The Council of Chalcedon and the Definition of Christian Tradition

The Council of Chalcedon and the Definition of Christian Tradition

David M. Gwynn

'Few councils have been so rooted in tradition as the Council of Chalcedon.'¹ The words are those of Aloys Grillmeier, from the conclusion of the first volume of his monumental work Christ in Christian Tradition, and they are words with which the bishops who gathered at Chalcedon in 451 would have wholeheartedly agreed. Yet what do we mean by 'Christian tradition'? How did that tradition develop over time? Who had the authority to determine what would come to be regarded as traditional? All of our contemporary sources for the great controversies that divided the Christian Church in the fourth and fifth centuries appeal to the authority of the one true and unchanging Christian tradition. Yet at the heart of those controversies lies a debate over the very nature and interpretation of Christian tradition itself. In this short paper I wish to explore the place of the Council of Chalcedon in that debate and the evidence of the Acts of Chalcedon that have now become so much more accessible through the superb new translation and commentary that Richard Price and Michael Gaddis have brought before us.

In its broadest sense Christian tradition embraces everything handed down by the Church from the time of the apostles onwards, including doctrinal teachings, ethics, customs and liturgical practices. More narrowly, tradition represents the expression of the faith of the Church, preserving the Christian message revealed by Christ for later generations.² In western patristic studies a 'traditional' outline of the development and definition of the Christian faith down to the fourth and fifth centuries is structured around the fixed points provided by the creeds and canons of the first four ecumenical councils - Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) and around the writings of the Fathers whose teachings underlie and interpret those councils. Within such a framework, it is all too easy to view Christian tradition as something fixed and static and to assume that the great councils and Fathers already held in their own times the authority that they would acquire for later generations. Yet tradition is neither fixed nor static but is constantly redefined as new controversies arise and contexts change. The status of the councils and creeds of Nicaea, Constantinople and Ephesus and of the writings of Fathers like Cyril of Alexandria was by no means universally agreed at the time of Chalcedon, and still today significant Christian denominations refuse to accept the authority of Chalcedon or the vision of Christian tradition that Chalcedon upheld.³ In the Acts of Chalcedon we thus possess an almost unique opportunity to observe the debates over the nature and interpretation of the Christian tradition taking place at a council which would itself play a crucial role in the definition of previous tradition and in turn attain traditional status for many future generations.

From Nicaea to Ephesus II

The Christian message rests upon the historical event of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the highest authority of the Church lies in the scriptures which proclaim that original message. From the deaths of the apostles onwards, the early Church placed great emphasis on the continuity of her faith in the apostolic teachings preserved in the scriptures. That continuity was protected by the principle of the apostolic succession of bishops, already visible in Irenaeus of Lyons in the late second century and laid down in detail by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Ecclesiastical History, and it was Eusebius who first described those whom he regarded as authoritative teachers as 'Fathers of the Church'. By the early fourth century there had thus already developed a strong Christian sense of the importance of tradition in maintaining the connection between the contemporary Church and the world of the apostles. In the years following the conversion of Constantine (306-37), the first Christian Roman Emperor, this emphasis on tradition gained a new significance. Complex doctrinal debates divided the expanding Church on a new scale, debates in which all those involved appealed to Scripture and the issues at stake could not be decided on scriptural terms.⁴

It was in an attempt to settle the greatest conflict to divide the fourth century Church, the so-called 'Arian Controversy', that Constantine summoned the Council of Nicaea in 325 that condemned Arius and declared the Son to be homoousios with the Father.⁵ Nicaea was the largest Christian council held down to that time and the first council since the age of the apostles that could plausibly claim to represent the entire Christian body. Henceforth the debate over Christian tradition would rest not only on the words of Scripture but on the statements of great councils and of those who came forward to interpret those councils. Yet the question still remained just which councils should possess authoritative status and who were the Fathers' who would be recognized as the true interpreters of the tradition. As is well known, the ecumenical authority of Nicaea and its creed was by no means immediately accepted within the fourth-century Church.⁶ There was nothing resembling an initial consensus on the meaning of the 'Nicene faith', for different bishops could and did interpret the Nicene Creed in very different ways,⁷ and for several decades after 325 the creed was widely ignored. Only in the 350s did Athanasius of Alexandria begin to proclaim the primacy of Nicaea over all other councils in his De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi and De Synodis and to uphold the Nicene Creed as the true symbol of orthodoxy sufficient to refute every heresy.⁸

