The Council of Constantinople and the Constantinopolitan Creed

The Council of Constantinople and the Constantinopolitan Creed

Most modern historians of Church history are unclear where the creed commonly attributed to the Second Ecumenical Council comes from. The most likely opinion, however, is that the creed is an epitome of the Council's lost Tomos (mentioned at a subsequent council in 382)¹ expounding the faith.² Further suspicion is cast by the fact that Gregory Nazianzus, who presided over the Council, shows no knowledge of the expanded Creed,³ mentioning shortly afterward that the Nicene Creed lacked doctrine about the Holy Spirit.⁴ In fact, we find no direct evidence of the Constantinopolitan creed until the mid-fourth century,⁵ and only at Chalcedon are we first told that it is ascribed to the Council of 381. The Fathers at Ephesus show no knowledge of it,⁶ and even Charisius' confession is an imperfect resemblance, having phrases common to several baptismal creeds, though lacking the N-C creed's distinctive reference to the Holy Spirit as "Vivifier" and proceeding from the Father.⁷ Charisius’ creed was merely a personal confession; as such, he did not intended it to compete with the formal creed of the universal Church. ⁸

J.N.D. Kelly succinctly provides the case against the Constantinopolitan Creed being composed at Constantinople 381. According to Kelly:

“The third and most impressive objection is the seemingly absolute silence regarding a Constantinopolitan creed which apparently reigned from 381 to 451. This silence is particularly striking for the various synods which met in the period, at which some allusion to such a creed, had it existed, might have been expected. At the third general council, at Ephesus in 431, the creed which played the authoritative role and which was entered in the minutes was N. A vote was even passed to the effect that nobody should be allowed "to bring forward or to compose or to put together any other faith than that which has been defined by the holy fathers who assembled at Nicaea under the guidance of the Holy Spirit". C was even passed over in silence at the synod which Flavian held at Constantinople in 448 to pass judgment on Eutyches, although if in fact it had been sponsored by the council of 381 one might have expected it to be held in honor in its own city. The authorities appealed to at the meetings of the council itself, in the imperial rescript read out at the seventh session, and in Flavian's own letter to Pope Leo acquainting him with the proceedings, were always the Nicene faith, the council of Ephesus, and St. Cyril's letters. A few months later, at the beginning of 449, writing to the emperor in response to a request for an exposition of his faith, Flavian said in similar vein: "Our views are orthodox and blameless, for we always conform to the divine Scriptures and the official statements of the holy fathers who met at Nicaea, and of those who met at Ephesus in the time of Cyril of blessed memory." The words "and in Constantinople", which occur in many MSS and which point to a creed of Constantinople, are rejected by historians of this school as an intrusion on the true text.

The evidence of the "Robber Synod" of Ephesus (449) points in exactly the same direction. Both the parties meeting there were apparently equally ignorant of C and equally united in their recognition of N as the sole authoritative formula. The emperor, in his official letter to the synod, made reference to "the orthodox faith set out by the holy fathers of Nicaea which the holy synod of Ephesus confirmed"; and Eutyches himself asserted that he had been exposed to many dangers because, in harmony with the resolutions adopted at the previous council at Ephesus, he had determined "not to think otherwise than in accordance with the faith expounded by the holy fathers". Apart from councils, however, the same reticence regarding the alleged ratification of C at Constantinople in 381 is reflected in the writings of theologians of all schools in the period under review. A detailed survey of the evidence would demand more space than can be spared at this point. It is noteworthy, however, that Nestorius, who was patriarch of Constantinople till 431 and was the first to introduce the creed into Christological controversy in his first letter to Pope Celestine, consistently spoke of “the faith of Nicaea". Although the text he used often diverged markedly from N in its purity, it did not coincide with C and it apparently never occurred to him that any other formulary was authoritative than that sanctioned by the 318 fathers. St. Cyril, too, was acquainted with only one valid and binding symbol, which he called the faith set forth by the fathers of Nicaea. He was indeed a stickler for its pure, unadulterated text, and on one occasion poured heavy scorn on Nestorius for suggesting that it contained the clause was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. In the West St. Leo made a number of references to the creed in handling the case of Eutyches. Sometimes he meant by it the Apostles' creed, but at other times he explicitly mentioned the faith or decisions of Nicaea. But nowhere did he betray the least knowledge of a Constantinopolitan formulary.

