The Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451

​The bishops met as directed at Nicæa on the first of September but incursions by the Huns in the Balkans had taken Marcian to the front line in Illyricum. He was still determined to have the council under his direct control but could not afford to be far from Constantinople, and so later in the month directed the bishops to move to Chalcedon, a suburb of Constantinople on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. A few weeks later, the bishops reassembled there.

The council was held in the shrine of Chalcedon’s patron saint, the martyr Euphemia. Evagrius Scholasticus provides a charming description of the location in his Ecclesiastical History (II.3). The shrine was a large complex of buildings, the church more than large enough to accommodate the more than 300 bishops and their several hundred attendants. The saint’s relics were in a rotunda attached to the church. It was outside the city on the gentle slope of a hill about a quarter of a mile from the shore of the Bosphorus. It provided an impressive panorama across the strait to the walls and palaces of Constantinople, just three miles away.

On Monday morning, 8 October 451, the council opened for a session that would stretch into the evening. In front of the altar rail of the church were seated the representatives of the Emperor: seven imperial officials, headed by the Patrician Anatolius, Magister Militum, and twelve senators. Normally the senior bishop would preside at a council but in this case the Emperor was determined to keep control. On their left were seated the representatives of Pope Leo of Rome—Paschasinus of Lilybæum, Lucentius of Asculum and Boniface the priest—then in order of precedence Patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople, Patriarch Maximus of Antioch, Thalassius, bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, Stephen, bishop of Ephesus, and the bishops of the provinces of Oriens, Pontus, Asia and Thrace. On their right were seated Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria, Patriarch Juvenal of Jerusalem, Quintillus, bishop of Heraclea in Macedonia, representing Anastasius, bishop of Thessalonica, Peter, bishop of Corinth, and the bishops of Egypt, Illyria and Palestine. In the centre of the nave was placed the book of the Holy Gospels. In attendance were notaries and stenographers.

​The council was like Flavian’s synod in 448 and Dioscorus’s council in 449 in that it took the form of a trial. An appeal had been made to the Emperor by Eusebius of Dorylæum, and the Emperor had summoned the bishops to judge the appeal. The first event of the day, however, was an effort by Paschasinus to exert the authority of Pope Leo: he went to the middle of the nave by the Gospel book and demanded that Dioscorus be expelled from the assembly—either he would leave or they would leave. The Patrician Anatolius took the opportunity to show that it was he who was in charge. He asked Paschasinus what charge he was bringing against Dioscorus. Paschasinus, discomfitted, could not think of any. Anatolius accepted that Dioscorus was under accusation and had him take a seat in the middle of the nave. As the secretary recorded, when Dioscorus had done so and ‘the most devout Roman bishops had also sat down in their proper places and had ceased speaking,’ Anatolius called upon Eusebius to present his case. (Price and Gaddis, op. cit., I. p. 130)

This marks the beginning of the planned program of the council. Eusebius of Dorylæum called for his petition to the Emperor to be read: ‘I have been wronged by Dioscorus; the faith has been wronged; Bishop Flavian was murdered. He together with me was unjustly deposed by Dioscorus.’ (Ibid.) His accusation concerning the faith was that Dioscorus ‘confirmed the heresy of the monk Eutyches,’ in other words, one nature in Christ after the incarnation (ibid., I. p. 131). He called for the minutes of Dioscorus’s council to be read, as they would enable him to prove his accusations.

​Dioscorus responded with the observation that the council had been summoned regularly by the Emperor Theodosius. He also asked that the minutes be read, something that Anatolius had intended in any case; but immediately after this request, Dioscorus asked that ‘the matters of faith’ be examined first.

Why this sudden change? We can only speculate, but it is likely that Dioscorus realised too late that it was a mistake to call for the reading of the minutes. He had been assuming that they would show his actions to be consonant with the wishes of the Emperor Theodosius, but it must then have occurred to him that this would help him only if Marcian was prepared to accept a Cyrillian one-nature christology. If Marcian intended to enforce Flavian’s version of Cyril, based on the the Second Letter to Nestorius and the Formula of Reunion, Dioscorus would be condemned. He quickly changed his position to the issue of christology, where he might get bishops to support his position.