The arguments of Athanasius exerted increasing influence as the fourth century wore on, and the rising status of Nicaea is reflected in the emergence of the legend that 318 bishops attended the council (the original number was closer to 220).⁹ The sufficiency of the Nicene Creed as a refutation of all heresies was taken up by the Cappadocian Basil of Caesarea, who like Athanasius appealed to the bishops at Nicaea as 'fathers'. Indeed, for the Nicene Creed to be upheld as representative of orthodoxy it was essential to define Christian tradition through the authority of the council and the Fathers as well as through Scripture, for Scripture of course could not justify the inclusion of the unscriptural term homoousios in the creed. However, Basil was also fully aware that further doctrinal clarification was still necessary, particularly in relation to the Holy Spirit who had barely featured in the creed of 325: 'We can add nothing to the Creed of Nicaea, not even the slightest thing, except the glorification of the Holy Spirit, and this only because our fathers mentioned this topic incidentally, since the question regarding him had not yet been raised at that time' (Basil of Caesarea, Letter 258.2). It was in order to justify his apparently novel teachings against the charge of innovation that Basil attached to his work On the Holy Spirit the first detailed florilegium, a compilation of extracts drawn both from the Fathers and from Scripture, and he also appealed to the place of the Spirit in liturgical custom.¹⁰

Basil's teachings underlay the expanded statement on the Holy Spirit that appears in the creed traditionally associated with the 150 bishops who attended the Council of Constantinople in 381.¹¹ Although commonly known today as the 'Nicene Creed', this Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed differs significantly from the creed of 325 both in its enlarged reference to the Holy Spirit and in general wording, while also omitting the anti-Arian anathemas of Nicaea. The only explicit authority for the association of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed with the Council of Constantinople in 381 is in fact the Council of Chalcedon, a point to which I will return, and the bishops who gathered in 381 explicitly upheld the authority of Nicaea. 'Neither the faith nor the canons of the 318 fathers who came together at Nicaea in Bithynia are to be annulled, but shall remain valid, and every heresy is to be anathematized' (canon 1, Council of Constantinople 381).

The status of the Nicene Creed as a statement of the traditional faith of the Church was therefore firmly established before the outbreak of the fifth-century Christological controversies in the conflict between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius of Constantinople.¹² In his Second Letter to Nestorius Cyril invoked 'the great and holy synod' of 325 in support of his doctrine of the hypostatic union of the human and divine natures of Christ, a doctrine upheld at Chalcedon where Cyril's letter was recognized as the authoritative interpretation of Nicaea. Nestorius in his reply rebuked Cyril for failing to understand the teachings of the Nicene fathers and cited their authority to justify his own emphasis upon the distinction of the two natures within the single person of Christ. As this exchange demonstrates, the Nicene Creed like the scriptures could not in fact settle the question of the relationship of the human and divine natures of Christ, for Cyril and Nestorius each cited the creed on their own terms. In his abrasive Third Letter to Nestorius to which were attached the Twelve Anathemas Cyril insisted in uncompromising terms on the undivided unity of the Incarnation, foreshadowing Eutyches' later teaching of one nature in Christ after the union. Cyril refused to accept that Nestorius could prove his orthodoxy by appealing to Nicaea, for Nestorius' interpretation of Nicaea was itself false. 'It is not enough for your Reverence only to agree in confessing the symbol of the faith previously set out in the Holy Spirit by that holy and great synod formerly gathered in Nicaea, for you have not understood or interpreted it correctly, but have perverted it even though you may have confessed it verbally' (Cyril of Alexandria, Third Letter to Nestorius).¹³

This was the judgement that Cyril sought to prove at the First Council of Ephesus in 431. At the council the letters of Cyril and Nestorius were read out in turn and compared to the Nicene Creed, reinforcing the central importance of Nicaea as the standard by which orthodoxy should be judged. Cyril's Second Letter to Nestorius was acclaimed and effectively canonized as a true interpretation of Nicaea. The need for such an interpretation and the importance by 431 of the appeal to the authority of recognized Fathers in addition to the scriptures is well encapsulated in the words at Ephesus of the presbyter and notary Peter of Alexandria.

Four weeks after the approval of Cyril's Second Letter and immediately following another reading of the Nicene Creed, Peter declared that 'it is right that all should assent to this holy creed, for it is pious and also sufficient to benefit the world under heaven. But because certain people, while pretending to profess and accept it, misinterpret the force of the ideas according to their own pleasure, and distort the truth, being sons of error and children of perdition, it has become absolutely necessary to set out statements by the holy and orthodox Fathers that can show convincingly in what way they understood the creed and had the confidence to proclaim it, so that, evidently, all who hold the correct and irreproachable faith may also understand, interpret and proclaim it accordingly' (quoted in Acts of Chalcedon I. 915). The florilegium that follows, drawn from works cited by Cyril himself, includes writings of Peter, Athanasius and Theophilus of Alexandria, the three Cappadocians, Cyprian of Carthage, Ambrose of Milan, Atticus of Constantinople, Amphilochius of Side and Julius and Felix of Rome (the letters of the latter two, as is well known, in fact originated with the followers of Apollinarius of Laodicea).¹⁴

