Chapter 7: II and III Constantinople
The sixth and seventh centuries are marked by new events that prolonged the dispute of Chalcedon. We find here new attempts by the Monophysites to sustain their position; this will bring about two new Councils, and because of their vacillation, will involve two popes - Vigilius and Honorius - in unusual difficulties.
The second Council of Constantinople opened on May 5, 553, in the patriarchal church of that city. In many ways, this was a most surprising Council. For one thing, it was concerned almost entirely with the writings of three men dead for a century and more: Theodore of Mopsuestia (whose teachings had been one of the starting points of Nestorianism); Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa (who had been restored to their sees by the Council of Chalcedon). Now 122 years after Ephesus and 102 years after Chalcedon, these three men became the center of attention.
The Monophysites, condemned at Chalcedon, did not die out at once; as with the Arians after Nicea, they continued to promote their own cause. There was much unrest, and a feeling among the Egyptians that Alexandria had come out second best in the debates. This came to the fore especially three years after Chalcedon when Dioscoros, the exiled patriarch of Alexandria, died in exile. In 457, Marcian, the strong defender of Orthodoxy at Chalcedon, also died, and the emperors who followed proved less strong than Marcian. By 475, the Monophy-sites were once again in power.
Under their influence, a number of decrees appeared which attempted to condemn Chalcedon, or at least ignore it entirely. The two most important were the Encyclion of the Emperor Basiliscus and the Henoticon of Acacius (the patriarch of Constantinople). Confusion reigned in the East, and it was to Rome that men looked for a solution. Unfortunately there was no longer a Leo sitting on the throne of Peter, and none of the popes of that century succeeded in stamping out the error completely.
In 511, Anastasius, who was over 80 years old, was the emperor; he suddenly decided to impose Monophysitism on the entire empire. Only his death in 518 solved that problem. Under his successor, Justin, the Council of Chalcedon was restored to honor, and men began to speak of a General Council to avoid any further problems. Pope Hormisdas, however, insisted on nothing more than a signing of the formula he had drawn up. Unfortunately, this was to prove insufficient.
Justinian became emperor in 527. This marks one of the great dividing lines in Church history. His wife, Theodora, was to be the cause of further trouble. She was really a Monophy-site at heart, and a woman who delighted in interfering with religious matters. Through her influence many of the Monophysites returned, and the problem grew steadily worse. Soon there were Monophysite bishops both at Alexandria and at Constantinople.
About 544 a new attempt was made to discredit Chalcedon. It was a very subtle move, one that hardly mentioned Chalcedon at all. Excerpts from the writings of the three men mentioned above were gathered together, and these writings were now to be condemned. This collection of statements has come to be known as the "Three Chapters." It concerned the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa.
The Monophysites now pretended that their greatest complaint against Chalcedon was that it had restored Theodoret and Ibas to their sees. It is true that these men had earlier opposed Cyril, and had taught something similar to Nestorianism (the doctrine found in the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and condemned at Ephesus). If the Monophysites now succeeded in condemning these two in particular, and in associating them with the heretic of Mopsuestia, they felt that the Council of Chalcedon would be set in a bad light; it would appear that in restoring Theodoret and Ibas, the Council had approved two heretics.
Justinian favored the condemnation, and most of the Eastern bishops followed his line of thought. Among them were certain other bishops who were not so much Monophysites, but who were now in error because of their revival of the teachings of Origen (who had died in the third century). They were known as the Origenists, and possibly they saw this as an opportunity to distract attention from themselves; the Origenist bishop Askidas was especially active in drawing up the "Three Chapters."
The representative of the Pope at Constantinople, however, refused to sign the condemnation; he perceived clearly the implications. With some reservations concerning the subsequent approval of the Pope, however, Menas, the patriarch of Constantinople, did sign the decree condemning the three men; other bishops followed his lead.
All now looked to Pope Vigilius (537-555) to see what he would do. Unfortunately, the Pope hesitated. He was forced to come to Constantinople, in 547, where every effort was made to have him sign the condemnation. It had already been realized at Rome and in northern Africa that this could be understood as an attempt to undermine Chalcedon and the teaching of Pope Leo. Vigilius also recognized this, and refused to sign. At a meeting of bishops called to discuss the affair, he broke off negotiations and demanded a written opinion from each bishop.
But then he once again vacillated, and this was his great failing. A stronger man might have avoided a crisis, but Vigilius did not. He issued a Judicatum in 548, a decree that condemned the "Three Chapters"; then, in 550, he revoked this statement, deciding with the Emperor to refer the matter to the Council.
