Library › Eastern Patriarchs and the Nonjurors › Correspondence (1716–1725)

Correspondence (1716–1725)

Eastern Patriarchs and the Nonjurors, ed. Williams, 1868

No. 18: Appendix: The Confession of Faith of the Greek Church

The Confession of Faith of the Greek Church to which they have referred in their Answer dated September, 1723. Taken from the Synodus Bethlehemitica, printed at Paris 1676, from pag. 224, 225, to pag. 232, 233.

DOSITHEUS, by the mercy of God Patriarch of Jerusalem, to those that love and inquire after the Faith and Worship of the Greek or Oriental Church and their Doctrine concerning the Orthodox Faith, sendeth this compendious Confession out of the sincerity of his conscience and void of all dissimulation, in the name of all Christians belonging to this our apostolical throne and of the orthodox sojourners in this holy and great city Jerusalem (with whom the Catholick Church agrees in all things that concern the Faith), as a testimony thereof before God and man.

CHAPTER I

We believe in one God, true, almighty and invisible, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Father unbegotten, The Son begotten of the Father before all ages, The Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father, and consubstantial to the Father and the Son. These three Persons in one Substance we call the Holy Trinity, which is everblessed, glorified and adored by every creature.

CHAPTER II

We believe the divine and holy Scriptures to have been given us by God, and therefore we ought firmly to believe them; yet not in any otherwise than the Catholick Church has interpreted and delivered them. For the whole impure tribe of Hereticks receive these holy Scriptures, but they wrest them with metaphors and homonymies, using sophistical arguments of man’s wisdom, confounding what ought to be distinguished, and playing with matters that are not to be jested with. For this or that man discovers a new sense of Scripture every day; as if by the grace of Christ the Catholick Church had not continued to be the Church unto this day, holding the same Doctrine of Faith and always stedfastly believing the same, but was divided into innumerable parties and subject to heresies; and that the Church was not the holy pillar and ground of the Truth, without spot or wrinkle, but a Congregation of wicked men, as it is manifest the conventicles of Hereticks are, and especially the followers of Calvin, who are not ashamed to learn these things from the Church which they afterwards make use of to subvert her. Therefore we believe the testimony of the Catholick Church is not inferior to that of the Holy Scripture. For as the Holy Ghost is the Author of both, it is the same thing whether you be taught by the Holy Scriptures or the Catholick Church. Moreover when a man speaks from himself he offends, he is deceived and does deceive, but the Catholick Church which neither has spoken nor does speak of herself but of the Holy Ghost (who is her perpetual Instructor in all ages) cannot possibly offend or altogether be deceived or deceive; but like the Holy Scripture has a perpetual and unshaken firmness.

CHAPTER III

We believe that the most good God has predestinated to glory those whom he has chosen from Eternity, and assigned to damnation those whom he has rejected. But not that he would justify the one and reject and damn the other without cause; far be this from God the common Father of all, “Who is no respecter of persons, but will have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of his Truth¹.” But he has predestinated those who, as he foreknew, would make a right use of their free will, and condemned those who should use it ill. This use of free-will, as we understand it, proceeds from the Divine illuminating grace, and which we call preventing grace, or a light in darkness by the Divine goodness imparted to all; and to those who obey this (for it is of use only to the willing, not to the unwilling) and co-operate with it in what it requires of us, particular grace is given, which co-operating with us and enabling us and imparting to us constancy and perseverance in the Love of God, that is to say, in the doing those good things which God requires, and which his preventing grace directs us to do, makes us righteous and predestinated; but tends to the reprobation and eternal damnation of those who, to gratify and obey Satan, voluntarily abuse that Free-will which God has given them to enable them to good willingly.

But we hold it to be most abominable and sacrilegious to say, as the most wicked Hereticks do, that God chose those he has predestinated and damns those he has reprobated without any regard to their works. For so the Scripture would be contrary to itself, since that promises salvation to the faithful by works and only supposes God alone to be the author of it; forasmuch as by his illuminating grace (which he gives without any preceding merits) shewing to man the truth of Divine things, and instructing him who co-operates and applies himself diligently to do what is good and acceptable to God, how he may obtain salvation if he be willing, but takes not from him the liberty of his will whereby he may obey or not obey.

But what madness is it to make the Divine Will alone, without any other cause, to be the author of men’s damnation? What greater calumny can be fixed upon God? What greater blasphemy, what greater injury can be put upon the Supreme Being? For we know that God can do no evil, and that he equally wills the salvation of all, as being no respecter of persons. And we confess that damnation is justly decreed for those who through the evil motions of their will, and the impenitency of their heart, have rendered themselves vessels of dishonour. But we never say that God is the author of eternal punishment, of cruelty, hardness of heart, and inhumanity; asserting that “there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth².” Far be it from us, so long as we have our right senses, to think or believe so: nay, as for those who do teach such doctrines, we pronounce an eternal anathema against them, and esteem them worse than any Infidels.

CHAPTER IV

We believe God in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to be the Creator of all things as well invisible as visible. The invisible are the angelical powers, rational souls, and demons: (although God created them not such as they afterwards became by their own voluntary act). The visible are heaven and the things under heaven. The Creator being good by nature, whatever he made he made very good, nor can he be the maker of evil. If therefore there be evil, that is to say, sin being contrary to the Divine Will, it is to be found in man or demon (for we acknowledge no evil simply to be in nature), this proceeds either from man or from the Devil. For it is a sure and certain rule that God never does evil, neither can it by any means, without injustice, be ascribed to him.

