Constantinople I (381): the canons (1 of 2)

Canon I.

Canons of the One Hundred and Fifty Fathers who assembled at Constantinople during the Consulate of those Illustrious Men, Flavius Eucherius and Flavius Evagrius on the VII of the Ides of July.

The Bishops out of different provinces assembled by the grace of God in Constantinople, on the summons of the most religious Emperor Theodosius, have decreed as follows:

Canon I.

The Faith of the Three Hundred and Eighteen Fathers assembled at Nice in Bithynia shall not be set aside, but shall remain firm.  And every heresy shall be anathematized, particularly that of the Eunomians or [Anomæans, the Arians or] Eudoxians, and that of the Semi-Arians or Pneumatomachi, and that of the Sabellians, and that of the Marcellians, and that of the Photinians, and that of the Apollinarians.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon I.

Let the Nicene faith stand firm.  Anathema to heresy.

There is a difference of reading in the list of the heretics.  The reading I have followed in the text is that given in Beveridge’s Synodicon.  The Greek text, however, in Labbe, and with it agree the version of Hervetus and the text of Hefele, reads:  “the Eunomians or Anomæans, the Arians or Eudoxians, the Semi-Arians or Pneumatomachi, the Sabellians, Marcellians, Photinians and Apollinarians.”  From this Dionysius only varies by substituting “Macedonians” for “Semi-Arians.”  It would seem that this was the correct reading.  I, however, have followed the other as being the more usual.

Hefele.

By the Eudoxians, whom this canon identifies with the Arians [according to his text, vide supra,] is meant that faction who, in contradistinction to the strict Arians or Anomæans on one side, and the Semi-Arians on the other side, followed the leadership of the Court Bishop Eudoxius (Bishop of Constantinople under the Emperor Valens), and without being entirely Anomæan, yet very decidedly inclined to the left of the Arian party—probably claiming to represent the old and original Arianism.  But this canon makes the Semi-Arians identical with the Pneumatomachians, and so far rightly, that the latter sprang from the Semi-Arian party, and applied the Arian principle to their doctrine of the Holy Ghost.  Lastly, by the Marcellians are meant those pupils of Marcellus of Ancyra who remained in the errors formerly propounded by him, while afterwards others, and indeed he himself, once more acknowledged the truth.

Excursus on the Heresies Condemned in Canon I

In treating of these heresies I shall invert the order of the canon, and shall speak of the Macedonian and Apollinarian heresies first, as being most nearly connected with the object for which the Constantinopolitan Synod was assembled.

The Semi-Arians, Macedonians or Pneumatomachi.

Peace indeed seemed to have been secured by the Nicene decision but there was an element of discord still extant, and so shortly afterwards as in 359 the double-synod of Rimini (Ariminum) and Selencia rejected the expressions homousion and homœusion equally, and Jerome gave birth to his famous phrase, “the world awoke to find itself Arian.”  The cause of this was the weight attaching to the Semi-Arian party, which counted among its numbers men of note and holiness, such as St. Cyril of Jerusalem.  Of the developments of this party it seems right that some mention should be made in this place, since it brought forth the Macedonian heresy.

(Wm. Bright, D.D., St. Leo on the Incarnation, pp. 213 et seqq.)

