| HOME ARTICLES & COMMENTARY: TOC: The Rise of Church-State Alliances: Imperial Edicts & Church Councils between 306-565: Emperors Constantine through Justinian: The Rise of Protestant Alliances of Church and State: Martin Luther and the German Reformation The Rise of Protestant Alliances of Church and State: Ulrich Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation The Constitution and the Commandments The Classical Temple Architecture of Washington, DC A History of Religious Tests: 312 to 1961 American Founders on Church-State Alliances The Bible and the Quran: A Scriptural Comparison Religion and Women's Suffrage Religious Tradition and Interracial Marriages The Slaves of Jefferson and Washington and the 1782 Virginia Law of Manumission Slavery and the Churches Gays & Social Conservatism as a Coercive Tool of the State Einstein's Religion The Changing Religious Identification of America Moral Hypocrisy in the Bible Belt Ring Species, Evolution and why Intelligent Design isn't science. Who am I : Why this project? : Contact me INFO & EYE OPENERS FROM OTHERS: Court Holdings on Church and State Historical Revisionism: On David Barton's Christian Nation Biblical Archeology Review Special: Captivity, Exodus, and Conquest Sexual Orientation in Nature The Biological Basis of Morality by Edward O. Wilson MEDUSA HEADWEAR  Buy High Quality PolarTech 200 Fleece Headwear From the Author | Little is known about Marcianus's life before his rise to power but most sources agree on the basic issues. The Emperor Marcianus, or Marcian, was born in Thrace around the year 392. Ancient Thrace was an area in the Balkan peninsula north of the Aegian Sea that is presently a region shared by Greece and Bulgaria. Raised in a military family, Marcian eventually rose through the ranks of the empire's military heirarchy to the highest positions of authority. Eventually he became assistant to the military commanders in chief Arbaduras and then his son Aspar who succeeded him. In his later years, Marcian also became a Tribune and a Roman Senator, representating the common people and the soldiers. The marriage arrangement made by Empress Pulcheria and General Aspar which formally brought Marcian into the Theodosian dynasty was widely supported by both the military and the Senates of Rome and Constantinople. Arianist Christians were increasingly unacceptable as Emperors to a powerful Nicene clergy that had risen since Constantine began government subsidies and special rights to the Nicene church. (Valens, who died in the battle of Adrianopolis was the last Arian emperor.) Excluding the reigns of Arianists Constantius and Valens, the government built Nicene churches, it helped pay their clergy, and it gave them exemptions from responsibilities and taxes. The clergy was exempt from military responsibilities, too. The state confiscated heretic churches and handed them over to the Nicene clergy. The state raised ecclestiastical courts to the authority of the secular courts. This arrangement is very similar to the position of Islamic Shar'ia courts in the judicial system of some Muslim nations. (Shar'ia courts of Nigeria act independantly of the state and under the pressure of zealots, many conservative neighborhoods go this system for resolutions instead of their government's court system.) The Nicene church also succeeded in making sure the inheritances of the intestate and undesirables were given to the church. The record of the Theodosian and Justinian Codes shows us many of these inheritance decrees by emperors. It was fast becoming improbable that another Arian or pagan would ever reach the throne again. But the major christological controversy at this time was the debate between the Monophysite and Nicene views. Most of the others had been successfully oppressed by the alliance of church councils and the imperial decrees petitioned for by the church. (Jehovah's Witnesses are Arianist Christians) This growing requirement for a Nicene Trinitarian point of view from public servants came to exist in mandated religious tests of the empire, Britain, Europe and the British colonies. In Protestant nations and their colonies, the requirement was still a Nicene test and oath. Reformation Protestantism was as savage and demanding as the Christianity of late antiquity. As a result of Aspar's negotiations with Pulcheria, Marcianus was to make important promises in return for his acclamation to the throne. Marcian was to support Pulcheria's passionate promotion of Theotokos, the rising Mother of God cult, and religious policies which required the active enforcement of Nicene orthodoxy. As a consequence of this arrangement, Marcian joined the rarely broken hundred fifty year procession of emperors who supported the church-state alliances begun by Emperor Constantine. Although Emperors Constantius and Valens were Arianists and Julian was a Neoplatonist, they used similar tactics. The model of church-state alliances is in contrast to the millenium old Roman Republican model, a tradition which for most of Rome's history was a model of pluralism and religious diversity. Although the Roman Empire had a mix of paganism and the state, it's particular paganism was largely symbolic because there were no real doctrines, no dogma to speak of, and no defined cosmology, all of which reflected the pluralism of the times. With the Christian state it was far from symbolic, with the religion's viewpoints becoming militantly enforced policy. Religious doctrine became law in the Christianized empire. A good compromise between Christians and Pagans in the Senate would have been to end the oaths at the Altar of Victory and make them religion-neutral. Pagans didn't see it and neither did Christians. It should be noted that the pagan Emperor Julian did not use violence but had other tricks up his sleeve: his policies issued from his belief that Christianity was unclean, its believers deceived, and its churches were tombs of the dead due to the corpses of the saints buried in them. Julian attacked Christians by doing things like banning their use of the classics in their schools. His excuse was that Christians mocked the classical thinkers and shouldnt have access to them. I think that this strategy also sought an economic impact because without a good classical education in the empire, people