A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

759which promise He made, not only to them, but to us also whothrough them should believe in His name. But some, not consideringthis gift, and having become fickle through the temptationof the wily enemy, have fallen from the right faith; for, withdrawingfrom the tradition of the Catholic Church, they haveerred from the knowledge of the truth, and as the proverb saith:“The husbandmen have gone astray in their own husbandry, andhave gathered in their hands sterility,” because certain priests indeed, but not priests in reality, had dared to slander the Godapprovedornaments of the sacred monuments. Of whom God [695]cries aloud through the prophet: “Many pastors have corruptedmy vineyard, they have polluted my portion” [Jer. 12:10; cf.LXX]. And, forsooth, following profane men, trusting to theirown senses, they have calumniated His holy Church espousedto Christ our God, and have not distinguished between holy andprofane, styling the images of the Lord and of His saints bythe same name as the statute of diabolical idols. Seeing whichthings, our Lord God (not willing to behold His people corruptedby such manner of plague) hath of His good pleasure called ustogether, the chief of His priests, from every quarter, moved witha divine zeal and brought hither by the will of our Emperors,Constantine and Irene, to the end that the divine tradition of theCatholic Church may receive stability by our common decree.Therefore, with all diligence, making a thorough examination andinvestigation, and following the trend of the truth, diminishingnaught, adding naught, we preserve unchanged all things whichpertain to the Catholic Church, and following the six ecumenicalsynods, especially that which met in this illustrious metropolisof Nicæa, as also that which was afterward gathered together inthe God-preserved royal city.We believe in one God … life of the world to come. Amen. 333We detest and anathematize Arius and all who agree with him333 The creed of Nicæa is not here recited, only the so-called creed of Constantinople,but without the filioque in the Greek.