Having thus proclaimed both the authority of the Nicene Creed and its correct interpretation by Cyril and the other approved Fathers, the council of 431 then proceeded to pass what has become known as canon 7 of Ephesus. 'The holy council laid down that no one is allowed to produce or write or compose another creed beside the one laid down with the aid of the Holy Spirit by the holy fathers who assembled at Nicaea' (quoted in Acts of Chalcedon 1.943).¹⁵ By Nicaea the bishops in 431 meant the creed of 325, for there is no mention of the Council of Constantinople in 381 or its creed in the Acts of Ephesus I or in the writings of Cyril, and this canon was to exert an important influence on subsequent debates. The Formula of Reunion in 433 that reconciled Cyril with the aAntiochene supporters of Nestorius led by John of Antioch recognized that the Nicene Creed still required further clarification, as had the council of 381 and Cyril in his Third Letter to Nestorius. But the Formula made no claim to replace Nicaea. 'We must state briefly (not by way of addition but in the form of giving an assurance) what we have held from the first, having received it both from the divine scriptures and from the tradition of the holy Fathers, making no addition at all to the creed issued by the holy fathers at Nicaea. For, as we have just said, it is sufficient both for a complete knowledge of orthodoxy and for the exclusion of all heretical error' (The Formula of Reunion, quoted in Cyril's Letter to John of Antioch, in Acts of Chalcedon 1.246).

The status of Nicaea and the tradition of the Fathers remained a central concern for the two men whose teachings and actions played a crucial role in the resumption of the controversy after the Formula of Reunion: the archimandrite Eutyches and Dioscorus the successor of Cyril. In 448, Eutyches was condemned by Flavian of Constantinople and Eusebius of Dorylaeum at a synod in Constantinople for teaching one nature in Christ after the Incarnation. Eutyches maintained that this teaching was in accordance with the faith of Nicaea confirmed at Ephesus and with the faith of the Fathers, especially Athanasius and Cyril. Such a claim had of course by now become customary, but Eutyches is then alleged to have declared that 'if it happened, as he said, that our Fathers have made mistakes or errors in certain expressions, this he for his part would neither criticize nor embrace, but examine only the scriptures on such questions as being more reliable' (quoted in Acts of Chalcedon 1.648). No comparable statement occurs in any of the acts of the fifth-century councils, and given Eutyches' emphasis elsewhere upon the authority of the Fathers he may have been denying the validity of certain patristic passages brought forward by his opponents rather than denigrating the Fathers in globo.¹⁶ Possibly Eutyches was responding to accusers who pressed him with dyophysite quotations from the Fathers, for apparently he repeated his earlier judgement in denouncing those who taught two natures in Christ after the Incarnation. 'He said that he had neither learnt it in the expositions of the holy Fathers nor, if such a statement were read to him, would he accept it, since the divine scriptures, as he claimed, make no mention of natures and are superior to the expositions given in teaching' (quoted in Acts of Chalcedon I. 648). Eutyches' insistence on the superiority of the scriptures to the Fathers appears to have surprised his accusers, but his words were not directly challenged or cited in his condemnation in 448.¹⁷

Dioscorus defended Eutyches, and under his leadership the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 (often described in the words of Pope Leo as the Latrocinium or 'Robber Council') restored Eutyches to his office and upheld the latter's insistence that no addition could be made to the faith of Nicaea. At the council Dioscorus had canon 7 of 431 proclaimed once more, and then declared that 'if then the Holy Spirit sat together with the fathers, as indeed he did, and decreed what they decreed, whoever revises those decrees rejects the grace of the Spirit' (quoted in Acts of Chalcedon 1.145). Eutyches' accusers Flavian of Constantinople and Eusebius of Dorylaeum were themselves denounced for preaching a different creed (Acts of Chalcedon I. 962), and at no time does Dioscorus show any awareness of the creed later associated with the council of 381.¹⁸ Throughout the proceedings and subscriptions of the council of 449 only two previous councils are ever acknowledged, Nicaea and the First Council of Ephesus, while the acclamations of the attending bishops affirm the authority of Cyril as the canonical Father for the interpretation of Nicaea not only through his Second Letter to Nestorius but also through his Third Letter and its Twelve Anathemas.

Chalcedon

By the time the Council of Chalcedon was summoned by the emperor Martian (450-7) in 451, therefore, all were aware that the question of the nature of Christian tradition and the interpretation of that tradition was of critical importance. All agreed that there was one true Christian tradition from which deviation indicated heresy. What was not yet agreed was just what that tradition should include. All recognized the authority of the scriptures and of the Nicene Creed, and the writings of Cyril were also held in great respect. But how the Nicene Creed should be interpreted remained a subject of debate, and so too did the question of which of Cyril's various writings were authoritative, a question that particularly revolved around the status of his Third Letter to Nestorius and the Twelve Anathemas. The bishops at Chalcedon, whose conception of their own role as a 'holy, great and ecumenical council' (Acts V. 30) was far stronger than that of the Nicene bishops in 325, had to decide these questions.