His moves were not well received, to say the least. Why he acted as he did is difficult to say: weakness, ambition, fear. The West, however, was greatly upset. One group of African bishops met and attempted to excommunicate the Pope in 550. About the same time, Vigilius decided to excommunicate the leader of the Monophysite group, Askidas, and found himself in trouble in the East; he barely escaped the soldiers of Justinian, and took refuge at Chalcedon in the very same basilica where the now debated decrees had been issued a century before. From here he reorganized his party, and gradually received back some of the excommunicated bishops.
Plans for the Council were under way, however, and Justinian was anxious to go ahead. He realized he had gone too far in his treatment of the aging Pope. Vigilius, however, now disapproved most heartily of the idea of a Council; but he did promise to send on his own statement concerning the problem.
The Council finally opened in 553 at the Church of Sancta Sophia in Constantinople. Hence it is known as II Constantinople. About 150 bishops attended, including 14 from Africa; the final decree bears 164 signatures. We have only the ancient Latin version of the Acts; the Greek has been lost.
Eight sessions took place, from May 5 to June 2. The Council began with the reading of the pertinent decrees and a history of the dispute. On May 14 the statement of Vigilius arrived, the Constitutum. It was a remarkably well-written theological work, concerned mostly with the heretical statements of Theodore of Mopsuestia. Vigilius insisted that he would not agree to a condemnation in any way of Ephesus or Chalcedon, and for this reason he would not approve of the condemnation of Theodoret and Ibas. But what was erroneous in Theodore of Mopsuestia he would agree to condemn.
When the Emperor received this document, he set it aside, and at once sent other letters and statements to the Council, containing the former condemnation of the Three Chapters issued by Vigilius. He ordered the bishops to proceed with the conciliar decree, and true to fashion they did. On June 2, the bishops at this Council, not yet approved by the Pope, signed the final decree. In it they condemned the person and the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and the writings of Theodoret and Ibas that contradicted St. Cyril's teaching and that of Ephesus. The errors of these men were summed up in fourteen anathemata at the end.
Strangely, though the Council spoke much of Chalcedon, it was really concerned with Ephesus and Nestorianism. What was condemned, however, was truly false. There was, nevertheless, a great difference between II Constantinople and Chalcedon. The bishops at Chalcedon had been concerned with the men, Theodoret and Ibas. When the Council was assured that they were now once again orthodox in their teaching, they were restored to their dioceses. II Constantinople, however, was concerned with their writings, which were admittedly heretical. It was most unusual, of course, to begin condemning men a hundred years after they died, but this is what was done.
Eventually, when Vigilius finally saw that there was now no further danger of seeming to condemn the actions of Chalcedon, he apparently approved the final decree of this Council, as did his successors. It thus became an Ecumenical Council. The secondary purpose of the entire scheme was eventually lost sight of, that is, the attempt to discredit Chalcedon. It was this question of expediency that was the cause of all the hesitancy on the part of Vigilius. His doctrinal position was clear and orthodox; but a stronger man might have taken a definite position from the very start and avoided a great deal of trouble.
At any rate, even under such confused circumstances, the Spirit of Christ triumphed in the Church. Another Christian landmark was sculptured out, and a second resounding condemnation of Nestorianism came forth to guide the Church. Vigilius finally set out for Rome once again, after nine years away, but died on the way. His role was over, but the story did not end there.
One last error was to arise in the seventh century, marking the close of these first disputes about the human nature of Christ. This time the Pope who was to be forever associated with the problem was Honorius (625-638). This also was not simply a doctrinal problem; as might only be expected by this time, politics played a large role in the debates.
In the minds of some, the Council of Chalcedon seemed to have been a triumph of Constantinople over Antioch and Alexandria, the New Rome over the ancient sees. The Egyptians and the Syrians, therefore, both figured prominently in this matter. Wars added to the confusion, as well as new doctrinal disputes among the Monophysites themselves. They all agreed, however, on one point: they wished in some fashion to reject Chalcedon.
The Council of Chalcedon had attempted to break the force of the Monophysite heresy. By stating clearly that there are in Christ two natures but one Person, the bishops had hoped to accomplish this. But a further question remained, and the teaching about Christ was not finally settled until this had also been debated for a number of decades.
The new error was a combination of many things. The entire question was rephrased. Men no longer asked whether there were "two natures" in Christ. Outwardly, at least, they were anxious to appear loyal to the decree of Chalcedon. They now questioned the "two operations" in Christ -two "activities" in Christ, one human and one divine. Within a rather short time, their question was narrowed down even more, centering on something that really summed up the entire approach: "Did Christ, the Son of God, have one will or two wills?"