CHAPTER V

We believe that all things, whether visible or invisible, are governed by the providence of God; but although God foreknows evil and purposes to permitt it, yet as it is evil, he is neither the Orderer nor the Author of it. Yet of his great goodness out of the evils already done he produces something beneficial, not doing any part of the evil himself, but as it were inoculating a graft of something better into it. But we ought to admire these secrets of Divine Providence, and likewise his incomprehensible judgments, not nicely to inquire into them; although we may with an honest mind search into those things which are revealed to us in the Holy Scripture, or which tend to everlasting life, and ought without hesitation to interpret them according to the best notions concerning God.

CHAPTER VI

We believe that the first man whom God created in Paradise sinned, when not regarding the commandment of God he followed the deceitful counsel of the Serpent, and from thence Original Sin hereditarily descended. In so much that no one is born after the flesh who bears not this burthen, and who is not sensible of the fruits of it while he lives in this present world. But by these fruits and this burthen we do not understand actual sin, that is to say, ungodliness, blasphemy, murder, sodomy, adultery, fornication, enmity, and whatever else proceeds from a depraved will, not from nature inducing us to act contrary to the Divine Will; forasmuch as many patriarchs and prophets, and many thousands besides, as well under the law as under grace, as John Baptist the Divine forerunner, and especially the ever-Virgin Mary the mother of God the Word, had no temptation to those or any such sins, but only to what the Divine Justice inflicted upon man for that first transgression; that is to say, sweats, labours, griefs, bodily infirmities, pains in child-bearing; lastly, a laborious life, and what is the conclusion of all, a bodily death.

CHAPTER VII

We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ “made himself of no reputation³,” that is, in his own proper person he took human flesh, being conceived and incarnated by the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the ever-Virgin Mary; and was born without any labour or pain of his mother or injury to her virginity. He suffered and was buried, and the third day gloriously arose again according to the Scriptures: he ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father, and we wait for his coming again to judge the quick and the dead.

CHAPTER VIII

We believe our Lord Jesus Christ is the only Mediator, and that he gave himself a ransom for many, and by his own blood made a reconciliation betwixt God and man: and that he is a perpetual Advocate for his own flock, and a propitiation for our sins. But we say that the Saints are intercessors to bring our prayers and petitions to him; and chiefly the immaculate Mother of that Divine Word, and likewise the holy angels; whom we know to be set over us as guards to defend us; also the apostles, prophets, martyrs, and lastly, all the saints whom he has glorified, as being his faithful servants. In which number also we place the bishops and priests, as standing about the altar of God, and other righteous persons eminent for their virtues. For we learn from the Holy Scriptures that we should pray one for another, and that the prayer of a righteous man availeth much, and that God hears his saints rather than sinners. But we believe the saints not only while they are upon earth are our orators and mediators with God, but chiefly after their death; when, seeing no longer through a glass darkly, they clearly behold the Holy Trinity, in whose infinite light they see what is done by us. For as we doubt not but the prophets, while they were in the mortal body, knew the things that were done in heaven, and by that means foretold future events, so we do not only not doubt but firmly believe and confess that the angels, and the saints who are equal with the angels, see what belongs to us in the infinite light of God.

CHAPTER IX

We believe nobody can be saved without Faith. And a right notion of God and divine matters is what we call Faith; which working by love, that is, by the observation of the Divine commandments, justifies us through Christ; and without this Faith it is impossible to please God.

CHAPTER X

We believe the Church called, or rather indeed which is, Holy Catholick and Apostolick, and in which we are taught to believe, comprehends all the faithful in Christ; that is to say, those who are not yet arrived at their country, but are hitherto sojourners in earth. Nevertheless we do not confound this Church which is upon its journey with that which is already at its home, although (as some even that are Hereticks say) each part is under the eye of God the chief Shepherd, and sanctified by the same Holy Spirit. For that is both absurd and impossible, since one is yet militant in its journey, and the other triumphant, settled in its own country. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself is the Head of this Catholick Church, forasmuch as no mortal man can be universally and eternally its head; and keeping the supreme government of the Church to himself, directs it by the ministry of the Holy Fathers. And therefore the Holy Ghost has appointed bishops over particular Churches (such as are truly Churches and properly members of the Catholick Church), as their presidents or pastors; who are not abusively but truly their governors and heads, who look up to the Author and Finisher of our salvation, and refer to him whatever they do as heads.

But forasmuch as the Calvinists to their other impieties have added that bishops and presbyters are perfectly of the same degree, and that there is no necessity for a bishop, and that the Church may be governed by some presbyters, and that a presbyter may be ordained by a presbyter and not by a bishop only: also that a bishop may be ordained by a company of presbyters; and spread abroad a report that the Oriental Church is of the same opinion, we declare it to be far otherwise.

For indeed we say Episcopacy is so necessary, that, if that were taken away, there would neither be Church nor Christian. For the bishop being the successor of the Apostles, called to that office by imposition of hands and invocation of the Holy Ghost, having received by a continued succession the power given by God to bind and to loose, is the living image of God upon earth, filled with the powerful assistance of the Holy Spirit which perfects his ministrations, the fountain of all the sacraments of the Catholick Church by which we obtain salvation. This episcopacy seems to us as necessary to the Church as breath to a man, or the sun to the world. From whence some have in commendation of episcopacy elegantly said, that what God is in the heavenly Church of the first-born, and the sun in the world, the same is every bishop in his own Church, as who gives light to his flock, nourishes it and makes it the Temple of God.

