Chalcedon

CHALCEDON. - Today Kadıköy, founded by the Megarians in the 7th century B.C., it lies on the coast of Bithynia opposite Byzantium. In 74 B.C. it passed to the Romans but remained a free city. It was destroyed by the Goths under the emperor Gallienus; in 616 it suffered an invasion by the Persians, but it always remained part of the Byzantine empire. Christianity must have been introduced into C. from its very beginnings; nevertheless, the year in which it became an episcopal see cannot be determined precisely. Its martyr St. Euphemia was venerated throughout the whole world, and in her basilica the famous ecumenical Council of 451 was held (v. below). Among its bishops C. counts Marius, one of the first and most tenacious Arians, and Heraclianus, in the 6th century, author of works against the Manichaeans and the Monophysites. With the establishment of the Latin empire of the East, C. too had its Latin bishops. The present titular see also has a metropolitan for the Armenians and an archbishop for the Syrians, both titular. Within the boundaries of the diocese of C. lies Chrysopolis (today Scutari), where Licinius was defeated by Constantine (324) and where St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662) lived, who so tenaciously upheld orthodoxy against the threats of Monothelitism defended by nearby Constantinople. The population numbers about 30,000 inhabitants, half of them Greeks; the rest Armenians, Muslims, Jews; the Catholics (Latins and Armenians) are about 5,000; the Protestant colony is small.

Saverio Pericoli Ridolfini

THE COUNCIL of C

I. PRELIMINARIES

The Council of C. (IV Ecumenical, 8 Oct.-1 Nov. 451) was convoked to repair the scandal of the second Council of Ephesus (Aug. 449), which Pope Leo I called the "Latrocinium".

The conciliabulum presided over by Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, had rehabilitated Eutyches, condemned as a heretic by the Synod of Constantinople of 448, and had anathematized anyone who asserted two natures (8/10 epiceic) in Jesus Christ, after the union. Dioscorus had wished to impose the Monophysite terminology on the whole Church, excluding every other, at the risk of opening the way to the strangest errors concerning the mystery of the Incarnation: Eutychianism (v. EFESO, LATROCINIO di; EUTICHE). By deceit and violence he had succeeded in wresting the vote of almost the entire Eastern episcopate present at the Council and had indirectly condemned not only the Easterners of the patriarchate of Antioch but also Pope St. Leo himself, whose Letter to Flavian he had not even wished to read.

When St. Leo learned what had happened, he annulled the decision of the conciliabulum and insistently asked the emperor Theodosius II to convoke a new ecumenical council to be held in Italy, at which the appeal of Flavian and of the other Eastern bishops unjustly deposed by Dioscorus would be examined.

Despite the intervention of his Western colleague, Valentinian III, the emperor would not hear of it and had the sentences of the conciliabulum executed. An unforeseen event soon came to change the situation entirely. On 28 July 450, Theodosius II died after falling from his horse; having no heirs, his sister Pulcheria seized power and had the aged senator Marcian crowned, whom she married while remaining a virgin.

The new sovereigns were favorable to the cause of orthodoxy and justice. Marcian approved the plan of a new council on condition that it be held in the East and not in Italy. The Pope soon received excellent news from the East. Not only had the new archbishop of Constantinople, Anatolius, who had replaced Flavian, who died immediately after the latrocinium of Ephesus, subscribed the Letter (or Tome) to Flavian, but Maximus of Antioch was zealously working to have his suffragans sign the same document.

The bishops deposed by Dioscorus were recalled from exile and Eutyches was forced to abandon his monastery. Here and there, the members of the "latrocinium of Ephesus" signaled their repentance and their submission. In the face of this unexpected change Leo did not see the immediate necessity of a new council and preferred to postpone it to a later time, when the bishops of the West, then under the invasion of Attila's Huns, would be able to take part in it. But the emperor Marcian was very eager for the Council and wanted the christological question to be resolved without delay and definitively. Therefore, without consulting the Pope and before receiving his latest letters, dated at least from June, he had already convoked the Council as early as 17 May 451.

