Seven
The Containment of the Logos

The first council of Persian bishops, under the auspices of Yazdigird I, met on 6 January 410 at the Sasanid capital of Ctesiphon. The synod, named after Mar Isaac, katholikos and bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, was convoked to receive a letter dispatched by eastern Roman bishops to Mar Maruta of Maipherqat. Bishop Maruta addressed the assembly of his peers, informed them of the letter detailing the outcome of Nicaea, and exhorted them to sign an agreement affirming the conclusions reached by their Roman counterparts.^[1] According to the surviving Syriac acta , the bishops readily concurred and collectively sealed the pact with acclamations and an official statement recorded by notaries. The ratio-hale behind committing their decision to writing is elucidated for us in canon 17: it was thought to help Christians avoid uncertainty and confusion in the future. In other words, the Persian bishops found a well-kept written record critical to the establishment of a definitive statement of orthodoxy for all time.^[2]

[1] J.-B. Chabot, ed., Synodicon Orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens (Paris, 1902), 21-22 (Syriac text), 260-62 (French). On the perceived benefits of holding such a meeting, see 19 (Syriac) and 257 (French): "Par leur venue et leur réunion, les disputes cessassent, les schismes et les divisions n'existassent plus." On the role of the katholikos , see C. Detlef and G. Müller, "Stellung und Bodeutung des Katholikos-Patriarchen von Seleukeia-Ktesiphon im Altertum," Oriens Christianus 53 (1969): 227-45.

[2] Chabot, ed., Synodicon Orientale , 30 (Syriac), 269 (French). The Synod of Mar Isaac became a touchstone for later Syrian Christian councils; see the proceedings of the Synod of Mar Yahbalaha I in 420, in Chabot, ed., Synodicon Orientale , 39, 279-80.

This sentiment toward the written word would have been warmly received by many of the Persian bishops' Roman brethren, who met the following year in Carthage to deliberate on the disagreements between catholic and Donatist Christians in North Africa. The famous Council of Carthage of 411 left a rare, almost complete record of its proceedings, a record scrupulously authenticated by both sides of the controversy.^[3]

The synodal tradition of the Latin west had developed differently from the customs of Greek-speaking churches, especially before Constantine and the rise of an imperial conciliar tradition.^[4] Even then, a dear preference for procedural norms resembling the reading of relationes and the expression of sententiae in the Roman Senate is clearly evident from the stenographic records of African councils;^[5] the technical terminology used to describe Roman senatorial and conciliar proceedings passed effortlessly into the vocabulary of the synods of Latin-speaking Christians.^[6] In the Greek east, however, the language describing councils maintained a link to the public disputations of the schools.^[7] The interrelatedness of the two traditions took a striking form at the Council of Sirmium in 351, when Photinus reacted to a conciliar decision to depose him by challenging his rival bishops, especially Basil of Ancyra, to a public disputation presided over by a good number of senators (

[3] Gesta Conlationis Carthaginensis anno 411 (CCSL 149a, S. Lancel, ed. [Turnholt, 1974]). On the use of stenography in this council, see especially the studies by E. Tengström, Die Protokollierung der Collatio Carthaginensis. Beiträge zur Kenntnis der römischen Kurzschrift nebst einem Exkurs über das Wort scheda (schedula) (Göteborg, 1962); H. C. Teitler, Notarii et Exceptores . See a valuable analysis of the performative dynamics of this council in B. Shaw, "African Christianity: Disputes, Definitions, and 'Donatist,'" in M. R. Green-shields and T. A. Robinson, eds., Orthodoxy and Heresy in Religious Movements: Discipline and Dissent (Lewiston-Queenston-Lampeter, 1992), 5-34, at 16ff.

