"It is the foundation of Christian faith. On its words rests the very existence of the church and the hope of salvation for believers throughout the ages. Many consider it the only dependable and abiding revelation of God to humanity. Yet the New Testament, in many ways, is a mysterious and enigmatic collection of writings --- one that has entranced enthralled and perplexed scholars and theologians for nearly 2000 years.
It is often called "The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ". But Jesus didn't write a word of it. And while some of the writings bear the names of some who walked with Him on the dusty roads of Judea, centuries of scholarship have turned up little convincing evidence that his 12 closest disciples did much writing either.
Who, then, wrote the 27 books that make up the traditional New Testament canon? Could they have been written by contemporaries of Jesus? Are they close to their original form? Or were they revised by early church leaders to reflect changing views of who Jesus was, to address the problems of a growing church or even to advance political agendas?
The Bible was not handed to mankind by God, nor was it dictated to human stenographers by God. It has nothing to do with God. In actuality, the Bible was VOTED to be the word of God by a group of men during the 4th century.
According to Professor John Crossan of Biblical Studies at DePaul University the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (274-337 CE), who was the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity, needed a single canon to be agreed upon by the Christian leaders to help him unify the remains of the Roman Empire. Until this time the various Christian leaders could not decide which books would be considered "holy" and thus "the word of God" and which ones would be excluded and not considered the word of God.
Emperor Constantine, who was Roman Emperor from 306 CE until his death in 337 CE, used what motivates many to action - MONEY! He offered the various Church leaders money to agree upon a single canon that would be used by all Christians as the word of God. In 313, Emperor Constantine and his co-emperor Lucinius sent a series of rather flowery letters to their governors, in which they said it was "salutory and most proper" that "complete toleration" be given to anyone who has "given up his mind to the cult of the Christians" or any other cult which "he personally feels best for himself." The Edict of Milan, as this series of letters were called, had the effect of legalizing Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. The question history has never adequately answered is why the Edict of Milan was issued in the first place, but it was probably due to the growing political power of the Christians of various stripes. Constantine's own wife was a convert (if not born into the church, we don't know for sure), and this may have been a contributing factor.
Emperor Constantine was a deeply superstitious man, but also a consummate politician. He was a practitioner of several religions, trying to keep his bases covered, even after his 'conversion.' He was arbitrary and capricious. He sent prisoners of war to the lions, committed wholesale acts of genocide in his campaigns in North Africa, and was known for his overbearing, egotistical, ruthless and self-righteous behavior. His nephew Julian said that his appearance was strange, with stiff garments of Eastern fashion, jewelry on his arms and it was all set off by a tiara perched on a dyed wig. Constantine apparently viewed Christianity as just one of the many cults of his realm, and he seemed to practice them all, apparently with roughly the same depth of commitment. He wasn't actually baptized until he was on his death bed.
Emperor Constantine, for all his strangeness, was nothing if not a good politician. He understood well the fact that the Christians were becoming so numerous as to represent a considerable political threat should they get their act together and become organized. In 312, a year before the Edict of Milan, he fought the battle of Milvan Bridge, against a rival claimant to the emperor's throne. Among his soldiers were many, if not a majority of Christians and they were already carrying on their swords and shields the Christian Chi-Rho sign. Well, to hear the stories, the heavens opened up, and the Emperor had a great vision. And he was granted victory in his battle. More likely, he simply looked out on all his soldiers with the power they represented, with so many of them bearing the Chi-Rho symbol, and he saw the light.
Unfortunately, we don't know what exactly happened at Milvan Bridge, because the dear Emperor kept changing his story and telling different versions of the events to different people. At least six different, contradictory versions have survived from different people who claimed to have heard it from the emperor himself. As he kept telling these conflicting stories, he still apparently remained personally converted to the Mithraic sun-cult common in the Empire at the time. As a monument to his victory at Milvan, some years later, he raised a triumphal arch, which survives to this day. It bears on it a testimony to the "Unconquered Sun" (a reference to Mithra) and referred to Jesus Christ "driving his [the sun's] chariot across the sky." He commanded the Christians to hold their services on Sun-day.
Constantine became the sole Roman emperor in 324 and convened the First Council of Nicea the following year. His commandment to the bishops: Get your act together and quit squabbling. Come up with a consistent doctrine that would be universal, i.e. catholic - note the small "c", and could be understood and practiced by all. In the landmark work by H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, Vol. I, pages 462-463, we read, "It (the Council of Nicaea) marks the definite entry upon the stage of human affairs of the Christian Church and of Christianity as it is generally understood in the world to-day. It marks the exact definition of Christian teaching by the Nicene Creed."