The Semi-Arian party in the fourth century attempted to steer a middle course between calling the Son Consubstantial and calling him a creature.  Their position, indeed, was untenable, but several persisted in clinging to it; and it was adopted by Macedonius, who occupied the see of Constantinople.  It was through their adoption of a more reverential language about the Son than had been used by the old Arians, that what is called the Macedonian heresy showed itself.  Arianism had spoken both of the Son and the Holy Spirit as creatures.  The Macedonians, rising up out of Semi-Arianism, gradually reached the Church’s belief as to the uncreated majesty of the Son, even if they retained their objection to the homoousion as a formula.  But having, in their previously Semi-Arian position, refused to extend their own “homoiousion” to the Holy Spirit, they afterwards persisted in regarding him as “external to the one indivisible Godhead,” Newman’s Arians, p. 226; or as Tillemont says (Mém. vi., 527), “the denial of the divinity of the Holy Spirit was at last their capital or only error.”  St. Athanasius, while an exile under Constantius for the second time, “heard with pain,” as he says (Ep. i. ad Serap., 1) that “some who had left the Arians from disgust at their blasphemy against the Son of God, yet called the Spirit a creature, and one of the ministering spirits, differing only in degree from the Angels:”  and soon afterwards, in 362, the Council of Alexandria condemned the notion that the Spirit was a creature, as being “no true avoidance of the detestable Arian heresy.”  See “Later Treatises of St. Athanasius,” p. 5.  Athanasius insisted that the Nicene Fathers, although silent on the nature of the Holy Spirit, had by implication ranked him with the Father and the Son as an object of belief (ad Afros, 11).  After the death of St. Athanasius, the new heresy was rejected on behalf of the West by Pope Damasus, who declared the Spirit to be truly and properly from the Father (as the Son from the Divine substance) and very God, “omnia posse et omnia nosse, et ubique esse,” coequal and adorable (Mansi, iii., 483).  The Illyrian bishops also, in 374, wrote to the bishops of Asia Minor, affirming the consubstantiality of the Three Divine Persons (Theodoret, H. E., iv., 9).  St. Basil wrote his De Spiritu Sancto in the same sense (see Swete, Early History of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, pp. 58, 67), and in order to vindicate this truth against the Pneumatomachi, as the Macedonians were called by the Catholics, the Constantinopolitan recension of the Nicene Creed added the words, “the Lord and the Life-giver, proceeding from the Father, with the Father and the Son worshipped and glorified” etc., which had already formed part of local Creeds in the East.

From the foregoing by Canon Bright, the reader will be able to understand the connexion between the Semi-Arians and Pneumatomachi, as well as to see how the undestroyed heretical germs of the Semi-Asian heresy necessitated by their development the condemnation of a second synod.

The Apollinarians.

(Philip Schaff, in Smith and Wace, Dict. Christ. Biog., s.v. Apollinaris.)

Apollinaris was the first to apply the results of the Nicene controversy to Christology proper, and to call the attention of the Church to the psychical and pneumatic element in the humanity of Christ; but in his zeal for the true deity of Christ, and fear of a double personality, he fell into the error of a partial denial of his true humanity.  Adopting the psychological trichotomy of Plato (σῶμα ψυχὴ, πνεῦμα), for which he quoted 1. Thess. v. 23 and Gal. v. 17, he attributed to Christ a human body (σῶμα) and a human soul (the ψυχὴ ἄλογος, the anima animans which man has in common with the animal), but not a rational spirit (νοῦς, πνεῦμα, ψυχὴ λογικὴ, anima rationalis,) and put in the place of the latter the divine Logos.  In opposition to the idea of a mere connection of the Logos with the man Jesus, he wished to secure an organic unity of the two, and so a true incarnation; but he sought this at the expense of the most important constituent of man.  He reached only a Θεὸς σαρκοφόρος as Nestorianism only an ἄνθρωπος θεοφόρος instead of the proper θεάνδρωτος .  He appealed to the fact that the Scripture says, “the Word was made flesh”—not spirit; “God was manifest in the flesh” etc.  To which Gregory Nazianzen justly replied that in these passages the term σάρξ was used by synecdoche for the whole human nature.  In this way Apollinaris established so close a connection of the Logos with human flesh, that all the divine attributes were transferred to the human nature, and all the human attributes to the divine, and the two merged in one nature in Christ.  Hence he could speak of a crucifixion of the Logos, and a worship of his flesh.  He made Christ a middle being between God and man, in whom, as it were, one part divine and two parts human were fused in the unity of a new nature.  He even ventured to adduce created analogies, such as the mule, midway between the horse and the ass; the grey colour, a mixture of white and black; and spring, in distinction from winter and summer.  Christ, said he, is neither whole man, nor God, but a mixture (μίξις) of God and man.  On the other hand, he regarded the orthodox view of a union of full humanity with a full divinity in one person—of two wholes in one whole—as an absurdity.  He called the result of this construction ἀνθρωπόθεος , a sort of monstrosity, which he put in the same category with the mythological figure of the Minotaur.  But the Apollinarian idea of the union of the Logos with a truncated human nature might be itself more justly compared with this monster.  Starting from the Nicene homoousion as to the Logos, but denying the completeness of Christ’s humanity, he met Arianism half-way, which likewise put the divine Logos in the place of the human spirit in Christ.  But he strongly asserted his unchangeableness, while Arians taught his changeableness (τρεπτότης).

