The Fourth Session

Among many passages from the fathers that were read, one came from a sermon by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, in which he describes a painting of the sacrifice of Isaac and tells how he could not pass it “without tears.” [a] The most glorious officials said: “See how our father grieved at the story in the picture, so much that he wept.” [b] Basil, the most holy bishop of Ancyra, said: “The father had read the story many times, and perhaps he had not wept. But once he saw it painted, he wept.” [c] John, the most reverend monk and presbyter, the representative of the high priests of the East, said: “If the picture helped such a teacher and drew tears from him, how much more will it bring heartfelt sorrow and benefit to the ignorant and simple!” [d] The holy synod said: “We have seen the story of Abraham painted in several places, just as the father says.” Theodore, the most holy bishop of Catania, said: “If the holy Gregory, so watchful in his thoughts on divine things, was moved to tears at the sight of the story of Abraham, how much more will a painting of the incarnation of our Lord Christ, who for us was made man, move those who look at it, to their profit and to tears?” [e] Tarasius, the most holy patriarch, said: “Shall we not weep when we see an image of our crucified Lord?” [f] The holy synod said: “We shall indeed. For in that will be found, in full, the depth of the humbling of God made flesh for our sakes.”

After some further readings, a passage was read from Saint Athanasius in which he describes the miracles worked at Berytus. After it comes the following. [g] Tarasius, the most holy patriarch, said: “But perhaps someone will say, ‘Why do the images we have not work miracles?’ To this we answer that, as the apostle has said, signs are for those who do not believe, not for believers. For those who came to that image were unbelievers. So God gave them a sign through the image, to draw them to our Christian faith. But ‘an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it.’” [h] After a number of other quotations, the canon of the Council in Trullo was read as a canon of the Sixth Synod. [i] Tarasius, the most holy patriarch, said: “There are some, sick with ignorance, who stumble over these canons, the canons of the Trullan Synod, and say, ‘Do you really think they were adopted at the Sixth Synod?’ Let all such people know that the holy and great Sixth Synod was assembled at Constantinople to deal with those who said that there was only one energy and one will in Christ. Its fathers anathematized the heretics, set out the orthodox faith, and went home in the fourteenth year of Constantine. “But four or five years later the same fathers came together under Justinian, the son of Constantine, and issued the canons we have mentioned. Let no one have any doubt about them. For those who signed under Constantine were the same as those who signed the present document under Justinian, as can plainly be shown from the unchanging likeness of their own handwriting. And it was right that those who had taken part in an ecumenical synod should also issue church canons. “They said that we should be led, as if by the hand, by the venerable images to the remembrance of the incarnation of Christ and of his saving death. And if through them we are led to a real grasp of the incarnation of Christ our God, what sort of opinion are we to have of those who break down the venerable images?” [j]

