To return to the Introduction and Table of Contents, click here.
This unit corresponds with pp. 24-45 in our textbook.
In 313, the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire as a whole for the first time in its history. A little later, in 380, the Emperor Theodosius would make Christianity not only legal but the official religion of the Roman Empire. What an astonishing reversal! From a tiny, illegal, persecuted religion at the end of the first century, Christianity in a relatively short time had gone to being the official religion. For over 200 years, the Church and the Roman state had fought over whether "Caesar is Lord" or "Christ is Lord". With regard to only human considerations, I think that pretty much any observant party would have said through much of that time that it was surely the Roman state that would win in the end. And yet it was Caesar in the end who bowed and acknowledged Christ as the true ultimate Lord of all.
Of course, this had a dramatic impact on the condition of the Church. Her numbers grew as it became fashionable to be a Christian. Her resources and leverage grew as she now had the power of the Roman state behind the promotion of her beliefs and values. And she now had more time and opportunity to reflect more fully on the meaning of what she believed.
Christianity Legalized
In 313, the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire as a whole for the first time in its history. A little later, in 380, the Emperor Theodosius would make Christianity not only legal but the official religion of the Roman Empire. What an astonishing reversal! From a tiny, illegal, persecuted religion at the end of the first century, Christianity in a relatively short time had gone to being the official religion. For over 200 years, the Church and the Roman state had fought over whether "Caesar is Lord" or "Christ is Lord". With regard to only human considerations, I think that pretty much any observant party would have said through much of that time that it was surely the Roman state that would win in the end. And yet it was Caesar in the end who bowed and acknowledged Christ as the true ultimate Lord of all.
Of course, this had a dramatic impact on the condition of the Church. Her numbers grew as it became fashionable to be a Christian. Her resources and leverage grew as she now had the power of the Roman state behind the promotion of her beliefs and values. And she now had more time and opportunity to reflect more fully on the meaning of what she believed.
Between Constantine and Theodosius, the rulers of the Empire were Christian, except during the reign of Julian, often called "Julian the Apostate" because he sought to reverse Christianity's growing influence in the Empire and restore classic Roman paganism. Julian reigned as sole Emperor from 361-363. He was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire.
Many things attracted the people of the Roman Empire to Christianity as they observed the Christians during the centuries between Christ's resurrection and the reign of Constantine. Among these things was the Christians' commitment to caring for the vulnerable, the poor, etc. The Christians would even rescue newborn babies left to die by families who did not want them (a not uncommon practice in the ancient pagan world). Julian the Apostate is said to have wanted to create charitable institutions in a pagan Roman Empire to prevent the Christians from attracting people to them by means of their charity.
Another significant political event that occurred in the 4th century was the appointing of two emperors to govern the two halves of the Roman Empire--the Western half and the Eastern half. This state of affairs began in 395 and ended around 476 when the Western part of the Empire fell to Germanic "barbarians". After this time, until 800, there was only one Roman emperor, who reigned in the city of Constantinople in the East. (This Eastern Roman Empire became known as the Byzantine Empire, because its capital was in Constantinople, which was also called Byzantium.) In 800, the Pope crowned Charlemagne, King of the Franks, as the Holy Roman Emperor, thus reviving the Empire in the West. The relationship between East and West varied quite a bit for several centuries--sometimes being amiable, sometimes less so. The political division between East and West was accompanied by cultural and religious differences as well. The Easterners spoke Greek and the Westerners spoke Latin. These differences, though not necessarily problems in themselves, eventually led to religious conflict between East and West, culminating in the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches. But we'll get into that more in the next unit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Roman_Empire
Ecumenical Councils
As I mentioned, the Church experienced a great amount of doctrinal growth during this period. This is the period of the first eight ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church. These councils were tremendously important in terms of the Church coming to articulate more explicitly and clearly central aspects of her worldview. There had been many earlier local councils, but there had not been any councils encompassing the whole Church (which is what is meant by an "ecumenical" council) since the Jerusalem Council mentioned in Acts 15. During the time of persecution, it was difficult for the Church to meet together in large numbers. But now that Constantine had made Christianity legal, it was much easier for the bishops throughout the world to come together in common councils.
East and West
Another significant political event that occurred in the 4th century was the appointing of two emperors to govern the two halves of the Roman Empire--the Western half and the Eastern half. This state of affairs began in 395 and ended around 476 when the Western part of the Empire fell to Germanic "barbarians". After this time, until 800, there was only one Roman emperor, who reigned in the city of Constantinople in the East. (This Eastern Roman Empire became known as the Byzantine Empire, because its capital was in Constantinople, which was also called Byzantium.) In 800, the Pope crowned Charlemagne, King of the Franks, as the Holy Roman Emperor, thus reviving the Empire in the West. The relationship between East and West varied quite a bit for several centuries--sometimes being amiable, sometimes less so. The political division between East and West was accompanied by cultural and religious differences as well. The Easterners spoke Greek and the Westerners spoke Latin. These differences, though not necessarily problems in themselves, eventually led to religious conflict between East and West, culminating in the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches. But we'll get into that more in the next unit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Roman_Empire
The Rise of Islam
Also during our time period, we see the origin and rise of the religion of Islam. Especially during the 7th and 8th centuries, Islam spread rapidly, taking over many formerly Christian lands in the Byzantine Empire, North Africa, and Spain. It was stopped in France by Charles Martel. Thus was created a very serious enemy and threat to Christendom.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/teach/muslims/timeline.html - A short timeline of Islam and its growth and spread.
Ecumenical Councils
As I mentioned, the Church experienced a great amount of doctrinal growth during this period. This is the period of the first eight ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church. These councils were tremendously important in terms of the Church coming to articulate more explicitly and clearly central aspects of her worldview. There had been many earlier local councils, but there had not been any councils encompassing the whole Church (which is what is meant by an "ecumenical" council) since the Jerusalem Council mentioned in Acts 15. During the time of persecution, it was difficult for the Church to meet together in large numbers. But now that Constantine had made Christianity legal, it was much easier for the bishops throughout the world to come together in common councils.
Let's take a look at each of these eight ecumenical councils and what they were all about.
http://www.newadvent.org/library/almanac_14388a.htm - Nice, short list of all twenty-one ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church from the beginning up to the present day, with short summary descriptions of each of them.
http://www.newadvent.org/library/almanac_14388a.htm - Nice, short list of all twenty-one ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church from the beginning up to the present day, with short summary descriptions of each of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_ecumenical_councils - Another good list and summary of all the ecumenical councils.
https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214/npnf214. - Collection of primary documents of and connected to each of the first seven ecumenical councils. Here is where you can read for yourself what happened at each of the councils, the decrees of the councils, the conversations that took place in the council meetings, letters associated with, written by, or read at the councils, etc.
https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214/npnf214. - Collection of primary documents of and connected to each of the first seven ecumenical councils. Here is where you can read for yourself what happened at each of the councils, the decrees of the councils, the conversations that took place in the council meetings, letters associated with, written by, or read at the councils, etc.
The First Ecumenical Council: Nicaea I
The main instigation for the calling of the First Council of Nicaea was the Arian controversy. Arius was a priest in the Church of Alexandria. He was unhappy with the Church's formulations on the nature of Christ. The Church had confessed Christ to be God from her very beginning. The Church had also confessed that Christ was distinct from his Father. (We see both of these ideas, for example, in the Gospel of John's formulation that "The Word was with God, and the Word was God" [John 1:1].) The Church also confessed that there is only one God. Arius found this whole thing confusing and difficult (understandably). He set out to resolve the apparently paradoxes, and he ended up saying that, although Christ is far above human beings, although he is the greatest being in reality apart from God, although he has much of the nature of God in him and represents God to us, so that we can honor him as a manifestation of God to us in an important sense, yet, technically and strictly speaking, he is not God. How could he be God, when he is not the Father, the Father is God, and there is only one God?
Well, not surprisingly, Arius's teachings caused enormous controversy. Many opposed him, but enough supported him that the Chrisitan world was in an uproar arguing about this issue. The Emperor Constantine, who had himself become a Christian and wanted Christianity to be a unifying factor in his Empire, decided to call a council of bishops from the Church throughout the world so that they could discuss this matter and come to a definite conclusion, to put an end to all the endless arguing. He himself didn't seem to grasp the importance of the issue, but he knew it was important that the Church settle the issue.
So, in the year 325, Constantine called the bishops of the world to convene in the city of Nicaea. 318 bishops participated. The end result was that Arianism was condemned, and Arius and the few who stuck with him by the end of the council were banished. The council affirmed that Christ is homoousian (Greek "of one essence") with the Father. There was some argument over whether that word should be used, considering that it is not found in Scripture. But the council Fathers ended up deciding that it was appropriate to use the word, even though not found in Scripture, because it expressed the true sense of the meaning of Scripture and closed the loophole from the Arians who wished to use Scriptural language, wrongly-interpreted, to support their own heretical ideas.
The council also dealt with some other issues, including making a resolution on the date of Easter for the universal Church.
As we saw with the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 during the time of the apostles, so we see here at the Council of Nicaea the guidance of God over the Church and the development of her doctrine. It wasn't as if the question of the divinity of Christ had never been faced before, or that it had previously been unimportant to the Church. But the Arians forced the Church to become more precise in defining the relationship between the Father and the Son. Arius's reasoning seemed plausible on the surface. If there is one God, and the Father is God, and the Son is not the Father, then the Son can't be God. How could there possibly be a flaw in that logic? And yet the logic is flawed. There is a way for both the Father and the Son to be fully God without there being more than one God. Arius misread Scripture in light of his fallacious logic and so ended up gutting the very heart of the gospel. For if Jesus is not God, then Jesus cannot save us, for only God can save us. But the Holy Spirit prevented the Church from losing the gospel, and helped her to articulate the truth in response to Arius's false logic.
Let's talk a bit more about the Church's doctrine here to bring out more clearly both its profundity and its supreme importance. The Catholic view is that there is one God, and that one God exists in three Persons. Each Person is a distinct, but full, manifestation of the single Divine Essence. The Trinity is notoriously hard to explain (which is not really surprising, considering that we are talking about the nature of God). If you want an analogy, I like to think of a website. There is an original version of each website that exists on a server computer somewhere. Then that server “serves” the website to different computers, so that the same website exists on multiple computers. It's one website, but multiple manifestations of that same website. Each manifestation is distinct from the others, but they are all manifestations of the same site. Similarly, there is one Divine Being, but that Divine Being manifests himself in three distinct Persons. God the Father begets the Son, sharing with him his very Being, and the Holy Spirit is a third instantiation of the single Divine Essence who proceeds from the Father and from the Son and from their relationship. (In my website analogy, the Holy Spirit might be analogous to the website as it exists flowing through the air or through the wires between computers, going from one computer to another.)
The doctrine of the Trinity is the synthesis of various ideas found in the Scriptures. The Scriptures teach that God is one, that there is only one God. The Scriptures also teach that there are three divine Persons who are distinct from each other. The Scriptures also teach that each of these three Persons is fully God. The Trinity is simply what you get when you try to fit all these ideas together without subverting or eliminating any of them.