The faith of the Church revolted against such a mutilated and stunted humanity of Christ which necessarily involved also a merely partial redemption.  The incarnation is an assumption of the entire human nature, sin only excluded.  The ἐνσάρκωσις is ἐνανθρώπησις.  To be a full and complete Redeemer, Christ must be a perfect man (τέλειος ἄνθρωπος).  The spirit or rational soul is the most important element in man, his crowning glory, the seat of intelligence and freedom, and needs redemption as well as the soul and the body; for sin has entered and corrupted all the faculties.

In the sentence immediately preceding the above Dr. Scruff remarks “but the peculiar Christology of Apollinaris has reappeared from time to time in a modified shape, as isolated theological opinion.”  No doubt Dr. Schaff had in mind the fathers of the so-called “Kenoticism” of to-day, Gess and Ebrard, who teach, unless they have been misunderstood, that the incarnate Son had no human intellect or rational soul (νοῦς) but that the divine personality took its place, by being changed into it.  By this last modification, they claim to escape from the taint of the Apollinarian heresy.

The Eunomians or Anomœans.

(Bright, Notes on the Canons, Canon I. of I. Const.)

“The Eunomians or Anomœans.”  These were the ultra-Arians, who carried to its legitimate issue the original Arian denial of the eternity and uncreatedness of the Son, while they further rejected what Arius had affirmed as to the essential mysteriousness of the Divine nature (Soc., H. E., iv., 7; comp. Athan., De Synod., 15).  Their founder was Aëtius, the most versatile of theological adventurers (cf. Athan., De Synod., 31; Soc., H. E., ii., 45; and see a summary of his career in Newman’s Arians, p. 347); but their leader at the time of the Council was the daring and indefatigable Eunomius (for whose personal characteristics, see his admirer Philostorgius, x., 6).  He, too, had gone through many vicissitudes from his first employment as the secretary of Aëtius, and his ordination as deacon by Eudoxius; as bishop of Cyzicus, he had been lured into a disclosure of his true sentiments, and then denounced as a heretic (Theod., H. E., ii., 29); with Aëtius he had openly separated from Eudoxius as a disingenuous time-server, and had gone into retirement at Chalcedon (Philostorg., ix., 4).  The distinctive formula of his adherents was the “Anomoion.”  The Son, they said, was not “like to the Father in essence”; even to call him simply “like” was to obscure the fact that he was simply a creature, and, as such, “unlike” to his Creator.  In other words, they thought the Semi-Arian “homoiousion” little better than the Catholic “homoousion”:  the “homoion” of the more “respectable” Arians represented in their eyes an ignoble reticence; the plain truth, however it might shock devout prejudice, must be put into words which would bar all misunderstanding:  the Son might be called “God,” but in a sense merely titular, so as to leave an impassable gulf between him and the uncreated Godhead (see Eunomius’s Exposition in Valesius’s note on Soc., H. E., v., 10).  Compare Basil (Epist., 233, and his work against Eunomius), and Epiphanius (Hær., 76).

The Arians or Eudoxians.

(Bright.  Ut supra.)

