Imperial Unity & Christian Division

Imperial Unity & Christian Division: J. Pelikan

9/5/94: Lecture 1

Beginnings of the Middle Ages:
Continuity through history often of 'shared presupposition'.  Important: devise a methodology in which to uncover it.  Needed: a willing suspension of one's belief.  Enter into the role of another time and into its presuppositions.  Certain times in history when elements of discontinuity outweigh those of continuity.[1] Seeing past 'periods' as 'the other' is part of the venture of the historian. Period labels such as 'middle ages' are designated by folks after the period.  The 'other' did not see themselves as in the middle.  So, try to get beyond our label to get the perspective of the 'other' who was in that 'period'. Pelikan looks at languages. What does the structure of a language do to the mentality of those who use it?  Language: a metaphor for issues that are not linguistic. Historical periodization: fuzzy boundaries. In this course, we want to look at such a boundary. We will look at the boundary between classical antiquity and the middle ages.
The Theodosian Code was a law code in the Roman Empire under the emperor Justinian after Christianity became its religion. Boethius--'the last of the Romans'. A Christian theologian, who wrote on Christology and on the trinity. But, his Consolation is not Christian per se, but is philosophical. But, his question: why should an innocent person suffer.  He tried to see how much of human nature can be known apart from revolution.  He tries to push human reason to its limits.  He was a scholastic.  A philosophical work by an orthodox 'Trinitarian' Christian: the believer pretending not to be a believer (this is a medieval trait--see Anselm). Bede's History: Deals with the question of the relation between England and the Continent. The relation between English beliefs and practices and those dictated by Rome. English distinctiveness is documented by Bede by history.  How do you use history to talk of national identity and cultural specificity as well as of a framework of universality.  Bede does so by writing a history of England in Latin.  So, his work is culturally-specific and contains universality in its mode. Einhard's Charlemagne.  Charlemagne was emperor of the Holy Roman Empire- A German. Relate Charlemagne to David of the O.T. On a just ruler. The answer is medieval (rule like a Caesar), yet it is as David.
We are dealing with intellectual history.

9/7/94: Lecture

Ecumenical council: presided over by an emperor (in the East).
Seven councils binding on East and West.
Question of imperial unity, threat to, occasioned them.  Threat was 'clothed' in dogma.  So, dogmatic debate.
What is the relation between imperial unity and dogmatic unity? The political power-struggle is the real issue and the dogmatic matter is the pretext. But, the councils were about both!  Relevant: who is in power, questions of teaching, questions of jurisdiction. For instance, at the second council, it was decreed that Constantinople would have as much power as Rome.  A religious/political move of the capital of the empire.  On what basis did the pope justify himself as first among equals (at least)? Peter was at first the bishop of Jerusalem, then Antioch, and finally Rome.  At the councils, Rome usually got its way (except for the Noray council).  Pelikan: whoever is bishop of the capital carries primacy of jurisdiction and honor.  This is the more likely real reason for the popes primacy.  But, when the capital moved to Constantinople, why didn't this statement hold true; primacy remained with the bishop of Rome.  Also, Andrew was Peter's older brother and the first one called.  So, the Byzantines use the Roman argument, documenting the primacy of Andrew (his see was Constantinople). It was a political matter, but politics was not the sole motive.

