Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Gnosticism was a dualistic religious and philosophical system, wherein there was a belief of a power of Good and Evil which were matched. It seems to have occurred during the late Hellenistic and early Christian eras. The term refers to a plethora of incarnations throughout this period and were numerous and flourished in the second century A.D. – thus was a challenge to Christianity. One common element appears to be a promise of salvation through occult knowledge that they claimed was revealed to them alone (i.e., full revelation of God is given only to a select few). The definition of knowledge of gnosis as a concern with the Eternal was already present in earlier Greek philosophy (in Platonism and Neo-Platonism with Plotinus), although its connection with the later Gnostic movement is distant at best. Christian ideas were often syncretized quickly with Gnosticism, and by the 2nd century, the largest factions, led by Valentinus (who possibly wrote Pistis-Sophia and the Gospel of Truth, and countered by Irenaeus in Against the Gnostics, and Clement of Alexandria) and Basilides (who wrote Exegitica), rivaled Christianity. The Valentians included Ptolemaios, Heracleón, Phlórinos, Sekoundos, Axionikos, Hardésianés, Theodotos, Markos, Kolobrasos, and Alexandros, and the Isidóros is also a Basileidian. Anti-heretical fathers (Clement and Irenaeus, plus Hippolytus and Tertullian) in reaction wrote much of early Christian doctrine. Gnostic elements are found in The Apocryphal Gnostic Gospels (Peter, Philip, Thomas, Matthew, Bartholomew, Barnabas, Judas, Mary, and Eve), Acts of Thomas, the Odes of Solomon, and other wisdom literature of the pseudepigrapha. Many of the works of the Gnostics were condemned so that until fairly recently their teachings were known only through the Christian polemic directed against them. One form of Gnosticism, for instance, taught by Marcion (c. 160) believed that the world is ruled by evil archons, among them the God of the Old Testament (an evil God), who hold captive the spirit of humanity. The heavenly pleroma was the center of the divine life, and they interpreted Jesus as an intermediary eternal being, or aeon, sent from the pleroma, to restore the lost knowledge of humanity’s divine origin. Gnostics held secret formulas, which they believed would free them at death from the evil archons and restore them to their heavenly abode. Some associated the God of the Old Testament with Satan and their Christology was Docetic. Tertullian has 5 books against Marcion1. Common to Gnosticism was the belief that human beings consist of flesh, soul, and spirit (the divine spark), and that humanity is divided into classes representing each of these elements. The purely corporeal lacked spirit and could never be saved; the Gnostics proper (pneumatic) bore knowingly the divine spark and their salvation was certain; and those, like the Christians, who stood in between (psychic), might attain a lesser salvation through faith. Gnostics did not believe in a resurrection of the body. In the third century, Gnosticism was no longer a threat, surviving in an institutionalized form only among the Mandaeans. Nevertheless, the Alexandrian school still continued with some Gnostic concepts, especially in the writings of Origen, Evagrios Pontikos, and Clement of Alexandria. Other Gnostics include Simon Magos, Dositheos, Menandros, Satorneilos, the Ebionites, Kérinthos, Symmachos, Helkesites, and the Alkivides. The Bardesanians include Bardesanés and Harmonios. The Dualists include Marcion, Apollés, and Hermogenés. Some scholars have seen Gnostic influence in the Paulicians and Bogomils, but this is unlikely except in the most general sense.

1 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-03/TOC.htm Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Monarchianism (deriving from monarci,a, “one rule, monarchy) is the belief in the concept of God that maintains his sole authority even over Christ and the Holy Spirit. Its common tenet is that God the Father and Jesus are one person, was developed in two forms in early Christianity. Dynamistic/Dynamic monarchians (later called adoptionism, was first taught by Theodotus, who introduced it to Rome about 190) was held by the Theodotians and Paul of Samosata (in the second half of the third century), held that Jesus was born a man (an ordinary man, although a virtuous one) and received the Holy Spirit or Logos to become the Christ at a later time (e.g., after his baptism)2. Fortunately, it was a rather isolated phenomenon.3 Others in this camp included Theodosios Skyteus, Theodotus Trapezités, Artemon, Gaius, and Alogoi. This was later revived in many forms such as Nestorianism (which believes in that Christ who is two persons, one indwelling the other. Jesus the man submits himself to the Word. So the Incarnation is the indwelling of the Logos in the human). The second form was known as Modalistic Monarchianism (also known as Sabellianism, Patripassianism, or theopaschytic Monarchianism), and this held that God is unknowable except for his manifestations or modes (employing perhaps Aristotelian terms), i.e., God the Father becomes Christ (God the Son) who becomes God the Holy Spirit. Because of the consequent implication that God the Father must have died on the cross, they were called Patripassians [Latin = the Father suffering]. Sabellius was the chief-proponent of this heresy and fully developed it, but others included Noetus of Smyrna, Epigonus, Clemenes, and Praxeas4. Sabellius was a Christian priest and theologian, born probably in Libya or Egypt, who was communicated by Calixtus I in 220. He opposed the orthodox teaching of “essential Trinity” (that they were three with one essence, or ousia) and advanced a doctrine of the “economic Trinity.” God, he held, was one indivisible substance, but with three fundamental activities, or modes, appearing successively as three different names: the Father (the Creator and lawgiver), as the Son (the redeemer), and as the Holy Spirit (the maker of life and the divine presence within men)5. Sabellianism was consciously opposed to the doctrine of the Logos presented in the Gospel of John and the Apologists, and especially to the notion of mediator (subordinationism) that was applied in the middle-Platonic doctrine or theology of principles encountered, for example, in Origen. The term Sabellianism later was used to include all kinds of speculative ideas that had become attached to the original ideas of Sabellius and his followers. In the East, all monarchians came to be labeled Sabellians. (It may well be that the chief reason for the repudiation of Patripassianism was not its conflict with the biblical revelation, but with the Greek philosophical conception of impassibility.6) It appears that Monarchianism is an attempt to keep a monotheistic belief without falling into tritheism. In the genealogies of heresies so common in Byzantium, 4th century theologians connected Markellos of Ankyra with Monarchianism, while in the 6th century the same charge was made against Severos of Antioch and the Jacobites.

2 Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum 53; Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 5.28 3 Athanasius On the Decrees of the Nicene Synod (Defense of the Nicene Council) 5.24; On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 2.26; Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 7.30 4 combated by Tertullian Adversus Praxeam 1. 5 Athanasius Four Discourses Against the Arians 3.23.4 6 Tertullian Adversus Praxeam 29. Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas A movement which had wide vogue in the latter part of the second century (c. 172) and persisted for more than two centuries and which brought division in the Church, took its name from Montanus, of Phrygia, in Asia Minor, who flourished in the Montanists were often referred to as Phrygians or Kataphrygians. They represented a revival of the prophets who were prominent in the first few decades of the Church, a call to Christians to stricter living, and a vivid belief in the early end of the world, in the second coming of Christ, and in the establishment of the ideal society in the New Testament. At his baptism, Montanus “spoke with tongues” and began prophesying, declaring that the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, promised in the Gospel according to John, was finding utterance through him. Two women, Prisca (Priscilla) and Maximillia, his disciples, were also believed to be prophetesses, mouthpieces of the Holy Spirit. The three taught that the Spirit had revealed to them the early end of the world (i.e., an immediate expectation of Judgment Day), and that the New Jerusalem would come down out of heaven from God, as had been foretold in the Revelation of John, and that it would be fixed in Phrygia. Since the return of Christ and the last judgment were regarded as being so imminent, believers were urged to be strict in the living (strict asceticism). Celibacy was encouraged (virginity was strongly recommended and second marriages were disapproved – Priscilla declared that chastity was declared by Priscilla to be a preparation for ecstasy), fasting was enjoined, and martyrdom was held in high honor. They believed that a Christian fallen from grace could never be restored, in opposition to the Christian (catholic) view that, since the sinner’s contrition restored him to grace, the church must receive him again. Montanism antagonized the church because the sect claimed a superior authority arising from divine inspiration. Christians were told that they should flee persecution; Montanists were told to seek it. Some of the Montanists attacked the established church and its concessions to the pagan state, others venerated a deserted city (Pepouza in Phrygia), as the New Jerusalem. When the Montanists began to set up a hierarchy of their own, the Christian leaders, fearing to lose the cohesion essential to the survival of persecuted Christianity, denounced the movement. Tertullian7 (authoring On Fasting, Against the Materialistic; An Exhortation to Chastity; On Flight in Time of Persecution and On the Soul) was a notable member of the movement. Montanism was very popular in Cappadocia, Galatia, Phrygia, Cilicia, and Constantinople; it also existed in the West, as far as North Africa and Spain. Eventually it died (c. 220) as a sect, except in isolated areas of Phrygia, where it continued to the 7th century. Both church and state persecuted the Montanists. John of Ephesus reportedly went to Pepouza where he burned their place of assembly and destroyed the relics of Montanus and the two prophetesses. According to the 9th century historian (Theophilus 401.22-27), Leo III ordered that Montanists be forcibly baptized in 721/2; they responded by gathering “in the houses of their deviation” and burning themselves to death. Montanism may have survived in Byzantium into the 9th century. The puristic anti-intellectual movement had many descendants (e.g., Novatian, the Donatists, etc.) Eusebius cites an anti-Montanist writer named Marcellus, Bishop of Hieropolis.8 There are also works from Epiphanius Haereses and an anonymous Anti-Montanist writer. Part of the appeal of the appeal of the Montanists was their insistence upon strict moral standards. We hear some of the denunciation from Didymos and Epiphanious of Cyprus (Panarion 48.14.2).