“The Arians or Eudoxians.”  By these are meant the ordinary Arians of the period, or, as they may be called, the Acacian party, directed for several years by the essentially worldly and unconscientious Eudoxius.  His real sympathies were with the Anomœans (see Tillemont, Mémoires, vi., 423, and compare his profane speech recorded by Socrates, H. E., ii., 43): but, as a bishop of Constantinople, he felt it necessary to discourage them, and to abide by the vague formula invented by Acacius of Cæsarea, which described the Son as “like to the Father,” without saying whether this likeness was supposed to be more than moral (cf. Newman, Arians, p. 317), so that the practical effect of this “homoion” was to prepare the way for that very Anomœanism which its maintainers were ready for political purposes to disown.

The Sabellians.

(Bright.  Ut supra.)

“The Sabellians,” whose theory is traceable to Noetus and Praxeas in the latter part of the second century:  they regarded the Son and the Holy Spirit as aspects and modes of, or as emanations from, the One Person of the Father (see Newman’s Arians, pp. 120 et seqq.).  Such a view tended directly to dissolve Christian belief in the Trinity and in the Incarnation (Vide Wilberforce, Incarnation, pp. 112, 197).  Hence the gentle Dionysius of Alexandria characterised it in severe terms as involving “blasphemy, unbelief, and irreverence, towards the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Euseb., H. E., vii.. 6).  Hence the deep repugnance which it excited, and the facility with which the imputation of “Sabellianizing” could be utilised by the Arians against maintainers of the Consubstantiality (Hilary, De Trinit., iv., 4; De Synod., 68; Fragm., 11; Basil, Epist., 189, 2).  No organized Sabellian sect was in existence at the date of this anathema:  but Sabellian ideas were “in the air,” and St. Basil could speak of a revival of this old misbelief (Epist., 126).  We find it again asserted by Chilperic I., King of Neustria, in the latter part of the sixth century (Greg. Turon., Hist. Fr., v., 45).

The Marcellians.

(Bright.  Ut supra.)

“The Marcellians,” called after Marcellus bishop of Ancyra, who was persistently denounced not only by the Arianizers, but by St. Basil, and for a time, at least, suspected by St. Athanasius (Vide Epiphan., Hær., 72, 4) as one who held notions akin to Sabellianism, and fatal to a true belief in the Divine Sonship and the Incarnation.  The theory ascribed to him was that the Logos was an impersonal Divine power, immanent from eternity in God, but issuing from him in the act of creation, and entering at last into relations with the human person of Jesus, who thus became God’s Son.  But this expansion of the original divine unity would be followed by a “contraction,” when the Logos would retire from Jesus, and God would again be all in all.  Some nine years before the council, Marcellus, then in extreme old age, had sent his deacon Eugenius to St. Athanasius, with a written confession of faith, quite orthodox as to the eternity of the Trinity, and the identity of the Logos with a pre-existing and personal Son, although not verbally explicit as to the permanence of Christ’s “kingdom,”—the point insisted on in one of the Epiphanian-Constantinopolitan additions to the Creed (Montfaucon, Collect. Nov., ii., 1).  The question whether Marcellus was personally heterodox—i.e. whether the extracts from his treatise, made by his adversary Eusebius of Cæsarea, give a fair account of his real views—has been answered unfavourably by some writers, as Newman (Athanasian Treatises, ii., 200, ed. 2), and Döllinger (Hippolytus and Callistus, p. 217, E. T. p. 201), while others, like Neale, think that “charity and truth” suggest his “acquittal” (Hist. Patr. Antioch., p. 106).  Montfaucon thinks that his written statements might be favourably interpreted, but that his oral statements must have given ground for suspicion.

The Photinians.

(Bright.  Ut supra. )

“The Photinians,” or followers of Marcellus’s disciple Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, the ready-witted and pertinacious disputant whom four successive synods condemned before he could be got rid of, by State power, in a.d. 351.  (See St. Athanasius’s Historical Writings, Introd. p. lxxxix.)  In his representation of the “Marcellian” theology, he laid special stress on its Christological position—that Jesus, on whom the Logos rested with exceptional fulness, was a mere man.  See Athanasius, De Synodis, 26, 27, for two creeds in which Photinianism is censured; also Soc. H. E. ii., 18, 29, 30; vii., 32.  There is an obvious affinity between it and the “Samosatene” or Paulionist theory.

