From Chalcedon, A.D. 451, to II Constantinople, A.D. 553
My subject is doctrine, not history. Events that unfolded in the century between the Council of Chalcedon and the Second Council of Constantinople were very tangled, and mostly not relevant to the development of doctrine, hence I will touch on only a few key events that influenced the 5th Œcumenical Council, and then briefly.
My sources, in addition to those of previous chapters, are: Richard Price, ed. and trans., The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553, (Translated Texts for Historians, 51), Liverpool, 2012; Patrick T.R. Gray, The defense of Chalcedon in the East, 451–553, (Studies in the History of Christian Traditions), Leiden, 1979; Leontius of Jerusalem, Against the Monophysites, ed. and trans. Patrick T.R. Gray, (Oxford Early Christian Texts), Oxford, 2006; Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian tradition: Vol. 2, Part 1, trans. Pauline Allen and John Cawte, London, 1987; Part 2, trans. John Cawte and Pauline Allen, London, 1995; Peter Charanis, Church and State in the Later Roman Empire, 2nd ed., Thessalonica, 1974; A.A. Vasiliev, Justin the First: An introduction to the epoch of Justinian the Great, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1950; Michael Whitby, ed. and trans., The ecclesiastical history of Evagrius Scholasticus (Translated Texts for Historians, 33), Liverpool, 2000.
The Aftermath of Chalcedon
When the Council of Chalcedon closed on 1 November 451, the Emperor Marcian’s goal of a Church united by a common faith seemed to have been achieved. St Leo of Rome accepted the council, albeit grudgingly because of its Canon 28. St Anatolius of Constantinople, Maximus of Antioch and St Juvenal of Jerusalem accepted it. In Alexandria, Proterius, the archpriest left in charge of the archdiocese by Dioscorus, was consecrated bishop immediately after the council by the four Egyptian bishops who had abandoned Dioscorus, and he accepted the council. All the patriarchs of the Church were in communion at last.
The unity was illusory, however, and this became obvious even before the council ended. Several Palestinian monks who were present at the council, led by the monk Theodosius, hurried back to Palestine before the council had even closed and spread the claim that it rejected Cyril’s teaching and was a victory for Nestorianism, teaching two Sons and two Christs. When Juvenal on his way home disembarked at Cæsarea, he was confronted by a mob of monks demanding that he anathematize the council. He was forced to retreat temporarily to Constantinople. In Alexandria, meanwhile, Proterius was maintained on his throne only with the support of imperial troops. Most of the Egyptian monasteries rejected the council as Nestorian.
And this despite the fact that the two sides scarcely differed on christology—what separated them was the propriety of describing Christ as ‘in two natures,’ as Chalcedon said, versus ‘in one incarnate nature,’ as the partisans of Cyril claimed. This would be the divisive issue for the next half century—only later would the Chalcedonian definition’s ‘one person and hypostasis’ come to the fore.
The monasteries played a major role in the events between Chalcedon in 451 and II Constantinople in 553. For the first time, monastics assumed the role of public arbiters of orthodoxy, and monasteries in Constantinople, Syria, Palestine and Egypt sided militantly either with Chalcedon or against it. They were prepared to rouse the people and to confront bishops and even the emperor, sometimes managing to impose their will through sheer numbers.
Marcian died on 27 January 457 without naming a successor. Leo the Thracian, an army officer, was acclaimed emperor by the army and senate on 7 February. He was the first Roman emperor to be consecrated by the Œcumenical Patriarch, and the first to legislate in Greek as well as in Latin. His coronation became the model for subsequent emperors, and ultimately for all the later kings and queens of Christendom. He is recognised as a saint by the church, his feast on 20 January.
In Alexandria, the populace took advantage of a temporary absence of imperial troops by murdering Archbishop Proterius on Holy Thursday, 28 March 457. The anti-Chalcedonian Timothy Aelurus was placed on the archiepiscopal throne.
