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Part Two of this collection of lectures covers about eight centuries under the rubric of Medieval Christianity. These eight centuries are subsequent to Part One's coverage of the Ancient Christianity that extends to the late fifth century.
During this Medieval time span it becomes increasingly difficult to generalize about the Christian institutions; indeed, as the Roman World further disintegrates and multiple cultures diverge, so by the twelfth century the church rather belatedly was forced to confront its de facto division. Of course, nine centuries later some still defend the original ideal of one unified Christianity with one unified institutional expression.
So Christian institutions in different regions of that fragmenting Medieval world fared very differently and make it increasingly difficult for us to give equal attention to all the variety of cultural context and condition. Students will remember that Part One started out looking at the whole scope of the Christian movement. Nevertheless as the Christian movement branched off in different directions and different manifestations it was a challenge to our prejudices to keep from dismissing some of those parts as insignificant. The prejudice quite legitimately arises from our twenty-first century perspective on the trajectory of Christianity through the ages. Some developments are in the stream that reaches our time and some seem to be developments that fizzled without a future. For example, it could be argued that there was "no significant future" to the valiant witness of the Church of the East as it developed beyond Rome's frontiers. For, as we shall note in future lectures, that area of the world was engulfed in the expansion of Islam and remains Islamic to the present. That is only one of the several examples of seemingly irrelevant development we will encounter in the Medieval period.
The eastern and southern sections of the Roman imperial geography did fall under the domination of Arab and non-Arab Moslems early in the Medieval period. As a result, the constraints of time and accessible sources will force us to give less and less attention to the dwindling number of Christians who lived in those Moslem ruled areas of Spain, North Africa, Egypt, and Syria. Some times we further justify this neglect by noting, somewhat self-righteously, that Christians in many of those areas were neither orthodox nor catholic as those terms are typically understood today.
Moreover, as the western and northern parts of Roman Empire's dominion become increasingly isolated from each other and from the most advanced manifestation of the surviving Roman cultural legacy at Constantinople our attention will shift away to the west. The western region will claim more and more of our attention not because it was at that time the fount of civilized achievement, but because Western civilization as we know it, subsequently sprouted and thrived from that decomposing Roman carcass in the West. If there is any real justification for this restriction in our focus, perhaps it lies in the fact that Christianity and Western Civilization both came to these shores from Western Europe.
Some have argued persuasively that the aberrations of these Medieval centuries alone made the Reformation necessary, but that view is demonstrably myopic. The Reformation did address and reassess some features of Christian tradition that emerged at least as early as the third, if not in the second, century of the Christian era. But there were, to be sure, certain developments in this Middle Age that did create the context in which the drama of the Reformation among both Catholics and Protestants was to be played out. One of the most prominent of these was the emerging power of the Papacy, inspired by a unique Medieval understanding of the papal role in society as that of a "king of kings". This will occupy much of our attention in this study.
Now to begin our coverage of the Medieval Church we pick up the story toward the end of the fifth century in the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon of 451. At that time the Roman Empire's power was assumed to be preeminent on all sides of the Mediterranean Sea. Even if the administration of some parts of the Empire seemed temporarily tentative, it was still a unified whole in the minds of its leaders. And despite a few awkward issues the Christian Church still reflected that unity and cohesion as it fulfilled its role as a universal state religion. The orthodox catholic leaders after Chalcedon believed that all the heretical Christians who disagreed with them were Monophysites. However, as we shall see, some who refused to accept the Chalcedonian statement were not truly monophysite. Generally, however, we will follow the orthodox catholics in labeling all the non-Chalcedonians as Monophysites.
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Emperor Zeno (474-491) realized full well the political power represented by the disaffected Monophysites. Indeed Basiliscus who successfully usurped the throne from Zeno at the beginning of his reign had much Monophysite support. Zeno realized that his success depended on finding a way to neutralize the divisive religious issue. Therefore, he attempted to force a compromise between the two warring parties by issuing an imperial law, the Henotikon, in 482. Bishop Acacius of Constantinople and deposed Egyptian Patriarch Peter Mongos had counseled with Zeno about the law, but there had never been a case where the Emperor had taken the initiative and legislated doctrine without first seeking the affirmation of some kind of council. Bishop Felix III of Rome in 483 suspended all recognition of the Bishop of Constantinople because of Acacius' alleged complicity in this unprecedented governmental interference. The "Acacian Schism" between the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople lasted 37 years. Nevertheless, large numbers of churchmen were happy for the Henotikon because it did bring a degree of peace.
