| |
Councils of the Early Church
by Father Al Jenkins
50 - Council of Jerusalem
("somewhere" around 2 decades after the ascension of Jesus & recorded in the New Testament)
The Council of Jerusalem is a name applied subsequently to a meeting described in Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 and probably referred to in St. Paul's letter to the Galatians chapter 2. The events described there are generally dated to around the year 50, at the latest some time before 62 AD.
St. Paul himself described several meetings with the apostles in Jerusalem, though it is difficult to reconcile any of them fully with the account in Acts. Paul claims he "went up again to Jerusalem" (i.e., a second time) with Barnabas and Titus "in response to a revelation," in order to "lay before them the gospel (he) proclaimed among the Gentiles" (Galatians 2:2); them being according to Paul "those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders" (Galatians 2:6): James, Peter and John. He describes this as a "private meeting" (not a public council) and notes that Titus, who was Greek, wasn't pressured to be circumcised (Galatians 2:3). However, he refers to "false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom, we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us" (Galatians 2:4). Paul claims the pillars had no differences with him. On the contrary, they gave him the "right hand of fellowship," and agreed he had a mission to "the uncircumcised" and they to "the circumcised," requesting only that he remember the "poor" of Jerusalem. Whether this was the same meeting as that described in Acts is not universally agreed.
325 - First Council of Nicaea
Repudiated Arianism and Quartodecimanism (fixing a date for Easter Sunday), adopted the Nicene Creed. This and all subsequent councils are not recognized by nontrinitarian churches- e.g. Arians, Unitarians, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses.
381 - First Council of Constantinople
Revised the Nicene Creed into present form used in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches and prohibited any further alteration of the Creed without the assent of an Ecumenical Council.
431 - First Council of Ephesus
Repudiated Nestorianism and proclaimed the Virgin Mary as the "Mother of God". This and all following councils are not recognized by the Assyrian Church of the East.
449 - Second Council of Ephesus
Rejected Nestorianism. Pope Dioscorus found Eutyches to be Orthodox. St. Dioscorus, however, declared anathema to Eutyches shortly after the Council of Chalcedon. This council is not recognized by the Chalcedonians (Catholics & Byzantine Orthodox).
451 - Council of Chalcedon
Repudiated the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism, described and delineated the two "separate" natures of Christ, human and divine; adopted the Chalcedonian Creed. For those who accept it, it is the Fourth Ecumenical Council (calling the previous council the "Robber Synod"). This and all following councils are not recognized by the Oriental Orthodox Communion.
553 - Second Council of Constantinople
Reaffirmed decisions and doctrines explicated by previous Councils, condemned new Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite writings.
680 - 681 Third Council of Constantinople
Repudiated Monothelitism, affirmed that Christ had both human and divine wills.
787 - Second Council of Nicaea (not a doctrine council)
Restoration of the veneration of icons and end of the first iconoclasm. It is rejected (and still is) by some Protestant denominations, who instead prefer the Council of Hieria (754), which had also described itself as the Seventh Ecumenical Council and had condemned the veneration of icons (or anything else).
The First Division Over Doctrine
Arius (AD ca250/256 - 336, of Alexandria) was an early Christian theologian. Arius's views were declared heretical at the Council of Nicaea, leading to the formation of the Nicene Creed.
Arius taught that God the Father and the Son did not exist together eternally. Further, Arius taught that the pre-incarnate Jesus was a divine being created by (and possibly inferior to) the Father at some point, before which the Son did not exist.
Of all the various disagreements within the Christian Church, the Arian controversy has held the greatest force and power of theological and political conflict, with the possible exception of the Protestant Reformation. The conflict between Arianism and Trinitarian beliefs was the first major doctrinal confrontation in the Church after the legalization of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine I.
The Second Division Over Doctrine
Nestorius (AD 386-581), was a Patriarch of Constantinople and taught that the human and divine aspects of Christ were distinct natures, not unified. He preached against the use of the title Mother of God (Theotokos) for the Virgin Mary and would only call her Mother of Christ (Christotokos). He also argued that God could not suffer on the cross, as he is omnipotent. Therefore, the human part of Christ died on the cross, but not the divine.
His opponents accused him of dividing Christ into two persons: they claimed that proposing that God the Word did not suffer and die on the cross, while Jesus the man did, or that God the Word was omniscient, while Jesus the man had limited knowledge, implied two separate persons with separate experiences.
Nestorius responded that he believed that Christ was indeed one person. Opposed by Cyril of Alexandria, Nestorius was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431.
The Council held that Christ is one person, and that the Virgin Mary is the mother of God. The condemning pronouncement of the Council resulted in the Nestorian schism and the separation of the Assyrian Church of the East from the Byzantine Church. However, even Ephesus could not settle the issue, and the Byzantine Church was soon split again over the question of whether Christ had one or two natures, leading to the Chalcedonian schism.
The Third Division Over Doctrine
Eutyches, a sometimes radical elder of the church at Constantinople, emerged in 431 AD as a response to Nestorianism, espoused by the Archbishop of Constantinople Nestorius at the First Council of Ephesus. That council repudiated the Nestorians' interpretation, but did not accept the position of Eutyches either, leading to a couple of acrimonious decades of infighting and alienation of large numbers of otherwise worshipful Christians.
He taught Monophysitism (from the Greek monos meaning 'one, alone' and physis meaning 'nature') which is the Christological position that Christ has only one nature, as opposed to the Chalcedonian position which holds that Christ has two natures, one divine and one human. Monophysitism and its antithesis, Nestorianism, were both hotly disputed and divisive competing tenets in the maturing Christian traditions during the first half of the fifth century; a tumultuous period being the last decades of the Western Empire, and marked by the political shift in all things to a center of gravity now located in the Eastern Roman empire, and particularly in Syria, Egypt, and Anatolia, where Monophysitism was popular among the people.
There are two major doctrines that can indisputably be called Monophysitism:
Eutychianism holds that the human nature of Christ was essentially obliterated by the Divine, "dissolved like a drop of honey in the sea", and therefore Christ only had the one (mono) nature, that of divinity.
Apollinarianism (Apollinaris of Laodicea d. 390) holds that Christ had a human body and human "living principle" but that the Divine Logos had taken the place of the nous, or "thinking principle", analogous but not identical to what might be called a mind in the present day.
|
|