Of course, the bishops complied. Rather than risk Imperial disfavor, they all met at Nicea, squabbled, squabbled some more, hammered out a few common doctrines (mostly with regard to the creation and the nature of the universe, and the first version of the Apostolic Creed), declared themselves in agreement on it, and departed totally unconverted to each other's views. However, it seems the real approving editor of the Bible was not God but Constantine! "Therefore, one can easily argue that the first Christian Bible was commissioned, paid for, inspected and approved by a pagan emperor for church use."
The emperor who himself was totally ignorant of the issues, hearing that his bishops had finally agreed on a common doctrine, was pleased. The bishops were certainly pleased to hear that the emperor was pleased. And then they went about preaching the same old contentious doctrines as before.
Argument and dissension continued for the next six decades with various factions finding themselves in and then out of Imperial favor at various times. Athanasius, the actual author of the original version of the Apostolic Creed, found himself exiled and 'rehabilitated' on no fewer than six occasions. It was eventually Imperial politics and the wealth of the Roman bishopric, which it shared with the smaller congregations along with instructions for its use, more than theology, that finally governed the form that Christian doctrine would take, as various bishops found themselves in and out of imperial favor at various times. By 430, the council of Nicea had become an ongoing affair, designed to stamp out "heresies," and create a formal, universal, i.e. catholic church organization, organized in a manner similar to the political structure of the Roman Empire itself.
The Council of Nicea became, in essence, the enforcer of the official, politically compatible view of how things ought to be. This is why the Catholic Church today resembles in its government the government of the Roman Empire of the period. The headquarters of the church was eventually established at Rome, and the head of the church became known as the Pope. New basilicas dotted the landscape, all built with the blessing of the Emperor, and all aligned to the new, imperially blessed, church headquarters in Rome. Constantine sent expeditions off to Palestine to "find" and build basilicas over the sacred sites of the church's early history, and return with faith-promoting "relics" which of course they were happy to "acquire," or more accurately, produce. The newly established headquarters in Rome set about persecuting the Gnostics (crucifying many of them and sending many others to the lions), and suppressing the Marionite heresy.
In order to popularize the church with the masses, the doctrinal emphasis was changed significantly. These changes were reflected in the art of the Christian church. When early, pre-Constantine Roman Christians met secretly in Rome, the art they produced reflected the pastoral nature of Jesus' teachings. Scenes of Jesus feeding the multitudes, blessing the children, and healing the sick were the themes in the art of that period. After the conversion of Constantine, the character of the art suddenly and dramatically changed to reflect the change in doctrinal emphasis. Gone are the sweet, pastoral scenes of a meek Jesus patiently ministering to his followers. Instead, images of the crucifixion and the scourging of Jesus in the court of Pilate become common. This was to help the suffering masses identify with Jesus who was said to have suffered on their behalf. The church had became a political instrument -- be patient with your suffering under Roman rule, the masses were told, and a better life for you is prepared for you if you believe in Jesus the Savior. The emperor may not provide good living in this life, but Jesus would in the next.
It is at this time that the Chi Rho and the symbol of the fish, representing the miraculous nature of Jesus' message (at least as formulated by the gospel writers), is replaced by the cross, at the time a symbol of death and suffering, as the principal emblem of Christianity. The political message of the new symbol couldn't have been clearer at the time. Join up and Jesus will relieve your suffering in the next world even if the Emperor doesn't in this. Fail to join, and you're on your own, politically as well as spiritually.
In the midst of all this intellectual turmoil in the church, Constantine gave to Eusebius, the bishop of Caesaria (a Roman port on the coast of modern Israel), a little assignment. Put together some scriptures for the emperor to present to the new churches he was constructing at his new capital of Constantinople in time for his new festival of the resurrection, to be called "Easter." Fifty copies, please.
Eusebius, one of the most notorious historical revisionists of ancient times, thoughtfully complied. We do not know which books of the hundreds available that he supplied the emperor, nor how much he revised them (since many are not known from texts earlier than Eusebius), but we do know that Eusebius realized that it was only a matter of time before the "inspired oracles" as he called them, would have to be gathered together for Christians to study in common worldwide in the form of a scriptural library, a bible. We also know that Eusebius was deeply worried about the contradictions they all contained and the political dynamite that could ensue should those contradictions become a matter of dispute among the masses, or, far worse, in the mind of the Emperor. We know that Eusebius did, in fact, do some modifications of the works he was concerned about, as we have a few earlier texts with which to compare his work. As correlation and standardization were the orders of the day (under the less-than-gentle hand of the Council of Nicea), Eusebius could clearly see a very Imperial problem was brewing, and was determined to head it off if he could.