On one essential issue the council was indeed almost unanimous Christian tradition, like any construct of identity, is defined to a significant degree in negative terms, confirming what is to be approved through the exclusion of those who he outside the accepted limits. There was already an established canon of heretics condemned at previous councils, including Arius at Nicaea and Eunomius, Macedonius and Apollinarius at Constantinople in 381. Few of those present in 451 were prepared to protest against the addition of Nestorius (already condemned at the First Council of Ephesus) and Eutyches to that number, although the Egyptian bishops initially hesitated to anathematize Eutyches (Acts IV. 26) and Theodoret of Cyrrhus delayed long before condemning the teachings attributed to his friend Nestorius (Acts VIII. 5-13). The names of Nestorius and Eutyches thus joined those of Arms and other heretics as terms of abuse that could be and were directed against any position that a given individual wished to denounce in contrast to their own 'traditional orthodoxy'.

The positive question of what previous teachings could be upheld as traditional and orthodox was, as always, considerably more difficult to resolve. The authority of Nicaea was recognized by everyone at Chalcedon. The council was originally planned to meet in the city of Nicaea itself to symbolize this continuity, and although this plan had to be abandoned in favor of a location that enabled tighter imperial control on proceedings, acclamations and appeals to the Nicene faith recur throughout the council.¹⁹ The Nicene Creed was read out before Chalcedon's own Definition in the fifth session, thereby introducing the controversial Definition in a form that all could accept, and the Definition was presented in accordance with canon 7 of 431 not as a new statement of orthodoxy but as an interpretation of the existing creed.²⁰

Like the First Council of Ephesus in 431, the bishops at Chalcedon also tested other patristic writings against the truth of Nicaea, and approved Cyril of .Alexandria as the authoritative interpreter of Nicaea. The Definition upheld 'the conciliar letters of the blessed Cyril' (Acts V. 34), particularly the Second Letter to Nestorius and the Letter to John of Antioch concerning the Formula of Reunion. More ambiguous was Chalcedon's attitude towards Cyril's uncompromising Third Letter to Nestorius and the Twelve Anathemas. This letter is not identified in the Chalcedonian Definition, and the proposal of Atticus of Nicopolis that it be read in the second session (Acts II. 29) was evaded without formal rejection, leaving the status of the Third Letter and the Anathemas open for later debate. Chalcedon also upheld the Tome of Leo of Rome, but despite western claims to the contrary it was Cyril not Leo who exerted the greatest influence in 451.²¹ The Tome, which Leo wished to present as the definition of orthodoxy, was in fact judged by the eastern bishops according to its agreement with the teachings of Cyril (Acts IV. 9).

Far more problematic for the bishops at Chalcedon than the status of Nicaea or Cyril, however, was the demand that they accept the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. As we have seen, this creed was apparently unknown to the council of 431, and is probably one of a number of creeds then in existence and accepted as revised versions of Nicaea. Certainly there is very little indication that the majority of the bishops in 451 were even remotely familiar with the creed of the 150 fathers, which was introduced by the imperial commissioners as a symbol of orthodoxy alongside the original Nicene Creed at the end of the first session (Acts 1.1072). Before this stage, the only bishop at Chalcedon to have shown detailed knowledge of the creed of 381 is Diogenes of Cyzicus in his account of the condemnation of Eutyches in 448. 'He [Eutyches] adduced the council of the holy fathers at Nicaea deceptively, since additions were made to it by the holy fathers on account of the evil opinions of Apollinarius, Valentinus, Macedonius and those like them, and there were added to the creed of the holy fathers the words "He came down and was enfleshed from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin". This Eutyches omitted, as an Apollinarian' (Acts I. 160). As Price and Gaddis observe, Eutyches can hardly be blamed for not citing so poorly known a creed.²²

In the second session at Chalcedon, the creed of 381 was then read out in full in succession to the original Nicene Creed. The responses of the bishops to the two creeds as recorded in the acts are enlightening. On the reading of the Nicene Creed, 'the most devout bishops exclaimed: "This is the faith of the orthodox. This we all believe. In this we were baptized, in this we baptize. The blessed Cyril taught accordingly. This is the true faith. This is the holy faith. This is the eternal faith. Into this we were baptized, into this we baptize. We all believe accordingly. Pope Leo believes accordingly. Cyril believed accordingly. Pope Leo expounded accordingly'" (Acts II. 12). The creed of 381 was then read out. 'All the most devout bishops exclaimed: "This is the faith of all. This is the faith of the orthodox. We all believe accordingly'" (Acts II. 15). No bishop was going to refer to the creed of 381 as the creed of baptism of as the creed of Cyril.²³

