The Three Chapters and Arianism

In his last months Columbanus was drawn into the Three Chapters schism, a bitter dispute that had divided much of the northern Italian church from Rome since the Second Council of Constantinople (553). Apparently urged by the Arian-leaning Lombard king Agilulf to help heal the breach, Columbanus wrote his Epistula 5 to Pope Boniface IV — a letter at once professing the orthodoxy of Rome, urging the pope to clear his see of any suspicion of heresy, and pressing him to summon a council and restore unity. The letter shows his boldness and his limits, and it must be read, like the Easter letters, from both sides.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Celtic; missionary to the Continent)

The Three Chapters Schism

The controversy Columbanus walked into was a legacy of the great Christological settlements. After Chalcedon (451), the emperor Justinian, seeking to conciliate those who rejected Chalcedon as too “Nestorian,” procured at the Second Council of Constantinople (553) — the Fifth Ecumenical Council — the condemnation of the “Three Chapters”: the person and writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, certain writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and a letter attributed to Ibas of Edessa, all associated with the Antiochene theology suspected of Nestorianism (the standard account; Wood 2001; O’Hara, ed., 2018). Many in the Latin West regarded this condemnation as an implicit betrayal of Chalcedon — which had received Theodoret and Ibas — and as an imperial intrusion into the faith, and they broke communion with Rome and Constantinople over it. The schism was especially entrenched in northern Italy, where the metropolitans of Aquileia and Milan led a large body of churches that refused the council; it would persist for generations (the schism of Aquileia/Grado was not finally healed until the late seventh century) (Wood 2001).

Arianism at the Lombard Court

Layered over this was the Arianism of the Lombard ruling house. King Agilulf and many Lombards held the Arian form of Christianity their people had carried into the empire, denying the full consubstantial divinity of the Son condemned at Nicaea (325), while the Catholic and Three-Chapters populations around them held the Nicene faith (Jonas, Vita Columbani I.30; Wood 2001; see Into Italy and the Lombards). Columbanus, the newly arrived orthodox abbot under royal patronage, was thus positioned between an Arian king, a schismatic Catholic episcopate, and Rome — and it appears that Agilulf, or the situation, prompted him to lend his voice to the cause of reconciliation, perhaps hoping the prestigious foreigner could broker terms favourable to the king’s interests (Wood 2001; O’Hara, ed., 2018).

Epistula 5 to Boniface IV

The result was Columbanus’s Epistula 5, addressed to Pope Boniface IV about 613, his longest and last surviving letter and one of the most extraordinary (Columbanus, Epistula 5; Walker 1957). In it Columbanus pleads for the restoration of unity in the Italian church. He professes, in ringing terms, the orthodoxy and primacy of the Roman see — it is here that he calls the Irish “disciples of Peter and Paul” and declares that Rome is great only through Peter’s chair (Columbanus, Epistula 5; Walker 1957; see Rome and the Celtic Churches). Yet he also, astonishingly, urges the pope to clear his own see of the suspicion of heresy — to call a council, to make plain that Rome holds the true faith and is not tainted by any compromise over the Three Chapters (or, as the schismatics charged, by the actions of Pope Vigilius at the council of 553) — and he warns the pope, with the freedom of a prophet, to “watch” lest the see of Peter lose its authority through any failure of vigilance (Columbanus, Epistula 5; Walker 1957). He even reports, with evident discomfort, the suspicions current in Italy against Rome, while disclaiming them as his own (Columbanus, Epistula 5; Walker 1957).

The tone is the same paradoxical blend as the Easter letters: profound reverence for the apostolic see joined to a startling freedom to admonish its occupant. He writes as a loyal son who loves Rome enough to tell the pope his house is under a cloud and must be cleared (Stancliffe 2018; Wood 2001).

Both Sides: How Well Did He Understand It?

How to assess the letter, and Columbanus’s grasp of the controversy, is genuinely debated, and METHODOLOGY §4 requires both sides.

On one reading, the letter shows Columbanus out of his depth in a technical Christological dispute he imperfectly understood. The Three Chapters quarrel turned on subtle questions of how the condemnation of long-dead theologians bore on the authority of Chalcedon — matters of Greek conciliar theology remote from an Irish abbot’s training — and on this view Columbanus, prompted by an Arian king with his own agenda, intervened with more zeal than comprehension, half-accepting the schismatics’ suspicion of Rome and urging the pope to answer charges that orthodox Rome did not need to answer (this critical reading is reflected in scholars who stress his confusion; the letter’s own muddle over what exactly Rome was being accused of supports it) [Disputed: some scholars read *Epistula* 5 as evidence that Columbanus poorly understood the Three Chapters and was being used by Agilulf, half-crediting the schismatics' case against Rome (a critical strand in the scholarship; cf. discussion in Wood 2001 and O'Hara, ed., 2018); others read it more charitably as a sincere and basically orthodox plea for unity that defends Rome while urging the pope to act, the awkwardness owing to Columbanus's mediating position rather than to doctrinal confusion (Stancliffe 2018)].

On the other reading, the letter is a sincere and substantially orthodox plea for unity: Columbanus does not embrace the schism — he defends Rome’s faith and primacy — but, placed by circumstance between the king, the schismatics, and the pope, he does what a peacemaker must, conveying the suspicions that exist so that Rome may dispel them, and pressing the pope to take the initiative a council. On this view the letter’s boldness is pastoral, not heterodox, and its very awkwardness reflects the impossible position of a mediator, not a failure of faith (Stancliffe 2018; O’Hara, ed., 2018).

What is not in dispute is that Columbanus remained firmly Nicene and Chalcedonian in his own faith — there is no question of his sharing the Lombards’ Arianism — and that he wrote as one in communion with Rome, seeking to draw the schismatics back, not to justify their breach (Walker 1957; Stancliffe 2018). The letter is the last great act of a churchman who, to his final months, could not refrain from telling popes their duty, and who held to the end the same conviction visible in the Easter letters: that the unity of the one catholic faith was the thing to be preserved, and that even the pope must be summoned to preserve it (see Rome and the Celtic Churches).

References

Columbanus. Epistula 5 (to Pope Boniface IV). In Sancti Columbani Opera, ed. and trans. G. S. M. Walker. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1957. (The plea for unity; the profession of Roman primacy and the “disciples of Peter”; the urging of the pope to clear his see and call a council; the warning to “watch.”)
Jonas of Bobbio. Life of Columbanus. Trans. Alexander O’Hara and Ian Wood. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017. (Book I, chapter 30: Agilulf’s Arianism and the Italian setting.)
Wood, Ian. The Missionary Life. Harlow: Longman, 2001. (The Three Chapters schism in northern Italy; the Lombard Arianism; the critical reading of Epistula 5.)
O’Hara, Alexander, ed. Columbanus and the Peoples of Post-Roman Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. (The Italian context and the assessments of the letter.)
Stancliffe, Clare. “Columbanus’s Letters to the Popes.” In Columbanus and the Peoples of Post-Roman Europe, ed. Alexander O’Hara. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. (The charitable reading of Epistula 5 as a sincere orthodox plea.)