Leo received petitions from the supporters and the opponents of Timothy Aelurus, and sought the opinion of the Church before responding to them, sending a letter in October 457 to all the metropolitans, with instructions to consult their suffragans, asking them to ‘declare your decision concerning the aforesaid Timothy and the synod at Chalcedon,’ adding that Timothy’s supporters ‘by no means assent’ to the synod. (Evagrius Scholasticus, Eccl. Hist., 2.9, Whitby, trans., pp. 90–91)
It is important to realise that common knowledge of what had occurred at the Council of Chalcedon was limited even six years after it closed. There were no mass media in the fifth century, no printing presses. It was impractical to make enough copies of the Acta of the council for all the bishops, so most of those in attendance went home with whatever notes they and their notaries had made. Bishops who had not attended had even less information and the laity were largely in the dark. Bishop Alypius of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, in his reply to the emperor’s questionnaire, said that all he had seen was a copy of the Chalcedonian definition, brought back by his predecessor, Thalassius, who had attended the council: ‘in rereading this with profit and accepting it sympathetically, in understanding it also, as I think, with the right frame of mind and examining it as it should be, I have found out with certainty that it does not disagree with the right faith.’ (Grillmeier, 1987, p. 228, fn. 113.)
Understandably, the Encyclia, as the collection of letters is called, does not go into any detail, but the bishops’ replies do give us a valuable insight into the mind of the Church at this early stage of the Chalcedonian controversy. Several points stand out. First, the bishops were shocked by the murder of Proterius and were unanimous that Timothy Aelurus should be deposed. Second, the bishops held the Nicene Creed to be the standard of orthodoxy. The Council of Chalcedon was valid because it reaffirmed the Council of Nicæa, neither adding to it nor subtracting from it. Third, although the Chalcedonian definition’s ‘acknowledged in two natures … coming together into one person and hypostasis …’ was uncontroversial in the Latin-speaking west, it caused disquiet in the Greek-speaking east, reminiscent as it was of Nestorianism. The eastern bishops admitted they had reassured the laity only with difficulty, and not always with complete success. The bishops would continue to base the preparation of candidates for baptism on the Nicene Creed. The Chalcedonian definition was for the bishops to use in the struggle against heresy, not for teaching the faithful. The bishops’ replies rarely discussed the Chalcedonian ‘two natures’ and never touched on the Chalcedonian ‘one hypostasis.’
The emperor did not act hastily, but by the beginning of 460, Timothy Aelurus had been deposed and exiled to Gangra in Paphlagonia, replaced by Timothy Salophaciolus, an unassuming monk, although he was neutral on Chalcedon, who enjoyed a quiet reign till Leo’s death.
Meanwhile, discord persisted in Syria. The Archbishop of Antioch, Martyrius, accepted Chalcedon but some of the monasteries rejected it as covert Nestorianism. In 469 some of the monasteries began adding the words ὁ σταυρωθεὶς δι’ ἡμάς, ‘who was crucified for us,’ to the Trisagion Hymn, ‘Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.’ (Gray, 1979, p. 23) This echoes Cyril’s 12th Anathema, and was believed by its proponents to discredit Chalcedon. Subsequently, as we will see, it was the supporters of Chalcedon who would see the need for the theopaschite formula.
The Emperor Leo died on 18 January 474 and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Zeno. Zeno faced the same challenge of a Church riven by dissension as Leo. By this time, Rome was not in communion with Alexandria or Jerusalem, and Antioch was not in communion with Jerusalem. The unity of the Church was as critical for the unity of the Empire as it had been since the time of Constantine, but a quarter of a century of compulsion after Chalcedon had achieved nothing.
Would another tactic work? The opportunity to experiment came with the elevation of Peter Mongus to the see of Alexandria in 481. He immediately anathematized Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo, leading to a confrontation with Constantinople. The question was whether some confession of faith could be devised that was compatible with Chalcedon and that bishops would accept as a warrant of orthodoxy without necessarily requiring an explicit affirmation of Chalcedon. Zeno had the archbishop of Constantinople, Acacius, draft a confession of faith, which he sent in July 482 to the bishops, clergy, monks and faithful of Alexandria, Egypt, Libya and the Pentapolis, to see if Peter Mongus was willing to compromise.
Like the Council of Chalcedon, it recognised the creed that the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers assembled at Nicæa set forth and the hundred and fifty holy fathers at Constantinople confirmed as the only right and true faith: this creed the holy fathers at Ephesus in 431 also followed, who deposed the heretic Nestorius and his followers. Acacius’s confession also anathematised Eutyches and—in this case unlike the Council of Chalcedon—affirmed the orthodoxy of Cyril’s Twelve Anathemas in his Third Letter to Nestorius.