7 The Tertullian Project: http://www.tertullian.org/ 8 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10521a.htm Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Novatianism (or Novatian) was schism which began in the third century and had its source as the dissatisfaction with what they regarded as the lax moral practices of the majority and came into being as a protest against the lenient treatment of those who had denied the faith in time of persecution. Novatian was a Roman priest and an anti-pope/bishop (from 251) and a theologian (On the Trinity/De Trinitate and De Cibis Judaicis). Other primary works are Cornelius’ Letter to Fabius of Antioch, Cyprian (Epistle LI or Epistle 51, Epistle 47), and an anonymous work Ad Novatianum.9 Additional works against them are Ambrose’s De paenitentia, Augustine Contra Novatianum, writings of Pacian of Barcelona, Philstraiu Haereses, and Ambrosiaster Quaestiones. In the East, they are mentioned especially among Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, and Eulogius of Alexandria. He opposed the election of Cornelius as pope/bishop of Rome and set himself instead. He gained followers throughout the empire because of his espousal of the idea that those fallen from grace by compromising their Christianity (the lapsi) during the Decian persecution (250) were barred from the church forever. His followers formed a separatist community, and groups of Novatians sprang up throughout the empire, but they were particularly strong in Africa, Asia Minor, and Constantinople. At the instigation of Cyprian of Cartage, who was himself quite strict on readmission to the church, virtually the whole church recognized Cornelius and repudiated Novatian and his followers, who maintained their own hierarchy for two or three centuries. Cyprian (c. 200-258, the bishop of Carthage c. 248) championed Pope/Bishop Cornelius against the attacks of Novatian and averted a dangerous schism. After 325, the sect was merged with that of Donatism. On the Trinity appears to be a refutation of the Gnostics, Theodotians, Sabellians, was later regarded as an orthodox expression of ante-Nicene doctrine, except for the last chapter, which anticipated Arianism. Followers of Novatian named themselves the katharoi, or the Pure (or Puritans), and affected to call the Catholic Church Apostaticum, Synedrium or Capitolinum. They were found in every province, and in some places were very numerous. Our chief information about them is from the “history” of Socrates, who is very favorable to them, and tells us much about their bishops, especially of Constantinople. Novatian had refused absolution also to idolaters; his followers extended this doctrine to all “mortal sins” (idolatry, murder, and adultery, or fornication). Most of them forbade second marriage, and they made much use of Tertullian’s work; indeed, in Phrygia they combined with the Montanists. They are more schismatics than heretics, the Novatians closely on the practice of the contemporary church; although they continued to hold that serious sin after baptism could not be forgiven. They agreed with the Orthodox on the question of Arianism, and the emperors generally hesitated to persecute the sect, whose members were commonly admired for their piety. In the 4th Century, the Novatian leadership apparently became more lax, and some sect members separated from the group, calling themselves Protopaschites because of their method for calculating the celebration of Easter. Novatianism lost much of its vigor in the 5th century, but the sect survived at least until the early 7th century. Cyprian in his work Treatise III: on the Lapsed10 appears to deal with the Novatians directly (warns his readers to avoid them, and attacks their heresy).

9 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11138a.htm; there is also Eusebius’ Church History. 10 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-113.htm#P7009_2277176 Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Primary writings are Eusebius’ Church History and The Epistle Written by Malchion (in the name of the Synod of Antioch (269), Against Paul of Samosata, written in 270 A.D.)11. There are some fragments (best collected by Routh, “Rell.SS., III. Further fragments in Petra (“Analecta sacra”, III-IV. At this council, Monarchianism (dynamistic Monarchianism, whose most famous advocate was Paul of Samosata) and Paul of Samosata himself were denounced. Malchion writes that “the Son of God came down from heaven” whereas Paul of Samosata said that he is from below. Paul, the bishop of Antioch, was also denounced of his lifestyle, as one loving pomp and power, of having acquired wealth by reprehensible means, of permitting in his entourage questionable relations with women, and of craving applause for his oratory. Paul of Samosata held that in God are the Logos and the Wisdom, but the Logos is not a distinct being and is what reason is in a man. The Word (the Logos) was not a personal, self- subsistent entity; that is, Jesus Christ was not the word. Rather, the term refers to God’s commandment and ordinance. God ordered and accomplished what he willed through the man Jesus; this was the meaning of “Logos.” The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but a single Person (prosopon). The Wisdom dwelt in the prophets, but was uniquely in Christ as in a temple; that is, the Son or Logos is without hypostasis, being merely the wisdom and science of God. Before all worlds, he was born as Son (Logos prophorikos) without a virgin; he is without shape and cannot be made visible to men. He worked in the Prophets especially in Moses (Zenobia was a Jewess, and this Monarchianism may have been intended to please her), and in a far higher way in the Son of David who was born by the Holy Ghost of the virgin. Jesus was a man, but was sinless from his birth. The Father and the Son are one God, whereas Christ is from the earth had a personality of his own. Thus there are two Persons in Christ. The Logos as Wisdom dwelt in the man Jesus, as we live in houses, and worked in Him as inspiration, teaching Him and being with Him, and was united with Him not substantially (or essentially, ousiodos), but qualitatively (kata poioteta). Mary did not bring forth the Word, for she did not exist before the worlds, but a man like to us. Paul denied the inference that there are two Sons. The Son of the Virgin is great by Wisdom, who dwelt in no other so. The Holy Spirit was in him, and inspired Jesus from above; Jesus was united in will (since union of two Persons is possible only by agreement of will) with God, issuing in unity of action, and originating by love. By this kind of union Christ had merit; he could have had none had the union been by nature. By the unchangeableness of His will He is like God, and was united to Him by remaining pure of sin; by his struggles and sufferings he overcame the sin of Adam, and he grew in his intimacy with God and was joined to God, being one with Him in intention and action. God worked in him to do miracles in order to prove him the Redeemer and Savior of the race. By the ever growing and never ceasing movement of friendship he has enjoined himself to God so that he can never be separated through all eternity, and his name is above all name as a reward of love. He is said to have pre-existed, but this means by predestination only. The baptism of Christ, as usual was regarded by Paul as a step in his junction with the Logos. If he had been God by nature, Paul argued, there would be two Gods. He forbade hymns to Christ, and openly attacked the older (Alexandrian) interpretations of Scripture. Three successive synods (in 264-66) assembled to go into Paul’s life and views and the third condemned and deposed him. However, he held on to his bishopric until, about 272, the Emperor Aurelian forced him to give up the church property, perhaps because he had been of the party of Zenobia (the latter protected Paul), the famous queen in Palmyra, whom the Emperor had defeated. Eusebius holds that this is the ‘final council’ in 269, and some refer to this as the second, and some hold that there was but one council at Antioch.

11 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-06/anf06-82.htm Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Arius was a popular Alexandrian presbyter (priest) and teacher; in using Aristotelean terms, he maintained that “the Son has a beginning but God is without beginning” and that the Son is not a part of God (in contrast to his bishop, Alexander, who taught that “God is always, the Son is always”). Arius believed Jesus was the firstborn of Creation and was before all Creation, and was more than merely human as we are. This view was possibly in reaction to Sabellianism and overcompensating; Arius’ followers wanted to preserve a monotheistic doctrine without heading into tritheism. He denied the consubstantiality and the co-eternity of Christ and the Father. Instead, Christ was created from nothing. Arius’ view was extremely popular and had won many in the church including Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and even influenced emperor Constantine. This heresy broke out roughly in 318-9AD in Alexandria. Even Constantine did not understand why there was such fierce contention between the orthodox party of Alexander and Athanasius and the heterodox Arius. Vigorous letters written by Alexander of Alexandria to Alexander at Constantinople in reply to Arius are further evidence of the conflict. Arius was summoned first before a synod in Alexandria in 321, and was formally excommunicated and was exiled. Since Arianism found many sympathizers outside of Egypt, it threatened the peace of the whole Eastern Church. Constantine wrote that he found “the cause to be of a truly insignificant character and quite unworthy of such fierce contention.” However, for Athanasius, such a matter was greatly important; the real issue was the salvation of men and a matter of God’s honor. The Council of Nicea was called in 325 by Constantine to resolve the matter, and after much discussion lead by the Alexander’s deacon Athanasius, the council adopted the phrase “homoousios” to describe the Son’s relationship of the Father (of same substance or essence), as opposed to the Arian word, “homoiousios” (of similar substance/essence). “Homoousios” had been used previously by the heretic Sabellius but it is important to denote the context which he used the term. To make the position of the council towards Arius unmistakable, it was declared that the catholic church anathematized, namely, cursed those who said “there was a time when he [the Son of God] was not,” or “that he did not exist before he was begotten,” or “that he was made of nothing,” or that “he is of other substance or essence from the Father,” or that he was created or mutable, or susceptible to change. We learn most of this through Sozomen the historian (Church History), Epiphanius (Heresies), as well as Athanasius’ Contra Arianos, Defense against the Arians, On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia, Four Discourses against the Arians, History of the Arians, and Proceedings of the Council of Nicea. The conflict only sharpened as the council was not completely unanimous over the creed; Athanasius was identified by his Arian foes (including Eusebius of Nicomedia and the Arian emperor Constantius II) as the champion for the orthodox position and they managed to drive him into exile four times. Supposedly Arianism started splitting and in-fighting at this time, one group was the Anomoeans, followers of Eunomius and Aetius, who held that the Son held no resemblance to the Father. The semi-Arians were also called Homoeans from their teaching that the Son was simply like the Father as defined by Scripture. A third party called Homoiousians (of similar substance) were prevented from joining or being identified with the orthodox (Homoousian) party. By in large, Arianism was finally dealt the death blow by the Cappadocian fathers, Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa. When Theodosius I became emperor of the East in 374, Arianism then was outlawed. However, Ulfilas had carried (c.340) Homoean Arianism to the Goths living in what is now Hungary and the Northwest Balkan Peninsula with such success that the Visigoths and other Germanic tribes became staunch Arians. Arianism was thus carried over Western Europe and into Africa. The Vandals remained Arians Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas until their defeat by Belisarius (c.534). Among the Lombards the efforts of Pope Gregory I and the Lombard queen were successful, and Arianism finally disappeared (c.650) there. In Burgundy the Catholic Franks broke up Arianism by conquest in the 6th cent. In Spain, where the conquering Visigoths were Arians, Catholicism was not established until the mid-6th cent. (by Recared), and Arian ideas survived for at least another century. However, there is no name as memorable in fighting the Arian heresy as Athanasius. Other Arians (some mentioned above, like Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea) include Theodore of Laodicea, Theognis of Nicaea, Asterius the Sophist, Euzoius of Caesarea, Patrophilus of Scythopolis, Paulinus of Tyre, Maris of Chalcedon, Athanasius of Anazarvus, Acacius of Caesarea, Narcissus of Neronias, George of Laodicea, Eleusius of Cizicus, Aetius, Eunomius, Eudoxius of Constantinople, Basil of Ancrya, Macedonius, Eustathius of Sebastia, Eusebius of Emessa, Theodore of Heracleia, and Auxentius of Mediolanum.

Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Apollinarius or Apollinaris, the younger, Bishop of Laodicea is the son of Apollinarius the Elder and propounded his father’s views. He was a popular scholar and teacher, author of scriptural commentary, philosophy, and controversial treatises, he believed and explained the theory that Jesus possessed the Logos, the Divine Reason, in place of a human mind, and hence, while perfectly divine, he was not fully human. Another Apollinarist was Vitalis. Two Romans Councils in 377 and 381 and a number of fathers plainly denounced and condemned the heretical views of Apollinaris, and then he was denounced by the 2nd Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381. Apollinaris failed to submit even to the more solemn condemnation of this council whose first canon entered Apollinarianism on the list of heresies, and he died in his error, about 392. The works of Apollinaris are lost (although Jerome credits him with “Against Porphyry” and “Refutation of Eunomius”.) We learn of his teachings through Athanasius in his two books against Apollinaris, several letters of Gregory of Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa’s Antirretikos, Theodoret’s Dialogues and Haereticae Fabulae. The precise time when Apollinaris came up with this heresy is uncertain. Apollinaris appears to have understood this union of Christ based on two principles or presuppositions: ontologically, since two perfect beings with all their attributes could not be brought to union into one being, thus union between perfect God and man could not be more than a juxtaposition or a collocation; they would like a colloid or incongruous compound, like the demi-mortal monsters of mythology (e.g., the divine, eternal and unchangeable and the perfect nature of God could not be brought together perfectly with the human, temporal, corruptible, finite, and imperfect). Since he respected the Nicene Creed, he could not devalue the Logos and the divine nature of Christ, so he instead diminished the humanity of Christ. Psychologically, Apollinaris believed that the rational human soul or spirit had the ability to sin and even liable to sin – and thus, there would be no way that Jesus could be sinless would be to remove the human soul from Jesus’ humanity by way of the substitution of the Divine Logos. For the constructive part of his theory, Apollinaris appealed to the well-known three-fold Platonic division of human nature: body (sarx, soma), soul (psyche halogos), spirit (nous, pneuma, psyche logike). Christ, he said, assumed the human body and the human soul or principle of animal life, but not the human spirit. The Logos Himself is, or takes the place of, the human spirit, thus becoming the rational and spiritual centre, the seat of self-consciousness and self-determination. By this simple device Apollinaris thought that Christ was safe, His substantial unity secure, His moral immutability guaranteed, and the infinite value of Redemption made self-evident. And in confirmation of it all, he quoted from John 1:14 “and the Word was made flesh”; Phil. 2:7, “Being made in the likeness of men and in habit found as a man,” and I Cor. 15:47, “The second man, from heaven, heavenly.” Pope Damascus appears to have pronounced an anathema on the teachings on Apollinaris in the Council of Rome, 381. "We pronounce anathema against them who say that the Word of God is in the human flesh in lieu and place of the human rational and intellective soul. For, the Word of God is the Son Himself. Neither did He come in the flesh to replace, but rather to assume and preserve from sin and save the rational and intellective soul of man.” The Cappadocians also came out against Apollinaris, as mentioned above, and at the Council of Constantinople.

Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Nestorius, who gave his name to the Nestorian heresy, was born at Germanicia, in Syria Euphoratensis; died in the Thebaid, Egypt in 451. Emperor Theodosius II chose him to be Patriarch of Constantinople, succeeding Sisinnius (428). In that year Nestorius, who had been a pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia, outraged the Christian world by opposing the use of the title Theotokos (bearer/mother of God) for the Mary on the grounds that, while the Father begot Jesus as God, Mary bore him as a human. He also detailed his Antiochian doctrine of the Incarnation. Eusebius, a layman was the first to raise his voice, afterwards Bishop of Dorylaeum and the accuser of Eutyches. This view was contradicted by Cyril (we read of this in his five books Against Nestorius), patriarch of Alexandria, and both sides appealed to Celestine I. The Council of Ephesus was called in 431 to settle the matter. This council (reinforced by the Council of Chalcedon in 451) clarified orthodox doctrine, pronouncing that Jesus, true God and true man, has two distinct natures that are inseparably joined in one person and partake of the one divine substance. Nestorius, deposed after the Council of Ephesus, was sent to Antioch, to Arabia, and finally to Egypt. A work believed to be by Nestorius, Bazaar of Heraclides, discovered c.1895, gives an account of the controversy. The patriarch of Antioch and his bishops, accusing Cyril of unscrupulous action, stayed out of communion with Alexandria until a compromise was reached in 433, but though the subject was discussed in 553 at the Second Council of Constantinople. Nestorianism was practically dead in the empire after 451. Nestorianism survived outside the Roman Empire through missionary expansion into Arabia (e.g., Persia), China, and India from the 6th century but declined after 1300. Nestorius was a disciple of the school of Antioch, and his Christology was similar to Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, both Cilician bishops and great orthodox opponents of Arianism. The Antiochenes insisted upon the completeness of the humanity which the Word assumed, and opposed both the Apollinarians and the Arians. Unfortunately, they represented this human nature as a complete man, and represented the Incarnation as the assumption of a man by the Word. In other words, there are two persons in Christ, one (the Word) indwelling the other (Christ), where Jesus submits himself to the Word, and thus the Incarnation is the indwelling of the Logos in the human. The Antiochenes preferred to speak of synapheia (junction), rather than henosis (unification), and said that the two were one person in dignity and power, and must be worshipped together. Nestorius, as well as Theodore, repeatedly insisted that he did not admit two Christs or two Sons, and he frequently asserted the unity of the prosopon (person) of Christ. Unfortunately, in many of his statements, Nestorius is not totally clear and lucid; e.g., he wrote that Theotokos is the mother of the second person of the Trinity, and that Mary brought forth the temple of the Godhead, which is the man Jesus Christ, “the animated purple of the King.” The Incarnation of God did not die, but raised up from the dead him in whom He was incarnate. The Word and the Man are to be worshipped together, and he adds: dia ton phorounta ton phoroumenon sebo (Through Him that bears I worship Him Who is borne). If Paul speaks of the Lord of Glory being crucified, he means the man by "the Lord of Glory". There are two natures, he says, and one person; but the two natures are regularly spoken of as though they were two persons, and the sayings of Scripture about Christ are to be appropriated some of the Man, some to the Word. If Mary is called the Mother of God, she will be made into a goddess, and the Gentiles will be scandalized. (Thus, Theotokos was dropped by the Nestorians in favor of Christotokos.) One may point to the fact that Nestorius emphatically declared that there is one Christ and one Son, and Cyril himself has preserved for us some passages from his sermons which the saint admits to be perfectly orthodox, and therefore wholly inconsistent with the rest. For example: "Great is the mystery of the gifts! For this visible infant, Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas who seems so young, who needs swaddling clothes for His body, who in the substance which we see is newly born, is the Eternal Son, as it is written, the Son who is the Maker of all, the Son who binds together in the swathing-bands of His assisting power the whole creation which would otherwise be dissolved." And again: "Even the infant is the all-powerful God, so far, O Arius, is God the Word from being subject to God." And: "We recognize the humanity of the infant, and His Divinity; the unity of His Sonship we guard in the nature of humanity and divinity." It will probably be only just to Nestorius to admit that he fully intended to safeguard the unity of subject in Christ. But he gave wrong explanations as to the unity, and his teaching logically led to two Christs, though he would not have admitted the fact. Not only his words are misleading, but the doctrine which underlies his words is misleading, and tends to destroy the whole meaning of the Incarnation. It is impossible to deny that teaching as well as wording which leads to such consequences as heresy. He was therefore unavoidably condemned. He reiterated the same view twenty years later in the Bazaar of Heraclides, which shows no real change of opinion. What is classified as Nestorianism (that there are two persons within Christ) may have or may not have been taught by Nestorius. It appears that this is an overemphasis on the human in Christ. They were defeated at the Council of Ephesus (431). Nestorian can be summarized by the thought that there is one person with two natures in Christ. Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Eutyches (378-452) is the sponsor of Eutychianism, the first phase of Monophysitism (that Christ only has one nature). He was the leader of a monastery in Constantinople, and also the leader of the most violent opponents of Nestorianism, among whom was Dioscoros, successor to Cyril (d. 444) as patriarch of Alexandria. Whereas Cyril had agreed with the Antiochenes in 433 that Christ had two natures, Eutyches and Dioscoros insisted that Christ's humanity was absorbed in his divinity and that to accept two natures at all was Nestorian. Eutyches taught that a third kind of nature resulted when the human nature of Christ was taken up and absorbed into the divine nature. Unfortunately, this meant that Christ was neither truly God nor truly man. And if that was so, he could neither truly represent us as a man nor could he be true God and able to earn our salvation. When Theodoret attacked Eutychianism (447), Dioscoros retaliated by anathematizing him, and Emperor Theodosius II, who was friendly to Eutychianism, confined Theodoret to his diocese (448). But Eutyches was accused of heresy by Eusebios, bishop of Dorylaion, and before a local synod called by Flavian, patriarch of Constantinople (Nov., 448), he denied that Christ had two natures after the incarnation, and refused to acknowledge even the hypostatical union of the two natures in Christ and to accept that Christ was consubstantial with mankind. So he was deposed, and this condemnation was later supported by Pope Leo I. Eutyches appealed to his friends, and Theodosius called a general council to meet at Ephesus, Aug. 1, 449. This, the famous Robber Synod (Latrocinium), was disgraceful from the beginning. Dioscoros presided and disenfranchised most of the clergy inimical to Eutyches. The so-called council reinstated Eutyches, declared him orthodox, and deposed Flavian and Eutyches' accuser, Eusebius of Dorylaeum. Flavian denied the council's authority; the papal legates denounced the council's proceedings. The soldiery, called in by Dioscoros, compelled an affirmative vote; Flavian was severely beaten by members of the so- called synod and died shortly thereafter. The legates barely escaped. Theodoret was deposed. After the death of Theodosius (450) his orthodox successors convened the Council of Chalcedon to right the wrongs of the Robber Synod, and Eutychianism was ended. Eutyches was exiled. Eutyches appears to have written quite a few papers: a treatise against the "Duophysites" (i.e., the Orthodox), “On the Two Natures” (a fragment), extracts from a letter written to the city of Constantinople against the Eutychianizers Isaias of Hermopolis and Theophilus, followed by another florigeium from "the Fathers" (almost entirely from Apollinarian forgeries). This letter is preserved entire by Zacharias (in Hist. Misc., IV, xii, where it is followed by the second letter) and also in the "Chronicle" of Michael the Syrian; a second letter against the same; extracts from two letters to all Egypt, the Thebaid, and Pentapolis on the treatment of Catholic bishops, priests, and monks who should join the Monophysites; a refutation of the Synod of Chalcedon and of the Tome of Leo, written between 454 and 460, in two parts, according to the title, and concluding with extracts from the "Acts" of the Robber Synod and four documents connected with it; a short prayer which Blessed Timothy used to make over those who returned from the communion of the duophysites; an exposition of the faith of Timothy, sent to the Emperor Leo by Count Rusticus, and an abridged narration of what subsequently happened to him. A similar supplication of Ælurus to Leo, sent by the silentiary Diomede, is mentioned by Anastasius. The contents of this manuscript are largely cited by Lebon. Hilary of Poitiers12, Leontius of Byzantium13, Isidore of Seville14, Theodoret of Cyrus15 deal with this additionally.