The fact is, Harnack once ventured to claim, there is not there is not the slightest trace in the period 381 - 451, whether in the official records of synods Eastern or Western, or in the writings of theologians orthodox or heterodox, of the existence of C, much less any hint of its being in the ekthesis sponsored by the fathers of Constantinople. It might be contended, of course, that this conspiracy of silence was merely the result of the fact that the council of Constantinople was not recognized as ecumenical until 451 at the earliest. There is force in this contention, for we know that only Eastern bishops were present at it, and in fact most of the delegates came exclusively from sees in Thrace, Asia Minor and Syria. Its decisions were repudiated from the start in the West and by Church leaders in Egypt. Nevertheless, for all its unpopularity in certain quarters, the work of the council was not entirely overlooked, as the preservation of its canons and the allusions of Church historians show. Moreover, the obscurity in which C is wrapped extends not only to the West and to Egypt, where it is perhaps explicable, but to the East as well, and even to Constantinople itself.”⁹

¹ "Intending to exclude all heresies that imperiled ecclesiastical unity, the Fathers of the council drafted the so-called tome, a kind of dogmatic treatise, towards the end of the synod. It is not, however, known in the original, which is lost, but only thanks to the epistula synodica, which was sent to the bishops of the West one year later (382)." (Trinity and Incarnation; The Faith of the Early Church, Basil Studer, p. 158)

² “Let this suffice for a summary of the doctrine which is fearlessly and frankly preached by us, and concerning which you will be able to be still further satisfied if you will deign to read the tome of the synod of Antioch, and also that tome issued last year by the Ecumenical Council held at Constantinople, in which we have set forth our confession of the faith at greater length, and have appended an anathema against the heresies which innovators have recently inscribed.”

³ “We do not know when C was compiled, but it seems likely that it was composed after the departure of Gregory, because (as we shall see) he probably disapproved of it. A letter expressing in the most flowery and polite terms a firm refusal of what the recipients wanted was sent in the next year, 382, from a council of Constantinople to Damasus, Ambrose, Acholius, Anemius (of Sirmium) and several other bishops in the West who after a council held in Rome in that year had invited the Easterners to attend a council, which would be ecumenical, in Rome. And this letter from Constantinople not only sets out the doctrine of the Trinity in the most uncompromising terms, including the Spirit explicitly in the Godhead, but also refers to:

‘the treatise which was produced in Antioch by the synod which took place there ... and the treatise put forth recently in Constantinople by the ecumenical synod’.

The council held in Antioch can only be that of 379, the treatise set forth recently in Constantinople must be something produced by the council of 381. The word treatise (tomos) is not a usual word to employ to describe a creed (even if we grant that the council would have allowed that a creed had been produced). This is why most of those who have studied the subject believe that some expression of doctrine long enough to be called a tomos was produced by the Constantinople council of 381, even though it has not come down to us.” (The Search For the Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 811-812, R. C. P. Hanson)

(See also, Norman P. Tanner: "But the council of Constantinople was criticized and censured by Gregory of Nazianzus. In subsequent years it was hardly ever mentioned." (Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, First Council of Constantinople))

⁴ “Gregory Nazianzen, who was in attendance, in his comprehensive letter on the rule of faith written soon after its close, mentions only the Nicene Creed, and is silent as to its expansion or the drawing up of a new creed, besides which he expressly remarks that the Nicene Creed is inadequate as to the Holy Ghost, which would have been quite impossible if the council had just completed it in that regard.” (The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. III, p. 258)