Similarly, when the commissioners in the fourth session asked the bishops to bear witness to the harmony of the Tome of Leo with the creeds of 325 and 381 (Acts TV. 8) the great emphasis in the acclamations that follow concerns Leo's agreement with Nicaea, which Constantinople confirmed. A few acclamations omit the 150 bishops of Constantinople entirely (Seleucus of Amaseia, IV. 9.12; Theodore of Damascus, IV. 9.14; and Polychronius of Cilician Epiphaneia, TV. 9.117), while Romanus of Lycian Myra alone among the bishops not only omitted to refer to the council of 381 but also questioned whether even the Nicene Creed could provide an adequate basis to judge later writings as orthodox. To agree that the two letters, that is, of Cyril of sacred memory and of the most devout Archbishop Leo, speak in accord, but the holy and ecumenical council at Nicaea did not discuss these matters' (IV. 9.131). One might legitimately wonder whether other bishops shared such concerns or whether there were at some stage during the council any explicit objections to the introduction of the apparently unknown creed of 381 into the debate. If there were, however, those objections have disappeared from our official record.

We can at least be certain that some of those at Chalcedon did refuse to adopt the 381 creed. This attitude was particularly strong in Egypt where the earlier silence of Cyril and Dioscorus concerning the Council of Constantinople and their rejection of any creed other than Nicaea remained highly influential. When Diogenes of Cyzicus in the passage quoted earlier from the first session condemned Eutyches for failing to recognize the clarification of Nicaea provided in 381, the Egyptian bishops immediately defended Eutyches and appealed to canon 7 of 431, exclaiming 'No one admits any addition or subtraction. Confirm the work of Nicaea' (Acts I. 161). The 13 Egyptian bishops in the fourth session who asked to remain outside the debates until Dioscorus, who had been condemned in the third session, was replaced likewise refer in their petition only to the creed of 325 (Acts IV. 25) and omit any reference to the creed as a symbol of orthodoxy. The strength of Egyptian feeling on this question was apparently recognized by the Emperor Martian who in his Letter to the Monks of Alexandria in 454 (Documents after the Council 14) appeals solely to the faith of 325 and not (as in his other writings after Chalcedon) to the creeds of both 325 and 381.

The Egyptian hostility to the council of 381 was also shared in Rome. An important motive for the emphasis placed by the imperial commissioners at Chalcedon on the Council of Constantinople was that the exaltation of the earlier council reinforced the famous decree, later known as the 28^th canon of Chalcedon, which proclaimed the privileges of Constantinople as 'New Rome'.²⁴ This decree was approved in the sixteenth session of Chalcedon²⁵ and led to immediate tension with Rome, where Pope Leo appears to have had no more knowledge of the council of 381 than the majority of his eastern contemporaries. Anatolius of Constantinople, in his efforts to justify the contentious decree, felt the need to identify the council of 381 and its leaders in his Letter to Leo in December 451 (Documents after the Council 8). Leo contemptuously replied that 'your persuasiveness is in no way whatever assisted by the subscription of certain bishops given, as you claim, sixty years ago, and never brought to the knowledge of the apostolic see by your predecessors’ (Leo, Letter to Anatolius, Documents after the Council 10).

Nevertheless, the main body of bishops at Chalcedon did eventually recognize the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 as a necessary supplement to Nicaea, particularly to clarify the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and this recognition helped to pave the way for the Chalcedonian Definition (Acts V. 31-4). The ongoing controversies of the preceding decades had already demonstrated that appeal to Nicaea was not in itself sufficient to secure unity in the Church. Yet the initial request of the imperial commissioners for a new statement of faith in 451 faced considerable hostility, founded to a significant degree on a rigorous insistence upon canon 7 of 431. The assertion that the teachings of the 150 fathers in 381 represented not an independent creed but rather a 'seal' (V. 31) on the faith of Nicaea offered a precedent to overcome this strong opposition.²⁶ The creeds of 325 (V. 32) and 381 (V. 33) were included in the Definition proclaimed at Chalcedon,²⁷ which is thus placed within the gradual unfolding of the Christian orthodox tradition:

The creed of the 318 holy fathers is to remain inviolate. Furthermore, it confirms the teaching on the essence of the Holy Spirit that was handed down at a later date by the 150 fathers who assembled in the imperial city because of those who were making war on the Holy Spirit; this teaching they made known to all, not as though they were inserting something omitted by their predecessors, but rather making clear by written testimony their conception of the Holy Spirit against those who were trying to deny his sovereignty.

