who had been admitted to witness this strange experiment, shouted out anathemas against Polychronius as a deceiver and a new Simon; but his confidence in his opinions was unshaken by his failure, and the synod found it necessary to depose him.'

The faith on the subject in dispute was at length defined. The Monothelites were condemned as holding a heresy akin to those of Apollinaris, Severus, and Themistius; as destroying the perfection of our Lord's humanity by denying it a will and an operation.* The doctrine of the Incarnation was laid down, according to the earlier decisions of the church; and to this it was added,-" We in like manner, agreeably to the teaching of the holy fathers, declare that in Him there are two natural wills and two natural operations, without division, change, separation, or confusion.

g Hard. iii. 1149, 1175, seqq. See Hefele, iii. 115-8.

h Hard. iii. 1166, 1175, 1182, 1198, 1327-8, 1413.

Ib. 1374-8. Rufinus relates that the famous monk Macarius the elder confuted a heretic by raising a dead man to life. Hist. Monach. 28. (Patrol.

xxi.) Macarius, Polychronius, and others were sent to Rome, where two of the party retracted, and were absolved by Leo II.; but the others, being obstinate, were imprisoned in monasteries. Anastas. de Leone II. (Patrol. cxxviii. 847.)

k Hard. iii. 1398-9.

And these two natural wills are not contrary, as impious heretics pretend; but the human follows the divine and almighty will, not resisting or opposing it, but rather being subject to it; for, according to the most wise Athanasius, it was needful that the will of his flesh should be moved, but that it should be subjected to his divine will. . . . As his flesh, although deified, was not destroyed by his Godhead, so too his human will, although deified, was not destroyed." m . . An anathema was pronounced against the chief

leaders of the Monothelites. The name of Honorius had been unnoticed by the Roman councils-a fact which significantly proves that, while desirous to spare his memory, they did not approve of the part which he had taken in the controversy. John IV. in his letter to Constantine, the son of Heraclius, had endeavoured to clear his predecessor by the plea that he had only meant to deny the existence of two contrary wills in the Saviour, "forasmuch as in His humanity the will was not corrupted as it is in ours ;"" and Maximus, in his conference with Pyrrhus, had been unwilling to give the Monothelites the benefit of a Roman bishop's authority. But the general council, after examining the letters of Honorius, declared that "in all things he had followed the opinions of Sergius and had sanctioned his impious doctrines;" and the Monothelite pope was included in its anathema."

The decisions of the council were confirmed by the emperor, and severe penalties were enacted against all who should contravene them. Pope Agatho died in January 662, while his legates were still at Constantinople; but his successor, Leo II., zealously

m Ib. 1400.

n Ib. 611. Against this plea, see Walch, ix. 127-132; Hefele, iii. 149. • Max. ap. Baron. xi. 645.

P Hard. iii. 1331-4. The condemnation of Honorius has caused great difficulty to some Roman controversialists. Baronius pretends that the acts of the council are interpolated, and that the name of Honorius has been substituted in them for that of Theodore, the predecessor of George in the patriarchate of Constantinople (681. 13-21; 682. 4). The groundlessness of this is shown by Pagi, who himself maintains that Honorius was personally orthodox, and that he was condemned only on account of his "economy" in attempting to stifle the discussion of the question (xi. 31-32), Bellarmine (De Rom. Pont. v. 11, Garnier (Dissert. ii. in Lib. Diurn. Patrol. cv.), Pétau (De Incarn. I. xxi. 144), Combefis (in Auctar. Bibl. Patrum, iii.), Muratori (Annali, IV. i.

108), Noël Alexandre (x. 463-8), and others take a (more or less) similar line, and are refuted by Walch, ix. 409-418; Schröckh, xx. 446-8; Gieseler, I. ii. 477-8; Dorner, ii. 217220. There is an essay in favour of Honorius by Molkenbuhr (Patrol. lxxx.). In our own time, Döllinger (i. 157-8) and Hefele (who argues the matter yery fully and with great candour, iii. 150-2, 264-284) give up the pope, although they suppose that he thought more soundly than he expressed himself; even Rohrbacher can only excuse him by representing him as the dupe of Sergius, and concludes his remarks on the subject by saying that "Nous y voyons un avertissement divin à tous ses successeurs, de bien peser les paroles de leurs écrits, et de ne jamais traiter légèrement les questions de doctrine." (x. 88, 167-8, 381.)

