East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church: From Apostolic Times until the Council of Florence (Oxford History of the Christian Church)

316 Pages·2005·13.071 MB·English

by  Henry Chadwick

OXFORD HISTORY OF
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Edited by
Henry and Owen Chadwick
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Sine qua non
PREFATORY NOTE
Special thanks are due to support from the officers of Oxford University
Press, especially Hilary O’Shea, Jenny Wagstaffe, Lucy Qureshi, and Dr
Leoffanc Holford-Strevens, and to many patient librarians in both Oxford
and Cambridge.
CONTENTS
Abbreviations
IX
i. Introduction
1
(Early Christian Diversity: The Quest for Coherence 2
3. The Roots of Diverg ence
7
4. Differences in Theology
U
V Emperor Theodosius: Council of Constantinople (381) 20
dy Augustine: Filioque?
27
7. Constantinople’s growing power: Socrates the Historian 34
8. The Unity of Christ: Devotion to Mary 40
9. Zeno’s Henotikon, Rome’s Fury, and the Acacian Schism:
Dionysius Exiguus
50
10. Three Chapters: The Fifth Council (553)
55
11. One Energy, One Will
59
12. The Sixth Council (680—1). Council in Trullo (692) 64
13. Icons
7i
14. The Papacy and the Franks
77
15. Aachen as Third Rome: Caroline Books; Filioque\ Eriugena
83
16. Pope Nicolas I
95
17. Hincmar of Reims 103
18. Jurisdiction: Illyricum, Bulgars. Paulicians 106
19. Pope Nicolas’ Advice to the Bulgar Khan. Rome’s Saturday Fast
113
20. Problems at Constantinople: Patriarch Ignatius 119
21. Photius 124
22. Pope Nicolas I Supports Ignatius
134
23. Ignatius’ Retrial: Nicolas Excommunicates Photius
139
24. Deterioration in Relations
147
2^ The Case against the Latins: Photius’ Mystagogia 153
26. Photius’ Break with Nicolas: Nicolas Invokes Hincmar’s Help:
Basil the Macedonian: Photius Deposed 158
27. Basil I: Ignatius Restored. The Synod of 869: Pope Hadrian II 164
28. Photius Restored. Pope John VIII. The Council of 879 173
29. The Emperor Leo VI the Wise: Photius Deposed 182
30. Greek Critics of Photius: Photius Honours Ignatius’ Memory 185
viii Contents
31. Liudprand of Cremona in Constantinople 193
32. ) The Normans in the South: Cardinal Humbert: The Council of
Rome (1059): Unleavened Bread 200
33. Pope Leo IX’s Legation to Constantinople (1054): Humbert
and Cerularius 206
34. Peter Damian: Gregory VII: Theophylact of Ochrid 219
35. Pope Urban II: Anselm of Canterbury at Bari 222
36. Anselm ofHavelberg 228
37. Crusades: Fall of Constantinople (1204): Innocent III:
Balsamon
233
-'V •
38. East—West Debates at Nicaea and Nymphaion 238
39. Purgatory 244
40. ; Michael Palaeologus’ Renewed Quest for Unity:
Pope Gregory X: Council of Lyon: Bekkos 246
41. The Councils of Basel and Ferrara/Florence: Pope Eugenius IV 258
Epilogue
275
Bibliography 277
Index
281
ABBREVIATIONS
ACO Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum
Acta Latina
Acta Latina Concilii Florentini, ed. G. Hofmann (Concilium
Florentinum: documenta et scriptores, B vi; Rome, 1955)
An. Boll. Analecta Bollandiana
Coleti
N. Coleti, Sacrosancta concilia ad regiam editionem exacta, 23
vols. (Venice, 1728—33)
Deusdedit Die Kanonessammlung des Kardinals Deusdedit, ed. V. Wolf von
Glanvell (Paderborn, 1905)
Greek Acts Quae supersunt actorum Graecorum Concilii Florentini, ed.J. Gill,
2 vols. (Concilium Florentinum: documenta et scriptores, B
v; Rome, 1953)
Hardouin J. Hardouin, Conciliorum collectio regia maxima, 12 vols. (Paris,
I7H-I5)
Iconoclasm A. Bryer and J. Herrin (eds.), Iconoclasm: Papers Given at the
Ninth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of
Birmingham, March 1975 (Birmingham, 1977)
JTS fournal of Theological Studies
LW Photius, Epistulae et Amphilochia, ed. V. Laourdas and L. G.
Westerink, 6 vols. (Leipzig, 1983-9)
Mansi J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 55
vols. (Florence etc., 1759—1962)
MGH Monumenta Germamae Historica
Epp. Epistulae
SRG Scriptores rerum Germanicarum
PG Patrologia Graeca
PL Patrologia Latina
Reg. Registrum
RP G. A. Rhalles and M. Potlis, Uvvraypca tcov Oeicov kcll
tepdov Kavovcov rcov re ayicov xai TravevfrjpLCOv
AtTOOToAcOV KCLL TO)V lepCOV OLKOVpLeVLKCOV xai totukoov
UvvoScov kcll rcov Kara pcepos lepdov TJarepajv, 6 vols.
(Athens, 1852-9)
Tanner Norman P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols.
(London and Washington, DC, 1990)
X Abbreviations
TU Texte und Untersuchungen
Will J. K. C. Will, Acta et scripta quae de controversiis ecclesiae Graecae
