5 May 553 AD: 2nd Council of Constantinople Convened

5 May 553 A.D.  2^nd Council of Constantinople Convened.

Christianity.com tells the story at:  http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/301-600/2nd-council-of-constantinople-11629713.html

Controversy over the God-man nature of Christ disturbed both church and empire throughout the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries. Theological quarrels became party politics and several church-wide or "general" councils met to resolve the issues. The first of these councils, the famous Nicea Council, denounced Arianism, a teaching that Christ was a created being. The three councils that followed took up other aspects of the relationship between Christ's divinity and humanity. But heresies continued to spring up like weeds, as they still do today. On this day, May 5, 553, Emperor Justinian convoked a fifth general council, the second to be held at Constantinople.

Emperor Justinian was a vigorous ruler. Unfortunately, he thought the only way his empire could enjoy unity was to compel religious uniformity. Consequently, he closed heathen schools and baptized pagans by force. He all but wiped out the Montanists in fierce persecution. (The Montanists believed in ecstatic spiritual experiences and end-of-the-world prophecies.) Justinian also built church sanctuaries, including the breathtaking Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom).

Empress Theodora favored the monophysite views taught by Eutyches the Archmandrite (an archmandrite was the head of a monastery or several monasteries). Monophysites deny that Christ had both a divine nature and human nature. Eutyches' form of monophysitism held that Christ's two natures, the Divine and the human, united so completely that they became physically one, with the Divine absorbing the human. Its theological rival was Nestorianism, which was said to overemphasize the distinctions between Christ's two natures. Under Theodora's influence, Justinian called the council to condemn writings that supported Nestorianism--the Three Chapters.

The Three Chapters had already been dealt with in the important Council of Chalcedon. The writings were rebuked but the writers were not condemned. Apparently, the monophysites hoped by re-opening the issue to win condemnation of the three writers. In so doing, they would discredit the Council of Chalcedon by making its judgments appear incomplete or inadequate, creating an opening for further Monophysite advances.

The council opened on this day, May 5, 553. In eight sessions, it upheld Chalcedon on the two natures of Christ, but condemned "those who say that there are two Sons and two Christs. For one is he who is preached by us and you, as we have said, Christ, the Son and Lord, only begotten as man, according to the saying of the most learned Paul." They condemned the writings but spared the reputation of two of the three writers of the Three Chapters.

Pope Vigilius swayed back and forth on the issues. Although he refused to attend the council, he was at a disadvantage, because Justinian would not let him return to Rome unless he subscribed to the council's findings. Vigilius capitulated, putting himself at odds with his own previous writings and possibly even with the council of Chalcedon. A western synod excommunicated him and he had to change his position again before the western church would accept him back.

Bibliography:

1.      Jedin, Hubert. Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church. (Herder and Herder, 1960).

2.      Raab, Clement. The Twenty Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church. Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1959.

3.      Shahan, Thomas J. "Second Council of Constantinople." Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.

4.      "Three Chapters" and "Vigilius." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.

Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) Henry Chadwick's "Ancient Church:" Ch. 1-2

Chadwick, Henry. The Ancient Church. New York: Dorset Press, 1967.

A 320-page, 1993-edition from Penguin is available at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Early-Church-Penguin-History/dp/0140231994/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377048323&sr=8-1&keywords=henry+chadwick. We have the 304-page, 1967 edition.

1. From Jerusalem to Rome—Jewish background, the earliest church, Gentile church, and encounter with the Roman Empire, pages 9-31

• Continuity with the Old Testament. Election, unmerited grace, a priestly society to the nations, exclusivity, the OT canon, and negative attitude to pagan religions as cults of evil spirits

• Foreign domination and a poor Palestinian economy facilitated the Jewish diaspora from Cadiz to Crimea. There were 11-12 synagogues in Rome in the 1st century and 1 million Jews in Alexandria and Egypt. Jews sent annual donations to the Temple in Jerusalem.