The bishops were to assemble at Nicaea on 1 Sept. 451. The Pope bowed before the accomplished fact and accepted the Council on condition that it would be presided over by one of his legates, the bishop Paschasinus (who had as colleagues the bishop Lucentius, Julian bishop of Cos, and the priests Basil and Boniface) and that the dogmatic question, already resolved by the Letter to Flavian, would no longer be discussed. On the appointed day, more than 500 bishops were at Nicaea. But the Council did not open immediately, because the emperor, who wished to attend the opening, was engaged in fighting the barbarians. In the meantime the Fathers occupied themselves with preliminary measures. It was then, as it seems, that Dioscorus, whose presence at the Council was by no means a good omen, attempted a dramatic coup. He wished to have Pope St. Leo excommunicated, but he gathered around himself only a few Egyptians (cf. Epist. Concilii ad imperatorem Marcianum, in Mansi, VI, 1007). This attempt only aggravated his situation. Seeing the bishops tired of waiting, Marcian thought it opportune to transfer the Council to C. near the capital.

II. THE SESSIONS

The Council of Nicaea thus became that of C. It was the most important ecumenical council of the patristic period, both for the number of bishops who took part in it and for the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions taken there. The acts survive almost in full in various collections. The bishops present, all Easterners except the papal legates and two fugitive Africans, Aurelius of Hadrumetum and Rusticianus, numbered at least 500, and counting the proxies of absent bishops we can, as historians commonly do, raise the number to 630. Not all of them, however, remained to the end. In fact the Greek acts, which record 452 signatures for the dogmatic decree on the Incarnation promulgated at the 6th session (25 Oct.), record barely 185 for the last session (1 Nov.), in which the 28th canon was approved.

Historians also differ on the number and division of the sessions. Some count 15, others 16. The Greek acts give 17. The Ballerini brothers, editors of the works of St. Leo, after a careful investigation reckon the sessions at 21, distributed over 12 days. These divergences are of little importance since the great collections are substantially the same. All the sessions took place in the basilica of the martyr St. Euphemia of C. The first was held on 8 Oct. 451. The emperor could not attend it, but was represented by an imposing board of 19 commissioners, who directed the discussions without evidently taking part in the vote. The Roman legates held the first place among the bishops, except for Julian of Cos. From the very beginning of the sitting they wished to expel Dioscorus, but the imperial commissioners let them understand that a regular trial was necessary. They proceeded therefore to the reading of the many documents that made up the dossier of the Robber Council of Ephesus. The reading was interrupted by various incidents that revealed the impassioned spirit of the assembly. Flavian was immediately recognized as orthodox; the deposition of Dioscorus was postponed to the 3rd session (13 Oct.), which the imperial commissioners did not attend; his chief accomplices were pardoned, among whom figured Juvenal of Jerusalem and Thalassius of Caesarea.

From the 2nd session (10 Oct.) the dogmatic question was broached. The Roman legates and the majority of the Council did not want new definitions of faith, holding that the documents already canonized by previous councils and the Tome of Leo were sufficient for the dogmatic exposition. But the imperial commissioners insisted on a new formula. In the end their wishes were satisfied. A first formula, drafted by a private commission presided over by Anatolius of Constantinople, was examined at the 5th session (22 Oct.). It received the approval of the majority, but the Roman legates and the Antiochene Easterners rejected it as ambiguous. Another therefore had to be drafted with the participation of the legates, on pain of transferring the Council to the West. Such in fact had been the emperor's decision, since he was absolutely set on a definition clear enough to eliminate every subterfuge. From the collaboration of the representatives of the two terminologies: the Roman, the Eastern and the Cyrillian, the desired formula was reached, the one that was approved by all and solemnly promulgated at the 6th session (25 Oct.), which the emperor attended and addressed the Fathers in Latin. At the foot of the celebrated document were placed more than 600 signatures of bishops present or of delegates.

