Editor’s Introduction

The Synod of Jerusalem was holden, under the presidency of Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in March of the year 1672, on the occasion of the rededication of the Basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem—from which circumstance it is sometimes called the Synod or Council of Bethlehem—and there were present at it, in addition to the Clergy of Palestine, several foreign Ecclesiastics.

It had for its object the condemnation of a work intituled, The Eastern Confession of the Christian Faith, published with the name of Cyril, formerly Patriarch of Constantinople, and maintaining many of the doctrines of the Calvinists.

As set forth in the preamble to its Acts; the Synod undertook to shew :—

Firstly. That the Eastern Church never regarded Cyril as being such an one as the Calvinists maintained, or ever admitted the Confession to be his; adducing in support of this contention a number of extracts from sermons by Cyril, preached at Constantinople; wherein the contrary doctrines are maintained.

Secondly. That though we were to suppose, for argument’s sake, the work to have been Cyril’s, yet he must have published it covertly, and without the knowledge of the Easterns, much less of the Church.

Thirdly. That the Confession of Cyril is not, as a matter of fact, that of the Church.

Fourthly. That either it would have been impossible for the Easterns to have been cognisant of the publication of the Confession in question, or if cognisant, to have been Christians.

Fifthly. That the Easterns so abhorred the Confession, that though Cyril had many times repudiated its authorship, and publicly taught what was contrary to the same, yet because he had not written against it they had already in two Synods condemned him; and the Acts of these Synods are given in extenso.

And sixthly. The Synod put forth its own Confession, explaining very lucidly the doctrines of the Eastern Church, and with special reference to the controversies which had arisen in the West.

The Acts and Decrees of the Synod were entered by Dositheus himself in the codex of the Patriarchate, and a copy was transmitted to the King of France, Louis XIV., for the information of the West, which was deposited in the royal library.

From this MS. a Latin translation was made by the Benedictine Domnus M. F., of the Congregation of S.S. Maurus; and this was published with the Greek text at Paris in 1676, and again more carefully in 1678.

Since when the text and translation have been given by Jean Hardouin, in his Acta Conciliorum, Paris, 1715, tom. XI., pp. 179-274; and again by E. J. Kimmel in his Libri Symbolici Ecclesiae Orientalis, Jena, 1843. [Reprinted with additional matter, and with the title of Monumenta Fidei Ecclesiae Orientalis, Jena, 1850, vol. i.] pp. 325-487.

The present translation is from the text of Kimmel, compared with that of Hardouin, from the latter of which the names of the signatories omitted by Kimmel have been supplied.

In an Appendix is given the Confession published with the name of Cyril Lucar, as that put forth by the Synod can hardly be understood without reference to it, and the Synod invited comparison. This is also from the text of Kimmel, but compared with the Geneva edition of 1633.

J. N. W. B. Robertson.

LONDON, THE FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION, 1899.