It continued with a definition of the Incarnate Christ corresponding to that of Chalcedon, except that ‘in two natures’ and ‘one person and hypostasis’ were replaced by ‘And we confess as one and not two the only-begotten Son of God,’ avoiding the terms ‘nature,’ ‘person,’ and ‘hypostasis.’ (Evagrius Scholasticus, Eccl. Hist., 3.14; op. cit., p. 149)
Peter Mongus accepted it and was restored to communion with Constantinople. Although it was addressed originally only to the Egyptian church, it became Zeno’s policy for maintaining church unity in the East. It is known to history as the Henoticon, ‘the unifier.’ Bishops who accepted it could follow their own policy within their jurisdiction, but were not to make an issue of either rejecting or accepting Chalcedon in their relations with other bishops. It was largely successful in the East, although not completely. However, it had one grave defect: it was totally unacceptable to Rome. Zeno avoided informing the pope of it for as long as possible, but of course it finally leaked out. Pope Felix learned of it, was outraged, and held a council in Rome which on 28 July 484 anathematized Archbishop Acacius and every other bishop that accepted the Henoticon. The Acacian Schism had begun, and would persist until 519.
Acacius subscribed to the Henoticon but his successors in the see of Constantinople, first Fravitas and then Euphemius, were strong supporters of Chalcedon and rejected it, as well as communion with bishops who accepted it while rejecting Chalcedon, despite Zeno’s policy.
Following the death of Zeno, Anastasius became emperor on 11 April 491. He was a high official chosen by Ariadne, the dowager empress. He was theologically knowledgeable and had at one time been a candidate for the see of Antioch. He leant toward the one-nature christology but his religious policy was church peace under the Henoticon, although at the time of his accession, only Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem were still in communion under it.
Anastasius deposed Euphemius in 495 for his lack of support for the Henoticon. Macedonius was elected patriarch of Constantinople. He was pro-Chalcedonian but subscribed to the Henoticon at the emperor’s insistence.
In Palestine, the anti-Chalcedonian monastics were persecuted, and in 508 a delegation of monks went to Constantinople, seeking redress from Anastasius. They were led by the monk Severus, well educated, theologically trained and articulate, who soon gained the emperor’s confidence, influencing him in an anti-Chalcedonian direction.
The populace of Constantinople was strongly in favour of Chalcedon, led by the equally committed monks of the most influential monastery in the capital, that of the Acoimetae. The anti-Chalcedonian monks accompanying Severus caused a riot when they attempted to chant the Trisagion Hymn in the Great Church with the theopaschite addition, a riot quelled only by the intervention of Macedonius. But Macedonius was caught between the emperor’s support for Severus and his followers on the one hand, and the pro-Chalcedonian people and monks of the capital on the other. Anastasius finally managed to depose and exile him in August 511. His successor Timothy supported the emperor’s bias toward the anti-Chalcedonians.
Then on Sunday, 4 November 512, Anastasius imprudently issued an edict to add the theopaschite formula to the Trisagion Hymn in all the churches of the capital. This sparked a riot that led to the emperor’s public humiliation. It also led an army commander in the Balkans to revolt. This was Vitalian, Latin-speaking and from a region that was strongly pro-Chalcedonian, who would play a role in subsequent events. Anastasius retreated somewhat from his anti-Chalcedonian position but made Severus, now the acknowledged leader of the anti-Chalcedonians, Archbishop of Antioch.
Evagrius Scholasticus gives us a vivid description of the resulting ecclesiastical situation under Anastasius:
‘Consequently it came about that there were very many divisions both in the East and in the western regions and in Libya, since the Eastern bishops were not on terms with those in the West or in Libya, nor in turn were the latter with those in the East. The situation became more absurd. For the prelates of the East were not even in communion with each other, nor indeed were those directing the sees of Europe or Libya, and much less so with outsiders. When the emperor Anastasius saw this he expelled those of the bishops who were making innovations, if ever he found one, contrary to the custom for the region, either by proclaiming the Synod at Chalcedon or encompassing it with anathema.’ (Eccl. Hist., 3.30; op. cit., p. 167)
The situation of the Church was about to change radically, however, in a way reminiscent of the events following Marcian’s elevation to the imperial throne.