12/8/94: Lecture

Council of Nicea(325):
At around 324, Arius stated that the Son is a creature.  God, on the other hand, is transcendent and unitary(as in Greek Phil.).  Specifically, Arius taught that the Son is a creature created out of nothing by the Father's will before this age.  So, the Son had a separate existence from that of humans, but is not equal to God.  The Son had a beginning and is liable to change and mutation separate from the substance of God.  The Father is not fully known by the Son because they are of different substances.  One supreme God and two subordinate divine beings.  Jesus is not the logos.  A reaction to Sebellius' Monarchanism which stressed God's unity.
Origen vs. Alexander of Alexandria: The Son as a creature, subordinate to God the Father vs. The Son co-equal with the Father, being eternally generated therefrom.
The Creed of Nicea: The Son is begotten, rather than made, and so is not a creature.
Constantine stepped in even though Christianity was a minority and was unpopular in the empire.  He acted to support Xns by actively participating in their deliberations as a peace-maker.  He desired political and religious unity in the empire.  The Donatist controversy in 319 was a precedent for his involvement in the dispute.  What were his motives in his involvement in Xn affairs? Political:  Pax Romanus had dissolved due to foreign invasions and civil wars in the third century.  So, a loss in faith in the state (as well as in the divinity of the emperor).  Maintaining the empire was therefore important to emperors of the fourth century.  In 325, Constantine had only had total control of the polity for two years. How was Christianity important to his reforms?  Christianity had been gaining strength from the time of the Pax Romanus.  Also, Xns were willing to support the emperor: he was seen as God's agent on earth to work on behalf of the Xn Church.  So the emperor would stand to gain power in this divine power.  313: Edict of Milan--Xn Churches were allowed.  Christianity had been rent by the Arian struggle and mocked by pagans.  The bishops were fighting.  This led Constantine to call the first Church council. At Nicea, all but five of the bishops present were from the East.  Constantine interpreted Xn doctrines at the council.  He came up with homoousios and ousia as a solution to the Arian struggle.  Ousia had twenty-eight definitions, including being, existence, or essence.  The Son was God by nature (being, existence, or essence), and was one of God's three modes of being (homoousios).  An objection: these word are not in scripture, homoousios as a word assumes a corporeal reality and thus is like the Sebellian position.  Tertellian in the West had the following articulation of the solution: 1 ousia and 3 persona.  
The bishops at Nicea and Constantine wanted unity.  Also, the bishops wanted to avoid Modalism. The solution was geared to these goals by avoiding subordination but keeping a distinction by using the word 'homoousios'.  But the Nicene Creed is anti-Arian rather than anti-Modalist.  So, fifty years of a fear of Sebellianism followed.  The distinction had been less clearly defined than had the oneness.  As an effect of the council, a precedent had been set for the councils to reflect the political ruler's will.  The Church and State were intertwined. Also, there was a creed.  The precident for a creed was the baptismal statements (which were statements of faith). Pelikan: would not the political theology of Arianism have better suited the emperor's view of himself and his place as an intermediary between God and Man? Moreover, if God is beyond comprehensibility, then is it not also beyond all language?  How is it to be decided which language to use to describe God?  Theological and political factors here.

12/12/94: Lecture

Council of Ephesus (431):
Theopholus of Alexandria vs. John Chrysostom at the Council of the Oak.  Chrysostom was exiled for taking in Egyptian monks.  At Ephesus, Cyril of Alexandria bribed the emperor to exile Nestorius.  The council established a precedent: that councils could check a bishop.  Pelikan: weakened imperial power, so bishops became in effect rulers.  Rome played one side against the other, both politically and theologically.
The theology involved:  Right-wing Origenism: Jesus Christ as divine; left-wing Origenism: Jesus Christ as a man.  Both: ascending model. 
Constantinople: a literal view of the Bible; Alexandria: an allegorical view of it.
Nestorius: Jesus was of two distinctly separate natures, being fully divine and human.  He used 'prospona' instead of 'hypostasis' to mean a mask or role. Interpreting the natures as distinct, Nestorius denied that Mary was the 'Mother of God'. Cyril of Alexandria disagreed.  To Cyril, the incarnation involved one subject (the logos), so he rejected Nestorius' two prosponas.  To Cyril, God wept. Jesus who was God suffered.  Mary gave birth to the one who was God.  This guaranteed salvation: the unchangeable power of God was necessary for the Jesus to have sufficient power to redeem mankind.  To Cyril, Jesus had a divine body, having the unity of the divinity and humanity.  The danger of having two natures as a description, according to Cyril, is that a change in the logos is implying, thereby impairing salvation.  So, against Appollinarius, Cyril argued that Jesus had a human soul.  Against Nestorius, Cyril argued for the unity of Jesus Christ.  Pelikan: they all accepted the impassibility of God.  To protect this impassibility, Nestorius argued that Jesus was two subjects, only one of which suffered (the human).  Cyril argued that the human nature of Jesus was divinized (i.e. transformed): fully human and so not broken.  We can have this too.  Key: he was of the 'likeness of' sinful flesh.  The Logos was united to a divinized humanity which can suffer in an impassible way. 
The issue: how do the theogagy (the Godhead as it is) and the eccononic (the Godhead as it is to humans) relate?
The West: The theology was closer to that of Antioch (Nestorius: two natures).  Politically closer to Alexandria (Cyril), however.  Constantinople was a rising ecclesiastical rival to Rome.
Ephases Compromise: Mary as the Mother of God (against Nestorius).
Rome needed to vindicate its theological point and maintain political primacy, so it bumped off Nestorius (and thus the threat of the increasing ecclesiastical power of Constantinople).