• Israel was a “religion of the book.” An “exegetical tradition” developed with the scribal class.

• The earliest church. Mr. Chadwick offers the obligatory summary of Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, the Jewish War, and Rabbi Paul. Most of the apostles “disappeared” from history, although Peter, John and James get press. There were stories of Thomas in Persia and India, Andrew in Scythia of southern Russia and various other medieval legends. See Eusebius as well.

• John lived and died in Ephesus. By 200, the Ephesians would point to his tomb. Philip the Evangelist died in Phrygia. James the Just was martyred in Jerusalem in 62 A.D.

• Paul was a man who could “translate the Palestinian Gospel” into something “intelligible in the Greek world.” We think this a gratuitous overstatement by Mr. Chadwick.

• Some Jewish Christians continued their Sabbaths, circumcision, and annual feasts. Jerome translated into Latin a Jewish “Gospel According to the Hebrews,” a document that differed very little from the canonical Gospels. Eventually, these Christians sank into oblivion. Yet, Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho sees the Jewish Christians as a continuing force. They kept their Jewish distinctives while noting their differences with Gentile Christians. From Irenaeus’ onwards, they were viewed as a Christian sect.

• Mr. Chadwick does an obligatory review of Emperor worship, the cult of Isis (Egypt), Mithras (Persian deity of light), and the Anatolian cult of Attis and Cybelle. The Romans were tolerant towards Christians—initially.

• Emperor Domitian (81-96). He claimed to be the “Master and God.” A customary oath was “by the genius of the emperor.” Sounds like Tudor and Stuart kings. Sounds like Obama and other state-worshippers. But the 3rd century, Christians were viewed as atheists.

• Emperor Trajan (98-117). We read of the concern of the Governor of Bithynia, Pliny. The economy was adversely affected by the abandonment of pagan temples, e.g. sales for sacrificial animals was down. Complaints were registered about these Christians who met on Sundays, sang an “hymn to Christ” as to God, and took oaths to moral rectitude. A tiresome increase of complaints, including anonymous accusations, came to Pliny. Pliny had put some Christians to death. He wrote the Emperor for legal guidance. Trajan directed Pliny not to search for Christians, but if accused and they confessed, then death was allowable. By the 2nd century, being a Christian became a “capital offense.”

• Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, martyred in 117. Telesphorus, bp. in Rome, martyred. Polycarp of Smyrna, a Christian for 86 years, was martyred in 155. Justin Martyr of Rome was martyred between 162 and 168. By 177, there was savage violence in Lyons and Vienne of the Rhone Valley.

• Tertullian would quip, “If the Tiber rises too much or the Nile too low, the cry is, `The Christians to the lion.’”

2. Faith and Order—Bonds of unity, Gnosticism, Ministry and the Bible, Forms of Ministry, to pages 55

• Corinth. Mr. Chadwick suggests that incipient Gnosticism lay behind the Corinthian chaos and hubris. The super-apostles deemed themselves the “spiritual aristocrats” with a “more profound wisdom” and “deeper mystical experiences.” The Spirit was everything and good while the body was nothing, if not evil. We are more of the view that it was Jewish-forces, perhaps Gnosticized, but Jewish, e.g. 2 Cor. 11. But, precisely what or whatever the super-apostles were, they opposed apostolic authority as supremacists and contrarians.

• Colosse. Again, a syncretistic and theosophic movement consisted of elements from the mystery cults and heterodox Judaism. We wish Mr. Chadwick offered a fuller analysis. There were intermediate angels or heavenly/astral bodies coupled with strict ascetic practices.

• Rival sects emerged in 80-150

• The questions are: (1) Did Greek philosophy get grafted onto the Christian message? Or, (2), were these Christians who adjusted their message to accommodate Greek elements and philosophy?