Justin and Justinian Take the Stage
On the night of 8-9 July 518, Anastasius died. He had not named a successor, and the senate and army chose as emperor Justin, a commander who had risen from the ranks in the palace guard. Justin was Latin-speaking and came from the same region of the eastern Balkans as Vitalian, a region firmly orthodox, which maintained close ties with the see of Rome. Naturally, Justin was a firm supporter of Chalcedon. He was of peasant origin and had little formal education, but he had as close advisor his nephew Justinian, his sister’s son. Justinian had grown up in Constantinople and was well educated, including in theology. Like his uncle, he was also a firm defender of Chalcedon. Justin recalled Vitalian, well known for his support of Chalcedon and for his desire to heal the breach with Rome, to Constantinople.
The archbishop of Constantinople, Timothy, had died just three months before and Anastasius had appointed as archbishop one John, who shared Anastasius’s bias against Chalcedon. The people of Constantinople were aware of this and, with a pro-Chalcedonian emperor now on the throne, were determined to challenge him. On Sunday, 15 July 518, a week after Justin’s accession, John of Constantinople, as he led the Great Entrance in the Church of Hagia Sophia, was confronted by the populace encouraged by the known sympathies of Justin and Vitalian for Chalcedon. The congregation—more like a mob—demanded noisily that he affirm the Council and the Tome of Leo, and anathematize Severus of Antioch and his supporters. John had little choice. On Monday, 16 July 518, he held a commemorative service for Chalcedon, the first such service, and this has been the feast of the council ever since. The Permanent Synod met on 20 July 518 and confirmed these undertakings. Severus in Antioch was deposed and fled to Alexandria, where he continued to lead the opponents of Chalcedon until his death in 538.
Counselled by Vitalian and Justinian, Justin was determined to restore communion with Rome. He wrote to Pope Hormisdas on 1 August 518, just three weeks after his accession. Hormisdas responded with alacrity. Papal legates arrived in Constantinople and negotiated a reunion that took effect on 28 March 519, bringing the Acacian Schism to an end. They remained in Constantinople till July 520 to observe the measures Justin took in Alexandria and Antioch to secure the acceptance of the Council of Chalcedon—satisfactory in Antioch, unsatisfactory in Egypt.
By this time Egypt, a large, populous and prosperous province with a well-organised church, and with wealthy and influential landowners and merchants, had come to enjoy a degree of autonomy in the Roman empire that other provinces in the east could not aspire to, limiting the emperor’s ability to control developments there.
In 519 there occurred an event that seemed of little importance at the time but would have repercussions years later. A delegation of Scythian monks came to Constantinople with a novel proposal. (Scythia, now in Rumania, was the Roman province in the Balkans on the Black Sea coast to the south of the mouth of the Danube, Latin-speaking and strongly Chalcedonian.) One of the monks was a relative of Vitalian, so they had a sponsor in Constantinople. While the anti-Chalcedonians had used the theopaschite formula as a repudiation of the Council, the Scythian monks argued that it was in fact a confirmation of Chalcedon if rightly understood.
The Scythian monks wanted to add to the Chalcedonian definition the phrase, ‘unum ex Trinitate passum esse carne,’ ‘one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh,’ in Greek, ‘ἕνα τῆς Τριάδος πεπονθέναι σαρκί.’ (Vasiliev, p. 191) The deacon Dioscorus, papal legate in Constantinople, wrote to Pope Hormisdas, dismissing the theopaschite formula: ‘This is what they say in their clever proposal: ‘We accept the Council of Chalcedon and we hope that you allow this explanation of it, because the way it is explained is not enough to counter the Nestorian heresy’.’ (Gray, 1979, p. 49) Justinian wrote to Pope Hormisdas at the same time, advising against the formula, but just a few days later he sent another letter by express so that it would arrive before his first letter, now asking him to approve it. It appears that the Scythian monks’ proposal had given him an insight that he would later exploit, which, indeed, became the foundation of his religious policy: ‘Words are seen to cause disagreement: but among the orthodox, all meanings are proved to be one.’ (Ibid., pp. 49-50) If only the debate could get beyond the words ‘two natures’ and ‘one incarnate nature,’ it would be seen that both sides in fact held the same belief.
But the plea was unsuccessful on this occasion. Pope Hormisdas rejected the monks’ proposal.
I must now digress to introduce a doctrinal development that emerged in the first decades of the sixth century, 80 years after the Council of Chalcedon. It brought out clearly the Cyrillian character of the Chalcedonian definition: ‘… acknowledged in two natures … the distinctive character of each being preserved coming together in one person and one hypostasis … one and the same Son, Only-begotten, God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ’; removing any implication of Nestorianism.
