Although the East had been long reluctant to recognize the primacy of Rome, it nonetheless ascribed a certain respect to the seat of Peter and Paul and the figurative hub of the empire. The western popes and their legates, though not revered, were held in high regard. Of course, the sitting pontiff, Pope Leo I, did not see things the same way. He, perhaps more than any pope previous to him, had made the case for the official centrality of Rome and the primacy of the papacy throughout all of Christendom. So when the eastern bishops turned to him for an opinion on the issue of the incarnation, Leo considered this a call for an authoritative ruling.

The call to Rome came in the form of appeals from yet another pair of bickering bishops who had ascended to ecclesiastical power after Nestorius and Cyril. Flavian (d. 449 A.D.), who followed Nestorius as Bishop of Constantinople, had just permanently expelled the hapless and theologically confused monk Eutyches from the city for preaching a radical form of the  Alexandrian doctrine, declaring him a heretic to boot. In response, Dioscorus, Cyril’s nephew and successor to the Alexandrian Bishopric, organized a council at which he plotted to depose Flavian. As a result, Flavian and Eutyches both appealed to Rome. Pope Leo responded with what has come to be known as Leo’s Tome, one of the most influential documents in all of church history.

Leo’s view of the incarnation was not original. He simply expressed in his letter what had been the settled understanding in the West. In fact, in a Christmas sermon, Leo had succinctly stated this understanding when he preached, “It is one and the same Son who exists in both natures, taking what is ours to Himself without losing what is His own” (J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, Fifth Ed., 338). Mark Noll points out that “Leo’s driving goal in doctrine as well as for the church was to secure stability in an age of fragmentation” (Turning Points in the History of the Church, 2000, 74).

Therefore, Leo’s mindset in entering the debate was “concrete, practical, and legal” (Noll, 73). He had no time for the “abstraction, passion, and speculation” of eastern theology (Noll, 73). In his response, he saw himself as laying down an authoritative formula that would effectively end the debate. Therefore, both his opinion and his language were straightforward: Jesus existed as one person with two natures and each nature or “form” appropriately exchanged attributes or qualities such that each carried on “its proper activities in communion with the other” (Noll 74-75). As far as Leo was concerned, the case was closed.

Much to his chagrin, however, his opinion was not well received in the East, particularly by the more radical contingent among the Alexandrian Word-flesh adherents. This included not only Dioscorus, who by now had risen to official ecclesiastical power in Alexandria, but also the emperor, Theodosius II, who himself supported the Alexandrian doctrine. With imperial imprimatur, Dioscorus called a council at Ephesus in 449 A.D. at which he restored Eutyches, reaffirmed his late Uncle Cyril’s condemnation of Nestorius, and refused to read Leo’s Tome. Not surprisingly, Leo declared this a “Robber Synod” (a label that has stuck to this day), and his subsequent call for a general council fell upon the deaf ears of those in power.

A watershed event occurred on July 28^th, 450 A.D., when Emperor Theodosius was thrown from his horse and killed. His sister Pulcheria rose to power and took Marcian as her husband and emperor. Both she and Marcian were supporters of Leo and the Antiochene doctrine with its emphasis on the two natures. Consequently, they were favorable to Leo’s call for a general council. Emperor Marcian convened the council at Chalcedon of Bythinia in Asia Minor on October 8^th, 451 A.D. 

The imperial objective was to unite the faith throughout the empire. Although this was a somewhat ambitious goal that was never fully realized, it did capture the spirit of the council. Theologically, the desired outcome was a definition of the incarnation that reflected accurately the teaching of Scripture, represented mutual deference to the two competing views, and yet did not seek to press beyond the mystery of the God-man. History has shown that for all of their imperfections and personal agendas, the 500 or so participants somehow succeeded. We will consider the outcome of the council in the last post of our series.

Blessings,

Arnie Gentile

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