12 On the Trinity, Book III, Chapter III 13 Nestorius and Eutyches 14 On the Scriptures of the Church 15 Ecclesiastical History Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Monophysitism a heresy of the 5th and 6th centuries, which grew out of a reaction against Nestorianism (on the human nature of the incarnation of Christ). It was anticipated by Apollinarianism and was continuous with the principles of Eutyches, whose doctrine had been rejected in 451 at Chalcedon. Monophysitism (from monos, one and physis, nature) challenged the orthodox definition of faith of Chalcedon and taught that in Jesus there were not two natures (divine and human) but one (divine); there was one person, one hypostasis, and one nature. The term was actually of later origin, appearing in Anastasios of Sinai (7th century) and John of Damascus (8th century), when the heat of the Monophysite dispute was long over. As a theological doctrine, Monophysitism was attempting to find a solution to the problem of Christ’s God-Man relationship: the Logos’ divine nature exist separately before the Incarnation, and thus had to come into contact or union with the human nature after the Incarnation. What kind of union was this? Was the divine nature only in an apparent unity with the man in Christ while the human nature prevailed? Did the divine nature engulf the human nature so that only one nature remained? Philosophically and theologically, these were difficult questions to answer, and two groups of Monophysites had different responses: the so-called “real Monophysites” (the Eutychians) inclined to accept the doctrine of the union of natures, whereas the moderate or ‘verbal’ Monophysites (the partisans of Severos of Antioch) constructed the physis as close to the concept of prosopon (person) or hypostasis and saw a new type of physis in Christ, possessing both perfect divine and perfect human qualities. The Monophysite dispute began in the 440s. The initiators were Eutyches and Dioskoros of Alexandria, who developed Cyril of Alexandria’s formulations. After a short-lived victory at the Robber Synod of Ephesus (449), the Council of Chalcedon (451) elaborated the duophysite (or Chalcedonian) formula and condemned the Monophysites. Discussion of this belief was clouded by misunderstandings of terms and by the lack of knowledge of Greek in the West. In the East the movement continued with varying degrees of success: Basiliscus (c.476), the imperial usurper, declared the Council of Chalcedon invalid. Emperor Anastasios I supported the Monophysites. Later, Emperor Zeno, restored to his throne, issued the Henoticon (482), based on the doctrines of Cyril of Alexandria, in an attempt to settle the dispute. It recommended a formula that, ostensibly orthodox, left a loophole for the Monophysites. Neither side was satisfied; the extreme Monophysites refused to accept the intended compromise. The pope excommunicated the East for abrogating the Council of Chalcedon. Emperor Justin I, enforcing the definition of faith of Chalcedon (519), ended the schism. Later, Justinian, although strongly Catholic, was tolerant toward the Monophysites, and vacillated between the two dogmas. Justinian further embittered the quarrel (544) by condemning the so-called Three Chapters (the person and writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the writings of Theodoret against Cyril of Alexandria, and the letter of Ibas of Edessa to Maris the Persian). The condemnation was based on the assertion that Nestorianism tainted these writings. Since parts of the Three Chapters were considered orthodox by the majority of church, the edict was confusing. The Second Council of Constantinople (553), summoned by Justinian and attended by Pope Vigilius, again condemned the Three Chapters, while maintaining the authority of the canons of Chalcedon. The Monophysites remained aloof, and the West was virtually alienated. Justinian's successors alternately favored and suppressed Monophysitism, but by 600 the lines of schism had hardened; the Coptic Church, the Jacobite Church of Syria, and the Armenian Church, all Monophysite, were established. Monotheletism was a 7th-century attempt to reconcile orthodoxy with Monophysitism. Theological and philosophical differences were exacerbated by political, social, and cultural factories (e.g., rivalry between Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople). Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Donatism was a 4th century schismatic movement (starting around 311AD), which was led by Donatus, the bishop of Casae Nigrae and the theologian Donatus the Great or Donatus Magnus. The movement arose in the early 4th century in the African church when some Christians protested the election of Caecilian as the bishop of Carthage, since his consecration was by Felix of Abthungi, and Felix had turned over sacred books and relics to the civil authorities because of persecution and thus was accused of betraying the faith (i.e., Felix was a ‘traditor’ under the Diocletian persecution). Condemnation was extended to all in communion with Felix. A synod of 70 rigorist bishops declared Caecilian’s elevation invalid and consecrated Majorianus in his stead. Majorianus died soon afterward and Donatus became bishop. Behind their objection lay the thought, familiar to Montanism and Novatian, which only those living a blameless life belonged in the church, and, further, that the validity of any sacrament (e.g., baptism) depended upon the personal worthiness of the priest administering it. The Donatist practice of rebaptizing was particularly abhorrent to the orthodox. Shortly after the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 Constantine I offered financial support to the African church in the person of Caecilian. The Donatists appealed to Constantine and a commission was established in 313 under the presidency of Pope Miltiades (311-314) to hear the conflicting claims. This body condemned the Donatists, who appealed to the Council of Arles. Donatism was condemned by the Synod of Arles (314) and also by the Roman emperor, Constantine I, thus, the Donatists seceded (316) and set up their own hierarchy. Constans I resumed persecution in 347, but the Donatists resisted, celebrated their rites in secret, and began to turn to violent reaction against government officials and the Catholic party. By 350 they outnumbered the orthodox Christians in Africa, and each city had its opposing orthodox and Donatist bishops. In 362, Julian ordered an end to persecution but after his death Donatism was against outlawed. Attacked by Optatus, bishop of Milevis, Donatism nevertheless remained a vital force until the end of Christianity in North Africa. It was the teaching of Augustine of Hippo16, as presented in his writings and at the debate between orthodox and Donatist bishops at Carthage (411), who turned the tide against Donatism. The number was further reduced by strong state suppression and ascetic excesses among some of their own members. The remnants of the schismatic movement had vanished along with African Christianity before the advent of the Islamic invaders. Augustine of Hippo preserves much of the dialogue (in his Anti-Donatist writings). The Donatists, who claimed that they were following the teachings of Cyprian, appealed to local African and rigorist sentiment. Donatism resembled Novatianism in its rigorism and ecclesiology, but its adherents went beyond most similar groups in their view of the sacramental system: they held that the validity of the sacrament depended on the rectitude of the celebrant. By the mid-4th century, some Donatists were associated with the circumcelliones, bandit like gangs who terrorized the cities and villas of Africa. The sect was centered in the villages and countryside of Numidia; some scholars have seen the movement as a reflection of “nationalist” or social sentiment.

16 Augustine: Anti Donatist Works (found in http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-04/TOC.htm) as well as “A Treatise Concerning the Correction of the Donatists” (Or Epistle CLXXXV) found at http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-04/npnf1-04-63.htm#P5873_2840839 Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Pelagianism was a heretical theological system introduced by the Welsh monk Pelagius (born circa 354, died in Egypt, c. 420-27), and developed by Celestius and Julian of Eclanum. Pelagius had studied Roman law and rhetoric and later theology in England and Rome and was very popular. In the 380s Pelagius was in Rome where he served as the spiritual adviser of the Anich. He attacked the concept of predestination as Manichaean and supported the concept of human free will, the freedom to choose evil or good. Thus, he placed responsibility on man himself, while both grace and ecclesiastical institutions played only an accessory role in the process of salvation. Pelagius saw that the only way that justice would truly be fair is if man was totally free at any given moment to choose good and evil; Pelagius believed that human beings have a natural capacity to reject God and seek evil. That mankind sins, is a result of a bad example by other human beings (whereas Augustine and others held that the Origin Sin, i.e., that which Adam caused in Genesis 3, left mankind in such a state that he is separated from the life of God17 and therefore cannot but sin – non posse non peccare; Augustine’s ideas are also held in a different form by Athanasius who states that the image of God was being effaced in mankind18). Accordingly, Pelagius required a high moral standard of the Christian community as the union of the elect. Jerome19 and Orosius and especially Augustine20 criticized Pelagianism; Augustine argued that divine grace and the sacraments were the major instruments of salvation. Pelagius also saw Augustine as excessively pessimistic in his view that humanity is sinful by nature and must rely totally upon grace for salvation and instead taught that grace is the natural ability given by God to seek and serve God. Pelagius rejected the doctrine of original sin; he taught that children are born innocent of the sin of Adam and instead learned to be sinners through bad examples. Accordingly, baptism ceased to be interpreted as a regenerative sacrament. Pelagius challenged the very function of the church, claiming that the law as well as the gospel can lead one to heaven and that pagans had been able to enter heaven by virtue of their moral actions before the coming of Christ. The church fought Pelagianism from the time that Celestius was denied ordination (411). North Africa (since Augustine was in Hippo) was the focal point of anti- Pelagian action; Rome’s position was undecided and Pope Zosimus wavered between acceptance and condemnation of Pelagianism. In 415, Augustine warned Jerome in Palestine that Pelagius was propagating a dangerous heresy there, and Jerome acted to prevent its spread in the East. Circa 412, Pelagius moved to Palestine where he spent the rest of his life. There and in Syria, Pelagius found support, partially because of Syrian asceticism and the theological ideas expressed, among others by Aphrahat. In 415, Palestinian bishops acquitted Pelagius after he had mildly denounced the extreme teachings of Celestius. Julian of Eclanum and other Italian Pelagians were supported by Nestorios. The Synod at Troyes in 429, Pelagius and his fellow heretic Celestius were condemned, and also at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431) since the Nestorians and Cyril’s partisans accused each other of Pelagianism, and the Roman envoys were able to secure the condemnation of its teachings. A compromise doctrine, Semi- Pelagianism, became popular in the 5th and 6th century in France, Britain, and Ireland. Semi- Pelagians taught that although grace was necessary for salvation, men could, apart from grace, desire the gift of salvation, and that they could, of themselves, freely accept and persevere in

17 On Nature and Grace, Against Pelagius http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-05/npnf1-05- 16.htm#P1888_814447 18 paragraph 6-7 of On the Incarnation (http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-04/Npnf2-04-16.htm#P1830_678055) 19 Jerome has 3 books against the Pelagians (http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-06/TOC.htm) 20 His writings on the Pelagian controversy abound; one whole volume (http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1- 05/TOC.htm) is dedicated to this. Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas grace. Semi-Pelagians also rejected the Augustinian doctrine of predestination and held that God willed the salvation of all men equally. At the instance of Caesarius of Arles, Semi-Pelagianism was condemned by the Council of Orange (529); by the 6th century, the sect had disappeared.

Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The first ecumenical Council of Nicea was called by Emperor Constantine (the Great, or the First) around 20May or 19June to circa 25Aug 325. The primary issue was over the Arian heresy. We have the 20 canons issued by the council, the Nicene Creed, and a synodal letter excommunicating Arius. The creed was a modification of a baptismal creed used in Jerusalem, and was first presented by Eusebius but is modified by the council. This was the first dogmatic definition of the church to have more than local authority. The bishops heard much debate, and the champion of orthodoxy who emerged was the young deacon in Alexandria, Athanasius. The council rejected Arius' ontological subordination of the Son to the Father, and defined that the incarnate Logos as consubstantial (homoousios, of same substance) with the Father. If Christ were note fully divine (as Arianism declared), then man could not hope to share in divine life or salvation. Even so, the nonscriptural homoousios clause adopted by the council was to cause doctrinal divisions until the Council of Ephesus in 381 (largely because the word homoousios was rejected in a different context in dealing with the Monarchians). The read reads as:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten (gennhqe,nta), not made, being of one substance (o`moou,sion, consubstantially) with the Father. By whom all things were made, both which be in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down [from heaven] and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered and the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven. And he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead. And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost. And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not (h;n pote o[te ouvk h`n) or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion -all that so say, the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes them.

The Canons of the Nicene Council deal with one who has been castrated and leadership, the appointment of bishops, how to deal with the excommunicated, early development of the "Pentarchy" (Alexandria, Rome, Antioch, and Jerusalem are named), the Novatians, the character of bishops/presbyters, repentance and restoration of the fallen and public discipline, Communion to the dying/sick, regarding use of treasures or of wealth in the church by its leaders, the practice of the Eucharist and ranks, Paulianism and rebaptism, and prayer.