But the Trinity is also a profound idea philosophically. To be sure, the Trinity is an idea difficult to grasp and communicate. (Again, why would we expect understanding and describing God to be easy? We can't even fully understand or describe the things of this world! Think of the complexities we run into in trying to describe the world in modern physics, for example. It would at best be very suspicious if we found God an easy topic to grasp!) But it also an idea that turns out to be incredibly profound in its implications and importance.
The Catholic idea is that God is both one and three (in different respects). The unity of God explains the unity of the universe we live in. The universe is like a vast puzzle with an infinite variety of pieces. But each of these pieces fit together to make up a coherent whole. Matter, energy, the laws of physics, the laws of logic, and all the myriad entities that exist, function together as parts of an incredibly complex system. And this system actually works! We take this for granted, but it really ought to amaze us. This incredible fact points to an underlying unity from which all things are derived. If I were to go about the world with a bag and collect all the random puzzle pieces I could find, what would be the chances that, upon arriving back home, I could assemble all those pieces into a coherent puzzle? Obviously, the chances are extremely low (to the point of practical impossibility). This is because all the pieces I've collected would not have arisen from a common source which could give them a unifying coherence. Well, the situation is infinitely more difficult when we talk about explaining the coherence of the universe! At least my hypothetical puzzle pieces share a common world, a common set of physical laws, are all made by human beings with a common human nature, etc. But if there is no unifying Source from which all the parts of the universe are derived, all those parts would have literally nothing in common! They could not possibly, therefore, be coherent parts of the larger whole. So the Catholic idea of one God who is the unifying source of all reality is absolutely necessary to explain the universe we live in.
But if God were only unity and not also Trinity, we would have just as large a problem. For the universe is obviously not only coherent, it is also inherently diverse and relational. It is made up of an infinite number of pieces that relate to each other in an infinite variety of ways. Diversity and relationship are fundamental characteristics of our universe and every part of it. Everything relates to everything else. The actions of everything affect everything else. And, of course, the very existence of the universe requires a relational explanation, for the universe is not God. The objects of our space-time universe are not infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. How do they relate to the Supreme Being who is beyond all limitation? If God did not possess relationality as an essential part of his Being, he could never have brought us into existence, for there would be no foundation in reality for the ideas of relationship and act. So everything we are only makes sense if the universe is derived from a Being who is both single and undivided but who is also relational. Only classical Christianity possesses this idea—the idea of one single Divine Being who exists in Three Persons in relationship with each other and who is the foundation of all reality.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/trinity/files/trinity.html - Another helpful article on the Trinity, looked at from a more philosophical perspective. Also by a Protestant author (one of my favorite theologians and philosophers, Jonathan Edwards).
After Nicaea
The Council of Nicaea seemed to settle the issue of the divinity of Christ. Unfortunately, however, this was not the case. There arose a group of men who, while rejecting the extreme form of Arianism defeated at the Council of Nicaea, were still not comfortable with the Nicene doctrine. They embraced and promoted a mitigated form of Arianism which has come to be called Semi-Arianism. Whereas Nicaea said that the Son is homoousian ("of one essence") with the Father, and Arius said that the Son was heteroousian ("of a different essence") from the Father, the Semi-Arians said that the Son was homoiousian ("of a similar essence") to the Father. (You have to look closely or you just might miss the one-letter difference between homoousian and homoiousian.) Well, the problem with the Semi-Arian position is that it really amounts to the same position as Arianism in the end, for one is either God or one is not. One can't be sort of God. You are either the First Cause of all reality, or you are a contingent, dependent being, derived from a more ultimate reality. So Semi-Arianism just wasn't going to cut it. But it had a significant following, and for many decades after Chalcedon the Nicaeans and the Semi-Arians fought each other. This gets really complicated, so I'll refer you to a lecture by Dr. Ryan Reeves linked to below for more of the specifics. One of the most important figures during this time period was St. Athanasius, who became Bishop of Alexandria shortly after the end of the Council of Nicaea. He was a staunch upholder of the Council of Nicaea and vigorous in its defense. His refusal to compromise on this ultimately got him banished five times during his career as Bishop of Alexandria, as various Church and political leaders embraced Semi-Arianism or were troubled by his activities.
The Semi-Arian controversy was brought to an end by the second ecumenical council, the First Council of Constantinople.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfP7DNG_ZbM&list=PLRgREWf4NFWZEd86aVEpQ7B3YxXPhUEf-&index=19&t=0s - Half-hour lecture on the Semi-Arian controversy after Nicaea.
Watch in class - https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=336 - Short article and video on the life of St. Athanasius.
Talk about in class - https://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2019/07/historical-challenges-to-infallibility_27.html - The bishops of Rome played an important role in defending Nicene orthodoxy and the Council of Nicaea during this time period, when Semi-Arianism had developed a strong following in the East. However, there is an incident involving Pope Liberius that is sometimes appealed to in order to call into question the divine protection of the orthodoxy of the bishops of Rome. This is a very short article looking at the case of Pope Liberius.
The Second Ecumenical Council: Constantinople I
In 380, the Emperor Theodosius made Christianity not only legal, but the official religion of the Roman Empire. Following in the footsteps of his predecessor earlier in the century, the Emperor Constantine, Theodosius called an ecumenical council to deal with various heresies and to help promote orthodoxy and unity in the Church.
At this council, Semi-Arianism was finally defeated. The creed of Nicaea was reaffirmed and elaborated upon. One elaboration had to do with the Holy Spirit. Nicaea had dealt with the relationship between the Father and the Son, but it had not discussed how the Holy Spirit fits in. A heresy rose up whose followers became known as the Macedonians (after their founder Macedonius) or the Pneumatomachians ("fighters against the Holy Spirit") which denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. This heresy was repudiated at the Constantinopolitan council.
The council also rejected a heresy called Apollinarism (after Apollinaris) which affirmed that Jesus was not fully human. Apollinarism taught that Jesus had a human body but only a divine mind (and not a human mind). But the Church affirmed that Jesus was both fully God and fully man (we'll come back to this later when we get to the Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical council). If Jesus didn't have a human mind, then he was more like a humanoid zombie than a real human. How can one be a real human being if one does not have real human thoughts, feelings, etc.? So the council rejected this idea.
In both of these cases, again, it is not that the Church embraced new ideas out of nowhere. There was development of her doctrine, but it was an organic growth of what was already there into a more clearly understood and specifically articulated form. The Church, goaded into further reflection on the teachings of the revelation she had received as a result of challenges from heretical ideas, grew through those challenges into a greater awareness of all the implications of that revelation.
After this council, the Church finally had the creed Catholics have come to know as the Nicene Creed. If we want to be really accurate, we should call this creed the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, but who wants to say that all the time? Part of the creed was written up by the Fathers of Nicaea. The Fathers of Constantinople edited and added to it in response to everything that had happened since Nicaea. They brought it to the final form in which we know it today. (Well, almost. There was one more slight change that was later made by the Western part of the Church but which has never been accepted by the Eastern part--the Filioque [Latin for "and the Son"]. We'll talk more about that in Unit 4.)
Look at in class - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed#Comparison_between_creed_of_325_and_creed_of_381 - Here you can see, side by side, the original creed of Nicaea and the fully-completed Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.
The Donatists
The Donatist schism was basically a revival of the similar Novatianist position we read about in our previous unit. In the persecutions that occurred shortly before Constantine became emperor and legalized Christianity, several people, fearing the threats of their persecutors, handed over their copies of the Scriptures to be burned as demanded by the authorities, and many handed over other things as well, including their fellow Christians. Those who handed over the Scriptures became known as traditors ("those who hand over"). Many of these traditors later repented, and sometimes they were restored not only to communion but even to positions of authority in the Church. Some people thought that was unacceptable, and so they refused to accept any sacraments administered by a former traditor. They would sometimes appoint an alternative bishop to administer sacraments when they found the regular one unacceptable. As the sect grew, this led eventually to a number of towns having both Catholic and Donatist bishops. The Donatists were orthodox except for their position on the traditors, so they are often thought of as schismatics (those who divide the unity of the Church) rather than heretics (those who promote false doctrine).
The Donatists were opposed by the orthodox bishops. St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, was especially effective at refuting them. Eventually, some of the Donatists and those associated with them began to resort to violence to promote their cause, and this brought upon them repression by the State.
It was during this controversy especially that the Church formulated her idea that the validity of the sacraments does not depend on the worthiness of the minister. In opposition to the Donatist idea that sinful minister cannot administer sacraments, Catholic apologists like St. Augustine and St. Optatus argued that the sacraments have a promise of blessing from God when done correctly, and God still gives those blessings even when the minister of the sacrament is a sinner himself (as all people are), or even a person who has committed grave sins.
Donatism eventually died out over the next few centuries.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05121a.htm - Catholic Encyclopedia article on Donatism.
St. Augustine of Hippo and His Confessions
One of the greatest theologians in the history of the Catholic Church lived during this time. St. Augustine (354-430) was from North Africa. His mother was a Christian and his father was a pagan (although he converted to Christianity on his deathbed). As Augustine grew up, he rejected the Christian faith of his mother and embraced a life of immorality and false philosophies. He became a skilled rhetorician and, after going to Carthage and to Rome, eventually ended up teaching in Milan. There he met the Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose, who was also skilled at rhetoric, and who made a deep impression on Augustine. Eventually, Augustine converted to Christianity and was baptized. He went on to become bishop of the city of Hippo in North Africa and became one of the most important saints and doctors in the history of the Catholic Church, having a deep influence on Catholic theology and the development of the Church's doctrine. He was especially influential in his writings on the unity of the Church as he responded against the Donatist schism (discussed above) and in his writings on sin and grace in response to the Pelagian heresy (which we will deal with below). Augustine has been called by the Church the "Doctor of Grace" for his powerful influence on Catholic thinking about sin and grace.
Augustine's mother, Monica, is also a canonized saint. She is famous for faithfully and lovingly praying for her son and her husband for many years and finally seeing both of them convert to the faith.
One of the most popular works in Christian history is Augustine's Confessions, in which he tells the story of his life and how he eventually was led to the Catholic faith. His writing is full of profound philosophy but is also intensely personal. He writes from the heart. The Confessions are written as addressed to God. See here for a short quote.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confess.html - Augustine's Confessions.
The Third Ecumenical Council: Ephesus
The third ecumenical council came about because of the views of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428-431. Nestorius was greatly concerned that some of the ways some Christians talked about Christ blurred the lines between his humanity and his divinity. For example, he really didn't like the phrase Theotokos ("God-bearer" or "Mother of God") applied to the Virgin Mary. He thought it made it sound like the divine nature itself had a mother, which would of course be absurd. He advocated instead the term Christotokos ("Christ-bearer"). In general, he articulated a view of how the humanity and the divinity were united in Christ that strongly emphasized the distinction between the two. Nestorius's own language then became very controversial, as his critics understood him to be emphasizing the distinction between humanity and divinity in Christ to the extent that, in effect, Christ was made to be two persons instead of one--a divine Christ and a human Christ, two distinct persons inhabiting the same body.
Nestorius's greatest critic was St. Cyril of Alexandria, the Patriarch of Alexandria. Cyril tended to have the opposite emphasis from Nestorius, strongly articulating the oneness of Christ's person. Cyril wrote to Pope Celestine of Rome, who delegated authority to Cyril to declare Nestorius excommunicated unless he should repent within ten days. Nestorius, meanwhile, convinced Emperor Theodosius II to convene an ecumenical council. The council was convened, and Cyril became its president. A good deal of politics took place during the council, as is typically the case with councils, but the end result was that Nestorianism was condemned.