went nowhere. This is much like the strategy of Christian emperors who made it increasingly difficult for Jewish businesses to own and keep slaves. A Jew was outlawed from having a slave that professed Christianity so slaves converted for this reason alone. Jews were even forbidden to convert to Christianity for economic reasons in a time when many did just that. There were a great deal of special social and economic rights for those who followed the church-state alliance's dictates. On August 25, 450, four weeks after the death of Theodosius, Pulcheria crowned Marcian. The coronation ceremony of Emperor Marcian incorporated an important first because it was personally blessed in person by Anatolius, the Patriarch of Constantinople. Not only was Marcian's rise to power supported by the military and the Senate, it was strongly supported by the religious leaders in both the east and the west. The elevation of Marcian was also enthusiasticly supported by Pope Leo. At Marcian's acclamation, church and state continued increasing their merger and the clouding of their boundaries. The ritual blessing of Marcian's coronation by the leading Patriarch of the eastern church was a significant event in this growing alliance. In the future, more steps would be taken to merge church and state. Christianity ascended and its increasingly influential clergy attacked all other religions as pestilence, plague and evil. With these same believers occupying the positions of State, the State exhibited serious interests in attacking Christianity. In Rome, religious diversity was social capital; a building block of social order. In the Roman world, diversity was conservative tradition that had worked for a thousand years; in Rome, religious diversity was considered a major foundation in the Empire's enduring stability. To attack the empire's solid foundation of religious diversity was to attack the brilliance and power of Rome itself. Rome's might was also in its acceptance of diversity, a social attribute which is now supported, protected, and thoroughly realized by modern rights based constitutions. Classical scholar Ramsay MacMullen, on page 13 of his book, Christianizing the Roman Empire: A.D. 100-400 spells out the situation regarding religious diversity in the Roman Empire before Constantine's decrees: "It followed in their logic, or at least in their practice, that no deity could inflict wrong on another. In Homer's day, perhaps, things had been different. That was long ago and mere myth. Only the Christian propagandists recalled it, to raise laughs, or eyebrows, against their rivals. Living worshippers in the world we are considering instead entered a shrine of Isis to put up a vow or an altar to Aphrodite, and the priest let them. They worshiped Mithras in Hadad's temple. West or east, wherever one looked, there reigned a truly divine peace and undisturbed religious toleration". Sociologist Rodney Stark states it this way beginning on page 196 of his 1996 book, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal, Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force: "In many respects Rome provided for a greater level of religious freedom than was seen again until after the American Revolution. But just as deviant religious groups have often discovered limits to the scope of freedom of religion in America, so too in Rome not just anything was licit. In particular, from time to time Jews and then Christians were deemed to be "atheistic" for their condemnation of false gods. ... although Christians stood in formal, official disrepute for much of the first three centuries, informally they were free to do pretty much as they wished, in most places, most of the time." The above excerpt can also be found in the online companion to the PBS series, From Jesus to Christ: Why Did Christianity Succeed? The evolution of the religious tests banned by the US Constitution's Sixth Article began in this era with a mix of church and state at coronations: The acclamation of the next emperor, Leo, took place at the Palace of Hebdomon on February 7, 457 in the presence of the senate, officials, and the clergy. The coronation of Leo I was the first instance of an emperor being crowned by a top representative of the Church. After Leo was crowned by the See of Constantinple's Patriarch Anatolius, the assembly exclaimed, "Leo Augustus, thou conquerest! God gave thee, God will keep thee. A long reign! God will protect the Christian Empire!" In 474, the Constantinople's Patriarch Acacius recited prayers over him before the crowning of Emperor Leo II. In 491, when the Senate and other influentials were making their choice of the next emperor, Anastasius, the presence of the opened Gospels took center stage as the new emperor recited an oath to protect the Nicene faith and introduce no novelty or heresy into the church. The Patriach then recited a prayer and the Kyrie eleison. The acclamations of the Senators and notables that followed were profoundly religious in content. Beginning in 602, with the coronation of Emperor Phocas in the east, the acclamation rite became a formal religious ceremony held in a cathedral. An example of the prayer by the Patriarch given in the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on coronations begins like this: "O Lord, our God, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who through Samuel the prophet didst choose David Thy servant to be king over Thy people Israel; do Thou now also hear the supplication of us unworthy and behold from Thy dwelling place Thy faithful servant whom Thou hast been pleased to set as king over Thy holy nation, which Thou didst purchase with the precious blood of Thine only-begotten Son: vouchsafe to anoint him with the oil of gladness, endue him with power from on high, put upon his head a crown of pure gold, grant him long life.." |
After the coronation, the congregation erupted with three repetitions of, Holy, holy, holy, Glory to God in the highest and on Earth peace. The church sacrament of Holy Communion followed the crowning and then the senate and clergy prostrated themselves in adoration of their Christian emperor and protector of the faith. The Cantors then shouted,
"Glory be to God in the highest; this is the great day of the Lord; This is the day of the life of the Romans!"