The Henotikon affirmed the position expressed by the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, condemned the alleged teachings of Nestorius and Eutyches, the two available extremes. It also approved the long outdated position of Cyril of Alexandria, setting forth a deliberately vague Christological definition that studiously avoided either of the current controversial interpretations--a position, by the way, reflecting the true stance of the Coptic Christians in Egypt. Furthermore the imperial dictum concluded by anathematizing "everyone who has held, or holds, any other opinion [than expressed in the henotikon], either at the present or at another time, whether at Chalcedon or in any synod whatever." What this did was effectively condemn both the current Christological interpretations of both Monophysites and hard-nosed Chalcedonians.
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Emperor Anastasius (491-519) began his reign attempting to maintain peace among the ranks of Christians. He was finally persuaded that it was a no-win task and sided with the Monophysites. Thus the tables were turned. Monophysites who gained metropolitan bishoprics immediately deposed all their province's bishops adhering to the Chalcedonian doctrine, by force if necessary. In Syria Bishop Severus of Antioch led in a full-scale purge of Chacedonians between 512 and 518 with the full assistance of imperial authority. It was also at this time that the Nestorians were expelled from Edessa. When Severus fled to Egypt because of Emperor Justin I's action against Monophysites and was replaced by a Chalcedonian the Syrian Christians, leaning toward Monophysitism for a number of reasons, likewise chose a Partiarch of their own. This marks the beginning of a separate Church in Syria.
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Then, the commander of the non-barbarian palace guard created by Emperor Leo I, a former peasant who worked his way to the top, Justin I, was Emperor from 518 to 527. Justin I withdrew the Henotikon and ended the tyranny of the Monophysites in most areas. Bishop Hormisdas of Rome, in 519, revoked the long-standing condemnation of the bishopric of Constantinople and thus ended the Acacian Schism. Bishop John of Rome visited Constantinople in 526 to celebrate the restored fellowship. Yet the opponents of the Chalcedonian formula in Egypt and Syria remained adamant and accelerated the process of separating their churches from the orthodox catholic fellowship.
Justinian, whose name reveals his adoptive status, was Emperor Justin's sister's son. He advanced through the honors of the court and soon became the power behind the throne of Justin I, whom he succeeded. Justinian left a tremendously important legacy both in the field of statecraft and in the history of the Church. In Western Europe Justinian was remembered more than any other Roman ruler as the Roman Emperor par excellence.
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Justinian's administration was highly centralized and efficient. Local governments were deprived of the supervision of their own finances. All tax revenue went directly to the central government and was then redistributed. Heavy taxation was essential to Justinian's style of government. Monetary diplomacy, extensive building operations and enormous military expenditures rapidly depleted the economic resources of the Empire. Justinian's goals were to preside over one universal empire whose inhabitants gave united witness to one universal religion. Justinian wanted to be remembered as a gifted administrator of law and justice, a magnanimous and benevolent protector, a prodigious builder, a theological peacemaker, and an emperor whose armies were always victorious.
One aspect of Justinian's career that has left a visible legacy greatly appreciated by subsequent generations was his construction policy. Hundreds of churches and fortifications and public service structures were built across the whole empire out of the Emperor's benevolence--a benevolence that depended on ruthless taxation. The construction of a new Hagia Sophia church building in Constantinople, was undoubtedly Justinian's greatest building achievement. His architects, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, achieved a solution to one of the most difficult engineering problems in architectural history; namely, the erecting of a huge, round, brick and plaster dome over a large square masonry structure with no interior support. Although the first dome was too shallow and collapsed within a few years it was redesigned and rebuilt within Justinian's lifetime--and it still stands!
Although Justinian dedicated this cathedral to the Divine Wisdom, that is, the Logos, the Christ Himself, it is certain he envisioned it a symbol of his own imperial authority. We know it was his aim to build the most magnificent church building in all Christendom, and for this purpose he despoiled ancients temples of their treasures. When the structure was completed he boasted "Solomon, I have surpassed thee". Aside from Hagia Sophia he had fifty-five church buildings erected at imperial expense in pagan communities that had survived to his time in Greece and Asia Minor. In the same area he beautified or enlarged an additional 41. After conquering the Vandal territory in North Africa he ordered the rebuilding of churches in 150 cities in the area. In Italy his most famous church building was Saint Vitalus (San Vitale, in Italian) at Ravenna. Virtually all these buildings were adorned with mosaic and fresco art. The portrait mosaic of Justinian and his wife, Theodora, so often reproduced comes from San Vitale.