This was a very subtle question, and, understood in one sense, it could mean a revival of the Monophysite heresy. If Christ had only one will, there would have to be some kind of mixing or confusion of the two wills proper to each nature. The final answer was that Christ had two wills, one divine and one human. If He possessed two complete and perfect natures, Christ would necessarily have had to possess the intellect and the will that belongs to each one of the natures.
When these Monophysites denied that Christ had two wills, they used as their excuse the argument that there could be no "imperfection" of any sort in Christ. Christ was God, and therefore everything must be perfect. Two wills, however, might imply contrary wills in Christ, and this would be an imperfection in the God-Man.
There is one sense in which this could be understood correctly. There was no "imperfection" in Christ's human will, since His human will was always in perfect accord with His divine will. They were "one" in that sense; it is what we today would call a "moral union" of the two wills - a union, that is, by way of agreement. But physically there are two wills, really distinct from one another; they are "one" only morally, or by reason of their perfect agreement. To hold that Christ had only one physical will would be a rephrasing of the Monophysite error. The will belongs to the nature, and if there is but one will, this can only mean that there is also but one nature.
Thus there were two ways of understanding the phrase "one activity" or "one will." It is not always such a simple thing to understand other people even when we know the meaning of the words they use. Words often imply things far beyond the dictionary meaning. This is what happened in this case.
In the year 610 Sergius became the patriarch of Constantinople; he was to be the strongest defender of this new heresy. Sergius had more than religious views in mind, unfortunately. He was, perhaps foremost, a politician, and a crafty one at that. The Byzantine empire had been divided by the definitions of Chalcedon, and he felt that in his formula he had a means of reuniting the Catholics and Monophysites, politically as well as religiously. The only difficulty was that this meant compromise on doctrinal accuracy, and that means heresy. The viewpoint of Sergius was that if he accomplished his goal of union, the change in formula was really not so great that anyone should be disturbed about it. After all, it was accomplishing a great deal of good, and the entire matter might really be reduced to a dispute over words rather than anything more profound.
Working on this theory, Sergius began to work for Church union. His motto was the phrase "one operation" - one source of action in Christ. He found acceptance among the Monophysites, who were quite ready to admit only one will in Christ, since this followed naturally from their beliefs. Things looked good for reunion; in fact, in 633 a statement of union was signed between Constantinople and Alexandria.
One man, however, saw through the entire question - Sophronius, a monk at Alexandria. He attempted to point out the error implied in this formula, but he got nowhere, until, in his travels, he unexpectedly found himself elected as the patriarch of Jerusalem!
Sergius could no longer ignore him. Sophronius was too important a man now. The patriarch of Constantinople therefore wrote an account of the matter to Pope Honorius; the question was described, however, in terms carefully chosen by the wily Sergius. His final bit of advice was that all debate on the matter be forbidden, since further disputes might cause greater trouble and hinder the work of reunion.
Honorius was not the most brilliant pope to begin with, but now he was also misinformed. He answered Sergius and unfortunately agreed on the point of allowing no further debate. This meant that truth was silenced along with error, and that the error was really free to continue unchallenged. At the same time, the letter of Honorius indicates that he missed the point entirely. He answered in terms that discussed the "moral union" of the two wills in Christ: the human was always in perfect accord with the divine. The Monophysites, however, were teaching something quite different. They held that there was only one physical will in Christ, the result of a mixture of the human and divine. This is why the present heresy is known as "Mo-nothelitism"; it comes from the Greek word mono (one) and thelema (which means "will"): hence one will.
The "studied obscurity" of Sergius misled the Pope; Honorius failed to grasp precisely what was going on in the East. What the Pope had written from Rome was all perfectly true, orthodox teaching; but it was not the question being debated between Sergius and Sophronius.
Sophronius continued his defense of the faith, and set forth the true teaching in clearer fashion, indicating that Christ is one in regard to His Person (since it is always the same Person who is acting); but that this one divine Person acts in two different natures, either as God (in the divine nature) or as man (in the human nature.)
Honorius did write a second letter that came close to saying the same thing, but he still did not strike out against the precise error of Sergius and his followers. As a result, Sergius continued to gain ground. In autumn of 638, the Emperor Heraclius went even further, and issued a doctrinal decree (the Ecthesis) which set forth the doctrine of the Monothelites as the official teaching of the Church; it had been written most likely by Sergius himself.