​Anatolius of course turned him down flat, and the reading of the minutes of Dioscorus’s Latrocinium began. This was a proceeding that would take up most of the day, and was extremely convoluted, because minutes of Flavian’s synod and even some from the Council of Ephesus of 431 were embedded in Dioscorus’s minutes—they were like nested Russian dolls.

The first item read was Theodosius’s sacra of 30 March 449 to Dioscorus and the other bishops, summoning them to the council. Toward the end of the rescript, Theodosius stated that he had confined Theodoret of Cyrrhus to his see and forbidden him to attend the council.

​The Patrician Anatolius chose this moment to call upon Theodoret to enter and take his seat, since Pope Leo had restored him and the Emperor had decreed his attendance. Anatolius must have known that this was a sensitive point and may have wished to use it as an early test of the temper of the assembly. The test was a striking success—the result was uproar; the underlying conflict had come out into the open.

On the one side were the bishops, led by the Egyptians and Palestinians, who favoured Dioscorus’s Cyril, adding the Third Letter to Nestorius with its anathemas and the letters to Acacius of Melitene, Valerian of Iconium and Succensus of Diocæsarea, to Flavian’s Cyril of the Second Letter to Nestorius and the Formula of Reunion—the one-nature Cyrillian christology. Theodoret’s appearance roused them to shouts of ‘Have mercy, the faith is being destroyed. The canons exclude him. Drive him out. Drive out the teacher of Nestorius.’

​On the other side were the bishops, led by the Antiochene bishops, who favoured Flavian’s Cyril, the two-nature Cyrillian christology. The Egyptian bishops must have taunted them with having agreed with Dioscorus’s judgement on Flavian and Eusebius at the Latrocinium, since they were now loud in their excuses: ‘We signed blank sheets. We suffered blows and we signed … Drive out the enemies of Flavian. Drive out the enemies of the faith.’

Dioscorus protested, ‘Why is Cyril being cast out, who was anathematized by this man?’ To which the Antiochene bishops responded, ‘Drive out Dioscorus the murderer. Who doesn’t know of the actions of Dioscorus?’ (Ibid., I. p. 134)

The officials quelled the protests with difficulty. Theodoret came to the centre of the nave and made an appeal to the Emperor ‘against the attacks of which I have been the victim.’ Anatolius had him join those in the middle as plaintiff (ibid., I. p. 135).

The reading of the minutes then proceeded. When Theodosius’s letter naming Dioscorus, Juvenal and Thalassius was read, Dioscorus interjected that he was not the only person responsible for the Latrocinium: ‘We pronounced judgement accordingly, and the whole council gave its assent. Why are these people singling me out for attack?’ (Ibid., I. p. 140) The Antiochene bishops reiterated that they had acted only under compulsion while the Egyptian bishops claimed there was no compulsion. The dispute continued for some time before the Patrician Anatolius managed to get the reading started again. By this point, it must have been clear to Anatolius that Marcian’s objectives for the council could be achieved, if at all, only by the most delicate handling.

When the reading reached the attempt to introduce the Tome of Leo at the Latrocinium, the Patrician Anatolius questioned Dioscorus, Juvenal and Thalassius closely as to why they did not allow it to be read, to which, of course, they had no answer. But the intervention signalled to the bishops that Leo’s Tome was now on the agenda.

At a later point, Dioscorus’s assertion at the Latrocinium that Flavian’s synod had introduced doctrinal novelties was read from the minutes, together with the agreement of the bishops assembled there. At this point, the Antiochene bishops at Chalcedon burst out that they had not agreed, and now accused Dioscorus of preventing notaries from recording the proceedings. We learn serendipitously from Dioscorus that it was then the practice at synods for bishops to have with them one or two notaries to record their statements. These were often clerics and could be highly placed ones, and close associates of the bishop. Stephen of Ephesus identified his notaries at the Latrocinium as ‘Julian who is now the most devout bishop of Lebedos and the deacon Crispinus,’ and claimed that Dioscorus’s notaries prevented them by force from keeping a record (ibid., I. p. 153). By now, the narrative of Dioscorus using force and fraud at the Latrocinium has been well established.

When the minutes of the Latrocinium where Eutyches defended himself by citing the Nicene Creed was read at Chalcedon, Eusebius of Dorylæum intervened: ‘He avoided the expression ‘from heaven’ but did not add from where,’ implying that Eutyches was an Apollinarian. Dioscorus now weakened: ‘If Eutyches holds opinions contrary to the doctrines of the church, he deserves not only punishment but hell fire. For my concern is for the catholic and apostolic faith and not for any human being.’ (Ibid., I. p. 159) But of course this undermined Dioscorus’s case against Flavian at the Latrocinium.

