Christian Research Journal Reads Episode 131: How Was Orthodoxy Established in the Ecumenical Councils

This is Episode 131 of Christian Research Journal Reads. This is an audio version of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL article, “How Was Orthodoxy Established in the Ecumenical Councils” by Bradley Nassif.  This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 40, number 06 (2017) .https://www.equip.org/articles/how-was-orthodoxy-established-in-the-ecumenical-councils/ 


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is episode one hundred and thirty one of the
Christian Research Journal Reads Podcast. How is Orthodoxy Established in
the Ecumenical Councils? By Bradley Nasef. This article first appeared
in the print edition of the Christian Research Journal, Volume forty,

(00:27):
number six and twenty seventeen. The Christian Research Journal Reads
Podcast presents audio versions of Christian Research Journal articles. To
read the full text along with its documentation, please go
to equip dot org. That's e qu ip dot rg.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
How is Orthodoxy Established in the Ecumenical Councils? This article
is by Bradley Nassef and is read by an automated voice.
Among the many challenges to historic Christian faith, a revisionist
interpretation of the relationship between orthodoxy and heresy in the
early Church is particularly influential. In our day. A historical

(01:14):
reconstruction of orthodox Christianity appears repeatedly in popular format through
television documentaries, videos on the history of the Bible, and
sensational articles in tabloid magazines at the grocery store. This
attempt at reconstruction goes back to at least the scholarly
work of Walter Bauer in the nineteenth century. It is
carried forward today by a small but influential group of

(01:36):
scholars represented by Bart Ehrman, hereafter referred to as the
Bauer Ermin thesis. These scholars assert that so called Orthodox
Christianity is a later fabrication of the early Church that
must be abandoned because it never really existed in the
first place. Orthodoxy was simply the victory of powerful emperors
and bishops over so called heretical groups such as Nasa

(02:00):
Sticks in Montanus. The stakes are high in this battle.
A new Orthodoxy, the Gospel of Diversity, challenges the churches
claim that Jesus and the apostles taught a unified message.
A refutation of the Bauer Erman thesis has been offered
by New Testament scholars Andreas J. Cossenberger and Michael J.
Krueger in their book The Heresy of Orthodoxy. How contemporary

(02:23):
culture's fascination with diversity has reshaped our understanding of Early
Christianity Crossway, twenty ten. My article here seeks to complement
their work by the age of the Great Ecumenical councils
AD Three hundred and twenty five to seven hundred and
eighty seven, and how the two spheres of Church and
Emperor worked together in establishing Christian Orthodoxy. Admittedly, this short

(02:46):
article permits only a sketch of the issues involved in
the definition of orthodoxy during these formative centuries, but hopefully
it will provide readers with a reliable compass to guide
them through this complex period of Christian history. Characteristics of
de Hecevi and Ecumenical Councils ad. Three hundred and twenty

(03:07):
five to seven hundred and eighty seven. The ecumenical councils
are the common heritage of all classical Christians, whether they
are Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Historic Protestant. The ancient
term ecumenical was not used in the modern sense of
interfaith dialogue or the world Council of Churches. Rather, it
comes from a Greek word eucomene, meaning inhabited world. The

(03:30):
Ecumenical Councils were gatherings of all the bishops from the
inhabited world of the Roman Empire, who were convened at
the invitation and expense of the Emperor so that church
leaders might decide matters of faith for the unity of
both Church and Empire. The conclusions reached by the Seven
ecumenical councils were as follows. The Council of Nicea three

(03:50):
hundred and twenty five condemned the heretic Arius and affirmed
the incarnate Son of God as identical in being homosios
with the Father. The First Council of Constantinople three hundred
and eighty one settled the Aryan controversy and completed the
Nicene Creed, thus affirming the dogma of the Holy Trinity.
The Council of Ephesus four hundred and thirty one condemned

(04:13):
Nestorianism and declared that there were not two persons existing
side by side in Christ, God and a man called Jesus,
but that the divinity and humanity were united in one person,
the incarnate Son of God. Consequently, Mary is the Theotoko's
birth giver of God. The Council of Chalcidon four hundred

(04:33):
and fifty one condemned the Monophysites because they refused to
distinguish between the concepts of person and nature. If Christ
were one person, the Monophysites claimed he could not have
two natures, but only one. The council also rejected the
historians who separated the divine in human natures of Christ. Instead,
the council confessed that the incarnation consisted of a union

