“To the holy Apostolic Council held by the grace of God and the regular authority of most blessed Pope Martin presiding, in the great city of the elder Rome, for the confirmation and defence of the definitions received from our fathers and councils, I, Stephen, Bishop, and sitting in the first see of the council under the throne of Jerusalem, make the following report:—Jerusalem was in peace and tranquillity when the tempest broke upon it. For first of all Theodorus, Bishop of Pharan, then Cyrus, Bishop of Alexandria, then Sergius, Bishop of Constantinople, and Pyrrhus and Paulus, who succeeded him, set up afresh the doctrine of the heretics Apollinaris [pg 069] and Severus. By these men the whole Catholic Church has been thrown into confusion. I speak to your supreme see, which is set over all sees, for the healing of every wound, for this it has been accustomed to do with power from of old and from the beginning by apostolical authority. Since Peter, the great head of the Apostles, was manifestly invested not only with the keys of heaven to open to those who believe and to close to those who disbelieve the gospel, but he first had the charge to feed the sheep of the whole Catholic Church—to convert and confirm his spiritual brethren of the same order, as he received this dignity over all, given to him providentially by God Himself for our sakes incarnate.
“Knowing which things, Sophronius, of blessed memory, formerly patriarch of Christ's holy city, took me and placed me on the holy spot of Calvary, and there indissolubly bound me with these words:—Thou shalt answer to God Himself who on this spot chose to be crucified for us, when He comes at His glorious epiphany to judge the living and the dead, if thou delayest and disregardest His endangered faith, for I myself am bodily prevented from doing this by the Saracen invasion which has come upon us for our sins.35 Go, then, swiftly from end to end of the earth, until thou reach the Apostolic See in which the foundations of our [pg 070] holy doctrines rest. Not once, not twice, but again and again make known to the holy men there what is being here mooted, until with apostolic prudence they bring forth judgment to victory, and effect, according to the canons, a complete annulment of these innovating doctrines. Shuddering at the adjuration put on me in this most holy spot, remembering also the episcopal dignity granted to me by God, further bearing in mind the entreaties from almost all the bishops of the East and their Christian people, agreeing with Sophronius, who is now among the saints, as first of the Episcopal Council of Jerusalem, I gave no sleep to my eyes nor slumber to my eyelids in fulfilling this command. This now is the third time that I take refuge at your apostolical feet, beseeching you, as all beseech you, to help the faith of Christians in its danger. The enemy pursue me from place to place to have me imprisoned and delivered to them in fetters, but the Lord has saved me from my persecutors. Nor has God failed to the prayers of His supplicants, but has raised up your predecessors, the apostolic prelates, to no slight exertions in correcting these men, though they would not be softened, and now he has raised up the most blessed Pope Martin. … I beseech you, therefore, not to despise the earnest entreaties of the orthodox bishops and peoples throughout the East, and of my now sainted lord Sophronius, brought to your blessedness now by me the least of all.”
In further sittings of this Council abundant testimony from the Greek and Latin fathers was presented to show how contrary to them was the teaching which the emperors [pg 071] and the patriarchs of Byzantium were seeking by crude force to impose on bishops and people. In the end the Council passed twenty canons fully setting forth the true doctrine, and condemning the heresy as contrary to what had been taught up to that time: especially “the most impious Ecthesis which was made by Heraclius, formerly emperor, under persuasion of Sergius, against the orthodox faith”; and with it “the atrocious Typus lately drawn up by the most serene prince, the Emperor Constans, against the Catholic Church, by persuasion of Paulus”.
In36 rank this council stands near to the General Councils; its twenty canons being issued by Pope Martin under anathema upon matters of faith are as binding on the Church now as when they were first published. The creed of this Council is a simple repetition and exhibition of the creed of the Council of Chalcedon, until we come to the addition which at once transfixes the heresy and sets forth the faith. After the words “we believe one and the same only-begotten Son, God, the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ,” the addition runs, “and we believe as Two Natures of the same, united without confusion, so likewise Two Natural Wills, the divine and the human, and Two Natural Operations, the divine and the human, for the perfect and unfailing assurance that He is truly perfect God and perfect Man in very deed, one and the same our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, willing and working divinely and humanly our salvation, as the prophets of old and our Lord Jesus [pg 072] Christ Himself taught us, and the creed of the holy fathers handed down, and in general all the holy universal Councils and the whole band of approved doctors in the Catholic Church. This, in agreement with them all according to their inspired teaching, we one and all confess and define.”
Among the documents read at the Lateran Council was one from the whole African episcopate addressed to Pope Theodorus three years before, in 646, in the following titles: “To our most blessed Lord, seated in the apostolic headship, the Father of Fathers, Theodorus, most holy Pope and Chief Shepherd of all Prelates, Columbus Bishop of the first See of the Byzacene Council, and Reparatus Bishop of the first See of the Mauritanian Council, and with us all the bishops of the three Councils of Africa.” It is to be noted that the Archbishop of Carthage is not mentioned, for Fortunatus was elected somewhat later to take the place of a Monothelite. “No one can question that a great and neverfailing spring of grace wells forth from your Apostolic See, enriching all Christians. Thence in abundance rivulets come forth, irrigating the whole Christian world, whence, O Father of Fathers, in honour of most holy Peter, your Apostolic See has been appointed, by divine decree in a peculiar and unique manner, to search into and to treat the sacred doctrines of the Church, receiving which as truly handed down it is the most necessary function of the high priest of that supreme and apostolic See to certify.” Then the African bishops, by quoting, made their own that famous [pg 073] answer given by Pope Innocent I. to the African bishops in the time of St. Augustine, 230 years before. “This obedience,” they proceed, “we humbly render to your apostolic supremacy, and beseech the Pope to do away with the hateful novelty which has sprung up in the Church of Constantinople.”
This letter has a double interest, being one of the last recorded acts of the ancient African episcopate, which was already in conflict with the Mohammedan assault, and about fifty years later was entirely swept away. It would be difficult to find stronger words than it uses to describe the Papal authority and the special gift which it recognises as belonging to the See of Peter by divine ordinance.37
Several of the letters written by Pope Martin after the Lateran Synod testify his zeal to overthrow the Monothelite heresy. Among these is his answer to the just-quoted letter,38 which he addresses to the Church of Carthage, and all the bishops, clergy, and laity subject to it. He praises them for the synodical letters drawn up by the Church's glorious orator, Augustine, through the Holy Ghost, to his Apostolic See, alluding to that great confession of his39 Primacy which we have in the letters of the Saint, and which, he says, their words repeat, and so he presents to them the acts of the Lateran Council.
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Particularly remarkable is the Pope's letter40 to the bishops under the Sees of Jerusalem and Antioch, that is, the patriarchates which had fallen under Mohammedan domination. He announces to them that, after due examination, he had condemned “the Exposition of the Emperor Heraclius, and the formula of the present serene emperor,” and he deplores the havoc which heretics had made in the East, irregularly setting up a false bishop at Antioch, the heretic Macedonius, and another, Peter, at Alexandria. The Pope adds that in his anxiety to build up the Church of God, which they were laying waste, he had, according to the power given him by the Lord in the person of blessed Peter, ordered his brother John, Bishop of Philadelphia, to supply his place in all ecclesiastical matters through the East, and to create in all cities episcopally subject to the Sees of Antioch and Jerusalem bishops, priests, and deacons, and he begs them as sons of obedience “to help our Vicar set by Apostolic authority”.
The Bishop of Thessalonica, in the course of 200 years since St. Leo and the