• The Gnostics were a varied, imprecise and syncretistic lot. In the elect, there was a “divine spark” imprisoned in “matter.” Salvation was the attempt to rouse people from “sleep walking.” The present world was “utterly alien to the supreme God” of the OT (35). A perilous journey through the several astral spheres would lead to the heavenly home by the use of secret passwords and amulets. The rival Gnostic sects hated each other and vied with one another by a better set of code words.

• The Gnostics depreciated the OT, especially the God of the OT. Marcion especially fit this mold although he didn’t develop Gnostic cosmogonies or angel-obsessions. He was excommunicated at Rome in 144. He wrote the Antitheses; he accused God of vacillating, needing to interrogate Adam as to his whereabouts in the Garden, and had to descend to Sodom and Gomorrah for investigative purposes. The God of the Jews was the creator of a miserable world. It was inconceivable to Marcion that Jesus was born of a woman. He denied OT prophecy. In Marcion’s “evaluation of the Old Testament there lurks a constant overtone of anti-Semitism” (40). Marcion became a proto-NT textual critic—like Bart Ehrman we would add. Marcion dismissed the OT. Marcion dismissed Mt, Mk, and Jn. He felt that Judaizers corrupted Luke’s Gospel so he pruned anything savoring of the OT. He threw out other books. He produced his own NT canon—like the 19th-20th century liberals.

• The Valentinians accepted the four canonical gospels but added another Gospel. They viewed portions of the OT as inspired while others were not. They had their own esoteric oral tradition.

• The Ministry of the Word and Bible, pages 41-45. “Authority was the central issue.” Who sat in the apostolic chair? Who were the governors of the church?

• Ignatius of Antioch stressed the bishop as the “focus of unity.” The bishop was God’s man.

• Clement of Rome, the presiding presbyter or bishop of Rome, stressed the connection to the apostles as the authorized representatives of the faith. The apostles had authority. Their representatives in succession had authority. The Gnostics proliferated, but were mutable and changing. The Apostolic word was the unbroken tradition. We would add the canonical Gospels, Acts and the Epistles as well.

• The formation of the canon. The authority of the OT and the Words of the Lord were the impulses to governance and adjudication. There were four canonical Gospels. Justin Martyr uses Mt-Luke, but his disciple, Tatian, coordinates John in the 4-fold stream of authority. The 4 Gospels had “achieved” a wide and general acceptance.

• “Apostolicity” was the strict canon. This strict canon would also lead to the exclusion of 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas—these were profitable for private reading, but were not canonical like the Apostles. Hence, “apostolicity” of authorship was the “canon of orthodoxy.” Sorry, Mr. Ehrman, throw your hat into Marcion and the Gnostics’ ring.

• The “Rule of Faith” was created, a short summary of revelatory events in redemptive history, for use with catechumens.

• A transition is operational also. Ignatius refers to a “monarchial bishop” (Mr. Chadwick’s terms) in Antioch and Asian churches. The transition from apostles, prophets, and teachers to bishops, presbyters, and deacons is “obscured” (46). Clement of Rome was a bishop-presbyter, perhaps a presiding presbyter. Philippians speaks of bishops and deacons. The Didache, 70-110, advises congregational appointment of bishops and deacons to perform the ministry of the apostles, prophets and teachers. The deacons in Justin Martyr’s time took the elements of Holy Communion to the sick. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, deacons presided at the Eucharist; however, by the Council of Arles (314) and the Council of Nicaea (6th canon, 325), this was frowned upon; the Holy Communion was to be served and led by the local presbyter. According to the Apostolic Tradition in Hippolytus’ time in Rome (200-220), the bishop and presbyter would lay hands on a presbyter at ordination; however, only the bishop would lay hands on a deacon at ordination; it would appear that these were decisions not of necessary canonical authority other than for “good order, appropriate governance, and control” (our quotes). Somewhere, the bishop acquired a superiority He may have been a “senior member of the presbyterial college,” a “first among equals.” In Jerusalem, there was a “president” above but equal to the presbyters. The variety of church order and liturgy was the legacy of the missionary and developing church.