There were many, though, who still supported Nestorius. Most of this support was squelched within the Roman Empire, which took the side of the Catholics, but support continued outside the borders of the Empire to the east. This was the first ecumenical council to create a lasting schism. There were those who rejected the decisions of the earlier councils, but the positions of the rejecters eventually died out. In the case of the Nestorian split, however, the schism continues even up to the present day. The churches that favored Nestorius, and were now out of communion with Rome and the rest of the Catholic Church, spread throughout the east in what is now Iraq and Iran, and even into India and beyond. At their height, these churches covered more territory than the Catholic Church. Later on, however, during the High Middle Ages and afterwards, they greatly declined, and at this time they are represented by only a few relatively small churches. There were a number of schisms that eventually took place within the "Nestorian" churches, and today the remaining churches that are descended from the original group of Nestorians are the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, and the Chaldean Catholic Church. None of these three are in communion with each other, but the third has returned to full communion with Rome and is fully a part of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has been involved in substantial dialogue with the Assyrian Church of the East for some time, and there has been significant fruit. For example, Pope John Paul II and Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, signed a joint statement in 1994 which, among other things, affirmed that the two churches have the same faith in terms of the person of Christ. It affirmed that the divisions in the past were rooted partly in misunderstandings, and that today there is no substantial division in this area.
This is the unique faith that we profess in the mystery of Christ. The controversies of the past led to anathemas, bearing on persons and on formulas. The Lord's Spirit permits us to understand better today that the divisions brought about in this way were due in large part to misunderstandings.Whatever our Christological divergences have been, we experience ourselves united today in the confession of the same faith in the Son of God who became man so that we might become children of God by his grace. We wish from now on to witness together to this faith in the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, proclaiming it in appropriate ways to our contemporaries, so that the world may believe in the Gospel of salvation. (Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East)
The statement also points out some areas where there is more work to be done to attain to full unity in the faith.
A question might arise at this point: How could the divisions of the past on the doctrine of Christ have been "due in large part to misunderstandings"? Was not the Catholic Church infallible in her Christological declarations at the early ecumenical councils? I think the answer to that question is suggested in the language of the Common Christological Declaration when it says that the controversies and anathemas of the past were "bearing on persons and formulas." We can distinguish various aspects of what the Church affirmed in those councils (and in any councils). The truly doctrinal part of the council was the condemnation of "Nestorianism", defined as the idea that Christ is, in effect, two persons, the unity between his divinity and humanity not being sufficiently safeguarded. The doctrine of Christ is a central dogma of the Catholic faith, and "Nestorianism" as defined by the Council of Ephesus is clearly incompatible with it and is therefore heretical. It is altogether another question to ask whether Nestorius was rightly understood as teaching "Nestorianism", or whether the churches that followed him were teachers of "Nestorianism". In terms of the doctrine defined and the heresy condemned at the council, we can say that Church teaching was definitively and unchangeably defined. However, the condemnation of the person of Nestorius was not a doctrinal affirmation itself but was rather a practical application of the Church's doctrinal affirmation, and there is no reason (that I am aware of) to think that this practical ruling must be looked at as having been intended to be definitive, infallible, and unchangeable. No doubt the ruling condemning Nestorius and his formulas was authoritative and binding, and Nestorius and his followers ought to have submitted to it because it represented the authority of the Church exercised to safeguard the Church's teaching, but that does not necessarily imply that the Church was bound to hold as definitively settled that Nestorius personally intended the heretical consequences the Church saw in his formulas. There was room to continue to ponder that question even after the condemnation took effect, and so that reconsideration has been taking place in the modern day.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/sub-index/index_east-assyrian.htm - A page from the Vatican website containing links to important documents pertaining to the Catholic Church's dialogue with the Assyrian Church of the East.
Pelagianism
The Council of Ephesus dealt with another heresy as well: Pelagianism. Pelagius was a British monk who was greatly concerned about the moral laxity he saw all around him in the Christianized Roman Empire. When Constantine made Christianity legal and then Theodosius made it the official religion, this, not surprisingly, encouraged many people to join the Church who were not necessarily very serious about living out their Christian faith consistently. Pelagius wanted to call people to a more radical life of repentance and holiness.
He articulated views on free will, sin, and grace that he thought were necessary to safeguard moral purity. He argued that since God has given all people free will, all people must be able to obey God's moral law without being given any further ability through the grace of God. Pelagius reasoned that if people lack the ability to obey God without grace, that would excuse their sin, since no one can justly be required to do something that they are unable to do. So, by definition, a being with free will must be able to choose and do what is morally required of them without being given any extra aids not already inherent in their free will.
Logically, then, he also denied what Catholics came to call "original sin". Since all people have free will, even after the Fall, Pelagius reasoned, they can never have lost the ability to choose and to do what is right. So the Fall cannot have affected humanity such that humans lost the ability to do good. But to say this is to deny original sin, since the doctrine of original sin states that, by means of the Fall, humans fell into a state in which they lost both the will and the ability to choose and to do what is good. (Fallen humans without supernatural grace can do some good, but not saving good--that is, they cannot move their wills back into a condition of being in a fundamentally right relationship with God.) Such an ability can only be restored by a subsequent and supernatural gift of grace.
Since we are not in a state of original sin and already have the ability to choose and to do good without anything added to our free will, grace--in the sense of the supernatural help of God necessary to choose and to do good--was denied by Pelagius.
Pelagius gained a number of followers in various places, including in Britain where he had come from. His most famous follower was a man named Caelestius, who was actually more radical than Pelagius himself and got both of them into more trouble than perhaps Pelagius would have been in without him.
Pelagianism's main opponent was St. Augustine, who helped lead the North African church to condemn it. In 418, the North African Council of Carthage condemned Pelagianism. The condemnation of Pelagianism was also affirmed by Pope Innocent I and Pope Zosimus (although the latter waffled a bit as he had trouble understanding what Pelagius was trying to say before finally agreeing conclusively with the condemnation of Pelagius's views). Finally, Pelagianism was condemned at the ecumenical Council of Ephesus.
After the condemnation of Pelagianism, a modified version of it arose in the Church which has come to be called Semipelagianism. We will look at it a little later in this unit.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11604a.htm - Catholic Encyclopedia article on Pelagianism.
The Fourth Ecumenical Council: Chalcedon
In the 440s, a monk names Eutyches started making public statements in favor of what he considered to be orthodox Christology, following the teaching of St. Cyril of Alexandria. He felt that some other teachers in the Church leaned too heavily towards Nestorianism. Eventually, he got into a fight with Eusebius, the Bishop of Dorylaeum, and the whole thing ended up before Flavius, the Patriarch of Constantinople. Eusebius and Flavius accused Eutyches of emphasizing the unity of Christ so much that he ended up dissolving the human nature into the divine nature and therefore denying Jesus's fully intact humanity. Eutyches, on the other hand, accused Eusebius and Flavius of being Nestorian. A synod was held, and Eutyches was condemned. A report was sent to Pope Leo I of Rome.
The Patriarch of Alexandria, Dioscorus, got involved in defense of Eutyches. The whole thing got so heated that the Emperor Theodosius II decided to call an ecumenical council to deal with it. The council met in 449 in the city of Ephesus and was headed up by Patriarch Dioscorus. Dioscorus was very heavy-handed in how he conducted the council. Eusebius of Dorylaeum and Flavius of Constantinople and several others ended up getting condemned and deposed, and Dioscorus demanded that Cyril of Alexandria's language be accepted as the orthodox definition on Christology. Cyril had affirmed that Christ was fully human and fully divine, and that those two natures had come together into one human-and-divine nature at the Incarnation. Pope Leo was not personally present, but was represented by Hilary, his papal legate (ambassador). Hilary strenuously opposed the proceedings. Leo had written a document intended to define the orthodox position (this has since come to be referred to as the "Tome of Leo"), but Dioscorus wouldn't even allow it to be read at the council. When Hilary returned to Rome and made his report to Leo, Leo condemned the whole council, calling it a "robber council".
Leo called for another council to be held to replace the illegitimate "robber council". Emperor Theodosius II didn't agree, but shortly afterwards he died and Marcian became emperor. Marcian agreed with Leo and so called the new council, which convened in 451 in the city of Chalcedon. It was headed up by the papal legates. Leo's Tome was read and approved. Dioscorus was censured and deposed for refusing to present himself before the council to be judged. The council wrote up a formula intending to articulate clearly the relationship between the two natures in the one Person of Christ. Here is the formula they came up with:
Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; like us in all things, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood; One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ; even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us.
They articulated the historic faith of the Church, which is that Jesus was and is fully God and fully man. They used the language of "two natures in one Person" to express this.
Perhaps an analogy might help to explain this formulation. Imagine that you are the author of a novel. In your novel, you have created an entire imaginary world, with places, a series of events, characters, etc. At one point, you decide to write yourself into your own novel, making yourself a character. At this point, you have, in a sense, "incarnated" yourself into your novel. You are still one person, but your person is now expressed through two natures--an "author" nature and a "character" nature. You have not ceased to be the author. You still exist outside the time and space of your novel. You transcend it. You are its creator and you hold it in being and define its reality. But you are also now a character, living within the time and space of the novel, just as fully a character as any of your other characters. What unites the author and the character is that both are you, who are one person. Similarly, Christ became incarnate not by ceasing to be God, or by transforming from God into a human, or by becoming a chimeric mix of human and divine, but by taking upon himself a human nature in addition to his divine nature and uniting that human nature to his one Person, so that his one Person was expressed fully in both a fully divine nature and a fully human nature.
As with the ecumenical Council of Ephesus (not to be confused with the later "robber council" discussed above), so the Council of Chalcedon proved to be the beginning of a long-lasting schism that has continued even to the present day. A large portion of the church in Alexandria and Antioch and elsewhere refused to accept the decisions of Chalcedon and broke off from the Catholic unity. These churches came to be known as the "Oriental Orthodox" churches, the largest of them being the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. There are descendants of these Oriental Orthodox churches that have returned to full communion with Rome and with the Catholic Church, such as the Coptic Catholic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, and the Syriac Catholic Church. But a number of others continue to be out of full communion with the Catholic Church. The churches that accepted the Council of Chalcedon have often called the position of the Oriental Orthodox Christians Monophysitism ("one nature"), because they object to the language of Christ having two natures and instead want to affirm, with Cyril of Alexandria, that Christ has one nature which is fully human and fully divine. The Oriental Orthodox don't like the term Monophysite, preferring the term Miaphysite ("one nature"). They want to distance themselves from the connotations of the term Monophysite, which has come to suggest the idea that the divine nature has so absorbed the human nature in Christ that he was not really fully human. On the contrary, the Oriental Orthodox want to affirm the full divinity and the full humanity of Christ.
The Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox churches have been carrying on substantial dialogue over the past several decades. As with the dialogue with the Assyrian Church of the East, the dialogue here has found that Christological differences between the two traditions are more terminological than substantial, and the two traditions have been able to declare a unified faith on the nature of Christ. In 1973, Pope Paul VI and Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church (the Copts use the term "Pope" for the Patriarch of Alexandria as well, though without the specific theological meaning involved in the Roman usage), put out a formal statement together articulating their unity of faith:
In accordance with our apostolic traditions transmitted to our Churches and preserved therein, and in conformity with the early three ecumenical councils, we confess one faith in the One Triune God, the divinity of the Only Begotten Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Word of God, the effulgence of His glory and the express image of His substance, who for us was incarnate, assuming for Himself a real body with a rational soul, and who shared with us our humanity but without sin. We confess that our Lord and God and Saviour and King of us all, Jesus Christ, is perfect God with respect to His Divinity, perfect man with respect to His humanity. In Him His divinity is united with His humanity in a real, perfect union without mingling, without commixtion, without confusion, without alteration, without division, without separation. His divinity did not separate from His humanity for an instant, not for the twinkling of an eye. He who is God eternal and invisible became visible in the flesh, and took upon Himself the form of a servant. In Him are preserved all the properties of the divinity and all the properties of the humanity, together in a real, perfect, indivisible and inseparable union. (Common Declaration of Pope Paul VI and of the Pope of Alexandria Shenouda III, on the Vatican website)
In 1984, Pope John Paul II issued a joint declaration with Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, head of the Syrian Orthodox Church, which made this statement:
3. First of all, Their Holinesses [Pope John Paul II and Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas] confess the faith of their two Churches, formulated by Nicene Council of 325 A.D. and generally known as "the Nicene Creeds". The confusions and schisms that occurred between their Churches in the later centuries, they realize today, in no way affect or touch the substance of their faith, since these arose only because of differences in terminology and culture and in the various formulae adopted by different theological schools to express the same matter.Accordingly, we find today no real basis for the sad divisions and schisms that subsequently arose between us concerning the doctrine of Incarnation.In words and life we confess the true doctrine concerning Christ our Lord, notwithstanding the differences in interpretation of such a doctrine which arose at the time of the Council of Chalcedon. (Common Declaration of Pope John Paul II and His Holiness Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, on the Vatican website)
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03555a.htm - Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Council of Chalcedon.
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3604028.htm - The text of the Tome of Pope St. Leo, which helped determine the language of Chalcedon in defining the two natures in one Person of Christ.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/sub-index/index_ancient-oriental-ch.htm - Documents relating to the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox churches, including the two joint statements quoted from above.
Canon 28
Towards the end of the Council of Chalcedon, a resolution was passed--Canon 28--which caused some controversy. It gave the See of Constantinople the second place as a patriarchate before the Sees of Alexandria and Antioch. Here's the canon:
Following in every way the decrees of the holy fathers and recognising the canon which has recently been read out–the canon of the 150 most devout bishops who assembled in the time of the great Theodosius of pious memory, then emperor, in imperial Constantinople, new Rome — we issue the same decree and resolution concerning the prerogatives of the most holy church of the same Constantinople, new Rome. The fathers rightly accorded prerogatives to the see of older Rome, since that is an imperial city; and moved by the same purpose the 150 most devout bishops apportioned equal prerogatives to the most holy see of new Rome, reasonably judging that the city which is honoured by the imperial power and senate and enjoying privileges equalling older imperial Rome, should also be elevated to her level in ecclesiastical affairs and take second place after her. The metropolitans of the dioceses of Pontus, Asia and Thrace, but only these, as well as the bishops of these dioceses who work among non-Greeks, are to be ordained by the aforesaid most holy see of the most holy church in Constantinople. That is, each metropolitan of the aforesaid dioceses along with the bishops of the province ordain the bishops of the province, as has been declared in the divine canons; but the metropolitans of the aforesaid dioceses, as has been said, are to be ordained by the archbishop of Constantinople, once agreement has been reached by vote in the usual way and has been reported to him. (Text from Papal Encyclicals Online, taken originally from Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, edited by Norman P. Tanner)
The papal legates strongly objected to this canon and refused to approve it. Constantinople had tried back at the second ecumenical council (the First Council of Constantinople) to do the same thing, but this had never been approved by Rome. The council refused to rescind the canon, despite the protests of the papal legates. They sent a deferential letter to Rome, however, asking the Pope to approve and confirm the canon. Anatolius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, also sent a letter explaining things to the Pope and asking for his confirmation. Here is a selection from his letter:
4. . . . As there was no doubt that your holiness and your church possessed still higher honour, the synod willingly confirmed the canon of the 150 fathers [who had met at the First Council of Constantinople] that the bishop of Constantinople should have the next rank after the most holy Roman see, since Constantinople is new Rome. And they further decreed that he should ordain the metropolitains of the provinces of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace, the bishops under them being ordained by their own metropolitans, a decree by which the see of Constantinople lost several rights of ordination which it had exercised for sixty or seventy years.5. But when all things were going well, and were joyfully concluding, the most pious bishops [and papal legates] Paschasinus and Lucentius and the most reverend presbyter Boniface (who had often been informed by us about this same matter), not knowing the intention of your holiness which you have towards the holiest church of Constantinople, after the sacred synod had signed and by subscription confirmed this decree, scorn the synod, and without cause throw the assembly into confusion, setting this see at nought, and bringing much occasion of insolence on me and on this most holy church of Constantinople. Moreover these decrees had been drawn up in accordance with the will of our most pious emperors, the most magnificent and glorious judges of the council assisting by pronouncing the definition of the holy synod to be secure. . . . God is witness that we on our part, both before and after their arrival, were careful in all things which pertain to your glory and honour, and this being clear, it is also evident that similar honour and reverence was accorded to them. And in accordance with your dignity, the sacred synod has remitted this decree to your holiness, that we may obtain approval and confirmation from you; and we implore you, O most holy one, that this be made effective by you. For the throne of Constantinople has your apostolic throne as its father. . . . (E. Giles, Documents Illustrating Papal Authority, A.D. 96-454 [London: S.P.C.K., 1952], 325-326, italics removed, bracketed words mine)
Leo, however, continued to refuse to accept the canon. In a letter to the Empress Pulcheria (the wife of Marcian), he made this very plain:
2. My brother and fellow bishop Anatolius, not sufficiently considering your grace's kindness and the favour of my assent, whereby he gained the priesthood of the church of Constantinople, instead of rejoicing at what he had gained, has been inflamed with undue desires beyond the measure of his rank, believing that his intemperate ambition could be advanced by the assertion that certain persons had signified their assent thereto by an extorted signature; in spite of the fact that my brethren and fellow bishops who represented me, faithfully and laudably expressed their dissent from these attempts, which are doomed to speedy failure.. . . For it is alleged that connivance at this sort of thing has been going on for about sixty years, a fact which the aforesaid bishop supposes will help his cause. . . .3. . . . Indeed resolutions of bishops which are repugnant to the rules of the holy canons composed at Nicaea, in conjunction with the loyalty of your faith, we dismiss as invalid, and by the authority of Peter, the blessed apostle, we absolutely disannul by a general decree in all ecclesiastical cases, obeying those laws which the Holy Ghost defined by the 318 bishops for the pacific observance of all priests, in such sort that even if a much greaternumber were to pass a different decree from theirs, whatever was opposed to their constitution would have to be held in no respect. (Ibid., 328, italics removed)
In a letter to Patriarch Anatolius himself, Leo points out one of the chief causes of Rome's antipathy to giving Constantinople second place--that it would usurp a rank that belonged by right to the Patriarchates of Alexandria and Antioch.
. . . The rights of provincial primates may not be overthrown, nor may metropolitan bishops be defrauded of privileges based on antiquity. The see of Alexandria may not lose any of that dignity which it merited through S. Mark the evangelist, and disciple of blessed Peter, nor may the splendour of so great a church be obscured by another's clouds, Dioscorus having fallen through his persistence in impiety. The church of Antioch too, in which first, at the preaching of the blessed apostle Peter, the Christian name arose, must continue in the position assigned it by the fathers, and, being set in the third place, must never be lowered therefrom. For the see is on a different footing from the holders of it; and each individual's chief honour is his own integrity. And since that does not lose its proper worth in any place, how much more glorious must it be when placed in the magnificence of the city of Constantinople, where many priests may find, through your observance, both a defence of the canons of the fathers, and an example of uprightness! (Ibid., 329)
Patriarch Anatolius replied to Pope Leo by suggesting that the whole thing was not his idea in the first place and that, of course, the "whole force and confirmation" of the canon "was reserved for the authority of your blessedness."
4. As for those things which the universal council of Chalcedon recently ordained in favour of the church of Constantinople, let your holiness be sure that there was no fault in me, who from my youth have always loved peace and quiet, keeping myself in humility. It was the most reverend clergy of the church of Constantinople who were eager about it, andthey were equally supported by the most reverend priests of those parts, who agreed about it. Even so the whole force and confirmation of the acts was reserved for the authority of your blessedness. Therefore let your holiness know for certain that I did nothing to further the matter, having always held myself bound to avoid the lusts of pride and covetousness.(Ibid., 330, italics removed)
Despite Anatolius's deference, however, the Eastern churches would continue to treat Constantinople as having second place in practice, and, eventually, when circumstances had much changed, Rome would finally accept this reality and grant the second place to Constantinople, but this didn't happen until the eighth ecumenical council in 869-870.
Acacian Schism and Formula of Hormisdas
In 482, the Emperor Zeno, following the suggestion of Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople, wrote a document called the Henoticon, which attempted to state the doctrine of Christ's person and natures in a way that avoided touching on controversial issues that divided the Catholics from the Monophysites. It also avoided mentioning the Council of Chalcedon. In response to this, Pope Felix excommunicated Acacius for abandoning the Church's teaching at Chalcedon, and Acacius in turn rejected the Pope from communion. Thus began what is known as the "Acacian schism". It lasted about 35 years, from about 484 to 519. What is particularly interesting about this schism is how it ended. Most of the Eastern Christians remained faithful to Chalcedon, despite the defection of the Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople. Finally a new Emperor came to the throne--Justin, who was accompanied by his nephew Justinian (who would later become Emperor himself). These two chose the orthodox rather than the Monophysite side, and, in accordance with the desires of the populace, they reached out to the Pope (now Pope Hormisdas) in order to restore communion with the Apostolic See and with the West. Pope Hormisdas had written up a document with the intention of requiring the Easterners to sign it before he would agree to come back into communion with them. The document not only affirmed Chalcedonian orthodoxy, but it also contained a strong affirmation of the primacy of the Pope as the successor of St. Peter. As we've seen, the Eastern Church leaders had a long history of taking the wrong side in doctrinal disputes, while Rome (due to the promise given to St. Peter, as everyone believed) defended the cause of orthodoxy. Perhaps Pope Hormisdas, tiring of Rome's constant need to bring back erring Eastern leaders, decided to try to pin them down more formally to their own oft-professed conviction that all the churches should follow Rome's lead in doctrinal disputes because of the unique gift given to the Church of Rome to preserve orthodoxy.
This document that Pope Hormisdas had written up to be an instrument of renewed communion between East and West was called the libellus. It has been known to history as the Formula of Pope Hormisdas. All the Easterners signed it without any (known) reservations whatsoever regarding the papal claims in it. And they didn't reject those papal claims until many centuries later. Here is what the Formula said:
The first condition of salvation is to keep the norm of the true faith and in no way to deviate from the established doctrine of the Fathers. For it is impossible that the words of our Lord Jesus Christ who said, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church" (Matt. 16:18), should not be verified. And their truth has been proved by the course of history, for in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been kept unsullied. From this hope and faith we by no means desire to be separated and, following the doctrine of the Fathers, we declare anathema all heresies [Here follows a long list of condemned heresies and heretics] . . .
