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| Under the Ban of Theodosius and of the Latrocinium.
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IV.—Under
the Ban of Theodosius and of the Latrocinium.
Theodoret was at Antioch when
Count Rufus brought him the edict. His friends would have detained him,
but he hurried away.62
On reaching Cyrus he
wrote to his friend Anatolius warmly protesting against the cruel and
unjust action taken against him, and informing the patrician that
Euphronius, a military officer, had travelled hard on the track of
Rufus to ask for a written acknowledgment of the receipt of the edict
of relegation.63
The letters written at this crisis by
the indignant pen of the maligned scholar and saint64
| 64 Epp.
LXXIX. LXXX. LXXXI. LXXXII. LXXXIII. |
have a peculiar value, at once biographical, literary, and theological.
To Eusebius bishop of Ancyra he sends an important catalogue of his
works. To Dioscorus, the chief of the cabal against him, he sends a
summary of his views on the incarnation and the nature of our Lord,
couched in such terms as might perhaps in earlier days have shortened
his great controversy with Cyril. But the opponents of Theodoret were
not in a mood to be moved by any formulation of the terms of his faith.
Dioscorus received the letter with insult, and publicly joined in the
shout of anathema which he permitted to be raised against his hated
brother.65
The condemnation of Eutyches by
Flavian’s Constantinopolian Synod had roused the Eutychian party
to leave no stone unturned to secure its reversal and crush it and all
who upheld it. Of the latter Theodoret was the most prominent, the
ablest and perhaps the holiest. Hence he was the natural representative
and personification of the doctrines that Dioscorus sought to decry and
degrade.66
| 66 “Theodoret’s condemnation was the chief object aimed
at in summoning” the Latrocinium. He was “the bugbear of
the whole Eutychian party and consequently condemned in advance.”
Canon Venables, Dict. Christ. Biog. iv. 913 and Martin Brigandage
à Ephèse p. 192. | The sixth Council of Ephesus of evil fame
met in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin on August 8, 449. Eutyches was
acquitted. Flavian was condemned. Ibas of Edessa, Domnus of Antioch,
and Theodoret of Cyrus were deprived of their sees. The disgraceful
scenes of violence which marked every stage of this shameful
ecclesiastical gathering have been described again and again with the
vivid detail67
| 67 See
specially Gibbon Chap. xlvii. Milman Hist. Lat. Christ. Book II. Chap.
iv. Stanley, Christian Institutions, Chap. xvi. 4 and Canon
Bright Art. Dioscorus in Dict. Christ. Biog. General Councils, it may
be remarked, have been depreciated and ridiculed by historians of two
kinds; the anti-Christian, such as Gibbon, who have been glad of the
opportunity of bringing discredit on the Church; and the Roman, such as
Cardinal Newman, who are aware that the authority of Councils is not
always reconcileable with the asserted authority of the Bishop of their
favourite see. (“Even those councils which were œcumenical
have nothing to boast of in regard to the Fathers, taken individually,
which compose them. They appear as the antagonist host in a battle, not
as the shepherds of their people.” Hist. Sketches, p. 335.) And
it must be conceded that so far as outward circumstances went the
Latrocinium was as good a council as any other. As is pointed out by
Dean Milman, “It is difficult to discover in what respect, either
in the legality of its convocation or the number and dignity of the
assembled prelates, consists its inferiority to more received and
honoured councils. Two imperial commissioners attended to maintain
order in the council and peace in the city. Dioscorus the patriarch of
Alexandria by the Imperial command assumed the presidency. The Bishops
who formed the Synod of Constantinople were excluded as parties in the
transaction, but Flavianus took his place with the Metropolitans of
Antioch and Jerusalem and no less than three hundred and sixty bishops
and ecclesiastics. Three ecclesiastics, Julian a bishop, Renatus a
presbyter, and Hilarius a deacon were to represent the bishop of Rome.
The Abbot Barsumas (this was an innovation) took his seat in the
Council as a kind of representative of the monks.” Milman, Lat.
Christ. Book II. Chap. iv. The fact is that the great Councils of the
Early Church are like the great men of the Early Church. Some have
authority and some have not. But their authority does not depend upon
formal circumstances or outward position. They have authority because
the inspired common sense of the Church has seen and valued the truth
and wisdom of their utterances. Athanasius, Arius, Cyril, and
Nestorius, were all great churchmen. Athanasius and Cyril stand out
against the background of centuries as champions of the faith. Arius
and Nestorius are counted as heretics. Character does not outweigh
doctrine. Nestorius is unsound in the faith though he was an amiable
and virtuous man; Cyril is an authority of orthodoxy though his
personal qualities were not saintly. Of all the councils that according
to Ammianus Marcellinus hamstrung the postal resources of the Empire,
take Nicæa, Tyre, and the two Ephesian councils of 431 and 449.
