The Church and the Barbarians | Page 7

"One Person of
the Trinity was crucified," to be orthodox. His judgment was confirmed
by the Fifth General Council.[1]
The position which the emperor thus assumed was not one which the
East alone welcomed. Rome, too, recognised that the East had power to
make decrees, so long as they were consonant with apostolic doctrine.
[Sidenote: The Monophysites.]
Justinian now gave himself eagerly to the reconciliation of the
Monophysites. In 535 Anthimus, bishop of Trebizond, a friend of the
deposed patriarch of Antioch, Severus, who was at least
semi-Monophysite, was elected to the patriarchal throne of New Rome.
In the same year Pope Agapetus (534-6) came to Constantinople as an
envoy of a Gothic king, and he demanded that Anthimus should make
formal profession of orthodoxy. The result was not satisfactory: the
new patriarch was condemned by the emperor with the sanction of the
pope and the approval of a synod. Justinian then issued a decree
condemning Monophysitism, which he ordered the new patriarch to

send to the Eastern Churches. Mennas, the successor of Anthimus, in
his local synod, had condemned and deposed the Monophysite bishops.
The controversy was at an end.
More important in its results was the dispute with the so-called
Origenists. S. Sabas came from {16} Palestine in 531 to lay before the
emperor the sad tale of the spread of their evil doctrines, but he died in
the next year, and the Holy Land remained the scene of strife between
the two famous monasteries of the Old and the New Laura. [Sidenote:
The Origenists.] In 541 or 542 a synod at Antioch condemned the
doctrines of Origen, but the only result was that Jerusalem refused
communion with the other Eastern patriarchate. Justinian himself,--at a
time when there was at Constantinople an envoy from Rome,
Pelagius,--issued a long declaration condemning Origen. A synod was
summoned, which formally condemned Origen in person--a precedent
for the later anathemas of the Fifth General Council--and fifteen
propositions from his writings, ten of them being those which
Justinian's edict had denounced. The decisions were sent for
subscription to the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, as
well as to Rome. This sanction gave something of an universal
condemnation of Origenism; but, since no general council confirmed it,
it cannot be asserted that Origen lies under anathema as a heretic. The
opinion of the legalists of the age was utterly out of sympathy with one
who was rather the cause of heresy in others than himself heretical.
[Sidenote: The "Three Chapters."]
But the most important controversy of the reign was that which was
concerned with the "Three Chapters." Justinian, who had himself
written against the Monophysites, was led aside by an ingenious monk
into an attack upon the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret
of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa. The Emperor issued an edict (544) in
which "Three Chapters" asserted the heresy of the incriminated
writings. Within a short {17} time the phrase "The Three Chapters"
was applied to the subjects of the condemnation; and the Fifth General
Council, followed by later usage, describes as the "Three Chapters" the
"impious Theodore of Mopsuestia with his wicked writings, and those

things which Theodoret impiously wrote, and the impious letter which
is said to be by Ibas." [2]
Justinian's edict was not favourably received: even the patriarch
Mennas hesitated, and the papal envoy and some African bishops broke
off communion. The Latin bishops rejected it; but the patriarchs of
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem gave their adhesion. Justinian
summoned Pope Vigilius; and a pitiable example of irresolution he
presented when he came. He accepted, rejected, censured, was
complacent and hostile in turns. [Sidenote: The Fifth General Council,
553.] At last he agreed to the summoning of a General Council, and
Justinian ordered it to meet in May, 553. Vigilius, almost at the last
moment, would have nothing to do with it. The patriarch of
Constantinople presided, and the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria
appeared in person, the patriarch of Jerusalem by three bishops. The
acts of the Council were signed by 164 prelates. The Council, like its
predecessors, was predominantly Eastern; but its decisions were
afterwards accepted by the West. The precedents of the earlier Councils
were strictly followed in regard to Rome: no supremacy was allowed
though the honourable primacy was not contested.[3] Justinian's letter,
sketching the history of the controversy of the Three Chapters, {18}
was read, but he did not interfere with the deliberations. It was
summoned to deal with matters concerning the faith, and these were
always left to the decision of the Episcopate. The discussion was long;
and after an exhaustive examination of the writings of Theodore, the
Council proceeded to endorse the first "chapter," by the condemnation
of the Mopsuestian and his writings. The case of Theodoret was less
clear: indeed, a