Following, as we have said before, the Apostolic See in all things and proclaiming all its decisions, we endorse and approve all the letters which Pope St. Leo wrote concerning the Christian religion. And so I hope I may deserve to be associated with you in the one communion which the Apostolic See proclaims, in which the whole, true, and perfect security of the Christian religion resides. I promise that from now on those who are separated from the communion of the Catholic Church, that is, who are not in agreement with the Apostolic See, will not have their names read during the sacred mysteries. But if I attempt even the least deviation from my profession, I admit that, according to my own declaration, I am an accomplice to those whom I have condemned. I have signed this my profession with my own hand and have directed it to you, Hormisdas, the holy and venerable pope of Rome. (Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Mary's, Kansas, The Church Teaches: Documents of the Church in English Translation, tr. John F. Clarkson, et al. [Tan, 2009])
So here we have the Eastern churches formally affirming what they had always affirmed before regarding the Church of Rome. But now the Pope had it in writing in a more specific way as an aid to Eastern memory when the next heretical movement should come along. In the next century, the great Eastern saint and theologian St. Maximus the Confessor, revered to this day by both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, articulated the common view of the Eastern churches regarding the Church of Rome:
All the ends of the inhabited world, and those who anywhere on earth confess the Lord with a pure and orthodox faith, look directly to the most holy Church of the Romans and her confession and faith as to a sun of eternal light, receiving from her the radiant beam of the patristic and holy doctrines, just as the holy six synods, inspired and sacred, purely and with all devotion set them forth, uttering most clearly the symbol of faith. For, from the time of the descent to us of the incarnate Word of God, all the Churches of the Christians everywhere have held and possess this most great Church as the sole base and foundation, since, according to the very promise of the Saviour, it will never be overpowered by the gates of hell, but rather has the keys of the orthodox faith and confession in him, and to those who approach it with reverence it opens the genuine and unique piety, but shuts and stops every heretical mouth that speaks utter wickedness. (Footnotes removed--the quotation is from "The Ecclesiology of St. Maximos the Confessor," by Andrew Louth, published in the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2004, p. 116.)
John Chapman, Studies on the Early Papacy, pp. 210-216.
Semipelagianism
Pelagianism had been condemned. However, Augustine's doctrines about grace, sin, free will, etc., did not sit well with some. In Gaul and elsewhere, a movement arose to adopt a kind of middle ground between Augustinianism and Pelagianism. Sure, they said, we need grace to be able to do good. But we don't want to say that everything good in us is a supernatural gift of grace. What about our choice to accept grace? Grace is offered to us, but we have to accept it, and that acceptance is something we contribute. Otherwise, what would make the difference between a person who accepts God's grace and a person who rejects it? If acceptance of grace is itself a gift of grace, then it is a gift that God must give to some and not to others, for not all accept grace. But this would seem to lead to a kind of predestinarian sort of view in which God chooses some to bring to salvation and not others, and it doesn't seem to leave enough room to the freedom of the will to accept or reject grace. Not all the opponents of full Augustinianism held the same views on everything, but the outline I've just given emerged out of the movement as a kind of general tendency.
Augustine vigorously opposed this new movement, and so did his followers--especially his greatest disciple, St. Prosper of Aquitaine--although Augustine was much more sympathetic towards the Semipelagians than he was towards the Pelagians, as he recognized their position as a plausible one that could be born of confusion. He himself had been confused on some of these points earlier in his life.
The controversy raged on for some time, even after St. Augustine's death. Finally, in 529, the staunch Augustinian St. Caesarius, Bishop of the city of Arles in Gaul, got approval from Rome to call a council in the city of Orange. The council strongly affirmed that all good, even the good of the good will itself that accepts and cooperates with grace, is a gift of grace, and it strongly condemned the Semipelagian notion that our good will, or the beginning of our good will, is from ourselves and is not a gift of supernatural grace. The decisions and teaching of this council were confirmed by Pope Boniface II in 530 and so became binding on the universal Church. Here are some selections from the Second Council of Orange:
Canon 5. If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism — if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). And again, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers.Canon 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).Canon 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, "For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5).Canon 12. Of what sort we are whom God loves. God loves us for what we shall be by his gift, and not by our own deserving.Canon 22. Concerning those things that belong to man. No man has anything of his own but untruth and sin. But if a man has any truth or righteousness, it is from that fountain for which we must thirst in this desert, so that we may be refreshed from it as by drops of water and not faint on the way. (Canons of the Second Council of Orange [529 AD], retrieved from the EWTN website at https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/local-council-history-and-text-1472)
Just a couple of years ago, in March of 2018, Pope Francis issued an Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate, in which (among many other things) he reaffirmed the condemnation of Semipelagianism and the teachings of the Second Council of Orange on the utter graciousness of our salvation. The following is from Gaudete et Exsultate, Chapter Two, sections 47-56 (found on the Vatican website--footnotes and section number headings removed):
Gnosticism gave way to another heresy, likewise present in our day. . . . The same power that the gnostics attributed to the intellect, others now began to attribute to the human will, to personal effort. This was the case with the pelagians and semi-pelagians. Now it was not intelligence that took the place of mystery and grace, but our human will. It was forgotten that everything “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy” (Rom 9:16) and that “he first loved us” (cf. 1 Jn 4:19). . . .
The Church has repeatedly taught that we are justified not by our own works or efforts, but by the grace of the Lord, who always takes the initiative. The Fathers of the Church, even before Saint Augustine, clearly expressed this fundamental belief. Saint John Chrysostom said that God pours into us the very source of all his gifts even before we enter into battle. Saint Basil the Great remarked that the faithful glory in God alone, for “they realize that they lack true justice and are justified only through faith in Christ”.
The Second Synod of Orange taught with firm authority that nothing human can demand, merit or buy the gift of divine grace, and that all cooperation with it is a prior gift of that same grace: “Even the desire to be cleansed comes about in us through the outpouring and working of the Holy Spirit”. Subsequently, the Council of Trent, while emphasizing the importance of our cooperation for spiritual growth, reaffirmed that dogmatic teaching: “We are said to be justified gratuitously because nothing that precedes justification, neither faith nor works, merits the grace of justification; for ‘if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise, grace would no longer be grace’ (Rom 11:6)”.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church also reminds us that the gift of grace “surpasses the power of human intellect and will” and that “with regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality”. His friendship infinitely transcends us; we cannot buy it with our works, it can only be a gift born of his loving initiative. This invites us to live in joyful gratitude for this completely unmerited gift, since “after one has grace, the grace already possessed cannot come under merit”. The saints avoided putting trust in their own works: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you empty-handed, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justices have stains in your sight”.
This is one of the great convictions that the Church has come firmly to hold. It is so clearly expressed in the word of God that there can be no question of it. Like the supreme commandment of love, this truth should affect the way we live, for it flows from the heart of the Gospel and demands that we not only accept it intellectually but also make it a source of contagious joy.
If our salvation is entirely a gift of supernatural grace, this does indeed raise the question of why some are saved and not others, and this leads naturally into questions surrounding things like predestination, free will, etc. Catholic theologians have discussed these issues for centuries. The Church, while avoiding spending too much time trying to define all the myriad complexities and intricacies of these issues, has recognized certain central truths as important. One can take a look at this article to see my own summary of Church teachings and Catholic theology based on Church teachings regarding these subjects.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13703a.htm - Catholic Encyclopedia article on Semipelagianism and the history of the controversy.
The Fifth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople II
In the year 551, the Emperor Justinian decided to condemn three selections out of the works of three different authors. The authors were Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ibas of Edessa, and Theodoret of Cyrus. These works had long been suspected or accused by various people of tending towards or advocating Nestorianism. Ever since the split between the Catholics and the Monophysites (or Miaphysites, if you will, though when speaking historically I tend to continue to use the term "Monophysite" since this is the term that has been most commonly used in historical literature on this subject), there had been a great effort on the part of Catholics, Monophysites, and the Emperors to end the schism and reconcile the divided parties. We saw earlier how the Emperor Zeno had put forward his Henoticon as another such effort to placate the Monophysites. The Emperors were particularly interesting in reconciling the Monophysites, not only as a matter of faith, charity, and unity (though we shouldn't underestimate these motives), but also because the Monophysites, unlike the Nestorians, were still living within the boundaries of the Roman Empire, and so the disunity between Catholics and Monophysites caused much tension within the Empire and threatened its unity. So, in 551, Justinian made another attempt to placate the Monophysites by condemning selections from sections of the works of Theodore, Ibas, and Theodoret which were particularly offensive to the Monophysites. Justinian was probably hoping that if the Catholic Church and the Empire could show that they condemned these Nestorian-suspected writings, they might mitigate the charge of the Monophysites that their own doctrine--that is, the doctrine of Chalcedon--was Nestorian.
Well, the condemnation of the Three Chapters--as these three selections of writings came to be known --didn't end up reconciling the Monophysites. It did cause some other temporary schisms, however, because the move was very controversial--not because it condemned Nestorianism, which everyone involved in the discussion agreed was a good thing to do, but because it condemned writings from men who had died in good standing within the Church (and some of whom had been exonerated from suspicion of heresy by the Council of Chalcedon). To some people, therefore, the condemnation of the Three Chapters seemed to be a slight against good men and against the rulings of the Council of Chalcedon. Pope Vigilius in particular was, at first anyway, opposed to the condemnation of the Three Chapters, as were the Western bishops in general, and even most of the Eastern bishops at first were at best reluctant to go along with Justinian's plan. But emperors tend to be good at getting what they want, and so Justinian ended up eventually bringing everyone around to his own point of view in one way or another.
I've told this story elsewhere, particularly as it pertains to Pope Vigilius, who did some waffling during the whole affair that has given ammunition to some people to ask questions about the infallibility of the Apostolic See of Rome. Please see the article below for more on this story.
The Sixth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople III
So the condemnation of the Three Chapters had failed to reunite the Catholics and the Monophysites. But there was still a strong desire to accomplish this, and other attempts were made. During the 620s through the 630s, a movement arose to promote the idea that Christ, being a unified Person who was both divine and human, had only "one energy". In other words, Christ had only one source of operation or activity, since he was only one Person. When Christ performed an act, there was only one act performed. When Christ, for example, made an act of will--for example, when he chose his Twelve Apostles--there was only one Person acting, and so only one act. So talking about "one energy" was a way of stressing the unity of the one Person of Christ. You can see how this might have been used to try to placate the Monophysites, since their big concern was to protect the unity of the one divine Person and their great fear was that the Catholic, Chalcedonian position was Nestorian because it too much divided the human from the divine in Christ.
Anyway, this idea of Christ having "one energy" was promoted especially by Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Emperor Heraclius accepted it and promoted it as well. Eventually, Sergius and Heraclius convinced the Patriarch of Antioch and the Patriarch of Alexandria to agree as well. But not everyone was convinced. Particularly, Sophronius, who became Patriarch of Jerusalem in 634, objected strongly to the doctrine. He asserted that Christ had two energies and not one. He agreed that Christ was a single person, but he pointed out that if Christ really was both human and divine, he would have to have a human version and a divine version of all the faculties of a person. He would have to have a human mind and a divine mind, a human will and a divine will, etc. And therefore when Christ performs an action--say, makes a choice--there must be the exercise of both the human will and the divine will, which would mean there are two acts. Now, the two activities are bound together without any conflict, and they totally agree, so that they can be two different forms of the act of one unified Person, but they are still two acts, because there is both a human faculty and a divine faculty acting.