For it is manifest that the great sacrament and dignity of the episcopate has descended to us by a continued succession. For when our Lord said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world⁴,” although he be with us and bestow Divine blessings upon us by other means of his grace, yet he is with us and dwells in us in a more eminent manner by the episcopate, and is made one with us by sacred mysteries of which the bishop is the first minister and principal consecrator, being appointed by the Holy Ghost to that office, and permits us not to be subject to heresy. Wherefore Damascen in his fourth Epistle to the Africans says, the universal Church is absolutely committed to the care of bishops: and no body denies Clemens the first bishop of Rome, and Evodius of Antioch, and Marc of Alexandria, to have been the successors of Peter: also that St Andrew seated Stachymus in his own throne of Constantinople: and that our Lord himself placed James in this great holy city Jerusalem; that another succeeded James, and then another till the succession came down to us. Whence Tertullian, in his Epistle to Papianus, calls all bishops the apostles’ successors. This succession to the apostolical dignity and power is testified by Eusebius the friend of Pamphilus, and all the Fathers, whom it is needless here to mention, and is confirmed by the constant and most ancient practice of the Church.

But that the episcopate is an higher dignity than the bare priesthood is manifest from hence, that the bishop ordains a priest but the bishop is not ordained by a priest but by two or three bishops according to the Apostolical Canon. And the priest is chosen by the bishop, but the bishop is not chosen by the priests or presbyters or by secular princes, how eminent soever for their virtue, but by the Convention of the Church which is the metropolis of the province in which that city lies for which he is to be consecrated, or by the Synod of that province in which he is to be made a bishop. Or if the city choose him, yet that is not sufficient, for the election must be carried to the Synod, and if it be there approved and judged canonical, he that is elected is ordained by imposition of the hands of the bishops and the invocation of the Holy Ghost. If not, the Synod appoints whom it thinks fit to be bishop of that city. Again the power and grace which a priest receives he can only retain to himself, but the bishop communicates it to others. He also having received the priestly dignity from the bishop can only minister baptism and unction, offer the unbloody sacrifice, and distribute to the people the most holy body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, anoint the baptized with holy ointment, bless the faithful in the legal celebration of their marriages, pray for the sick, and that all men may be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth, and ask pardon and forgiveness of sins for the godly both living and dead; and if he be eminent for virtue and experience, and be licensed thereto by the bishop, he may direct the faithful that apply to him and shew them the way to the heavenly kingdom, and be appointed a preacher of the Gospel. But the bishop is also the minister of all these things, being (as we said before) the fountain of the divine mysteries and graces through the Holy Ghost. But he only does, and it is his office only to confer all degrees of orders in the Church; and he binds and looses in a chief and more eminent manner, God confirming his sentence as the Lord hath promised. He also preaches the Holy Gospel and contends for the faith; and those who refuse to hear he casts out of the Church as heathens or publicans, and puts the Hereticks under excommunication and anathema, and lastly lays down his life for his sheep. From whence it is manifest and unanswerably evident that a bishop differs very much from him that is but a priest, and that without him all the priests in the world cannot feed nor govern the Church.

For as it is well said by one of the Fathers, you shall hardly find a Heretick that is a wise man; for when they depart from the Church, the Spirit also departs from them; and being deprived of all understanding and light, they are involved in darkness and blindness. For if that had not happened to them, they would never in such a manner have opposed the clearest Truths, such as is the great Sacrament of Episcopacy, which is taught in the Holy Scripture, which is written of and testified by all Ecclesiastical History and the writings of holy men, and which has always been retained and acknowledged by the Catholick Church.

CHAPTER XI

We believe all the Faithful, and only the Faithful, are members of the Catholick Church, that is, they who embrace the Faith of our Saviour Jesus Christ (delivered by Christ himself and by his Apostles and by the holy and Œcumenical Synods), and keep it inviolable, although some of them may be guilty of all manner of sins. For the Faithful living in sin could not be judged of the Church except they were members of it. But the Church judges these and exhorts them to repentance and directs those who are defiled with sin to the exercise of its salutary precepts, and they always are and are esteemed members of the Catholick Church as long as they fall not into Infidelity and profess the Orthodox Faith.

CHAPTER XII

We believe the Catholick Church is instructed by the Holy Ghost; for he is the true Comforter whom Christ sends from the Father to lead the Faithful to the Truth, and to take away darkness from their minds. But the Holy Spirit does not illuminate all the members of the Church by immediate inspiration, but by the instruction of the Holy Fathers and the governors of the Catholick Church. For as the Holy Scripture is and is called the Word of the Holy Ghost, not that it was immediately delivered to us by him but by the Apostles and Prophets, so the Church also is taught by the life giving Spirit; but by the immediate instruction of the Holy Fathers and Doctors (whose rule is the holy and Œcumenical Synods, as we shall not cease to say a thousand times), and therefore we not only believe but surely and stedfastly profess that it is impossible for the Catholick Church to err or to be deceived or at any time to choose a lie instead of a truth. For the Holy Ghost, constantly operating by the Holy Fathers and governors, removes all errors from the Church.