It is also noteworthy that until the Russian revolution, the Czar, which means Ceasar, was always coronated in a cathedral. The new Emperor was required to recite the Nicene Creed, the Holy Spirit is invoked, a litany proceeds and the metropolitan, the bishop who is head of that ecclesiastical province but ranks right below the province's patriarch, says, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen."
Following that, the metropolitan addresses the new Czar, declaring:
"Most God-fearing, absolute and mighty Lord, Emperor of all the Russias, this visible and tangible adornment of thy head is an eloquent symbol that thou as the head of the whole Russian people art invisibly crowned by the King of kings, Christ, with a most ample blessing, seeing that He bestows upon thee entire authority over His people."
This church-state alliance was thrown out in the US Constitution. The Presidential oath is short and secular, demanding an oath to the Constitution as the Supreme Law of the Land. The Sixth article bans religious tests and confessions of faith as a requirement for public service. The First amendment requires the disestablishment of religion from government. In fact, the use of the Bible in courtrooms and in oaths of public service is based on Medieval religious traditions, not on the United States Constitution. The use of the Bible should be abandoned because it is antithetical to the religion-neutral spirit of the Constitution and it also does not represent all of the American people. The United States is a land of religious and ideological heterodoxy. Using the Bible in oaths of office is a religious declaration and is symbolic of a time of great injustice, religious persecution of dissenting opinions. In fact, a comparison of the First Amendment and the First Commandment reveals they express contradictory values and represent polar opposites. There is no greater antithesis to the liberties of the First Amendment and the ban on religious tests in the Sixth Article than the First Commandment. Church and State separation is implicit in the Sixth Article's Third Section, "but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
Justice Joseph Story comments in his Commentaries on The Constitution of The United States on what the religious test ban clause of the Sixth Article really means (MY CAPS):
"The remaining part of the clause declares, that 'no religious test shall ever be required, as a qualification to any office or public trust, under the United States.' This clause is not introduced merely for the purpose of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons, who feel an invincible repugnance to any test or affirmation. It had a higher object: TO CUT OFF FOREVER EVERY PRETENSE OF ANY ALLIANCE BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE in the national government. The framers of the constitution were fully sensible of the dangers from this source, marked out in history of other ages and countries; and not wholly unknown to our own. They knew, that bigotry was unceasingly vigilant in its own stratagems, to secure to itself an exclusive ascendancy over the human mind; and that intolerance was ever ready to arm itself with all the terrors of civil power to exterminate those, who doubted its dogmas, or resisted its infallibility."
Returning to Emperor Marcian's acclamation by church and state after which many things were about to change, he put a General Council on a fast track to deal with the Eutychian controversy. As Pope Leo's letters show, like all the rest of the bishops, he had always petitioned the state to intercede in order to enforce Nicene Creeds. Simply put, without the force of the state, people will choose what religion they wish. Without imperial decrees the Nicene church would have never grown into the religious hegemony it became. Freedom of heresy, because heresy means choice, is what the free nations of the world have adopted in their laws and constitutions. We have the freedoms of choice. We have liberties of conscience and privacy, which the religious right detests. The religious right knows they need the power of the state to make any headway to make their beliefs the values of the land. And so it was with Leo as he begged in letter after letter for the State to intervene.
On May 17, 451 Marcian issued an edict, also in Valentinian's name, that a General Council would be convened in Nicea with the intention of clearing up the Eutychian controversy. Not only was the council ordered, but in the words of the Catholic Encyclopedia, Marcian ordered "all metropolitan bishops with a number of their suffragan bishops to assemble the following September at Nicaea in Bithynia, there to hold a general council for the purpose of settling the questions of faith recently called in doubt."
On June 26, 451, Leo sent a letter to the bishops who were meeting at Nicea. In it, he exhibits duplicity regarding the secular powers of the state, saying, "I had indeed prayed, dearly beloved, on behalf of my dear colleagues that all the Lord's priests would persist in united devotion to the catholic Faith, and that no one would be misled by favour or fear of secular powers into departure from the way of Truth..."
Departing from the way of Truth because of fear of the state? Here is a mountain of hypocrisy coming from the pen of Leo. Did not every General Council in this period use the secular powers of the state to order others to depart from their perception of the way of Truth? The usual scenario was the bishops pleaded and the emperor ordered. The bishops voted in their councils and the emperor ratified their decisions with imperial decrees. How else could they control such large numbers of Christian heretics, Manicheans and pagans? How else but outlawing them could it work? There was no other way. This is a great example of the blindness of radical religion in it's attempt to use the state to incorporate it's religious beliefs. This mindset is identical to that of radical Islamists who want Islamic theocracies. When people call America's religious right the American Taliban there is a ring of truth. These are the same people who opposed giving women the vote. Having a Supreme Court made up of the Religious Right would be similar to Iran's ruling council which is made up of conservative religious leaders. Leo certainly believes one certainly can't use the state but we can because we really do have the way of Truth. Leo and the rest of the Nicene clergy wanted to use secular powers to force people to depart from their chosen beliefs.
"Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society."
Later in life, Jefferson remarked about the alliances of church and state in a later to Letter to Charles Clay on January 29, 1815:
"Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds."
Let's look at the story of the Virginia Statute for a moment. In December, 1784 Patrick Henry's Bill Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion was proposed in the Virginia House of Delegates. James Madison, supporting Jefferson's religious liberty statute, addressed the Virginia General Assembly on June 20, 1785 with his A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments. Here are three excerpts:
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
"Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious disscord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion."
"Because the proposed establishment is a departure from the generous policy, which, offering an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion, promised a lustre to our country, and an accession to the number of its citizens. What a melancholy mark is the Bill of sudden degeneracy? Instead of holding forth an Asylum to the persecuted, it is itself a signal of persecution. It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance."
Patrick Henry's religious establishment bill which would turn back the clock and return Virginia to the old order and tax all citizens to support the spread of Christianity. He would have had Pope Leo's approval. To Madison, Henry's melancholy bill was a sudden degeneracy from the spirit of America. But Henry was a part of the religious right so he could not fully understand the principles of liberty. Religious liberty to the religious right is the liberty to use the state to give voice to their religious beliefs. The first two paragraphs of Henry's Bill stated:
"Whereas the general diffusion of Christian knowledge hath a natural tendency to correct the morals of men, restrain their vices, and preserve the peace of society; which cannot be effected without a competent provision for learned teachers, who may be thereby enabled to devote their time and attention to the duty of instructing such citizens, as from their circumstances and want of education, cannot otherwise attain such knowledge; and it is judged that such provision may be made by the Legislature, without counteracting the liberal principle heretofore adopted and intended to be preserved by abolishing all distinctions of pre-eminence amongst the different societies or communities of Christians;"
"Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That for the support of Christian teachers, per centum on the amount, or in the pound on the sum payable for tax on the property within this Commonwealth, is hereby assessed, and shall be paid by every person chargeable with the said tax."
Almost 34 years after Madison, father of the Constitution, addressed the Virginia House on the matter of church-state alliances, he would state in a letter to Robert Walsh on Mar. 2, 1819 that,
"The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State."
John Adams was also aware of the church-state legacy of violence and oppression. As President he signed the Senate ratied Treaty of Tripoli of 1797 which stated in Article 11 that the government of the United States was not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. Later on in his life, (December 27, 1816) Adams wrote to F.A. Van der Kamp on , saying,
"But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
Although Leo initially thought little of having a council and thought his Tome could solve everything, he did continually, as I have shown in his letters, pled to the emperors and the empress for government intervention. This can only mean an imperial decree was sought as was the usual result of the clery's beggings. How else could the emperor have helped but in ordering the heretics to quit? They did it every time in the past so that was what was expected of the imperial court. On July 20, 451 Leo continues his theocratic stategy with a letter (#95) to Pulcheria Augusta. In it he recognizes the order for the council by Pulcheria and Marcian and heaps praises upon them both mostly because of their Nicene doctrinal agreements. One statement is that he wants the coming council to be observed with moderation, pointing finger at the Council at Ephesus where Eutyches and Bishop Dioscorus triumphed and troops intimidated. But Leo never speaks of the discordant nature of the local Synod at Constantinople that started the mess. He omits that Eutyches feared for his life enough that he brought monks and some of his own soldiers to insure his safety. Eusebius of Dorylaeum was not a peaceful person and was given to violent tirades. So it was not just Ephesus and the Eutychians. They were all guilty; Nicenes and Monophysites alike as were the Arian Christians during the fourth century in the times they held the power or had enough influence to persecute Nicenes. Philip Hughes notes:
"The situation could not have been more serious than the scandal of Ephesus left it. Except that Dioscoros had not excommunicated the pope, he had all but arrayed the East in open opposition to Rome and the West, the dividing line being the principle that the only true exposition of the Christian faith was not Leo's Tome, but the Alexandrian formula of Cyril as used by Dioscoros. A faction of bishops, powerful because it had the full support of the state, dominated all the churches of the East, as, one hundred years earlier, in the worst days of the Arian terror."
In Leo's letter, he makes clear that he has no tolerance for religious diversity when he tells the Empress, "If, therefore, your clemency deigns to reflect upon my motives, it will be satisfied that I have acted throughout with the design of bringing about the abolition of the heresy without the loss of one soul; and that in the case of the authors of these cruel disturbances I have modified my practice somewhat in order that their slow minds might be aroused by some feelings of compunction to ask for lenient treatment."