The Council of Chalcedon had left ambiguous which hypostasis it was in which the natures came together: was it that of Christ, which would support the Antiochene christology, or that of God the Word, as the Cyrillian christology claimed?
The Henoticon had evaded the question, rather than addressed it. Given the ambiguity, the debate could not reach a conclusion. It was only in the first decades of the sixth century that theologians began to take it seriously. And in the course of this renewed theological activity, the Church formed a clearer understanding of what Chalcedon had tried to do.
A number of theologians were involved. An account of the most important is given in Gray, 1979, cap. 6. One was John the Grammarian, Bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine, active around 515. He was the first to use the Cappadocian definitions christologically, treating ‘nature’ as synonymous with ‘essence’ and not with ‘person’—hence to say that Christ is in two natures is the same as to assert the traditional belief in the double consubstantiality, with the divinity and with the humanity. But he never used ‘hypostasis’ christologically, although it would turn out to be the key to the solution. (Ibid., pp. 118–21)
It was Leontius of Jerusalem who achieved the breakthrough to a resolution of the problem. Apart from his own polemical works, we know almost nothing about him, except that he was a Palestinian monk active in the 530s, and a gifted theologian. Confusingly, he engaged in a lively controversy with another monk, also named Leontius, Leontius of Byzantium, also a gifted theologian but in a very different tradition. But Leontius of Jerusalem’s main foil was, of course, Severus of Antioch, the leading contemporary anti-Chalcedonian theologian.
Leontius understood Cyril to be teaching what had always been the Church’s fundamental belief: ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth,’ (John 1:14) and ‘But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory,’ (1 Corinthians, 2:7–8)
The question was how to express it. The effort so far had been hampered by the confusion among the terms οὐσία (essence), φύσις (nature), πρόσωπον (person) and ὑπόστασις (subsistent entity, hypostasis). Both the Severians and the Nestorians took it for granted that Christ’s human nature, if it was to be an actual human being and not merely an appearance, had to have an hypostasis, but what hypostasis?
To avoid the Nestorian position of two natures, interpreted as distinct beings or hypostases in the one Christ, the formula the Severians insisted on was ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God.’ This led Severus inevitably to the claim that the one nature in Christ is a composite nature, uniting human and divine elements.
But Leontius rejected the notion of a composite nature—a nature is fixed by its definition, and to add to it would be to change it into a different nature. He argued that a preferable formula for unity is ἕνωσις καθ’ ὑπόστασιν, ‘unity by hypostasis,’ since an hypostasis can be composite, like the hypostases or persons of the Trinity, sharing one essence but each with distinguishing characteristics. The human nature is enhypostasized in the hypostasis of the Word. There would thus be one way of expressing the unity of Christ—one hypostasis of the Word—and another of expressing the difference in Christ—two natures, human and divine.
‘We are, then, right in saying there’s a union of hypostases in one nature [ἕνωσις μὲν ὑποστάσεων ἐν μιᾷ φύσει] in the case of the holy and supraessential Trinity, but a union of natures in one hypostasis [ἕνωσις δὲ τῶν φύσεων ἐν μιᾷ ὑποστάσει] in the case of the holy and ineffable Incarnation of the Word. This is what the father was talking about who said: ‘The definition of the mystery in Christ is the opposite of the definition for the Holy Trinity.’ [St Gregory the Theologian, Ep. 101 (Letter to Cledonius), 44: ‘And I say different Elements [in the Incarnation], because it is the reverse of what is the case in the Trinity; for there we acknowledge different Persons so as not to confound the persons; but not different Elements, for the Three are One and the same in Godhead.’]’ (Ibid., p. 181)
But Leontius’s solution had to pass two tests: did it allow for Christ to be fully a human being, not merely a human appearance? And did it do justice to the theopaschite formula of Cyril’s 12th Anathema?
To be a human being is to be an enhypostasized human nature. But the Word did not take on an abstract human nature: ‘… the Word out of our nature into his own hypostasis assumed a particular nature (φύσις ἰδική τὶς).’ (Ibid., p. 135) Hence, Christ was the Word of God as a complete and individual human being, without in any way altering his divine essence—true Man and true God.