(V.34)

Cyril's Second Letter to Nestorius, his Letter to John of Antioch concerning the Formula of Reunion and the Tome of Leo are likewise received as authoritative interpretations, 'for the instruction of those who with pious zeal seek the meaning of the saving creed' (V. 34). Finally the new Definition is brought forward as the conclusive expression of the traditional faith which these creeds and Fathers uphold. 'Now that these matters .have been formulated by us with all possible care and precision, the holy and ecumenical council has decreed that no one is allowed to produce p r compose or construct another creed or to think or teach otherwise' (V. 34).

This is not the place for a detailed discussion of the Chalcedonian Settlement. In the context of the present argument, however, it should once again be emphasized that the same gradual evolution in the definition of Christian tradition that I have traced here down to 451, particularly with regard to the status of the letters of Cyril and of the creed of 381, can of course also be seen in the contrasting attitudes of later generations towards the Council of Chalcedon itself.²⁸ The question of whether Chalcedon was true to the legacy of Cyril remained intensely divisive, as those who rejected Chalcedon denounced the Definition's formula of 'in two natures' as 'Nestorian' and a betrayal of Cyril's teachings.²⁹ In reaction to and opposition against such miaphysite accusations emerged the position often described as 'Neo-Chalcedonianism' but better understood as 'Cyrilline Chalcedonianism', insisting on Chalcedon as fully in accordance with Cyril and upholding the Twelve Anathemas. This was the position affirmed by the emperor Justinian at the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553.

Yet the initial question in the years following 451 did not concern the correct interpretation of Chalcedon but rather whether Chalcedon should be accepted at all within the tradition that it had sought to define. This is reflected in the Henotikon issued by the emperor Zeno and Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople on 28 July 482. Motivated by the desire to secure eastern unity, the Henotikon sidelined Chalcedon and approved only the first three ecumenical councils of Nicaea, Constantinople and Ephesus I together with the Twelve Anathemas of Cyril that had been omitted in 451.

We know that the origin and composition, the power and irresistible shield of our empire is the sole correct and truthful faith, which through divine guidance the 318 holy fathers gathered at Nicaea expounded, while the 150 similarly holy fathers assembled at Constantinople confirmed it . . . This too was followed also by all the holy fathers who gathered at the city of the Ephesians, who also deposed the impious Nestorius and those who subsequently shared his views. This Nestorius, together with Eutyches, men whose opinions are the opposite to the aforesaid, we too anathematize, accepting also the Twelve Chapters which were pronounced by Cyril of pious memory, archbishop of the holy and universal church of the Alexandrians ... But we anathematize anyone who has thought, or thinks, any other opinion, either now or at any time, whether at Chalcedon or at any synod whatsoever. (The Henotikon of Zeno, quoted in Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History III. 14)

By the time of the Henotikon, it would seem, the ecumenical status of the Council of Constantinople in 381 had achieved widespread acceptance, indeed, when the 'Nicene Creed' was incorporated into the liturgy of the eastern churches in the late fifth and sixth centuries, it was the Constantinopolitan form that was adopted, perhaps due to its more liturgical character.³⁰ But Chalcedon and its place within Christian tradition remained very much open to debate. The definition of Christian tradition was far from complete in 451, while Chalcedon in turn created new divisions within Christianity and new and conflicting interpretations of how Christian tradition should be understood.

Conclusion

The period surrounding Chalcedon that I have surveyed so briefly here marked a crucial phase in the definition of a conception of Christian tradition that rested not only on Scripture but on conciliar creeds and their correct patristic interpretation. This emphasis on an established canon of approved authority would strengthen further in subsequent centuries, with both positive and negative implications for the history of the Church. The construction by different Christian groups of their own monolithic conceptions of the 'orthodox' past narrowed the parameters of possible debate, excluding alternative traditions and distorting our understanding of the development of Christian doctrine and practices across time.³¹ The 'Select Fathers' were idealized and de-historicized,³² and the need to appeal to the authoritative past led inexorably to the rise of forgeries and false patristic attributions in subsequent centuries.³³ When the bishops at Chalcedon exclaim that ' no one makes a new exposition ... for it was the Fathers who taught, what they expounded is preserved in writing, and we cannot go beyond it' (Acts II. 3), one can almost hear the voice of Edward Gibbon mourning the sterility of fallen Byzantium. 'They held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers, without inheriting the spirit which had created and improved that sacred patrimony. They read, they praised, they compiled, but their languid souls seemed alike incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happiness of mankind.’³⁴

Yet Christian tradition has never been truly static and the concept of tradition remains to this day of immense importance to the identity of the different Christian Churches and their foundation in the original historical revelation on which the Christian faith rests. Tradition is Christianity's memory, maintaining the continuity of modern Christians with the worlds of the scriptures and the ecumenical councils, and to remain relevant that traditional memory must remain a living dynamic force, constantly reinterpreted and proclaimed to a changing world. As John Henry Newman wrote in a famous essay in 1845, 'in a higher world it is otherwise; but here below to five is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.’³⁵ The purpose of the bishops who gathered at the Council of Chalcedon was to safeguard the essential continuity of Christian tradition while adapting and interpreting that tradition to meet the needs of their own times. This to a remarkable degree they achieved and the same challenge now faces Christians today and in the future. 'For each age the task of proclaiming the traditional picture of Christ within the framework of the current ideas and language still remains.’³⁶

¹ Grillmeier (1975), 550.

