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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival
THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS Resources Online and in Print
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31 Pages
Page 22
Those who deny that the XV. Anathemas were adopted by the Fifth Synod agree in assigning them to the "Home Synod," that is a Synod at Constantinople of the bishops subject to it, in a.d. 543. Hefele takes this view and advocates it with much cogency, but confesses frankly, "We certainly possess no strong and decisive proof that the fifteen anathematisms belong to the Constantinopolitan synod of the year 543; but some probable grounds for the opinion may be adduced." [313] This appears to be a somewhat weak statement with which to overthrow so much evidence as there can be produced for the opposite view. For the traditional view the English reader will find a complete defence in E. B. Pusey, What is of Faith with regard to Eternal Punishment?
Before closing it will be well to call the attention of the reader to these words now found in the acts as we have them:
"And we found that many others had been anathematised after death, also even Origen; and if any one were to go back to the times of Theophilus of blessed memory or further he would have found him anathematised after death; which also now your holiness and Vigilius, the most religious Pope of Old Rome has done in his case." [314] It would seem that this cannot possibly refer to anything else than a condemnation of Origen by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod, and so strongly is Vincenzi, Origen's defender, impressed with this that he declares the passage to have been tampered with. But even if these anathemas were adopted at the Home Synod before the meeting of the Fifth Ecumenical, it is clear that by including his name among those of the heretics in the XI^th Canon, it practically ratified and made its own the action of that Synod.
The reader will be glad to know Harnack's judgment in this matter. Writing of the Fifth Council, he says: "It condemned Origen, as Justinian desired; it condemned the Three Chapters and consequently the Antiochene theology, as Justinian desired," etc., and in a foot-note he explains that he agrees with "Noris, the Ballerini, Möller (R. Encykl., xi., p. 113) and Loofs (pp. 287, 291) as against Hefele and Vincenzi." [315] A few pages before, he speaks of this last author's book as "a big work which falsifies history to justify the theses of Halloix, to rehabilitate Origen and Vigilius, and on the other hand to remodel' the Council and partly to bring it into contempt." [316] Further on he says: "The fifteen anathemas against Origen, on which his condemnation at the council was based, contained the following points....Since the Three Chapters' were condemned at the same time, Origen and Theodore were both got rid of....Origen's doctrines of the consummation, and of spirits and matter might no longer be maintained. The judgment was restored to its place, and got back even its literal meaning." [317]
[313] Hefele. Hist. Councils, Vol. IV., p. 223.
[314] Speech of Ascidas in the V. Session.
[315] Harnack. Hist. of Dogma, Vol. IV., n. 249 (Eng. Trans.).
[316] Ibid., p. 245, note 2.
[317] Ibid., p. 349.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/fifth.asp?pg=22