(04:55):
of Christ to natures, fully divine and fully human, in
one day divine person. The Second Council of Constantinople five
hundred and fifty three was an attempt by Emperor Justinian
to win back the Monophysites by proving to them that
the Council of Chalcedon had not fallen into the heresy
of Nestorianism. The Third Council of Constantinople six hundred and

(05:18):
eighty to six hundred and eighty one condemned monophelitism, the
belief that while Christ has two natures, he has only
one divine will. The Orthodox confess that Christ has two wills,
with the human will subject freely to the divine will.
The Second Council of Nicea seven hundred and eighty seven
defined the Orthodox doctrine of images icons of Christ or

(05:41):
the Saints. The council made a distinction between the worship
and reverencing of icons. Icons may be reverenced but never worshiped.
Icons bear witness to the incarnation. Starting with the fourth century,
ecumenical councils differed from previous local councils in two respects.
They were convoked by emperors, and their decisions became imperial law.

(06:04):
The legal use of doctrine was the immediate goal of
the emperors to ensure the unity of the empire. None
of the ecumenical councils were attended by each and every
bishop in the empire, and their doctrinal conclusions were almost
never immediately accepted. However, through a spirit led discernment process
which is beyond our space to explain, the councils all

(06:24):
were received eventually by the mainstream church. Deliberations among the
bishops in council did not seek a majority vote, but
the adoption by all of Christian truth. Theoretical majorities such
as the Aryans, Monophysites, and Iconoclasts, at times succeeded in
imposing their views on councils, but were later deemed be false.

(06:45):
The mere fact of there being a majority, therefore cannot
be regarded as a criterion of truth. In fact, truth
in the Church sometimes was held by a distinct minority
of heroes, such as Street Athanasius, who defended the full
divinity of Christ against the opposing Arians, or as Street
Maximus the Confessor, who defended the divine and human wills
of Christ against a powerful, heretical emperor. The Byzantium a

(07:10):
Christian society. Politically, all the ecumenical councils took place in
the Byzantine Empire. The terms Byzantine or Byzantium come from
nineteenth century German historians to describe the eastern half of
the Roman Empire that continued to exist after the western
half of the empire fell to the Barbarians in eighty
four hundred and seventy six. The Byzantine Empire lasted from c.

(07:34):
Three three zero one four five three as the continuation
of the old Roman Empire. Church and state formed a
single organism, each having its own sphere of influence, the
clergy for the church and the imperial power for the state.
Beginning with Emperor Constantine. This new relationship between church and
state made it inevitable for Byzantine emperors to play an

(07:57):
active role in church affairs. Christian emperors and citizens alike
accepted the emperor's role as providentially appointed by God. Several
contemporary arguments are used by followers of the bower Ermin
thesis to support the claim that emperor's defined Orthodox doctrine.
For example, during the Council of Nicia Ady three hundred

(08:17):
and twenty five, Eusebius of Kesseria, a court bishop, described
Emperor Constantine as a bishop among the bishops. Shouldn't this
be taken literally as proof that the emperor possessed the
sacramental qualities of a bishop, as proponents of the bower
Ermin thesis contend, No, it was simply an honorific, flattering
way of speaking about the emperor's benevolent leadership. There is

(08:40):
no evidence that Constantine or any of his successors ever
attempted to celebrate communion at the Church's liturgy or serve
as a sacramentally ordained clergyman. Another example of how modern
scholars sometimes misinterpret the work of emperors can be seen
in how Eusebius described Constantine as as an overseer of

(09:01):
those outside episcopose tan eccos. Is this phrase proof of
Caesaro papism. Caesero papism is a term that describes the
power of Roman emperors who allegedly controlled Church doctrine, thereby
creating orthodoxy. However, as we will see below, the belief
in Caesaro papism is a misinterpretation of historical data. Most

(09:22):
early Church historians today understand the phrase overseer of those
outside as a reference to those outside the church. It
describes the emperor's missionary duties to assist the Church in
evangelizing non Christians within the empire. It is not a
description of his control over church doctrine. Evidence for this
interpretation is supported by the burial rights and a specific

(09:44):
title given to Emperor Constantine. When Constantine died, he was
buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople,
alongside purported relics of Apostles, and given the title equal
to the Apostles, all indicating his apostolic function as overseer
of those outside the Church. When turning to the later

