III

THE CHURCH OF THE GREEKS,

AD 610-968

 

THE seventh century (610-717) was a dark period for the Eastern Christian world. The Empire was exhausted both in its military strength and in its financial resources. It ceased to be Roman, and Latin ceased to be the official language, though the Greeks continued to call themselves “Roman” and did so until the nineteenth century. The Empire was Byzantine and its language was Greek. Though diminished, it was still capable of being consolidated; and it seemed as though it would revive under the honest toil, keen generalship, and religious ardor of the Emperor Heraclius. He tried, but failed.

Heraclius (610-642) was the first great Christian monarch who came into conflict with Muslim as well as pagan forces. From the pagan Persians he won back the Roman provinces in Asia, and in 628 he kept the Feast of the Epiphany in the palace of the Persian king, Chosroes. He recovered Jerusalem and the honored relic of the Holy Cross. He won marked successes in the Balkans. But he had other foes to face besides the Persians in Asia and the Avars in Europe. These were the Arabs, who had already started on their wild career of conquest. The story that Muhammad himself sent to Heraclius a messenger summoning him to acknowledge his divine mission, though possibly true, does not rest on a very secure foundation. But the Arab and the Byzantine armies saw one another in the face on the river Yarmuk in 636. The Arabs skillfully outflanked the Christians, inflicted on them a crushing defeat, and occupied Damascus. Jerusalem, which was practically a Greek city, surrendered in 638, and the Arab tribes, united by their amazing success, quickly began the conquest of Mesopotamia and Egypt.

The tragic surrender of the city of Alexandria to Amr, the Arab general, in October 642, sealed the fate of all Egypt and opened the way to further Muslim advance. It has been said that the conquerors were aided by the treachery of the Monophysites. On the other hand, it is held that Cyrus, the Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, was himself a traitor, if not actually a convert to Islam. In any case it is certain that the imperial armies were inefficient, and that the Copts of Egypt, unwarlike by nature and Monophysite by conviction, were as ready to obey an Arab as to follow Cyrus, who united in his person the representation of an alien government and a hated creed. If these Copts were disloyal to the Empire and the Church, their descendants for more than a thousand years have paid under the Muslim yoke a more than sufficient penalty. Nor should we forget that before the coming of the Muslims the Copts had spread the Christian religion among Abyssinians, Nubians, and even Arabs, who had proved worthy soldiers of the Cross.

Heraclius in his earnest attempt to secure moral unity in the Empire, at first met with a success similar to his early victories in war. At the advice of his staunch supporter, Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, he opened negotiations with the leaders of the Monophysites. Some of them united with the Church in 633 on the basis of the statement that there is in Christ one divine-human operation. This was naturally regarded as a Monophysite triumph, and the triumph was rendered more complete when Honorius the Pope, in writing to Sergius, said “We confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ”. In a second letter Honorius tried to shelve the question by opposing the use of both modes of expression, 'one operation' and 'two operations'. Disaffection and disturbances still continued, and in 638 Heraclius issued an edict composed by Sergius and known as the Ekthesis (Exposition of Faith). It deprecates the use of the expressions 'one operation' and 'two operations', but asserts 'one will'. This was simply an attempt to stop discussion and to do so in the interests of Monophysitism.

After the death of Heraclius the Emperor Constans II, by issuing an edict called the Type, made a similar vain attempt to enjoin silence on the disputed point. But the orthodox of Italy and Africa were not pacified, and in 649 Pope Martin I held a synod in the Lateran which anathematized the doctrine of one will in Christ as inconsistent with the decrees of Chalcedon, and also anathematized both Sergius and Honorius. Martin was punished for his boldness by being carried off to Constantinople, and he died in exile, after much suffering, in 655.

SIXTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL

The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus (669-685), son and successor of Constans, finally found it imperative to pursue a different policy. The Muslim conquest of Egypt and Syria made an agreement with the Monophysites of those regions as politically useless for the Empire as union with Rome was desirable. The Pope, Agatho, left no room for doubt as to his belief, for he held a preliminary synod at Rome and wrote an official letter maintaining the doctrine of two wills and two operations in Christ. And then, in 680, there was held at Constantinople the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which confirmed this letter, carefully excluded the Monothelete doctrine of one will in Christ, and condemned Sergius and Honorius. The decision of the Council closely agrees with that of the Council of Chalcedon of 451. If our Lord had not a real human will, there would have been no full revelation to mankind of that purpose to which His humanity was true through sorrow and temptation.

The anathema pronounced upon Pope Honorius has caused considerable embarrassment to many defenders of the doctrine of papal infallibility. Sometimes it has been affirmed, with no reason whatever, that the manuscripts containing his name are at fault. Sometimes it has been said that he was not condemned as personally guilty of heresy, but “only as guilty of negligence”. And thirdly, it is now urged that though he was guilty of heresy, his heresy was not contained in any document intended by him to be an ex cathedra statement instructing the Christian Church. It is, however, clear that the repeated anathemas pronounced against Honorius were the expression of the Church’s belief that he had been guilty of something far more serious than negligence and imprudent silence. And with regard to the question whether his letters were intended to be ex cathedra, it is sufficient to quote Bishop Hefele, one of the most learned of Roman Catholic historians, Honorius wished to give a ruling on doctrine and faith in the first place to the Church of Constantinople and implicitly to the whole Church; in his second letter he even employs the following expression: “Further, so far as ecclesiastical dogma is concerned ... we ought not to affirm one or two operations in the Mediator between God and men”. The statement is clearly both official and heretical.