After this act, the principal task of the Council, for which the Pope had sent his legates, was finished. The sessions that followed up to and including 1 Nov. were devoted to settling questions concerning the Easterners. A collection of 27 canons was drafted probably at the 7th session, others say at the 15th. The famous 28th canon on the privileges of the see of Constantinople appeared only on 31 Oct. (15th or 16th session, in which neither the imperial commissioners nor the Roman legates took part). The discussions on this canon, condemned by the legates, were the subject of the last session (1 Nov.).

Before taking their leave, the bishops still present addressed to the Pope a letter of homage, calling him their father, their head and their teacher, and requesting in particular the confirmation of the 28th canon, rejected by the legates. In a series of sittings, between 25 and 30 Oct., the case of the victims of Dioscorus was settled: Ibas of Edessa, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, John of Antioch, etc. At the session of 26 Oct., Juvenal of Jerusalem, deeply compromised in the "Robber Council of Ephesus," was fortunate enough to obtain the autonomy of his see with respect to the patriarchate of Antioch and jurisdiction over the three Palestines with their respective metropolises: Caesarea, Scythopolis and Petra, which thus gave rise to a new patriarchate.

III. PRINCIPAL DECISIONS

The most important decision of the Council was certainly the dogmatic definition on the mystery of the Incarnation, whose elaboration was so laborious and which the imperial commissioners finally wrested from the majority of the bishops.

The principal passage is the following: "The Council anathematizes those who have invented this story that before the union there were two natures (δύο φύσεις), in the Lord, but that after the union there is only one. With the Fathers, we all unanimously teach one and the same Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, complete also in His humanity; the same truly God and truly man composed of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father in His Divinity, consubstantial with us in His humanity; in all things like us except sin; begotten of the Father before all ages as to his divinity, and the same, in these last times, born for our salvation from the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, according to the humanity. We recognize one and the same Christ, Son, Lord Only-begotten in two natures (ἐν δύο φύσεις) united without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, since the difference of the natures is by no means abolished by their union; on the contrary, each of them preserves what is proper to it, uniting with the other to form one person and one hypostasis. For we do not confess a Son divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten, who is the God Word, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Mansi, VII, 116).

What matters most in this formula is the clear distinction that is made between the word φύσεις and the word ὑπόστασις, relative to the mystery of the Incarnation. The term φύσεις indicates the concrete and individual nature, considered in itself, as essence, οὐσία, independently of its suppositum or person. The term ὑπόστασις is taken as a synonym of πρόσωπον, but a concrete, physical πρόσωπον, and signifies the person, the subject of attribution, the I. This I, this hypostasis, this person is identified with the I, with the hypostasis, with the person of God-Word, the only-begotten Son of the Father, begotten of Him before all ages, made perfect man for us in time. In this way there is clearly affirmed, against the Nestorian heresy, the intimate unity of Christ, God-Man.

With this terminology, the formula: two φύσεις before the union; a single φύσις after the union, becomes untenable and inconceivable. St. Cyril, in saying, after the pseudo-Athanasius: one incarnate φύσις of the Word of God, gave to the word φύσις the sense of concrete subject, that is, of hypostasis and of person. Proclus of Constantinople in his Tome to the Armenians, fortunately, replaced in the Cyrillian formula the word φύσις with the term ὑπόστασις. This manner of expression is precisely consecrated by the definition of C. It says that Christ is, subsists in two natures (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν), and not that he is of two natures (ἐκ δύο φύσεων), as Dioscorus wanted, because this formula, which appealed to the majority of the Fathers, and which was rejected by the legates, was equivocal and tended to lead back to the single φύσις after the union. Impressed by the interminable and sad disputes that followed the Council, some historians without hesitation say that this definition was a mistake (cf. L. Duchesne, Histoire ancienne de l'Eglise, III, Paris 1910, p. 457-58). They in fact do not reflect that if the Council had been less explicit and had contented itself with approving the tome of Leo, the Eutychians would certainly have been fully refuted, but the faithful followers of Nestorius would have sheltered without difficulty behind the papal document, and the Egyptian exclusivist disciples of Cyril would likewise have remained dissatisfied. If they had adhered to the formula: ex duobus naturis (ἐκ δύο φύσεων) the Cyrillians would probably have remained satisfied; but such a formula could have covered all monophysitisms, even the crudest, and would without fail have provoked discontent among the Antiochenes, thus also displeasing the Westerners. Let one think moreover that in clearly distinguishing φύσις from ὑπόστασις or πρόσωπον in the theology of the Incarnation, the Council established the uniformity of terminology with regard to the two great mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation: In God one single nature and three hypostases or persons, in Jesus Christ two natures and one single hypostasis or person.

