The Threatened Series - 32
Let us continue with éamonn ó Carragáin's Jarrow Lecture (1994), "The
City of Rome and the World of Bede":
"The Lateran council was a direct challenge to the Emperor Constans II,
who ordered his viceroy in Italy to arrest Pope Martin for calling the
council. The Pope was arrested on 17 June 653, the year in which
Benedict Biscop got to Rome. Benedict may have been in Rome at the
time of the Pope's arrest; he certainly arrived, at least, in its
immediate aftermath. the Pope was exiled to Constantinople (where he
arrived on 17 September 653), imprisoned, tried, and banished to the
Crimea where he died of ill-treatment (16 September 655).
"Wilfrid probably arrived in Rome early in 654. From Pope Martin's own
letters we learn that the Pope expected that, in his absence, Rome
should be governed by a committee of three: the archdeacon (presumably
the person he had in mind was that Boniface who was to become Wilfrid's
friend), the archpriest, and the chief notary. On 10 August of that
year (654), although Pope Martin was still alive in his Crimean prison,
a new Pope was chosen under imperial pressure, Eugenius I.
"Plummer suggests that this interregnum between Pope Martin's exile in
June 653 and Pope eugenius' election in August 654 is the reason why it
was only after many months that the archdeacon Boniface was able
('postremo', 'finally') to introduce Wilfrid to the Pope. This would
be the new Pope, Eugenius. Roman popular feeling was very much in
favour of the doctrine of Christ's human courage. One would like to
know whether Wilfrid and Benedict Biscop were present in Santa Maria
Maggiore in the Autumn of 654 when, soon after the election of Pope
Eugenius, the Roman clerics and people physically prevented him from
finishing Mass, until he promised to reject a public letter from the
Patriarch of Constantinople. The letter gave offence because it was
ambivalent on the question of Christ's human will.
"Wilfrid and Benedict thus arrived in rome just as a full-scale schism
broke out between Eastern and Western Christianity over the question of
Christ's courage. In the next quarter-century, the papacy made every
effort, political and theological, to heal the schism. Particularly
important was Pope vitalian (657-72), the Pope who sent Theodore of
Tarsus and Hadrian of Naples to Canterbury in the company of Benedict
Biscop (669). The young emperor, Constantine IV, saw that the imperial
backing for Monotheletism had been politically ineffective: it had
not, as hoped, reconciled the monophysites of Egypt, but it had
alienated Italy and the West.
"Constantine agreed to heal the schism and to accept the Western
position on Christ's human will. Pope Agatho (678-81) decided to
gather evidence that the belief in Christ's human will was widespread
in the Western Latin churches. Archbishop Mansuetus of Milan wrote
directly to Constantinople summarizing the duothelete position taken by
a synod held in his archdiocese. The concensus of the Anglo-saxon
church was affirmed at a council held, under the presidency of Theodore
of Canterbury, at Hatfield in 679. This council solemnly accepted the
canons of the Lateran synod of 649. At Easter 680, a council at Rome
(which was attended by 125 bishops, including Bishop Wilfrid)
formulated the Western response on the question of Christ's human will.
The Western Chuch was able to speak with unanimity on the question at
the sixth ecumenical council (held in Constantinople in 680-81) which
formally rejected Monotheletism as a heresy.
"The Ecumenical Council at Constantinople, and the preparatory
councils, must have given particular satisfaction to Benedict Biscop
(aged 53 in 680) and Wilfrid (then aged 48): it healed the major
schism which had rent the Church in East and West for all of their
adult lives, and it brought to a happy resolution the crisis which must
have caused tension during their first visit to Rome."
éamonn goes on to examine the impact of the controversy on early
Anglo-Saxon literature: "Indeed, in the Anglo-Saxon Crucifixion Poem
(the earliest important poem in the English language of which a text
survives), we may have a direct response, and an orthodox response, to
the monothelete controversy." But I must be content to invite our
esteemed list-members to read it for themselves, for I think that with
the Third Council of Constantinople I may conveniently draw this little
series to a close. There were many more controversies in the early
church on which I have touched little, or not at all; but I think I
have now in some measure answered the question of our member, who asked
what Article XIX of the Church of England had in mind when it said, "As
the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also
the church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of
Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith."
The Supple Doctor.
____________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk
or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|