Everyone had their list of favorite books and letters; the various factions, with headquarters in Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Caesaria, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Carthage all had their own ideas as to what was or should be scripture. And they certainly didn't agree, in spite of the heavy hand of the Council of Nicea. Eventually, after the split with Rome, the compilation of Eusebius was to become the standard bible of the Eastern church.
We're not quite sure how the task of compiling and translating a bible for the Roman, or Western church fell to Bishop Jerome of Dalmatia (340-420 C.E.), a few decades later, though imperial politics quite likely played a role. Jerome was highly educated and had devoted his life to the study and translation of scripture. He was a deeply devout adherent to the Roman faction, and the fact that the Roman church was wealthy and influential probably had something to do with his being the choice, since he had spent years in the cause of translating scripture into Latin and standardizing what are now New Testament texts for the benefit of the Roman church at the request of Damasus, the bishop of Rome. We can presume from the politics here that this certainly colored his choices.
Melito of Sardis, one of the disputants at that infamous Council of Rome of 140 C.E. that had spawned the Marcionite Church, had compiled a list of Hebrew scriptures that Jerome is known to have much admired. Yet Augustine, himself a rather nasty piece of work (the first known advocate of forced conversion and forced celibacy, among other things) intervened and convinced Jerome to include works on a list compiled by himself (Augustine), which was similar to one compiled by Athanasius, the author of the first Apostolic Creed. We don't know all the intrigues which convinced Jerome to accede, but some were almost certain to have been political, with Eusebius' earlier imperial commission among them. Jerome's choice of New Testament works was governed by his choices in the works he'd already translated and standardized for Damasus at Rome.
Jerome's compilation and translation into Latin became known as the Vulgate (popular [language]) Bible. It was to become the standard Bible of the Roman Catholic church till the sixteenth century. It is still available, published by the Catholic Church in the original Latin, and as the Douai Version, one of the numerous English translations of the Vulgate Bible to appear in the 16th century as noted below.
After the death of Constantine, subsequent emperors, including Constantine's son, attempted to stamp out the Christian cult, but under Constantine's rule, it had become too entrenched, and too powerful and popular to be suppressed. The power of the papacy increased with the decline of the Roman imperium as Roman rule was being challenged on all sides - the Vandals, arriving by sea from Scandinavia sacked Roman ports in the western Mediterranean, and the Huns, sweeping in from the northeast, undermined Roman power slowly but steadily and brutally. The previously peaceful, agrarian Goths, who had been displaced by the Huns and had asked for asylum from the Roman emperor, had been betrayed with enslavement and conscription in the Roman army instead of the food and land they had been promised, and quickly rose in revolt, turning on the Romans, adding to the pressure.
By the middle of the Fifth Century, the Huns threatened to sack Rome, but Roman military power had declined to the point where Pope Leo Magnus felt himself forced to intercede with Attila, the powerful Hun leader. Totally unarmed, dressed in his papal vestments, he met with Attila in what is now northern Italy and persuaded him that the power of God would strike him and his troops down if the sacking took place. Attila’s troops, never before exposed to malaria, had no immunity and had already begun to suffer. As they moved south into warmer weather, the malaria began to take its toll, and Attila apparently began to take the Pope's threat seriously. In the end, Attila was brought down by the humble mosquito, but it was God who got the credit, and the disgraced Roman emperors, impotent and cowardly in the face of the threat, kind of just skulked out of town and the pope scooted over into their seat. After themselves sacking Rome, the Goths assumed power in the provinces as the Christianized Visigoths until displaced by the rising Islamic caliphates in Spain and Constantinople, but it was the pope who remained the power in Rome.
The new political ruler of what was left of the Roman Empire, the pope, set about strengthening the church, converting the pagans and Christianizing Europe to consolidate his power and that of the church. The process, interrupted occasionally by various wars and rebellions, proceeded apace for the next two centuries, with the pope consolidating his power, authority and influence
While the Latin bible was widely available, Latin as a spoken, understood language eventually had died out among the peoples of what had been the Roman Empire. So, with that dying out, access to the bible by the common man died out as well, for bibles were available in Latin, but were not being translated into diverging local languages. The church exploited this situation by making the reading of the Bible by the common man a crime, at times even punishable by death. This law was intended to enhance the local power of the priesthood.
