Epilogue

The Council of Chalcedon
and the Antiochene Legacy

And so this book ends where it began, with the Council of Chalcedon, a moment of reckoning for the Antiochene network. The gathering in 451 did not end Theodoret's career. One letter and a heresy catalog reveal his further efforts to claim influence.¹ Nor did the council end the conflicts over Christology, which raged for three centuries. The meeting in Chalcedon, however, redrew clerical relations throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. The social dynamics of Chalcedon are too complicated to be fully covered in this volume. Here we shall merely glance at the positioning of known Antiochenes in relation to the council. On the one hand, the council accepted at least two forms of dyophysitism, which met the approval of most Antiochenes. It directly blessed Theodoret, returning him and some allies to their sees. On the other hand, the synod rearranged most of Theodoret's social project. The Antiochenes were split up and subsumed within larger networks, leaving a fragmented but important legacy.

The Council of Chalcedon interests historians and theologians for a number of reasons. Greatest attention has fallen on three elements: its processes, its theological judgments, and its administrative rulings. Most obviously, Chalcedon set new conciliar practices. Virtually all bishops were invited to the council and allowed to express grievances, but the proceedings would be tightly organized by imperial lay officials. It was these lay commissioners who arranged for the delegates to condemn Dioscorus. It was they who screened doctrinal statements and selected the authors of all rulings.² Famously the council reframed heresy and orthodoxy. Nestorianism and Eutycheanism were condemned as opposite heresies. Cyril, Flavian of Constantinople, and Pope Leo were treated as touchstones of true faith. The verbal differences that separated these authors (and their supporters) were elided when the bishops shouted “Leo and Cyril teach the same.”³ Finally, Chalcedon reorganized the clerical hierarchy. Most monasteries were officially subjected to the oversight of local bishops.⁴ Suffragans were more often subordinated to the authority of metropolitans. And nearly all bishops were placed under five patriarchs, who were now assigned clear jurisdictions.⁵ The procedures and rulings of the council inspired immediate hostility, especially in monasteries. Juvenal of Jerusalem was chased away by murderous rioting monks (some apparently allied with Empress Eudocia).⁶ The new patriarch of Alexandria was greeted by riots, until thousands of soldiers intervened.⁷ Scholars who have examined the council rulings have offered elaborate (and divergent) analyses. Few have looked closely at the central role of the Antiochenes, and the thoroughly conflicted effect on their socio-doctrinal legacy.⁸

In many ways the Council of Chalcedon vindicated Theodoret and his teachings. Not only did the commissioners declare Theodoret and some allies orthodox; they guided theological discussions to a statement that looks Antiochene. It was just minutes into the first session when Theodoret entered. Amid threatening shouts the commissioners insisted that he be seated. The only obvious cost to him came a few days later: the public condemnation of Nestorius.⁹ Theodoret coordinated with Hiba, John of Germanicea, and a few other core Antiochenes. Critically, these partisans retained the support of General Anatolius, the prime council organizer, along with other commissioners.¹⁰ Theodoret played little role in drafting the council's (suppressed) first statement of faith, but he and his allies pushed for revisions.¹¹ The result was a sort of dyophysite formula: “one (hypostasis of) Christ made known in two natures.” The delegates acclaimed this phrase as Cyril's teaching (once prompted by the lay commissioners).¹² The formula did not fully match Theodoret's preferences, but it was acceptable with interpretive tweaking. That tweaking came in the form of Pope Leo's Tome, now labeled as orthodox. By the end of the council Theodoret was treating this Tome as an official statement of faith. Thus he defended the council to skeptical allies as an embrace of Antiochene teachings.¹³

And yet, the council of Chalcedon was not a complete triumph for Theodoret's network. It reshaped some parts of the Antiochene socio-doctrinal dynamic. For starters, the council altered Antiochene patterns of relations within the clergy. Theodoret and his clerical allies had fostered a broad informal network, centered on bishops. See-based primacy mattered, but so did centrality, experience, and expertise. The new canons on metropolitans and patriarchs cut at these leadership traditions. Bishops could have resisted these rulings; throughout the controversy they kept building doctrinal networks. But now they had to contend with a more centralized vision of regional authority, and beyond that a broader institutional frame. In any case, Theodoret and his core allies owed their jobs to the council: they were in no position to dismiss its decrees.

The Council of Chalcedon also hindered traditional Antiochene relations between clerics and monasteries. Theodoret's network had maintained interdependent links with a few favorite monastic houses. The rest were pushed aside or ignored. The new canons on monastic subordination posited a more comprehensive dynamic. Clerics and monks could have ignored this ruling. In future decades some monasteries would grow in their attachment to particular parties of bishops. Just like clerics, however, monks now confronted clearer marks of hierarchy within a larger institutional system. Again, Theodoret and his associates were too dependent on the council to object.

