Folio 116

Vigilius (537) 540-555

printed p. 84 · pdf p. 116

the Mother of God made incarnate and born from her, and \<properly indeed>, lest it be believed that the Lord Jesus received the name of God through honor or grace, as the foolish Nestorius thinks; but truly for this reason, lest it be believed that He took flesh in a phantasm or some other manner, not true flesh from the virgin, just as the impious Eutyches has asserted.

St. Agapetus I 535–536 St. Silverius 536–(537)–540

VIGILIUS (537) 540-555

Canons against Origen1

[From the Book against Origen of the Emperor Justinian, 543]

203. Can. 1. If anyone says or holds that the souls of men pre-existed, as if they were formerly minds and holy powers, but having received a surfeit of beholding the Divinity, and having turned towards the worse, and on this account having shuddered (apopsycheisas) at the love of God, in consequence being called souls (psychae) and being sent down into bodies for the sake of punishment, let him be anathema.

204. Can. 2. If anyone says and holds that the soul of the Lord pre-existed, and was united to God the Word before His incarnation and birth from the Virgin, let him be anathema.

205. Can. 3. If anyone says or holds that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ was first formed in the womb of the holy Virgin, and that after this God, the Word, and the soul, since it had pre-existed, were united to it, let him be anathema.

206. Can. 4. If anyone says or holds that the Word of God was made like all the heavenly orders, having become a Cherubim for the Cherubim, a Seraphim for the Seraphim, and evidently having been made like all the powers above, let him be anathema.

207. Can. 5. If anyone says or maintains that in resurrection the bodies of men are raised up from sleep spherical, and does not agree that we are raised up from sleep upright, let him be anathema.

208. Can. 6. If anyone says that the sky, and the sun, and the moon and

  1. Msi IX 533 A f.; Hrd III 279 C.—These canons, which the native synod under Menna the Patriarch edited in the year 543, the Supreme Pontiff VIGILIUS seems to have confirmed by his signature, as Cassiodorus testifies, De inst. div. litt. c. 2 [MG 70, 1111]: "It appears that he [evidently Origen] . . . has nevertheless in the present time been condemned anew by VIGILIUS the Pope, a most blessed man." [Cf. Fr. Diekamp, Die originistischen Streitigkeiten in 6. Jahrhundert und das 5. allg. Konzil. Münster: 1899, 46 ff.].  ↩