[4] P. Batiffol, "Le règlement des premiers conciles africains et le règlement du sénat romain," Bulletin d'ancienne littérature et d'archéologie chrétienne 11 (1913): 3-19; Gelzer, "Konzilien als Reichsparlamente." Gelzer compares the senatorial proceedings set out in the gesta accompanying the adoption of the Theodosian Code with the imperial councils, especially the Council of Chalcedon. See also now the critique of Batiffol's thesis by P. Amidon, "The Procedure of St. Cyprian's Synods," VChr 37 (1983): 328-39.

[5] See the nature of the proceedings of the Council of Carthage in 256, which dealt with the issue of the rebaptism of heretics, in Sententiae episcoporum numero LXXXVII de haereticis baptizandis (CSEL 3.2:435-61); the Council of Carthage in 345-48 entailed the confirmation of the statement of the leading bishops' opinions by universal acclamations, see Concilia Africae anno 345-anno 525 (CCSL 149, C. Munier, ed. [Turnholt, 1974], 3-10). The same occurred at the councils of Carthage in 390 and Hippo in 393, in ibid., 12-19, 20-21.

[6] On late imperial senatorial proceedings, see P. de Francisci, "Per la storia del senato romano e della Curia," Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia di Archeologia 22 (1946-47): 275-317. On the councils of the imperial court, see J. A. Crook, Consilium Principis: Imperial Councils and Counsellors from Augustus to Diocletian (Cambridge, 1955).

[7] See Gelzer, "Konzilien als Reichsparlamente," on the proliferation of local municipal councils in the Greek east after Diocletian and Constantine.

).^[8] The staff of seven stenographers who recorded the event was borrowed from the imperial administration.^[9]

Disputation was officially ruled out at the Council of Aquileia in 381. It was noteworthy to his opponents that Ambrose of Milan delivered a short tirade on the bane of dialectical sophistry—according to the Palladii Ratiarensis fragmenta , the Arian version of the conciliar proceedings—in which he roundly denounced his rivals' characteristic facility with disputation.^[10] Instead, the council proceeded as an interrogation of the Arian bishops Palladius and Secundianus, with Ambrose acting in the role of magistrate for which his background had prepared him. Palladius objected to his opponents' arrogation of the role of judges,^[11] and claimed that their monopoly over the stenographers would render the subsequent conciliar acta very one-sided.^[12] Palladius' complaints show that he regarded the event as an unfair trial, with no exceptores from his own side or auditores who might be sympathetic to his cause.^[13] In the face of these repeated protestations, Ambrose refused to budge and, by means of a timely request for the sententiae by the bishops, secured an anathema of Palladius.^[14] Ambrose, a former lawyer and imperial governor, was thus able to mobilize the same authoritative resources available to a Roman magistrate to secure the victory of the catholic cause at the council.

[8] Socrates, Hist. eccl. 2.30. See also Sozomen, Hist. eccl . 4.6; Epiphanius, Adversus haereses 71.1.4; Nicephorus, Hist. eccl . 9.31. Discussed in A. Wickenhauser, "Die Stenographische Aufnahme der Disputation zwischen Photinus und Basilius auf der Synode zu Sirmium im Jahre 351," Korrespondenzblatt: Amtliche Zeitung des könig. Stenographischen Instituts zu Dresden 51 (1906): 259-65. For the confusing plurality of fourth-century councils held in Sirmium, see Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius , 231-32.

[9] See Epiphanius, Adversus haereses 71.1; Wickenhauser, "Stenographische Aufnahme," 263-65. There were an imperial secretary, an exceptor of the praetorian prefect, three memoriales from the scrinium memoriae , and two imperial notarii .

[10] Palladii Ratiarensis fragmenta 81 (Gryson, ed., 264-65).

[11] Gesta episcoporum Aquileia adversus haereticos Arrianos 42 (Gryson, ed., 360-63). Palladius protested that "ego te iudicem non parlor quem impietatis arguo." Later (48; Gryson, ed., 366-67): "Cum impietatis te argui, te iudice non utor. Transgressor es."