CHAPTER XIII

We believe that a man is justified, not by bare Faith alone, but by Faith that worketh by Love, that is, by Faith and by Works. But that faith like an hand lays hold on the righteousness of Christ, and applies it to us for the obtaining salvation, we know to be very impious. For such a faith all men may have and no man could miss of salvation, which is apparently false. Therefore we rather believe that no such sort of faith, but the faith which is in us, justifies us by our works through Christ. But we do not look upon works as a certain testimony of our vocation, but we say that the fruits proceeding from them which testify the efficacy of our faith, do by virtue of the Divine promises make every one of the faithful worthy to receive according to the things done in the body whether good or bad.

CHAPTER XIV

We believe that man falling by transgression sustained great damage and became like unto the beasts, that is, was reduced almost to nothing, and fell from his perfection and impassibility. Nevertheless he lost not his nature and natural power which he had received from the infinite good God. Otherwise he would not now be rational, consequently not man. But we believe he has the same nature in which he was first created, and the same natural power still continues to live and operate in him, that is, Free Will. So that he can naturally choose and do what is good, and avoid and hate what is evil. For it seems not agreeable to reason to say that the natural man, created good by Him who is goodness itself, should be incapable of performing any good works. (What can be more impious?) For the power of working depends upon nature, and nature upon the Creator (although in a different manner). For that a man may do good by nature our Lord himself intimates, saying, “the heathen love those which love them.” But St Paul teaches more expressly in his Epistle to the Romans, chap. ii. v. 14, and elsewhere, saying, “The Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law.” From whence it is also manifest that the good which a man thus does cannot be sin. For it is impossible that good can be evil. But the good which a man does naturally and merely as a natural man, and not also as spiritual, being done without faith, contributes not to salvation, nor yet to damnation. Neither can good as such ever be the cause of evil. But it worketh perfectness in those who are regenerated by grace, and works by grace and makes them worthy of salvation.

A man therefore before he is regenerate may have by nature an inclination to good, and may choose and do moral good; but that the regenerate man may be able to do spiritual good (for we properly call the works of the faithful spiritual, as being wrought by supernatural grace which may merit salvation), he stands in need of preventing grace, as we said where we treated of Predestination, so that he can of himself do no work worthy of a Christian life, although it be in his own power to be willing or not willing to cooperate with grace.

CHAPTER XV

We believe there are Sacraments of the Gospel, and that they are seven. For we have neither more nor fewer Sacraments in the Church. For to make the number of Sacraments other than seven proceeds from Heretical madness. For the septenary number of the Sacraments is no less established by the Gospel than the other doctrines of the Catholick Faith. For first our Lord instituted the Sacrament of Baptism, when He said, “Go ye and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost⁵.” Likewise when He said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned⁶:”

And the Sacrament of Confirmation, or of sacred balsam and holy chrism, when He said, “But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high⁷.” With this they were endued when the Holy Spirit descended upon them, whose coming is signified by the Sacrament of Confirmation, of which St Paul speaks in the 1st chapter of the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians, and Dionysius the Areopagite more largely.

He instituted the Sacrament of Order when He said, “Do this in remembrance of Me⁸.” Also when He said, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven⁹.”

He instituted the unbloody Sacrifice when He said, “Take eat, this is My body; and, Drink ye all of it, for this is My blood of the new testament¹⁰.” Also when He said, “Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood ye have no life in you¹¹.”

He advanced Matrimony to the dignity of a Sacrament when, having recited those things which were spoken of it in the Old Testament, He sealed them with these words: “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder¹².” And this is also called a great Sacrament by the holy Apostle¹³.

He instituted the Sacrament of Penance, in which secret Confession is included, when He said, “Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained¹⁴.” Also when He said, “Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish¹⁵.”

Lastly, the holy Oil, or the unction with prayer, is read in St Mark’s Gospel¹⁶, and is plainly proved by the testimony of James¹⁷ the Lord’s brother.

But the Sacraments consist of something natural and something supernatural; neither are they bare signs of the promises of God. For so they would not differ from circumcision: than which what can be worse? We believe them to be instruments by which divine grace is necessarily communicated to those who receive them. And we believe it contrary to Christian doctrine to say, that the integrity of the Sacraments necessarily requires something terrestrial; as being contrary to the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which being instituted by the Substantial Word, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, is perfected by the presence of the thing signified, that is, the Body and Blood of Christ. And this perfection necessarily precedes its use. For if it were not complete before its use, he could not eat and drink a judgement who received it unworthily; forasmuch as he would only receive a little bread and wine. But he eats and drinks a judgement to himself who eats and drinks it unworthily. The Sacrament of the Eucharist therefore is not perfected in its use, but before its use. Therefore, we reject as destructive and abominable that opinion which supposes weakness of faith to be any detriment to the integrity of the Sacrament. For the Church receives those who, abjuring their heresy, embrace the Catholick faith, although they received their baptism with great weakness of faith; and does not again baptize them when they come to perfection in the faith.

CHAPTER XVI

We believe Holy Baptism was instituted by the Lord, and that it is absolutely necessary that it be conferred in the name of the Holy Trinity. For whoever is not thus initiated cannot be saved, as our Lord says, “Except a man be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God¹⁸.” Therefore it is also necessary for little children, who are guilty of original sin and cannot be cleansed from it any otherwise than by Baptism. For when our Lord said this, He spoke, not of some only, but of all without exception—“Except a man be born again,” &c. which is the same as if He had said, all men, since the coming of Christ the Saviour, that would enter into the kingdom of heaven must be regenerated. And forasmuch as children are men they need salvation, and consequently Baptism. For they who die being not regenerated, are liable to eternal torments for original sin, as having not been cleansed from it; therefore they cannot be saved without Baptism.