Perhaps I can make this clearer by going back to my author-novel analogy I introduced earlier when we were discussing the formula of the Council of Chalcedon. I am an author, and I have written a novel, and I have written myself into my novel as a character. When my character who is me does something--say, chooses to eat a cheeseburger--there is one person acting. I choose, in my character nature, to eat a cheeseburger. My character's choice is my choice, the choice of the one person who is me. However, since I am both fully character and fully author, we can talk about the act of choice coming from me as the author, but also coming from me as a character. My character nature has a will, and my author nature has a will, and they are both active in my character's choice. I think this is even more obvious when we think about the faculty of mind or thought. I have a certain perspective as the author (I'm outside of the time and space of my novel, etc.), and I have a different perspective as a character (I see things from within the time and space of the novel, etc.). So when my character thinks, it is I who am thinking, it is the thinking of the unified person who is me. But in a way there are also two acts. There is the act of thinking done by my character mind, and there is the act of thinking done by my author mind. So when Christ thinks, there is one Person thinking, but he is thinking with both his human mind (within time and space) and his divine mind (outside of time and space), so both the human and the divine faculties are acting, making two acts, but two acts that are completely unified as the thinking of one Person. It's complicated, but hopefully this helps give an idea of what everyone was arguing about. Sophornius of Jerusalem was concerned that talking about "one energy" in Christ had the effect of communicating the idea that Christ did not truly have two natures with their own full sets of faculties, both of which are acting when Christ acts.
Sophronius seemed to be gaining ground in his opposition to the "one energy" doctrine, so Sergius decided to write to Pope Honorius of Rome. He didn't promote the "one energy" doctrine to the Pope, but instead tried to convince Honorius that it is better if people avoid arguing about the subject of "one energy" vs. "two energies" altogether. Sergius admitted that the language of "one energy" was confusing and offensive to some, but he asserted that the language of "two energies" is at least equally problematic, since it makes it sound like Christ has two wills which might be in conflict with each other.
Pope Honorius wrote back to Sergius and agreed with him--people should stop arguing about "one energy" vs. "two energies". He affirmed that Christ has only "one will", because in Christ the humanity and the divinity are in complete agreement, being faculties of one single Person. Thus, there can be no idea of two opposing wills, or two wills willing in contradiction to each other.
Eventually, the argument about energies died down. But, in its place, discussion began to occur about whether or not Christ has one or two wills. Sergius and the Emperor Heraclius began promoting the idea that Christ has only one will. Eventually, this campaign was very successful, and all the patriarchs of the East accepted it. Sergius died in the year 638, and so did Sophronius of Jerusalem and Pope Honorius. But Sergius's successor in Constantinople continued to promote the one will doctrine (which came to be called Monothelitism - Greek for "one will"). Sophronius's successor in Jerusalem also accepted it, so all the Eastern patriarchs accepted it.
But Rome would not accept it, and so a conflict began (yet again) between East and West. The Eastern patriarchs pointed out that Pope Honorius, in his letter to Sergius, had affirmed that Christ had "one will". Honorius's successors replied that what Honorius had affirmed was something completely different from what the Monothelities were now promoting. Honorius had used the language of "one will" in order to say that Christ did not have two conflicting wills. He was not intending to make a metaphysical affirmation regarding whether both the divine nature and the human nature have their own faculty of willing. What the Monothelites were arguing, however, said the Popes, amounted to a capitulation to Monophysitism, denying that Christ has a truly human will but affirming only his divine will. But if Christ's human nature did not have a human will, it would not have been a truly complete human nature, for how can you be human without having a human faculty of willing? The Monothelite position seemed akin to the earlier Apollinarian position which affirmed that Christ had only a divine mind but not a human mind. So the Popes strenuously opposed the Monothelite position as a compromise of the true and full humanity of Christ. This was of crucial importance, for if Christ was not truly and fully human, he could not save us from our sins. He could not take upon himself our sins and truly suffer and die for them, making himself an offering to God as an act of righteousness.
The Emperor Heraclius died in 641, and his successor, Emperor Constans II, tired of the controversy, ordered that everyone must stop arguing about whether Christ had one or two wills. Those who continued to argue about this, he persecuted. Pope Martin I (who was Pope from 649 to 655) held a council in Rome condemning Monothelitism, and the Emperor had him kidnapped and brought to Constantinople where he was imprisoned and tortured, leading eventually to his death. The great defender of orthodox teaching St. Maximus the Confessor was also tortured by Emperor Constans II for fighting against Monothelitism.
But Constantine IV, who succeeded Constans II when he died in 668, affirmed the Dyothelite ("two wills") position. He called for an ecumenical council to settle the dispute once and for all. The council condemned Monothelitism and affirmed Dyothelitism.
Following the five holy Ecumenical Councils and the holy and approved Fathers, with one voice defining that our Lord Jesus Christ must be confessed to be very God and very man, one of the holy and consubstantial and life-giving Trinity, perfect in Deity and perfect in humanity, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and human body subsisting; consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before all ages according to his Godhead, but in these last days for us men and for our salvation made man of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary, strictly and properly the Mother of God according to the flesh; one and the same Christ our Lord the only-begotten Son of two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, inseparably indivisibly to be recognized, the peculiarities of neither nature being lost by the union but rather the proprieties of each nature being preserved, concurring in one Person and in one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons but one and the same only-begotten Son of God, the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, according as the Prophets of old have taught us and as our Lord Jesus Christ himself hath instructed us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers hath delivered to us; defining all this we likewise declare that in him are two natural wills and two natural operations indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers. And these two natural wills are not contrary the one to the other (God forbid!) as the impious heretics assert, but his human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his divine and omnipotent will. For it was right that the flesh should be moved but subject to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his flesh is called and is the proper will of God the Word, as he himself says: "I came down from heaven, not that I might do mine own will but the will of the Father which sent me!" where he calls his own will the will of his flesh, inasmuch as his flesh was also his own. For as his most holy and immaculate animated flesh was not destroyed because it was deified but continued in its own state and nature (oro te kai logo), so also his human will, although deified, was not suppressed, but was rather preserved according to the saying of Gregory Theologus: "His will [i.e., the Saviour's] is not contrary to God but altogether deified."We glorify two natural operations indivisibly, immutably, inconfusedly, inseparably in the same our Lord Jesus Christ our true God, that is to say a divine operation and a human operation, according to the divine preacher Leo, who most distinctly asserts as follows: "For each form (morphe) does in communion with the other what pertains properly to it, the Word, namely, doing that which pertains to the Word, and the flesh that which pertains to the flesh."For we will not admit one natural operation in God and in the creature, as we will not exalt into the divine essence what is created, nor will we bring down the glory of the divine nature to the place suited to the creature.We recognize the miracles and the sufferings as of one and the same [Person], but of one or of the other nature of which he is and in which he exists, as Cyril admirably says. Preserving therefore the inconfusedness and indivisibility, we make briefly this whole confession, believing our Lord Jesus Christ to be one of the Trinity and after the incarnation our true God, we say that his two natures shone forth in his one subsistence in which he both performed the miracles and endured the sufferings through the whole of his economic conversation (di holes autou tes oikonomkes anastrophes), and that not in appearance only but in very deed, and this by reason of the difference of nature which must be recognized in the same Person, for although joined together yet each nature wills and does the things proper to it and that indivisibly and inconfusedly. Wherefore we confess two wills and two operations, concurring most fitly in him for the salvation of the human race.These things, therefore, with all diligence and care having been formulated by us, we define that it be permitted to no one to bring forward, or to write, or to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whosoever shall presume to compose a different faith, or to propose, or teach, or hand to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles or Jews, or from any heresy, any different Creed; or to introduce a new voice or invention of speech to subvert these things which now have been determined by us, all these, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laymen: let them be anathematized. (From the declaration of faith made by the Fathers of the Third Council of Constantinople, taken from the plain text version on the CCEL website)
Thus ended the controversy. The council's decisions were sent to Pope Leo II, and he approved and confirmed them.
The council, along with condemning Sergius and others who had promoted the Monothelite position, also condemned Pope Honorius for aiding and abetting Monothelitism by affirming "one will" in his letter to Sergius. Earlier Popes and others, as I mentioned above, had defended Honorius as intending something different by his "one will" language than the Monothelites later intended. But Leo II and subsequent Popes accepted the council's condemnation of Honorius on the grounds that he had failed to adequately safeguard the truth in his correspondence with Sergius. He had not perceived and used his authority to condemn the nascent error, and so had, in effect, aided and abetted its growth and influence.
Discuss in class - https://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2019/07/historical-challenges-to-infallibility_30.html - In this article, I go more deeply into the issue of Pope Honorius and his relationship to the Monothelite heresy, and I respond to the concern that the whole affair is a challenge to the idea of papal infallibility and reliability. The article also highlights the important role played by the Popes and their teachings at the sixth ecumenical council.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council: Nicaea II
During the first half of the 8th century, Emperor Leo III (often called "the Isaurian" because he founded the Isaurian dynasty) became convinced that it was wrong to have and make use of images--pictures, representations, of Christ, of Mary, of the saints, etc.--in the Church. He began a campaign to remove images from all over his empire. He appointed a patriarch in Constantinople who would support his cause. The other Eastern patriarchs and the Pope opposed him. Most of the general populace was opposed to him.
In the Old Testament, images of God are forbidden, and in general the worship of images is forbidden. However, God sometimes makes use of a kind of image to represent himself (see Daniel 7 and God's representation of himself in Daniel's vision as the "Ancient of Days", for example). In the New Testament, God himself becomes a human being and thus becomes, in a new way, picturable. But the New Testament never addresses whether the Incarnation should affect the Christian attitude towards the use of images. In the first few centuries of the Church, we see moderate images in Christian churches. There are paintings of biblical scenes, and even subtle representations of Christ in different forms in paintings in the catacombs where Christians worshiped, etc. Over the centuries, the practice of having images in churches grew. After Constantine declared Christianity legal, Christians were able to build large and well-decorated public buildings to use as churches, and over time we see more and more Christian art in these churches. Over time, Christians began to make use of images in their worship--not worshiping the images themselves, but using them as symbols of Christ and therefore as an aid to worshiping Christ, or using an image of a saint to facilitate communion with the saint, etc.
Interestingly, very little is actually explicitly said or argued regarding the growing use of images, either for or against, throughout the first 700 years of Church history. It was never a significant point of controversy for most people in the Church. The fact that, by 700, images are in nearly all of the churches and we have abundant evidence that they were used in Christian devotion shows that the general attitude towards them was positive, but we have very little explicit argumentation on their behalf. Likewise, we have very little evidence of any opposition to them. There are a few examples of opposition. Around the year 305 or 306, a major synod held in Spain (in the city of Elvira) made a negative statement regarding images:
It has seemed good that images should not be in churches so that what is venerated and worshiped not be painted on the walls. (Canon 36, Synod of Elvira, taken from the Wikipedia page on the subject)
People have disputed exactly what this canon was after. Was it intended as a general prohibition of images in churches on principle? Was it a more temporary or limited prohibition due to fear of idolatrous use of images at a particular point in time? It is difficult to say, seeing that we have only this one sentence with no surrounding commentary to go on.
