II. THE SESSIONS
The Council of Nicaea thus became that of C. It was the most important Ecumenical Council of the patristic period, both because of the number of bishops who participated in it and because of the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions taken there. Its acts are preserved almost in their entirety in various collections. The bishops present, all Eastern, except for the papal legates and two fugitive Africans, Aurelio of Adrumeto and Rusticiano, numbered at least 500; and, counting the representatives of absent bishops, we may, as historians commonly do, raise the number to 630. Not all of them, however, remained until the end. Indeed, the Greek acts, which record 452 signatures for the dogmatic decree on the Incarnation promulgated at the 6th session (25 Oct.), record barely 185 for the final session (1 Nov.), at which the 28th canon was approved.Historians also differ regarding the number and division of the sessions. Some count 15, others 16. The Greek acts give us 17. The Ballarini brothers, editors of the works of St. Leo, after careful investigation, calculate 21 sessions distributed over 12 days. These divergences are of little importance, since the major collections are essentially the same. All the sessions took place in the basilica of the martyr St. Euphemia of C. The first was held on 8 Oct. 451. The emperor was unable to attend, but was represented by an imposing delegation of 19 commissioners, who directed the discussions without evidently taking part in the vote. The Roman legates occupied the first place among the bishops, with the exception of Giuliano of Cos. From the beginning of the session they wished to expel Dioscorus, but the imperial commissioners made them understand that a regular trial was necessary. The reading therefore began of the many documents that constituted the dossier of the Robber Council of Ephesus. The reading was interrupted by various incidents revealing the passionate spirit of the assembly. Flavian was immediately recognized as orthodox; the deposition of Dioscorus was postponed until the 3rd session (13 Oct.), which the imperial commissioners did not attend; his principal accomplices were pardoned, among them Juvenal of Jerusalem and Thalassius of Caesarea.
From the 2nd session (10 Oct.), the dogmatic question was taken up. The Roman legates and the majority of the Council did not want new definitions of faith, considering the documents already canonized by previous councils and the Tome of Leo sufficient for the dogmatic exposition. But the imperial commissioners insisted on a new formula. In the end, their wishes were satisfied. A first formula, drawn up by a private commission presided over by Anatolius of Constantinople, was examined at the 5th session (22 Oct.). It received the approval of the majority, but the Roman legates and the Antiochene Easterners rejected it as ambiguous. It was therefore necessary to draw up another with the participation of the legates, on pain of transferring the Council to the West. Such, in fact, had been the emperor’s decision, since he was absolutely intent on a sufficiently clear definition to eliminate every subterfuge. Through the collaboration of representatives of the two terminologies—the Roman, the Eastern, and the Cyrillian—the desired formula was reached, the one that was approved by all and solemnly promulgated at the 6th session (25 Oct.), which the emperor attended and at which he addressed the Fathers in Latin. More than 600 signatures of present bishops or their delegates were appended to the celebrated document.
After this act, the principal task of the Council, for which the Pope had sent his legates, was completed. The sessions that followed, through 1 Nov. inclusive, were reserved for settling matters concerning the Easterners. A collection of 27 canons was probably drawn up at the 7th session; others say at the 15th. The famous 28th canon on the privileges of the see of Constantinople did not appear until 31 Oct. (the 15th or 16th session, at which neither the imperial commissioners nor the Roman legates took part). The discussions on this canon, condemned by the legates, were the subject of the final session (1 Nov.).
Before taking their leave, the bishops still present addressed a letter of homage to the Pope, calling him their father, their head, and their teacher, and asking in particular for confirmation of the 28th canon, which had been rejected by the legates. In a series of sessions, between 25 and 30 Oct., the cases of Dioscorus’s victims were settled: Ibas of Edessa, Theodoret of Cyrus, John of Antioch, etc. At the session of 26 Oct., Juvenal of Jerusalem, who was deeply compromised in the “Robber Council of Ephesus,” was fortunate enough to obtain the autonomy of his see with respect to the patriarchate of Antioch and jurisdiction over the three Palestines with their respective metropolises: Caesarea, Scythopolis, and Petra—thus giving rise to a new patriarchate.
III. PRINCIPAL DECISIONS
The most important decision of the Council was certainly the dogmatic definition concerning the mystery of the Incarnation, whose elaboration was so arduous and which the imperial commissioners finally wrested from the majority of the bishops.The principal passage is the following: «The Council anathematizes those who have invented this story, that before the union there were two natures (δύο φύσεις), in the Lord, but that after the union there is no longer but one. With the Fathers, we all unanimously teach one and the same Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, complete also in His humanity; the same truly God and truly man, composed of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father in His divinity, consubstantial with us in His humanity; in all things like us except sin; begotten by the Father before all ages as to His divinity, and the same, in these last times, born for our salvation from the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, according to His humanity. We acknowledge one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten in two natures (ἐν δύο φύσεις), united without confusion, without transformation, without division, without separation, since the difference of the natures is in no way abolished by their union; on the contrary, each of them retains what is proper to it, uniting with the other to form one person and one hypostasis. For we do not confess one Son divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten, who is the God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ» (Mansi, VII, 116).