When the minutes of the Latrocinium where Eustathius of Beirut introduced Cyril’s letters written after the Formula of Reunion, which included, ‘One should therefore not conceive of two natures but of one incarnate nature of the Word,’ Eustathius at Chalcedon attempted to defend himself by pointing out that Flavian himself had said, in a letter written after the synod of 448, ‘We do not refuse to affirm one nature of God the Word, enfleshed and incarnate, since from both is one and the same our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The Patrician Anatolius then demanded: ‘Why then did you depose Flavian of devout memory?’ To which Eustathius could only reply, ‘I erred.’ (Ibid., I. pp. 184-86)

​Next the minutes of Flavian’s synod in 448 were read, in which the christology of Cyril was defined by the ‘synodical’ Second Letter to Nestorius and the Formula of Reunion. The Patrician Anatolius then asked the bishops if this was the orthodox faith. Paschasinus stated that it was, and that it accorded with the Tome of Leo (ibid., I. p. 187).) Other bishops then affirmed it in turn.

Dioscorus continued to defend a one-nature Cyrillian christology: ‘Clearly Flavian was deposed for this reason, that he spoke of two natures after the union. But I have quotations from the holy fathers Athanasius, Gregory and Cyril saying in numerous passages that one should not speak of two natures after the union but of one incarnate nature of the Word. I am being cast out together with the fathers.’ (Ibid., I. p. 190) But by this point, it must have been clear to the assembled bishops that Dioscorus’s cause was hopeless. His supporters, beginning with Juvenal of Jerusalem, now deserted him, crossing over to the other side of the nave to the welcoming acclamations of the Antiochene bishops.

The reading of the minutes of Flavian’s synod continued, and when in them a bishop affirmed that he acknowledged ‘that after the incarnation we worship the Godhead from two natures of the only begotten Son of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,’ Dioscorus at Chalcedon interjected, ‘I accept ‘from two natures’: I do not accept ‘two’.’ (Ibid., I. p. 194) This will later have consequences for the Chalcedonian definition.

It is late in the evening and the lamps have been lit when the reading of the minutes of the Latrocinium reach the deposition of Flavian and Eusebius. At Chalcedon, the Antiochene bishops and those with them burst into cries: ‘Anathema to Dioscorus! At that time he condemned; this time let him be condemned.’ (Ibid., I. p. 344) The minutes continue, recording the condemnations pronounced by Juvenal of Jerusalem, Thalassius of Cæsarea, Eusebius of Ancyra, Eustathius of Beirut and Basil of Seleucia, as well as the other bishops present at the Latrocinium.

​With this, the Patrician Anatolius concluded the first and by far the longest session of the council. He stated that the reading of the minutes had proved the injustice of the depositions of Flavian and Eusebius; and suspended Dioscorus, Juvenal, Thalassius, Eusebius, Eustathius and Basil from the assembly while the Emperor considered what penalty to impose on them.

He went on to say that the question of the faith would be examined the next day and that each bishop should ‘set out in writing what he believes … recognizing that the beliefs of our most divine and pious master accord with the creed of the 318 holy fathers at Nicaea and the creed of the 150 fathers after that, with the canonical letters and expositions of the holy fathers Gregory, Basil, Hilary, Athanasius and Ambrose, and with the two canonical letters of Cyril which were approved and published at the first council of Ephesus … In addition it is a familiar fact that the most devout Leo archbishop of Senior Rome sent a letter [the Tome of Leo] to Flavian of devout memory concerning the dispute …’ (Ibid., I. pp. 364-65)

​From Marcian’s point of view, the first session was a qualified success: it had found Dioscorus guilty, but the bishops had shown themselves to be less willing to be guided than undoubtedly he had hoped.

​The second session opened the following Wednesday, 10 October, again with a strong representation of officials and senators, eighteen altogether, with the Patrician Anatolius presiding. There were 305 bishops in attendance.