For this reason Baptism is necessary for little children that they may be saved, according to what we read in St Matthew: “He that is not baptized shall not be saved.” Therefore it is necessary for little children to be baptized. And in the Acts it is said that whole families were baptized; therefore little children also. And this very thing is also testified by the ancient fathers, as by Dionysius in his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; Justin in his 56th Question, where he plainly says little children are made worthy of the benefits of Baptism by the faith of those by whom they are brought to the holy fonts. And Augustine says, It is an apostolical tradition that little children are to be saved by Baptism. And in another place, The Church gives to infants the feet of others, that they may come to her; the hearts of others, that they may believe; the tongues of others, that they may promise. And elsewhere, Our mother the Church administers to them a particular heart.

The matter of Baptism is pure Water only, nor ought any other liquid to be mingled with it. The minister of it is the Priest alone. But if there be a real and urgent necessity, it may be ministered by another man, provided he is orthodox, and observes the proper form of Baptism. And these are the effects of Baptism: First, it blots out original sin and whatever he that is baptized hath wilfully committed. Secondly, it delivers him from the eternal pains to which he is liable on account of original sin, or of any deadly sin he has been guilty of. Thirdly, it gives immortality to the baptized persons, for it cleanses them from their sins and makes them the temples of God. Neither may we say, that all sins committed before baptism are not blotted out by it; but remain uncancelled, only they are not imputed. For this is to be looked upon as an impious denial, rather than a pious confession of the benefits of Baptism. Nay all sin whatsoever committed before Baptism is blotted out, and therefore is to be esteemed as if it never had been committed. For the very form of Baptism, the words which precede it and those which perfect it, and the Baptism or ablution, all denote a perfect cleansing; and the very names given to Baptism signify as much. For if Baptism is perfected with the Holy Ghost and with fire, it is manifest that this is a perfect cleansing, since the Spirit cleanses perfectly; if it be light, it dispels all darkness; if it be regeneration, old things are put away; and what are old things but sins? If he that is baptized puts off the old man, then he puts off sin. If he puts on Christ, then by the benefit of Baptism he is made free from sin; for God is far from sinners. This Paul more plainly teaches, “As by one many were made sinners, so by One many are righteous;” and if righteous, then free from sin; for life and death cannot remain in the same person. If Christ truly died, then remission of sin through the Spirit is true also.

Hence it follows, that all little children who dye after they have received Baptism, are undoubtedly predestinated to salvation through the death of Christ. Forasmuch as being guilty of no sin, not even of original sin, being now purged from it, nor yet of actual sin as being yet uncapable of committing it, they are most certainly saved. Moreover Baptism as well as Orders imprints an indelible character; so that as no man can be a second time initiated into the same Order, so he that has been once rightly baptized cannot be baptized again, although he falls into a thousand sins, nay, though he become an apostate from the faith. For whosoever will return unto the Lord may recover the adoption of son, which he had lost before, by the Sacrament of penance.

CHAPTER XVII

We believe that the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist (which is the 4th in order as before recited) is what our Lord Himself delivered in the same night that He delivered himself for the life of the world. For taking bread and blessing it He gave it to His holy disciples and apostles, saying, “Take, eat, this is My Body.” And taking the cup and giving thanks, He said, “Drink ye all of this, for this is My Blood which is shed for you, for the remission of sins.” Therefore in the celebration of this Sacrament we believe our Lord Jesus Christ to be present, not typically or figuratively, nor by a greater degree of grace as in the other Sacraments, nor by a bare presence, as some of the Fathers speak concerning Baptism; nor by conjunction, whereby the Divinity is substantially united to the eucharistic Bread, as the Lutherans foolishly and wretchedly suppose; but truly and really. For the bread and wine after consecration are changed, transubstantiated, converted, transformed; the bread into the true Body of our Lord which was born in Bethlehem of the ever-Virgin, baptized in Jordan, suffered and was buried, arose from the dead, ascended, and sitteth at the right hand of God, and shall come again in the clouds of heaven. The wine also is changed and transubstantiated into the very Blood of our Lord, which, as He hung on the cross, flowed from His side, for the life of the world.

Also, the bread and wine being consecrated, we believe that the substance of bread and wine remains no longer; but the very Body and Blood of the Lord, under the form and figure of bread and wine, that is, under the accidents of the bread.

Also, that the very selfsame most pure Body and Blood of the Lord is distributed and taken into the mouth and stomachs of the communicants, whether good or bad; only they convey remission of sin to the good and worthy, but damnation and eternal torment to the bad and unworthy.

Also, that the Body and Blood of the Lord is broken and divided by the hands and teeth, but by accident only; that is, in the accidents of bread and wine, under which we also confess them to be visible and tangible; but in themselves to remain unbroken and undivided: whence the Catholick Church says, that He is broken and divided who being broken cannot be divided, who is everywhere eaten and nowhere consumed, but sanctifies those that worthily receive Him.