et Latinae saeculo undecimo composita extant (Leipzig and
Marburg, 1861; repr. Frankfurt am Main, 1963)
ZSSR Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftungfiir Rechtsgeschichte
I
INTRODUCTION
Religion when shared is one of the strongest of social bonds. When differ¬
ences appear whether of rite or calendar or social custom or liturgy or, above
all, basic allegiance, this powerful bonding becomes counterproductive and
easily engenders deep divisions. Perhaps the monotheistic religions manifest
these strong cleavages in an exceptional degree. In Judaism the differences
between observant and reformed synagogues can produce strongly felt
estrangements, so that to an observant Jewish believer it can be easier to talk
freely with a Gentile Christian than with a liberal reformed rabbi. In Islam
differences between Sunni and Shiite can lead to feelings of anger and alien¬
ation and even persecution. Christian history is scarred by splits—between
Chalcedonian and Monophysite (or pre-Chalcedonian), or between Roman
Cathohc and Evangelical Protestant (there are Evangelical Catholics), or
between Lutheran and Calvinist or between High Calvinist and Arminian.
But the greatest Chnstian split of all has been that between east and west,
between Roman Cathohc and eastern Orthodox. The medieval millennium
saw both sharp disagreements and several high-minded endeavours to heal
the breach. The points of difference still exist. Within the Roman Catholic
Church divergences of deep significance have occurred and are still alive
between (a) those for whom a sustained worldwide unity in a single com¬
munion is possible, indeed only conceivable and practicable, if and when the
bishop of one Church at Rome blessed with the founding role of the apostles
Peter and Paul in the capital of the then Gentile world is held to embody the
one wholly reliable and authentic source of doctrine and rule of hfe, and (b)
those for whom the necessarily limited apprehension of one man, however
wise and saintly (as not all popes have been), offers too narrow a basis and for
whom the common mind of a universal Church has to have a more concil¬
iar and collegial expression.
2
EARLY CHRISTIAN DIVERSITY:
THE QUEST FOR COHERENCE
To the Christian community at Corinth in which diversity appeared more
prominent than unity, the apostle Paul wrote (i Cor. 11: 18) I hear that there
are divisions among you.’ The reader of the letter discovers that the divisions
went deep. Were they really one body? The apostle certainly treats them as
such. There is no hint that chapter 6, for instance, addressed to a group which
believed the spirituality of grace to exempt them from observing rules against
sexual licence, is not written to correct the same group as that addressed in
chapter 7, where the ascetics were claiming that the spiritual experience of
grace forbids sex even within marriage. The two incompatible parties are
treated by St Paul as belonging together in Christ, but in need of discipline
and correction. Yet later in the letter (11: 19) the diversity within the
community is regarded as making it possible to judge who is right and who
is wrong; there is no question of any and every opinion being acceptable
merely because some group within the Christian society so professes. Dissent
clarifies orthodoxy.
The Greek word haeresis ordinarily means a school of thought, a
philosophical tendency, but does not necessarily carry a pejorative sense. In
Christian usage it came to carry a negative connotation for a faction becom¬
ing a separate body, whether withdrawing itself or being extruded from the
main community, or then by easy derivation for the characteristic doctrines
maintained by the dissenting group. The original etymological sense of haere¬
sis as meaning ‘choice’ reasserted itself and the term came to be used to affirm
that the dissenters were deliberately, indeed obstinately in face of correction,
preferring their private speculative opinions to the accepted mind of the
community taken as a whole, whose coherence they seemed to threaten.
The first-century churches developed in different ways, and four distinct
narratives of the life and teaching of Jesus were produced, one (John) being
so different from the other three that in the second century there were
serious disputes about its acceptance. Second-century tradition known to
Papias of Hieropolis attributed to the apostle Matthew a collection of Jesus’
sayings in Aramaic. A comparable collection was used in differing ways by