Prefatory Note.

p. 590 Prefatory Note.

As this volume only professes to contain the conciliar decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, it would seem that canons and rulings which were of private or quasi-private origin should have no place in it; and yet a very considerable number of such determinations are expressly approved by name in the Canons of the Synod in Trullo, which canons were received, to some extent at least (as we have seen), by the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Under these circumstances I have felt that the reader might justly expect to find some mention made of these decrees, which while indeed non-conciliar in origin, yet had received such high conciliar sanction. I have therefore placed a translation of the text of the “Apostolical Canons” with a brief introduction, and have reprinted Johnson’s epitome of the other decrees and canons, supplying a few omissions and adding a few notes, chiefly taken from the Greek scholiasts, Zonaras and Balsamon. It is hoped that thus the present volume has been made practically complete, and that from it, any student can obtain a satisfactory knowledge of all the doctrinal definitions and of all the disciplinary enactments of the undivided Church.