Probably the best example of a negative attitude towards images in the earlier days of the Church comes from a letter written by St. Epiphanius of Salamis, in which he discusses an incident involving a church curtain that happened while he was traveling. The letter is from around 394:
Moreover, I have heard that certain persons have this grievance against me: When I accompanied you to the holy place called Bethel, there to join you in celebrating the Collect, after the use of the Church, I came to a villa called Anablatha and, as I was passing, saw a lamp burning there. Asking what place it was, and learning it to be a church, I went in to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints; I do not rightly remember whose the image was. Seeing this, and being loth that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ's church contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person. They, however, murmured, and said that if I made up my mind to tear it, it was only fair that I should give them another curtain in its place. As soon as I heard this, I promised that I would give one, and said that I would send it at once. Since then there has been some little delay, due to the fact that I have been seeking a curtain of the best quality to give to them instead of the former one, and thought it right to send to Cyprus for one. I have now sent the best that I could find, and I beg that you will order the presbyter of the place to take the curtain which I have sent from the hands of the Reader, and that you will afterwards give directions that curtains of the other sort--opposed as they are to our religion--shall not be hung up in any church of Christ. A man of your uprightness should be careful to remove an occasion of offence unworthy alike of the Church of Christ and of those Christians who are committed to your charge. ("From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem", found in plain text on the CCEL website, footnotes removed)
There are a couple of other possible references to a negative attitude to images from the first 700 years, and that's about it. In general, the use of images grew in the practice of the Church without any real opposition.
But in the early 700s, this changed. Islam had spread rapidly in various parts of the world, and had become a next-door-neighbor to the Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Emperor Leo III may have been moved by the growing complexity and extravagance of image-use in the churches, combined with arguments from the Muslims (who were strongly anti-image) who reminded him of biblical prohibitions on images from the Old Testament. But whatever his motivation, as I mentioned above, he became very opposed to images and began to work to systematically eliminate them and to persecute those who didn't want to give them up.
In 741, Leo III died, and his son Constantine V succeeded him. In 754, Constantine decided to call an ecumenical council to establish definitively the anti-image point of view. The Patriarchate of Constantinople was represented, but no representatives were sent from the other major patriarchates--Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. As expected, the council, which met in the city of Hieria, condemned images and established the iconoclast ("destruction of images") point of view.
After the council, Constantine V continued to work to impose the iconoclast position all over the Empire. He removed images of Christ and the saints from the churches and persecuted those who supported them. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on "Iconaclasm" makes this humorous observation: "Instead of paintings of saints the churches were decorated with pictures of flowers, fruit, and birds, so that the people said that they looked like grocery stores and bird shops" (footnotes removed). Leo IV became emperor after Constantine V, and he continued to oppose images.
When Leo IV died, his son, Constantine VI, was only nine years old, and so Leo IV's wife, Irene, acting as regent, took charge of the empire at that time. Irene was a strong supporter of images. She, along with Tarasius, the new Patriarch of Constantinople, who was also a supporter of images, decided to call a new council to undo the previous iconoclast council. They sought the help and approval of Pope Adrian to do this, and he agreed and sent legates. The council was convened at Nicaea in the year 787. It condemned the iconoclast position and affirmed the validity of images in the Church, also clarifying how they are to be used properly and how to avoid using them improperly. Here is a selection from the council's confession of faith (from the plain text on the CCEL website):
To make our confession short, we keep unchanged all the ecclesiastical traditions handed down to us, whether in writing or verbally, one of which is the making of pictorial representations, agreeable to the history of the preaching of the Gospel, a tradition useful in many respects, but especially in this, that so the incarnation of the Word of God is shown forth as real and not merely phantastic, for these have mutual indications and without doubt have also mutual significations.We, therefore, following the royal pathway and the divinely inspired authority of our Holy Fathers and the traditions of the Catholic Church (for, as we all know, the Holy Spirit indwells her), define with all certitude and accuracy that just as the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross, so also the venerable and holy images, as well in painting and mosaic as of other fit materials, should be set forth in the holy churches of God, and on the sacred vessels and on the vestments and on hangings and in pictures both in houses and by the wayside, to wit, the figure of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, of our spotless Lady, the Mother of God, of the honourable Angels, of all Saints and of all pious people. For by so much more frequently as they are seen in artistic representation, by so much more readily are men lifted up to the memory of their prototypes, and to a longing after them; and to these should be given due salutation and honourable reverence (aspasmon kai timetiken proskunesin), not indeed that true worship of faith (latreian) which pertains alone to the divine nature; but to these, as to the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross and to the Book of the Gospels and to the other holy objects, incense and lights may be offered according to ancient pious custom. For the honour which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents, and he who reveres the image reveres in it the subject represented. For thus the teaching of our holy Fathers, that is the tradition of the Catholic Church, which from one end of the earth to the other hath received the Gospel, is strengthened. Thus we follow Paul, who spake in Christ, and the whole divine Apostolic company and the holy Fathers, holding fast the traditions which we have received. So we sing prophetically the triumphal hymns of the Church, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Rejoice and be glad with all thy heart. The Lord hath taken away from thee the oppression of thy adversaries; thou art redeemed from the hand of thine enemies. The Lord is a King in the midst of thee; thou shalt not see evil any more, and peace be unto thee forever."Those, therefore who dare to think or teach otherwise, or as wicked heretics to spurn the traditions of the Church and to invent some novelty, or else to reject some of those things which the Church hath received (e.g., the Book of the Gospels, or the image of the cross, or the pictorial icons, or the holy reliques of a martyr), or evilly and sharply to devise anything subversive of the lawful traditions of the Catholic Church or to turn to common uses the sacred vessels or the venerable monasteries, if they be Bishops or Clerics, we command that they be deposed; if religious or laics, that they be cut off from communion.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11045a.htm - Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Second Council of Nicaea.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07620a.htm - Catholic Encyclopedia article on Iconoclasm.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07664a.htm - Catholic Encyclopedia article on the veneration of images.
https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a1.htm - Here, in #2129-2132, you can find the Catechism of the Catholic Church's brief discussion of images.
The Eighth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople IV
The course of events that led up to the eighth ecumenical council was rooted in politics. In the year 857, Byzantine Emperor Michael III deposed Ignatius from being Patriarch of Constantinople. In his place, he put a man names Photius, who had previously been a layman. Photius was very quickly put through various advances and ordinations and went from layman to bishop and Patriarch of Constantinople in about six days. Ignatius's deposition and Photius's rapid advancement caused a great deal of controversy within the Church of Constantinople and beyond. Eventually, some of Ignatius's supporters appealed to Pope Nicholas I, who sent legates to see what was going on and to provide information to help him decide between the claims of Ignatius and Photius. The legates, while there, were persuaded (perhaps bribed) by the Emperor and the supporters of Photius and gave their approval to his cause. After coming home, however, the Pope was greatly displeased with them for coming to a decision without consulting him. Upon further investigation, Pope Nicholas decided to rule in favor of Ignatius instead. The Emperor and Photius refused to listen, and, in response, Photius convened a council and excommunicated the Pope. There was also, at this time, an ongoing controversy over which church--Rome or Constantinople--had proper jurisdiction over the recently-converted Bulgarians and their infant church. The Westerners (Latins) and the Easterners (Greeks) disagreed about how to approach some aspects of the missionary work there. In his attack on the Pope and the Westerners, Photius complained of certain Latin customs and practices, particularly the fact that some Westerners had added the words "and the Son" to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. ". . . who proceeds from the Father and the Son" (in Latin, it's the word filioque). Not all Westerners had added these words. The Pope had not added them (though later the whole Western church including the Pope would add them, though it would not be required of the Eastern churches), but some Westerners had added them.
But then there was a change of political regime in Constantinople. In 867, Michael III was killed and was replaced by his killer, Basil the Macedonian. (This sort of thing was not as uncommon as one might wish in Byzantine politics.) Basil didn't like Photius, and he deposed him and reinstated Ignatius. He wrote to the Pope about this, and the Pope (now Adrian II) agreed with Emperor Basil to convene an ecumenical council. The Pope sent legates, and all the Eastern Patriarchs--Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem--were represented as well. The council was held in 869-870. At the very beginning of this council, the papal legates, who presided, required all the attending bishops to again sign the Formula of Hormisdas, which we talked about and quoted from earlier in our section on the "Acacian Schism" and which affirmed the divine institution of the papacy and the divine requirement to follow the leading of the Apostolic See of Rome. They all did so. After this, the council passed 27 canons which addressed a number of issues. The council reaffirmed the conclusions of the previous ecumenical council regarding images. The council also confirmed the deposition of Photius and the rightful place of Ignatius as Patriarch of Constantinople. Interestingly, the council also listed Constantinople before Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, in its list of the five patriarchs. Rome, apparently, decided to acquiesce in the reality of Constantinople's actual practical influence by this time and to agree to its formalization. (We see this order affirmed in later ecumenical councils as well, such as at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.) When the papal legates returned to Rome, Pope Adrian II approved and confirmed the decrees of the council.
After his deposition, Photius worked hard to get himself back into the good graces of the Emperor, and eventually he succeeded. He also reconciled with Patriarch Ignatius. After Ignatius died in 877, Emperor Basil once again recognized Photius as Patriarch of Constantinople. Pope John VIII accepted this and recognized Photius, so no further schism resulted from this.
In 879-880, Photius called for another ecumenical council in Constantinople. Pope John VIII sent legates. The council affirmed Photius as rightful Patriarch of Constantinople. It also stated that no one should take it upon themselves to add anything to the Nicene Creed (presumably having the Filioque in mind). There is dispute as to whether or to what extent Pope John VIII recognized the decisions of this council. Eventually, however, as the centuries went on and the Eastern churches drifted away from the Roman church, the Catholic Church made it clear that she formally accepted the council of 869-870 as the eighth ecumenical council, and the council of 879-880 has no formal recognition. Among the Eastern Orthodox churches (the Eastern churches which later broke from full communion with Rome and their descendent churches), however, the council of 869-870 is not recognized, while some (but not all) recognize the council of 879-880 as an eighth ecumenical council. So, with the eighth ecumenical council, we move beyond the period whose ecumenical councils are recognized by both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox today.
After Emperor Basil died, Leo VI succeeded him, and he once again deposed Photius, who spent the rest of his life living in a monastery. Photius was one of the great scholars of the ninth century and of the Eastern church. His reputation in the Catholic Church is mixed because, while he was a great scholar, his controversies with Rome helped pave the way for greater schisms to come between Rome and the Eastern churches.
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/const4.asp - The canons of the eighth ecumenical council.
The Canon of Scripture
Another doctrinal development we see during this time period is the development of the Church's conception of the canon of Scripture--which books should be counted as belonging in the Scriptures. We recall that in the period covered by our previous unit (from about 64 until 313), the canon was still in a state of flux, with a number of books well settled but some still in dispute. During the period of this unit, however, the canonical question becomes settled (at least in terms of the authority and the official doctrine of the Church). In 382, Pope Damasus I held a council in Rome during which he defined "what the universal Catholic Church accepts and what she ought to shun." See the quotation from the council here to see the list, which, you will notice, is the same list still held by the Catholic Church today. This list was reaffirmed shortly thereafter by the North African councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (387) and by Pope Innocent I in a letter to the Bishop of Toulouse (see here). It would be affirmed later on in Church history at various times, such as at the Council of Florence in the 15th century and the Council of Trent in the 16th century (in response to the Protestants who decided to reject some of the books included in the canon).