Nicæa and the earlier Ephesian are accepted by the Church
Catholic. Tyre and the later Ephesian, though both were summoned at the
will of princes and attended by a large concourse of bishops, are
rejected. Why? The earlier Ephesian in the disorder and violence of its
proceedings was as disgraceful as the Tyrian and the later Ephesian.
The councils of Nicæa and of Ephesus, called the first and the
third œcumenical councils, are vindicated by the assent of the
wisest of the Church. The dictum securus judicat orbis terrarum
here holds good, and is seen to be identical with the ultimate
foundation of the great Aristotelian definition “defined by
reason, and as the wise man would define.” And such is also the
practical outcome of the statement of Article XXI, of the Church of
England.
cf. the striking passage
of Augustine (Cont. Maximin. Arian. ii. 14). “Sed nunc nec ego
Nicænum, nec tu debes Ariminense, tanquam prœjudicaturus,
proferre consilium. Nec ego hujus auctoritate, nec tu illius detineris.
Scripturarum auctoritatibus, non quorumque propriis, sed utrisque
communibus testibus, res cum re, causa cum causa, ratio cum ratione
concertet.” On the first four accepted œcumenical
councils Dr. Salmon (Infallibility of the Church, p. 287)
remarks, “Gregory the Great says that he venerates these four as
the four Gospels, and describes them as the four square stones on which
the structure of faith rests. Yet the hard struggle each of these
councils had to make and the number of years which the struggle lasted
before its decrees obtained general acceptance, show that they obtain
their authority because of the truth which they declared and it was not
because of their authority that the decrees were recognised as
true.” | rendered possible by the exactitude
of contemporary narrative, but, inasmuch as Theodoret was condemned in his absence
we are concerned here less with the manner in which his condemnation
was brought about than with the steps he took to protest against and to
reverse it.
To the prisoner of Cyrus courier
after courier would bring intelligence of the riots and tricks of the
council. At last came news of the crowning wrong. On the indictment of
an Antiochene presbyter named Pelagius, Theodoret was condemned as an
enemy of God, a disseminator of poison, a false teacher deserving to be
burnt. In support of the accusation was quoted the careful theological
statement addressed by Theodoret to the monks in the Euphratensis and
the Osrhoene which appears as Letter CLI., as well as citations from
his works at large. Dioscorus described the absent defendant as a
blasphemous enemy of God and the Emperor whose life had been spent in
damning souls. Theodoret was sentenced not merely to deposition from
his see but to degradation from the priesthood and to excommunication,
and his books were ordered to be burnt.68
| 68 Canon
Venables Dict. Christ. Biog. Actes du Brigandage, pp. 193,
195. | So
the great council ended with the deposition of Flavian of
Constantinople, Eusebius of Dorylæum, Daniel of Carræ,
Irenæus of Tyre, Aquilinus of Biblus, and Domnus of Antioch as
well as of Theodoret.69
Eutyches the heretic
Archimandrite was restored and the brutal Dioscorus seemed master of
Christendom. One word of manly Latin had broken in on the supple
suffrages of the servile orientals, the
“Contradicitur” of Hilarius the representative of
the Church of Rome.
To that church, and to its
illustrious bishop, Theodoret naturally turned in his hour of need. He
implored his friend Anatolius to get him permission to plead his own
cause in person in the West, or if not to let him retire to his old
home at Nicerte.70
The latter alternative was conceded. In
this retreat he received many proofs of the affectionate regard of his
friends and offers of more practical help than his modest necessities
demanded.71
Thence products of his facile pen travelled
far and wide. The whole series of letters written at this period gives
touching testimony to the gentle and forgiving spirit of the sorely
tried bishop. There is nothing of the bitterness and fierce anger which
appear sometimes in the earlier controversy with Cyril. He is refined,
not soured, by adversity, and, though he never approached nearer to
canonization than the acquisition of the inferior title of Blessed, he
appears in these dark days as no unworthy specimen of the suffering
saint.72
| 72 Epp.
CXIII. to CXXXIII. and CLXXXI. | The chief interest of these letters is in
truth moral, spiritual and theological. This, however, has been
obscured by the ecclesiastical interest which has been given them by
the unwarranted attempt to represent Theodoret’s letter to Leo as
an “appeal” to the see of Rome in the later and technical
sense of the word. Whether St. Hilary of Arles ever did or did not give
the lie to his short life of strenuous protest against the growing
aggrandizement of the see of Rome, there is no doubt that before his
death at the age of 41 in 449 his suffragans had been released by Leo
from allegiance to a Metropolitan disobedient to the Roman chair, and
that Valentinian had issued an edict confirming Leo’s claims and
making the authority of the Bishop of Rome supreme in the West.73
| 73 Cf.
