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| The Condemnation of “the Three Chapters.”
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VII.—The Condemnation of “the Three
Chapters.”
A sketch of the life of
Theodoret might well be supposed to terminate with his death. But it
can hardly be regarded as complete without a brief supplementary notice
of the posthumous controversy which has contributed to his fame in
ecclesiastical history. The Council of Chalcedon was designed to give
rest to the Church, and to undo a great wrong, and catholic common
sense has since vindicated its decisions. But it was not to be supposed
that the opinions and passions which had achieved a combined triumph at
Ephesus in 449 would die away and disappear in consequence of the
imperial and synodical action of 451. The face of the world was
changing. The vandal Genseric captured and pillaged Rome. The Teutonic
races were pushing to a foremost place, and accepting first of all an
Arian Christianity. Clovis represented orthodoxy almost alone.
Theodoric, the Arian Ostrogoth, mastered Italy. Then the turning tide
saw Rome once again a city of sole empire, but not the chief city. The
victories of Belisarius made of Rome a suburb of Constantinople, and
empire and theology swayed and were swayed by the policy of Justinian
and the palace plots of Theodora. All through monophysitism had had its
friends and defenders. Metropolitans, monks, and mobs had anathematized
one another for nearly a century. At Alexandria Dioscorus had won
almost a local canonization, and the patriarch Timotheus, nicknamed
“the Cat,” had left a strong monophysite party,
consolidated under Peter the Stutterer as the “acephali.”97
| 97 ᾽Ακέφαλοι = headless, i.e., without bishop. | At Antioch Peter the Fuller had
anathematized all who refused to accept the Shibboleth he appended to
the Trisagion, “who wast crucified on our account.” Leo,
Marcian’s successor on the Eastern throne, had followed
Marcian’s theology, and Zeno, Leo; but the usurper Basiliscus had
seen elements of strength in a bold bid for monophysite support. Zeno,
on the fall of Basiliscus, had attempted to atone the disunited
sections of Christendom by the henoticon, or edict of unity, but the
henoticon had been for years a watchword of division. Anastasius had
favoured the Eutychians. And in his reign Theodoret had been twice
condemned, at the synods of Constantinople and Sidon, in 499 and 512.98
| 98 Victor: Turon: and Mansi, viii. 371, Mansi, viii.
197–200. |
Justin I., the unlettered
barbarian, supported the Chalcedonians, but in 544 Belisarius
had made the
Eutychian Vigilius bishop of Rome. When Justinian aspired to become a
second Constantine, and give theological as well as civil law to the
world, it was proposed to condemn in a fifth œcumenical council
certain so-called Nestorian writings, on the plea that such a
condemnation might reconcile the opponents of Chalcedon. The writings
in question were the Letter of Ibas of Edessa to Maris, praising
Theodore of Mopsuestia; the works of Theodore himself, and the writings
of Theodoret against Cyril. These three literary monuments were known
as “the Three Chapters.”99
| 99 Dean
Milman (Lat. Christ. iv, 4), following in the wake of Gibbon, remarks
that “the church was not now disturbed by the sublime, if
inexplicable, dogmas concerning the nature of God, the Persons of the
Trinity, or the union of the divine and human nature of Christ,
concerning the revelations of Scripture, or even the opinions of the
ancient fathers. The orthodoxy or heterodoxy of certain writings by
bishops but recently dead became the subject of imperial edicts of a
fifth so-called Œcumenic Council, held at Constantinople, and a
religious war between the East and the West,” but it was on their
explanation of sublime if inexplicable dogmas that the orthodoxy or
heterodoxy of these bishops depended, and so far as the subject matter
of dispute is concerned, the position in 553 was not very different
from that of 451. In both cases the church was moved at once by honest
conviction and partisan passion; the state was influenced partly by a
healthy desire to promote peace through out the empire, partly by the
meaner ambition of posing as theological arbitrator. | Of the
controversy of the Three Chapters it has been said that it
“filled more volumes than it was worth lines.”100
| 100 Gibbon,
chap. xlvii. Schaff Hist. Christ. iii, 770. | The Council satisfied nobody. Pope Vigilius,
detained at Constantinople and Marmora with something of the same
violence with which Napoleon I. detained Pius VI. at Valence, declined
to preside over a gathering so exclusively oriental. The West was
outraged by the constitution of the synod, irrespective of its
decisions. The Monophysites were disappointed that the credit of
Chalcedon should be even nominally saved by the nice distinction which
damaged the writings, but professed complete agreement with the council
which had refused to damn the writers. The orthodox wanted no slur cast
upon Chalcedon, and, however fenced, the condemnation of the Three
Chapters indubitably involved such a slur. Practically, the decrees of
the fourth and fifth councils are mutually inconsistent, and it is
impossible to accept both. Theodoret was reinstated at Chalcedon in
spite of what he had written, and what he had written was anathematized
at Constantinople in spite of his reinstatement.