This fact greatly enhanced the power of the local clergy and the church hierarchy. Not only did they have the political power of Constantine's legacy behind them, they also now held the keys to the church in their hands, both figuratively and literally. They couldn't have been happier with that situation. They could often engage in acts of cruelty or corruption and not be called to account by an ignorant and often superstitious congregation. Nevertheless, there were occasional attempts made to get at least small portions of the scripture into the hands of the masses.
Compare the man-made origins of Christianity and its various dogmas to the simplicity of Deism. Deism is belief in God based only on reason and the creation itself. It makes no claim to false "revelations" as all of the "revealed" religions do. To Deists, proof of the Designer is in the design.
To quote Thomas Paine, "Were man impressed as fully and as strongly as he ought to be with the belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by the force of that belief; he would stand in awe of God and of himself, and would not do the thing that could not be concealed from either. To give this belief the full opportunity of force, it is necessary that it acts alone. This is Deism. But when, according to the Christian Trinitarian scheme, one part of God is represented by a dying man, and another part, called the Holy Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impossible that belief can attach itself to such wild conceits. . . .
"The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.
"Instead then of studying theology, as is now done out of the Bible and Testament, the meanings of which books are always controverted and the authenticity of which is disproved, it is necessary that we refer to the Bible of the Creation. The principles we discover there are eternal and of divine origin; they are the foundation of all the science that exists in the world, and must be the foundation of theology.
"We can know God only through His works. We cannot have a conception of any one attribute but by following some principle that leads to it. We have only a confused idea of His power, if we have not the means of comprehending something of its immensity. We can have no idea of His wisdom, but by knowing the order and manner in which it acts. The principles of science lead to this knowledge; for the Creator of man is the Creator of science, and it is through that medium that man can see God, as it were, face to face."
On May 12, 1797 while living in Paris, France Tom Paine wrote the following letter to a Christian friend who was trying to convert Paine to Christianity. Paine's response fits perfectly with this page regarding the origins of the Bible.
"In your letter of the twentieth of March, you give me several quotations from the Bible, which you call the Word of God, to show me that my opinions on religion are wrong, and I could give you as many, from the same book to show that yours are not right; consequently, then, the Bible decides nothing, because it decides any way, and every way, one chooses to make it.
"But by what authority do you call the Bible the Word of God? for this is the first point to be settled. It is not your calling it so that makes it so, any more than the Mahometans calling the Koran the Word of God makes the Koran to be so. The Popish Councils of Nice and Laodicea, about 350 years after the time the person called Jesus Christ is said to have lived, voted the books that now compose what is called the New Testament to be the Word of God. This was done by yeas and nays, as we now vote a law.
"The Pharisees of the second temple, after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, did the same by the books that now compose the Old Testament, and this is all the authority there is, which to me is no authority at all. I am as capable of judging for myself as they were, and I think more so, because, as they made a living by their religion, they had a self-interest in the vote they gave.
"You may have an opinion that a man is inspired, but you cannot prove it, nor can you have any proof of it yourself, because you cannot see into his mind in order to know how he comes by his thoughts; and the same is the case with the word revelation. There can be no evidence of such a thing, for you can no more prove revelation than you can prove what another man dreams of, neither can he prove it himself.
"It is often said in the Bible that God spoke unto Moses, but how do you know that God spoke unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spoke unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No.
"Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?
"For my own part, I believe that all are impostors who pretend to hold verbal communication with the Deity. It is the way by which the world has been imposed upon; but if you think otherwise you have the same right to your opinion that I have to mine, and must answer for it in the same manner. But all this does not settle the point, whether the Bible be the Word of God, or not. It is therefore necessary to go a step further. The case then is: -
"You form your opinion of God from the account given of Him in the Bible; and I form my opinion of the Bible from the wisdom and goodness of God manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all works of creation. The result in these two cases will be, that you, by taking the Bible for your standard, will have a bad opinion of God; and I, by taking God for my standard, shall have a bad opinion of the Bible.
"The Bible represents God to be a changeable, passionate, vindictive being; making a world and then drowning it, afterwards repenting of what he had done, and promising not to do so again. Setting one nation to cut the throats of another, and stopping the course of the sun till the butchery should be done. But the works of God in the creation preach to us another doctrine. In that vast volume we see nothing to give us the idea of a changeable, passionate, vindictive God; everything we there behold impresses us with a contrary idea - that of unchangeableness and of eternal order, harmony, and goodness.
