The Dark Ages Collection. David Hume
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of Flavian; no further action was called for; the Church was at peace. If the question had been simply doctrinal and no political considerations had intervened, the decision of the “Robber Council” might have been the last word in Eastern Christendom. But that Council had been a triumph for Alexandria, and the prestige which Dioscorus acquired was a menace not only to Old Rome — he promptly excommunicated Leo — but also to New Rome. This danger could not long be ignored, and the death of Theodosius was followed by a change of policy at Constantinople.
Marcian resolved to terminate the ecclesiastical despotism which the Alexandrian bishops sought to impose upon the East, and Anatolius, who through the influence of Dioscorus had succeeded Flavian as Patriarch, did not scruple to lend himself to a new policy and to subscribe the Dogmatic Epistle of Leo. Marcian wrote to Leo agreeing to his request for a new Council, but insisting that it should meet in the East. Then the Pope changed his tactic. He claimed, as before, that his own Epistle was sufficient to settle the whole matter, and did all he could to prevent the meeting of a Council.25 But Marcian knew that, however wonderful Leo’s Epistle might be, a Council would be indispensable to satisfy public opinion in the Eastern Churches, and he summoned a Council for the autumn (A.D. 451). Leo rather sulkily yielded.26 In October an unusually large assembly of ecclesiastics27 met at Chalcedon, and the presidency, which meant the right of first recording his vote, was given to the legate of the Pope.
It was the common object of Leo and of Marcian to procure the deposition of Dioscorus, and in this they succeeded, but not without exercising moral violence. Most of the bishops, including Anatolius who really agreed with Dioscorus, voted against their consciences and relinquished the formula in which they believed. But, while Leo desired that his epistle should be accepted as it stood, Marcian saw that a new formula, which should indeed take account of the Pope’s statement, would be less unacceptable in the East. Accordingly the Council decreed that the true doctrine was contained in certain writings of Cyril28 as well as in Leo’s epistle; and described Jesus Christ as complete in his humanity as well as in his divinity; one and the same Christ in two natures, without confusion or change, division or separation;29 each nature concurring30 into one person and one hypostasis.
The doctrine of the Fourth Ecumenical Council is still accepted as authoritative in the Churches of Christendom. It is interesting to learn the judgment of one of the most learned living theologians. The Council of Chalcedon, “which we might call the Robber and the Traitor Council, betrayed the secret of the Greek faith.” “The disgrace attaching to this Council consists in the fact that the great majority of the bishops who held the same views as Cyril and Dioscorus finally allowed a formula to be forced upon them, which was that of strangers, of the Emperor and the Pope, and which did not correspond to their belief.”31 But the truth is that the definition of Chalcedon might be interpreted in different ways. To Leo and the Western Church it meant one thing; to the followers of Cyril another; to Antiochians and Theodoret, something different which Nestorius himself could have accepted.32
Politically, the Council was a decisive triumph for Constantinople and a final blow to the pretensions of the see of Alexandria. Marcian completed what Theodosius the Great had begun. Three successive Patriarchs, Theophilus, Cyril, and Dioscorus, had aimed at attaining to the supreme position in Eastern Christendom and at ruling Egypt like kings. Alexandria could never again claim to lead the Church in theology. But the defeat of Alexandria was accompanied by an exaltation of Byzantium which was far from acceptable to Rome. By the twenty-eighth Canon equal privileges with Rome were granted to the see of Constantinople, all the episcopal sees of the Dioceses of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus were assigned to the jurisdiction of the Patriarch. The Roman legates protested against this Canon, and Leo refused to confirm it.33
Dioscorus was deposed by the Council, and was banished to Gangra. Feeling ran so high at Alexandria that the aid of soldiers was required to establish his successor Proterius.
In Egypt and Syria there was a solid mass of opinion loyal to the doctrine of one nature, and firmly opposed to the formula of Chalcedon. These Monophysites, as they were called, were far too numerous and earnest to be stamped out; they ultimately created the national Coptic Church of Egypt. Throughout the reign of Leo I the dispute over the meaning of the Incarnation led to scenes of the utmost violence in Alexandria and to occurrences hardly less scandalous in Antioch.
At Jerusalem the Monophysites obtained the upper hand after the Council of Chalcedon, and a reign of terror prevailed for some time. The episode derives interest from the association of the Empress Eudocia, who was living there in retirement, with the Monophysitic cause.34 A monk named Theodosius, who was a zealous supporter of Dioscorus, gained the ear of the people, and the bishop of Jerusalem, Juvenal, when he returned from the Council, was forced to flee for his life, because he refused to renounce the doctrine which he had subscribed. Theodosius was ordained bishop, and methods of the utmost violence were adopted to coerce those who refused to communicate with him. He was supported by Eudocia, who had been a devoted admirer of Cyril and was led to believe that Cyril’s doctrine was identical with that of Dioscorus and had been condemned at Chalcedon. The Emperor Marcian at length took strong measures; Theodosius fled to Mount Sinai, and Juvenal was restored to his see.35 Eudocia after some years began to feel doubts about her theology and she consulted the pillar saint, Simeon, who recommended her to seek the advice of Euthymius, abbot of the convent of Sahel, a few miles east of Jerusalem. An interview with the monk showed the Empress the error of her ways, and she died in the faith of Chalcedon.
The Christian religion, with its theology which opened such a wide field for differences of opinion, had introduced into the Empire dangerous discords which were a sore perplexity to the government. In some ways it augmented, in others it weakened, the power of the State to resist its external enemies. It cannot be maintained — as we have already seen — that it was one of the causes which contributed to the dismemberment of the Empire in the West by the Teutonic peoples; and subsequently, the religious communion, which was preserved throughout political separation, helped the Empire to recover some of the territory it had lost. In the East, bitter theological divisions, consequent on the Council of Chalcedon,36 facilitated the Saracen conquest of the provinces of Syria and Egypt, but afterwards, in the diminished Empire, the State religion formed a strong bond and fostered the growth of a national spirit which enabled the Imperial power to hold out for centuries against surrounding foes.
§ 2. The Controversy on Predestination, and the Growth of the Papal Power
The subtle questions on the nature of the Incarnation, which were so hotly disputed by the Greeks and Orientals, created little or no disturbance in western Europe. But in the early years of the fifth century the western provinces were agitated by a heresy of their own, on a subject which had more obviously practical bearings, but involved no less difficult theological metaphysics. The Pelagian controversy concerned free will and original sin. Pelagius, probably a Briton of Irish extraction,37 propagated the views that man possesses the power of choosing between good and evil, and that there is no sin where there is not a voluntary choice of evil; that sin is not inherited; that man can live, and some men actually have lived, sinless; and that unbaptized infants attain to eternal life.38 The controversy is memorable because these doctrines found their chief antagonist in Augustine and led him gradually to develop the predestinarian theories which had such a powerful influence on subsequent theology. He maintained that sin was transmitted to all men from Adam; that man, by the mere gift of free will, cannot choose aright without the constant operation of grace; that no man has ever lived a sinless life; that infants dying unbaptized are condemned, as a just punishment for the sin which they inherited. As time went on, Augustine developed his theory, which raised the whole question of the origin of evil into a system which, while it professed to admit the freedom of the will, really annulled it. God, he said, decided from eternity to save some members of the human race from the consequence of sin; he fixed the number of the saved, which can be neither increased nor diminished, and on these favoured few he bestows the gifts of grace which are necessary for their salvation. The rest perish eternally, if not through their own transgressions, through the effects of original sin. This is not unjust, because there is no reason why God should give