Canon II

The bishops are not to go beyond their dioceses to churches lying outside of their bounds, nor bring confusion on the churches; but let the Bishop of Alexandria, according to the canons, alone administer the affairs of Egypt; and let the bishops of the East manage the East alone, the privileges of the Church in Antioch, which are mentioned in the canons of Nice, being preserved; and let the bishops of the Asian Diocese administer the Asian affairs only; and the Pontic bishops only Pontic matters; and the Thracian bishops only Thracian affairs.  And let not bishops go beyond their dioceses for ordination or any other ecclesiastical ministrations, unless they be invited.  And the aforesaid canon concerning dioceses being observed, it is evident that the synod of every province will administer the affairs of that particular province as was decreed at Nice.  But the Churches of God in heathen nations must be governed according to the custom which has prevailed from the times of the Fathers.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon II.

No traveller shall introduce confusion into the Churches either by ordaining or by enthroning.  Nevertheless in Churches which are among the heathen the tradition of the Fathers shall be preserved.

In the above Ancient Epitome it will be noticed that not only is ordination mentioned but also the “inthronization” of bishops.  Few ceremonies are of greater antiquity in the Christian Church than the solemn placing of the newly chosen bishop in the episcopal chair of his diocese.  It is mentioned in the Apostolical Constitutions, and in the Greek Pontificals.  Also in the Arabic version of the Nicene Canons.  (No. lxxi.).  A sermon was usually delivered by the newly consecrated bishop, called the “sermo enthronisticus.”  He also sent to neighbouring bishops συλλαβαὶ ἐνθρονιστικαὶ, and the fees the new bishops paid were called τὰ ἐνθρονιστικὰ.

Valesius.

(Note on Socrates, H. E., v., 8).

This rule seems to have been made chiefly on account of Meletius, Bishop of Antioch, Gregory Nazianzen, and Peter of Alexandria.  For Meletius leaving the Eastern diocese had come to Constantinople to ordain Gregory bishop there.  And Gregory having abandoned the bishoprick of Sasima, which was in the Pontic diocese, had removed to Constantinople.  While Peter of Alexandria had sent to Constantinople seven Egyptian bishops to ordain Maximus the Cynic.  For the purpose therefore of repressing these [disorders], the fathers of the Synod of Constantinople made this canon.

Balsamon.

Take notice from the present canon that formerly all the Metropolitans of provinces were themselves the heads of their own provinces, and were ordained by their own synods.  But all this was changed by Canon xxviij of the Synod of Chalcedon, which directs that the Metropolitans of the dioceses of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace, and certain others which are mentioned in this Canon should be ordained by the Patriarch of Constantinople and should be subject to him.  But if you find other churches which are autocephalous as the Church of Bulgaria, of Cyprus, of Iberia, you need not be astonished.  For the Emperor Justinian gave this honour to the Archbishop of Bulgaria.…The third Synod gave this honour to the Archbishop of Cyprus, and by the law of the same synod (Canon viii.), and by the Sixth Synod in its xxxix Canon, the judgment of the Synod of Antioch is annulled and this honour granted to the bishop of Iberia.

Tillemont.

(Mém. ix., 489).

The Council seems likewise to reject, whether designedly or inadvertently, what had been ordained by the Council of Sardica in favour of Rome.  But as assuredly it did not affect to prevent either Ecumenical Councils, or even general Councils of the East, from judging of matters brought before them, so I do not know if one may conclude absolutely that they intended to forbid appeals to Rome.  It regulates proceedings between Dioceses, but not what might concern superior tribunals.

Fleury.

(Hist. Eccl. in loc.).

This Canon, which gives to the councils of particular places full authority in Ecclesiastical matters, seems to take away the power of appealing to the Pope granted by the Council of Sardica, and to restore the ancient right.

Hefele.