After briefly summarising the decisions of the first session, Anatolius stated the session’s purpose: ‘The question that is now to be investigated, judged and studied is how to confirm the true faith; it is particularly because of the faith that the council has assembled … Therefore apply yourselves without fear, favour or enmity to produce a pure exposition of the faith, so that even those who appear not to share the views of all may be restored to harmony by acknowledging the truth.’ He went on to specify what the Emperor regarded as the orthodox faith: the creed issued by the 318 fathers of the Council of Nicæa in 325, that issued by the 150 fathers of the First Council of Constantinople in 381, and the teachings of the other holy fathers (ibid., II. p. 10)

Anatolius’s reference to the 150 fathers was not merely pro forma. That council had promulgated definitions addressing heresies that had arisen since the Council of Nicæa, definitions that had never been thought of by the Church in the half century since as a creed in addition to the Nicene Creed. But Marcian—and Anatolius—wanted to make the point that there had been an addition to the Nicene Creed, and so there could now be another creed, embodying the Tome of Leo.

However, the immediate reaction of the bishops was unequivocal: ‘No one makes a new exposition, nor do we attempt or presume to do so. For it was the fathers who taught, what they expounded is preserved in writing, and we cannot go beyond it.’ (Ibid.)

Cecropius of Sebastopolis then stated that they had all assented to the Tome of Leo and signed it. It soon became apparent that many of the bishops present had hoped that signing the Tome would suffice and they would not be required to acknowledge any specific doctrinal innovations.

The Patrician Anatolius now proposed a committee: ‘let the most sacred patriarchs from each diocese select, each one, one or two from their own diocese, come together, deliberate in common about the faith, and then make their decisions known to all, so that, if all are in accord, every dispute may be resolved, which is what we wish, and if some prove to be of a contrary opinion, which we do not expect, this may reveal their opinions as well.’ (Ibid., II. p. 11)

​Cecropius then asked that the Nicene Creed be read. After it was read, the Patrician Anatolius ordered ‘the exposition of the 150 holy fathers’ to be read, and the Nicene Creed, incorporating the definitions adopted at Constantinople in 381, was read. This was the first time that the Church had read the amended version as a complete creed.

After that, Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius and the Formula of Reunion were read, as at Flavian’s synod, then the Tome of Leo in Greek translation.

The Tome had been debated long enough that everyone was aware of the passages in it that gave strict Cyrillians pause, and it soon became evident that Anatolius had prepared for them. The reading was interrupted three times by objections from the Illyrian and Palestinian bishops. First, for the passage, ‘For the payment of the debt owed by our nature divine nature was united to passible nature, so that … the man Christ Jesus, would be able to die in respect of the one and would not be able to expire in respect of the other.’ The bishops’ objection was immediately met by Aetius, archdeacon of Constantinople, quoting from Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius: ‘… he himself is said to have suffered death on our behalf, not as though he entered into the experience of death in regard to his own nature … but because, as I have just said, his own flesh tasted death.’

​Second, for the passage, ‘For each form performs what is proper to it in association with the other … the one shines with miracles while the other has succumbed to outrages.’ Again Aetius answered, this time quoting from Cyril’s letter to Acacius: ‘Some of the sayings are particularly fitting to God, some again particularly fitting to man …’

Third, for the passage, ‘Although indeed in the Lord Jesus Christ there is one person of God and man, nevertheless that because of which the outrage is common in both is one thing and that because of which the glory is common is another …’ This time they were answered by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, quoting from Cyril’s Scholia on the Incarnation, 24: ‘… he is certainly conceived as one dwelling in another, that is, the divine nature in what is human …’

When the reading concluded, the Patrician Anatolius asked, ‘After all this does anyone have any further objections?’ to which the bishops replied, ‘No one has any objections.’ (Ibid., II. pp.25–26)

At this point Atticus of Nicopolis, under the impression that the Patrician Anatolius was willing to listen to objections, almost derailed the proceedings by asking that Cyril’s Third Letter to Nestorius, with the notorious Anathemas, be put before the bishops. The bishops then burst out, ‘If you order this to be granted, we request that the fathers take part in the examination,’ in other words that Dioscorus and those excluded with him be readmitted to the council.

​The Patrician Anatolius, realising that doubts concerning the Tome were deeply rooted, despite the bishops’ earlier reply, now proposed an adjournment of the hearing for five days: ‘… but since it is appropriate to convince all the objectors, let the most devout Archbishop Anatolius select from among the bishops who have signed [the Tome of Leo] those he considers competent to instruct the objectors.’