[12] Gesta episcoporum Aquileia 43 (Gryson, ed., 362-63):
Palladius dixit: Non tibi respondeo, quia quaecumque ego dixi non sunt scripta. Uestra tantummodo scribuntur uerba, non uobis respondeo. Ambrosius episcopus dixit: Omnia uides scribi. Denique quae scripta sunt abundant ad tuae impietatis indicium. . . . Palladius dixit: Si uultis, exceptores nostri ueniant et sic totum excipiatur.

[13] Gesta episcoporum Aquileia 51 (Gryson, ed., 368-69): "Palladius dixit: Date auditores, ueniant et ex utraque parte exceptores. Non potest esse iudices si auditores non habuerimus et ex utraque parte uenerint qui audiant."

[14] Gesta episcoporum Aquileia 54 (Gryson, ed., 370-71): "Quoniam omnes consistunt uiri christiani et Deo probati fratres et consacerdotes nostri, dicat unusquisque quod sibi uidetur."

When stenographers recorded the words spoken in council and later wrote them out in verbatim transcriptions, the speakers became directly accountable for what they said. During the Council of Aquileia, Palladius was extremely cautious, often refusing to respond to questions. The dynamics of public debate were altered dramatically when one could be held responsible for everything one said in the heat of discussion. Clever argumentation in rapid-fire debate became less important than ensuring that one's statements were internally coherent and inoffensive to public sentiment. The attendance of stenographers tended to retard the pace of the proceedings considerably.

The presence of imperial commissioners, increasingly common after the reign of the "activist" emperor Constantius, likewise affected the atmosphere of the councils. Concomitant with this burgeoning imperial interest in their outcome, church councils became more and more concerned with the ratification or rejection of written documents.^[15] The living voice of public disputation was nearly silenced by the insistent voice of written authorities at the Council of Ephesus in 431.^[16] From then on, the sway of the logos in formal councils was eclipsed by consensual procedures that centered on written evidence read aloud by notarii and episcopal sententiae reacting to those documents.

This shift in emphasis came to the forefront during the Nestorian controversy.^[17] The period preceding the Council of Ephesus in 431 was one of intense but diffused rivalry, during which Cyril of Alexandria attempted to consolidate his position by corresponding with Pope Celestine in Rome, with the imperial court at Constantinople, and with Nestorius. These letters did not help to resolve the conflict. Indeed, the wide publicity attending the reception of these controversial and polemical documents tended to make the dispute more intractable. To some, it appeared that a decisive face-to-face encounter between the antagonists would be necessary to reach a settlement. It was probably no coincidence that the bishops were to meet on the day of Pentecost, 7 June 431, thus symbolically associating the council with the onrush of inspiration by the Holy Spirit.

The avowed goal of the council, which Nestorius may have put into the mind of Theodosius II, was to examine and resolve the disputed issues through dispassionate research. This intention was sternly expressed in the letter Theodosius II and Valentinian dispatched to Cyril:

[15] See the evidence collected by Wickenhauser, "Beiträge zur Geschichte," 4-9, 33-39, beginning with the Council of Antioch in 330.

[16] See Socrates, Hist. eccl . 7.34.

[17] See H. Chadwick, "Eucharist and Christology in the Nestorian Controversy," JTS n.s. 2 (1951): 145-64.

It is necessary that priests be admired both for the goodness of their morals and for the rigor of their faith; that they daily manifest the simplicity of their life and know the nature of any problem and betake themselves to discover the true doctrine with respect to religion chiefly by means of research rather than by arrogant disputations concerning words. Everyone knows that religion owes its security to consent rather than to orders.^[18]

The emperors were rightly concerned about the goodwill of the disputing parties: history provided little assurance of spontaneous cooperation. The comes domesticorum Candidianus, the imperial commissioner sent to ensure order in the city and to preside over the meeting, conveyed a message to the council from the emperors:

With patience each shall hear whatsoever is said and each shall be ready to reply or for reply to be made to him and thus by questions and by replies and by solution the inquiry touching the true faith shall be judged without any dispute and by the common examination of your Saintliness it will reach a happy agreement without dispute.^[19]

The emperors took pains to recognize the autonomy of the bishops in settling their own disputes. They desired that agreement be achieved without compulsion or undue outside influence. Candidianus was instructed to abstain from an active role in the debates; he was to preside over the proceedings simply to assure their smooth operation.

