II. THE CANONS OF THE SECOND SYNOD have a style quite different from those of the first, are not so simple,
5. As at Rome, and in the East, and in all Africa and Italy, on account of the heretics who deny the eternity of the Son of God (Arians), in all
1. All priests in the parishes must, as is already the very wholesome
see in a manner as arbitrary as his grandfather Theoderic the Great had done at the elevation of the previous Pope, Felix IV. Probably another part of the Roman clergy opposed him in this, and thus gave occasion for the schism. Whether Boniface or Dioscurus was protected by the King, cannot any longer be decided. I suppose, however, the former, since the name of his father, Sigisbold or Sigisvult, f381 shows that he belonged to the Gothic nation, and because the King, after the death of the anti-Pope, made no attempt to put another in his place. Pagi (ad ann. 530, n. 5) shows that Felix IV. died September 18, 530, and that Boniface was elected only three days later. We have already seen that others prefer 529. The schism lasted twenty-nine days; that is, until the death of Dioscurus, on October 14, put an end to it. The latter had by simony and such like means made himself a party; f382 for this reason the Roman Senate made a decree, that for the future every papal election should be altogether invalid, if the elect, either in his own person or by others, had made promises to anyone. f383
From this time Boniface was no longer annoyed by any opponent; and as the Gothic King made no endeavor to set up any other in opposition to him, but, on the contrary, spoke of him with the most respectful expressions, f384 and did not prevent him from treating his former opponents with harshness, this is a strong proof of our supposition that Boniface had, at the beginning, been set up by the King. The pontifical book does not conceal that this Pope now went to work very violently, and zelo et dolo ductus, cum grandi amaritudine brought back the clergy to obedience. An edict, in which he pronounced anathema on his former opponent Dioscurus, was placed by him in the archives of the church, and he demanded of the whole assembled clergy the subscription of this document. According to the words of the pontifical book, which are by no means clear, none of the bishops gave their signature; in the biography of Pope Agapetus, on the contrary, the same pontifical book says that Boniface, by violence and uncanonically, extorted the anathema on
Dioscurus from the bishops and priests, but that Agapetus, at his accession to office (A.D. 535), had this document burnt publicly in the church. f385 In the short period of the reign of Pope Boniface, there fell three Roman and several other Synods. The first Roman Synod he got together in the Basilica of S. Peter with the aim of preventing, at future papal elections, the renewal of troublesome occurrences, such as had happened at his own, perhaps also in order to take the appointment to the Roman see out of the hands of the heretical Gothic Kings. He presented here a constitutum,
which granted him the right to nominate his own successor; and after the sacerdotes had subscribed it, and sworn to observe it, he declared the deacon Vigilius his successor, at the grave of S. Peter. This was in opposition to the ancient laws of the Church, and met with much opposition, undoubtedly also from the Gothic King. The Pope himself, moreover, soon regretted his action, and therefore he assembled a second Roman Synod, at which the sacerdotes, out of respect for the Holy See, quashed (cassaverunt, not censuerunt) what had been done, and Boniface, in presence of the Sacerdotes (the bishops of the ecclesioe suburbicarioe,
†see vol. 1, page 397), probably because he had opposed the pretensions of the East Gothic King in regard to the papal election. f386 Both Synods undoubtedly belong to the year 531.
About the same time two Greek Synods were held at Larissa and
Constantinople. After the death of the Metropolitan Proclus of Larissa in Thessaly, Stephen, hitherto a layman and a warrior, had been elected in his place by the people and clergy, and all whose assent was necessary (so he says himself). In accordance with ancient custom, there assembled at Larissa, for his ordination, a provincial Synod, at which the well-to-do burgesses of the city were also present, and all the clergy. But the priest Antonius, and the bishops Demetrius of the Island of Sciathus and Probian of Demetrias, although they had themselves subscribed the document for the ordination of Stephen, and Probian had even delivered a laudatory speech about him, immediately betook themselves to Constantinople, and made complaints before the Patriarch Epiphanius, that the ordination of Stephen was uncanonical, and that another bishop must be appointed.