Also, that under every part or smallest bit of the bread and wine there is not a part of the Lord’s Body (for nobody can say that without blasphemy and impiety), but the entire whole Lord Christ, according to His substance; that is, with His soul and divinity, as He is perfect God and perfect man. So that though there be many Eucharists celebrated in the world at one and the same hour, there are not many Christs, or many bodies of Christ, but one and the same Christ is present in all and every Church of the Faithful, and there is one Body and one Blood. Not that that Body of the Lord which is in heaven descends upon the altar; but because that bread which is laid on the altar, and there offered in every Church, is by consecration changed and transubstantiated and made one and the same with that which is in heaven. For there are not many, but one Body of the Lord in many places. And for this reason chiefly this Sacrament is, and is called, wonderful and comprehensible by Faith alone, and not by the trifling reasonings of man’s wisdom, whose vain and foolish reasonings our pious and divinely taught religion despises.

Also, that the same Body and Blood of the Lord in the Sacrament of the Eucharist is to be adored in the highest manner that may be, and to be worshipped with Latria. For one and the same worship ought to be paid to the Holy Trinity and to the Body and Blood of the Lord.

It is also a true and propitiatory Sacrifice which is offered for all the faithful, both living and dead, and for the benefit of all, as is expressed in the prayers of this Sacrament, which the Apostles, according to the power they received of the Lord, have delivered to us.

Also, before the use, immediately after the consecration, and likewise after the use, that which is kept in the sacred Pixes for the communion of those that are dying, it is the true Body of the Lord, and not in any the least respect different from what it was; inasmuch as after consecration before the use, in the use, and after the use, it is in all respects the true Body of the Lord.

Nevertheless we do not believe that the word “transubstantiation” perfectly explains the manner by which the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord (for that is altogether impossible, as being to be comprehended by God only; so that he ought to be looked upon as both foolish and impious, whosoever thinks he can arrive at the full knowledge of this mystery), but that after consecration the bread and wine are not typically nor figuratively, nor according to superabundant grace, nor by communication, nor by the presence of the Divine nature alone of the only-begotten Son of God, changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord. Neither is any accident of the bread and wine changed in any manner into an accident of the Body and Blood of Christ; but the bread is made truely and substantially the true Body of the Lord, and the wine His Blood, as before is said.

Lastly. This Sacrament of the Eucharist can, as we believe according to the Doctrine of the Oriental Church, be made by none but by a pious priest, and one who has received his character of priesthood from a pious and lawful Bishop. This is the compendious Doctrine and the true Confession and the most ancient Tradition of the Oriental Church concerning this Sacrament, from which none will in the least depart who desire to be truly religious, who abhorr novelties and detest the vain Doctrines of Hereticks, but keep this sound and untainted Tradition, which has so long continued. For those who depart from it the Holy Church of Christ rejects and anathematises.

CHAPTER XVIII

We believe the souls of the deceased are either in rest or in torment; because immediately as they have left their bodies they are carried to the place of joy or of sorrow and lamentation: although they yet receive not the completion either of their happiness or damnation. But at the general Resurrection, when the soul shall again be united to its own body in which it had behaved itself well or ill, then every one shall receive the completion of happiness or misery.

But such as have not despaired on account of their deadly sins with which they have defiled themselves, and have begun their repentance for them in this life, but have not here brought forth works meet for repentance; that is to say, poured out tears of sorrow for sin, watched and prayed upon their knees, afflicted themselves, relieved the poor, shewed their love to God and their neighbour by their works, which the Catholick Church has from the beginning rightly called satisfactions: these and such souls as these we believe are carried to Hades, and there sustain the just punishment due to their sins; but know that they shall, by the goodness of God, be delivered from them through the prayers of the priests and the alms of each of their relations; and to this nothing contributes more than the unbloody Sacrifice, which each person particularly offers for his relations, and which the Catholick Church daily offers for all. But we know not the time of this deliverance, only we know and believe that they shall be freed from their pains before the general resurrection and universal judgement: but when that shall be we know not.

Question I

Ought the Holy Scriptures to be read in the Vulgar tongue by all Christians?

It ought not. For we know the Holy Scriptures, being divinely inspired, are useful and so necessary for us, that without them it is impossible to lead a godly life. Nevertheless it is not convenient for all to read them, but those only who know how to expound the deep things of the Spirit concealed in them, and know how to interpret, teach and read the Holy Scriptures. But the Catholick Church, having experienced the mischief arising from the reading of the Scriptures by illiterate persons, who cannot distinguish, or understand them literally only, or in a sense contrary to godliness, has forbidden such to read them. Therefore it is permitted to all the faithful to hear the Scriptures, that they may believe with the heart unto righteousness, and confess with the mouth unto salvation; but for the reasons before mentioned, and others of the like sort, they are forbidden to read some parts of the Scripture, and chiefly of the Old Testament. And it is the same to prohibit illiterate persons to read the Scripture as to require infants to abstain from strong meats.

Question II

Is the Scripture plain to all Christians that read it?

If the Scripture was plain to all Christians that read it, our Lord would not have commanded those who desired to obtain salvation to search the Scriptures, and Paul would have said without reason that God had placed in the Church the gift of teaching; nor would Peter have said there were some things in Paul’s epistle hard to be understood. It is evident therefore that the Scripture is deep, and its sense profound, and that it requires learned and divine men to expound it, to give its true meaning, and a sense that is true and agreeable to the whole Scripture and to its Author the Holy Spirit.