A notion of "consent" was used in contradistinction to resolution through argumentation, which could ironically enable the will of a few to prevail over that of the many. This emphasis on consent was reiterated at the opening proceedings at Ephesus: Theodotus of Ancyra stated that "matters of religion ought to be established by common consent and agreement."^[20] But what actually transpired at Ephesus in 431 was not what the emperors and Nestorius had in mind.^[21]

Cyril directly violated the conciliatory purpose of the meeting when he convened the council without waiting for the arrival of John of Antioch, openly disregarding the understandable objections of Candidianus.^[22] With good reason, Nestorius absented himself from this irregular procedure. Nonetheless, Cyril pushed on, and was able to prescribe the

[18] ACO 1.1, 8 (Schwartz, ed., 73-74); my translation.

[19] Nestorius, Bazaar of Heraclides 167 (trans. from Driver and Hodgson, eds., Nestorius' Bazaar , 111). See also F. Nau, ed., Nestorius: Le livre d'Héraclide de Damas (Paris, 1910), 102-3.

[21] See T. Gregory, Vox Populi , pp. 100-108 on the social unrests and violence leading up to the event.

[22] On the Contestatio of Candidianus, see Nestorius, Bazaar of Heraclides 170-74.

eventual direction of the meeting. He was even able to suppress the reading of the imperial letter that Candidianus had brought, thereby turning the council to his own purposes.

The "consensual" procedures that Cyril and his party imposed were in fact majoritarian bully tactics, partly because his hand had been strengthened by the promise of support by Pope Celestine, and partly because his initial position was insecure and he needed to snatch a quick victory. First, Cyril arranged for the Nicene creed to be read aloud by Peter, presbyter of the church of Alexandria and primicerius of the notaries.^[23] Then Cyril's letter to Nestorius was read out. The ensuing procedure had the elegance of simplicity: 126 bishops, beginning with Juvenal of Jerusalem, spoke in turn in favor of Cyril's views, claiming that his doctrine agreed () with those expressed by the "three hundred and eighty fathers" who met at Nicaea.^[24] Nestorius' letter was then read aloud in his absence and the procedure of offering sententiae was repeated. However, the bishops found little in' the letter that corresponded to the Nicene creed. After all, Nestorius' views were said to be consonant () not with those of the patres but with those of a condemned heretic, Paul of Samosata.^[25] He was anathematized forthwith without debate.

The order in which the bishops offered their sententiae is instructive about the nature of authority at the meeting (see table 1).^[26] The overarching collective auctoritas of the foremost bishops shaped the proceedings. Although no exact speaking order was prescribed, we can dearly discern the bishops of the first rank.^[27] Once the first ten or so senior bishops had offered their weighty sententiae , there was little room for discussion, let alone dissent.^[28] After the creed and the two letters had been read and received, the reading of Pope Celestine's letter and a long series of patristic florilegia refuting Nestorius' views served only to confirm

[23] ACO 1.1.2, 43 (Schwartz, ed., 12-13).

[24] ACO 1.1.2, 45 (Schwartz, ed., 13-31). Cyril had already intimated his use of Nicaea and the language of harmony against Nestorius in their correspondence prior to Ephesus; see L. R. Wickham, Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters (Oxford, 1983), 2-33.

[25] ACO 1.1.1, 18 (Schwartz, ed., 101). Such a comparison served an apparent propagandistic purpose; see Obtestatio publice proposita in ACO 1.1.1, 18 (Schwartz, ed., 101-2).

[26] ACO 1.1.2, 62 (Schwartz, ed., 55). Generally on the importance of ecclesiastical hierarchy at this council, see Crabbe, "Invitation List," 369-400.

