Page:Lampryllos - La Mystification fatale, 1883.djvu/115

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approuvé aussi ce dogme ; mais vos ancêtres ayant rejeté les décisions de ce concile, ont rejeté en même temps ce qui regarde la procession du côté du Fils^[1]. »

Outre le mensonge des décrets d’Éphèse et de Constantinople, admirez la perspicacité de ce pontife infaillible ! Comme le concile de Chalcédoine avait approuvé tous les dogmes décrétés dans les conciles antérieurs,

↑ What Benedict XII, told abbot Barlaam in private audience has been already criticised ; what he wrote to the Armenians in his official character is stil more portentous. In a letter addressed by him, a. d. 1341, to his dear son in Christ the catholicos, or primate of the Armenians, he sends them a list of 117 points on which they had fallen away from the truth and needed correction. Their forefathers, he tells them, had taught originally that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as well as the Father ; but this doctrine they had long since abandoned — 612 years ago is his statement — after which he proceeds : ‘Now, although it was not expressly defined in the council of Chalcedon, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as from the Father, yet this had been defined in the councils of Ephesus and Constantinople ; as therefore, the council of Chalcedon approved of all that had been defined in the said previous councils, in rejecting the council of Chalcedon the Armenians rejected the rulings of the said councils that had been approved by it, and among them the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as from the Father.’
Such a declaration as this, on what had passed at Ephesus and Constantinople by the pope, must have made the catholicos, unless he was ignorant of all that he ought to have known best, doubt whether he stood on his head or his heels. The excuse for Benedict is that he was only saying what western theologians had got into the habit of repeating over and over again till they believed it. The work on the procession attributed to Alcuin is, perhaps, the earliest instance of a similar assertion. On the teaching of the council of Ephesus some remarks have been made previously. The council of Constantinople certainly condemned those who denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost ;

[p105-1] What Benedict XII, told abbot Barlaam in private audience has been already criticised ; what he wrote to the Armenians in his official character is stil more portentous. In a letter addressed by him, a. d. 1341, to his dear son in Christ the catholicos, or primate of the Armenians, he sends them a list of 117 points on which they had fallen away from the truth and needed correction. Their forefathers, he tells them, had taught originally that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as well as the Father ; but this doctrine they had long since abandoned — 612 years ago is his statement — after which he proceeds : ‘Now, although it was not expressly defined in the council of Chalcedon, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as from the Father, yet this had been defined in the councils of Ephesus and Constantinople ; as therefore, the council of Chalcedon approved of all that had been defined in the said previous councils, in rejecting the council of Chalcedon the Armenians rejected the rulings of the said councils that had been approved by it, and among them the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as from the Father.’
Such a declaration as this, on what had passed at Ephesus and Constantinople by the pope, must have made the catholicos, unless he was ignorant of all that he ought to have known best, doubt whether he stood on his head or his heels. The excuse for Benedict is that he was only saying what western theologians had got into the habit of repeating over and over again till they believed it. The work on the procession attributed to Alcuin is, perhaps, the earliest instance of a similar assertion. On the teaching of the council of Ephesus some remarks have been made previously. The council of Constantinople certainly condemned those who denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost ;

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