The Council also dealt with the calculation of Easter by aligning the celebration of Easter with the Sunday after the full moon following the Spring equinox.

Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople I was held in 381/382. Some 150 bishops was to finally deal with Arianism. Although no Western representatives attended, by 451 the council was deemed important enough to be universally accepted as ecumenical. Under the presidency of Meletios, bishop of Antioch, the synod endorsed the faith of the First Council of Nicaea as well as the full consubstantiality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. In effect, they condemned both the Apollinarians and Pneumatomachoi. This council drew up the so-called Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which the Council of Chalcedon later attributed to this council, was originally a local baptismal profession of faith containing the Nicene formula. It may in fact have existed as early as 362. Finally, the council proclaimed Constantinople as the second see of Christendom with honorary precedence over all other sees, except the elder Rome (canon 3). The basis of this primacy, as the canon succinctly states, was the city’s political standing—“because it is the New Rome.” The acts of the council either did not survive, or more probably, never existed. The Collection of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon reports that this is the Holy Creed which the 150 Holy Fathers set forth, which is consonant with the Holy and Great Synod of Nice:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the Right Hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead. Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver-of-Life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. And [we believe] in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins, [and] we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

We know from the Synodical letter sent by the bishops who assembled at Constantinople in 382 (the next year after the Second Ecumenical Council) sent to Pope Damascus and other Western bishops, that the Second Council set forth a "Tome," containing a statement of the doctrinal points at issue. In the Synodal letter21, the sufferings due to the Arians are recounted, the orthodox doctrine Trinity is propounded, and heresies (Sabellianism, Pneumatomachi, Eunomians, Arians) are identified.

21 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-63.htm#P4054_732076 Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The Third Ecumenical Council was Ephesus I (431/3) and this was summoned by Theodosios II to settle the conflict between the Antiochian Christology of the Nestorians (Nestorios of Constantinople) and that of the Alexandrian School represented by Cyril. Lasting from 22June to 22July, the council had approximately 150 participants at its opening. The lively political and ecclesiastical rivalry between the patriarchal sees of Alexandria and Constantinople complicated the long-standing opposition between the two schools. Although the council did not formulate its own Christological statement, it did accept that of the First Council of Nicaea (325) as interpreted by Cyril. In effect, it approved his theology that the humanity and divinity of the incarnate Christ were united in one hypostatic union (henosis kath’hypostasin). By so doing, it formally recognized the propriety of Mary’s title as Theotokos (God-bearer), which Nestorios/Nestorius denied. Finally, the council also condemned the beliefs of Pelagius as heresy. These matters were decided before the arrival of John I of Antioch and his delegation. The latter understandably refused to accept the Cyrillian majority’s condemnation of Nestorios. A brief schism followed, ending in 433 when Cyril and John were finally reconciled. The doctrinal and ecclesiastical victory had nevertheless gone to Alexandria. Cyril’s rival, Nestorios, and his theology were crushed and humiliated; twelve anathemas are recorded of Cyril against Nestorios, and that the council published their discoveries, that Nestorios not obeyed our citation, and did not receive the holy bishops who were sent by us to him, we were compelled to examine his ungodly doctrines. We discovered that he had held and published impious doctrines in his letters and treatises, as well as in discourses which he delivered in this city, and which have been testified to. The Synod of Ephesus thus excluded Nestorios from the episcopal dignity and from all priestly communion. Additionally, the canons declare that those who consorted with Nestorios or Celestius (not Celestine, the Pope) be deposed. Scholars believe that Ephesus is the first general council with extant original acts. The canons go on to say that the rights of every province should be preserved pure and inviolate and that no attempt to introduce form contrary to these shall be of any avail. Pelagianism was condemned but it is not certain whether there was any debate over the controversy. We also have the synodal letter to Pope Celestine22 to summarize these events.

22 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-85.htm#P4669_911144 Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Theodosius II summoned a local council/synod (Latrocinium) in Ephesus (II) in 8-22Aug 449, called the “Robber Synod” to settle the case of Eutyches, who had been condemned by Patriarch Flavian for teaching that Christ had only one nature after the Incarnation. The emperor convoked it, the pope agreed. No time had been left for any Western bishops to attend, except two papal legates (Julius and deacon Hilarus represented Leo I). The Emperor Theodosius II gave Dioscoros of Alexandria the presidency. The legate Julius is mentioned next, but when this name was read at Chalcedon, the bishops cried: "He was cast out. No one represented Leo." 127 bishops were present, with 8 absent bishops’ representatives, and the deacon Hilarus with his notary Dulcitius. The council’s main question by the emperor’s order was whether Flavian, in his synod at Constantinople (Nov. 448), justly deposed and excommunicated the Archimandrite Eutyches for refusing to admit Christ’s 2 natures. Consequently Flavian and 6 other bishops present at his synod were not allowed to sit as judges in the council. Theodosius’ brief of convocation was read, and the Roman legates explained it would have been contrary to custom for the pope to be present in person, but he had sent a letter by them. In this letter Leo appealed to his dogmatic letter to Flavian, intended to be read at the council and accepted as a rule of faith. But Dioscoros took care not to have it read; instead, a letter of the emperor. Eutyches was introduced, and declared he held the Nicene Creed. Flavian had condemned him for a mere slip of the tongue, though he had declared he held the faith of Nicaea and Ephesus, and had appealed to the present council. Eutyches’ accuser, Eusebius of Dorylaeum, was not allowed to be heard. The bishops agreed the Acts of the Eutyches’ condemnation (Council of Constantinople, Nov. 448) should be read, but the legates asked that the pope's letter might be heard first. Eutyches interrupted, complaining he did not trust the legates; they had dined with Flavian and had received much courtesy. Dioscoros decided the trial acts had precedence, so Leo’s letter was never read (despite the Roman legates’ repeated requests). The Acts were fully read, and the account of an inquiry made on 13 April into the allegation of Eutyches that the synodal Acts had been incorrectly transcribed, and of another inquiry on 27 April into Eutyches’ accusation that Flavian had written the sentence against him beforehand. While the trial was related, cries arose of belief in one nature, that 2 natures meant Nestorianism, of "Burn Eusebius", etc. Flavian rose to complain he had no opportunity to defend himself. The Robber Council’s Acts give a list of 114 votes in the form of short speeches absolving Eutyches. Even 3 of his former judges joined in this, although by the emperor's order they were not to vote. Barsumas (a fanatical anti- Nestorian monk) added his voice lastly. The synod absolved the monks, on their assertion that they agreed in all things with Eutyches and with the holy Fathers. The council of some 140 bishops who objected to the proceedings, was pressured by the domineering Dioskoros of Alexandria, and his violence-prone monastic followers to rehabilitate Eutyches and to depose Flavian. (Flavian and other Eastern powerful prelates appealed to the pope, who sent urgent letters to Constantinople to Emperor Theodosius II and Empress Pulcheria, urging them to convene a general council to restore peace to the Church.) It likewise rejected the moderate but precarious theological compromise reached after the council of Ephesus (431) by Cyril of Alexandria and John I of Antioch. Some scholars believe some proceedings have often been exaggerated by scholars and may in fact have been no less uncanonical than the actions of other councils. Eutyches’ Monophysitism continued to disturb both the church’s and empire’s doctrinal unity and security until Chalcedon (451), which many of these events precipitated. The Acts of this synod’s first session were read at the Council of Chalcedon, 451, and have thus been preserved to us. The remainder of the Acts (the first session being wanting) are known only through a Syriac translation by a Monophysite monk. Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (8-31Oct. 451) was held in the Church of St. Euphemia. Approximately 350 bishops attended its sessions, primarily from the East. The lead roles at the council were played by the imperial couple (Marian and Pulcheria) as well as Paschinus, the legate of Pope Leo I, to whom the Egyptian bishops stood in opposition. The council was intended to answer the Christological questions raised by Eutyches after the Council of Ephesus (431). Chalcedon defined Christ’s two natures as inviolably united without confusion, division, separation, or change, in one person or hypostasis: “The most magnificent and glorious judges said: Add then to the definition, according to the judgment of our most holy father Leo, that there are two natures in Christ united unchangeably, inseparably, unconfusedly.”23. This negative formula, distinguishing precisely between nature and person, was clearly aimed at the teachings of Nestorios and Eutyches. Doctrinally, it rejected neither the Council at Ephesus (431) nor Cyril of Alexandria. Still, the definition acknowledging Christ “in two natures”—grounded on the Nicene faith (Chalcedon affirms the Nicene faith and the Constantinople I council), Cyril, and the Tome of Pope Leo I (which was supposedly read and affirmed)—was viewed by Egypt as a betrayal of strict Cyrillian Christology. This conviction, along with the council’s condemnation of Dioscoros and Eutyches and cancellation of the Robber Synod of Ephesus (449)—were decisive blows to Alexandria’s ecclesiastical and theological hegemony—were to cause the Monophysite schism. (Flavian was pardoned and exonerated; Eutyches and Dioscoros were condemned.)

Chalcedon also granted patriarchal status to Constantinople by enlarging its territorial jurisdiction to include the diocese of Asia, Pontus, and Thrace and by confirming its existing honorary primacy after Rome (canon 28). Constantinople also received the right to hear appeals from regional metropolitans (canons 9, 17) and to consecrate the metropolitans of the three diocese under its jurisdiction. Additionally, Bassianus and Stephen who had acted uncanonically were removed from the bishopric, and bishop of Nicomedia would have the authority of metropolitan over the churches of the province of Bithynia, and Nice would have the honor only of Metropolitan rank, submitting itself according to the example of the other bishops of the province of Nicomedia. Finally, because monasticism had become a serious urban problem by expanding into the cities, it was decided (for the first time in the history of Christian asceticism) to bring every monastery under the direct jurisdiction of its local bishop (canon 4). Some of canon law comes out through this council (e.g., traveling bishops must submit to the bishop of that city, no cleric shall be received to communion in another city without a letter commendatory).

