Later Roman Empire

Theological Controversies.

As to the ecclesiastical contro versies which form a leading feature of Byzantine history, their political significance alone concerns us. After the determination of the Arian controversy in 381 new questions (as to the union of the divine and human elements in the person of Christ : one or two natures?) arose, and it may seem surprising that such points of abstruse theology should have awakened universal interest and led to serious consequences. The secret was that they masked national feelings ; hence their political importance and the at tention which the Government was forced to bestow on them. The reviving sense of nationality (anti-Greek) in Syria and in Egypt found expression in the 5th century in passionate mono physitism (the doctrine of one nature) : theology was the only sphere in which such feelings could be uttered. The alienation and dissension which thus began had fatal consequences, smoothing the way for the Saracen conquests of those lands; the inhabitants were not unwilling to be severed politically from the empire. This ultimate danger was at first hardly visible. What immediately troubled the emperors in the first half of the 5th century was the preponderant position which the see of Alexandria occupied, threatening the higher authority of Constantinople. The Council of Chalcedon, called by Marcian, an able statesman, was as much for the purpose of ending the domination of Alexandria as of settling the theological question. The former object was effected, but the theological decision of the council was fatal; it only sealed and promoted the disunion. The recalcitrant spirit of Syria and Egypt forced Zeno, 3o years later, to issue his Henotikon, affirm ing the decisions of previous councils but pointedly ignoring Chalcedon. This statesman-like document secured peace in the East for a generation. Rome refused to accept the Henotikon, and when Justinian resolved to restore imperial supremacy in the Western kingdoms, conciliation with Rome became a matter of political importance. For the sake of this project, the unity of the East was sacrificed. The doctrine of Chalcedon was reasserted, the Henotikon set aside ; New Rome and Old Rome were again hand in hand. This meant the final alienation of Egypt and Syria. The national instinct which had been alive in the 5th century grew into strong national sentiment in the 6th. One of the chief anxieties of Justinian's long and busy reign was to repair the mischief. Deep ly interested himself in matters of dogma, and prepared to as sert to its fullest extent his authority as head of the church, he has been called "the passionate theologian on the throne"; but in his chief ecclesiastical measures political considerations were predominant. His wife Theodora was a monophysite, and he per mitted her to extend her protection to the heretics. He sought new formulae for the purpose of reconciliation, but nothing short of repudiation of the Chalcedon acts would have been enough. The last great efforts for union were made when the Saracens in vaded and conquered the dissident provinces. A new formula of union was discovered (One Will and One Energy). This doctrine of monotheletism would never have been heard of but for political exigencies. The Egyptians and Syrians would perhaps have ac cepted this compromise; but it was repudiated by the fanatical adherents of Chalcedon. Heraclius sought to impose the doctrine by an edict (Ecthesis, 638), but the storm, especially in Italy and Africa, was so great that ten years later an edict known as the Type was issued by Constans forbidding all disputation about the number of wills and energies. Constans was a strong ruler, and maintained the Type in spite of orthodox opposition throughout his reign. But the expediency of this policy passed when the Saracens were inexpugnably settled in their conquests, and in his successor's reign it was more worth while to effect a reconcilia tion with Rome and the West. This was the cause of the 6th Ecumenical Council which condemned monotheletism (68o-68i).

Image-worship.—In the Hellenic parts of the empire devo tion to orthodoxy served as a chrysalis for the national sentiment which was to burst its shell in the loth century. For the Greeks Christianity had been in a certain way continuous with paganism. It might be said that the old deities and heroes who had protected their cities were still their guardians, under the new form of saints (sometimes imaginary) and archangels, and performed for them the same kind of miracles. Pagan idolatry was replaced by Chris tian image-worship, which by the Christians of many parts of Asia Minor, as well as by the Mohammedans, was regarded as simply polytheism. Thus in the great iconoclastic controversy, which distracted the empire for nearly 120 years, was involved, as in the monophysitic, the antagonism between different racial elements and geographical sections. Leo III., whose services as a great deliverer and reformer were obscured in the memory of pos terity by the ill-fame which he won as an iconoclast, was a native of Commagene. His first edict against the veneration of pictures