(10:04):
Emperor Justinian, we learned that he had much too good
a grasp of theological principles to take seriously the formal
claims of Caesaro Papism. His attitude is indicated in his
famous edict Novella six, issued in eighty five hundred and
thirty five and repeated in many other Byzantine texts. The
edict describes an ideal theory of harmonious government by two

(10:27):
interdependent authorities, that of emperor and the clergy. The greatest
blessings of mankind are the gifts of God which have
been granted us by the mercy on high. The priesthood
and the imperial authority. The priest administers to things divine.
The imperial authority is set over and shows diligence in
things human. The goal to be achieved was an agreement

(10:47):
or symphony between these two institutions, not the subjection of
one to the other. The role e ofd a emperor.
The ecumenical councils were both ecclesiastical and political institutions. They
were ecclesiastical because they represented the mind of the Church.
They were political because their gathering and external management was

(11:09):
made possible only through the emperors, who would enforce, not decide,
the theological conclusions of bishops. Nevertheless, the role of the
emperor in the ecumenical councils was complex and messy at times.
Several examples will illustrate how emperors intervened in church affairs,
but also how the bishops had a mind and will
of their own. Take as our first example, the debates

(11:32):
of the Council of Nicia three hundred and twenty five,
concerning theoretical teachings of Arius, who denied the Sun's full divinity.
The bishops could not decide which words to use in
describing the shared divinity between the Father and the Son,
so Emperor Constantine proposed the now famous Greek word homousios,
meaning consubstantial of the same nature. The term may well

(11:55):
have been suggested to him by his theological adviser, Bishoposios
of Cordovana in Spain, but nearly three hundred bishops who
assembled at Nicia accepted the emperor's proposal. The term was
used to exclude Arius's theology, but it did not become
a significant term of debate until street Athanasius pushed for
it around a d. Three hundred and forty five in

(12:16):
his Letters against Arius but three and History of the Councils.
The term became controversial due to its associations with modelism,
a heresy that collapsed the distinctions between the three persons
of the Trinity into one divine being who manifested himself
in three different modes of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Eventually,

(12:37):
the term was accepted by the wider church of the
Council of Constantinople in three hundred and eighty one as
a proper description of the son's equal divinity with the Father.
That historical push and pulls associated with the acceptance of
homeusias demonstrate that the final acceptance of the term came
not from emperors, but from the Church exercising its spiritual

(12:57):
responsibility to repudiate doctor distortion. A further instance of the
Church's ultimate rejection of imperial interference into church doctrine occurred
in the eighth and ninth centuries, when Emperor's Leo the
Third seven hundred and seventeen to seven hundred and forty
one and Constantine v. Seven hundred and forty one to

(13:18):
seven hundred and seventy five opposed the use of icons.
Of all the Byzantine emperors, they were the only ones
who formally claimed both spiritual and temporal powers. Influenced by
Islamic calyps who saw no distinction between temporal and spiritual powers,
Constantine B wished to be both priest and king. In

(13:38):
seven hundred and fifty four, he convened the Council of
Hria and stacked the deck with over three hundred bishops
who supported his iconoclastic views. The temporary triumph in opposing icons, however,
as eventually rejected by the later Seventh Ecumenical Council in
seven hundred and eighty seven, followed by a resurgence against Icons,
but then permanently affirmed in eight hundred and forty three

(14:01):
in a document known as the Snoticon, an anathema of
all the great heresies of the previous centuries. An abbreviated
version of the Sonaticon is still read in all Eastern
Orthodox churches on the first Sunday of Lent in a
service known as the Feast of Orthodoxy the Triumph Oforthho
do XLI. This brief sketch of the relations between Church

(14:25):
and state and the age of the Ecumenical councils illustrates
complexities that were involved in the formulation of Orthodox theology.
It demonstrates that the Church and its tradition never ultimately
bowed to the imperial will, even though there were false
councils and internal strife. Even the true councils were never
accepted automatically and rarely won the acceptance of the entire

(14:48):
church at once. Moreover, Orthodoxy was never viewed as one
of many possible orthodoxies to choose from, nor was it
the result of caeseropapism by Roman emperors, despite occasional attempts
to the contrary, Nor was it the victory of powerful
bishops over oppressed theological minorities. Rather, the triumph of Orthodoxy

(15:08):
was the triumph of the Spirit of truth over error.
It was the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit in
the life of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Nice in Creed, thank.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
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