Academic literature on the topic 'Lateran Synod of 649'

The radical nature of the Lateran Synod of 649 – which anathematized three patriarchs from Constantinople, one from Alexandria, two imperial laws, and one bishop identified as the heresiarch – was unprecedented in the history of the church. Hence the Synod represents the high point of the Monothelete controversy. This article analyzes its acts in order to identify the kind of synod which the Lateran gathering understood itself to be, thereby demonstrating that this papal synod, the most important of the early middle ages, constituted itself as a court of justice and pretended to go through a so-called synodal accusatory legal process. Patterning their proceedings after the example of the fifth-century lawsuit against Eutyches, Nestorius and Dioscorus, the gathering claimed to be following, in a canonically faithful manner, the standing synodal legal procedure according to the church’s statues. However, the examination of the actual trial reveals serious breaches of legal procedure. The mandatory summons of the accused was omitted, thereby taking away any possibility of their defense. Moreover, the absolute separation of prosecutor and judge was undermined and, because they were written beforehand, not only the record of the process but also its judgement were a farce. Relying on a theology of Roman primacy, the synod posited a Roman competence which challenged the actual authority of an ecumenical council convened by the emperor. In this respect, here is the first early medieval attempt to replace the institution of the ecumenical council with a papally led Concilium universale. Conceptionally organized by Maximus the Confessor with Popes Theodorus I and Martin I, and staged as a literary product by him and his students, the Lateran Synod was, according to canonical and imperial law, an illegal event which rendered any agreement in the theological controversy impossible.

AbstractThis essay examines the main sources on the attitude of the Church of Cyprus in the so-called monoenergetic-monotheletic dispute. It is shown that the Church of Cyprus was a loyal and active partner in Constantinople’s policy of reconciliation with the Antichalcedonian churches of the East. Cyprus was also, especially under Archbishop Arkadios (624/25-641/2), a place of exile for opponents of this reconciliation, and in 636 also the venue of an important synod which was attended by legates of almost the whole church. The resulting Ekthesis was approved also in Rome and Jerusalem. Even Maximos did not succeed, after 636, to influence the position of Arkadios through the Cypriot priest monk Marinos. His six letters to Marinos offer no evidence for a dyenergetic or dyotheletic position of the Church of Cyprus. A letter from 643, written by the successor of Arkadios, Sergios (642-655), clearly shows that there was until then no protest against the Constantinopolitan church policy in Cyprus in this time. This letter, which demonstrates the firm dyenergetic and dyotheletic position of the whole Church of Cyprus, was presented at the Lateran Synod of 649, but forged or completely rewritten for this Synod. Even after 643, there is no evidence for public dissent in the Church of Cyprus, nor should it actually be expected.

Abstract Taking up important observations made by L. A. García Moreno on King Chindasvinth’s involvement in the Monothelite crisis via connections to North Africa and to Rome, this article argues that a deep division within the Visigothic episcopate on the king’s policy should already be assumed for October 646, when Chindasvinth assembled the 7th Synod of Toledo. A new reading of the synod’s first canon, usually interpreted as a mere confirmation of Chindasvinth’s law on high treason of 641/2, proceeds from the observation that the synod’s decisions must be seen as a minory vote, given the fact that the synod was not attended by more than 30 bishops and several episcopal representatives, and that it lacked any attendance or support from the ecclesiastical provinces of Tarraconensis and Septimania. As is shown, fears were expressed at the synod somewhat shroudedly that numerous clerics of every rank could find a common cause with a foreign enemy beyond the frontiers and that, as a consequence, an infringement of the orthodox faith could result. This most likely referred to the clergy of Septimania and Aquitania, whose territories the Visigothic kingdom and the Frankish kingdom neighboured. This paper argues that Frankish Aquitania, being the south-western part of the Austrasian kingdom of the Merovingian king Sigibert III, never adopted the policy of Sigibert’s brother Clovis II, who assembled a synod of the episcopate of Neustria and Burgundy at Chalon-sur-Saône in support of Pope Martin’s condemnation of Monothelitism at the Lateran synod of 649. While it is not clear whether Sigibert prevented the Aquitanian clergy from attending the synod for religious reasons or for diplomatic considerations related to Constantinople, the division of both the Frankish and Visigothic episcopates over the issue of supporting the Lateran Council fostered a constellation in which treason could become a crime with strong religious overtones.