Leontius defended the theopaschite formula, Εἱς ἐκ τῆς ἁγίας Τριάδος σταυρωθεὶς καὶ παθείς, ‘One of the Holy Trinity was crucified and suffered.’ (Adv. Nest. 2:6; Gray, p. 136) ‘If God was not reconciling the world to himself in Christ through death and passion and other things, as it is written, how has he, who exists in the form of God—himself and not another, neither through another—humbled himself even unto death? And how did they truly crucify the Lord of Glory?’ (Adv. Nest. 5.2; Gray, p. 137) The Word of God, by enhypostasizing his human nature, was an actual human being and suffered in reality as such. However it was the hypostasis of the human nature that suffered, hence ‘one of the Trinity,’ not the divine nature or the Trinity as such.
By the 530s, this was becoming the recognised teaching of the church: Christ is two natures, human and divine, in one hypostasis, the hypostasis of the Word of God.
It was in this context that Justinian pursued his policy when he succeeded Justin as emperor in 527. He was determined to unify the empire, including recovering territory in the West overrun by Germanic tribes, and that meant that he had to unify the church. His policy remained consistent throughout—to defend the Council of Chalcedon, to maintain communion with Rome and if possible to reconcile the anti-Chalcedonians or at least discourage them from going into open schism.
Justinian was a competent theologian, able to discern and articulate the emerging christological consensus of the Church, exemplified by Leontius of Jerusalem’s teaching of two natures, human and divine, united without mixture or confusion in the one hypostasis of the Word of God.
The episode of the Scythian monks had convinced Justinian that the disagreement between the proponents of ‘One nature incarnate of the Word of God’ and those of ‘Two undivided natures’ was purely verbal and could be overcome. Fifteen years of effort had convinced him that the way to do this was to explicate the features of Chalcedon that the anti-Chalcedonians believed to be proof that it was disguised Nestorianism: namely, its failure to use the theopaschite formula explicitly, its ambiguity concerning the hypostasis, and its rehabilitation of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibis of Edessa. This was the policy that he pursued to its culmination at the 5th Œcumenical Council of 553.
His first steps were two decrees issued in March 533, declaring the theopaschite formula and the union by hypostasis (ἕνωσις καθ’ ὑπόστασιν) in Christ necessary parts of the Chalcedonian faith. There was opposition to the theopaschite formula by the Acoimetae monks in Constantinople, but Justinian convinced the bishop of Rome at the time, John, to recognise it as orthodox.
Vigilius, the key figure in the story of the 5th Œcumenical Council, was elected bishop of Rome on 29 March 537. Justinian had got to know him when he was a deacon accompanying Pope Agapetus to Constantinople in 536. He formed a favourable opinion of his views and supported his election to the papacy in 537.
We must now deal with a matter not directly related to the christological issue addressed by the 5th Œcumenical Council, but which, almost accidentally, became a part of the Council.
In 543, the controversy concerning Origen and his philosophical speculations resurfaced for the first time since the Synod of Alexandria in A.D. 400. Origen’s ideas are outlined earlier in this website in The Pre-Conciliar Church: The Third Century: Origen and Origenism. While his catechetical teaching was strictly orthodox, his speculations, while admired by some theologians, like St Basil the Great and St Gregory the Theologian, scandalized others, like St Jerome.
However, the debate in the sixth century concerned, not Origen himself, but the teachings of a mystic, Evagrius Ponticus. He was active toward the end of the 4th century, 60 years before the Council of Chalcedon. As his cognomen indicates, he was from Pontus on the Black Sea coast in Asia Minor. He was a disciple of St Basil the Great and St Gregory the Theologian, became a monk and settled in Egypt. He developed Origen’s speculations into a devotional system for monks, including Origen’s speculation about the pre-existent human soul of Christ. He taught that human souls can, by contemplation and asceticism, be joined to the Christ-soul. These ideas were influential in some of the Egyptian monasteries, and spread to some of the monasteries in Palestine, leading to sharp conflict between Origenist and Cyrillian monks.
The patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem expressed their concern, as did the agent of the Roman church in Constantinople, the deacon Pelagius. Justinian responded by issuing an edict in 543, anathematizing nine Origenistic speculations, including that of the pre-existence of Christ’s soul. These anathemas were accepted by the five patriarchs, of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.
In 544, Justinian took the next step in his plan to rectify the interpretation of Chalcedon. He issued his famous—or notorious—edict condemning three of the things that anti-Chalcedonians viewed as tying the Council of Chalcedon to Nestorianism: Theodore of Mopsuestia and his writings, the writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus against Cyril, and the letter of Ibis of Edessa to Mari the Persian. He referred to them as the Three Chapters.