[27] As in the Roman senate, the presiding officer solicited the participants' opinions in descending rank, though not necessarily in order within the ranks; see L. R. Taylor and R. T. Scott, "Seating Space in the Roman Senate and the senatores pedarii," TAPA 100 (1969): 529-82, at 534.

[28] On the superior weight of the sententiae of the powerful, see gloss on Ulpian, Digest 1.19.12.1. More generally on the issue of authority in similar settings, see F. G. Bailey, "Decision by Consensus in Councils and Committees," in Political Systems and the Distribution of Power (London, 1965), 1-20.

a decision already reached.^[29] The bishops at Ephesus pronounced an anathema on Nestorius. There was no attempt to open a theological debate ab ovo; the rationale for this was that the inspired council of 325 had settled the issue of orthodox formulation once and for all. Clearly, to triumph in such proceedings, one needed to mobilize social and political support beforehand; skill in argument contributed little to the final outcome.^[30]

This choreographed procedure openly flouted the imperial wish stated in the letter calling for the council, as Nestorius later pointed out. His Bazaar of Heracleides , penned after his receipt of the acta that came out of the events at Ephesus, aimed to counteract the one-sidedness of the council, and to protest Cyril's strong-arm tactics and his suppression

[29] ACO 1.1.2, 54-59 (Schwartz, ed., 39-45). On the growth of the tradition of patristic florilegia in a conciliar setting, see M. Richard, "Les florilèges diphysites du V et VI siècle," in A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht, eds., Das Konzil von Chalkedon (Würzburg, 1951), 1:721-48.

[30] The two distinct types of communal leaders exercised different kinds of power;. see M. Hobart, "Orators and Patrons: Two Types of Political Leader in Balinese Village Society," in M. Bloch, ed., Political Language and Oratory in Traditional Society (London/New York, 1975), 66-92.

of legitimate discussion. Seeking to redress the wrongs done to him, Nestorius expressed grave misgivings about Cyril's abuse of the conciliar process, and characterized the published transcripts of the proceedings as so highly partisan as to amount to being Cyril's acta :^[31]

Will then a sincere inquiry be settled [even] by sincere inquirers through division and through that which causes dispute, or through impartiality and patience on the part of the hearers towards what is said? And [will a sincere inquiry be settled] by merely laying down the subject of inquiry, or by the giving and receiving of replies on either side, and their being examined by questioning and unravelling, until the inquiry which is being examined is [settled] without dispute? Shall we with haste or without haste find a solution and an answer in harmony therewith when we are asked a question? Which of these things has been said untruly? But this command was not pleasing unto thee [Cyril] because thou didst wish to conquer and not to discover the truth.^[32]

In the name of truth, discussion ought to be allowed free rein: this was Nestorius' position, stated in retrospect. Perhaps it was merely the rhetorical self-justification of the vanquished. In any event, considerations other than truth weighed more heavily with the imperial authorities. Theodosius II was initially quite upset by Cyril's outrages, but popular demonstrations orchestrated by Cyril's partisans and the flow of Alexandrian gold to members of the imperial court soon tilted the balance in Cyril's favor.^[33] Once the council had become a fait accompli, Theodosius II attempted to minimize the social disorder of an ongoing controversy by ordering the books of Nestorius sought out and burned and his name banished from mention even in "religious disputations."^[34]

Cyril outsmarted and outmaneuvered Candidianus at Ephesus, usurping the presidency of the council on 22 June 431. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, to ensure that imperial wishes prevailed, more commissioners presided than had in 431. In the published acta , these dignitaries were referred to by the formula "."^[35] These gloriossimi did not just lend decorum and weight to the proceedings; though they did not participate in the dogmatic controversy itself, they directed the procedures of the council, and

[31] Nestorius, Bazaar of Heraclides 186.

[32] Nestorius, Bazaar of Heraclides 169 (Driver and Hodgson, eds., Nestorius' Bazaar , 112).