People who didn't agree with Leo's Nicene view had slow minds. More ad hominems for the dissenters. It is true that Leo's tone moderates over the years before this letter but nevertheless, it is part of a strategy to bring about the abolition of heresy. If one reads the historians Eusebius and Sulpitius one sees that religious intolerance is a virtue. When Bishop Martin of Tours destroyed temples, Sulpitius heaped praise upon him. Indeed, there seems to be an air of boasting a religious intolerance that runs through the entire Catholic Encyclopedia. What Pope Leo means is that he wants to wipe out religious diversity of all kinds with the help of the state. It means having dissenting speech, writing and assemblies outlawed. How else could he wipe it out? Only an imperial decree could convince people to leave their previously believed way of Truth. Threats worked. Taking away people's rights worked. Exiling their religious leaders worked. Taking away their testamentary rights worked. Destroying or confiscating people's libraries, temples and churches worked. Making non-Nicene religious belief a treasonous act worked. Nothing else had worked with the pagans, the Christian heretics, the Manicheans or the Jews so it was up to the government to establish the Truth by outlawing the other religions and making life very difficult for religious dissenters. And so it was with church and state when Leo wrote (#94) Marcian to tell him he wished him success "as long as it adheres to the Faith once delivered to the saints".
But I thought he warned of secular powers?
Adding some spice to the situation, between the scheduled council at Nicea for September 1st and October 8th at Chalcedon, Dioscurus excommunicated the Pope! This tactic only made the situation worse for Dioscurus who would be, as was Eusebius at the Robber Council, kept surrounded in the nave of the church. At Ephesus, the bishops cried out against Eusebius in the nave while in Chalcedon, the bishops of Antioch and Asia Minor shouted against Dioscorus and Theodoret was cursed by the Alexandrians. (Above, I have cited one Theodoret's letters to Leo regarding his treatment at Ephesus.) At Ephesus, Dioscorus was Eusebius' accuser. At Chalcedon it was the reverse. Hughes notes "It was a storm that only the lay commissioners could have controlled, with their guards in support." Theodoret was also ordered to take a seat in the nave. While Dioscorus was to be denied a vote, Theodoret was not. At Ephesus, all the bishops that voted against Eutyches in Constantinople were denied a vote. Now that's democracy for you. Finally Eusebius began his case against Dioscorus by reading from the proceedings of Ephesus. Dioscorus replied that the council was ordered by the emperor and the bishops were united. To this the place erupted once again with many pointing out the threatening atmosphere in Ephesus used to get the votes. Again, only the commissioners and the imperial soldiers could quiet the bishops down. Troops again. Before, it was the imperial soldiers at Ephesus that created the threatening atmosphere in support of the Eutychians.
Finally they got down to reading the Nicene Creed of 325, the Exposition of the 150 Fathers from Constantinople in 381, the first and second letters of Cyril to Nestorius, and finally the Tome of Leo. While the bishops at Ephesus cried out that "God had spoken through Dioscorus", after the reading of the Tome at Chalcedon the bishops cried out that "It is Peter who speaks through Leo! This what we all believe!" The next day, Dioscorus stayed away and the council passed sentence in his absence. According to Phillip Hughes, the Alexandrians and Egyptians were "terrified" and did not oppose the sentence. The sentence was then ratified by Emperor Marcian and Dioscorus was stripped of his rank and exiled two hundredf fifty miles away to Gangra in Bythnia (northeast Turkey). Five bishops who were Dioscorus' aids fared better and were reinstated to their Sees. (I thought Leo didn't like the fear of secular powers forcing someone into a departure from what a person considers the way of Truth).
The emperor required that a new creed be written but almost all of the bishops felt nothing needed to be changed. To most,all that needed to be done is to affirm Leo's Tome and the canons of the councils. Thirteen Egyptian bishops wanted to be able to affirm their traditional faith, which they called "the faith of Saint Mark, of Nicea, of Athanasius and Cyril." The other bishops shouted them down and demanded that they sign Leo's Tome. The Alexandrians begged, "When we get home we'll be murdered.... We do not want to seem to disobey the council. But kill us here if you like. We are willing; rather than to return to be killed at home for betraying the chief See of Egypt." In this emerging Christianized world supported by an alliance of church and state, violence and religious intolerance were the expected norm regarding dissenters and would be for more than a thousand years.
Since the bishops were not in the mood for a new definition, the commissioners drew one up, hoping to please even the more divided parties. A compromise was not what they wanted and the hall erupted again. A majority supported it and the Antioch delegation opposed it. The Pope's representatives would not even give it any consideration and told the council, "If you will not accept the letter of the blessed Pope Leo, make out our passports, that we may return to italy and the General Council be held there." The commissioners were bewildered and thought that a committee might be able to formulate it better. With this, the hall erupted once again with shouting about Nestorius, Mary being the Mother of God and that Christ is God! Can you imagine six hundred religious zealots yelling at each other in a church?