12/13/94: Lecture

Council of Chalcedon (451):
Pre-Chalcedon: Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, condemned Eutyches, a Monophysite. Monopysitism: Jesus was of one nature--divine.  Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, went after Flavian.  Flavian appealed to Pope Leo.  Leo's letter back to Flavian, known as the 'Tome', was against Monophysitism.  Leo urged the emperor Theodosius to call a council.  The emperor refused.
451 Chalcedon:  Papal legates demanded that Dioscorus only be judged.  Marcian respected the bishop's exclusive right to proclaim doctrine.  In the absence of the papal legates, the bishops voted the twenty-eighth canon which confirmed to Constantinople the second place in the Church with its own jurisdiction (so equal to Rome in matters of jurisdiction).  This was so on the grounds of its being an imperial city.  Leo refused to accept this. In fact, Rome's role as an arbitrator strengthened. Also, the Tome of Leo was incorporated into the faith. Also, the fact that the Creeds at Nicea and Constantinople were in line with the orthodox tradition strengthened RomeIn the east, the Bishop of Rome was accorded honour and given equal jurisdiction because Rome was the imperial city when Jesus was alive (i.e., not due to Peter).  Pelikan: if the basis had been apostolicity, Jerusalem would have been chosen.  So, Rome was accorded honour as a Christian capital due to its imperial past.
The theology of Chalcedon:  Cyril of Alexandria-- 1 nature (Divinized humanity) vs. Nestorius of Antioch-- 2 natures (not two persons!).  Cyril used 'physis' as meaning a concrete individual.  So, he thought that Nestorius had said that Jesus was two individuals when in fact he had said that Jesus had two natures (divine and human).  Nestorius used 'physis' to mean a concrete assemblige of characteristics and attributes.
The goal at Chalcedon was unity. The acts of the 'Robber Synod' had been undone.  The issue at Chalcedon: the two natures after the incarnation.  The Alexandrian school had said: from two natures, Jesus Christ forms one.  The Antiochian school: in two natures, Jesus Christ has two natures(accused of saying that God had two sons).  The decision: the Son is homoousios (consubstantial--of the same substance) with Mankind.  Leo's Tome had stated: 1 person in two natures. Pelikan: but the Tome deal with the natures as though they were comprable entities (e.g. they can swap attributes).  They are not.  Consubstantiality to us and to the Father is a verbal trick.  Shouldn't we say instead that humanity (rather than the man Jesus) was unified with divinity?