Another remarkably durable monument of Justinian's reign was the so-called Justinianic Code, the corpus jurus civilis, which collected, organized and updated Roman law. It was the form in which Roman law would be remembered in the West in the Middle Ages; hence, it served as the foundation for most western European law codes (except England's) down to the Code Napoleon in the nineteenth century.
Justinian tried to eradicate the surviving traces of paganism as well as the ancient schisms and heresies from the Roman Empire. He prohibited pagans to teach and closed the Academy of Athens where pagans had been sheltered because of the honors of scholarship. Pagan philosophers fled to Persia. He went so far as to suppress Judaism by destroying a number of synagogues and outlawing the Hebrew version of the Old Testament.
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Justinian I (527-565) made repeated attempts throughout his reign to eliminate all schism and heterodoxy. Early in his reign Justinian adhered to the Chalcedonian position and persecuted the Monophysites but he vacillated. In 529 he suspended the persecution of Monophysites, probably at the urging of his wife, Theodora. Conferences and councils were held beginning in 531 to seek a peaceful solution. In 533 Justinian issued a new law including a compromise formula designed to please both sides. Justinian persuaded Bishops John II (533-535) and Agapetus (535-536) of Rome to endorse this Theopaschite doctrine, namely that "one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh." Though the teaching was, strictly speaking, orthodox, it was possible to give it an interpretation favorable to the Monophysites. Both sides rejected the formula.
Meanwhile, in 535 Anthemius, a Monophysite, gained election as Bishop of Constantinople. Roman Bishop Agapetus who was in Constantinople on other business in behalf of the Ostrogoths felt that Anthemius was unfit for office and deposed him. The result was the election of a strong Chalcedonian, Mennas, to that chair. Mennas then persuaded Justinian to persecute the Monophysites.
Justinian got out the big guns. He was now determined to arrest every prominent individual of Monophysite persuasion and isolate them. Nearly 300 culprits were put in a concentration area near Constantinople. Others fled into obscurity to escape Justinian's net. Theodosius, the Coptic Bishop of Alexandria, was deposed and exiled because of his alleged Monophysitism in 537. He found refuge at Constantinople where Empress Theodora who was very sympathetic with the Monophysites arranged for him to live in a monastery with other Monophysites. There he trained a number of monks who later became missionaries to Syria, Arabia, Ethiopia and other eastern areas. One, Theodore, he ordained in 542 as bishop of Basra in the Persian Empire.
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Earlier following Chalcedon the Roman government determined to force the Chalcedonian formula on the Copts by installing Chalcedonian Patriarchs complete with an armed bodyguard. Justinian now tightened the screws by making the Patriarchal bishop of Alexandria the actual governor of Egypt complete with imperial troops under his command. The bloody injustices done to the Coptic Christian leaders and to the rank and file through oppressive taxation heightened the Copts' resolve to resist, although some of the targeted bishops and no doubt a number of common believers did sometimes fold under the intense pressure. Those who didn't, became martyrs, and the number was high. The Byzantine church authorities in Egypt persecuted the Coptic Christians as extensively, as inhumanly, and perhaps more intensively, than most ancient believers were persecuted by pagan Rome.
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Among those monks trained and ordained by the exiled Coptic Bishop Theodosius was Jacob Baradaeus who became the missionary bishop of Edessa in 542. Already highly educated in the school at Nisibis where he had lived for 15 years before his arrest, Jacob spent 35 years working underground with the persecuted Monophysites of Syria. He and Theodore were originally smuggled out of Constantinople by the Ghassanid Arab sheik, Al-Harith ibn Jabala al-A'raj, who escorted him to Syria. He had to remain constantly on the move to evade the authorities and live most of the time disguised as a common beggar traveling on foot. He visited Monophysite churches all across modern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Arabia. He was fluent in Greek, Syriac and Arabic. He is known to have ordained 27 bishops, but legends say 87. He ordained two of the underground church's patriarchs at Antioch. Sergius (543-562), a fellow student at Nisibis, served in the succession after Severus died in exile. The next was Paul the Black, an Egyptian, who served as Monophysite patriarch at Antioch from 564-581. In 559 he even ordained a catholicos for the Monophysite churches of the East at Seleucia-Ctesiphon in Persia. The legends also support the conclusion that he ordained thousands of priests. To this day the Syrian Monophysite church calls itself the Jacobite church.