Abstract The protest of a single monk, the Jerusalem Abbot Sophronios against the union agreed in 633 between Patriarch Kyros of Alexandria and the opponents of the Council of Chalcedon is usually regarded as the beginning of the so-called monenergist-monothelete controversy. This protest against the formulation that, albeit in in two natures, it is one and the same Christ and Son who effects the divine and the human through one divine-human energy led to the so-called Ekthesis, a law composed by Patriarch Sergios of Constantinople and signed by the emperor Herakleios. With this law a supposedly heretical majority, holding the reins of power, wished by means of a prohibition to silence the orthodox minority and their confession of two modes of action and two wills in Christ. In contrast, this paper makes clear that, with the consent of this very minority – including Sophronios –, already in 633 a synodically secured agreement was made to refrain in future from numerical statements about action in Christ. Because Sophronios, since 634 Patriarch of Jerusalem, challenged this agreement, there ensued in 636 a synod on Cyprus with almost ecumenical representation, which was later consigned to silence and has been known only since 1973. Even though the majority at this council rejected the position of Sophronios and Maximos the Confessor on action in Christ, there was a general agreement to appeal to the emperor as arbitrator, who then promulgated the Ekthesis, which was approved by all the churches represented at the Synod, including those of Pope Honorius and Sophronios! An in-depth analysis will show how these facts were reinterpreted or concealed by Maximos in the 640s; for they told against the campaign he initiated in 641 for the anathematization of the Ekthesis and of the patriarchs Sergios and Kyros, which was then brought to accomplishment at the Lateran Synod of 649.

AbstractThis article analyses the dyothelete and dyenergist Christology in the following texts: the Horos and the Logos Prosphonetikos of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680/681), the epistle of pope Agatho, which became officially authorized as a teaching text, and the letter of the roman synod of the 125 bishops. The results of this analysis are compared with the Christology of the Lateran Council of 649 and the theology of Maximus the Confessor, upon which it is based. The council claims to define things in a way that complements and concludes the results of the council of Chalcedon (451) by designating the will and the capacity to act as properties of the ontological categories of φύσις/οὐσία and thus formulating the doctrine of the double willing and acting of Christ. In fact, the council draws on text of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon but changes the order of priority of the texts (which were made authoritative in Chalcedon) of Cyril of Alexandria and Pope Leo I. so that the Tomus Leonis, which contains pointed statements that were controversial both during and after Chalcedon, becomes the hermeneutical key to the doctrine of two natures. Both natures become subjects of willing and acting and the meaning of the ὑπόστασις remains underdeveloped in comparison with that of φύσις and πρόσωπον. Thus the council neither comes to terms with the development of Leo’s thought nor with the Christology of the Lateran Councils nor with the Christology of Maximus. In fact, fundamental distinctions in the meaning of θέλημα and ἐνέργεια as well as of φύσις and ὑπόστασις have not been taken into consideration by the council in 681. Instead, the council remains with the initial ontological concepts due to its recourse to an ontologized Tomus Leonis. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that this is the first ecumenical council to establish the primacy of and infallibility of the Roman Pope. The final concern of this article is to ask how this development could come about.

