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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival
THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS Resources Online and in Print
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82 Pages
Page 72
Other examples could easily be given, but this is sufficient. Ab uno disce omnes. The most famous however of all the ignorant blunders found in these books must not here be omitted. It occurs in Book III., chapter xvij., and is no less serious than to attribute to Constantius, the bishop of Cyprus, the monstrous statement that the sacred images were to be given the supreme adoration due to the Holy Trinity. What a complete mistake this was, we have already pointed out, and will have been evident to anyone who has read the extracts of the acts given in the foregoing pages. I have said "mistake;" and I have said so deliberately, because I am convinced that the Caroline books, the decree of Frankfort, and the decision of the Convention of Paris, all sprung from ignorance and blundering; and largely through the force of this particular false statement on which I am writing. But I must not omit the statement of Sir William Palmer, a champion of these books, that "the acts of the synod of Nice having been sent to Rome in the year 787, Pope Hadrian himself, according to Hincmar, transmitted them into France to Charlemagne, to be confirmed by the bishops of his kingdom; and the Emperor [i.e. Charlemagne] also received the acts directly from Constantinople according to Roger Hovedon. These prelates, thus furnished with an authentic copy and not a mere translation, composed a reply to the synod" (Treatise on the Church, Vol. II., p. 203).
If Sir William is right, then the author of the Caroline books is thrown into a dark shade indeed, for either he was too ignorant or too careless to read the original Greek, or else, knowing the real state of the case, deliberately misrepresented the synod. Sir William feels this difficulty, and, a few lines below the sentence I have quoted, attributes the misstatements to a "mistranslation," viz. the false statement--upon which alone all the rest hung--attributed to the bishop of Cyprus. But the two claims are contraria inter se. If they were using an authentic copy of the original sent from Constantinople then they could not have been misled by a "mistranslation;" if they used a mistranslation and took no pains to read the decrees, their opinion and their writings--as well as the decrees which followed from them--were evidently entirely without theological value, and this is the estimation in which they have been held by all unprejudiced scholars without exception, whether agreeing with their conclusions or no.
It will be well to set plainly before the reader the foundation upon which rests the dogmatic teaching of the Caroline Books. This is, in short, the authority of the Roman See. That there may be no possible doubt upon this point, I proceed to quote somewhat at length chapter vi., of Book I.; the heading of which reads as follows: "That the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church is placed above all other Churches, and is to be consulted at every turn when any controversy arises with regard to the faith."
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/seventh.asp?pg=72