The commissioners sought the advice of the emperor, who again insisted on a new defining creed supporting Nicea and Leo's letter. Eventually they came up with a combination of the definitions of the councils of 325 and 381, two letters of Cyril during the Nestorian controversy and Leo's letter all mentioned and linked to above. It is called the Chalcedonian Definition of Faith. At the end of the Definition and preceding the Canons, the Fathers stated:
"Since we have formulated these things with all possible accuracy and attention, the sacred and universal synod decreed that no one is permitted to produce, or even to write down or compose, any other creed or to think or teach otherwise. As for those who dare either to compose another creed or even to promulgate or teach or hand down another creed for those who wish to convert to a recognition of the truth from Hellenism or from Judaism, or from any kind of heresy at all: if they be bishops or clerics, the bishops are to be deposed from the episcopacy and the clerics from the clergy; if they be monks or layfolk, they are to be anathematised."
You were commanded not to think otherwise! Here is an assault on pondering and going with your mind. One is forbidden to consider a belief with the human analytical mind. A religion, not your own calculated thinking, is to determine your religious beliefs and values. Again we see the iron fisted intolerance of the church leaders in these times. If this were just a private organization, they would have some merit in doing this for their adherents but the state has no place enforcing these particular issues. In general terms, the state has no place in determining your thoughts, writings, or your teaching unless it harms another. Private organizations should have the right to make their own rules from within for those that choose to be in the group. Quitting a religious group is always an option in the free world while it was not in late antiquity. There could be Arian churches with their rules; Monophysites with theirs, Nestorians and so forth, with theirs. But the Council here is an effort of both church and state, with the state supporting the Nicene church's oppression of dissenting thoughts, speech and writing. Before I address the emperor's actions after the council, I would like to take a look at three of the canons.
Canon 14 reads:
"Since in certain provinces readers and cantors have been allowed to marry, the sacred synod decrees that none of them is permitted to marry a wife of heterodox views. If those thus married have already had children, and if they have already had the children baptised among heretics, they are to bring them into the communion of the catholic church. If they have not been baptised, they may no longer have them baptised among heretics; nor indeed marry them to a heretic or a Jew or a Greek, unless of course the person who is to be married to the orthodox party promises to convert to the orthodox faith. If anyone transgresses this decree of the sacred synod, let him be subject to canonical penalty."
Like the Council of Elvira in 306, marrying a heretic, Jew or pagan was forbidden. The Fathers at Chalcedon really don't want anyone in the church machinery to get married ("hate your flesh") but if they do they can't marry anyone who is not Nicene. Unfortunately, this kind of religious and ethnic bigotry found in the monotheistic religions of the world is alive and well in conservative corners. Starting in 306 and affirmed by this general council, religious and ethnic bigotry became a virtue. It is no surprise that the Old Testament forbids marrying a pagan and also encourages the destruction of their places of worship. In the tribal world of the Old Testament, different tribes had different religions with different gods so marrying someone from another tribe meant marrying someone who didn't worship YHWH. Only in recent times have the religious and ethnic traditions against interfaith and interracial marriages been challenged in social thinking.
Canons 15 and 16 read:
"No woman under forty years of age is to be ordained a deacon, and then only after close scrutiny. If after receiving ordination and spending some time in the ministry she despises God's grace and gets married, such a person is to be anathematised along with her spouse."
"It is not permitted for a virgin who has dedicated herself to the Lord God, or similarly for a monk, to contract marriage. If it is discovered that they have done so, let them be made excommunicate. However, we have decreed that the local bishop should have discretion to deal humanely with them".
If a woman whom is ordained a deacon gets married, she despises God's grace? If a virgin or a monk decide to marry, they will be excommunicated? This is clearly bizarre fanatical thinking. In this world, sex and God don't mix. Its as if sex is too ugly to be associated with the love of God. Pleasure and human companionships make the jealous God angry. After all, in the Bible, the Lord clearly says many times, "My name is JEALOUS." The way marrying monks and virgins are looked at smacks of the wrathful jealousy we see in some estranged husbands. The same emotionally unstable and angry jealousy is found from the diety regarding other religions, too. Its like this with all three monotheist religions. (In the beginning Man created God in his own image).
On February 7, 452, Marcian and Valentinian together issued an edict which enforced Chalcedon's Definition of Faith and its canons and made them the law of the empire. This had the effect of making the previous councils' canons the law. These previous councils had condemned many more faiths needed to be added to the present list of Godless offenders. The dissenter's churches and literature were confiscated and their clergy deposed, exiled and replaced. People lost their jobs, their properties, their testamentary rights, and their stations in their communities. Using the same strategy used against pagans, their properties were taken over by the Nicenes and their books were burned. This had begun with Constantine, who plundered pagan temples and libraries of their wealth all over Greece and Turkey in order to build his new captal city of Constantinople. Marcian's edict is recorded as Codex Justinianus 1.1.4. Discussions of these theological questions were outlawed because these matters had been officially settled by the clergy and the state. Debating the nature of God was now closed to the public and an open marketplace of ideas was now a criminal enterprise in this new empire. Disputing the decree was threatened with heavy penalties. This expanded the authority beyond that of his July, 451 edict that outlawed the discussion of the nature of Christ in churches and banned religious meetings in private homes. Like Emperor Arcadius' making of paganism an act of treason and like Valentinian's decree that it was treason to challenge the primacy of the Roman See, Marcian joined the clergy to punish religious dissent. Then on March 13, 452, Marcian re-issued this same decree in the East.
