Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England

CHAP. XVII. Of the Synod held in the plain of Haethfelth, Archbishop Theodore being
president. [680 A.D.]
ABOUT this time, Theodore being informed that the faith of the Church at Constantinople was
much perplexed by the heresy of Eutyches, and desiring that the Churches of the English, over
which he presided, should remain free from all such taint, convened an assembly of venerable
bishops and many learned men, and diligently inquired into the faith of each. He found them all of
one mind in the Catholic faith, and this he caused to be committed to writing by the authority of
the synod as a memorial, and for the instruction of succeeding generations; the beginning of which
document is as follows:
"In the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, under the rule of our most pious lords,
Egfrid, king of of the Northumbrians, in the tenth year of his reign, the seventeenth of September,
the eighth indiction; Ethelred, king of the Mercians, in the sixth year of his reign; Aldwulf king of
the East Angles, in the seventeenth year ofhis reign; and Hlothere, king of Kent, in the seventh year
of his reign, Theodore, by the grace of God, archbishop of the island of Britain, and of the city of
Canterbury, being president, and the other venerable bishops of the island of Britain sitting with
him, the holy Gospels being laid before them, at the place which, in the Saxon tongue, is called
Haethfelth,we conferred together, and set forth the right and orthodox faith, as our Lord Jesus Christ
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The Venerable Bede
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England

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in the flesh delivered the same to His disciples, who beheld His Presence and heard His words, and
as it is delivered by the creed of the holy fathers, and by all holy and universal synods in general,
and by the consent of all approved doctors of the Catholic Church. We, therefore, following them,
in piety and orthodoxy, and professing accordance with their divinely inspired doctrine, do believe
agreeably to it, and with the holy fathers confess the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, to be properly
and truly a Trinity consubstantial in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, that is, one God in three Subsistences
or consubstantial persons, of equal glory and honour."
And after much more of the same sort, appertaining to the confession of the right faith, this
holy synod added to its document, "We acknowledge the five holy and general councils of the
blessed fathers acceptable to God; that is, of the 318 assembled at Nicaea, against the most impious
Anus and his tenets; and at ConstantinopIe, of 150, against the madness of Macedonius and Eudoxius,
and their tenets; and at Ephesus, for the first time, of 200, against the most wicked Nestorius, and
his tenets; and at Chalcedon, of 630, against Eutyches and Nestorius, and their tenets; and again,
at Constantinople, in a fifth council, in the time of Justinian the younger,against Theodorus, and
the epistles of Theodoret and Ibas, and their tenets in opposition to Cyril." And again a little lower,
"the synod held in the city of Rome, in the time of the blessed Pope Martin,in the eighth indiction,
and in the ninth year of the most pious Emperor Constantine,we also acknowledge. And we glorify
our Lord Jesus Christ, as they glorified Him, neither adding aught nor taking away; anathematizing
with hearts and lips those whom they anathematized, and receiving those whom they received;
glorifying God the Father, Who is without beginning, and His only-begotten Son, begotten of the
Father before the worlds, and the Holy Ghost proceeding ineffably from the Father and the Son,
even as those holy Apostles, prophets, and doctors, whom we have above-mentioned, did declare.
And all we, who, with Archbishop Theodore, have thus set forth the Catholic faith, thereto subscribe."