Constantinople II and the Three Chapters

The Fifth Ecumenical Council, convened by Justinian in 553, condemned the “Three Chapters” — the person and writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and certain writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa — in order to interpret Chalcedon in an explicitly Cyrillian sense and cut away any Nestorian reading, hoping thereby to win back the Non-Chalcedonians. It also received the condemnation of Origenism, though the standing of the anti-Origenist anathemas is disputed.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Justinian’s Problem

The Emperor Justinian I (527–565), who sought to restore the unity of the Roman world, was acutely aware that Chalcedon had split the Eastern Church and driven Egypt, Syria, and much of the population into the Non-Chalcedonian camp (see The Definition and the Non-Chalcedonians). A learned theologian in his own right, Justinian judged that the anti-Chalcedonians could be reconciled if it were made unmistakably clear that Chalcedon had not endorsed Nestorianism — that its “two natures” were to be read in Cyril’s sense, not the Antiochene extreme. The instrument he chose was the condemnation of the Three Chapters (tria kephalaia): three targets from the Antiochene tradition that the Non-Chalcedonians pointed to as proof that Chalcedon had sheltered crypto-Nestorians (Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions, 1989, on Justinian’s religious policy; Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils, 1990).

The Three Chapters

The Three Chapters were:

Theodore of Mopsuestia — the revered teacher of the Antiochene school and, in the eyes of his critics, the true fountainhead of Nestorius’s error; condemned both as a person and in his writings.
Certain writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus — specifically his works against Cyril and the Twelve Anathemas; Theodoret himself had been rehabilitated at Chalcedon after anathematizing Nestorius, so only these particular writings, not his person, were condemned.
The Letter of Ibas of Edessa to Maris the Persian — a letter critical of Cyril and of the Ephesine proceedings; the letter alone was condemned, not Ibas, who had likewise been received at Chalcedon.

The delicacy is obvious: two of the three (Theodoret and Ibas) had been vindicated at Chalcedon itself, so condemning their writings looked, to Western eyes especially, like an implicit reversal of the Fourth Council. Justinian’s theologians answered that the council condemned only what was genuinely Nestorian in these men’s work, leaving Chalcedon’s authority intact; the aim was to fix Chalcedon’s interpretation, not to overturn it (Price, The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553, 2009, on the logic of the condemnation).

The Council and Pope Vigilius

The council met at Constantinople in 553, about 165 bishops attending, overwhelmingly Eastern, under Patriarch Eutychius (Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils, 1990). Its most troubled relationship was with the West. Pope Vigilius was in Constantinople but refused to attend, fearing that condemning the Three Chapters would betray Chalcedon; he issued a Constitutum declining the condemnation. The council proceeded without him, and even struck his name from the diptychs while professing to keep communion with the see of Rome. Only afterward, under pressure, did Vigilius reverse himself and accept the council’s decrees (a second Constitutum, 554), so that the Fifth Council was in the end received in the West as well — though at the cost of a schism in northern Italy (the “Istrian schism”) that lasted into the seventh century (Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions, 1989; Price, Acts of Constantinople 553, 2009). The episode is a notable datum in the history of Roman primacy: a pope resisted an ecumenical council, was overruled by it, and finally submitted — a fact Orthodox writers set beside the case of Honorius (see Constantinople III: Monothelitism).

What the Council Defined

Doctrinally, Constantinople II reaffirmed Chalcedon while interpreting it in a firmly Cyrillian direction. Its fourteen anathemas confess that the one who was crucified in the flesh is “true God and Lord of glory and one of the Holy Trinity” — endorsing the “theopaschite” formula “one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh,” which safeguards the single subject against any Nestorian division — and insist that the hypostasis of the union is none other than the pre-existent hypostasis of the Word, not a new person formed by the union (Council of Constantinople II, Anathemas, esp. 10; trans. in Percival, NPNF, Second Series, vol. 14; Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 1990). It affirmed the legitimacy of speaking of “one incarnate nature of God the Word” when rightly understood, and of “two natures” — showing that the two vocabularies could both be orthodox, a move that anticipates the modern dialogues with the Oriental Orthodox even though it failed, in its own day, to win them back (Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, 1975). The Fifth Council thus stands as the Church’s authoritative statement that Chalcedon is to be read through Cyril — the two councils are one Christology, not two.

The Origenist Question

Constantinople II is also traditionally credited with the condemnation of Origenism — a set of speculative doctrines associated with the followers of Origen among the Palestinian monks: the pre-existence of souls, the primordial fall of rational beings into bodies, the final restoration of all (apokatastasis), and the eventual equality of all rational creatures, even the abolition of Christ’s distinct glory in the end (Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions, 1989, on the sixth-century Origenist controversy). But the exact conciliar status of the fifteen anti-Origenist anathemas is genuinely disputed:

[Disputed: whether the fifteen anti-Origenist anathemas are an act of the Fifth Ecumenical Council itself. Richard Price and others argue that these fifteen anathemas are absent from the official Acts of the council's formal sessions, and were most probably adopted either at a preliminary meeting of the assembled bishops just before the council formally opened, or belong to the local Home Synod (endemousa) of 543 and Justinian's edict against Origen, rather than to the ecumenical council's own decrees (Price, *The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553*, 2009, with the appendix on the Origenist anathemas). On this view the eleventh of the council's own fourteen anathemas names Origen in a list of heretics, so the council did condemn "Origen," but the detailed fifteen-anathema refutation of Origenist cosmology is a separate document. Orthodox tradition has nonetheless firmly received the condemnation of Origenism — the pre-existence of souls and universal apokatastasis — as carrying conciliar authority, and it is so treated in the Church's tradition and in the Synodikon. The historical-critical and the traditional accounts are both reported; the collection does not collapse them.]

Whatever the precise documentary status of the fifteen anathemas, the effect in the Church’s reception was clear and lasting: the speculative Origenist system was excluded, the pre-existence of souls and the necessary apokatastasis were rejected as heresy, and the sixth-century Origenist movement among the monks of Palestine was broken (Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions, 1989). The Fifth Council thus set the outer bounds of Orthodox eschatology, even as the hope for the salvation of all remained, for some Fathers, a permitted prayer rather than a dogma.

References

Council of Constantinople II (553). Anathemas 1–14. In Percival, ed., NPNF, Second Series, vol. 14; and Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils.
Price, Richard. The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553. 2 vols. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009 (esp. the treatment of the Three Chapters and the Origenist anathemas).
Meyendorff, John. Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450–680 AD. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1989; Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, 1975.
Davis, Leo Donald. The First Seven Ecumenical Councils. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990.
Tanner, Norman P., ed. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. 2 vols. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990.