"The sun and the seasons return at their appointed time, and everything in the creation claims that God is unchangeable. Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing, and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God.
"It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. That bloodthirsty man, called the prophet Samuel, makes God to say, (I Sam. xv. 3) `Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'
"That Samuel or some other impostor might say this, is what, at this distance of time, can neither be proved nor disproved, but in my opinion it is blasphemy to say, or to believe, that God said it. All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at the impious cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.
"What makes this pretended order to destroy the Amalekites appear the worse, is the reason given for it. The Amalekites, four hundred years before, according to the account in Exodus xvii. (but which has the appearance of fable from the magical account it gives of Moses holding up his hands), had opposed the Israelites coming into their country, and this the Amalekites had a right to do, because the Israelites were the invaders, as the Spaniards were the invaders of Mexico. This opposition by the Amalekites, at that time, is given as a reason, that the men, women, infants and sucklings, sheep and oxen, camels and asses, that were born four hundred years afterward, should be put to death; and to complete the horror, Samuel hewed Agag, the chief of the Amalekites, in pieces, as you would hew a stick of wood. I will bestow a few observations on this case.
"In the first place, nobody knows who the author, or writer, of the book of Samuel was, and, therefore, the fact itself has no other proof than anonymous or hearsay evidence, which is no evidence at all. In the second place, this anonymous book says, that this slaughter was done by the express command of God: but all our ideas of the justice and goodness of God give the lie to the book, and as I never will believe any book that ascribes cruelty and injustice to God, I therefore reject the Bible as unworthy of credit.
"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case.
"You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New.
"When you have examined the Bible with the attention that I have done (for I do not think you know much about it), and permit yourself to have just ideas of God, you will most probably believe as I do. But I wish you to know that this answer to your letter is not written for the purpose of changing your opinion. It is written to satisfy you, and some other friends whom I esteem, that my disbelief of the Bible is founded on a pure and religious belief in God; for in my opinion the Bible is a gross libel against the justice and goodness of God, in almost every part of it."
The proceedings of eight councils in short:
The First Ecumenical Council(The Council of Nicaea)
Held in Nicea, Asia Minor in 325. Under Emperor Constantine the Great. 318 Bishops were present.
The Arian Controversy
Arius denied the divinity of Christ. If Jesus was born, then there was time when He did not exist. If He became God, then there was time when He was not. The Council declared Arius' teaching a heresy, unacceptable to the Church and decreed that Christ is God. He is of the same essence "homoousios" with God the Father.
The Creed
The first part of the seven articles of the Creed were ratified at the First Ecumenical Council. The text reads as follows:
"We believe in one God. The Father Almighty. Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of Light; true God of true God; begotten not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end."
The Second Ecumenical Council
Held in Constantinople in 381. Under Emperor Theodosius the Great. 150 Bishops were present.
The Macedonian Controversy
Macedonius, somewhat like Arius, was misinterpreting Church's teaching on the Holy Spirit. He taught that the Holy Spirit was not a person ("hypostasis"), but simply a power ("dynamic") of God. Therefore the Spirit was inferior to the Father and the Son. The Council condemned Macedonius' teaching and defined the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The Council decreed that there was one God in three persons ("hypostases"): Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Creed
The holy fathers of the Council added five articles to the Creed. They read as follows:
"And (We believe) in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father: who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified: who spoke by the prophets. In one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen."
The Third Ecumenical Council
Held in Ephesus, Asia Minor in 431 under Emperor Theodosius II (grandson of Theodosius the Great). 200 Bishops were present.
The Nestorian Controversy
It concerned the nature of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Nestorius taught that the Virgin Mary gave birth to a man, Jesus Christ, not God, the "Logos" ("The Word", Son of God). The Logos only dwelled in Christ, as in a Temple (Christ, therefore, was only Theophoros: The "Bearer of God". Consequently, Virgin Mary should be called "Christotokos," Mother of Christ and not "Theotokos, "Mother of God." Hence, the name, "Christological controversies".
Nestorianism over emphasized the human nature of Christ at the expense of the divine. The Council denounced Nestorius' teaching as erroneous. Our Lord Jesus Christ is one person, not two separate "people": the Man, Jesus Christ and the Son of God, Logos. The Council decreed that Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Logos), is complete God and complete man, with a rational soul and body. The Virgin Mary is "Theotokos" because she gave birth not to man but to God who became man. The union of the two natures of Christ took place in such a fashion that one did not disturb the other.