[33] See Gregory, Vox Populi , 108-16 and nn.; Batiffol, "Les présents de saint Cyrille," 154-79.

[34] Codex Theod . 16.5.66 issued on 3 August 435.

[35] ACO 2.1.1, 15, 17 (Schwartz, ed., 66-67).

the language of their preliminary instruction to the participants was decidedly judicial.^[36] In their view, an accusation () had been made and they were there officially to investigate the charge.^[37] Dioscurus of Alexandria, the mover of the council, seconded by Eusebius of Dorylaius, was obliged to petition the archontes for permission to have his side's dossiers read. The archontes consented with the stipulation that the documents be read in their proper order ().^[38]

The promise of dignified and orderly conduct was short-lived; when Theodoret of Cyrus was invited to join the proceedings, the bishops from Egypt, Illyria, and Palestine (who sat together)^[39] cried out in unison: "Mercy upon us! The faith is destroyed! The rules of faith cast this man out! Cast this man outside! Cast the teaching of Nestorius outside!"^[40] The bishops of the dioceses of Asia Minor and Thrace, supporters of Theodoret, responded by calling their adversaries Manichaeans and enemies of the faith, chanting: "Cast out Dioscurus the murderer! Who doesn't know Dioscurus' deeds?"^[41] The partisans of Dioscurus then reminded all of their support from Pulcheria: "Long live the Empress!" and "The Empress cast Nestorius out, long live the orthodox one!"^[42] The shouting continued after the archontes had granted Theodoret permission to join the council. These histrionic gestures dearly did not find favor with the secular notables, who reprimanded the bishops, instructing them that "popular acclamations are not suitable for bishops and the factions () shall incur a penalty."^[43] The archontes were accustomed to acclamations in senatorial proceedings, but those were affirmations rather than accusations in the manner of popular petitions.^[44] The commissioners unmistakably moved the church council in the direction of formal procedures and consensual agreement.

The touchstones of Chalcedon were the formulations of Nicaea and Ephesus, just as Nicaea had been the touchstone of Ephesus 431: "The Fathers defined everything perfectly; he who transgresses this is anath-

[37] ACO 2.1.1, 22 (Schwartz, ed., 67).

[38] ACO 2.1.1, 20 (Schwartz, ed., 67).

[39] ACO 2.1.1, 4 (Schwartz, ed., 65).

[40] ACO 2.1.1, 27 (Schwartz, ed., 69).

[41] ACO 2.1.1, 28, 30 (Schwartz, ed., 69).

[42] ACO 2.1.1, 31, 33 (Schwartz, ed., 69).

[43] ACO 2.1.1, 45 (Schwartz, ed., 70). Not only bishops but their attendants also participated in these acclamations; see ACO 2.1.1, 72-76 (Schwartz, ed., 78). On another case in which spontaneous accusations were made by acclamations, see Socrates, Hist. eccl . 6.14.

[44] See Codex Theod . 1.16.6.

ema; no one adds, no one takes away."^[45] Dioscurus invoked the primacy of the Nicene formulation by anathematizing any who "asks questions, meddles or undermines the faith ()."^[46]

Clearly, he who controlled which documents were read was well-positioned to influence the outcome of the council. Dioscurus even forcibly ejected all notaries but his own, hoping to ensure that his version of events was the only one communicated to the emperor and the outside world.

However intense the behind-the-scenes political jostlings and bitter the mutual rivalry, the value of the councils themselves was largely affirmed by subsequent authorities. A tradition had begun to take root, and as late antique religious competitors repeatedly invoked conciliar precedents on their own behalf, they became increasingly bound by the parameters of these norms when they engaged in controversy.