The Patriarch hereupon sent an edict to Larissa, in which he ordered Stephen to lay down his office, because he had been consecrated in opposition to the canons. He offered no proof of this, nor did he invite Stephen to offer a canonical defense. On the contrary, he interdicted the bishops of Thessaly and the clergy of Larissa from Church communion with Stephen, and forbade his receiving sustentation from the property of the Church. He treated him accordingly as a person already convicted, before having first instituted an inquiry. For the publication of this sentence he commissioned a certain Andrew (a cleric of Constantinople), who met Stephen, not at Larissa, but in Thessalonica, whither he had traveled, and where he read to him the letter of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Stephen immediately declared that he appealed to the Pope, to whom alone, if his election was to be objected to, the trial of the case belonged. But he was
against his will brought to Constantinople, and would there have been kept in chains, if some persons had not become responsible for him and his appearance at the residence. In this necessity he turned, by writing, to the Pope, and besought him in a very copious letter, full of the recognition of the Roman primacy, for support and deliverance. f387
In a second letter to the Pope, he informs him that after his arrival in Constantinople, the Patriarch had immediately held a su>nodov
ejndhmou~sa. Before this Stephen said he had declared his appeal to Rome, with the addition that the custom which had hitherto prevailed in the province of Thessaly should not be overthrown; nor must the consideration of the apostolic see, imparted by Christ and the holy canon, and preserved per antiquam consuetudinem, be violated. The Patriarch, he said, had paid no attention to this, and his principal aim had been to set himself forth as master and judge of the Churches of Thessaly. The Synod of
Constantinople had pronounced his deposition without allowing him a complete defense, and his appeal to Rome had only more increased the hatred against him. They had reproached him with having attempted to diminish the rights of the holy Church of the chief city. At the reading of the synodal sentence, however, he had declared his appeal, but was immediately conducted back to prison, and now earnestly prayed for help.
f388
The Patriarch did all in his power to prevent the complaints of Stephen from coming to Rome; but Bishop Theodosius of Echinus, a suffragan of Larissa, succeeded in getting to Italy, and conveyed the complaints of Stephen and of other bishops, with other documents bearing upon the subject. Hereupon Boniface held his third Roman Synod, December 7, 531, in consistorio B. Andreoe apostoli. This was a building adjoining — a kind of secretarium — to S. Peter’s Church. f389 Under the presidency of the Pope, there were present the Bishops Sabinus of Canusium, Abundantius of Demetrias, Carosus of Centumcellae, and Felix of Numentum, with many priests and deacons. The Archdeacon Tribunus announced that Bishop Theodosius of Echinus was at the door, and prayed to be admitted.
When this was granted, Theodosius handed in the documents of his Metropolitan Stephen of Larissa, which he had brought with him. After, at the command of the Pope, the first of these, directed to the Holy See, had been read, Abundantius rose, and remarked that twice in this document Probian was mentioned as bishop of Demetrias; while, in truth, he had obtained this see only by violence and deceit, and that Abundantius himself
was its rightful possessor. The Pope ordered that both the letter of Stephen and the statement of Abundantius should be received into the minutes; and then permitted the reading of the second letter, also addressed to him by Stephen. We have already known this, and after it had been embodied in the Acts, the first session closed, as it was towards evening.