• A 3-tiered ministry emerges in the 2nd century without controversy. 1 bishop in a city with presbyters and deacons. By the 3rd century, dignity attached to apostolic centers: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. According to the 6th canon of the Nicene Council, these patriarchies or metropolitan jurisdictions were larger than provincial ones. These developments occur while Montanism was emerging—irrational ecstatics who viewed themselves as mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit with high expectations to be received as those mouthpieces.

• Hippolytus of Rome addressed the divisiveness of the Montanists against the holy, universal, and apostolic churches. He stated that conversion was the supernatural miracle and believers had the Holy Spirit. He underscored the ministry of the Word and sacrament. These “irrational ecstatics” led to “pride and censoriousness” like our modern charismoes and Penties. Somethings just don't change.

• The apostolicity of the canonical writings, dependence on those writings, the closing of the NT canon, the dominance and readings of the OT and the Apostolic records, the Rule of Faith, and church structures are evident...in the holy, catholic and apostolic church...during the deviant and antagonistic heyday of Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Montanism.

Marcionism & Montanism Revived and Flourishing in America

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/04/modern-day-marcionism

Modern-Day Marcionism

Apr 11, 2012

William J. Tighe

 

Bettany Hughes, an expert in ancient history, was quoted recently in London’s Daily Telegraph as saying that Christianity “was originally a faith where the female of the species held sway. To oppose the ordination of women bishops in the Church of England is to deny the central role women played in the faith’s founding.” She added: “Who knows whether God is a girl, but mankind has turned to the female of the species for good ideas.”

It is not clear from the report whether Ms. Hughes was speaking as a Christian or as an expert in ancient history, but it doesn’t really matter, for she is wrong on both counts. In fact, though, her remarks can be connected loosely with two very old Christian heresies, Marcionism and Montanism, which seem to have undergone something of a revival among trendy religion pundits.

Marcion of Sinope taught that the teachings of Jesus were totally at odds with what the Old Testament revealed about the God of the Jews. Consequently, Jesus had been the messenger and savior sent by a previously unknown heavenly father, a merciful and compassionate God, to redeem mankind. The God of the Jews, by contrast, was an arbitrary, legalistic, punitive, and jealous god who had no connection whatsoever with Jesus or his message.

This meant that the Hebrew Scriptures had no authority for Christians, since they were the revelation of an inferior god to whom Jesus and his teachings stood in opposition. But it also meant, since Marcion’s views conflicted with the clear sense of most of the New Testament, that these books had either been corrupted at an early date or else had been the work of ignorant disciples. And so, Marcion produced his own heavily edited New Testament Canon, consisting of one gospel (a bowdlerized version of Luke) and ten of St. Paul’s epistles, themselves heavily edited, as well as his own Antitheses contrasting the inferior creator God of the Old Testament with Jesus the heavenly father of the New Testament.

In creating his own Scripture, Marcion appears to have driven the Church not only to confirm its acceptance of the Old Testament books as authoritative, but to begin to reflect on the identity and authority of the Christian books that comprised its New Testament.

Marcion himself went to Rome in the early 140s, setting himself up as a Christian teacher and apologist. His startling views soon drew the attention of the Roman Church authorities, and, after some contentious exchanges, Marcion was excommunicated, and went on to found his own church. Strange and arbitrary as Marcion’s ideas may appear to us, in its own time his theological system was subtle and intellectually appealing. Indeed, it would be no easy task to prove Marcion’s ideas any more fantastic in their context than those of Ms. Bettany Hughes in ours.

Montanus, a younger contemporary of Marcion, claimed to be a prophet who spoke in ecstatic utterances when possessed by the Holy Spirit. Unlike Marcion and his followers, Montanus and his colleagues did not, at least at first, have strictly theological differences with Church authorities. Rather, they claimed that their revelations clarified and supplemented what was obscure in Scripture, and they commanded a rigorous asceticism, forbidding second marriages under any circumstances and mandating strict fasts.