The Creed
The Council declared the text of the "Creed" decreed at the First and Second Ecumenical Councils to be complete and forbade any change (addition or deletion).
The Fourth Ecumenical Council
Held in Chalcedon, near Constantinople, 451. Under Emperor Marcian. 630 Bishops were present.
Monophysite Controversies
The Council was concerned, once again, with the nature of Jesus Christ. The teaching arose that Christ's human nature (less perfect) dissolved itself in His divine nature (more perfect): like a cube of sugar in a post of water. Thus, in reality, Christ had only one nature, the Divine. Hence, the term: Monophysites ("mono", one and "physis", "nature".) Monophysitism overemphasized the divine nature of Christ, at the expense of the human.
Proclamation
The Council condemned Monophysitism and proclaimed that Christ has two complete natures: the divine and the human, as defined by previous Councils. These two natures function without confusion, are not divided nor separate (against Nestorius), and at no time did they undergo any change (against Eutyches: Monophysites).
The Fifth Ecumenical Council
Held in Constantinople in 553. Under Emperor Justinian the Great. 165 Bishops were present.
Nestorian and Eutychian Controversies
The Council was called in hope of putting an end to the Nestorian and the Eutychian (Monophysite) controversies). The Council confirmed Church's teaching regarding the two natures of Christ (human and divine) and condemned certain writings with Nestorian learnings. Emperor Justinian himself confessed his Orthodox faith in a form of the famous Church hymn "Only begotten Son and Word of God" which is sung during the Divine Liturgy.
The Sixth Ecumenical Council
Held in Constantinople in 680. Under Emperor Constantine IV. 170 Bishops were present.
The Monothelite Controversy
It concerned the last attempt to compromise with the Monophysites. Although Christ did have two natures (divine and human) He nevertheless, acted as God only. In other words, His divine nature made all the decisions and His human nature only carried and acted them out. Hence, the name: "Monothelitism" ("mono" one and "thelesis" will.)
The Council's Pronouncement
"Christ had two natures with two activities: as God working miracles, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven; as Man, performing the ordinary acts of daily life. Each nature exercises its own free will." Christ's divine nature had a specific task to perform and so did His human nature. Each nature performed those tasks set forth without being confused, subjected to any change or working against each other. The two distinct natures and related to them activities were mystically united in the one Divine Person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
The Quinisext Ecumenical Council
Held in Constantinople in 692. In the dome of the Imperial Palace, the "In Trullo" (dome) Council, from which it derives the name: "Trullan" Council.
Legislative Matters
It is regarded as supplementing the Fifth and the Sixth Ecumenical Councils, hence, it is called "Quinisext." Its work was purely legislative, it ratified 102 canons and the decisions of the previous Ecumenical Councils.
Doctrinal and Disciplinary Canons
Sanctioned the so-called "Eighty-five Apostolic Canons" and approved the disciplinary decisions (Canons) of certain regional Councils. The Council added a series of disciplinary decisions or canons to the existing ones. The "Quinisext" Council laid the foundation for the Orthodox Canon Law.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council
Held in Nicea, Asia Minor in 787. Under Empress Irene. 367 Bishops were present.
The Iconoclast Controversy
It centered around the use of icons in the Church and the controversy between the iconoclasts and iconophiles. The Iconoclasts were suspicious of religious art; they demanded that the Church rid itself of such art and that it be destroyed or broken (as the term "iconoclast" implies).
The iconophilles believed that icons served to preserve the doctrinal teachings of the Church; they considered icons to be man's dynamic way of expressing the divine through art and beauty. The Iconoclast controversy was a form of Monophysitism: distrust and downgrading of the human side.
The Council's Proclamation
"We define that the holy icons, whether in color, mosaic, or some other material, should be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on the sacred vessels and liturgical vestments, on the walls, furnishings, and in houses and along the roads, namely the icons of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, that of our Lady the Theotokos, those of the venerable angels and those of all saintly people. Whenever these representations are contemplated, they will cause those who look at them to commemorate and love their prototype. We define also that they should be kissed and that they are an object of veneration and honor (timitiki proskynisis), but not of real worship (latreia), which is reserved for Him Who is the subject of our faith and is proper for the divine nature, ... which is in effect transmitted to the prototype; he who venerates the icon, venerated in it the reality for which it stands."
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