An exception to the rule against interference in other patriarchates was made with regard to those Churches newly founded amongst barbarous nations (not belonging to the Roman Empire), as these were of course obliged to receive their first bishops from strange patriarchates, and remained afterwards too few in number to form patriarchates of their own and were therefore governed as belonging to other patriarchates, as, for instance, Abyssinia by the patriarchate of Alexandria.

Canon III

The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome; because Constantinople is New Rome.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon III.

The bishop of Constantinople is to be honoured next after the bishop of Rome.

It should be remembered that the change effected by this canon did not affect Rome directly in any way, but did seriously affect Alexandria and Antioch, which till then had ranked next after the see of Rome.  When the pope refused to acknowledge the authority of this canon, he was in reality defending the principle laid down in the canon of Nice, that in such matters the ancient customs should continue.  Even the last clause, it would seem, could give no offence to the most sensitive on the papal claims, for it implies a wonderful power in the rank of Old Rome, if a see is to rank next to it because it happens to be “New Rome.”  Of course these remarks only refer to the wording of the canon which is carefully guarded; the intention doubtless was to exalt the see of Constantinople, the chief see of the East, to a position of as near equality as possible with the chief see of the West.

Zonaras.

In this place the Council takes action concerning Constantinople, to which it decrees the prerogative of honour, the priority, and the glory after the Bishop of Rome as being New Rome and the Queen of cities.  Some indeed wish to understand the preposition μετὰ here of time and not of inferiority of grade.  And they strive to confirm this interpretation by a consideration of the XXVIII canon of Chalcedon, urging that if Constantinople is to enjoy equal honours, the preposition “after” cannot signify subjection.  But on the other hand the hundred and thirtieth novel of Justinian, Book V of the Imperial Constitutions, title three, understands the canon otherwise.  For, it says, “we decree that the most holy Pope of Old Rome, according to the decrees of the holy synods is the first of all priests, and that the most blessed bishop of Constantinople and of New Rome, should have the second place after the Apostolic Throne of the Elder Rome, and should be superior in honour to all others.”  From this therefore it is abundantly evident that “after” denotes subjection (ὑποβιβασμὸν) and diminution.  And otherwise it would be impossible to guard this equality of honour in each see.  For in reciting their names, or assigning them seats when they are to sit together, or arranging the order of their signatures to documents, one must come before the other.  Whoever therefore shall explain this particle μετὰ as only referring to time, and does not admit that it signifies an inferior grade of dignity, does violence to the passage and draws from it a meaning neither true nor good.  Moreover in Canon xxxvj of the Council in Trullo, μετὰ manifestly denotes subjection, assigning to Constantinople the second place after the throne of Old Rome; and then adds, after this Alexandria, then Antioch, and last of all shall be placed Jerusalem.

Hefele.

If we enquire the reason why this Council tried to change the order of rank of the great Sees, which had been established in the sixth Nicene canon, we must first take into consideration that, since the elevation of Constantinople to the Imperial residence, as New Rome, the bishops as well as the Emperors naturally wished to see the new imperial residence, New Rome, placed immediately after Old Rome in ecclesiastical rank also; the rather, as with the Greeks it was the rule for the ecclesiastical rank of a See to follow the civil rank of the city.  The Synod of Antioch in 341, in its ninth canon, had plainly declared this, and subsequently the fourth General Council, in its seventeenth canon, spoke in the same sense.  But how these principles were protested against on the side of Rome, we shall see further on in the history of the fourth General Council.  For the present, it may suffice to add that the aversion to Alexandria which, by favouring Maximus, had exercised such a disturbing influence on Church affairs in Constantinople, may well have helped to effect the elevation of the See of Constantinople over that of Alexandria.  Moreover, for many centuries Rome did not recognize this change of the old ecclesiastical order.  In the sixteenth session of the fourth General Council, the Papal Legate, Lucentius, expressly declared this.  In like manner the Popes Leo the Great and Gregory the Great pronounced against it; and though even Gratian adopted this canon in his collection the Roman critics added the following note:  Canon hic ex iis est, quos Apostolica Romana Sedes a principio et longo post tempore non recepit.  It was only when, after the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins, a Latin patriarchate was founded there in 1204, that Pope Innocent III, and the twelfth General Council, in 1215, allowed this patriarch the first rank after the Roman; and the same recognition was expressly awarded to the Greek Patriarch at the Florentine Union in 1439.

