INTRODUCTION ON THE NUMBER OF THE CANONS.

(HEFELE, History of the Councils, Vol. II., p. 351.)

The number of canons drawn up by this synod is doubtful. The old Greek 

codices and the Greek commentators of the Middle Ages, Zonaras and 

Balsamon, enumerate seven; the old Latin translations--viz. the Prisca, 

those by Dionysius Exiguus and Isidore, as well as the Codex of Luna--

only recognize the first four canons of the Greek text, and the fact 

that they agree in this point is the more important as they are wholly 

independent of each other, and divide and arrange those canons of 

Constantinople which they do acknowledge quite differently.

Because, however, in the Prisca the canons of Constantinople are only 

placed after those of the fourth General Council, the Ballerini brothers 

conclude that they were not contained at all in the oldest Greek 

collections of canons, and were inserted after the Council of Chalcedon. 

But it was at this very Council of Chalcedon that the first three canons 

of Constantinople were read out word for word. As however, they were not 

separately numbered, but were there read under the general title of 

Synodicon Synodi Secundae, Fuchs concluded they were not originally in 

the form in which we now possess them, but, without being divided into 

numbers, formed a larger and unbroken decree, the contents of which were 

divided by later copyists and translators into several different canons. 

And hence the very different divisions of these canons in the Prisca, 

Dionysius, and Isidore may be explained. The fact, however, that the old 

Latin translations all agree in only giving the first four canons of the 

Greek text, seems to show that the oldest Greek manuscripts, from which 

those translations were made, did not contain the fifth, sixth, and 

seventh, and that these last did not properly belong to this Synod, but 

were later additions. To this must be added that the old Greek Church-

historians, in speaking of the affairs of the second General Council, 

only mention those points which are contained in the first four canons, 

and say nothing of what, according to the fifth, sixth, and seventh 

canons, had also been decided at Constantinople. At the very least, the 

seventh canon cannot have emanated from this Council, since in the sixth 

century John Scholasticus did not receive it into his collection, 

although he adopted the fifth and sixth. It is also missing in many 

other collections; and in treating specially of this canon further on, 

we shall endeavour to show the time and manner of its origin. But the 

fifth and sixth canons probably belong to the Synod of Constantinople of 

the following year, as Beveridge, the Ballerini, and others conjectured. 

The Greek scholiasts, Zonaras and Balsamon, and later on Tillemont, 

Beveridge, Van Espen and Herbst, have given more or less detailed 

commentaries on all these canons.