Les conciles mis en textes, ou comment le Saint-Esprit écrit droit avec des lignes courbes

Martin Morard (1, 2)

1 IRHT - Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes
2 PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres

The reading of the acts of the councils is the condition for the interpretation of their doctrinal canons. It requires an exact knowledge of the historical conditioning of the elaboration of the conciliar collections. But the acts of the councils have not always been the impartial recording of serene debates. They are a reflection of conciliar dramaturgy. Their doctrinal reception was conditioned by the process of selection, partisan rewriting, translations and collections that accompanied their dissemination. The official acts of the first six ecumenical councils were written in Greek, the language of the debates and of the majority of the participants, in an increasingly elaborate and detailed way over time. Their conservation is very uneven, the manuscripts are generally late: only the symbols and canons of Nicaea I and Constantinople I, as well as some fragments of Constantinople II have survived through indirect witnesses, while the acts of Ephesus, Chalcedon and Constantinople III are preserved by a small number of witnesses. No official Latin translation has been undertaken under the direct authority of the synodal assemblies or endorsed by them. Twenty textual collections nevertheless ensure the transmission of Latin translations – both selective (with regard to Greek acts) and compilatory (with regard to added documents) – preserved in manuscripts more numerous and generally older than those of the Greek tradition. Constantinople III aside, these collections are derived from translations of Ephesus and Chalcedon undertaken, late, after 550, in the context of the debates related to the Affair of the Three Chapters and the Council of Constantinople II. After recalling the historical context and doctrinal issues common to these six councils, the article presents the main formal characteristics of the Latin collections. He places them in the context of their historical genesis, tries to propose a typology and studies their textual tradition as it appears when reading the critical edition of the Acta oecumenicorum conciliorum by Schwartz, Staub and Riedinger (1926-1992).

Mots clés: ecumenical councils; Councils + Reception; Rusticus; Collectio Casinensis; Aquinas + Councils; Concile de Constantinople III; Council of Chalcedon; Councile of Constantinople II; Council of Nicea I; Canonical Collections; Reception of Antiquity; Acts of the Councils; Medieval manuscripts

Mots clés: conciles oecuméniques; Rusticus; Thomas d'Aquin + conciles; Concile de Constantinople II; Concile de Nicée I; Concile de Chalcédoine; Concile de Constantinople I; collections canonique; collections conciliaires; Conciles + réception; Christianisme ancien dogme et culte; Christianisme mediéval; Christianism

Domaines: Religions; Histoire

Martin Morard. Les conciles mis en textes, ou comment le Saint-Esprit écrit droit avec des lignes courbes. Guillaume Cuchet; Charles Mériaux. La dramatique conciliaire de l'Antiquité à Vatican II, Les Presses universitaires du Septentrion, pp.23-50, 2019, Histoire et civilisations, 978-2-7574-2816-0. ⟨hal-03349040⟩