According to Dr. Toon,
we have noted that there is a commitment to the doctrine of all the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Such a position has been held as a private opinion by some anglo-catholics and high churchmen since the seventeenth century; but it has never been officially part of any Anglican confession of faith or constitution. The problem is obviously with the Seventh Council where the topic is no longer The Trinity or The Person of Christ but icons and images; the veneration of icons was approved and given a theological foundation. A similar doctrine was set forth eight or so centuries later by the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. If The Articles are authoritative then the doctrine of the Seventh Council and the Council of Trent on icons and images cannot be regarded as part of the Reformed Catholicism of the Anglican Way (see Article XXII and the Homily “On the Peril of Idolatry”, Article XXXV).
The relevant portion of the Affirmation of St. Louis states as follows:
Tradition: The received Tradition of the Church and its teachings as set forth by “the ancient catholic bishops and doctors,” and especially as defined by the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church, to the exclusion of all errors, ancient and modern.
The phrase “ancient catholic bishops and doctors” would appear to be a deliberate echo of the same Canon 6 of 1571 that first required subscription to the Articles and also required clergy to preach “what is agreeable to the teaching of the Old or New Testament, and what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this selfsame doctrine” (nisi quod consentaneum sit doctrinae Veteris aut Novi Testamenti, quodque ex illa ipsa doctrina catholic patres et veteres episcopi collegerint). Thus right from the start the Affirmation roots its acceptance of all seven councils in an Anglican tradition associated with the Articles (see my previous piece on “Reformed Catholicism” and the Thirty-Nine Articles).
Furthermore, Dr. Toon makes a surprising error when he asserts that, for the seventh council, “the topic is no longer . . . the Person of Christ but icons and images.” I say surprising because Dr. Toon himself knows well that this is not true. Rather, as I wrote above, the concern of the seventh council was precisely the theological implications of the Person of the Incarnate Christ, as Dr. Toon himself makes clear in his own excellent summary of the doctrine of Second Nicaea in his work on the seven ecumenical councils (well worth a read).
Dr. Toon does not himself have any problem with the teaching of the seventh council. His concern, rather, comes from making it part of the definition of what it means to be an Anglican, with going a step beyond what the historic formularies of Anglicanism—the Prayer Book, Ordinal and Articles—require. And it must be admitted that he has a point. Insofar as Anglican formularies have explicitly named or relied on councils, they have been either four (as in the first five of the Thirty-nine Articles or the Henrician canons of 1535, the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum ) or six (as in, ironically, the very homily “Against the Peril of Idolatry” cited by Dr. Toon). Anglicanism has indeed long had a something of hiccup regarding seventh council, and there was undoubtedly a streak of inconoclasm in the Elizabethan church (though nothing to match the later fury of the Puritan party). However, I believe Dr. Toon is wrong on several counts: first, he is wrong to believe that the Homilies, and in particular the homily “Against the Peril of Idolatry,” have any particular authority in this matter; second, the logic of Anglican formularies, if not the formularies themselves explicitly, require acceptance of 7th council; and third, the statement in the Affirmation of St Louis on the councils is only a small step, but indeed a right and necessary one, in the right direction for the future of Anglicanism.
First, as regards the Homilies: Article XXXV states,
XXXV. Of Homilies.
The second Book of Homilies, the several titles whereof we have joined under this Article, doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former Book of Homilies, which were set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth; and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.
Of the Names of the Homilies.