The bishops continued to ask that the excluded bishops be restored to the council, demanding that their request be reported to Marcian and Pulcheria: ‘We have all erred; forgive us all.’ The session began to descend into chaos, the supporters and opponents of Dioscorus exchanging shouts, and Anatolius hastily adjourned it, saying only, ‘The proposals [first, the committee of bishops, and second, the instructing of the objectors] will be put into effect.’ (Ibid., II. pp. 27–29)

​The session had not gone at all the way the Emperor intended. It had made two things clear. First, the bishops would not accept a new creed, therefore an alternative would have to be found; and second, the condemnation of Dioscorus in the first session had obviously been insufficient, as he still had significant support among the bishops.

The latter problem was addressed at the third session, held on Saturday, 13 October. Marcian realised that it was important that there not be even the hint of imperial pressure on the bishops, so this was the only session of the council at which no officials or senators were present, and at which a bishop presided instead of the Patrician Anatolius. Even so, the attendance was barely 200 bishops—in other words, about a third of the bishops preferred to absent themselves so as not to have to condemn Dioscorus explicitly.

​The session, like the first session, took the form of a trial in answer to a formal complaint, and since it was a new trial, it was supposedly a new complaint, but in fact Eusebius of Dorylaeum brought almost the same complaint, with some additional items from the first session.

​Paschasinus of Lilybaeum, as representative of Pope Leo, the senior bishop, presided. The complaint was read and Dioscorus was summoned a first time to appear before the council to answer the charges. No doubt considering it safer to be condemned for non-appearance than to appear and be interrogated on his doctrines, Dioscorus refused. He was summoned a second time and again refused.

There now occurred something that appeared spontaneous and unrehearsed but which had doubtless been carefully planned months in advance. Aetius, archdeacon of Constantinople and principal notary, announced, ‘Certain individuals describing themselves as clerics, and accompanied by others who are laymen, have recently arrived from Alexandria and presented plaints against the most sacred Dioscorus. They are just outside this holy assembly and are making an appeal …’ (Ibid., II. p. 50)

​Of course they were admitted and the lengthy and lurid complaints of four of them were read out to the assembly: Athanasius, a presbyter of Alexandria and nephew of Cyril, Ischyrion and Theodore, deacons, and Sophronius, a layman. They brought a wide range of charges against Dioscorus, giving the impression of a reign of terror in Alexandria since the death of Cyril, but with the underlying message that Dioscorus, far from being the disciple of Cyril, was his sworn enemy.

After this, Dioscorus was summoned for the third time and again refused. In accordance with the canons, he was found guilty. However, it remained unclear what exactly he was guilty of. In his summing-up, Paschasinus condemned him, apart from vague wrong-doing, specifically only for receiving Eutyches into communion after he had been deposed by Flavian’s synod, refusing to allow the Tome of Leo to be read at the Latrocinium, excommunicating Pope Leo and receiving others into communion who had been condemned by a provincial council. The notification sent to Dioscorus and the letter from the council to the Egyptian clergy refer only to the refusal to appear upon three summonses, and unspecified offences against the canons and ecclesiastical discipline. Notably, Dioscorus was not condemned as a heretic, even though it was one of Eusebius’s charges, and even though his Eutychianism would be cited later in the council. It may be that Marcian did not want to exacerbate the conflict between Cyrillians and Antiochenes by an explicit condemnation.

The adjournment of five days to instruct the objectors to the Tome of Leo in fact lasted a week. The council met for its fourth session on Wednesday, 17 October. The eighteen high officials and senators were once again in attendance, and the Patrician Anatolius was once again presiding.

​The Patrician Anatolius put the question: ‘May the most devout council tell us what it has resolved concerning the holy faith.’

The bishops Paschasinus and Lucentius, and Boniface the Priest, representing Pope Leo, defined the faith as that of the Nicene Creed, as confirmed by the councils of Constantinople of 381 and Ephesus of 431, and the Tome of Leo: ‘The holy council likewise holds fast to this faith and follows it, allowing nothing further to be added or subtracted.’