² '"Tradition" refers simultaneously to the process of communication and to its content. Thus tradition means the handing down of Christian teaching during the course of the history of the Church, but it also means that which was handed down' (Pelikan 1971, 7).

³ For an introduction to the differing attitudes of the non-Chalcedonian churches towards the various great councils of the fourth and fifth centuries see for the Church of the East (long wrongly identified in western scholarship as the 'Nestorian Church*) Aprem (1978), Brock (1985) and Bruns (2000), and for the miaphysite or Oriental Orthodox Churches (traditionally and inaccurately described as 'monophysite') Sarkissian (1965), Samuel (1977) and the papers collected in Gregorios, Lazareth and Nissiotis (1981).

⁴ The following pages offer only a very brief survey of the crucial years that separate Constantine and the Council of Chalcedon. A far more thorough examination of the role of tradition and the appeal to the Fathers in the formation of Christian identity in the fourth and early fifth centuries is provided by Graumann (2002), while for the initial reception of the early ecumenical councils and their creeds see also the important article of de Halleux (1985).

⁵ The standard modern account of the 'Arian Controversy' is that of Hanson (1988), although see also now Ayres (2004) and Behr (2004).

⁶ For the origins of the title 'ecumenical council' see Chadwick (1972). The title was first applied to Nicaea by Eusebius of Caesarea {Life of Constantine 10.6) and in the Encyclical Letter circulated on behalf of Athanasius of Alexandria by the Council of Alexandria that met in 338 (quoted in Athanasius, Apologia Contra Arianos 7).

⁷ Ayres (2004), particularly 85-100.

⁸ 'What need is there of councils, when the Nicene is sufficient, as against the Arian heresy, so against the rest, which it has condemned one and all by means of the sound faith?' (Athanasius, De Synodis 6). There is an assessment of Athanasius' presentation of the Nicene fathers and his appeals to patristic tradition in the De Decretis in Graumann (2002), 119-41.

⁹ Aubineau (1966). For a tentative reconstruction of the original signature lists of Nicaea see Honigmann (1939), 44-8.

¹⁰ Graumann (2002), 200-31.

¹¹ On the council of 381 and its creed see Ritter (1965), Kelly (1972), 296-331 and de Halleux (1982).

¹² For recent assessments of the controversy see McGuckin (2004) and Wessel (2004), while for a more detailed analysis of the appeals of Cyril and Nestorius to the Fathers and to tradition see Graumann (2002), 278-342. As Wessel (p. 302) observes, throughout these controversies 'the formation of Eastern Christian doctrine thus proceeds not according to the ineluctable structures of dogmatic history but according to a complex historical and cultural process fuelled by the claims of adversaries competing to appropriate the Christian past.'

¹³ For the significance of Cyril's appeal to Nicaea and his use of Athanasius' anti-Arian rhetoric against Nestorius in this letter to establish himself as the new champion of orthodoxy see Wessel (2004), 126-37.

¹⁴ The most famous Apollinarian text cited by Cyril is of course the formula 'one nature (mia phusis) of the Word incarnate' which he believed to be Athanasian. For a fuller analysis of the texts associated with the First Council of Ephesus and the importance of patristic citation in 431, on a scale not visible in earlier councils, see Person (1978) and particularly Graumann (2002), 349-409.

¹⁵ For discussion of this canon see L'Huillier (1996), 159-63.

¹⁶ I owe this suggestion to Richard Price.

¹⁷ I have quoted here from the summary of Eutyches* argument read out in Constantinople in 449 when the minutes from the synod of 448 were re-examined at Eutyches' request. The slightly different account of Eutyches' argument originally recorded in 448 is preserved in Acts of Chalcedon 1.359 (see Price and Gaddis, 1,200, n. 220).

¹⁸ In a polemical letter written in c. 448, Theodoret of Cyrrhus asserts that Dioscorus rejected the council of 381 not because of its creed but because of its second canon which laid down that bishops should only act within their own diocese: 'When the blessed fathers were assembled in that imperial city in harmony with them that had sat in council at Nicaea, they distinguished the dioceses, and assigned to each diocese the management of its own affairs, expressly enjoining that none should intrude from one diocese into another. They ordered that the bishop of Alexandria should administer the government of Egypt alone, and every diocese its own affairs. Dioscorus, however, refuses to abide by these decisions' (Theodoret, Letter 86).

