Folio 148

St. Sergius I, 698-701

printed p. 116 · pdf p. 148

to be excommunicated, bishops indeed from the bishopric, but priests from the priesthood; but if they are monks or laymen, to be anathematized.

St. Leo II 682-683 1
St. Benedict II 684-685
John V 685-686
Conon 686-687

(ST. SERGIUS I 687-701)

COUNCIL OF TOLEDO XV 685

Protestation concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation 2

[From "Liber responsionis" or the "Apologia" of Julian, Archbishop of Toledo]

294. . . . We have found that in that book of response to our faith, which we had sent to the Roman Church through Peter the regent, it had seemed to the Pope already mentioned (Benedict) that we had carelessly written that first chapter where we said according to divine essence: "Will begot will, as also wisdom, wisdom," because that man in a hurried reading thought that we had used these very names according to a relative sense, or according to a comparison of the human mind; and so in his reply he commanded us to give warning saying: "In the natural order we recognize that the word takes its origin from the mind, just as reason and will, and they cannot be changed, so that it may be said that, as the word and the will proceed from the mind, so also the mind from the word or the will, and from this comparison it seemed to the Roman Pontiff that the will cannot be said to be from the will." We, however, not according to this comparison of the human mind, nor according to a relative sense, but according to essence have said: Will from will, as also wisdom from wisdom. For this being is to God as willing: this willing as understanding. But this we cannot say concerning man. For it is one thing for man not to will that which is, and another thing to will even without understanding. In God, however, it is not so, be-

  1. Letters in which (is treated) the Anathema against Honorius, see Kch 1085 ff. ↩

  2. Msi XII 10 E ff.; Hrd III 1761 B ff.; cf. Hfl III 325 f.; Bar (Th) ad 688 n. 1 ff. (12, 96 ff.).—The Spanish fathers of the Council of Toledo XIV had accepted a certain work of St. Julian, in which these propositions occurred: Will begot will, just as also wisdom, wisdom; and that there are three substances in Christ. Benedict II indicated by an announcement that he had difficulty accepting these. But when St. Julian explained his meaning, in this meaning Sergius I acknowledged that they were orthodox. Thus in the Synod of Toledo XV and XVI, the Spanish fathers explained their minds again. ↩