T. W. Allies.

Remarkable enough it is that when, in the Council of Chalcedon, appeal was made to this third Canon, the Pope St. Leo declared that it had never been notified to Rome.  As in the mean time it had taken effect throughout the whole East, as in this very council Nectarius, as soon as he is elected, presides instead of Timothy of Alexandria, it puts in a strong point of view the real self-government of the Eastern Church at this time; for the giving the Bishop of Constantinople precedence over Alexandria and Antioch was a proceeding which affected the whole Church, and so far altered its original order—one in which certainly the West might claim to have a voice.  Tillemont goes on:  “It would be very difficult to justify St. Leo, if he meant that the Roman Church had never known that the Bishop of Constantinople took the second place in the Church, and the first in the East, since his legates, whose conduct he entirely approves, had just themselves authorized it as a thing beyond dispute, and Eusebius of Dorylæum maintained that St. Leo himself had proved it.”  The simple fact is, that, exceedingly unwilling as the Bishops of Rome were to sanction it, from this time, 381, to say the least, the Bishop of Constantinople appears uniformly as first bishop of the East.

Cardinal Baronius in his Annals (a.d. 381, n. 35, 36) has disputed the genuineness of this Canon!  As already mentioned it is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Decretum, Pars I., Dist. XXII, c. iij.  The note added to this in Gratian reads as follows:

Note in Gratian’s “Decretum.”

This canon is of the number of those which the Apostolic See of Rome did not at first nor for long years afterwards receive.  This is evident from Epistle LI. (or LIII.) of Pope Leo I. to Anatolius of Constantinople and from several other of his letters.  The same thing also is shewn by two letters of Leo IX.’s, the one against the presumptuous acts of Michael and Leo (cap. 28) and the other addressed to the same Michael.  But still more clearly is this seen from the letter of Blessed Gregory (xxxj., lib. VI.) to Eulogius of Alexandria and Anastasius of Antioch, and from the letter of Nicholas I. to the Emperor Michel which begins “Proposueramus.”  However, the bishops of Constantinople, sustained by the authority of the Emperors, usurped to themselves the second place among the patriarchs, and this at length was granted to them for the sake of peace and tranquillity, as Pope Innocent III. declares (in cap. antiqua de privileg.).

This canon Dionysius Exiguus appends to Canon 2, and dropping 5, 6, and 7 he has but three canons of this Synod.

Canon IV

Concerning Maximus the Cynic and the disorder which has happened in Constantinople on his account, it is decreed that Maximus never was and is not now a Bishop; that those who have been ordained by him are in no order whatever of the clergy; since all which has been done concerning him or by him, is declared to be invalid.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon IV.

Let Maximus the Cynic be cast out from among the bishops, and anyone who was inscribed by him on the clergy list shall be held as profane.

Edmund Venables.

(Smith and Wace, Dict. Christ. Biog.)

Maximus the Cynic; the intrusive bishop of Constantinople, a.d. 380.  Ecclesiastical history hardly presents a more extraordinary career than that of this man, who, after a most disreputable youth, more than once brought to justice for his misdeeds, and bearing the scars of his punishments, by sheer impudence, clever flattery, and adroit management of opportunities, contrived to gain the confidence successively of no less men than Peter of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, and Ambrose, and to install himself in one of the first sees of the church, from which he was with difficulty dislodged by a decree of an ecumenical council.  His history also illustrates the jealousy felt by the churches of Alexandria and Rome towards their young and vigorous rival for patriarchal honours, the church of Constantinople; as well as their claim to interfere with her government, and to impose prelates upon her according to their pleasure.  Alexandria, as the chief see of the Eastern world, from the first asserted a jurisdiction which she has never formally relinquished over the see of Constantinople, more particularly in a vacancy in the episcopate (Neale, Patr. of Alexandria, i., 206).  The conduct of Peter, the successor of Athanasius, first in instituting Gregory Nazianzen bishop of Constantinople by his letters and sending a formal recognition of his appointment and then in substituting Maximus, as has been remarked by Milman (History of Christianity, iii., 115, note) and Ullman (Greg. Naz., p. 203 [Cox’s translation]), furnish unmistakable indications of the desire to erect an Oriental papacy, by establishing the primacy of Alexandria over Constantinople and so over the East, which was still further illustrated a few years later by the high-handed behaviour of Theophilus towards Chrysostom.