Milman Lat. Christ. Book ii. Chap. iv; Const. Valentin. iii Aug. apud
S. Leon. op. epist. xi. | It would be useful to maintainers of the
Roman supremacy if they could adduce instances of any assertion or
acceptance of similar authority in the East. So it has been said that
Theodoret appealed to the Pope.74
| 74 Garnerius, the Jesuit, in his dissertation on the life of
Theodoret writes: “When Theodoret got news of his deposition he
determined to send envoys to the apostolic see, that is to the head of
all the churches in the world, to plead his cause before the righteous
judgment seat of St. Leo,” and in his summary of his own chapter
he says “Theodoret appeals to the apostolic
see.” | In a sense this is
of course perfectly true. Theodoret did appeal to the Pope. But the
whole superstructure of papal supremacy, so far as Theodoret is
concerned, is really based upon a poor paronomasia. The bishop of Cyrus
“appealed” to the bishop of Rome as any bishop believing
himself to lie under an unjust sentence might appeal to any other
bishop, and as Theodoret did appeal to other bishops. It is quite true
that the church of Rome had many claims to honour and regard, as
Theodoret himself felicitously and opportunely points out, and that the
present occupant of its throne was a man of unblemished orthodoxy and
of commanding personal dignity. But to recognise these facts is a long
way from admitting that this very dignified see had either de
facto or de jure any coercive jurisdiction over the
Metropolitans of Alexandria or of Hierapolis, to the latter of whom
Cyrus was subordinate. Theodoret himself quotes the crucial passage in
St. Matthew’s gospel75
apparently without
any idea that the “Petra” means all the successors of the
“Petrus.”76
What Theodoret asked
from Leo was not the sentence of a superior but the sympathy and
support of an influential brother. What made it so peculiarly important
that he should gain the ear and the approval of Leo was that Rome had
been wholly unconcerned in the intrigue which condemned him. He could
have had no more idea of papal authority in the later
ultramontane sense than he could of the decrees of the Vatican
Council. Bound as he was to do his utmost to vindicate not so much his
own position and doctrinal soundness, as the truth now trampled on by
the combined factions of Alexandria and the court, he naturally turned
to Leo as alike the most respected and most independent bishop of his
age.77
| 77 cf.
Glubokowski. pp. 237, 239. Du Pin. iv. 83. Cardinal Newman, in his very
bright and sympathetic sketch of Theodoret, (Hist. Sketches ii. 308 ed.
1891) writes the following remarkable sentence. “This, at least,
he has in common with St. Chrysostom that both of them were deprived of
their episcopal rank by a council, both appealed to the holy see, and
by the holy see both were cleared and restored to their ecclesiastical
dignities.” It would be difficult in the compass of so short a
sentence to combine more statements so completely misleading. To say
that Chrysostom and Theodoret both appealed to the “holy
see” is as much an anachronism as to say that they appealed to
the Court of the Vatican or to the Dome of St. Peter’s. In their
day there was no holy see, that is to say, κατ᾽
ἐξοχήν. All
sees were holy sees, just as all bishops were styled your holiness.
Rome, it is true, was the only apostolical see in the West, but it was
not the only apostolical see, and whatever official precedence it could
claim over Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, was due to its being the
see of the old imperial capital, a precedence expressly ordered at
Chalcedon to be shared with the new Rome on the Bosphorus. As to the
“appeal,” we have seen what it meant in the case of
Theodoret. It meant the same in the case of Chrysostom. Cut to the
quick at the cruel and brutal treatment of his friends after his
banishment from Constantinople in the summer of 404 he pleaded his
cause in letters sent as well to Venerius of Milan and Chromatius of
Aquileia as to Innocent of Rome. Innocent very properly espoused his
cause, declared his deposition void, and did his best to move Honorius
to move Arcadius to convoke a council. The cruel story of the long
martyrdom of bitter exile and the death in the lonely chapel at Comana
is a terrible satire on the restoration to ecclesiastical dignities.
The unwary reader of “the historical sketch” might imagine
the famous John of the mouth of gold brought back in triumph to
Constantinople by the authority of the pope in 404 as he had been by
the enthusiasm of his flock in 403, and Arcadius and Eudoxia cowering
before the power of Holy Church like Henry IV. at Canossa in 1077. The
true picture of the three years of agony which preceded the old
man’s passage to the better world in 407 is a painful contrast to
contemplate (Pallad. Dial. 1–3. Theodoret V. 34. Sozomen viii.
26, 27, 28.) Of Theodoret’s restoration to “ecclesiastical
dignity,” and Leo’s part in it, we shall see further
on. |
Leo, however, could do little or
nothing to help him. Theodosius, completely under the influence of
Chrysaphius and Dioscorus, was quite satisfied as to the proper
constitution and equity of the Latrocinium. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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