Pressured by Nicene leaders, Marcian issued an edict on July 6, 452 that repealed Theodosius' law that was instigated by Eutychians against Flavian, Eusebius, and Theodoret. Theodosius had been convinced their views were heretical. Eutychian's claimed that Flavian, Eusebius, and Theodoret's views were Nestorian. Nestorianism was the issue of the last General Council at Ephesus in 431. This rescript restored Eusebius and Flavian's honor in the church. Back and forth, round and round they went.
On July 17th of 452 those who denied the Nicene doctrine were ordered to leave Rome. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "Marcian's laws produced uniformity at Constantinople and in the neighbourhood of the Government, but he could not enforce them so successfully in Syria and Egypt." Egypt and Syria were Monophysite strongholds and have continued to this day as the Coptic Church which progressively separated from the Nicene Church during the reigns of Marcian, Zeno, Anastastius, Justin and Justinain.
Piling it on, on July 28, 452 Marcian decreed heavy fines and restrictions against the Monophysite Eutychians. As the council at Chalcedon had decreed, one wasn't even allowed to think anything different from authorized Nicene thoughts. This same edict also demanded that the Alexandrians accept their new Patriarch. Punishment awaited those who openly disagreed. With the replacement of Dioscurus with Proterius, street violence broke out in Alexandria. Marcian enforced the decree by sending two thousand troops to Egypt, who then, alongside their soldiering, raped the women and girls of Alexandria. In Alexandria, the Nicene clergy and adherents could not win without the imperial decrees and the sword of the state to enforce them.
Three years later, on August 1, 455, Marcian re-issued the above edict with added penalties against Eutychians that were decreed previously against the Apollinarians. This law also contained more laws against pagans and ordered a heavy hand against them. The historian Evagrius Scholasticus, who covered 431-594, writes of the situation right after Chalcedon in Book 2, Chapter 5 of his Histories:
"On his taking possession of his see, a very great and intolerable tumult arose among the people, who were roused into a storm against conflicting opinions; for some, as is likely in such cases, desired the restoration of Dioscorus, while others resolutely upheld Proterius, so as to give rise to many irremediable mischiefs."
"Thus Priscus, the rhetorician, recounts, that he arrived at Alexandria from the Thebaid, and that he saw the populace advancing in a mass against the magistrates: that when the troops attempted to repress the tumult, they proceeded to assail them with stones, and put them to flight, and on their taking refuge in the old temple of Serapis, carried the place by assault, and committed them alive to the flames: that the emperor, when informed of these events, despatched two thousand newly levied troops, who made so favourable a passage, as to reach Alexandria on the sixth day; and that thence resulted still more alarming consequences, from the license of the soldiery towards the wives and daughters of the Alexandrians: that, subsequently, the people, being assembled in the hippodrome, entreated Floras, who was the military commandant, as well as the civil governor, with such urgency as to procure terms for themselves, in the distribution of provisions, of which he had deprived them, as well as the privileges of the baths and spectacles, and all others from which, on account of their turbulence, they had been debarred: that, at his suggestion, Floras presented himself to the people, and pledged himself to that effect, and by this means stopped the sedition for a time."
Around the same time as the street riots in Egypt some of the Eutychian monks who were at Chalcedon organized a rebellion in Palestine under a monk named Theodosius. Arson, vandalism and killing ensued as the angry monks who felt betrayed sought to punish the bishops of the council and the imperial court for outlawing their faith, exiling their leaders, and confiscating their churches. The Bishop of Scythopolis was assassinated and Jerusalem's Bishop Juvenalis barely escaped with his life as the violence escalated. The Eutychians, who were a majority of the Christian population in Jerusalem, then elected Theodosius as their bishop. When the emperor heard of this rebellion, he ordered those responsible punished and sent a garrison of soldiers there too to end the rebellion.
Evagrius also tells of the Situation in Palestine:
"Nor did even the wilderness in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem preserve its tranquillity, unvisited by this commotion. For there arrived in Palestine some of the monks who had been present at the council, but were disposed to harbour designs in opposition to it; and by lamenting the betrayal of the faith, exerted themselves to fan into a flame the monastic body."