What matters most in this formula is the clear distinction made between the word φύσεις and the word ὑπόστασις, as they relate to the mystery of the Incarnation. The term φύσεις indicates concrete and individual nature, considered in itself, as essence, οὐσία, independently of its supposit or person. The term ὑπόστασις is taken as a synonym of πρόσωπον, but of a concrete, physical πρόσωπον, and signifies the person, the subject of attribution, the I. This I, this hypostasis, this person is identified with the I, the hypostasis, the person of God the Word, the Only-begotten Son of the Father, begotten by Him before all ages, who became perfect man for us in time. Thus, against the Nestorian heresy, the intimate unity of Christ, Man-God, is clearly affirmed.
With this terminology, the formula “two φύσεις before the union; one φύσις after the union” becomes untenable and inconceivable. St. Cyril, by saying, after pseudo-Athanasius, “one incarnate φύσις of the Word of God,” gave the word φύσις the sense of a concrete subject, that is, of hypostasis and person. Proclus of Constantinople, in his Tome to the Armenians, fortunately replaced the word φύσις in the Cyrillian formula with the term ὑπόστασις. This manner of expression is precisely consecrated by the definition of C. It says that Christ is, subsists in two natures (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν), and not that He is of two natures (ἐκ δύο φύσεων), as Dioscorus wished, because this formula, which appealed to the majority of the Fathers and was rejected by the legates, was equivocal and tended to restore the one φύσις after the union. Impressed by the interminable and sad disputes that followed the Council, some historians unhesitatingly say that this definition was a mistake (cf. L. Duchesne, Histoire ancienne de l'Eglise, III, Paris 1910, pp. 457–58). They fail, in fact, to reflect that, if the Council had been less explicit and had been content to approve Leo’s tome, the Eutychians would certainly have been completely refuted, but the faithful followers of Nestorius would have taken refuge without difficulty behind the papal document, while the Egyptians, exclusivist disciples of Cyril, would likewise have remained dissatisfied. If they had adhered to the formula: ex duobus naturis (ἐκ δύο φύσεων), the Cyrillians would probably have been satisfied; but this formula could have encompassed every form of Monophysitism, even the crudest, and would certainly have provoked discontent among the Antiochenes, thereby displeasing the Westerners as well. Let it also be considered that, by clearly distinguishing φύσις from ὑπόστασις or πρόσωπον in the theology of the Incarnation, the Council established uniformity of terminology with regard to the two great mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation: in God, one nature and three hypostases or persons; in Jesus Christ, two natures and one hypostasis or person.
On the whole, the history of the Council of C. greatly underscores the Roman primacy by divine right. There are many passages in the acts of the Council in which this primacy is clearly asserted both by the Fathers and by the Roman legates and by Pope St. Leo. But in the famous 28th canon, which the Pope refused to approve, there is a passage which, taken literally, destroys this primacy from its foundations. For it says: «The Fathers rightly attributed the primacy (τὰ πρεσβεῖα) to the see of ancient Rome, because this city was the capital of the empire» (Mansi, VII, 369).
On the meaning and importance of this crude and genuine official falsehood, invented for the needs of the case, V. COSTANTINOPOLI, PATRIARCATO di. The same Fathers who approved this text wrote to Pope Leo a humble supplication, asking him to approve and confirm their decree through his authority, saluting in him the interpreter «of the voice of Peter, he who received from the Savior the custody of his vineyard», that is, of the whole Church; the «Head of whom they are the members», the Father of whom they are the sons: PL 54, 951 ff. Anatolius, bishop of Constantinople, one of the principal parties interested in this affair, declared to the Pope: «The see of Constantinople has your Apostolic see as its father» (Epist. ad Leonem Papam, 4: PL 54, 984 A).
Moreover, at the 3rd session, all the Fathers explicitly approved the sentence of Dioscorus’s deposition, pronounced by the legate Paschasinus, in which the divine origin of the Roman primacy is openly indicated: «Leo, through us and this holy Council, in union with the blessed Apostle Peter, who is the cornerstone of the Catholic Church and the foundation of the orthodox faith, has deprived him of the episcopate and of every priestly dignity» (Mansi, VI, 1047). The Eastern dissi-
dents who even today appeal to the 28th canon in order to deny the divine origin of the primacy of Rome abstract from this historical context and adhere to the literal text. It is understandable why St. Leo refused to approve it and wrote to the emperor Marcian: «The nature of human things is one, that of divine things another; and no building will be stable without the stone that the Lord has placed» (Epist. 104 ad Marcianum, 3: PL 54, 993–95).
The bibliography on the Council of C. is immense but rather antiquated. Vedi that of Hefele-Leclercq, II, pp. 649-51; Fliche-Martin-Frutz, IV, pp. 208-37. A few recent works may be noted: P. Batiffol, Le Siège Apostolique de s. Damate à s. Léon le Grand, Parigi 1920; id., Léon I, in DThC, IX, coll. 216-301 (with bibl.); E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, I, Tubinga 1930, pp. 314 sgg.; J. Harapin, Primatus Pontificis romani in Concilio chalcedonensi et Ecclesiae dissidentes, Quaracchi 1933. On the dogmatic definition of the Council, vedi dogma, especially that of J. Tixeront, Histoire des dogmes, III, Parigi 1912, p. 89 sg.; J. Bois, Chalcédoine, Concile de, in DThC, II, coll. 2190-2208; M. Jugie, Nestorius et le tome de s. Léon. Nestorius et la définition de Chalcédoine, notes in the work: Nestorius et la controverse nestorienne, Parigi 1912, pp. 307-12.