On the whole, the history of the Council of C. gives great prominence to the Roman primacy of divine right. Many are the passages, in the acts of the Council, in which this primacy is asserted with evidence both by the Fathers and by the Roman legates and by Pope St. Leo. But in the famous canon 28, which the Pope refused to approve, there is a passage which, taken literally, destroys this primacy from its foundations. Indeed it is said there: "Meritedly the Fathers attributed the primacy (τὰ πρεσβεῖα) to the see of ancient Rome, because this city was the capital of the empire" (Mansi, VII, 369).

On the sense and importance of this crude and true unofficial lie, invented for the necessity of the cause, v. COSTANTINOPOLI, PATRIARCATO di. The same Fathers who approved this text wrote to Pope Leo a humble supplication to ask him for the approval and confirmation of their decree through his authority, greeting in him the interpreter "of the voice of Peter, he who has received from the Savior the custody of his vineyard," that is, of the whole Church; the "Head of which they are the members," the Father of whom they are the sons: PL 54, 951 ff. Anatolius bishop of Constantinople, one of the first interested in this affair, declared to the Pope: "The see of Constantinople has for father your Apostolic see" (Epist. ad Leonem Papam, 4: PL 54, 984 A).

Moreover all the Fathers, at the 3rd session, explicitly approved the sentence of the deposition of Dioscorus, pronounced by the legate Paschasinus, in which the divine origin of the Roman primacy is openly indicated: "Leo, through us and this holy Council, in union with the blessed Peter the Apostle, who is the cornerstone of the Catholic Church and the foundation of the orthodox faith, has taken from him the episcopate and every sacerdotal dignity" (Mansi, VI, 1047). The Eastern dissidents who even today appeal to canon 28 to deny the divine origin of the primacy of Rome, abstract from this historical context and adhere to the letter of the text. One understands why St. Leo refused its approval and wrote to the emperor Marcian: "One is the nature of human things, another that of divine things; and no building will be stable without the stone that the Lord has placed" (Epist. 104 ad Marcianum, 3: PL 54, 993-95).

The bibliography on the Council of C. is immense but rather outdated. See that of Hefele-Leclercq, II, pp. 649-51; Fliche-Martin-Frutz, IV, pp. 208-37. A few recent works are noted: P. Batiffol, Le Siège Apostolique de s. Damase à s. Léon le Grand, Paris 1920; id., Léon I, in DThC, IX, coll. 216-301 (with bibl.); E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, I, Tübingen 1930, pp. 314 ff.; J. Harapin, Primatus Pontificis romani in Concilio chalcedonensi et Ecclesiae dissidentes, Quaracchi 1933. On the dogmatic definition of the Council, see the histories of dogma, especially that of J. Tixeront, Histoire des dogmes, III, Paris 1912, p. 89 f.; J. Bois, Chalcédoine, Concile de, in DThC, II, coll. 2190-2208; M. Jugie, Nestorius et le tome de s. Léon. Nestorius et la définition de Chalcédoine, note in the work: Nestorius et la controverse nestorienne, Paris 1912, pp. 307-12. Martin Jugie