It is then necessary that all who are baptized should know the mystery of the Trinity, the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection and Ascension into heaven of the Son of God, and what concerns regeneration and the last judgment; for the profession of which truths many have readily suffered death. Nevertheless it is not necessary, nay it is impossible for all to know these [l. those] things, which the Holy Ghost has revealed to those only who are endued with wisdom and holiness.

Question III

What Books do you call the Holy Scripture?

Following the rule of the Catholick Church, we call all those books the Holy Scripture which Cyril has collected from the Council of Laodicea and recited, adding those to them which he foolishly, ignorantly, or rather maliciously calls Apocrypha, that is to say, the Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, Tobit, the History of the Dragon, the History of Susanna, the Maccabees, and the Wisdom of Sirach. For these we think ought to be numbered with the genuine books of Holy Scripture, as genuine parts of the same Scripture. For ancient custom, or rather the Catholick Church which has delivered to us the Gospels and other books of Scripture as genuine, has also indisputably delivered these as parts of the Scripture, and the denial of these is the rejection of them. And if these seem not at all times to have been by all numbered with the others, yet nevertheless they have been numbered with them by synods and most ancient and eminent divines of the Catholick Church as books of Holy Scripture. All which books we judge to be canonical and confess them to be Holy Scripture.

Question IV

How ought we to think of the Holy Images, and the Worship of Saints?

For as much as the Saints are and always have been looked upon by the Church to be our intercessors, as is said in the eighth chapter, it is now time to say that we honour them as the friends of God, and as praying for us to the God of all. But we honour them in a twofold manner. For that which we pay to the Mother of God the Word we call Huperdulia. For though the Mother of God be the servant of the only God, yet is she His mother, as having born in the flesh one Person of the Trinity. Wherefore she is celebrated as much superior both to saints and angels; wherefore, we pay to her the worship of Huperdulia. But the other, which we call Dulia, we pay to the holy angels, apostles, prophets, martyrs, and in fine to all saints.

Moreover we worship and honour the wood of the precious and life-giving Cross on which our Saviour suffered for the salvation of the world; and likewise the sign of this same Cross, and the manger at Bethlehem, the meanness of which is our foundation; also the place of a skull or Calvary, and the life-bearing Sepulchre, and other holy things proper to be worshipped; as the holy Evangelists, and the sacred vessels in which the unbloody Sacrifice is celebrated; and we pay respect and honour to the saints by annual commemorations, festival solemnities, sacred edifices, and consecrations.

Then we worship, honour and kiss the images of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the most holy Mother of God, and of all the saints, also of the angels according to the form in which they appeared to some patriarchs and prophets. We also represent the most Holy Spirit in that form of a dove in which He appeared.

And as for those who say that the worship which we pay to the saints and their images, and the other things before-mentioned, is idolatry, we despise it as a foolish and vain calumny. For we pay the worship of Latria to the only God in Trinity, and to none other. But we honour the saints upon two accounts. First, as they bear a relation to God, we worship them for His sake; and for their own, as they are the living images of God. But the worship we give them upon their own account has already been declared to be no other than Dulia. The worship we give to images is no more than relative, being referred to the original whom that image represents. For he that worships the image, does by the image worship the original. Nor is the worship of the image to be divided or separated from the worship of him it represents; for it is but as when we honour an ambassador as the king’s representative.

And the arguments which they bring from the Scripture for their own novelties, are so far from helping their cause, as they suppose they do, that they are apparently of our side. For we when we read the Scriptures, examine the occasion, the context, the signification, and the reason of those things which are written. Thus, when the very same God says, “Thou shalt not make to thyself any idol or similitude, neither bow down to them or worship them,” and at another orders cherubim to be made; and we also see oxen and lyons made and placed in the Temple; we judge not here according to our opinion, for faith consists not in opinion, but, as has been said, examining the occasion and other circumstances, we get the right interpretation. Hence we learn that “Thou shalt not make to thyself any idol or similitude,” is the same as to say, “Thou shalt not worship other gods,” or “Thou shalt not be an idolater.” Thus the custom of the Church, derived from the times of the apostles, to give a relative worship to the holy images, is maintained, and the worship of Latria reserved for God alone; and God appears not to have given contrary commands. For if the Scripture absolutely says, Thou shalt not make, Thou shalt not worship, we cannot understand how God afterwards ordered to make images but not to worship. Therefore the command can relate to idolatry only. And we find serpents and lions and oxen and cherubim made and honoured, and likenesses or images, among which angels also appear, to have been worshipped.

As to the saints which they urge against us as asserting the unlawfulness of worshipping images, we look upon their arguments to be rather of our side: for as much as their sharpest invectives were only against those who gave to images the worship of Latria, or who brought the images of their deceased relations into the Church; whom they also put under Anathema; but not against the right worship of the saints and holy images and the venerable Cross and other things before spoken of. Especially since the holy images have been in the Church from the apostles’ time, and been worshipped by the faithful, as many have attested in histories and in sermons; with whom agrees the seventh holy and Œcumenical Synod, putting to shame all Heretical impudence.

For that Synod has evidently decreed such worship should be paid to images as we have before said; also it anathematizes and excommunicates all that give to images the worship of Latria, or say that the Orthodox who worship images are guilty of idolatry; and we also with them anathematize all them that worship with Latria either saints, or angels, or image or cross, or relique of saints, or any sacred vessel, or the gospel, or any other thing which is in heaven or earth or the sea; and do believe such worship is only to be given to God in the Trinity. But we also anathematize those who call the worship of images the Latria of images, and refuse to worship them and the cross and the saints according to the tradition of the Church.