Il Liber testimoniorum del discipulus Gregorii Paterio è una raccolta di estratti esegetici dalle opere di papa Gregorio Magno (590-604), ordinati secondo loro originaria successione all'interno della Scrittura. Per le sue caratteristiche può essere considerato il primo florilegio esegetico monoautoriale noto nell'ambito della letteratura cristiana di lingua latina. La tesi dottorale di F. Martello prende in esame i precedenti letterari dell'opera; le attestazioni antiche relative alla sua diffusione entro il IX secolo e il problema dell'identificazione dell'autore con il notarius ecclesiae Romanae e secundicerius Paterio citato in più occasioni nel Registrum epistolarum gregoriano in qualità di cancelliere. Sulla base di tale identificazione, nell'intento di ricostruire l'identità biografica e professionale dell'autore e il contesto della sua attività, viene dedicato un lungo excursus alle origini e alle funzioni della categoria dei notarii ecclesiae Romanae, che vengono ricostruite attraverso il censimento (eseguito su base proposografica) e l'analisi delle testimonianze presenti nelle fonti edite (diplomatiche, epigrafiche, letterarie) fino alla metà del VII secolo. Uno spazio autonomo è dedicato alla discussione dei riferimenti presenti nel Liber pontificalis, nel Registrum gregoriano e negli Atti del sinodo lateranense del 649. L'esame diretto di una parte cospicua della tradizione manoscritta permette di precisare i confini e la struttura della parte originale pervenuta del Liber di Paterio (che comprende quattordici libri della Bibbia dalla Genesi al Cantico dei Cantici) liberandolo dalle interpolazioni che caratterizzano le edizioni a stampa, dovute all'impiego, per l'editio princeps del 1553, del codice I 360 inf della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano. L'identificazione dei principali errori che caratterizzano i testimoni permette il loro raggruppamento in famiglie e la costituzione del nucleo centrale di uno stemma codicum. Al fine di ricostruire la storia del testo vengono esaminati i tentativi di integrazione e completamento del Liber compiuti nel corso del Medioevo. Alcuni di questi progetti, come il Gregorialis di Alulfo e il Supplementum Paterii di Bruno, pur nati con l'intento di imitare e proseguire il lavoro di Paterio si dimostrano opere con un proprio valore letterario. Nel caso dell'anonima raccolta dello Pseudo Paterio A si ha invece, probabilmente, la semplificazione e il riutilizzo di florilegi esegetici gregoriani precedenti (tra le sue fonti è possibile riconoscere anche una raccolta gregoriana inedita di Floro di Lione). La compresenza di tanti completamenti del Liber ha generato confusione nei suoi editori: vengono passate in rassegna le forme che l'opera assume nel corso delle successive edizioni a stampa. Contemporaneamente, si nota come la raccolta di Paterio inizi, dalla seconda metà del XVII secolo, ad assumere importanza rispetto alla definizione dei limiti della produzione da considerare autentica di Gregorio Magno. In epoca contemporanea il Liber testimoniorum, benché relegato in uno spazio estremamente marginale degli studi gregoriani, si è rivelato di estrema importanza nell'economia della tesi elaborata da Francis Clark circa la pseudoepigrafia dei Dialogi gregoriani. In realtà, nell'elaborare tale tesi e immaginare il ruolo avuto nella costruzione dell'opera dal cosiddetto "Dialogista" lo studioso è stato fortemente influenzato proprio dalla figura e dalle notizie sull'attività di Paterio. Molto scarso è stato finora l'interesse per l'opera anche nell'ambito degli studi sui florilegi di testi patristici, mentre, secondo la ricerca di Martello, il Liber avrebbe costituito un modello per il genere del florilegio esegetico che ha avuto grande sviluppo nei secoli successivi. L'analisi del prologo del Liber rivela l'impiego di immagini e stilemi gregoriani; si notano somiglianze con il linguaggio delle lettere del Registrum e con i Dialogi. L'analisi dei paragrafi dell'opera rivela invece le tecniche redazionali adottate da Paterio, che ha rielaborato i testi gregoriani di partenza per costruire delle unità esegetiche autonome sia dal punto di vista del significato che della sintassi, pronte per poter essere eventualmente riutilizzate in nuovi contesti. L'opera, nelle intenzioni del committente – Gregorio stesso –, doveva probabilmente costituire uno strumento di orientamento nella sua produzione, ad uso degli addetti allo scrinium romano, ma gli adattamenti ai testi messi in atto da Paterio fanno pensare che quest'ultimo intendesse costituire un repertorio esegetico con destinazione più ampia. La ricerca di Martello si completa con un censimento della tradizione manoscritta dell'opera e con la ricostruzione del testo del prologo e della sezione sul Cantico dei Cantici basata sul codice 220 della Biblioteca municipale di Amiens, il testimone che più sembra avvicinarsi all'archetipo almeno dal punto di vista strutturale, che viene confrontato con un gruppo di testimoni appartenenti a rami diversi della tradizione.