1 Of the right use of the Church
2 Against peril of Idolatry
3 Of repairing and keeping clean of churches
4 Of good Works: first of fasting
5 Against Gluttony and Drunkenness
6 Against Excess of Apparel
7 Of Prayer
8 Of the Place and Time of Prayer
9 That Common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be ministered
in a known tongue
10 Of the reverend estimation of God’s Word
11 Of Alms-doing
12 Of the Nativity of Christ
13 Of the Passion of Christ
14 Of the Resurrection of Christ
15 Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and
Blood of Christ
16 Of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost
17 For the Rogation-days
18 Of the State of Matrimony
19 Of Repentance
20 Against Idleness
21 Against Rebellion
Note the actual text of the Article (which, as the 1662 Prayer Book insists, is to be read in its “literal and grammatical sense”). It states that the Homilies only contain “a godly and wholesome doctrine,” not that they are godly and wholesome doctrine (a fact pointed out long ago by the fathers of the Oxford movement). You could say the same thing about the work of Thomas Aquinas, but the Summa Theologica is nevertheless hardly binding dogma for Anglicans. Moreover, this “godly and wholesome doctrine” is only such as is “necessary for these times,” scarcely a ringing endorsement of their everlasting validity.
Now, I can already hear the chorus: “Come on, Professor Say! ‘It depends on what the meaning of “contain” is’? Who’s being Clintonesque now?” To which I reply: not I. Years ago, I used to hear my evangelical friends complain (and rightly so) about contemporary protestant theologians who argued that the Bible only contained the word of God. Happily, Article XX is quite clear that the Bible is “God’s word written.” If the Bible is the Word of God, then why should Article XXXV declare that the Homilies contain godly doctrine unless that is what it means? Moreover, if we are going to require assent to the Homilies in the same manner as to the Articles, we should have to believe, for example, that the Church of Rome, now headed by the former Cardinal Raztinger whom everyone at Plano loudly applauded, is the Antichrist; or that rebellion against against the King of England will result in damnation (try selling that to an American congregation on the Fourth of July).
When it comes to the Homily “Against the Peril of Idolatry” in particular, C. B. Moss demonstrated almost fifty years ago its worthlessness, both historically and theologically:
The Homily on Peril of Idolatry is, it must be confessed, entirely and thoroughly iconoclastic. The writer identifies the pictures and images, which he describes as worshipped in the churches in his own time, with the idols forbidden in Scripture. He rejects the distinction between images and idols, between one kind of ‘worship’ and another. He tells the story of the Iconoclastic controversy very inaccurately; for he treats the pictures, and not the destruction of them, as a novelty, and ignores altogether the restoration of them after the second Iconoclastic period. For him Leo III and Constantine V, the Iconoclastic emperors, are ‘holy’ and ‘wise’; he ignores their persecution of the monks, lays the blame for resistance to Iconoclasm on the Pope, and attributes to it the schism between the Greeks and the Latins, and the conquest of the Eastern Christians by the Arabs and the Turks. He believes that all ‘worship’ of images or pictures is idolatry. As human nature is so corrupt, that it is impossible to prevent people from committing idolatry if they have the chance, all pictures and statues with any religious significance are to be destroyed, especially if they are in churches . . .
. . . It is one of the curiosities of Church history that this homily should have remained for nearly 400 years among the formularies of the Church of England. It is, probably, unknown to the laity, and hardly one in a thousand of the clergy has read it; I had not, till I began this enquiry. Certainly no responsible or significant group in the English Church would now defend or promote such principles.
As for Article XXII, this rejects “the Romish Doctrine concerning . . . Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Relics . . . “ However, in truth, so did the seventh council, which specifically forbids rendering icons worship or adoration (latreia).
Article XXI concerns councils and their authority. The original text reads,
General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes. And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God,) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture.
This text was actually omitted in earlier editions of the American version of the Book of Common Prayer, presumably since it referred to the power of Princes. In any case, as many, including Dr. Toon, have pointed out, this Article was written with the meeting of Trent in mind, and does not say that councils have always erred, but only “sometimes.” In fact, the Elizabethan church explicitly required assent to the first four ecumenical councils, and Anglican divines have generally had no difficulty with accepting six. The problem lies in the seventh council (which is nevertheless termed by Dr. Toon himself “ecumenical.”)