The results of Chalcedon became sacrosanct to Chalcedonian Christians, and were guaranteed by imperial law; a law of 455 deemed punishable any discussion or writing contrary to the council's conclusions.^[47] The later henotikon letter of the emperor Zeno placed an anathema on anyone who questioned the decisions of Chalcedon.^[48] Both Nicaea and Chalcedon were eventually memorialized with liturgical celebrations in the later Byzantine tradition.^[49] Indeed, shedding their complexities and messiness, entire councils were reduced to icons encapsulating simple lessons. The Council of Nicaea, for example, endured as the triumph of orthodoxy and Arius' Waterloo. The number 318 became the canonical number of the saintly fathers who formulated the Nicene creed, the touchstone of orthodoxy, though that tally surely does not correspond exactly to the number of bishops who attended Nicaea.^[50] The power of patristic consensus exhibited in various florilegia can only be fully appreciated in light of their visual representations in early Byzan-

[46] ACO 2.1.1, 143 (Schwartz, ed., 89).

[47] Codex Iustinianus 1.5.8.9-11 (Krueger, ed., Corpus Iuris Civilis , 2:52): "Nulli etiam contra venerabilem Chalcedonensem Synodum liceat aliquid vel dictare vel scribere vel edere atque e mittere aut aliorum scripta super eadem re proferre."

[48] See Pseudo-Leontius of Byzantium, De sectis 5 (PG 86.1:1228-30).

[49] See S. Salaville, "La fête du concile de Nicée et les fêtes de conciles dans le rite byzantin," Échos d'Orient 24 (1925): 445-70; idem, "La fête du concile de Chalcédoine dans le rite byzantin," in A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht, eds., Das Konzil von Chalkedon (Würzburg, 1953), 2: 677-95.

[50] See Socrates, Hist. eccl. 1.9.

tine frescoes and illuminated manuscripts,^[51] in which solid phalanxes of saintly bishops in serried ranks vividly embody the principle of homonoia . Against this overwhelming consensus, dissent and debate were literally swept aside.^[52]

The gathering of authority gained momentum. The Syriac acta of the Latrocinium in 449 required prospective priests to swear not to discuss theological doctrine.^[53] Bishops and other Christian authorities no longer had to demonstrate that opponents held heterodox views to impose censure; they had only to prove participation in public theological debate. Thus resistance to disputation became an issue of the nature of authority in the church: in 452, a year after Chalcedon, the pro-Nestorius Marcian expanded the restrictions against public discussion of doctrine to various classes of people.^[54]

Such expressive bans on discussion accorded well with the ruling

[51] See Walter, L'iconographie des conciles , e.g., 34, fig. 7.

[52] See Walter, L'iconographie des conciles , 252-60, on the representations of heretics.

[53] In J. Flemming, ed., Akten der ephesinischen Synode vom 449, in Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen , Phil.-hist. Klasse, n.s. 15.1 (Berlin, 1917), 86-89:

Sie selber nämlich machten und setzen eine Eidesschrift auf, verleumdeten darin gewisse Leute, die mit mir Umgang haben, und waren so vermessen, einen Entwurf eines Glaubens-[bekentnisses] nach ihrem Gutdünken zu machen, ohne sich auch nur ein bischen vor jener, dieser eurer heiligen vorangegangenen Synode zu fürchten, welche deutlich das Gegenteil befohlen hat: (fol. 59v) "Niemand solle Vollmacht haben, außer dem Glauben der heligen und seligen Väter: weder zu schreiben, noch auszulegen, noch auszufassen"; und fügten sogar hinzu, ich dürfte weder öffentlich vor jedermanns Augen disputieren, noch wagen, heimlich zu unterweisen, welche zu lernen wünschten. . . ."Auch be fehlen wit dir dringend an: disputier nicht im Namen Iesu."

