Creed promulgated
The Creed of this Council
We proclaim equally two natural wills in him and two natural operations, undividedly, unconvertibly, inseparably, unconfusedly, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers. And two natural wills not in opposition — as the impious heretics said, far from it — but his human will following, and not resisting or opposing, but rather subject to his divine and all-powerful will.
Definition · No. 1
The Council's Answer
Claim refuted: "“Christ has two natures but only one will and one operation. His human will was not a genuinely distinct will but was wholly directed by the divine will. “Not my will but yours” is the appearance of human willing, not its reality.”" — If Christ has no genuine human will, his humanity is incomplete — Apollinarianism revived at the level of will rather than mind. More fundamentally: the human will is precisely what needed healing. In Adam the human will turned from God; in Christ the human will must freely return to God. If there is no genuine human will in Christ, the fall of the will is not healed but bypassed. Human freedom is not redeemed — it is replaced.
Creed · No. 2
The Council's Definition, Constantinople III
We proclaim equally two natural wills in him and two natural operations, undividedly, unconvertibly, inseparably, unconfusedly, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers. And two natural wills not in opposition — as the impious heretics said, far from it — but his human will following, and not resisting or opposing, but rather subject to his divine and all-powerful will. — Council of Constantinople III, Definition of the Faith, 681 AD
Anathema · No. 3
Against Monothelitism
“Christ has two natures but only one will and one operation. His human will was not a genuinely distinct will but was wholly directed by the divine will. “Not my will but yours” is the appearance of human willing, not its reality.”
Anathema · No. 4
Against Pope Honorius I
“Christ has two natures but only one will and one operation. His human will was not a genuinely distinct will but was wholly directed by the divine will. “Not my will but yours” is the appearance of human willing, not its reality.”
Definition · No. 5
Witness — St. Maximus the Confessor (The Confessor and Martyr)
"Our Lord Jesus Christ, even after his Incarnation, willed both as God and as man the salvation of our kind. As God, he willed it with the divine will which belongs to him together with the Father and the Spirit. As man, he willed it with the human will which is proper to him as a man like us in everything except sin. His human will, being genuine and not merely apparent, was not coerced or overridden by the divine will; it freely submitted to it, out of love — and this free submission is itself the healing of our wills." — St. Maximus the Confessor, Opuscula Theologica 7, c. 645 AD. Maximus was arguing against the Monothelite Ekthesis of Emperor Heraclius (638 AD) and the Typos of Emperor Constans II (648 AD) — imperial decrees mandating silence on the question of one or two wills. Maximus refused. His refusal, and the theological argument he gave for it, is the theological content of the Sixth Council.
Definition · No. 6
Witness — Pope Honorius I (The Condemned Pope)
"Therefore we confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ also, since obviously our nature was assumed by the Divinity, that nature which was born of the Virgin — without sin, not that which fell in Adam. Our Savior, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, did not experience a certain other carnal wisdom opposed to the mind." — Pope Honorius I, Second Letter to Patriarch Sergius, 634 AD. The condemnation of Honorius by an Ecumenical Council created significant difficulties for later advocates of papal infallibility. Every papal oath of consecration from the 7th century to Vatican I required acceptance of the council's condemnation of Honorius. Vatican I's definition of papal infallibility was partly shaped by the need to accommodate this historical datum: Honorius's letters were pastoral correspondence, not <em>ex cathedra</em> definitions.
Definition · No. 7
Witness — The Council Fathers (Theological Vindication)
"The holy and ecumenical council, gathered by the grace of God in this imperial city... following the five holy Ecumenical Councils and the holy and accepted Fathers... anathematizes the newly invented error of Monothelitism. And together with these impious heretics it anathematizes also Theodore, bishop of Pharan, and Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter, former bishops of this imperial city, and also Honorius, who was Pope of Elder Rome." — Acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, Concluding Definition, 681 AD. The list of the condemned includes Pope Honorius I by name — one of the most historically significant decisions in conciliar history. The council then explicitly declared the orthodoxy of all those who had suffered for the two-wills position, including, by implication, St. Maximus and his companion Anastasius.
Cross-references
Read alongside
Fathers