23 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-99.htm#P4881_998309 Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Neochalcedonianism refers to a conventional scholarly term, designating a 6th century theological movement. Neochalcedonianism's goal was to resolve issues posed by the Christological formula at the Council of Chalcedon (451) (the symbol of Chalcedon). This duophysite formula stressed the two natures of Christ (divine and human) did not explicate how the two natures became united in the man Jesus Christ, the incarnate Logos. Some theologians, e.g., Nephalios, John of Caesarea (responded to by the monophysite Severos of Antioch in Refutation), Leontios of Jerusalem (Against the Nestorians, Against the Monophysites), tried to find a compromise between Chalcedonians and the moderate Monophysites; although they accepted the twelve anathemas of Cyril of Jerusalem and the statement that "one of the Trinity has suffered," they tried not to separate the human principle from the divine physis of Christ but emphasized a synthesis ("combination," the term also used by the moderate Monophysites) and hypostatic (but not "natural") unity of the two principles. Political considerations (the search for reconciliation) brought both ecclesiastic leaders (e.g., Anastasios of Antioch and Gregory) and emperors (e.g., Justinian I) into Neochalcedonianism. The official acceptance of their views at the Council of Constantinople (553). At this conference the Severians supported that Eutyches was indeed a heretic and that Dioscoros accepted him as one repentant and finally confessing the faith that Christ is consubstantial with his mother. They seemed not troubled that Eutyches had denied that Christ is consubstantial with us. They defended Dioscoros' action against Flavian and Eusebius because they contradicted themselves when saying "One nature of the Logos Incarnate" and at the same time insisting on "two natures after or in their union." Hypatius, the spokesman for the Chalcedonians, was exasperated at the logic of the Orientals by which they justified Dioscoros' defense of the supposedly penitent Eutyches, but refused to accept the Orthodoxy of Flavian and Eusebius. But the main cause why misunderstandings could never be resolved was the fact that neither side of this meeting had ever read and studied the minutes of Chalcedon. The Severians accused Chalcedon of not accepting Cyril's letter to Nestorius with the Twelve Chapters. Hypatius answered that Chalcedon had accepted it as part of the Third Ecumenical Council. But the reason why Chalcedon supposedly did not use this letter was because Cyril speaks of two hypostases especially in Chapter 3. In other words oral traditions about Chalcedon had begun replacing the minutes of the Council on both sides so that arguments began to be formulated on the basis of heresy. This opened the way to the position that the Tome of Leo had supposedly become the standard of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. This was followed by the position that the Fifth Ecumenical Council returned to Cyril's Twelve Chapters in order to please the Non- Chalcedonians. Hypatius' claim that Chalcedon supposedly avoided the use of Cyril's Twelve Chapters because it uses hypostasis as synonymous with physis, obliges one to realize that Chalcedon did no such thing, since Cyril became the judge of Leo's Orthodoxy. So Chalcedon both accepted the Alexandrian tradition of terms, but also that of Rome, Cappadocia and Antioch. It is important that every effort should be made to get rid of the historians of doctrinal history being caused by the so-called Neo Chalcedonianism of the Fifth Ecumenical Council. The conference deteriorated into a fundamentalistic debate about which tradition had the correct terminology. This council was followed by an anti-Nestorian reaction--the condemnation of the "Three Chapters" (the person and works of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa). It appears the Justinian I was afraid that this condemnation would bring about a reunion with the Monophysites and composed a theological treatise to this effect and issued it on his own authority. Thus there was no compromise with the Monophysites.

Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Monergism (from mo,noj and evnergeia, “one energy”) was a 7th century heresy, which believed that Christ had a single energy attributed to his individual hypostasis. This idea was implied in Monophysitism (since one nature assumes a single activity or energy), but even pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite spoke of a “new theandric activity” (theandrike energeia) in Christ, a phrase that was broadly used (or misused, from the Orthodox point of view) by the Monothelites. The Neochalcedonians seem to have been close to the development of the notion of a single activity, but the movement fully arose as an attempt at political unification of the Chalcedonians and the Monophysites in the face of the Arab threat. The lack of unity among Christians, and especially between the Monophysites and the majority orthodox continued to be a problem to both the Church and the state, and Emperor after Emperor wrestled with it. Monergism and Monotheletism appear to be compromises between Monophysitism and orthodoxy. In dealing with a heretic, the Emperor Herakleios appears to have used the phrase “one activity” around 622. Kyros of Alexandria attempted in 633 to reconcile the two parties on the basis of the formula “the single Christ and Son operating as God and man in the single theandric activity”. Patriarch Sergios/Sergius I of Constantinople suggested a new approach and wrote to Emperor Herakleios/Heraclius and found support in the writings, which were attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. Sergios suggested that the selfsame Christ and Son works divine and human deeds by one divine-human operation (energeia). For a time, the statement that Christ acted through one energeia brought about union in Egypt of Orthodox and Monophysites, but it drew attack. Sophronios, the future patriarch of Jerusalem, uncompromisingly opposed this formula and went against Monergism (in his Synodal Letter of 634), and dedicated himself to the defense of Chalcedon. During his discussions with Patriarch Sergios/Sergius I they came to a compromise. Both phrases “single activity” and “two activities” were prohibited and dropped – instead, one had to speak of “the single Son acting upon both divine and human [things].” Sergios suggested that surely all agreed that in Christ there was only one will (thelema), precipitating monotheletism. Both parties assumed that Christ was theokinetos, “moved by God.” Pope Honorius (whom we have most of this controversy from Sergios’ letters to Honorius) approved of the compromise and in his letter to Sergios spoke of “una voluntas” (one will) of Christ. Sophronios soon rekindled discussion, but since Emperor Herakleios’ Ekthesis in 638, penned by Sergios, banned the energeia formulas in an attempt to force “reconciliation”. When the Ekthesis arrived in Rome, Pope Severinus, Honorius' successor, immediately condemned it, ex cathedra. Herakleios, before he died, disclaimed the Ekthesis and attributed it to Sergios. However, it became evident that reconciliation would not be possible; the debate subsequently focused on the problem of the single will (Monotheletism).

Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas Monotheletism (from mo,noj and qe,lhma, “one will”) was a seventh century heresy. Monergism (or Monoergism) seemed to be its forefather, so monotheletism appears to have inherited some of the problems after the man of the energeia formulas in 638. Patriarch Sergios I suggested the new phrase, which surely all would agree that there was a “single will (thelema) in Christ” and this was propounded by his supporters such as Marakios of Antioch and Pyrrhos. The emperor Herakleios saw Monotheletism as a means of compromise between the Chalcedonians and Monophysites and proclaimed it in the Ekthesis (Edict) of 638. Herakleios forbade the discussion of one or two energies, and declared that Christ had one will. This seemed to win the assent of the legates of the successor of Pope Honorius, but in 641 a later Pope came out against Monotheletism, the statement that there was only one will in Christ, and declared that his had really been the view of Honorius. Subsequent Popes affirmed that there were two wills, divine and human, in Christ, and this was generally the conviction in the West. It is argued that if Christ is truly man as well as truly God, he must have a human as well as divine will. To deny him a human will is to deprive him of his full humanity. It was, of course, held that the divine and the human will were always in accord and never in disagreement. Herakleios' successors, Constantine III and Constans II continued to enforce the heresy. Popes John IV and Theodore I anathematized Monotheletism, but they could do little in face of imperial support of it. The main opponent of Monotheletism was Maximos the Confessor who elaborated the concept of a variety of wills: he argued that the natural will is a property of nature and therefore desires good; free will (proairesis) means a choice and therefore presupposes the possibility of error or sin; finally, boulesis is imaginative desire (phantastike orexis). Thus Christ who had two natures, had two have two natural wills. Since the discussion was a menace to the unity of the church and was producing fresh division and weakness, in 648, Emperor Constans II forbade discussion of Monotheletism in his Typos but required full adherence to Chalcedonian Orthodoxy (recorded for us in Lateran Synod); he did not want further debate of the questions of one or two energies and of one or two wills. The Ekthesis of Herakleios was removed from Hagia Sophia as a result. However, Maximos defied the edict and was exiled (as was Pope Martin I who supported Maximos, the latter who held a synod at Rome, a Lateran Council in 649 which declared for two wills in Christ, condemned the Patriarch of Constantinople for taking the opposite view, and also came out against the imperial edicts of 638 and 648). The Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (680) eventually condemned Monotheletism. Emperor Philippikos (early 8th century) repudiated this condemnation and tried to revive Monotheletism, but when he was overthrown the movement finally disappeared. After the Council at Constantinople in 680, Monotheletism died out except among a large group in the Lebanon, the Maronites, who held to Monotheletism until the twelfth century, when they made their peace with Rome. There was a brief revival of imperial Monotheletism from 711 to 713. The last of the Christological controversies, the Monotheletism question enhanced the prestige of the papacy, which took the lead in opposing official imperial heresy. Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The fifth ecumenical council (5May-2Jun 553) was convened by Justinian I at Constantinople (II) to reconcile the proponents of Monophysitism by convincing them that the Council of Chalcedon had not lapsed into Nestorianism or denied the Council of Ephesus. Therefore after 8 sessions, the council condemned the Three Chapters (the person of Theodore of Edessa, sand some writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa), which the Monophysites had viewed as anti-Cyrillian and hence Nestorian (in the letter of Ibas there were some Nestorian tendencies like denial of the Word of God, Ephesus is rejected, Mother of God is rejected, and Theodore and Nestorius is praised24). This seems to dominate a lot of its acts. The council reaffirmed the previous four councils (Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon.) Although initially apprehensive that the council was rejecting Chalcedon, Pope Vigilius eventually accepted the council’s decisions (Dec. 553)25. As a matter of plain fact, the posthumous condemnation of the three 5th century authors of the Three Chapters reaffirmed and preserved the authority of Chalcedon and Cyril of Alexandria. Thus the modern criticism opposed authentic Chalcedon Christology and somehow betrayed Chalcedon is unwarranted. The council also anathematized Origen. This was aimed at the Origenist monastic parties of Egypt and Palestine, who had proposed their own heretical solution to the Christological problem. It was attended mostly by Oriental bishops; only six Western (African) bishops were present. The president was Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople. The Council appears to anathematize a number of heresies (e.g., heretics Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches and Origen, the Three Chapters) or those who do not recognize Orthodox doctrine in the Capitula26, for instance, those who don’t recognize a consubstantial Trinity, the Incarnation and hypostatic union of Christ (affirming Chalcedon Christology). They also go against Nestorianism and Monophysitism. Anyone who does not recognize these heresies are also anathema. Reconciliation, however, proved to be impossible between the Monophysites and the Orthodox (the Duophysites), as Monophysitism was by then too deeply entrenched to be influenced by the emperor’s desperate bargains or anti-Nestorian zeal. The Egyptians, as Sophronios of Jerusalem put it, were not a race to change their minds or end their hostility towards the central government of Constantinople.