The problem had now been forced into the light so far that it would eventually have to be solved. Honorius died that same year, and his successors saw the difficulty far more clearly. Pope John IV issued a letter addressed to the Emperor, explaining the true teaching of the two wills, and explaining what Honorius had really been trying to say. But no real progress was made.
Sergius was now dead, as was Pyrrhus, his successor in the see of Constantinople. The new patriarch, Paul, suggested to the Emperor (Constans II) that he issue a new formula to replace the much opposed Ecthesis. Thus in 648 there appeared a second imperial decree, the Typos; it was still a vague formula, and it added another demand of silence. Error received further help in this regard.
In 649 the new pope, Martin I, made the first decisive move. He held a synod of Western bishops in the Lateran Basilica at Borne. It was not a General Council, but it is justly famous. From this synod there came forth, on the authority of the Pope, a clear-cut statement on the teaching of the Church. It was so clear, in fact, that the opposition to the Catholic party grew vehement; Martin I was rewarded with exile, and died away from Rome in 655. But despite the fact that Monothelite bishops continued to rule in Constantinople, a solution was about to appear. The entire debate began to wither away.
In 668 Constantine IV Pogonatus became the emperor, and he took the initiative in bringing the matter to a final end. In a letter to Pope Donus he suggested a Council; Donus died before the letter reached Rome, in 678. The next pope, Agatho (678-681), agreed to the convocation of the Council. Before sending his representatives on to Constantinople, Agatho summoned a meeting in Rome to formulate the mind of the Western bishops; other gatherings were held elsewhere. These discussions occupied the West until the year 680.
Finally in September of that year, the representatives of the Pope, eleven in all, arrived in the imperial city. The Emperor at once convoked only the bishops pertaining to the patriarch of Constantinople and of Antioch. Apparently it was not at first his intention, nor the intention of the Pope, to summon a General Council; hence the limited call. Bishops from Alexandria and Jerusalem also appeared, so that, from the first session, the Council was really a more universal Council; it was accepted as such by both the Pope and the Emperor. The number of bishops who attended varied somewhat; from 50 at the first session, 174 were present to affix their signature at the signing of the final decree in the eighteenth session. This Council is known as III Constantinople.
The Council opened officially on November 7, 680, in the grand hall of the imperial palace; eighteen sessions were held in all, with the Council ending on September 16, 681. The dogmatic letter of Pope Agatho was read and accepted by all the bishops, who once reflected the acceptance of Pope Leo's letter at Chalcedon: "It is Peter," they cried, "who speaks through Agatho."
The representatives of the Emperor were the honorary presidents of the gathering, but it was the representatives of the Pope who directed the debate. The entire history of the problem was reviewed; the Monothelites were allowed to state their case. The patriarch of Constantinople received fully the doctrine proposed by Agatho, as did the greater number of bishops present. The patriarch of Antioch, however, held out for his erroneous views and was deposed.
The final decree of the Council served as a summary of the debates concerning Christ during these early centuries. The teaching of Chalcedon was reaffirmed, and to this was added a more precise statement to the effect that those at this Council "likewise proclaim according to the teaching of the holy fathers that Christ has two volitions or wills, and two natural operations without division or change, without partition or co-mingling. And the two natural wills are not opposed (by no means!) as the godless heretics have said; but the human will is compliant, and not opposing or contrary; as a matter of fact it is even obedient to his divine and omnipotent will."
Thus was the question solved. The Council went further in the decree, and censured those earlier men who had been active in promoting this heresy. Strangely, they included the misled Honorius in this list. This was to remain a question for many years: Had the Pope failed the Church? Honorius certainly had failed to grasp the question being debated, but his teaching was accurate enough in what it said. He never intended to "define" any position, as we would view the matter today. His answer was just the opposite: he chose to let matters ride, and avoided even discussing the question.
Agatho had died before the end of the Council, but the next pope, Leo II, approved of its decrees (including the condemnation of Honorius). His approval, in fact, indicates the mind of the Council best of all. Leo explained to the bishops of Spain why Honorius had been condemned: ". . . because instead of extinguishing the incipient flame of heretical doctrine, as befits the holder of apostolic authority, he rather fanned it by his negligence." Had Honorius been less gullible in relying so fully on Sergius, and had he investigated the matter more carefully, much of the trouble could have been avoided. As it was, he unwittingly helped spread the error. But out of this came a fuller understanding of the doctrine concerning Christ, testimony again of the power of God to triumph over the weakness of men within His Church.