Thus we worship the saints in the manner we have said, and the holy images which we place in our temples for ornament, and that they may be instead of books to the ignorant whereby they may be incited to remember and imitate the saints, and increase in love, and continually call upon the Lord as Sovereign and Father of all, and upon the saints as His servants and our helpers and intercessors.

And these things may suffice against the Chapters and Questions of Cyril. But the Hereticks do also condemn the prayers of religious men to God; for we know not why they should accuse only those of the monks. But we know that prayer is a conversation with God and a petition of what is fit for us from Him of whom we hope to receive such things; an ascent of the mind to God, a pious expression of our affection to God, a search after the things that are above, the support of a holy soul, the worship of Latria most acceptable to God, a token of repentance and stedfast hope. But prayer is made either with the mind alone, or with the mind and voice together. Thereby we contemplate the goodness and mercy of God and our own unworthiness, what reason we have to be thankful, and what God has promised if we will live in obedience to him. And it is accompanied with faith, hope, perseverance, observation of the commandments, and, as we said before, a petition for heavenly things. And many other good fruits attend it, of which we need not speak particularly; and when we pray we constantly either stand or kneel, and so great is the benefit of prayer that it is justly esteemed the life and food of the soul. And all these things are so plainly to be collected from Scripture, that he who doubts in this matter is like a fool or a blind man who doubts if the sun shines at noon day when the sky is clear.

But the Hereticks, that they may leave none of the things remaining which Christ has appointed, have endeavoured to take away this also; but being ashamed so openly and impiously to condemn prayer itself, they do not forbid to pray at all; they are disturbed at the prayer of the monks, and the manner after which they pray, in order to raise the hatred of simple persons against the monks, insomuch that they will not bear the sight of them, nor permit the doctrines of the Catholick Faith to be expounded by them. For the adversary is wise in an evil matter; and ingenious to invent calumnies. From whence his followers (of which Hereticks are the chief) seek not to lead men to true piety, but to thrust them into the abyss of evils, and to force them into those places which the Lord takes not under his care.

Therefore, they are to be asked what are the prayers of the monks and whether they can prove that the monks use any worship contrary to the orthodox profession of Christianity; which if they can do, we will join with them against the monks, and say that they are not only no monks, but indeed not Christians. But if the monks never do otherwise than set forth the glory of God and His wonderful works to the full as much as they are able, and at all times celebrate the praises of the Divine Majesty with hymns and doxologies, that is to say, such as are taken from the Scripture, or which are made agreeable to the Scripture, we must confess that they perform a work not only apostolical and prophetical but even Divine.

Therefore when we sing the Paracliticon, the Triodion and the Menaia we perform a work no ways unbecoming Christians; since these books contain no other than a continued and well chosen collection of divinity. And our Hymns being taken out of the Scripture, and made fit for the use of the quire, according to the direction of the Holy Spirit, that we may sing verse and verse alternately, we sing the Holy Scripture. Moreover that we do sing the Holy Scripture is evident from hence, that to every stanza of our hymns called the Troparion, we add a verse of the Scripture. And if we sing or read the Thecara or other prayers composed by the fathers, let them shew what is the blasphemy, what the impiety contained in them, and we with them will prosecute those that use them.

But if they urge it as a crime in us that we pray constantly and without intermission, why do they make the complaint against us? Let them contend with Christ (as indeed they do) who proposed the parable of the unjust judge, to shew that men ought always to pray, and taught us to watch and pray in order to avoid temptations and to stand before the Son of Man. Let them contend with St Paul, who in the 5th chapter of the 1st Epistle to the Thessalonians, and in divers other places, exhorts us to “pray without ceasing.” I omit to mention the divine governors of the Church from Christ down to us. For the unanimous determination of our forefathers, the apostles and prophets, concerning prayer is sufficient to cover the Hereticks with shame.

Moreover, if the monks do but those things which were done by the apostles, by the prophets, by the fathers and patriarchs of Christ’s Church, then the prayers of the monks are manifestly the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the giver of divine graces. But the novelties blasphemously introduced by the Calvinists concerning God and Divine things, (to which purpose they falsely interpret the Scriptures and curtail and injuriously treat them), we say are the sophistical arts and inventions of the devil.

Nor do they talk less foolishly who say, that the Church cannot without violence and tyranny appoint fasts and abstinence from some sorts of meats. For the Church for the mortification of the flesh and all the passions, carefully appoints prayer and fasting, of which all the saints have been lovers, and have left us their examples. By these together with the assistance of the Divine grace, our adversary the devil being subjected, it is easy for the faithful to run the race that is set before them. The Church is then unblameable for having everywhere made this provision, and neither is violent or tyrannical in so doing; but exhorts, admonishes, and teaches according to the things contained in the Scripture, and persuades by the power of the Holy Spirit.

To these objections a fellow named Claud, a minister of Charenton, has added some others very ridiculous and which deserve no answer. But whatever he has said we look upon as so many idle tales, and for the man himself, we esteem him but as a trifler and altogether illiterate. For he sets himself above a thousand doctors, who being endued with the power of the Holy Ghost, have hitherto been eminent for wisdom and holiness in the Oriental Church.

Previous · Contents · Next