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Bishop Agapetus of Rome, who had approved Justinian's Theopascite formula, had a short reign, 535-36. During his reign Vigilius had served as the bishop's official representative in Constantinople. When Bishop Agapetus died while visiting in Constantinople in 536, Theodora urged that Vigilius be the next Roman bishop. The Roman clergy had chosen Silverius instead. Theodora may have anticipated that Vigilius would be sympathetic and reinstate several deposed Monophysite churchmen and perhaps even condemn the Chalcedonian position. When Justinian's imperial army took Rome from the Ostrogoths in 537, Justinian's general saw to it that Silverius was exiled and Vigilius elected in 538. Vigilius, however, turned out to be a Chalcedonian.
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In 543/44 Justinian tried his hand at Zeno's strategy. He issued a new law (novel) consisting of three chapters each chapter condemning specific teachings of a different individual. One was the teacher of Nestorius, Theodore of Mopsuestia; another was a document written to defend Nestorius against Cyril of Alexandria by Theodoret of Cyrus; and the third condemned a letter written by Ibas of Edessa to a Persian bishop favorable to Nestorius. This was intended to clarify and emphasize the anti-Nestorian aspects of the Chalcedonian position so that the Monophysites would presumably find it more acceptable. Bishop Vigilius rejected the law as imperial interference but agreed that the positions condemned were indeed heresy, a position that confused everybody. Vigilius then withdrew his agreement that the three articles were heretical and appealed to a ecumenical council. As an afterthought he excommunicated those bishops that had advised Justinian, Bishop Mennas of Constantinople and Bishop Askidas of Caesarea in Palestine. Justinian had Vigilius arrested to insure his cooperation.
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Justinian called the Fifth Ecumenical Council to meet in Constantinople in May-June 553. Vigilius escaped custody briefly and refused to attend the Council. The Council affirmed the condemnations of the three documents and condemned Vigilius. Justinian forced Vigilius and later his successor, Pelagius I (556-561), to accept the actions of the Council in order to be recognized by the government as Bishop of Rome. Western churchmen condemned their acceptance.
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Justinian's last effort to try to bring the two persuasions to a peaceful union involved a new compromise position called aphthartodocetism. This view put forward by Bishop Julian of Halicarnassus and Severus of Antioch, both monophysite, held that Christ's flesh was of a special divine type that was incorruptible (aphthartos) even though in appearance (dokesis) it looked like ordinary human flesh. Although Justinian attempted to force this interpretation on both sides, they were equally adamant in rejecting it.
Emperors after Justinian were troubled by other problems so the schism between the Monophysites and the Chalcedonians remained an open sore and the respective sides grew more and more hostile and uncooperative. Indeed, by the end of the sixth century orthodox Chalcedonian clergy maintained control of the church properties in many eastern regions by means of the military presence of the Imperial government. The non-Chalcedonians had developed underground church hierarchies that lay in wait for the opportunity to assert control over the church. Such was the Coptic church in Egypt, and the Jacobite church in Syria.
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Just as the codification of Roman law under Justinian I was an epoch making event, so the codification of canon law by Patriarch John of Constantinople about 570 was also a major milestone. John was the first to compose a collection of canons that arranged titles under fifty subjects rather than by chronological order. He also produced a collection of 87 laws drawn from Justinian's Novella, i.e., his edicts. Within a few years a collection of both church canons and governmental edicts arranged in parallel columns under 14 headings was published. Such a collection of civil and canon law dealing with ecclesiastical matters was called a nomocanon. The sixth century Nomocanon XIV titulorum was updated about 630 (during the reign of Heraclius) and is still in use as the fundamental collection of canon law for the Orthodox churches.