The four eastern patriarchs accepted the decree with some hesitation but Pope Vigilius rejected it outright. The patriarchs had two concerns: the propriety of revising a general council and the propriety of anathematizing the dead. The eastern patriarchs did not consider these to be decisive but Pope Vigilius did.
Why did Vigilius refuse? Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret of Cyrrhus were eastern theologians writing in Greek, and their christological teachings were not well known in the Latin-speaking West, which had its own christological tradition. In fact some of their pronouncements were regarded as suspect by Vigilius himself, for much the same reason as eastern bishops in the Cyrillian tradition found them suspicious. Vigilius’s position reflected, not the western opinion of those whom Justinian anathematized, but the western position on councils of the Church. It had been expressed almost a century before by St Leo the Great, speaking of the Council of Chalcedon: ‘Whatever has been devoutly and fully defined must not be called again into any discussion, lest we ourselves appear at the whim of those condemned to have doubts about the things which in everything accord with the authority of the prophets, the gospels and the apostles.’ (Letter 162 of 21 March 458; Grillmeier, 1987, p. 151, fn. 65)
In 546, Vigilius went to Sicily to escape the Gothic siege of Rome. At the same time, the Latin church was undertaking an intensive consultation on Justinian’s edict. One of those consulted was the eminent theological authority, Deacon Ferrandus of Carthage. His conclusion:
‘General councils, particularly those that have gained the assent of the Roman church, hold a place of authority second only to the canonical books … What has been concluded by the judgement of the holy bishops and most carefully tested and confirmed by being taken to the memoria of the blessed Peter [accepted by the Church of Rome] must be followed and must be embraced; they ought not to be subjected to revision through any pretext of piety, least of all by posterity when those who pronounced judgement are deceased in respect of the flesh.’ (Price, I. p. 118)
But Justinian’s policy on Chalcedon depended completely on the whole Church standing behind it, and he was determined not to let Vigilius ruin it. He had Vigilius brought from Sicily to Constantinople, where he arrived in January 547.
Vigilius immediately excommunicated Menas, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Theodore Ascidas, bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, but resident in Constantinople as Justinian’s spiritual advisor, and other bishops who had signed Justinian’s edict of 544, but by June 547 he had been convinced to withdraw the excommunications. Vigilius was in an impossible position. If he did what Justinian wanted him to do, he was liable to be repudiated by his own bishops. If he did what his bishops wanted him to do, he was liable to be deposed and exiled by Justinian. It could have been no comfort to him that he did not have doctrinal objections to either course of action. His response was the best he could manage—delay, in the hope that something would turn up. Privately he gave Justinian assurances of support but his one public statement of support, his Judicatum of 11 April 548 anathematizing the Three Chapters, caused such outrage in the West that by 550, Justinian allowed him to withdraw it. At that point Vigilius made secret undertakings to do all in his power to have the Three Chapters anathematized, even swearing a written and witnessed oath on 15 August 550.
Justinian now suggested a council as the only way out of the impasse, which Vigilius accepted with the proviso of equal representation of western and eastern bishops, and that no further statement would be made on the question until the council met. But it proved impossible to convene, since few western bishops were in a position to attend, given the chaotic conditions in Italy and Gaul.
Justinian then issued his edict On the Orthodox Faith of July 551, condemning the Three Chapters. He may have considered void the undertaking to make no pronouncement on the question, since a council seemed impossible. He may even have hoped that the decree would give Vigilius a pretext to accept the situation as a fait accompli. Its final paragraph could be read as a thinly veiled warning: ‘If therefore after this orthodox profession and condemnation of the heretics anyone, while preserving a pious understanding, separates himself from the holy church of God through a love of contention over terms or expressions, as if piety consists for us in mere terms and expressions but not in realities, such a one for delighting in schism will have to answer for himself and for those he is deceiving …’ (Ibid., I. p. 159)
But Vigilius regarded it as a breach of Justinian’s promise and reacted immediately, deposing Theodore Ascidas, treating him as the author of the decree, and breaking off communion with Menas. Justinian’s reaction was so menacing that, on 23 December 551, Vigilius fled across the Bosphorus to the Shrine of St Euphemia in Chalcedon where he took refuge.
Justinian, still determined to reach an agreement, managed to persuade Vigilius to return, meeting him in June 552. Justinian now revived the plan of a council, but now with no pretence of equal representation.