↑ Hard. iii. 1445-1457.

exerted himself to procure the reception of the council by the churches of the west. In letters to the emperor, to the Spanish bishops, and to others, Leo expressed his approval of the condemnation of Honorius, on the ground that that pope, instead of "purifying the Apostolic Church by the doctrine of apostolical tradition," had "yielded its spotlessness to be defiled by profane betrayal of the faith."

The last two general councils, unlike those of earlier times, had confined themselves to matters of faith, and had not passed any canons relating to other subjects. In order to supply this defect, Justinian II., who in 685 succeeded his father Constantine Pogonatus, assembled a new synod, which is known by the name of Trullan, from having been held in the same domed hall with the late general council, and by that of Quinisext, as being supplementary to the fifth and sixth councils. Its hundred and two canons were subscribed by the emperor and by the four eastern patriarchs; and immediately after the imperial signature, a space was left for that of Sergius, bishop of Rome. It does not appear whether Sergius had been invited to send special deputies to the council; his two ordinary representatives at Constantinople subscribed, and Basil, metropolitan of Gortyna, in Crete, professed to sign as representing the "whole synod of the Roman Church.” * But among the canons were six which offended the pope, as inconsistent with the rights or the usages of his Church. The 2nd, in enumerating the earlier canons which were exclusively to be observed, sanctioned eighty-five under the name of apostolical, whereas Rome admitted only fifty; and it omitted many synods. which were of authority in the west, together with the whole body of papal decretals. The 13th allowed those of the clergy who had

u

r Hard. iii. 1476. So he elsewhere says that Honorius "flammam hæretici dogmatis non, ut decuit apostolicam auctoritatem, incipientem extinxit, sed negligendo confovit" (1730). Baronius has recourse to his familiar device of declaring the letters to be forged (683. 14). Pagi owns their genuineness, but says that Honorius is only censured in them for supineness and connivance-not for heresy. But, even if Leo's words did not necessarily imply more than this, his meaning certainly went further, since he unreservedly recommends the decisions of the council, and names Honorius with Theodore of Pharan, Sergius, &c., among those who were condemned as traitors to the faith. (1730.) See Hefele, iii. 279, seqq.

* Gibbon, iv. 405.

The most probable date is 691 (Pagi, xii. 120; Hefele, iii. 299). Some place it in 692 (see Walch, ix. 44); others, as early as 686 (see Hefele, 1. c.) Hardouin, as late as 706.

"Schröckh, xix. 509.

* Hard. iii. 1697-9. On these signatures see Pagi, xii. 122; De Marca, V. x. 3; Hefele, iii. 314.

y Schröckh, xix. 508; Giesel. I. ii. 480.

See Drey, Ueber die Constitut. u. Kanones der Apostel, 203-9, 419. In the decree of Gelasius as to books allowed or forbidden (see vol. i. 536), the whole of the Apostolical Canons are condemned. (Patrol. lix. 163.)

married before their ordination as subdeacons to retain their wives.a The 36th renewed the decrees of the second and fourth general councils as to the privileges of the see of Constantinople. The 55th ordered that the "apostolical" canon which forbade fasting on any Saturday except Easter-eve should be extended to Rome, where all the Saturdays of Lent had until then been fast-days. The 67th forbade the eating of blood. The 82nd prescribed that the Saviour should be represented in his human form, and not under the symbolical figure of a lamb. In contradicting Roman usages, the 13th and 55th canons expressly stated that they were such, and required the Roman Church to abandon them; it would seem, indeed, as if the eastern bishops were bent, as at Chalcedon, on moderating the triumph of Rome in the late doctrinal question by legislating on other matters in a manner which would be unpalatable to the pope; and the recognition of these canons by the east only, where they were quoted as the work of the sixth general council, was the first manifest step towards the separation of the Greek and Latin Churches.d

On receiving the canons, Sergius declared that he would rather die than consent to them. The protospathary Zacharias was commissioned to seize him and send him to Constantinople. But a rising of the people, and even of the soldiery, who looked more to the bishop of Rome than to their distant imperial master, compelled Zacharias in abject terror to seek the protection of his intended prisoner. About the same time, the vices of Justinian, the exorbitant taxation which was required to feed his expenses, and the cruelties which were committed in his name by his ministers, the eunuch Stephen and the monk Theodosius, provoked a revolt, by which a general named Leontius was raised to the throne. From regard for the memory of Constantine Pogonatus, Leontius spared the life of Justinian ; but the deposed emperor's nose was cut off (a mutilation which had become common in the east), and he was banished to the inhospitable Chersonese."

A.D. 695.