24 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-111.htm#P5513_1145091 25 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-119.htm#P5735_1216599 26 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-114.htm#P5571_1184464 Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The sixth Ecumenical Council (7Nov. 680-16Sept. 681) was convoked by Constantine IV in Constantinople (III) to settle the Monotheletism controversy. Some 174 signatures appear to be attached to the minutes of the last session. When the Emperor first summoned the council he had no intention that it should be ecumenical. From the Sacras it appears that he had summoned all the Metropolitans and bishops of the jurisdiction of Constantinople, and had also informed the Archbishop of Antioch that he might send Metropolitans and bishops. A long time before he had written to Pope Agatho on the subject. When the synod assembled however, it assumed at its first session the title "Ecumenical," and all the five patriarchs were represented, Alexandria and Jerusalem having sent deputies although they were at the time in the hands of the infidel. The government in the early 7th century used Monotheletism to reconcile with dissident Monophysites, but now had backfired. The Council reaffirmed the Orthodox faith. The council drew up a comprehensive decree in which the reality of Christ’s two wills and two energeiai (operations), one divine and the other human, were acknowledged and declared inseparably united to one another. For if there were two natures in the incarnate Christ, as Chalcedon Christology affirmed, there had to be two wills. From the minutes of the Council: Following the five holy Ecumenical Councils and the holy and approved Fathers, with one voice defining that our Lord Jesus Christ must be confessed to be very God and very man, one of the holy and consubstantial and life-giving Trinity … one and the same Christ our Lord the only-begotten Son of two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, inseparably indivisibly to be recognized, the peculiarities of neither nature being lost by the union but rather the proprieties of each nature being preserved, concurring in one Person and in one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons but one and the same only-begotten Son of God, the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ… defining all this we likewise declare that in him are two natural wills and two natural operations indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers. And these two natural wills are not contrary the one to the other… but his human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his divine and omnipotent will. For it was right that the flesh should be moved but subject to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his flesh is called and is the proper will of God the Word… he calls his own will the will of his flesh, inasmuch as his flesh was also his own. For as his most holy and immaculate animated flesh was not destroyed because it was deified but continued in its own state and nature (ovrw te kai logw), so also his human will, although deified, was not suppressed, but was rather preserved according to the saying of Gregory Theologus: "His will [i.e., the Savior’s] is not contrary to God but altogether deified... Wherefore we confess two wills and two operations, concurring most fitly in him for the salvation of the human race. "27 All those accused of Monotheletism were anathematized28, including Pope Honorius (625-38) who had given his written approval to the doctrine, and four patriarchs of Constantinople (e.g., Sergios I and Pyrrhos). The earlier opponents of Monotheletism, e.g., Maximos the Confessor, Pope Martin I, and Sophronios of Jerusalem, were thus vindicated. To complete its work and to issue disciplinary canons, the Trullo council convened in 691-2.

27 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-128.htm#P5887_1300670 28 http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-126.htm#P5872_1297340 Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The First and Second Periods of Iconoclasm: Iconoclasm was a religious movement of the 8th and 9th centuries that denied the holiness of icons and rejected icon veneration. Leo III the Isaurian began the first period of iconoclasm (726-87) and the second period was 814-43. This caused a huge controversy in the church. Clerical opposition to the artistic depiction of sacred personages had its roots in late antiquity, e.g., the 4th century Eusebius of Caesarea (evidently drawing upon Origen's Christology) denied the possibility of artistically delineating Christ's image. Iconophiles drew also upon ancient support (e.g., the Acts of the Nicea II use Gregory of Nazianen's remarks, or Basil the Great). An Iconoclast movement existed in Armenian in the 7th century. In the early 8th century, several bishops in Asia Minor, notably Constantine of Nakoleia and Thomas of Claudiopolis condemned the veneration of images, citing traditional biblical prohibitions against idolatry. Their views became a movement when Emperor Leo III (Leo's Edict) began to support their position publicly (726). A riot resulted from the removal of Christ's icon from the Chalke Gate at his order. In 730, Leo summoned a silention that forced Patriarch Germanos I to resign and issued an edict commanding the destruction of icons of the saints. The destruction under Leo is only limited to church decorations, portable icons, and altar furnishings. The Armenian usurper Artabasdos temporarily restored icon veneration, but Emperor Constantine V broadened the theological base of Iconoclasm, personally penning treatises and organizing silentia. He introduced an explicit Christological aspect into Iconoclasm: a material depiction of Christ—who is God, uncircumscribable—threatened either to confuse (Monophysitism) or separate (Nestorianism) his two natures. Constantine summoned a synod in Hieria (754), condemning icon veneration as diabolical idolatry and insisting that the Eucharist was the only appropriate, nonanthropomorphic image of Christ. Constantine reportedly rejected worship of relics and attacked the Euphemia of Chalcedon, but the 754 council affirmed the efficacy of the intercession of the saints and denied only the propriety of venerating them through material depictions. The Hierian Acts were not strongly enforced until the 760s, when several Iconophiles were executed, including Stephen the Younger. Constantine rigorously persecuted the Iconophiles in Constantinople, especially monks; strategoi such as Michael Lachanodrakon extended this antimonastic campaign into the provinces. Yet outside the capital, Iconoclasm was irregularly supported and often restricted to redecorating churches with secular art. In the capital, according to the vita of Stephen the Younger, Constantine replaced pictures in the Church of the Virgin at Blachernai with "mosaics [representing] trees and all kinds of birds and beasts..." Yet images of Christ and the saints remained in the sekreta of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople until 768-9, when Patriarch Niketas I had them removed. Iconoclasm waned after Constantine's death; Leo IV persecuted only a small group of officials in Constantinople in 780, and in Constantine VI, Irene, and Patriarch Tarasios (who wrote a Refutation of the decisions of the Iconoclast Council of 754) secured an official condemnation at Nicea II (787). The Armorian emperors revived Iconoclasm, but lacking the previous period’s vigor. Leo V deposed Patriarch Nikephoros I and summoned a synod in Constantinople (815), renouncing icon restoration and rehabilitated the Hieria Council. Michael II, although an Iconoclast, did not force the issue. One of the main writers in this time was Theodore of Stoudios (or Theodore the Studite, who wrote "On the Holy Icons"). Theophilos, influenced by John VII Grammatikos, prohibited the production of icons and persecuted prominent Iconophiles, e.g., Euthymios of Sardis, Theodore Graptos, and Lazaros, but in 854, Empress Theodora and Theoktistos engineered the Triumph of Orthodoxy. Although several church councils in the 860s and 870s condemned Iconoclasm again, it was no longer a major issue. Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas While Byzantine sources blame external factors like Jewish magicians and Caliph Yazīd II for influencing Leo III and his supporters. Many scholars favor an ideological interpretation: Iconoclasm was the revival of ancient polemics against religious art, which harbored vestiges of paganism; Leo III was trying to purify religious doctrine and practice because God was punishing the Byzantine for idolatry with the Muslim menace and natural disasters, e.g., earthquake on Thera (726). Others emphasize economic motives: the emperors used Iconoclasm to confiscate monastic and ecclesiastical property. More recently, scholars have stressed the role of imperial power: iconoclasm was the climax of caesaropapism; the reestablishment of the traditional imperial cult, or the effort of emperors to establish their authority in ecclesiastical matters at a time when they were under pressure to regenerate Byzantine society and ward of its external enemies. Another explanation considers Iconoclasm against the backdrop of the crisis of early Byzantine cities: for the secular clergy, particularly bishops, the potentially centrifugal nature of the cult of saints—physically localized and emotionally privatized by holy men, icons, relics, and monasteries—threatened their ability to retain a centralized ecclesiastical authority that could define the holy and shore up the weakened structures of Byzantine civic life. Economic and political factors played important roles in the development of Iconoclasm, but the central issue of the controversy was the doctrine of salvation. By the 8th century, the Orthodox victory in the dispute over Christ’s human and divine natures had affirmed the possibility of man’s ascent to God, but without delimiting the instrumentality of salvation or the position of the holy in Byzantine society. Iconoclasts were genuinely concerned that increasing devotion to icons, by effacing the distinction between the material image and its spiritual prototype, was encouraging idolatry and thus blurring the crucial distinction between the sacred and the profane. The Iconoclasts accepted only the Eucharist, the church building, and the sign of the cross as being fully holy, because only those objects had been consecrated by God directly or through a priest and were thus capable of bringing human beings in contact with the divine, whereas icons and relics were illegitimately consecrated from below by popular veneration. Iconoclasm’s outcome was a partial victory for both sides. The Iconophiles, aided by thinkers such as John of Damascus and Theodore of Stoudios, won the theological battle by formulating a theory of images regarding icons as efficacious vehicles of the holy and having it formally endorsed as Orthodoxy. John of Damascus wrote many polemical works especially against the Iconoclasts (e.g., the Apologia of St. John of Damascus against those who decry Holy Images29; accordingly, the Council of Hieria (754) anathematized him as a supporter of the Saracens and a teacher of impiety. John developed the Orthodox theory of six types of icon: the natural image as originating from the prototype; the idea (ennoia), preexisting in God, of things; man as imitation (mimesis) of God; visible objects aiming at the representation of the invisible; corporeal objects that symbolize and presage the future; and objects reminiscent of the past. Yet the Iconophiles owed their triumph to sympathetic emperors, whose authority over church affairs was thereby strengthened. In particular, imperial jurisdiction over monasteries was established: strong, centralized monasteries (e.g., Stoudios) were undermined and increasingly replaced by smaller, less cenobitic monasteries under state patronage and control. Moreover, religious dissidents (e.g., Theodore of Stoudios) failed in appeals to Rome to counter imperial efforts to dictate religious policy. The flight of many active monastic Iconophiles to the West permitted conformists like Photios and Euthymios to hold the patriarchate. Among other consequences, the Iconoclasts’ reliance on non-representational religious art contributed to the exaltation of the cult

29 http://www.balamand.edu.lb/theology/Joicons.htm Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas of the cross, while in the West imperial support for Iconoclasm provoked denunciations from popes Gregory II and III and pushed the papacy further toward dependence on the Franks.

Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The Synod of Hieria, or the Local Council of Hieria (754) was called by Constantine V (10Feb-8Aug 754) at the palace of Hieria in Chalcedon to condemn the veneration of icons as idolatrous and pagan. The council regarded itself as having ecumenical authority, but this claim was rejected subsequently by the church because four out of the five patriarchs had refused to participate. Actually the see of Constantinople was itself vacant at the time. The 338 bishops in attendance were guided primarily by the emperor's own theology and devotion to Iconoclasm. The place of president was occupied by Archbishop Theodosius of Ephesus, already known to us as son of a former Emperor--Apsimar, from the beginning an assistant in the iconoclastic movement. Their dogmatic definition insisted that a pictorial representation in any form was idolatry (a violation of the commandment, "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them" Exo. 20:4-5) and any veneration of icons was impossible. They argued that an icon of Christ either depicted his humanity alone or both his humanity and divinity, i.e., it either separated Christ's human nature from his divine (which was Nestorianism) or it confused the two (which was Monophysitism). Indeed, the only true image of Christ, representing him in his totality, was the Eucharist. This ingenious Christological argument was later condemned as heretical in the Council of Nicea (787); this argument was clearly intended to go beyond the purely scriptural prohibition of images used previously by Iconoclasts. The last sessions of this Conciliabulum were held no longer in Hieria, but in the Blachernae of Constantinople. We have no complete Acts of this assembly, but its very verbose oros (decree), together with a short introduction, is preserved solely in the acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicea II). This council declared all pictures of Christ and the saints forbidden by the Second Commandment, and ordered them to be removed from the churches which were to be decorated with pictures of birds, flowers, and fruit. It also tried to destroy monasticism, forbade the use of the monk's habit, and turned the monasteries into barracks.

Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The Seventh and Last Ecumenical Council (24Sept-13Oct 787), known as Nicea II, was held under the patronage of Empress Irene and under the presidency of Patriarch Tarasios. Roughly 350 bishops and two papal legates brought the first period of iconoclasm to an end. Irene was planning to reverse her predecessor's policy was momentarily blocked when iconoclastic sympathizing soldiers dissolved its first meeting in Constantinople (31July 786). Only in the following year (24Sept) did the council meet again, this time in Nicea, where all sessions took place, except the eighth and last formal session (in Constantinople). Its dogmatic degree condemned the "pseudo-council" of Hieria (754) and formally defined the veneration due to images. Its justification was based, above all, on the reality of Christ's historic incarnation: the visible and paintable incarnate Christ permitted and, indeed, required pictorial representation. The council carefully distinguished between legitimized veneration for icons (proskuneo, I bow the knee or I venerate) and absolute worship (latreia) -- which was only due God. If the latter was directed to images, it would be unlawful as a form of idolatry. Even in the case of proskuneo, the true object of honor was never the image, but that which was depicted. Many anathemas were pronounced on the iconoclasts and those who did not salute and venerate images, or those who call the images and relics idols, or upon those who communicate with those who dishonor the images. The minutes also threatened that those who do not teach like the Iconophiles would be cast out of the church. Charlemagne, using ultimately political motives condemned this at Frankfurt in 794 -- unlike Pope Hadrian I who had approved the council. We have preserved fragments of the minutes of the sessions, part of Pope Hadrian's letter. Many of the other statements in the canon include a refutation of Arius and Nestorius and Eutyches and Severos, and a declaration of the Theotokos, a reaffirmation of the six ecumenical synods/councils and that the clergy must observe "the holy canons," which include the Apostolic, those of the six previous Ecumenical Councils, those of the particular synods which have been published at other synods, and those of the Fathers, candidates for a bishop's orders must know the Psalter by heart and must have read thoroughly, not cursorily, all the sacred Scriptures, bishops cannot be elected by princes, bishops to abstain from receiving gifts, how to deal with Jews, relics are to be placed in all churches and that no church is to be consecrated without relics, to bring out the heretical books and give them up, provincial synods are to be held annually, not to leave the diocese of one bishop to go to another without knowledge of the bishop, the new authority of an oeconomi over Ecumenical palaces and monasteries, that a clerk should not be appointed over two churches, that one in holy orders should not be garbed in costly apparel, and the finishing of buildings, no double-monasteries, and that monks are not to leave their monasteries and go into others, and how monks should eat in the presence of women. However, the main issue appears to be over the issue of icons.

Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The Synod of Frankfurt met in 794 as an important imperial and ecclesiastical council, convening in the Royal Palace. It condemns as idolatry the Council of Nicaea's (II) support for icon veneration. The Libri Carolini (Books of Charles, or the Caroline books) were a treatise in four books, primarily containing a violent theological attack on this Second Council of Nicaea (787) and the cult of icon veneration, prepared ca. 790-793 in the name of Charlemagne by his entourage, particularly Theodulf of Orleans. It is a grave theological treatise in which both the Iconoclastic council of 754 of Hieria and its opponent, the aforementioned Nicene Council (787) are brought before the bar of Frankish criticism and judged equally erroneous, the former for excluding all images from the churches as sheer idolatry, the latter for advocating an absolute adoration of images. The Libri Carolini was evidently revised (some 85 obnoxious passages were gathered from this document and presented to Pope Hadrian I by Abbot Angilbert for correction) and then abandoned because of the reluctance of Pope Hadrian I to condemn the council. The aggressively formulated refutation of the Byzantine council survives in the original manuscript and still bears in the margins what may be notes of Charlemagne’s oral comments. The Libri Carolini expresses polemical outrage at the relics of the imperial cult embedded in Byzantine etiquette and official jargon (1.1-4) and assails the role of the imperial portraits in Byzantine public life (3.15). The treatise was motivated in part by imperfect Latin translations of the original Greek acts (latreia [worship] of God and proskynesis of icons were both rendered as adoratio, whence the charge of idolatry) and in part by the political and military competition with Constantinople, perhaps aggravated by a perceived rapprochement between the Papacy and Constantinople. Charlemagne was at this time much irritated against the Greek Empress Irene, partly for the failure of the marriage projected between her son and his daughter Rotrudis, partly for the protection and help she was affording to Adelchis, the son of the dethroned King of Lombardy, to which may be added a certain jealousy of any authority over his Frankish subjects by a Greek council in which they had taken no part. Some believe that he was even then contemplating the assumption of the imperial title, and was therefore only too willing to discredit Greek authority wherever possible. One of the quotes from the text goes:

Apart from the [unrecognized] errors of the translation, the acts and decrees of the Seventh General Council offended in various ways the customs and opinions of the Teutonic world where heathenism, but lately vanquished, was still potent in folk life and manners. The rude semi-heathen Teuton might easily misunderstand in an idolatrous sense the honors awarded to images, as yet few in number owing to the uncultivated taste of the people. While, therefore, images were tolerated, they were not yet encouraged and held but a subordinate place. The Greeks had always reverenced highly, not alone the person of the Emperors, but also their portraits and statues, and in this respect incense and prostrations (Gr. Proskynesis, Lat. adoratio) were immemorial usages. It seemed to them, therefore, that they could not otherwise pay due reverence to the images of the Savior and the saints. It was otherwise with the Germans, unaccustomed to prostrate themselves or to bend the knee before their kings. Such acts seemed fitted to express that adoration (latreia) which was due to God alone; when exhibited to others they were frequently a source of scandal. In the Teutonic mind, moreover, the freer ecclesiastical life of the West already shone by contrast with the extravagance of Oriental emperor- worship.30

30 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03371b.htm Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas

The Synod (or Local Council) of Constantinople met in Hagia Sophia in the Spring 815, and marks the second restoration of Iconoclasm (the second period of Iconoclasm, 814-43). The iconodule patriarch Nikephoros I ) became one of the chief defenders of images in this second persecution. The emperor invited him to a discussion of the question with the Iconoclasts; he refused since it had been already settled by the Seventh General Council. The work of demolishing images began again. The picture of Christ restored by Irene over the iron door of the palace, was again removed. In December, 814, Nicephorus had a long conference with the emperor on the veneration of images but no agreement was reached. Later the patriarch sent several learned bishops and abbots to convince him of the truth of the position of the Patriarch on the veneration of images. The emperor wished to have a debate between representatives of the opposite dogmatic opinions, but the adherents of the veneration of images refused to take part in such a conference, as the Seventh Ecumenical Council had settled the question. Then Nicephorus called together an assembly of bishops and abbots at the Church of St. Sophia at which he excommunicated the perjured Bishop Anthony of Sylaeum. A large number of the laity were also present on this occasion and the patriarch with the clergy and people remained in the church the entire night in prayer. In 815 the patriarch was summoned to the emperor's presence. He came surrounded by bishops, abbots, and monks, and held a long discussion with Leo and his Iconoclast followers. Nicephorus first had a long, private conversation with the emperor, in which he vainly endeavored to dissuade Leo from his opposition to the veneration of images. The emperor received those who had accompanied Nicephorus, among them seven metropolitans and Abbot Theodore of Studium. They all repudiated the interference of the emperor in dogmatic questions and once more rejected Leo's proposal to hold a conference. The emperor then commanded the abbots to maintain silence upon the matter and forbade them to hold meetings. Theodore declared that silence under these conditions would be treason and expressed sympathy with the patriarch whom the emperor forbade to hold public service in the church. Nicephorus fell ill; when he recovered the emperor called upon him to defend his course before a synod of bishops friendly to iconoclasm. But the patriarch would not recognize the synod and paid no attention to the summons. The “pseudo-synod” now commanded that he should no longer be called patriarch. His house was surrounded by crowds of angry Iconoclasts who shouted threats and invectives. He was guarded by soldiers and not allowed to perform any official act. With a protest against this mode of procedure the patriarch notified Leo that he found it necessary to resign the patriarchal see. Upon this he was arrested at midnight in March, 815, and was deposed by the emperor shortly before the council and replaced by the Iconoclast Theodotos I (Theodotus Cassiteras). Promoted by Leo V, who was convinced that the military disasters of his imperial predecessors, Irene and Nikephoros I, were caused by their support of images, the council repudiated the decisions of Nicaea II (787) and reaffirmed the decisions of the Synod of Hieria (754). Although a committee headed by John VII Grammatikos had assembled a florilegium in preparation for the council, its renewed opposition to image veneration was based on a repetition of the Christological arguments of Hieria: an icon either depicts the uncircumscribable Godhead, or else divides the Lord’s humanity from his divinity, thus compounding the evil. The council’s definition of doctrine (Horos) called icons “spurious” and ordered their destruction, but (unlike Hieria) refrained from declaring them idols. Only fragments of the acts of 815 survive. We also have Nikephoros’ works: "Lesser Apology", "Antirrhetikoi", "Greater Apology” and a history of his own time. He was banished to the monastery of St. Theodore, which he had built on the Bosporus. Patrology 5011 Author: Chris Lee Dr. G. Dragas The Triumph of Orthodoxy was the final defeat of Iconoclasm in 843, celebrated as the Sunday of Orthodoxy on the first Sunday of Lent. After Emperor Theophilos died (842), the eunuch Theoktistos overcame the reluctance of Empress Theodora to permit the restoration of icons by arranging that Theophilos would not be condemned. He deposed of Patriarch John VII Grammatikos, secured the appointment of Methodios I, and conducted a series of meetings (some in his own house) that, using an argument of Oikonomia (that God works through revelation and the sacraments, that man needs to participate in the divine being [deification, theosis], and that salvation is the direct encounter of men with the Holy Spirit, mystical redemption), definitively ended the controversy. This was considered by some to be a Endemousa (Regional) Synod. On 11March 843, Theodora, Theoktistos, and Methodios made a symbolic triumphal process from the Church of the Theotokos in Blachernai, an Iconophile center, to Hagia Sophia, formerly in the Iconoclast’s hands; there they celebrated a liturgy to mark the occasion. An annual feast was established by the end of the 9th century; it is mentioned in the Kletorologion of Philotheos and described in the Book of Ceremonies but does not exist in the Typikon of the Great Church; the Synaxarion of Constantinople admits it only in a later addition. The celebration included a procession from the Blachernai to Hagia Sophia, where the emperor joined the assemblage and a banquet was given either by the patriarch or the emperor. A church service devoted to the “triumph over the heretics” included a reading of the anathema of 843 and the singing of the kanones composed by Theophanes Graptos and Patriarch Methodios. The feast was called the day of the Enkaninia, or dedication of churches, since churches were to be construed not only as splendid sacred buildings but as communities of the pious. Over the centuries numerous panegyrics, hymns, and sermons were composed for the holiday. The personalities associated with the Triumph in 843 were celebrated in Palaiologan art: an icon of ca. 1400 now in the British Museum shows Hodegetria attended by Theodora and Michael III on one side and Patriarch Methodios on the other, while a row of monastic saints below includes Theodore of Stoudios holding a circular image of the sort represented in the marginal Psalters produced shortly after 843. This ended the second and final period of Iconoclasm.