The late sixth century anthology known as Liber Testimoniorum by the discipulus Gregorii Paterius is probably the first, in Christian Latin literature, to collect exegetic excerpts from the works of one single Father – namely pope Gregory the Great (590-604) – and arrange them according to their order of appearance in the Scriptures. Fabrizio Martello's doctoral thesis explores the literary models the author might have been aware of, collects ancient evidence of the work's circulation until the ninth century and tackles the problem of identifying the author with a notarius Ecclesiae Romanae and secundicerius named Paterius, a writer of chancery documents quoted at various times in Gregory's Registrum Epistolarum. In order to reconstruct Paterius's biographical and professional identity as well as the context he worked in, a wide excursus in the dissertation is devoted to the origins and the tasks of the notarii Ecclesiae Romanae. The reconstruction is based on a prosopographic census of the references to papal notaries existing in published diplomatic, epigraphic and literary sources up to the first half of the seventh century. A closer examination is devoted to some of the sources involved in the enquiry, i.e. the Liber Pontificalis, the Gregorian Registrum and the Acts of the Lateran Synod of 649. Through the direct examination of a substantial part of circulating manuscript tradition, Martello is able to recognise the interpolations that characterize modern printed editions of the work (due to the use of Codex I 360 inf of the Ambrosiana Library in Milan in the context of the 1553 editio princeps), and is able to set the boundaries and to identify the structure of authentic Paterius extant work. This is represented by fourteen sections relating to as many books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to the Canticle of Canticles. The thesis also offers a core stemma codicum, based on the recognition of the main errors in the manuscript tradition. During the Middle Ages various attempts were made to complete or imitate the Liber Testimoniorum project: some of these, as the Gregorialis by Alulfus of Tournai and the Supplementum Paterii by the monk Bruno possess a literary value of their own. The anonymous collection by Pseudo-Paterius A, instead, is probably made up of previous Gregorian anthologies, summarised or simply reproduced in their entirety (among its sources we recognise an unpublished Gregorian collection by Florus of Lyon). The simultaneous existence of different recensions of the Liber has caused great confusion among modern editors. Martello examines the configurations the work displays throughout its various editions. In the meantime he notes how – from the second half of the seventeenth century – the Liber becomes increasingly important in the eyes of editors of Gregorian work intent on outlining the boundaries of Gregory's actual – authentic – literary production. Long exiled to the extreme fringe of Gregorian studies, the Liber Testimoniorum recently attracted the attention of scholars at the time of the debate generated by Francis Clark's thesis surrounding the authenticity of Gregorian Dialogues. It is appropriate to recall that while developing the idea of the so-called "Dialogist", Clark himself was deeply influenced by what is known about Paterius. Scholars' interest for this work in the context of studies on Florilegia of patristic texts has been so far rather low. However, Martello underlines, the Liber could have constituted the main pattern of the exegetic anthology genre itself, which would have largely developed in mediaeval times. The analysis of the work's Prologue reveals the use of Gregorian literary and stylistic figures. For example, strong similarities can be seen with the language of the Registrum letters and with the Dialogues. An examination of the exegetic paragraphs shows the editorial techniques adopted by Paterius, who elaborated Gregorian passages in order to construct exegetic units independent both in form and in meaning from the original context, and potentially usable elsewhere. In the intentions of its patron – Gregory himself – the anthology should probably become an index for his own literary production to be used mainly, if not exclusively, by Roman scrinium personnel. Adjustments to the excerpts by the author may however indicate that Paterius rather wanted to offer a gregorian exegetic repertory to a wider public. The research on the Liber Testimoniorum is completed by a census of the manuscript tradition and the reconstruction of two key portions of the work, the Prologue and the section pertaining to the Canticle of Canticles, based on the Amiens Municipal Library 220 manuscript – which seems to resemble the archetype most closely, at least from a structural point of view. This is collated with a group of manuscripts representing different branches of the tradition.

The Council of Chalcedon’s definition of the terms in which Nicene orthodoxy should conceive of Christ’s person remained controversial. Leontius of Byzantium argued for the correctness of the Council’s formulation, especially against the arguments of Severus of Antioch, but suggested that more than academic issues were at stake: the debate concerned the lived, permanently dialectical unity between God and humanity. In the mid-seventh century, imperially sponsored efforts to lessen the perceived impact of Chalcedonian language by stressing that Christ’s two natures were activated by “a single, theandric energy,” also remained without effect: largely because of the monk Maximus “the Confessor”, who argued that two complete spheres of activity and two wills remained evident in Christ’s life. Maximus’s position was ratified at the Lateran Synod and at the Third Council of Constantinople. The eighth-century Palestinian monk John of Damascus incorporated these arguments into his own influential synthesis of orthodox theology.