¹⁹ The original imperial summons calling the bishops to Nicaea in May 451 is preserved in the emperor Marcian's Letter to the Bishops (Price and Gaddis, 1,98). Miaphysite writers like (Ps.-) Zachariah of Mitylene (Chronicle III. 1) and Michael the Syrian (Chronicle VIII. 10) attribute the failure of Marcian's plan to Divine Providence protecting the holy reputation of Nicaea.

²⁰ For the presentation of Chalcedon as a restatement of Nicaea see-Grillmeier (1987), 210-22, Norris (1996), 141-7, and Price and Gaddis, I, 56-8.

21 Against the older view which privileged Leo's Tome over Cyril as the crucial influence on Chalcedon (Grillmeier 1975,543-4, still upheld by Pelikan 1971,263^t, and 2003, 259), see among numerous studies Meyendorff (1969), de Halleux (1976), Gray (1979), Grillmeier (1979), 753-9, and McGuckin (2004), 233-43. There is a recent reexamination of the role of Leo at Chalcedon in Uthemann (2005).

²² Price and Gaddis, 1,158, n. 113.

²³ The respective attitudes that prevailed at Chalcedon towards the creeds of 325 ,and 381 are perhaps best encapsulated in the statement of the Ulyrian bishops during the fourth session in their acceptance of Leo's Tome: 'We uphold the creed of the 318 holy fathers as being our salvation and pray to depart from life with it; and that of the 150 is in no way in disharmony with the aforesaid creed' (Acts IV. 9.98). A similar statement was made in the same session by the bishops of Palestine (IV. 9.114).

²⁴ For a thorough analysis of this decree and its relationship to the third canon of 381 which was invoked as its precedent, see de Halleux (1988/1989) and LHuillier (1996), 267-96.

²⁵ Price and Gaddis, HI, 67-73.

²⁶ As Pelikan (2003), 14 has observed, although the Definition quotes the creeds of both 325 and 381, the bishops then refer to 'this wise and saving symbol' (Acts V. 34) in the singular as sufficient for all.

²⁷ For the textual difficulties raised by the versions of the two creeds included in the Definition, which differ between the various Greek and Latin manuscripts of the acts, see Price and Gaddis, II, 191-4. Interestingly, it is Eusebius of Caesarea's version of the Nicene Creed that appears to have been followed at Chalcedon and not that of Athanasius of Alexandria, whose text of the creed contains an additional anathema against those who teach that the Son was 'created’ (Wiles 1993).

²⁸ Modern studies of the reception of Chalcedon and the controversies of the following centuries include Frend (1972), Gray (1979), Meyendorff (1989), Grillmeier (1987, 1995,1996), and Oort and Roldanus (1997).

²⁹ The ambiguity of Cyril's numerous writings which made possible appeals to him from all sides in the subsequent centuries is brought out very well by Russell (2003).

³⁰ For the incorporation of the creed into the liturgy, first associated with the miaphysite Peter the Fuller, see Kelly (1972), 348-51.

³¹ The implications of rival conceptions of tradition for the modern ecumenical movement are brought out very clearly by Zizioulas in the dialogue between the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches over Chalcedon: 'The whole problem of Tradition emerges in the discussion as perhaps the ecclesiological issue par excellence. One could say that the difficulties we are here facing on the ecclesiological level are precisely due to the fact that both sides in our dialogue take Tradition seriously, and neither side is willing to sacrifice anything from what constitutes Tradition in their eyes. Do we not need a clarification of this issue? To what extent are we prepared to re-receive our Tradition in the context of our present day situation? Without such a re-reception the ecclesiological issues we are facing will remain insurmountable. If we intend to unite'different Traditions we shall have an artificial unity. True unity of the Church requires one common Tradition as its basis' (1981,154).

³² Gray (1989). See further the introduction to Gray (2006), 25-8 and his discussion of the famous declaration of Leontius of Jerusalem that 'none of the Select Fathers is at variance with himself or with his peers with respect to the intended sense of the faith' (Leontius, Testimonies of the Saints 1849D).

³³ On the ever-increasing role of forgery in Christian controversies in this period see Grant (1960), Gray (1988) and (with a somewhat more positive emphasis) Wessel (2001).

³⁴ Gibbon (1912), VI, 112.

³⁵ Newman (1845), 39. Newman applies this principle somewhat polemically to the controversies of the 'Nestorians' and the 'monophysites' in the same work at 281-317.

³⁶ Grillmeier (1975), 556.