A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

758 A Source Book for Ancient Church History[694]How then, if one and one, are there not two Gods? Because wespeak of a king and of the king's image, and not of two kings.The power is not parted nor the glory divided. The power rulingover us is one, and the authority one, and so also the doxologyascribed by us is one and not plural; because the honor paid tothe image passes over to the prototype.Now what in the one case the image is by reason of imitation,that in the other case the Son is by nature; and as in works ofart the likeness is dependent upon the form, so in the case ofthe divine and uncompounded nature the union consists in thecommunion of the godhead.(d) The Seventh General Council, Nicæa, A. D. 787, Definitionof Faith. Mansi, XIII, 398 ff.In addition to Hefele, and PNF, ser. II. vol. XIV, seeMendham, The Seventh General Council, the Second ofNicæa, in which the Worship of Images was Established; withcopious notes from the “Caroline Books,” compiled by orderof Charlemagne for its Confutation, London, n. d.The holy, great and ecumenical synod which, by the grace ofGod and the command of the pious and Christ-loving Emperors,Constantine, and Irene his mother, was gathered together for thesecond time at Nicæa, the illustrious metropolis of the eparchy ofBithynia, in the holy Church of God which is named Sophia, havingfollowed the tradition of the Catholic Church, hath definedas follows:Christ our Lord, who hath bestowed upon us the light of theknowledge of Himself, and hath redeemed us from the darknessof idolatrous madness, having espoused to Himself His holyCatholic Church without spot or defect, promised that He wouldso preserve her; and assured His holy disciples, saying, “I amwith you always, even unto the end of the world” [Matt. 28:20],