When this had been translated into Greek, the Patrician Anatolius called upon the bishops individually to state ‘if the definition of the 318 fathers who met formerly at Nicaea and of the 150 who convened subsequently in the imperial city is in harmony with the letter of the most devout Archbishop Leo.’ (Ibid., II. p. 127)

One after the other, a hundred and ten bishops professed the Tome of Leo to be in harmony with the faith of the councils, and almost all of them also stated that it was so because it agreed with the teaching of Cyril of blessed memory. The bishops who had required ‘instruction’ were a special case. The 31 Illyrian bishops and 16 Palestinian bishops each submitted a joint statement in writing. That of the Illyrian bishops read, ‘… all our doubts have been resolved by the most holy bishops Paschasinus and Lucentius … who have explained to us what the wording seemed to separate … For they anathematized every man who separates from the Godhead the flesh of our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he united to himself from the holy Virgin Mary the Theotokos, and who denies that he possesses both the divine and human attributes without confusion, change or division.’ (Ibid., II. p. 138) The statement of the Palestinian bishops was similar.

The remaining bishops accepted the Tome by acclamation. At this point, the bishops, accepting that Dioscorus was deposed, renewed their request that Juvenal, Thalassius, Eusebius, Basil and Eustathius be readmitted to the council. The Patrician Anatolius sent a messenger to Marcian and when he returned a few hours later with a positive response, the bishops welcomed them back with praise for the Emperor and the cry, ‘This is perfect union, this is the peace of the churches.’ (Ibid., II. p. 147)

Without a patriarch to lead them, thirteen of the Egyptian bishops had absented themselves from the council. They now presented a petition, in effect asking to be excused from having to affirm the Tome of Leo on the grounds, first, that the custom of the Church of Egypt required them to follow the direction of their patriarch in matters of doctrine—now impossible because of Dioscorus’s deposition—and, second, because their lives would be in danger if they returned to Egypt after signing the Tome. This petition was met by outrage by the other bishops—after all, they had bowed to imperial pressure despite their misgivings; why should the Egyptians get off scot-free? But Marcian was not about to alienate the Egyptian church, and the Patrician Anatolius directed the council to accept their petition.

Anatolius next called upon two delegates of archimandrites and monks of Constantinople to enter. They had submitted petitions to the Emperor Marcian and he had directed that the council adjudicate. The first delegation were supporters of Flavian against Eutyches, asking the emperor to punish the other group, supporters of Dioscorus. The other group claimed that they had been assured by the emperor that clerics would not be required to subscribe to anything beyond the Creed of Nicæa, but they were being compelled to sign the Tome of Leo. They were prepared to anathematize Eutyches, ‘if he does not believe as the catholic church believes,’ but they refused categorically to accept the Tome.

​The bishops rejected the petition of the archimandrites and monks supporting Dioscorus, and Anatolius gave them thirty days to accept the decrees of the council or be defrocked.

​This episode had the advantage from Anatolius’s perspective of reminding the bishops that there were significant parts of the church that required ‘a pure exposition of the faith.’ And with this, the fourth session of the council was adjourned.

The fateful fifth session of the council—the most important, the one that would draft the Chalcedonian definition of the faith—opened on Monday, 22 October 451. The Patrician Anatolius must have expected it to be pro forma, meeting merely to receive the report of the committee of bishops delegated in the second session to ‘deliberate in common about the faith, and then make their decisions known to all.’ On the Saturday before, the council had met to decide some other minor matters, not regular sessions, and the attendance was just three officials, headed by Anatolius, and 58 bishops who were named plus a vague ‘and the rest of the council.’ The fifth session had exactly the same attendance.

The Patrician Anatolius opened with, ‘Please make known to us what you have determined about the faith.’ (Ibid., II. p. 196) Asclepiades, deacon of the Church of Constantinople, read out the definition. We learn that Archbishop Anatolius of Constantinople had shown the draft to some bishops beforehand and received their approval, but it now emerged that he had been overly sanguine. The draft was not acceptable to Leo’s delegates, and so was not acceptable to the Patrician Anatolius, so much so that it was even excluded from the minutes. Some of the Antiochene bishops sided with the Roman delegates. John, bishop of Germanicia in Syria, stepped forward and said, ‘The definition is not a good one and needs to be made precise.’ (Ibid.)

The objection was narrowly focussed: the definition referred to the incarnate Christ as ‘from two natures,’ while the Roman delegates insisted on ‘in two natures,’ as the Tome of Leo defined it.