The second session took place on the 9th of December. Theodosius of Echinus presented a third letter, which had emanated from three of Stephen’s suffragan bishops, and in which they gave the Pope an account of all that had taken place, and earnestly besought his help. These were the Bishops Elpidius of Thebae Phthioticae, Timothy of Diocaesarea, and Stephen of Lamia. Thereupon Theodosius of Echinus remarked that the Bishop of Rome had by right a claim to the primacy over all Churches in the whole world, but he had specially vindicated the Churches of Illyria for his government, f390 as was proved by a series of ancient documents which he had brought with him. The Pope ordered them to be read, and an examination to be made as to whether they agreed with those contained in the Roman archives, and were genuine. There were twenty-six letters, almost all from Popes — from Damasus, Siricius, Innocent I., Boniface I., Coelestine I., Xystus III., and Leo the Great; besides some letters from the Emperors Honorius, Theodosius, Valentinian III., and Marcian, as well as from Archbishop Anatolius of Constantinople, all from the middle of the fourth to the middle of the fifth century. All these letters are found in the minutes of the Synod; f391 but here they end, and all the rest is so
completely lost, that we do not know at all what the Synod finally decreed.
SEC. 245. THE RELIGIOUS CONFERENCE AT
CONSTANTINOPLE, A.D. 533, AND THE ALLEGED ROMAN SYNOD UNDER POPE JOHN II.
In the short account given above of the Monophysite heresy (sec. 208) we noticed a religious conference, which the Emperor Justinian held in the year 533 at Constantinople, between the orthodox and the Severians. The monk Severus, one of the leading opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, had, in the year 513, under the Emperor Anastasius, who was favorable to the Monophysites, been raised to the patriarchal see of Antioch. Although again deposed, after a few years, under the Emperor Justin I. he yet
remained the most important man among the Monophysites, and their most copious writer, and a special division among them received from him the name of Severians. In order to bring about, if possible, a union of this party
with the Church, the Emperor Justinian called together, some years after his ascension of the throne, six peculiarly able bishops of the orthodox — Hypatius of Ephesus, John of Vesina, Stephen of Seleucia, Anthimus of Trapezunt, Innocent of Maronia in Thrace, and Demetrius of Philippopolis;
and, on the other side, seven leaders of the Severians — Sergius of Cyrus, Thomas of Germanicia, Philoxenus of Dulichium, Peter of Theodosiopolis, John of Constantina, and Nonnus of Ceresina, — and requested them to take counsel together, in peace and gentleness, on the points of difference in their faith. On account of sickness, Theodosius of Philippopolis was unable to appear.
As place of assembly the Emperor fixed a hall of the palace Heptatonchon Triclinion at Constantinople; and besides the bishops named there were also a good many priests and deputies of monks present. In order that he might not interrupt, the Emperor decided not to be personally present, but he appointed the high official of State, Strategius, to take his place.
We owe our knowledge of this conference to the fairly complete account which one of the orthodox members, Innocent of Maronia, gave to a friend, and which has come down to us in a Latin translation, which in many parts is faulty and defective. f392 The conference was opened on the first day by Strategius with an address to the Orientals (so the
Monophysites were called), in which he invited them to bring forward, without contentiousness, their objections to the doctrine of the Synod of Chalcedon. The Orientals replied that they had transmitted their confession of faith to the Emperor in writing. As the orthodox had read this already, they now wanted, by some questions, to give their opponents an
opportunity of more fully explaining themselves. Bishop Hypatius was their mouthpiece in this. To the question: “What do you hold concerning
Eutyches?” the Orientals replied decisively. “He is a heretic, even a prince of heresy.” On the other hand, they wanted to declare Dioscurus and the Robber-Synod as orthodox. In this Hypatius discerned a contradiction. The debate which arose over this question, of which our document contains but little, took up the whole session.
From the transactions of the second day, we see that the Orientals, at the close of the first, had made the admission, that it was not right that
Dioscurus and his general Synod (the Robber-Synod) should have received Eutyches back into Church communion, and that, therefore, another general Synod, that of Chalcedon, had been obliged to correct that error.
This the Orientals admitted also on the second day; but they reproached the Synod of Chalcedon for this innovation, that instead of ex duabus naturis, as Cyril and the old Fathers taught, they had put in duabus naturis, and had assumed the existence of two natures even after the union (of the Godhead and manhood). That, they said, was both new and erroneous. In proof of this they appealed to the writings of Cyril, Athanasius, etc., and of Dionysius the Areopagite, f393 which had all taught only one nature after the union.