At the close of the session, after a number of anathemas had been pronounced, the following was read, and all the bishops signed it. Fulfilling the divine command of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, our holy fathers did not hide the light of the divine knowledge he had given them under a basket. They set it on the lampstand of most useful teaching, so that it might give light to all in the house, that is, to those who are born in the catholic church, so that none of those who devoutly confess the Lord might strike his foot against the stone of the evil teaching of heretics. For they drove out every error of the heretics, and they cut off the rotten limb if it was sick beyond cure. With a winnowing fork they cleared the threshing floor. The good wheat, that is, the word that nourishes and strengthens the heart of man, they stored in the granary of the catholic church; but the chaff of the heretics’ evil opinion they threw outside and burned with unquenchable fire. That is why this holy and ecumenical synod also, meeting for the second time in this famous metropolis of Nicaea, by the will of God and at the bidding of our devout and most faithful emperors, Irene, a new Helena, and a new Constantine, her God-protected son, has read and considered the teachings of our approved and blessed fathers, and has glorified God himself, who gave them wisdom for our instruction and for the perfecting of the catholic and apostolic church. And against those who do not believe as they did, but have tried to overshadow the truth by their novelty, they have sung the words of the psalm: “Oh, how much evil your enemies have done in your sanctuary! They have glorified themselves, saying, ‘There is no teacher any more, and they will not know that we dealt deceitfully with the word of truth.’” But we, holding in everything to the doctrines and commands of these same God-bearing fathers of ours, make our proclamation with one mouth and one heart, adding nothing and taking nothing away from what they have handed down to us. In these things we are strengthened; in these things we are made firm. This is how we confess, and this is how we teach, just as the six holy and ecumenical synods have decreed and ratified. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, his only Son and Word, through whom all things were made; and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, of one substance and coeternal with the same Father and with his Son, who has no beginning. The Trinity is not built up of parts; it is undivided, beyond comprehension, and uncircumscribed. He, wholly and alone, is to be worshiped and revered with adoration: one Godhead, one lordship, one dominion, one realm and rule, which is apportioned to the Persons without being divided, and is fitted to the essence separately. For we confess that one of the same holy Trinity, which is of one substance, our Lord Jesus Christ, the true God, in these last days became flesh and was made man for our salvation. He saved our race through his saving incarnation, his suffering, his resurrection, and his ascension into heaven, and he delivered us from the error of idols, as the prophet also says: “Not an ambassador, not an angel, but the Lord himself has saved us.” Him we also follow; we take up his words and cry aloud: No synod, no power of kings, no God-hated agreement has delivered the church from the error of idols, as the Judaizing mock council madly dreamed, which raved against the venerable images. It was the Lord of glory himself, God made flesh, who saved us and snatched us from the deceit of idolatry. To him, then, be glory; to him be thanks; to him be thanksgivings; to him be praise; to him be majesty. For his redemption and his salvation alone can save completely, and not that of other men who come from the earth. For he himself, through the plan of salvation carried out in his incarnation, has fulfilled for us, on whom the ends of the earth have come, the words his prophets spoke beforehand. For he lived among us, and went in and out among us, and drove the names of idols from the earth, as it was written. But we salute the words of the Lord and of his apostles, through which we have been taught to honor, first of all, her who is properly and truly the Mother of God and exalted above all the heavenly powers; then the holy powers of the angels; the blessed apostles, praised by all; the glorious prophets; the victorious martyrs who fought for Christ; the holy and God-bearing teachers; and all holy men. And we have been taught to seek their intercessions, since they are able to make us at home with the all-royal God of all, as long as we keep his commandments and strive to live virtuously. Moreover, we salute the image of the honored and life-giving cross and the holy relics of the saints. We receive the holy and venerable images, and we salute them and embrace them, according to the ancient traditions of the holy catholic church of God, that is, of our holy fathers, who also received these things and established them in all the most holy churches of God and in every place of his dominion. These honored and venerable images, as has been said, we honor, salute, and reverently venerate: namely, the image of the incarnation of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ; and that of our spotless Lady, the all-holy Mother of God, from whom he was pleased to take flesh, and to save us and deliver us from all ungodly idolatry; also the images of the holy and bodiless angels, who appeared to the righteous in the form of men; and likewise the figures and likenesses of the divine apostles, praised by all, of the prophets who spoke the words of God, of the martyrs who struggled, and of holy men. We do this so that through their likenesses we may be led back in memory and remembrance to the original, and may have a share in the holiness of one or another of them. [k] This is how we have learned to think about these things, and we have been strengthened by our holy fathers and by their teaching, handed down from God. And thanks be to God for his indescribable gift, that he has not abandoned us at the end, and that the rod of the ungodly has not come upon the lot of the righteous, so that the righteous might not stretch out their hands, that is, their actual deeds, to wickedness. But he does good to those who are good and true of heart, as the psalmist David has sung in melody. With him we also sing the rest of the psalm: “As for those who turn back to their own wickedness, the Lord will lead them away with the evildoers; and peace will be upon the Israel of God.” [r] The signatures follow immediately, and with them the acts of this session close.