​Archbishop Anatolius had evidently attempted to frame a statement that would cause as little offence to the Cyrillian majority of bishops as possible, and had used Flavian’s definition at the permanent synod in 448: ‘We confess that the Christ is from two natures after the incarnation …’ The majority supported his draft with noisy acclamations while Paschasinus, Lucentius and Boniface threatened to return to Rome if it was accepted.

​The Patrician Anatolius, running out of patience, referred the question to the Emperor. Veronicianus, secretary of the imperial consistory, set off across the Bosphorus and a few hours later returned with Marcian’s answer. It was short and peremptory: they would either produce a definition acceptable to Rome or he would prorogue the council and reconvene it in Italy.

The Patrician Anatolius stated that ‘from two natures’ was not a sufficient guard against Eutychianism, since Dioscorus himself had said that he would accept ‘from two natures’ but not ‘in two natures.’ ‘So whom do you follow—the most holy Leo or Dioscorus?’ (Ibid., II. p. 200)

He now, together with the Roman delegates, Archbishop Anatolius, Maximus of Antioch, Juvenal of Jerusalem, Thallasius of Cæsarea, Eusebius of Ancyra, Eusebius of Dorylæum and thirteen other bishops retired into the oratory of the martyrium. Interestingly enough, all the eastern bishops involved were Cyrillians—not even John of Germanicia was included. Clearly the Patrician Anatolius was walking a very fine line between affirming the Tome of Leo and not alienating the eastern bishops.

Since little time was spent on redrafting, Archbishop Anatolius’s draft must have been altered at only one or two points, probably just to accommodate ‘in two natures’ from the Tome of Leo. When they returned to the nave, the Patrician Anatolius announced, ‘May the holy council, in its upholding of the faith, deign to listen in silence to what has been defined in our presence by the holy fathers who have met together and expounded the definition of faith.’ (Ibid., II. pp. 200–201)

The definition opened with what was, after all, the whole purpose of the council: ‘Christ our Lord and Saviour, confirming for his disciples the knowledge of the faith, said, ‘My peace I give you, my peace I leave to you,’ in order that no one should disagree with his neighbour over the doctrines of piety, but that the message of the truth should be proclaimed uniformly.’ (Ibid., II. p. 201)

It went on to make clear that ‘the message of the truth’ was that proclaimed by the Councils of Nicæa in 325 and Constantinople in 381, reciting the Nicene Creed in both the original and expanded forms, treating them as a single ‘wise and saving symbol of divine grace.’ The teaching of the Creed on the Trinity is complete while, ‘to those who receive it faithfully,’ it also teaches the incarnation of the Lord. Against those spreading heretical doctrines, ‘the council has accepted as in keeping [with these creeds] the conciliar letters of the blessed Cyril … to Nestorius and to those of the Orient [the Formula of Reunion] … To these letters it has attached appropriately, for the confirmation of the true doctrines, the letter written by the president of the great and senior Rome, the most blessed and holy Archbishop Leo, to Archbishop Flavian, among the saints, for the confutation of the perversity of Eutyches [the Tome of Leo] … For the council sets itself against those who attempt to dissolve the mystery of the dispensation into a duality of sons, and it removes from the list of priests those who dare to say that the Godhead of the Only-Begotten is passible; it opposes those who imagine a mixing or confusion of the two natures of Christ, it expels those who rave that the form of a servant which he took from us was heavenly or of some other substance, and it anathematizes those who invent two natures of the Lord before the union and imagine one nature after the union.’ (Ibid., II. pp. 203–4)

In harmony with these, the fathers of the council then made their confession of faith, whose key phrase was: ‘… one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation (the difference of the natures being in no way destroyed by the union, but rather the distinctive character of each nature being preserved and coming together into one person and hypostasis), not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, Only-begotten, God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ …’ (Ibid., II. p. 204) They accepted Leo’s ἐν δύο φύσεσιν, ‘in two natures’ but balanced it with the four Chalcedonian adverbs, ἀσυγχύτως, without confusion, ἀτρέπτως, without change, ἀδιαίρετως, without division, ἀχωρίστως, without separation, and εἰς ἓν πρόσωπον καὶ μίαν ὑπόστασιν, ‘one person and hypostasis,’ reflecting the christology of Cyril.

This was a definition the assembled bishops were ready to acclaim: ‘Let the metropolitans sign at once. Let them sign at once in the presence of the officials. Let this splendid definition suffer no delay. This is the faith of the apostles. To this we all assent. We all believe accordingly.’ (Ibid., II. p. 205) And, the council having reached its goal at last, the Patrician Anatolius adjourned the short session.