In the past, objections to the 7th council by Anglicans had been to either its doctrine or its ecumenicity (that is, its acceptance by the whole church catholic). However, as C. B. Moss demonstrated almost almost fifty years ago in the work cited at the beginning of this post, the former was based, at least for some, on a misunderstanding of the council’s teaching, confusing the Greek douleia or proskynesis with the Latin adoratio or ‘worship.’ The latter view—held in the nineteenth century by William Palmer and John Mason Neale—is no longer tenable, if it ever was, as the seventh council was and is undoubtedly accepted by both east and west (though whether its teaching is uniformly observed is another question). Even B. J. Kidd, whose commentary on the Articles of a century ago has been and will be cited on this blog, appears to have fallen into this error in remarking on Article XXI:
Things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture. This is only to re-affirm the root principle of the English Reformation, the sufficiency of Scripture in matters of faith; and the function of General Councils was never more than to declare its sense. But this is essentially the Catholic position . . .
The doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, once the most disputed and still the most mysterious, are exactly the doctrines most universally accepted. It is with points that have arisen since the days when, in the undivided Church, General Councils were possible, that controversy is now mainly concerned . . . Thus, while there never was any guarantee for the inerrancy of a Council at the moment, once its decisions were received throughout the whole Church it took rank as a General Council, and its doctrine was rightly regarded as infallible. Of such, the English Church recognises ’six Councils which were allowed and received of all men.’
But in fact the essential purpose of the seventh council was to protect the doctrine of the Incarnation, itself based on the Scriptural revelation of the divine and human natures of Christ. If the test of a true council in Article XXI is its conformity to Scripture and reception by the church, then the seventh council is a true council—and so indeed has been taken by many, if not most, Anglicans for some time. As early as 1606, the great Caroline divine Richard Field carefully considered the actual text of the seventh council his magum opus, On the Church, and declared that its doctrine should trouble no member of the Church of England.
In his work of 1957, C. B. Moss argued that, given the claims by the Anglican Communion to represent the faith of the undivided church, it should publicly accept what its formularies implicitly, and many of its divines explicitly, had long believed, that the seventh council was indeed an authoritative council of the church universal. He proposed that, since the Anglican Communion lacked any central authority for the declaration of doctrine, each province should declare its recognition of Second Nicaea. All that the Affirmation of St. Louis did was carry out in 1977 what C. B. Moss had proposed, based on a careful analysis of the evidence, twenty years earlier. In doing so, the Affirmation did indeed go a step beyond the traditional Anglican formularies of the Prayer Book, Ordinal and Articles—but only a slight step, an inevitable step, a necessary step, and a welcome step. It makes explicit what had previously been implicit, and affirms the true basis for authority in Anglicanism, the ecumenical consensus of Scriptural interpretation as given by the councils of the church received by the church’s Tradition.
In fact, accepting the 7th council does not mean you must venerate icons; it just means you cannot object if others do. This has been the position among many, if not most, Anglicans for a long while; all that formally accepting the 7th council does is make de jure what has been for some time de facto. Moreover, this is exactly the time, when the crisis of authority in Anglicanism has reached a fever pitch, to do so. After all, theological crises are precisely the moment when clarification (though not necessarily “development”) is called for. What better time to affirm the sources of authority in Anglicanism than now, to make explicit that which was previously implicit? If there are some die-hard Anglican iconoclasts who want to hold out for “Against peril of idolatry,” they should get over it and get with the program.
Today is the first Sunday in Lent for Eastern Orthodox churches, and by tradition this is the Sunday of Orthodoxy, a celebration of the seven ecumenical councils that defined the faith of the undivided church, and in particular of the seventh council, the Second Council of Nicaea, which defined the proper veneration of icons. Icons, of course, are a form of liturgical art most associated with churches of the Byzantine or eastern Christian tradition, but have in recent years become once again a source of interest and inspiration to Christians outside of Eastern Orthodoxy, including a great many Anglicans. 