The Synodicon Vetus, also called Libellus Synodicus, is an anonymous, pseudo-historical book about early Christianity, written in the 9th century AD but largely based on earlier Greek sources.
[1] Each chapter records the history of one single ecumenical council, and contains information digested from earlier sources such as the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius, and the work of the same name by Socrates of Constantinople.
French Enlightenment writer Voltaire popularized the idea in the 18th century, and Christian radical Robert Taylor revived it in the 19th, but all instances of this assertion seem to trace back to the Synodicon Vetus,[4] which relates: The canonical and apocryphal books it distinguished in the following manner: in the house of God the books were placed down by the holy altar; then the council asked the Lord in prayer that the inspired works be found on top and the spurious on the bottom.
[7] It circulated for centuries in handwritten copies, and was first printed in 1601, produced by theologian Johannes Pappus, who worked from a shortened version he obtained from the prolific scribe and bookseller Andreas Darmarios,[1] who was said to have brought an original manuscript out of the Morea.
It is also published entire in the Bibliotheca juris canon veteris of Christophe Justel and Guillaume Voël (using the Latinized names "C. Justellus" and "G. Voellus"), and in the Conciliorum Collectio of Jean Hardouin.