12/15/94: Lecture

Council of Constantinople (681):
Background:  The city of Chalcedon was in the eastern part of the Roman empire, whose capital was Constantinople.  Justinian had been the last great Roman emperor in the east. He had been against the Monophysite (one nature) bishops.  About twenty years after Justinian, the Byzantine emperor Maurice recognized the Bishop of Rome as the supreme bishop(Bonifice IV).  Pelikan: on what basis?
Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, and Honorius, bishop of Rome, attempted a compromise to bring the Monophysites back.  Sergius: two natures and one energy(operation).  Honorius: two natures and one will.  In the meantime, emperor Heraclius gained some territory from the Persians.  This meant that Monophysites who had been under the Persians were back under the imperial yoke.  So, the Egyptian Copts came into line in 633.  Also, there had been a shift from the 'one energy' to the 'one will'.  This was problematic because 'one will' smacked of Monophysitism. In 638, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius recognized 'one will' as orthodox in his Ecthesis.  In 641, John IV, bishop of Rome, condemned 'one will'.  This set up a fight between the bishops of Rome and Constantinople.
Pyrrhus and Maximus the confessor believed in 'two wills'.  Martin I, bishop of Rome, wanted Pyrrhus restored as the patriarch of Constantinople.  Back in Constantinople, Pyrrus went back to Monophysitism.  Emperor Constans II revoked Ekthesis  and arrested Martin I for being a Monophysite.  Paul II, patriarch of Constantinople, was against this arrest.  Pyrrhus returned to Constanople as its bishop, and exiled Martin I.  Constans II exiled Maximus.  Years later, Agntho, bishop of Rome, wrote to the emperor Constantine IV for a council to settle the issue of Monophysitism. 
Constantinople II:  Two natural wills and two natural energies.  Each nature wills and performs.  This is necessary for our salvation.  Assp.: what is not assumed by Jesus is not healed.  Jesus must have had a human energy and will as well as a divine energy and will.  So, a human will and energy remained intact even when it was divinized.  So, Jesus--differentiation without divisions and separations.  In the fourteenth session, it was decided that the bishop of Rome did not need the emperor to call a council.  Pelikan: Yet Papal legates had anathamatized Honorius, a past bishop of Rome.

12/14/94: Lecture

Council of Nicea II:  Iconoclasm restored.
Background:  In the 600's, Islam rose and the eastern patriarchs fell.  Moreover, there was a break between the east and west.  The bishops of Rome were thus the only effective opposition to the emperor within the empire.  In 726, emperor Leo IV issued an edict against the veneration of images of the saints.  It was seen as idolitry.  Gregory II, bishop of Rome, was against this edict.  Gregory III excommunicated all who refused to venerate images.  In response, Leo IV raised taxes in Italy and detached some papal estates from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome, giving them to the bishop of Constantinople.  There was thus a gulf between the bishop of Rome and the emperor.  In the east, John of Demascus opposed Leo's edict. He distinguished between bowing down and adoring.  Leo didn't answer John.  After Leo and then Constantine V, a usurper to the throne restored the icons.  The next emperor banned them again. 
Steven of the Roman church requested the emperor Constintine V to help him fight against the Lombarts.  He refused, so Steven went to the Franks' king.  This was the beginning of the papal state.
Constantine V took the issue to the level of Christology: in an icon, the two natures are being mingled.  Or, if icons are only depicting Christ's human nature, they separate Christ's two natures, resulting in the worship of Christ's human nature.   If no icons of Jesus are orthodox, neither then are those of Mary and the saints appropriate.  The emperor started persecuting Xns who practiced the worship of icons.  In 767, there was a council in the west.  The King of France supported the bishop of Rome (pro-icon).  In 769, Steven IV of Rome summoned the Lateran council.  In 775, Leo IV was emperor.  In 780, Constantine VI was emperor. 
Nicea II: It beban at Constantinople where the Army (pro-iconoclastic) ended the council.  At Nicea, it was decided that in the incarnation, the incircumsribable allowed itself to become circumscribed (the Logos became flesh).  Images were restored and the veneration of them was required. 
In 800, Leo III of Rome crowned Charlemagne as the emperor of the holy roman empire.   A political split between the east and west.

Pelikan: there is ambiguity in the sense of a council.  There are different views of 'council'held by the east and west.  With regard to the iconoclastic controversy, what about statues?  They are not two-dimensional icons, but are three-dimensional graven images.  Yet, the west did not fully incorporate the eastern argument of the incarnational view of icons.




[1]In such times, dominant presuppositions change. SW