[54] Codex Iustinianus 1.1.4 (Krueger, ed., Corpus Iuris Civilis , 2:6):

Nemo clericus vel militans vel alterius cuiuslibet condicionis de fide Christiana publice turbis coadunatis et audientibus tractare conetur in posterum, ex hoc tumultus et perfidiae occasionem requirens. Nam iniuriam facit iudicio reveretissismae synodi, si quis semel iudicata ac recte disposita revolvere et publice disputare contendit, cure ea, quae nunc de Christiana fide a sacerdotibus, qui Chalcedone convenerunt, per nostra praecepta statuta sunt, iuxta apostolicas expositiones et instituta sanctorum patrum trecentorum decem et octo et centum quinquaginta definita esse noscuntur. Nam in contemptores huius legis poena non deerit, quis non solum contra fidem vere expositam veniunt, sed etiam Iudaeis et paganis ex huiusmodi certamine profanant veneranda mysteria. Igitur si clericus erit, qui publice tractare de religione ausus fuerit, consortio clericorum removebitur: si veto milita praeditus sit, cingulo spoliabitur: ceteri etiam huiusmodi criminis rei, si quidem liberi sint, de hac sacratissima urbe pellentur, pro vigore iudiciario, etiam competentibus suppliciis subiugandi, sin vero servi, severissimis animadversationibus plectentur.

elites' unembellished authoritarianism in a time of consolidation and the self-conscious formation of tradition. This was an age of compendia and epitomes. Authority, whether personal, textual, or institutional, began to be gathered, hierarchized, and centralized by those who favored a visibly stable social order. The preeminent task of the fifth century was to summarize and define the accomplishments of previous ages. This effort was achieved in the field of Roman law through the publication of the Theodosian Code in 438 by the emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian, whose novella explaining the code remind us that the desire to limit freewheeling local initiatives governed secular and ecclesiastical deliberations alike:

In order that this matter may not be further discussed by anyone with zealous ambiguity, as there occurs to Our minds the boundless multitudes of books, the diversity of actions and the difficulty of cases, and finally the mass of imperial constitutions which shut off from human ingenuity a knowledge of themselves by a wall, as though they were submerged in a thick cloud of obscurity, We have completed a true undertaking of Our Time (negotium temporis ); We have dispelled the darkness and given the light of brevity to the laws by means of a compendium. We have selected noble men of proved fidelity and renowned learning, to whom had been delegated the responsibilities of civil offices. The decrees of previous Emperors have been purged of interpretations and published by Us, in order that no further may the jurisconsults dissimulate their ignorance by a pretended severity, while their formidable responses are awaited as though they proceed from the innermost shrines. . . .^[55]

[55] Novellae Theodosiani 1.1 (Pharr, Theodosian Code, 487). Latin text in Krueger, Mommsen and Meyer, eds., 3-4:

Quod ne a quoquam ulterius sedula ambiguitate tractetur, si copia inmensa librorum, si actionum diversitas difficultasque causarum animis nostris occurrat, si denique moles constitutionum divalium, quae velut sub crassa demersae calgine obscuritatis vallo sui notitiam humanis ingeniis interclusit, verum egimus negotium temporis nostri et discussis tenebris conpendio brevitatis lumen legibus dedimus, electis viris nobilibus exploratae fidei, famosae doctrinae, quibus delegata causa civilis officii, purgata interpretatione, retro principium scita vulgavimus, ne iurisperitorum ulterius, severitate mentita dissimulata inscientia, velut ab ipsis adytis expectarentur formidanda responsa . . .

On the argument that the code was produced to ease the task of imperial judges, see W. Turpin, "The Purpose of the Roman Law Codes," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte 104 (1987): 620-30. The same concern over confusion and abuse arising from a multiplication of legal cases and regulations led to efforts at compilation, simplification, and distribution in early modem China; see T. A. Metzger, The Internal Organization of the Ch'ing Bureaucracy: Legal, Normative, and Communication Aspects (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), 131.

The emperors had spoken truly in their statement of intent, eloquently conveying the paramount concerns of people in authority during that period. It is, however, the task of the modern historian to turn this process on its head with the hope of finding under the monolithic summations not a cloud of obscurity, darkness, or a stone wall, but light in abundance. If my present attempt at a social history of public disputation in late antiquity has made it any easier to achieve this goal, I will have succeeded.