"And when Juvenalis, after obtaining restitution to his see, had been compelled to return to the imperial city, by the violence of the party who claimed the right to supersede and anathematise in their own province, those who, as we have already mentioned, were opposed to the acts of the council of Chalcedon, assembled in the church of the Resurrection, and appointed Theodosius, who had especially caused confusion in the council, and been the first to bring a report of its proceedings, and respecting whom, at a subsequent period, the monks of Palestine alleged, in letters to Alcison, that having been convicted of malpractices in relation to his own bishop, he had been expelled from his monastery: and that at Alexandria he had impugned the conduct of Dioscorus, and, after having been severely scourged as a seditious person, had been conveyed round the city on a camel, as is usual with malefactors. To him many of the cities of Palestine made application, with a view to the ordination of bishops. Among these was Peter the Iberian; to whom was committed the episcopal helm of the city called Majumas, in the neighbourhood of Gaza. On being informed of these proceedings, Marcian, in the first place, commands Theodosius to be conveyed near his own person, and sends Juvenalis to rectify the past, with an injunction that all who had been ordained by Theodosius should be ejected. Many sad occurrences followed the arrival of Juvenalis, while either party indulged in whatever proceedings their anger suggested."
In 454, the emperor Valentinian issued an edict by which Jews were forbidden to disinherit their children who became Christians. This order continued the state's coercive evangelical strategies started by Constantine. This steady stream of laws stripped away the religious, economic, property, and testamentary rights of those who were not religiously correct. This was part of a strategy to handicap religious dissenters in diverse ways in order to exert a controlling influence in several areas of their lives. Emperors and councils had decreed it unlawful for a Jew to own a Christian slave, although a Christian could own one. A Jew who converts a Christian or circumcizes a slave faced the death penalty although exile and/or the loss of testamentary rights were the most common punishments. This kind of religious extremism is still alive and well in Islam where fanatics think converting from Islam to Christianity is a crime worthy of the death penalty. With the evolution of the church-state dictatorship, many emperors made special punishments for this who returned to their previous religion. Both Islam and Christianity are anchored in the religious intolerance found in the commands of YHWH. Stoning the unbelievers and apostates is a very old idea and it still has adherents in the extreme wings of both religions. The imperial slave laws handicapped the Jewish businessman who, like his Christian competitor, relied on slaves to make a living. In the competition of the marketplace, this gave Christians an immediate economic advantage over the Judaizers. In times of legalized slavery, the bottom line of every commercial enterprise was enhanced by slave labor so Jewish business leaders were immediately handicapped by an unstable and smaller slave resources. The law that freed them from their Jewish masters upon conversion to Christianity sought to weaken and disrupt the Jewish business community. Constantine also decreed than no Jew could sit in judgement over Christians in any trial. The 306 Council of Elvira forbade Christians from socializing with, having sexual relations with, eating with, or marrying a Jew. At Elvira, people were ordered to end their friendships and socializing with the unbelievers. The fifth century regional Council of Clermont banned Jews from the legal professions. Justinian's sixth century decree banned Jews from becoming lawyers and judges.
Aside from the religious coercion coming from the church-state machine, it wasn't all bad during Marcian's rule. He was an able administrator with another able administrator who was always in the shadows. It was Aspar, Marcian's military superior before he was acclaimed emperor. It is hard to tell how much influence he had but evidently some thought it was too much because he and his two sons were butchered in the palace in 471 on orders from Emperor Leo I. With Marcian and Aspar in power, there came a steadying of politics and an economic growth. With few military campaigns of any major consequence (Saracens in Syrian; Blemmyes in Egypt), they replenished the treasury that Theodosius and Chrysaphius had nearly emptied. Immediately, under Marcian and Aspar, there were to be no more extortion payments to Attilla to behave and stay in the north. Marcian supposedly said "For Attila I have Iron but no Gold." Although there were some earthquakes, there were no great natural disasters with famine or disease following. The empire had a history of providing for the people in natural disasters and times of hunger. The Persians were not invading yet and Attila's Huns were in a mess in the west. The Battle of Chalons in Gaul claimed 165,000 lives as the west's magister militum Aetius routed the Huns. The Franks were also rising up against the Hun incursions. With Attila's unexpected death in 453, the huge Hun Empire quickly fell apart. One story says that Marcian's politics could have possibly been behind Attila's sudden death and his sickness was part of a cover-up. Like Theodosius' unexpected death, we will never know if they were actually assassinated. After Attila's death, Marcian quickly moved to make allies of the tribes that had been under the iron fist of the Huns. They might decide to invade the Empire's territory so making allies of them was important. Also dying that year of 453 was the Empress Pulcheria.
Marcian lowered the taxes on the Senatorial aristocracy and landowners. He also changed the laws so Senators could finally marry freeborn poor women, called humilis. Marcian kept the Senate content. Years later, Emperor Justin's edict in 520 expanded on this and Senators could finally marry lowborn women, called infames. This enabled his adopted nephew Justinian to marry the mime actress Theodora. Whether Marcian was expanding liberty or just making a larger supply of women for the rich is anyone's guess.
Marcian died in 457 at the age of 65. Some sources claim it was Gangrene of the foot.
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