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Preface
. in his rebus tot diversa dispersaque consideranda sunt, ut diem die docert memores esse debeamus neque quidquam tam anxie vitare quam pertinaciam in errore
(E. Schwartz, ACO II, III, praef. 1)
Completing an essay on the presence of the Empress Pulcheria at the sixth session of the Council of Chalcedon, Eduard Schwartz, in the late nineteen twenties, complained: “acta conciliorum non leguntur.” ‘This was, of course, before the appearance of his own monumental edition of the council. But the observation remains true. Yet there is always the possibility that the recalling of the fortunes and vicissitudes of our forebears may help the men of today to clarify in some measure the problems of the moment. At. the very least, a knowledge of the present, an acquaintance with the motiva- tions and machinations behind men’s hopes and ambitions in the affairs of the hour, may help us to appreciate the historical unfolding of the past, and to understand to a degree what our ancestors were trying to achieve and why they failed or succeeded.
It was with such thoughts in mind that the present study was undertaken in anticipation of the fifteenth centenary of the Fourth General Council of the Church, held at Chalcedon from October eighth to the thirty-first, A.D. 451. Intended as an historical commentary on as well as a synthesis of the acts of the council, the present work includes in fresh translation the more important documents of the council, e.g., the Tome of Pope Leo, the dogmatic portions of St. Cyril’s Letter to Bishop John of Antioch, the Definition of Faith rendered by the council, the Creeds of Nicaea, and of Constantinople, the allocution of the Emperor Marcian, the so-called ‘twenty-eighth canon’, and the report of the bishops to both the Emperor and the Pope. An attempt has been made to portray events as they took place, with special attention to their setting. Such individual prob- lems, however, as the source of the Definition, and the specific theological developments of the council have been treated in articles by the author in Theological Studies (December, 1951) and the American Ecclesiastical Review (October and December, 1951).
Six hundred bishops assembled at Chalcedon in October, 451, on the Emperor Marcian’s invitation to discuss the possibility of achiev- ing theological unity. They were the articulate representatives of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. It was hoped that through their doctrinal and disciplinary decisions, political and social peace would return to the Emperor’s domain.
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On the council’s agenda was, first of all, a disciplinary problem. It was charged with holding a judicial review of the proceedings of a previous synod held at Ephesus in 449, wherein, under the direction of Dioscorus, archbishop of Alexandria, the orthodox and saintly bishop of Constantinople, Flavian, had been condemned, and the heretical archimandrite Eutyches, had been exonerated. This synod had since been branded by the Pope, St, Leo the Great, as illud Ephesenum, non iudicium sed latrocinium—the ‘Robber Synod’ of Ephesus.
Involved likewise at Chalcedon was the exalted theological problem presented by the duality of natures and the unity of Person in the Incarnation of the Son of God, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The Church had always believed and taught that the Second Person of the Trinity was at once both God and man; but considerable difficulty had developed in the manner of explaining, or more par- ticularly, of expressing the relationship between the two natures in Christ. Schools of theological thought had formed, and there was rivalry between them. Of recent years, moreover, the doctrinal diffi- culty had been complicated by the anti-Nestorian terminology of St. Cyril of Alexandria, whose pharaoh-like political influence throughout Egypt and the East had awakened the patriarchal ambitions of the other sees—Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and had pre- cipitated a resurgence of nationalism in these quarters that in the end was to nullify the unitary achievement of the assembly at Chalcedon.
Doctrinally, at Chalcedon, then, in accordance with the prescrip- tions of Pope Leo’s Tome, it was duly reiterated that in the Person of Jesus Christ two natures, a human and a divine, were substantially united, each retaining its proper identity and activities. This theo- logical decision has been of the utmost importance for the doctrinal belief of Christendom. It has meant that the Church universal acknowledges explicitly that Jesus Christ is at once both God and man, equal to the Father and the Holy Ghost in His divinity, of the same substance and formation as other human beings in His humanity. It is the foundation upon which is based the Church’s teaching regarding the relation between the human and the divine activities of the Savior, and that of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It underlies such intimate devotions in the Church’s life as the adoration given to the Body of Christ, the Sacred Heart, and the Precious Blood. It has become, in modern times, a line of demarcation between those who legitimately call themselves Chris- tians and the adherents of all other pseudo-Christian faiths.
In the juridical sphere, the council, after condemning the arch- bishop of Alexandria, recognized the claim of the see of Constan-
PREFACE xi
tinople to come second after that of Rome in precedence and honor because of its importance as the capital of the Empire. This con- ciliar decision was rejected by Pope Leo on the grounds that it broke with canonical precedent, since Constantinople was not a bishopric of apostolic origin as were Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. In spite of the controversy and bad feeling that followed, the Pope remained intransigent. ‘This proved unfortunate. For Leo’s opposi- tion to the political aspect of the council’s doings was utilized by the doctrinal foes of the council in their battle against the Emperor’s unitary decrees. The result was schism, and eventually the heresy of Monophysitism that infected Egypt and much of the non-Greek East.
It was not, however, the Pope’s intransigence that was the source of the disunity; nor was it his doctrinal terminology and dictation. It was rather the failure of the assembled bishops fully to resolve the apparent discrepancies in doctrinal statement, not so much on the part of Leo’s Tome, as between the original litigants—the theo- logians of the Antiochene school and the partisans of St. Cyril. The Pope in his Letter to the Council explicitly admonished the assem- bled fathers to adhere to the decisions of the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), at which Cyril’s influence had prevailed. Unfortunately, in concentrating on the deposition of Cyril’s successor, Dioscorus, and in insisting upon settling the question of Constantinopolitan precedence, the council gave insufficient attention to the Pope’s instruction.
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Unalterably offended by what they chose to consider a rejection of St. Cyril at Chalcedon, the leaders of the Church in Egypt, while themselves condemning the heresy imputed to Eutyches, parted with both Rome and Constantinople. They turned for support to the
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monks of the Syrian and Egyptian deserts. ‘Thus did Monophysitism | gain its foothold and destroy the unity of both Church and Empire | until the vast territory it infected was finally overrun by the warriors |
The Council of Chalcedon was a prelude to all this. Hence, on this the fifteenth centenary of its convocation, the present study would seem to be especially appropriate. It remains but to hope that a consideration of the problems discussed by the Council may be of some value in helping us to understand the ideological disorgan- ization of our present world whose roots, despite the social economic and political aspect of the present emergency, are ultimately religious.
A word of thanks is due to Professor Martin R. P. McGuire, of The Catholic University of America, whose encouragement and help have done so much to make the present work possible, to Rev. Dr.
of Islam. eats S
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Alfred Rush, C.SS.R. and Rev. Dr. Stephen McKenna, C.SS.R., who patiently read the manuscript and made valuable suggestions, and to _ the Catholic University of America Press for accepting this volume for publication.
F. X. M.
St. Mary’s Chapel Fort Riley, Kansas sept. 21, 1951