Here we see again the work of the Spirit as he guides the Church in the development of her doctrine. She had had and used these Scriptures all along, but when it became important in the life of the Church to further formally clarify what should be considered in the canon and what should not be, the Church is guided to make a decision which is guaranteed to be the right one by the Holy Spirit.
Read in class (the section on the Council of Rome and the canon) - https://www.tertullian.org/decretum_eng.htm
http://www.bible-researcher.com/innocent.html - Letter of Pope Innocent I on the canon
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm - Catholic Encyclopedia on the canon of the Old Testament
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm - Catholic Encyclopedia on the canon of the New Testament
Missions
This period of Church history also saw a boom with regard to the missionary work of the Church. The apostles and the earlier Christians had spread the gospel throughout the Roman Empire. But in our period, there are noteworthy concerted efforts to spread the faith to new lands as of yet unreached by the gospel.
One example is that of St. Patrick, who was born in Britain in the 5th century. When he was 16 years old, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and taken as a slave to Ireland, which was at that time a pagan land. Having before his kidnapping been mostly worldly and irreligious, he was drawn close to God during the days of his captivity. After six years, he escaped from slavery and walked to the sea, finding a ship leaving Ireland which he boarded (being directed in these things by God's guidance). Eventually, he made his way back home, and after many years became a bishop. He felt that God was calling him to return to Ireland to preach the gospel there, and so, amidst some opposition, he went as a missionary to Ireland. He had great success, and was a major influence in the conversion of the Irish people to Christianity.
Watch in class: VeggieTales St. Patrick
https://www.confessio.ie/etexts/confessio_english# - Patrick's own autobiographical account of his experiences
Another important missionary from this time period was St. Augustine of Canterbury. He was sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 595 to preach the gospel to the pagan Anglo-Saxons (Germanic tribesmen who had conquered Britain over the past hundred years or so). His story is told in the Venerable St. Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England, a fantastic work that covers the history of Britain and the spread of the gospel in Britain from Celtic times down to his own day (he wrote around the year 731). Pope St. Gregory had seen Anglo-Saxons in Rome at one point and he was taken with their looks (their fair hair, etc.). He said they looked like Angels rather than Angles, and he was moved to send someone to evangelize them. He chose Augustine, a Benedictine monk, to lead the mission. After some trepidation about going on a mission to a strange and barbaric people, Augustine and his companions came to England and had great success establishing Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons, particularly after securing the favor and eventual conversion of King Ethelbert of Kent (yes, Blazers, it was that Ethelbert). England became a bastion of medieval Catholic Christianity, and missionaries were eventually sent out from both the Celts and the English to continental Europe where they played an important role in the conversion of other pagan Germanic peoples (see the story of St. Boniface below). Augustine was appointed by Pope Gregory the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
One of the conflicts Augustine and his missionaries had to endure was actually with the earlier Christian establishment among the Celts. The Celtic Christians (Scots, Britons, Irish, etc.) had been established centuries earlier, but, since the Romans had moved out of Britain, they had not had as much regular contact with the rest of the Church. Consequently, they had missed some of the consolidations the Church had undergone after the conversion of Constantine and the Council of Nicaea--particularly regarding the date of Easter. They had not got the memo about how Easter had come to be universally celebrated after Nicaea. When Augustine and the other new missionaries tried to get them to conform to the practice of the rest of the Church in this and some other matters, there was great resistance. This caused tension for some time, although eventually the Celtic churches submitted to the practice of the universal Church (some of them held out for a few centuries, though). Also, the Celts sometimes had trouble bridging the culture gap with the new missionaries. For example, Bede tells the story of how Augustine had a meeting with the British bishops. They decided to judge him on the basis of whether he showed pride or humility. In their culture, to remain seated in the company of the bishops indicated pride, whereas to rise up indicated humility. Augustine, presumably not being aware of this test, remained seated when the British bishops approached, so they rejected him as prideful. Over time, however, these tensions were eased.
Read in class: Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England, pp. 47-51 and 197-199, and also 76-78 and 154-158 (download PDF).
Another major missionary from this period was St. Boniface, an Anglo-Saxon who became a missionary to Germanic tribes on the continent in the 8th century. He became known as the "Apostle of the Germans". He was eventually made an archbishop in Germany by Pope Gregory III. One of the famous stories told about him tells how he went out to chop down an oak tree that was held to be sacred by the Germanic pagans. When he was not struck down by the gods for this, the people were encouraged to convert to Christianity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Boniface
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/boniface-letters.asp - Correspondence of St. Boniface
Early Monasticism
Around the beginning of our time period, we see the early stages in the development of what came to be known as Christian monasticism. The background for this movement is in the concept of the "Evangelical Counsels". God has given us commandments to live by which all of us are obliged to. However, some people are called, in varying ways and to varying degrees, to put aside a more ordinary worldly life in order to devote themselves more fully and directly to certain forms of piety and service. Jesus mentions those who "make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:10-11)--that is, who forgo marriage and sexuality. St. Paul talks also about people who choose to forgo marriage in order to devote themselves more fully and exclusively to service (1 Corinthians 7). We see John the Baptist being called to live out in the desert and subsist on locusts and wild honey. These are not things that all people are called to. Over time in the Church, this idea of a life devoted more directly and singly to the evangelical counsels began to flower into a number of new forms, such as orders of consecrated virgins who chose not to marry in order to devote themselves to prayer and/or service. Monasticism is another development of this tradition. It started with people like St. Anthony of Egypt, who left civilization to go out and live a simple life by himself in the desert. Eventually groups of these monks (the word comes from monos, or "alone") joined together for a certain degree of communal life, which is the origin of what we know as monasteries.
One of the most famous of these monastics was St. Benedict of Nursia (who lived from around 480 to 547). He wrote up a famous book of rules by which monasteries could be ordered effectively. His rule-book (which we know as the Rule of St. Benedict) caught on in the West and became the foundation for most of Western monasticism until the High Middle Ages (1000-1300). It is still in use today by Benedictine monks and monasteries.
http://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2016/01/what-are-evangelical-counsels.html - In this article, I give a more thorough explanation of the idea of the evangelical counsels.
Watch in class - https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=556 - Brief bio on St. Benedict
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Saint_Benedict - contains an outline of the Rule of St. Benedict and links to the document online.
https://www.osb.org/gen/greg/tocalt.html - Pope St. Gregory the Great wrote a biography of St. Benedict around the year 593.
Church and State
As we saw earlier, in 380, Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. This led Christians to have to reflect a lot more on how political power fits in with the life of the gospel.
St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, 13:1-7, lays out a foundational vision of civil power which has informed Christian thought ever since:
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.
We see here a recognition that to the extent that civil authority is valid, it must be seen as coming from God. For only God can authorize anything ultimately. God created humanity in such a way that we naturally develop into social groupings, and those social groupings require rules and rulers. So political authority, being natural to human societies, is ordained and authorized by God. Like all areas of life, its legitimate use must be regulated by the moral law of God so that its exercise will be just.
In the earliest centuries of the Church, Christians spent most of their mental energy with regard to the Roman civil authority discussing the duties and obligations of people in general and of Christians in particular towards that authority, especially in light of the fact that that authority was often engaged in persecuting them. There are many pleas from the early Fathers to the Roman governors to grant religious liberty to minority religions (like themselves) on the grounds that it is unjust and futile to attempt to force people to perform acts of piety (since, by definition, such acts must be voluntary and sincere). Tertullian (155-220), an important early Christian writer, put it this way:
However, it is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions: one man’s religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion — to which free-will and not force should lead us — the sacrificial victims even being required of a willing mind. You will render no real service to your gods by compelling us to sacrifice. For they can have no desire of offerings from the unwilling, unless they are animated by a spirit of contention, which is a thing altogether undivine.
Once the Empire became Christian, however, new questions arose. To what extent should political power be used to promote the good of religion and to oppose religious evils? This is a natural question. After all, if piety towards God is the greatest of goods and the supreme moral act, then blasphemy, false religion, and heresy must be great moral evils and also greatly harmful. It is the job of the civil power to promote the well-being and the good values of the society and to protect society from that which brings harm. So shouldn't the civil power promote true religion and oppose false religion? In the words of St. Paul, is not the civil magistrate "the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil"? What could be more evil than to insult and oppose God and to corrupt the true religion, the source of salvation?
So Christians during this time began to contemplate how political power might be used to promote truth and oppose error. The Emperor Theodosius himself was one of the first to move in this direction, as we can see from this selection from his law code:
It is our desire that all the various nation which are subject to our clemency and moderation, should continue to the profession of that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one diety of the father, Son and Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since in out judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that the shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of divine condemnation an the second the punishment of out authority, in accordance with the will of heaven shall decide to inflict.
The great St. Augustine of Hippo illustrates the growing consideration of the obligations Christians might have to use political power to promote religious truth and goodness in his letter to Vincentius regarding the Donatists (Vincentius was himself a Donatist). In the letter, Augustine tells how he was originally opposed to the use of civil penalties against the Donatists. He says he came around, however, partly by the realization of the great good that civil coercion can do for such people. He recounts stories of former Donatists who now testify to how grateful they are that they were coerced, because the civil power was able to jolt them out of their error, indifference, or complacency to consider new truths and so to be brought to a better relationship with God and his Church. Although true religion must be voluntary, yet civil authority can be used to get people to consider or pay attention to or take seriously things they might otherwise have neglected and so come to a better understanding of the truth and so make better voluntary choices.
The Church will continue to reflect on the relation between the Church, religion, and the State in subsequent centuries, and our narrative will continue to revisit this theme.
https://wherepeteris.com/religious-liberty-neglected-by-christendom-restored-in-vatican-ii/ - Article on early Christian arguments for religious liberty in the Roman Empire.
Read in Class - http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102093.htm - St. Augustine's letter on the Donatists (read 2-9, 16-18).
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/theodcodeXVI.asp - The selection from Theodosius's law code.
Read in class - https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/gelasius1.asp - Letter from Pope Gelasius to Emperor Anastasius on spiritual and temporal power (494).
Saints and Pilgrims
Some other great saints from this time period: Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great.
We also have from this time period (the 380s) a delightful pilgrimage account from a woman named Egeria who was probably from Spain or France. She travels throughout biblical sites in Egypt, the Holy Land, etc. Her account provides a wealth of information about life and the Church during this time period. (And I love these "common people" sorts of accounts, with all the human interest they bring to these ancient times.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120811003740/http:/www.egeriaproject.net/about_egeria.aspx - About Egeria.
https://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm - Egeria's pilgrimage journal.
We also have from this time period (the 380s) a delightful pilgrimage account from a woman named Egeria who was probably from Spain or France. She travels throughout biblical sites in Egypt, the Holy Land, etc. Her account provides a wealth of information about life and the Church during this time period. (And I love these "common people" sorts of accounts, with all the human interest they bring to these ancient times.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120811003740/http:/www.egeriaproject.net/about_egeria.aspx - About Egeria.
https://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm - Egeria's pilgrimage journal.
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