Maximus was a native of Alexandria of low parentage.  He boasted that his family had produced martyrs.  He got instructed in the rudiments of the Christian faith and received baptism, but strangely enough sought to combine the Christian profession with Cynic philosophy.

When he presented himself at the Eastern capital he wore the white robe of a Cynic, and carried a philosopher’s staff, his head being laden with a huge crop of crisp curling hair, dyed a golden yellow, and swinging over his shoulders in long ringlets.  He represented himself as a confessor for the Nicene faith, and his banishment to the Oasis as a suffering for the truth (Orat. xxiii., p. 419).  Before long he completely gained the ear and heart of Gregory, who admitted him to the closest companionship.  Maximus proclaimed the most unbounded admiration for Gregory’s discourses, which he praised in private, and, according to the custom of the age, applauded in public.  His zeal against heretics was most fierce, and his denunciation of them uncompromising.  The simple-hearted Gregory became the complete dupe of Maximus.

All this time Maximus was secretly maturing a plot for ousting his unsuspicious patron from his throne.  He gained the ear and the confidence of Peter of Alexandria, and induced him to favour his ambitious views.  Gregory, he asserted, had never been formally enthroned bishop of Constantinople; his translation thither was a violation of the canons of the church; rustic in manners, he had proved himself quite unfitted for the place.  Constantinople was getting weary of him.  It was time the patriarch of the Eastern world should exercise his prerogative and give New Rome a more suitable bishop.  The old man was imposed on as Gregory had been, and lent himself to Maximus’s projects.  Maximus found a ready tool in a presbyter of Constantinople, envious of Gregory’s talents and popularity (de Vit., p. 13).  Others were gained by bribes.  Seven unscrupulous sailor fellows were despatched from Alexandria to mix with the people, and watch for a favourable opportunity for carrying out the plot.  When all was ripe they were followed by a bevy of bishops, with secret instructions from the patriarch to consecrate Maximus.

The conspirators chose the night for the accomplishment of their enterprise.  Gregory they knew was confined by illness.  They forced their way into the cathedral, and commenced the rite of ordination.  By the time they had set the Cynic on the archiepiscopal throne, and had just begun shearing away his long curls, they were surprised by the dawn.  The news quickly spread, and everybody rushed to the church.  The magistrates appeared on the scene with their officers; Maximus and his consecrators were driven from the sacred precincts, and in the house or shop of a flute-player the tonsure was completed.  Maximus repaired to Thessalonica to lay his cause before Theodosius.  He met with a cold reception from the emperor, who committed the matter to Ascholius, the much respected bishop of that city, charging him to refer it to pope Damasus.  We have two letters of Damasus’s on this subject.  In the first, addressed to Ascholius and the Macedonian bishops, he vehemently condemns the “ardor animi et fœda presumptio” which had led certain persons coming from Egypt, in violation of the rule of ecclesiastical discipline, to have proposed to consecrate a restless man, an alien from the Christian profession, not worthy to be called a Christian, who wore an idolatrous garb (“habitus idoli”) and the long hair which St. Paul said was a shame to a man, and remarks on the fact that being expelled from the church they were compelled to complete the ordination “intra parietes alienos.”  In the second letter addressed to Ascholius individually (Ep. vi.) he repeats his condemnation of the ordination of the long-haired Maximus (“comatum”) and asks him to take special care that a Catholic bishop may be ordained (Migne, Patrolog., xiii., pp. 366–369; Ep. 5; 5, 6).