THE
ANATHEMAS OF THE
SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
533 A.D.
by
Second Council of Constantinople
533 A.D.
ON DOCTRINE COMMENT
The document came about as a clarification of the Definition of Chalcedon, 451 A.D., and is an
attempt to clarify the two natures of Jesus Christ, God and human, in relation to their unity. The
attempt to so carefully maintain doctrinal purity, as to the nature of Jesus Christ, is foolishly
ignored in relation to His mother, Mary, when she is referred to as the "ever-virgin Mary", a
concept refuted by the Scripture that the ecclesiasticals claimed to defend. What is so interesting
about this document is that it does not affirm a positive statement of belief, but establishes belief
from a negative standpoint directed toward those who would oppose the statement. It establishes
the beliefs expressed through means of a fiat imposed by the ecclesistical leadership. In addition,
the council presumes to speak the mind of God in relation to the curses expressed, indicating that
it had the authority to declare and establish in heaven the judgments that it pronounced on earth,
such judgments only being the privilege of God. It is one thing to speak against heresy or reveal
heretical teachings, but it is quite another to presume that any council has the authority to
condemn a person to hell. Regardless of the apparent good intentions of the framers, in relation to
the heresies that they were opposing, the document presumes authority that they did not have
from God, but that they would still exercise under their own power, thus opening the way for men
to assume political authority over religious issues through ecclesiastical leadership.
THE ANATHEMAS OF THE SECOND COUNCIL OF
CONSTANTINOPLE
(553 AD)
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If anyone does not confess that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one nature or
essence, one power or authority, worshipped as a trinity of the same essence, one deity in three
hypostases or persons, let him be anathema. For there is one God and Father, of whom are all
things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit, in
whom are all things.
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If anyone does not confess that God the Word was twice begotten, the first before all time from
the Father, non- temporal and bodiless, the other in the last days when he came down from the
heavens and was incarnate by the holy, glorious, God-bearer, ever-virgin Mary, and born of her,
let him be anathema.
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If anyone says that God the Word who performed miracles is one and Christ who suffered is
another, or says that God the Word was together with Christ who came from woman, or that the
Word was in him as one person is in another, but is not one and the same, our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Word of God, incarnate and become human, and that the wonders and the suffering which he
voluntarily endured in flesh were not of the same person, let him be anathema.
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If anyone says that the union of the Word of God with man was only according to grace or
function or dignity or equality of honor or authority or relation or effect or power or according to
his good pleasure, as though God the Word was pleased with man, or approved of him, as the
raving Theodosius says; or that the union exists according to similarity of name, by which the
Nestorians call God the Word Jesus and Christ, designating the man separately as Christ and as
Son, speaking thus clearly of two persons, but when it comes to his honor, dignity, and worship,
pretend to say that there is one person, one Son and one Christ, by a single designation; and if he
does not acknowledge, as the holy Fathers have taught, that the union of God is made with the
flesh animated by a reasonable and intelligent soul, and that such union is according to synthesis
or hypostasis, and that therefore there is only one person, the Lord Jesus Christ one of the holy
Trinity -- let him be anathema. As the word "union" has many meanings, the followers of the
impiety of Apollinaris and Eutyches, assuming the disappearance of the natures, affirm a union by
confusion. On the other hand the followers of Theodore and of Nestorius rejoicing in the division
of the natures, introduce only a union of relation. But the holy Church of God, rejecting equally
the impiety of both heresies, recognizes the union of God the Word with the flesh according to
synthesis, that is according to hypostasis. For in the mystery of Christ the union according to
synthesis preserves the two natures which have combined without confusion and without
separation.
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If anyone understands the expression, one hypostasis of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that it means
the union of many hypostases, and if he attempts thus to introduce into the mystery of Christ two
hypostases, or two persons, and, after having introduced two persons, speaks of one person
according to dignity, honor or worship, as Theodore and Nestorius insanely have written; and if
anyone slanders the holy synod of Chalcedon, as though it had used this expression in this impious
sense, and does not confess that the Word of God is united with the flesh hypostatically, and that
therefore there is but one hypostasis or one person, and that the holy synod of Chalcedon has
professed in this sense the one hypostasis of our Lord Jesus Christ; let him be anathema. For the
Holy Trinity, when God the Word was incarnate, was not increased by the addition of a person or
hypostasis.
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If anyone says that the holy, glorious, and ever-virgin Mary is called God-bearer by misuse of
language and not truly, or by analogy, believing that only a mere man was born of her and that
God the Word was not incarnate of her, but that the incarnation of God the Word resulted only
from the fact that he united himself to that man who was born of her; if anyone slanders the Holy
Synod of Chalcedon as though it had asserted the Virgin to be God-bearer according to the
impious sense of Theodore; or if anyone shall call her manbearer or Christbearer, as if Christ were
not God, and shall not confess that she is truly God-bearer, because God the Word who before all
time was begotten of the Father was in these last days incarnate of her, and if anyone shall not
confess that in this pious sense the holy Synod of Chalcedon confessed her to be God-bearer: let
him be anathema.
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If anyone using the expression, "in two natures," does not confess that our one Lord Jesus Christ
is made known in the deity and in the manhood, in order to indicate by that expression a
difference of the natures of which the ineffable union took place without confusion, a union in
which neither the nature of the Word has changed into that of the flesh, nor that of the flesh into
that of the Word (for each remained what it was by nature, even when the union by hypostasis had
taken place); but shall take the expression with regard to the mystery of Christ in a sense so as to
divide the parties, let him be anathema. Or if anyone recognizing the number of natures in the
same our one Lord Jesus Christ, God the Word incarnate, does not take in contemplation only the
difference of the natures which compose him, which difference is not destroyed by the union
between them, for one is composed of the two and the two are in one, but shall make use of the
number two to divide the natures or to make of them persons properly so called, let him be
anathema.
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If anyone confesses that the union took place out of two natures or speaks of the one incarnate
nature of God the Word and does not understand those expressions as the holy Fathers have
taught, that out of the divine and human natures, when union by hypostasis took place, one Christ
was formed; but from these expressions tries to introduce one nature or essence of the Godhead
and manhood of Christ; let him be anathema. For in saying that the only-begotten Word was
united by hypostasis personally we do not mean that there was a mutual confusion of natures, but
rather we understand that the Word was united to the flesh, each nature remaining what it was.
Therefore there is one Christ, God and man, of the same essence with the Father as touching his
Godhead, and of the same essence with us as touching his manhood. Therefore the Church of
God equally rejects and anathematizes those who divide or cut apart or who introduce confusion
into the mystery of the divine dispensation of Christ.
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If anyone says that Christ ought to be worshipped in his two natures, in the sense that he
introduces two adorations, the one peculiar to God the Word and the other peculiar to the man;
or if anyone by destroying the flesh, or by confusing the Godhead and the humanity, or by
contriving one nature or essence of those which were united and so worships Christ, and does not
with one adoration worship God the Word incarnate with his own flesh, as the Church of God has
received from the beginning; let him be anathema.
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If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified in the flesh is true God
and the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy Trinity; let him be anathema.
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If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches
and Origen, together with their impious, godless writings, and all the other heretics already
condemned and anathematized by the holy catholic and apostolic Church, and by the
aforementioned four Holy Synods and all those who have held and hold or who in their
godlessness persist in holding to the end the same opinion as those heretics just mentioned; let him
be anathema.
END OF ARTICLE
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