Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years by Jenkins John Philip

Author:Jenkins, John Philip [Jenkins, John Philip]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-02-19T16:00:00+00:00

The Last Romans?

By the 440s, the generation that had dealt with the Nestorian crisis was fading away. New leaders were in power in Rome, where Pope Leo succeeded in 440, and in Alexandria, where Dioscuros followed Cyril in 444. In each case, though, the rising men had served long apprenticeships under their predecessors and had full access to older memories. And just as Cyril had accompanied Theophilus to overthrow John Chrysostom in 403, so Dioscuros had been present at the fall of Nestorius in 431. A rising young cleric could have no better form of on-the-job training than witnessing his mentor overthrow a patriarch.

Other new men had risen to power elsewhere. The new bishop of Antioch was Domnus, who in 440 succeeded his uncle John. This was an unfortunate inheritance, as Domnus was a peaceable character who wanted nothing more than a quiet life and was ill-suited to deal with the kind of enemies he would soon face. The emerging dangers were nowhere clearer than in Constantinople, where (also in 440) Eutyches succeeded the abbot Dalmatius, who had played such a key role in shaping the emperor’s religious policies. Both had been violent opponents of Nestorius, and both were willing to resort to aggressive political activism.

The most significant shift in power was at the imperial court, where the augusta Pulcheria was driven from favor and withdrew from public life. Partly, this followed a long-running feud with her sister-in-law, Eudocia, who was herself forced into holy exile in Jerusalem. In theory, this should have meant that the emperor Theodosius might have exercised some independence, but he now turned his favor to the eunuch Chrysaphius. Unlike the other transfers of power, that change marked a real change in policy and ideology.2

Just as significant for religious debates were changes in secular politics, as the empire moved into new and deeply dangerous territory. At the time of First Ephesus, in 431, the Roman world was enjoying a breathing spell of relative stability. The empire was recovering slowly from the shocks of barbarian invasions that had overrun whole provinces and learning to live with a drastically changed political landscape. Through the 440s, though, the situation had become massively more dangerous, to the point that one or more centers of power, Rome or Constantinople, would probably fall wholly under foreign rule, and it was an open question which part might be lost first.3

Living in an era of perpetual military danger had practical effects for debates within the churches, in making travel and communication much more difficult, and making it harder for particular bishops to participate in wider gatherings. But the crisis also raised the stakes of debate. Every month, it seemed, brought new evidence of the failure of Roman power, of defeats and massacres, of the defeat of orthodox Nicene Christianity. All were evidence of God’s anger with his people, for their lack of faith and drift into heresy, and the church could only find peace by driving out error.

Much of the old empire was slipping into chaos.

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