The orthodox contended, on the contrary, that these writings had been falsified by the Apollinarists, just as the letter of Athanasius to Epictetus had been by the Nestorians. The alleged writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, in particular, were certainly not genuine, as none of the ancients referred to them, although Cyril and Athanasius and the Nicene Council could easily have used them. The Orientals replied, that even if all these writings were spurious, yet the twelve anathematisms of Cyril were genuine, and in these only one nature was taught. The Council of
Chalcedon, however, had not received the writing of Cyril in which these anathematisms were contained, and so had altered the doctrine. f394 Hypatius replied: “The Synod of Chalcedon accepted on their side all the explanations of the faith approved at Ephesus in their entirety, and
therefore it cannot be maintained that they had made an exception with the one in question, and had rejected it. But this one they had not quite
expressly adduced, because therein Cyril speaks of two hypostases (in the sense of natures) in Christ, and they, in opposition to the Nestorians, asserted only one hypostasis in Christ (in the sense of person). In order to avoid misunderstanding, the Synod of Chalcedon had not expressly approved that writing of Cyril’s.”
The Orientals remarked that Cyril by the two hypostases had understood nothing else but the two natures, and Hypatius carried this correct view further out. But, in order to show the difference between “from two natures” and “in two natures,” the Orientals contended that only when we say “from two natures” is the one nature of the incarnate Logos
maintained, whilst by “in two natures” a duality of persons is indicated.
The orthodox did not agree to this, but maintained that the Synod of Chalcedon had allowed both modes of speech; and even Flavian of Constantinople, who first condemned Eutyches, had spoken of “one incarnate nature of the divine Word.” In proof, they read the confession of faith of this bishop (see vol. 3, sec. 174), and Hypatius thereupon
proceeded as follows: “Although Flavian used the expression ‘from two natures,’ Dioscurus, nevertheless, so ill-treated him (at the Robber-Synod), that the Synod of Chalcedon saw from that, that not the confession of two natures would satisfy the Eutychians, but only the confusa et commixta et imaginaria vel Manichoeica unius naturoe confessio. Therefore, for more exact definition, they had taught ‘one person and one substance in two natures.’”
The Orientals wanted to bring forward letters of Cyril in which he had expressly rejected the doctrine of two natures after the union; but Hypatius replied that, on the orthodox side only those letters of Cyril were
recognized which were approved by Synods, the others were neither commended nor rejected; and from the approved letters of Cyril the proof was now brought forward, that he had taught an inconfusa et indivisa duarum naturarum unitas. As the opponents laid great weight upon other letters of Cyril, Hypatius proved that in these, as in many other patristic passages, and also in the Bible, the duality of nature was taught. The Orientals then went on to two new points, that through the recognition of the Council of Chalcedon many of the faithful had been vexed, and that Ibas and Theodoret had been, at Chalcedon, improperly restored to
communion, and replaced in their offices. With the debate on this point the second session closed.
The third session was held by the Emperor himself in the presence of the Senate, after taking counsel on the subject with the Patriarch Epiphanius of Constantinople. When the session began, the patriarch withdrew, but the Emperor held a conference with both sides, which our document highly commends, but does not report. The Orientals had reflected on their opponents with the Emperor, as being unwilling to acknowledge that our Lord, who suffered in the flesh, was one of the Trinity, and that the miracles and the suffering of Christ belonged to one and the same person.
On this point the Emperor questioned the patriarch who had now returned, and Hypatius, and in their answer they clearly explained the true doctrine of the Church, namely, that the miracles and the sufferings certainly belonged to one person but to different natures, and that the suffering Christ in His Godhead was one of the Trinity, but in His manhood one of us. On a fourth day the Emperor again convoked the orthodox bishops in the presence of the Senate, and explained that of the Orientals only Bishop Philoxenus had attained to a better conviction through the three
conferences, and had returned to the Church. Our informant adds that the