​On Thursday, 25 October, the council met for a gala session. The Emperor Marcian and the Augusta Pulcheria presided in person, attended by no fewer than thirty-eight senators and high officials. In attendance were 324 bishops.

The Emperor addressed the council in Latin, then repeated his address in Greek. He stated that his purpose in convening the council was to suppress the wilfulness of those who argue contrary to ‘what was proclaimed by the holy apostles and has now been handed down in harmony by our 318 holy fathers at Nicaea, in the way signified also by the letter sent to Flavian of devout memory, bishop of imperial New Rome, by the most God-beloved Leo archbishop of imperial Rome, who governs the apostolic see … For it was to confirm what is being transacted and not to make a display of power that we decided to attend the council, making Constantine of divine memory our example, in order that, once the truth is discovered, the masses should not, seduced by the evil teaching of some, any longer be divided.’ (Ibid., II. pp. 215-6)

This was followed by Aetius, archdeacon of Constantinople, reading out the text of the definition, which was welcomed by the bishops with acclamations of ‘We all believe accordingly. One faith, one opinion! We all hold the same.’ And the bishops went on to acclaim Marcian as ‘the new Constantine’ and Pulcheria as ‘the new Helena.’ (Ibid., II. p. 240)

​They then asked the Emperor to dismiss them but he directed them to remain a few more days to deal with petitions. The bishops’ signing of the definition then commenced, a formality that would continue even after the council closed, and the session was adjourned.

​Two acts of the council before it closed would be significant in the controversy following the council. The Emperor Marcian was determined to undo everything that Dioscorus’s Latrocinium had done, and that included restoring canonically to their sees Theodoret as bishop of Cyrrhus and Ibas as bishop of Edessa. This was accomplished at three sessions held Friday-Saturday, 26-27 October.

A canonical judgement on Theodoret, who had accepted the Formula of Reunion and made his peace with Cyril, if not necessarily with his christology, was easier than for Ibas, whose opposition to Cyril was notorious and who had even anathematized him. Even so, the bishops refused to hear Theodoret’s justification of his beliefs and required him to anathematize Nestorius unequivocally before they cleared him.

Two sessions, on Friday and Saturday, were spent by the bishops going over the evidence for Ibas, a far longer hearing than for Theodoret. One difficulty was Ibas’s well-known letter to Mari the Persian, which he had written after the Formula of Reunion in 433 but before becoming bishop of Edessa in 435. In it, he accused Cyril of Apollinarism, and described the Twelve Anathemas appended to the Third Letter to Nestorius as ‘packed with every form of impiety.’ He represented the Formula of Reunion as Cyril’s confession of his errors and his submission to John of Antioch. He censured his own bishop, Rabbula, although without naming him, for anathematizing Theodore of Mopsuestia, whom he described as ‘the herald of the truth and teacher of the church.’ He stated that the orthodox teaching is ‘two natures, one power, one person, who is the one Son and Lord Jesus Christ.’ When the bishops at last gave him a grudging approval, the Roman delegates as part of their judgement described the letter to Mari as orthodox, perhaps because of the reference to two natures, as in the Tome of Leo (ibid., II. pp. 295–8, 305).

​The council closed a week later, on Thursday, 1 November 451. One of its last acts was to approve its Canon 28, which reaffirmed the decree of the Council of Constantinople of 381 ranking the see of Constantinople second in honour after that of Rome. It went beyond that decree by transferring to Constantinople jurisdiction over the bishoprics of Thrace, Asia and Pontus, some of which had been under the jurisdiction of Rome. The Roman delegates objected strongly but unavailingly, and Leo subsequently refused to accept it.

The conflict over the humanity and divinity of Christ and their meaning for his crucifixion, death and resurrection roiled the Church for 120 years, from the Council of Ephesus in 431 to the 2nd Council of Constantinople in 553. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 did not resolve the debate or even change its direction. Despite this, the Church has always regarded it as second only to the Council of Nicæa in importance. It is like an image that captures the memory of a movie perfectly, like the still from the film Casablanca, where Ingrid Bergman is saying to Dooley Wilson, ‘Play it, Sam! Play ‘As Time Goes By’!’ Chalcedon symbolises that long debate, the most divisive in the Church’s history, better than any other.