1. Il simbolo di Nicea e di Costantinopoli. Edizione critica. Testi e Ricerche di Scienze Religiose, 2. By Giuseppe Luigi Dossetti. Roma, Freiburg, Basel, Barcelona, Wien: Herder 1967. 296 pp. + 2 plates.Google Scholar

2. “Das Nicaenum und das Constantinopolitanum ant der Synode von Chalkedon,” ZNW, 25 (1926), pp. 33–88.Google Scholar

3. Among these difficulties may be listed: (1) The position of Athanasius is one of the most surprising victims here. Athanasius (e.g., Tomos ad Antioch. 5, PG xxvi, 800Google Scholar; De synodis 6, Ibid., 689) advocated and maintained a stricture against forming new “orthodox” creeds. He insisted on the pure and unadulterated version of N. This is the case despite the fact that he wrote against later heresies with the creed in mind. (It should be noted that only Ritter, Adolf-Martin, Das Konzil von Konstatinopel und sein symbol. Studien zur Geschichte und Theologie des II. Oekumenischen Konzils (Göttingen, 1965), pp. 188f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, gives careful attention to this problem; this aspect of his work has not been sufficiently noted by his reviewers. The importance of the problem is not adequately recognized by Kelly and others.) (2) A second problem is posed by the wording of Canon I of the Council of Constantinople, 381, which reconfirms N and anathematizes those who alter it.

4. See Ritter, , Das Konzil, p. 183Google Scholar; and cf. Kelly, J. N. D., Early Christian Creeds (London, New York, Toronto, 1950), pp. 323f., and 351.Google Scholar

5. See Mingana, Alphonse, Woodbrooke Studies, vol. V, Commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Nicene Creed (Cambridge, England, 1932).Google Scholar On p. 18 (cf. p. 117), Theodore entitles his work “the exposition of the faith of the three-hundred and eighteen”, but then goes on to use a different creed from N as the basis of his work.

6. For discussion of this question in its entire range of problems, see Kelly, , Creeds, pp. 296–331Google Scholar; Ritter, , Das Konzil, pp. 133–208Google Scholar; and the articles of Lebon, J., “Nicée-Constantinople, Les premiers symboles de foi,” RHE, 32 (1936), pp. 537–547,Google Scholar and “Les anciens symboles dans la définition de Chalcédoine,” Ibid., pp. 809–876.

7. Ritter, , Das Konzil, pp. 155f., and 182Google Scholar; and Kelly, , Creeds, pp. 307 and 326f.Google Scholar

8. Schwartz, Eduard, ACO II, 1, 1, 35.Google Scholar This letter is discussed at length by Ritter, , Das Konzil, pp. 152ff.Google Scholar

9. Das Konzil, p. 182.

10. As Dossetti remarks quite correctly,“Un fatto deve essere messo preliminarmente in evidenza: tutti i testimoni, greci e latini, di C derivano o dagli atti della seconda sessione del concilio di Calcedonia o dalla definizione di fede del medesimo.” (p. 264).

11. Creeds, p. 310; cf. also pp. 314 and 315.

12. Translation from Kelly, , Creeds, p. 329.Google Scholar (Italics added.)

13. Hort, F. J. A., Two Dissertations (Cambridge and London, 1876), p. 112.Google Scholar

14. Cyril's concern was to free N from the other “Nicene” creeds, not, against Kelly (Creeds, p. 329),Google Scholar from C.

15. Kelly, , Creeds, pp. 309ff.Google Scholar, et passim; and Bitter, , Das Konzil, pp. 202ff.,Google Scholar and esp. p. 215.

16. Das Koazil, p. 215.

17. “Konstantinopolitanisches Symbol,” in Hauck, Realencyklopädie³, vol. 11, (pp. 12–28) p. 18.Google Scholar

18. The two data proposed in support of his view by Bitter seem to me not so clear as he thinks: (1) the oarm. hist. XI of Gregory of Nazianzus (discussed by Bitter as Exkurs III: “Zur Interpretation von Gregor. Naz. Carm. Hist. XI [Ueber sich selbst], V. 1703–1796,” in Das Konzil, pp. 253–270, and esp., on this question, pp. 259f.) seems to me too vague to carry anything like the certainty with which Bitter refers it to Constantinople. And the adduction (2) of the third dialogue of Ps.-Athanasius, De Trinitate (PG xxviii, 1204), a work which has yet to find anything like a consensus with respect to problems of date and authorship and which makes nothing like an unequivocal reference to Constantinople, seems to me very indecisive with respect to this problem. My credulity is strained by Ritter's comment (p. 153): “Doch unabhängig davon, wie man sich in dieser schwierigen Frage entecheiden mag [i.e., the matter of date and authorship], spricht m.E. viel dafür, dass an der angegebenen Stelle im dritten Dialog mit der einem Makedonianer gegenüber zugegebenen (!), neuerlichen (!), offenbar autoritativen Ergänzung des nikäischen Glaubens auf die Tätigkeit der Synode von 381 Bezug genommen wird.]