Finally, the council exacerbated divisions within the Syrian episcopate. Partly the divisions came from the council's limited restoration of core Antiochenes. Some bishops, like Domnus, were called orthodox but urged to retire. Others, like Irenaeus, were treated as heretics (somewhat arbitrarily). These exiles formed a small shadow network of true believers, who seem to have resented Theodoret's latest compromises.¹⁴ Partly the divisions had to do with sudden doctrinal reversals. Many bishops, such as Basil of Seleucia, had switched from the Antiochenes, to the miaphysites, to the Chalcedonian settlement within just two years. Basil parsed his words carefully each time; others were less precise. Either way, the shifts strained relations with congregants and fellow clerics, both those who had held fast and those who had floated with the tide.¹⁵ A larger chasm in the Syrian clergy divided old Antiochenes from newer bishops, appointed by Dioscorus and his lieutenants. Maximus of Antioch and Photius of Tyre may have forsworn their Egyptian mentor.¹⁶ They still held their own alliances and owed little to the Antiochenes. Tense divisions were nothing new to Syrian clerics. Theodoret may have again tried to mediate, to maintain a firmly dyophysite network. But this time it would be more difficult to corral clerics or speak for the entire Roman East.

The Council of Chalcedon rearranged Antiochene socio-doctrinal dynamics by placing dyophysite doctrine in a new social context. Theodoret had tried to give coherence to his network, with historical narratives, leadership, and (perhaps) social referents for Christology. The result was greater theological certainty and, temporarily, greater solidarity.¹⁷ The council recognized neither the social patterns, nor the social metaphors that, I suggest, informed Antiochene theology. The result was a fracturing of the network. Some core members were forced into the shadows, others were absorbed into the Chalcedonian coalition. Many were no doubt confused and caught in between.

It thus may be understandable how, over the next four decades, the dyophysite coalition lost its hold on Syria. In 457, Emperor Marcian died, and supporters of Chalcedon faced a major test. A cabal of Egyptian monks and bishops seized the moment to consecrate Timothy the Cat as an anti-Chalcedonian patriarch of Alexandria. A few weeks later the old pro-Chalcedonian patriarch was lynched in the streets.¹⁸ Leo, the new emperor, called for an episcopal plebiscite on recent events and councils. Most responding bishops opposed Timothy and affirmed Chalcedon, but Syrian bishops were no longer driving the cause.¹⁹ In 458, Hiba of Edessa died, to be succeeded by Nonnus, his onetime replacement (449–451). Invoking the memory of Rabbula, Nonnus led the bishops of Osrhoene to reject Chalcedon.²⁰ The 470s saw the return of competing episcopal claimants in Antioch and other towns.²¹ And the 480s marked a tipping point. Emperor Zeno backed an “Edict of Oneness” (Henotikon), which avoided explicit dyophysitism. The anti-Chalcedonian Peter the Fuller agreed to this compromise and won support as patriarch of Antioch. Several Syrian dyophysites assembled in opposition to Peter. But they were soon ousted, accused of backing a failed imperial usurper.²² After 485 the churches of Euphratensis were led by Philoxenus, a Syriac-writing miaphysite. Some Syrian socio-doctrinal traditions were clearly contiguous. But when Philoxenus dealt with other clerics, he deemphasized “exactness” (Syriac: hatitutha; Greek: akribeia) and stressed “flexibility” (Syriac mdabranutha; Greek: oikonomia). Theodoret's favorite symbolic formula had been reversed.²³

The long-term outcome of the Christological dispute was the forming of separate churches. The old miaphysite network struggled. But eventually it grew into an anti-Chalcedonian communion, linking Egyptians with Ethiopians and Armenians as well as with many Syrians.²⁴ The old dyophysite network was split and subsumed into two larger groupings. Some joined Justinian's Neo-Chalcedonian community. The cost, in this case, was to condemn Theodore of Mopsuestia and other parts of the Antiochene heritage.²⁵ A few committed dyophysites ended up within the Church of the East. Somehow the scattered Antiochene links to Persian Mesopotamia inspired a growing devotion there to Theodore's teachings.²⁶ By 486, the Church of the East had doctrinally differentiated from its Roman counterpart. By the late sixth century, Roman clerics had begun to form parallel Chalcedonian and miaphysite hierarchies.²⁷ Some scholars have tried to explain this outcome by contrasting supposedly popular Cyrillians in the 430s and 440s to supposedly isolated Antiochenes.²⁸ We should be wary of such teleological reasoning. Theodoret's network appears as robust and well connected as the opposition. His patronage might have won him deeper (doctrinal) support if his core group had not been attacked so systematically. In any case, it was the Council of Chalcedon that framed the new confrontations and new socio-doctrinal possibilities.

The Council of Chalcedon thus left Theodoret's network with a fragmented, but important legacy. His network, which had ignited the dispute, made a scattered impact within larger institutions. Theodoret's efforts were not fully celebrated by any of the three churches. Miaphysite churches treated him as a dangerous heretic. The Church of the East barely remembered him. Chalcedonian churches preserved most of his works, with the warning not to trust everything he said.²⁹ Under the surface, however, Theodoret's network had already reshaped the experience of clerical community. Theodoret and his foes set parameters for ongoing debates. Later clerics would build their theology from Cyril's or Theodoret's formulations (aware or unaware of their influences). More important, these networks made doctrine part of a larger socio-cultural dynamic. Theodoret's network was temporary. It was often overshadowed by other centers of influence. But Theodoret's party was followed by new socio-doctrinal networks, with grander organizing plans. Theodoret and his people demonstrated the solidarity made possible by interweaving patronage, friendship, and faith.