evoked riots in the capital and a revolt in Greece. The opposition was everywhere voiced by the monks, and it is not to be over looked that for many monks the painting of sacred pictures was their means of existence. Leo's son Constantine V. pursued the same policy with greater rigour, meeting the monastic resistance by systematic persecution, and in his reign a general council con demned image-worship (753). Iconoclasm was supported by the army, i.e., Asia Minor, and a considerable portion of the epis copate, but it was not destined to triumph. When the Athenian Irene, wife of Leo IV., came to power after her husband's death, as regent for her son, Constantine VI., she secured the restora tion of the worship of icons. The Iconoclastic Council was re versed by the 7th Ecumenical Council of 787. The iconoclastic party, however, was not yet (Heated, and (after the neutral reign of Nicephorus I.) came again to the helm in the reigns of the Armenian Leo V. and the first two Phrygian emperors, Michael II. and Theophilus. But the empire was weary of the struggle, and on the death of Theophilus, who had been rigorous in en f orcing his policy, icon-worship was finally restored by his widow Theodora (843), and the question was never reopened. This was a triumph for the Greek element in the empire ; the "Sunday of orthodoxy" on which iconoclasm was formally condemned is still a great day in the Greek Church.

The ablest champions who wielded their pens for the cause of icons, defending by theological arguments practices which really had their roots in polytheism, were in the early stage John of Damascus and in the later Theodore (abbot of the monastery of Studium at Constantinople). The writings of the iconoclasts were destroyed by the triumphant party, so that we know their case only from the works of their antagonists.

Schism Between the Greek and Latin Churches.—In this struggle the Greeks and Latins were of one mind; the image-wor shippers had the support of the Roman see. When the pope re sisted him, Leo III. confiscated the papal estates in Sicily and Calabria; and the diocese of Illyricum was withdrawn from the control of Rome and submitted to the patriarch of Constanti nople. But when iconoclasm was defeated, there was no question of restoring Illyricum, nor could there be, for political reasons; since the iconoclastic schism had, with other causes, led to the detachment of the papacy from the empire and its association with the Frankish power. By the foundation of the rival Roman em pire in Boo the pope had definitely become a subject of another State. No sooner had the iconoclastic struggle terminated than differences and disputes arose between the Greek and Latin Churches which finally led to an abiding schism, and helped to foster the national self-consciousness of the Greeks. A strife over the patriarchal chair between Ignatius (deposed by Michael III. and supported by Rome) and Photius, the learned statesman who succeeded him, strained the relations with Rome , but a graver cause of discord was the papal attempt to win Bulgaria, whose sovereign, Boris, had been baptized under the auspices of Michael III. (c. 865), and was inclined to play Old Rome against New Rome. Photius stood out as the champion of the Greeks against the claim of the Roman see, and his patriarchate, though it did not lead to a final breach, marks the definite emancipation of the Greeks from the spiritual headship of Rome. This is the signifi cance of his encyclic letter (867), which formulated a number of differences in rite and doctrine between the Greek and Latin Churches, differences so small that they need never have proved a barrier to union, if on one side there had been no question of papal supremacy, and if the Greek attitude had not been the ex pression of a tenacious nationality. There was a reconciliation about goo, but the Churches were really estranged, and the open and ultimate breach which came in 1054, when the influence of the Cluny movement was dominant at Rome (Leo IX. was pope and Michael Cerularius patriarch), sealed a disunion which had long existed. Subsequent plans of reunion were entertained by the emperors merely for political reasons, to obtain Western sup port against their foes, or to avert (through papal influence) the aggressive designs of Western princes. They were doomed to futility because they were not seriously meant, and the Greek population was entirely out of sympathy with these political ma chinations of their emperors. The Union of Lyons (1274) was soon repudiated, and the last attempt, the Union of Florence in was equally hollow (though it permanently secured the union of the Rumanians and of the Ruthenians). Part of the his torical significance of the relations between the Greek and Latin Churches lies in the fact that they illustrated and promoted by way of challenge the persistence of Greek national self-con sciousness.