As time went on, they met with skepticism and opposition, and in some regions had to found their own separate congregations after being expelled from churches. They may have allowed female bishops and presbyters, while setting up a new superior order, or orders, of prophets and apostles over the bishops and presbyters; and they allowed the apostles and prophets to forgive sins.

The Montanist impulse, the desire to supplement or reinterpret the Bible, or the tradition of Christian doctrine and practice generally, has recurred constantly among Christians. One may think of the Millerite “great disappointment” of 1844 which, far from killing off their prophetic credibility, underwent various adjustments and in the end produced the various strands of Adventism, or how the Jehovah’s Witnesses (themselves an offshoot of a strand of “Milleritism”) continued to spread and increase after the world did not come to an end in 1914.

Contemporary academics and intellectuals generally do not incline much towards inspired utterance, ecstatic or otherwise, nor for prophesy (unless they wish to characterize as “prophetic” the expression of some political or social notion conventional in their circles), and so Ms. Bettany Hughes may owe relatively more to Marcion than to Montanus. But the very exuberance of her language, and the remarkable absence from her remarks of the kind of qualifications by which academic pundits can, if necessary, beat a safe retreat from exaggerated claims, may well betray an echo of what Montanus’ opponents labeled in their day “the Phrygian frenzy.”

William J. Tighe is Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College.

Pentecostal History by Tim Naab

Tim Naab has compiled a serious and extensive list of links that lead to Pentecostalist history or, what we at RA snidely dub it, Hillbilly History. 

Tim came from that background and has many long experiences with them, not just individually, but in his generations.  It's a good resource by one who has seen the loons up close.

http://www.seeking4truth.com/pentecostal_history.htm

TBN-Watch: Resources on Azuza Street Revivalism

Azuza Street, Los Angelos, USA, is the claimed home of Pentecostalism.  Here is a five-part series sympathetic to this recrudescence or revival of Montanism.

Part one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0FWL50-G0M&feature=related

Part two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XH_OCSbtG4&NR=1

Part three:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BkigVC8Qvs&feature=related

Part four:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMyh63k39is&NR=1

Part five:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXn__kVL2_U&feature=related

Gene Robinson: Montanist Heretic

Gene Robinson: Montanist Heretic

When the history of the 19-21st century is written centuries from now it will treat a heretical movement named Liberal Protestantism (which by then will no longer exist as a major force) not very kindly. To get an idea of the ways it will be viewed, one can look at past heretical movements such as Gnosticism, Montanism, Arianism, etc.

I suspect that there will be strong evidence for treating the late 19th to 21st centuries as a period in which there was a great revival of Montanism. Texts like the this article by Gene Robinson in The Washington Post entitled "What Does the Bible Really Say About Homosexuality? Reading Texts of Terror." (see: http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/12/what_does_the_bible_really_say_about_homosexuality_reading_texts_of_terror.html)
For a fuller analysis, I recommend the blog, The Reformed Pastor, which has an extensive analysis of this article here (http://reformedpastor.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/gene-robinson-teaches-the-bible/)

For more of the article, see:
http://politicsofthecrossresurrected.blogspot.com/2011/01/gene-robinson-montanist-heretic.html

Here's Gene:

CLC - I'm A Pentecostal

"I'm Pentecostal" (Anti-mindsville, USA: Tradition-hating, Mind-hating Pentecostal Publishers, no date). This contains the "Pentecostal Confession of Faith" to a tee. They should publish this. This contains their quintessential themes.

Time to "lock n' load." Hit the beaches and take these loons out. "Hit em' fast, hard and often." ADM Bull Halsey.

This is their Pentecostalist arrogance. Time to hit this arrogance HARD, FAST AND OFTEN. Tired of them, their illiteracy, their assumptions, their accusations, their impenitence, and the list goes on.