⁵ “Almost no authors during those seventy years make any allusion to it nor quote a line from it. So entire is the absence of reference to this creed until it was produced at the Council of Chalcedon (rather to the surprise of many of the participants) that a theory was widely believed that it was not produced at the council of 381 but originated in some other way, perhaps as the baptismal creed of the capital city, or of some famous city like Jerusalem, and came to be regarded by the clergy of Constantinople as that which the council of 381 had put forth. In fact, till Kelly produced his Early Christian Creeds, this was almost the accepted solution. It did indeed explain why the creed was apparently so little known in the period between the two councils." (The Search For the Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 812-813, R. C. P. Hanson)

⁶ "Having thus proclaimed both the authority of the Nicene Creed and its correct interpretation by Cyril and the other approved Fathers, the council of 431 then proceeded to pass what has become known as canon 7 of Ephesus. 'The holy council laid down that no one is allowed to produce or write or compose another creed beside the one laid down with the aid of the Holy Spirit by the holy fathers who assembled at Nicaea' (quoted in Acts of Chalcedon 1.943). By Nicaea the bishops in 431 meant the creed of 325, for there is no mention of the Council of Constantinople in 381 or its creed in the Acts of Ephesus I or in the writings of Cyril, and this canon was to exert an important influence on subsequent debates. The Formula of Reunion in 433 that reconciled Cyril with the Antiochene supporters of Nestorius led by John of Antioch recognized that the Nicene Creed still required further clarification, as had the council of 381 and Cyril in his Third Letter to Nestorius. But the Formula made no claim to replace Nicaea. 'We must state briefly (not by way of addition but in the form of giving an assurance) what we have held from the first, having received it both from the divine scriptures and from the tradition of the holy Fathers, making no addition at all to the creed issued by the holy fathers at Nicaea. For, as we have just said, it is sufficient both for a complete knowledge of orthodoxy and for the exclusion of all heretical error' (The Formula of Reunion, quoted in Cyril's Letter to John of Antioch, in Acts of Chalcedon 1.246).” (Chalcedon in Context, The Definition of Christian Tradition, pp. 12-13, David Gwynn)

⁷ JD Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova Amplissima Collectio, Vol IV, p. 1342-1343

⁸ Ivan N. Ostroumov notes:

“In answer to Julian, Mark noticed that Charisius' confession faith, though not condemned by the council by reason of its orthodoxy, was neither received as a creed of the Ecumenical Church, on account of its differing from the Nicene Creed, in many expressions. The Fathers found that Charisius' Creed was only an orthodox confession of a private individual’s faith. And the Church, continued Mark, never forbade any one to confess his faith in different expressions, as long as his confession was orthodox, and not given out as a confession of faith for the whole Church. It is well known that, at many of the subsequent Councils, many of the members couched their confession of faith in whatever expressions they chose. Thus, the Pope Agatho, and Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, expressed their confession of faith in the Epistles read and approved by the sixth Ecumenical Council. The same is to be seen from those Synodal Epistles which every newly-ordained Bishop sends to the Church representatives in the East as a proof of his orthodoxy. This, then, is the reason why the Council did not condemn Charisius' creed, notwithstanding its slight difference from the Nicene Creed. But every newly composed creed, even though orthodox, would have been condemned by the Council if it had been used instead of the Nicene Creed for the teaching of catechumens at their Baptism, or generally speaking, during Church service. And this is easily seen from the circumstance, that the holy Council of Ephesus, after condemning the Nestorian Creed, plainly and decisively prohibited the introduction of an creed, however, orthodox, different to that of Nicaea; and this was done to preserved the Nicene Creed from an interpolations or changes.” (The History of the Council of Florence, translated from the Russian by Basil Popoff, pp. 82-83)

⁹ Early Christian Creeds, pp. 307-310