The xiii Canon of the fifth
Council runs as follows, “if any one defends the impious writings
of Theodoret which he published against the true faith, against the
first holy synod of Ephesus and against the holy Cyril and his twelve
chapters; and all that he wrote in defence of the impious Theodorus and
Nestorius, and others who held the same opinions as the aforesaid
Theodorus and Nestorius, defending them and their impiety, and
accordingly calling impious the doctors of the church who confess the
union according to hypostasis of God the Word in the flesh; and does
not anathematize these writings and those who have held or do hold
similar opinions, above all those who have written against the true
faith and the holy Cyril and his twelve chapters, and have remained to
the day of their death in such impiety; let him be
anathema.”
In this condemnation the works
certainly included are Theodoret’s “Objections to
Cyril’s Chapters,” some of his letters, and, among his lost
works, the “Pentalogium,” namely five books on the
Incarnation written against Cyril and his supporters at Ephesus, of
which fragments are preserved, and two allocutions against Cyril
delivered at Chalcedon in 431, of which portions exist in the acts of
the fifth Council, and do not exhibit Theodoret at his best.
The Council has at least
preserved to us an interesting little record of the survival at Cyrus
of the memory of her great bishop, for it appears that at the seventh
collation, held at the end of May, notice was taken of an enquiry
ordered by Justinian respecting a statue or portrait of Theodoret which
was said to have been carried in procession into his cathedral town, by
Andronicus a presbyter and George a deacon.101
| 101 Dean
Milman (Lat. Christ. iv, 4), following in the wake of Gibbon, remarks
that “the church was not now disturbed by the sublime, if
inexplicable, dogmas concerning the nature of God, the Persons of the
Trinity, or the union of the divine and human nature of Christ,
concerning the revelations of Scripture, or even the opinions of the
ancient fathers. The orthodoxy or heterodoxy of certain writings by
bishops but recently dead became the subject of imperial edicts of a
fifth so-called Œcumenic Council, held at Constantinople, and a
religious war between the East and the West,” but it was on their
explanation of sublime if inexplicable dogmas that the orthodoxy or
heterodoxy of these bishops depended, and so far as the subject matter
of dispute is concerned, the position in 553 was not very different
from that of 451. In both cases the church was moved at once by honest
conviction and partisan passion; the state was influenced partly by a
healthy desire to promote peace through out the empire, partly by the
meaner ambition of posing as theological arbitrator. | A more
important tribute to his memory is the fact that, though it officially
anathematized writings some of which, composed in the thick of the
fight, and soiled with its indecorous dust, Theodoret himself may well
have regretted and condemned, the Council advisedly abstained from
directly condemning a bishop whose character and person were protected
by the notorious iniquity of the robber council that had deposed him,
the friendship of the illustrious Leo, and the solemn vindication of
the church in Synod at Chalcedon, as well as by his own confession of
the faith, his repudiation of the errors of Nestorius, and the
stainless beauty and pious close of his long life.
No better reconciliation between
Chalcedon and Constantinople can be proffered than that which Garnerius
quotes from the letter said to have been written by Gregory the Great,
though sent in the name of Pelagius II, to the Illyrians on the fifth
council, “It is the part of unwarrantable rashness to defend
those writings of Theodoret which it is notorious that Theodoret himself
condemned in his subsequent profession of the right faith. So long as
we at once accept himself and repudiate the erroneous writings which
have long remained unknown we do not depart in any way from the
decision of the sacred synod, because so long as we only reject his
heretical writings, we, with the synod, attack Nestorius, and with the
synod express our veneration for Theodoret in his right confession. His
other writings we not only accept, but use against our foes.”102
| 102 Labbe.
Act. Conc. Const. v. Coll. vii. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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