19. See the discussion, e.g., in Kelly, , Creeds, pp. 318f.Google Scholar

20. Bitter's plea (Das Konzil, p. 182) “… dass C tatsächlieh auf die Synode von Kon-stantinopel 381 zurückgehen muss, wenn anders die mit Gregorios von Nazianzos anhebende Tradition und speziell das Zeugnis der Väter von Chalkedon eine plausible Erklärung finden soll” [italics added] is inappropriate if it means that our desires for solutions to problems lead us to answers not dictated by the evidence.

21. Dossetti goes so far as to note (p. 27), “Certamente non pretendo di dire cose originali:già altri, Lebon, Kelly, Ritter hanno detto meglio e più completamente di me. La mia intenzione è solo di riassumere i loro argomenti, di contribuire alla diffusione delle loro conelusioni, ancora troppo poco conosciute, e inline di mettere in evidenza lo strumento metodologico da essi messo a punto, e che potrà essere applicato, in uno studio di maggior respiro, ad altre professioni di fede.”

22. Creeds, pp. 217ff.

23. The first report modern scholars received of this Synod of Antioch, 324/25, came at the hands of Eduard Schwartz in 1905. Schwartz identified the Synodal Letter in codex Parisinus syriacus 62, and made his findings known in the Nachrichten der kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 1905, pp. 272ff.Google Scholar (Gesammelte Schriften Bd. III, Zur Geschichte des Athanasius [Berlin, 1959], pp. 136ff.Google Scholar Cf. Ibid., Kapitel VI:“Die Dokumente des arianischen Streites his 325,” pp. 117–168.) Since that time two corroborating mss. have been discovered: codex Vatianus syriacus 148 (fols, 128–131)Google Scholar, which is collated into a French translation in Nau, F., “Littérature canonique syiaque inedite,” in Revue de l'Orient Chrétien, 2me série, 4 (14), 1909, pp. 1–31Google Scholar; and Mingana syr. 8, described by Chadwick, Henry, “Ossius of Cordova and the Presidency of the Council of Antioch, 325,” JTS, n.s. 9 (1958) (pp. 292–304), pp. 297ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Not all scholars accepted Schwartz' interpretations. Adolf von Harnack attacked Schwartz ' views sharply in “Die angebliche Synode von Antiochien im Jahr 324/25” (Sitzungsberchte der Kgl. pr. Akademie der Wissenschaften) (Berlin, 1908), pp. 477ff.Google Scholar and Schwartz retorted with his “Zur Geschichte des Athanasius VII” (Nachrichten der kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen), 1908 [Gesammelte Schriften, III, pp. 169–187Google Scholar]. It was this rebuttal of Schwartz' which most scholars subsequently have regarded as decisive in favor of Antioch. (Schwartz provided a Greek translation of the Syriac text of the Letter, Synodal; Gesammelte Schriften, III, pp. 136ff.Google Scholar English translations in Cross, F. L., “The Council of Antioch in 325 A.D.,” CQR 128 (1939), pp. 71–76Google Scholar; and Stevenson, James, A New Eusebius (London, 1957), pp. 354–357.Google Scholar)

24. Berlin, 1913.

25. “Ossius of Cordova,” p. 293.

26. An excellent discussion of Eusebius' theology is still Opitz's, Hans-Georg terse little article, “Euseb von Caesarea als Theologe,” ZNW 34 (1935), pp. 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. See my article, “Die Synode von Antiochien (324/25) und ihre Bedeutung für Euesebius von Caesarea und das Konzil von Nizäa,” which will appear in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 1970, for fuller discussion.