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Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople (610-638) made still another attempt to find a common ground between the Chalcedonian and monophysite positions. He suggested that the Chalcedonian position was not incompatible with the notion that Christ's "operation" or "activity" (energeia) was simple and singular rather than dual. In other words, he argued, while Christ manifestly possessed two natures, one divine and one human, distinctions between the two natures appear inconsequential when considering Christ's activity. Thus, all the Monophysites need to do is recognize that the simplicity and unity of Christ is found in his "one activity", monoenergeia. In correspondence with Bishop of Rome--whom we may, as of the seventh century, address as Pope without being anachronistic, Pope Honorius I, Sergius received what was a rather passive approval of the monoenergetic formula. Then in a second letter to Sergius Pope Honorius I suggested that a more fundamental unity could be affirmed by the understanding that though Christ has two natures he appears to operate with a single will (theléma); hence a "single will" (monothelite) formula was suggested.
Sergius' original monoenergetic proposal was well-received by the disaffected leaders in Egypt and Syria, but the orthodox patriarchal bishop of Jerusalem, Sophronius, prepared and circulated a refutation after 634 condemning the "one activity" formula to be Monophysitism in disguise.
Taking to heart the suggestions of Pope Honorius I, Bishop Sergius now recommended that Emperor Heraclius (610-641) issue a law establishing the monothelite doctrinal position as the only acceptable doctrinal position throughout the Empire. Heraclius issued such a law in 638, the Ekthesis, with an urgency to unify the eastern Christians in the face of the immanent threat of the Arab invasion. The results were anything but positive. Considerable furor arose on both sides as a result of this attempt to impose an arbitrary reconciliation. Neither the Chalcedonians nor the Monophysites found the monothelite formula really satisfactory. In Italy the successors of Pope Honorius I and other influential bishops flatly rejected it. The Empire could ill afford the luxury of such a heated controversy in the face of such severe peril.
With the Church in utter turmoil and unable to get its act together the Emperor Constans II (641-668) determined in 647 to intervene. He promulgated a new law called the typos that rescinded the ridiculed Ekthesis and prohibited any further discussion of either position in the controversy. It was a gag order. As is so often the case, the two warring parties each transferred their hatred of the other to the unenviable peacemaker, Emperor Constans II. Of the two parties, the Monophysites were more ready to use the typos to silence their opponents. Meanwhile the Chalcedonians accused Constans II of protecting heretics. Pope Martin I and a council of Italian churchmen condemned the typos and the monothelite doctrines it had tried to replace. The Roman governor of Italy sided with Pope Martin and rebelled against Constans II. Action had to be taken. Eventually the new governor brought Pope Martin to Constantinople in chains. There he was accused and convicted of treason and sentenced to banishment in the Ukraine.
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After Emperor Constantine IV (668-685) signed a peace treaty with the Arabs in 678 he personally convened the Sixth Ecumenical Council in the royal Trullo palace at Constantinople on 7 November of 680. The Emperor chaired the first eleven of the eighteen plenary sessions and participated in the discussion. He also attended the last session in September of 681 putting his signature to the council's decisions. The assembled churchmen had voted to condemn Monophysite, Monothelite, and Monoenergetic doctrines as heresy, and all persons who held such doctrines as heretics. Several of those in attendance, most notably, Patriarchal bishop Makarios of Antioch and his people, were excommunicated and expelled from the council. Among other deceased churchmen excommunicated and condemned were four previous Patriarchal bishops of Constantinople including Sergius, one Patriarchal bishop of Alexandria and Pope Honorius I, the Patriarchal bishop of Rome.
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Ironically, the great majority of the non-Chalcedonian Christians by 681 lived in the Arabian dominated areas, beyond the reach of Imperial authority. The few outspoken Monophysites remaining in the Empire were effectively isolated and removed to remote areas. Some may have simply chosen to keep their faith to themselves. Tens of thousands of non-Chaldedonian Christians in Arab lands chose to ignore the condemnations but salved their consciences by citing a number of alleged irregularities in the procedures. As the Roman power had evaporated and the Arab conquest became a fait accompli, the majority of the highly educated orthodox churchmen abandoned their congregations of common worshipers to mediocre Chalcedonian leadership and departed. The underground church could then safely emerge from relative obscurity and operate publicly. It is understandable why the orthodox Christians sometimes accused the Monophysites of aiding and abetting the Arab conquerors; for the Monophysites did see the Arabs as liberators.
The last footnote on the Monophysite story was the brief reign of the Armenian usurper Philippicus as Emperor at Constantinople, 711-713. He attempted to defy the 680-81 Council by decreeing that Monothelitism was the only permitted view.
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Most recently edited 18 April 2009