28. E.g., he did speak of the Son as immutable and unchangeable by adoption at His begetting, and he did want to affirm a beginning for the Son which tended to sound almost like the Arians' ēn pote hote ouk ēn. None of these points is crucial for him, however, and each finds a balancing emphasis of a more orthodox sort (e.g., Eusebius could also write that the Logos has never not existed: Demonstratio Evangelica iv, 3, 13).Google Scholar

29. Eusebius used this expression frequently, but it would appear that it, like his distinction between the ousiai of the Father and the Son (Praeparatio Evangelica vii, 15),Google Scholar is to be understood in the Origenistic sense of separate existences, not in the later post-Nicene sense. There is, of course, a subordinationism involved in ho deuteros theos. Cf. Hadrill, D. S. Wallace, Eusebius of Caesarea (London, 1960), p. 129.Google Scholar

30. Eusebius opposed all, Arian and Sabellian alike, who excerpted the scriptures for prooftexts of their own views. The whole of the scriptures, correctly interpreted, alone sufficed for him. And this scriptural emphasis produced a lively concern for history in his theology. As Opitz, “Euseb von Caesarea als Theologe,” p. 10, says: “Der Kern dieser Ausführungen liegt in der Beschreibung der Herkunft des Logos und der Beziehung der Prophezeiungen im Alten Testament auf den geschichtlichen Christus. Hierbei entwickelt nun Euseb seine ganze Theologie im eigentlichen Sinne.”

31. A series of alternatives was set down by Seeberg, , Die Synode von Antiochien, pp. 157ff.Google Scholar: He suggests either (1) in his concern over his having subscribed N, Eusebius no longer remembered the matter of his excommunication's having been lifted or (2) his parishioners in Caesarea had never known of his having been provisionally excommunicated; or (3) his efforts to make Caes appear to be the basis of N, and thus himself as the “father” of the Conciliar ekthesis, were his way of reporting his rehabilitation. See also Kelly, , Creeds, pp. 220ff.Google Scholar Neither Seeberg's suggestions nor Kelly's tortured eisegesis of the letter is convincing.

32. Die Synode von Antiochien, p. 97.

33. Schwartz, Eduard, Gesammelte schriften, III, 185.Google Scholar

34. Seeberg, , Die Synode von Antiochien, pp. 199–217.Google Scholar

35. Cf. Henry Chadwick, “Ossius of Cordova,” and cf. Nyman, J. R., “The Synod at Antioch (324–325) and the Council of Nicaea,” Studio Patristica, vol. IV (Berlin, 1961), 483–489.Google Scholar While not all agree that Hosius played this role, I see no reason to demur from Chadwick's study at this point if one accepts the existence of Antioch at all.

36. Die Synode von Antiochien, pp. 199–217.

37. On the question of the relationship of Constantine and Hosius, see de Clercq, Victor, Ossius of Cordova. A Contribution to the History of the Constantinian Period (Washington, D.C., 1954), esp. pp. 148ff.Google Scholar

38. Die Synode von Antiochien, p. 159. I find Seeberg's proposal (p. 161) that Athanasius might not even have been aware of Antioch and Eusebius' excommunication hard to credit.

39. “Ossius of Cordova,” p. 304.

40. There is an excellent statement bearing on Eusebius' critical sense and reliability— even when his own interests are involved—in Opitz, “Euseb von Caesarea als Theologe,” p. 14; cf. also pp. 3f.

41. Lietzmann, , “Symbolstudien XIII,” ZNW, 24 (1925), pp. 193–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar(=Kleine Schriften, Bd. III [Berlin, 1962] 248–260)Google Scholar; and Kelly, , Creeds, 217ff.Google Scholar

42. The major points are graphically presented in Lietzmann, , “Symbolstudien XIII,” in Kleine Schriften, III, 250f. and 255f.Google Scholar

43. E.g., Kelly tries to get the earlier forms by deleting “Nicene” materials from the later texts. The precariousness of that methodology is obvious: what right has one to assume no creed anticipated N's phraseology and theology¶

44. Lietzmann, , Kleine Schriften, III, 255f.Google Scholar, illustrates the point.

45. Creeds, p. 323.

46. Dossetti (p. 262) remarks that variants between creedal texts in unimportant language are of scarso valore. I agree and would extend his comment to cover especially Kelly's complaint that Caes could not have become N because of these unaccountable non-essential alterations. That is basically a tendentious argument which vastly overrates concern for the ipsissima verba in the fourth and fifth centuries. Cf. also Holland, D. L., “The Earliest Text of the Old Roman Symbol: A Debate with Hans Lietzmann and J. N. D. Kelly,” Church History, XXXIV (1965), esp. pp. 264f.Google Scholar

47. See Ritter, , Das Konzil, pp. 191f.Google Scholar, where the alleged Erweiterungen to N at Constantinople are justified despite the anathema extended by Nicea to all who alter its creed; cf. also pp. 182ff. on this question in general.

48. “Kritiseher Epiog,” ZNW, 24 (1925), p. 203.Google Scholar This one-page reaction was written in response to Lietzmann's invitation and printed with “Symbolstudien XIII.”