Council of Constantinople

in this lecture we're gonna be looking at the Council of Constantinople in its attempt to come to a conclusion in a resolution over the issues that continue to plague the church theologically and in terms of church leadership with the fall out of the Council of Nicaea and we could begin with a quick recap we talked in our last lecture about how Nicaea managed to condemn arias but it did not do everything that is to say it was not intended to do everything the phrase homoousios had been used and leveraged against areas himself against a real hard distinction between father and son with the son as a creature that areas had taught but it left open a number of problems at least in terms of how it was being applied after the Council of Nicaea Eusebius of Caesarea we said in our last lecture was symptomatic of the example of those who are concerned that homo osseous trended toward sub alien ism or modalism we also get some of the political issues in the sort of backroom deals and the fights that went on between relatively modified Aryans like Eusebius of Nicomedia and a number of others in which frankly some of the years in some of the decades after the council of nicaea it was really dark times nicey and bishops were at times banished or exiled Athanasius himself seems to be sort of like the Energizer Bunny he comes and he goes he comes in he goes he's banished here and there but by and large we said in our last lecture there was an overall consensus about language that was going to be used to equate father and son in terms of their being Banias would notice in several places that drive is principally related to the issue of salvation it's atha nations in particular who's credited with this view but many of the other bishops told us as well if you make this on a creature if your language of him somehow does not equate him with God himself if the son isn't God if the logos isn't God not only are you going against pretty clear scriptures like John one but you're also challenging in undermining the very doctrine of salvation Jesus didn't save if he's not God well as the fourth century wore on and after Constantine's death and 337 and the rise of his sons and the Constantinian lineage we see again ongoing political strife in particularly Emperor's in the East were relatively supportive of Arianism and on a few occasions were pretty supportive of them overall but often the political intrigues are overplayed this is again a bit of the extension of the issue of the belief that Constantine somehow invented Nicaea almost willy-nilly off the top of his head if you begin with that as a principle well then the ongoing story of the counsels of the church and the debates on theological issues only make sense through the context of politics and so we spend all of our waking hours looking at how the Emperor shaped everything but in our last lecture we noticed that sometimes with Constantine and sometimes without him the church was carrying on this conversation it should be axiomatic that it's okay to say that the church talks about Jesus a whole lot in that because we believe that Jesus is our Lord and our God that it's going to invite questions it's going to invite questions about his relationship to the Father and not surprisingly as we'll see in this lecture once you equate father and son that raises issues sometimes with the language we're going to use when we discuss our understanding of how God became incarnate but let's begin slowly as the years wore on there arose a group who began to challenge not so much the father's relationship to the son but instead the divinity of the Holy Spirit now these folks have a number of different names no madam a qian's is one of the names that they're often called no madam akkyun is someone who combats against the spirit now in textbooks in general in particular those that arise in the Western world thanks to Agustin and Jerome and the Latin speaking West and their works on this the new madame atkins are in most english-speaking contacts referred to as the Macedonians and the reason why is because the purported founder of the damata McKeon's is a man by the name of Macedonia s' and for a number of theological reasons Macedonia s' and the new madam Atkins essentially believed that going after the lationship of father and son isn't always the best grounds and so they kind of do a outflank the other direction in which they point to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit that was assumed at the Council of Nicaea was the simple sentence that we believe in the Holy Spirit and they began to attack that issue as kind of analogous to the issue of father and son and they're pretty harsh on their condemnation that the Holy Spirit is not God well in almost the same way that the denial of the relationship of father and son wreaks havoc on both our reading of Scripture and our doctrinal positions related to Scripture the new madam Atkins attack on the divinity of the Holy Spirit is not simply a basic theological position of a unique idea or a twist of language that got confused and there was a communications breakdown rather than a Madame Atkins or again doing the move where they want to defend the full divinity of the Father and they would therefore want to separate anything else away from him well this prompted the attacks on the dock from the Holy Spirit prompted in particular at the nation and two of the Cappadocia father's who we mentioned at the end of our last lecture Basil the Great in fact wrote a book called on the Holy Spirit which frankly is one of the classic defenses it arguments for the divinity of the Holy Spirit a lot of students actually come to this textbook somewhat innocently I've had at least a dozen students or so over the years who have picked up that book they see that title and they go oh great this is going to be a book on the Christian life or keeping in step with the spirit or charismatic students will pick it up and say oh great I want to see what he has to say about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and then I usually get a response boy that's not what I thought it was going to be well yeah finishing the book in its context Basil the Great is attacking those who are attacking the Holy Spirit he spends his time defending the divinity of the Holy Spirit and laying on a biblical argument as to why we treat the Holy Spirit as Lord now it needs to be said here just in terms of systematic theology biblical theology the debates about the Holy Spirit are important because I do believe a lot of people particularly in Protestant and Evon Jellicle circles have trouble reckoning with the full personhood the full divinity of the Holy Spirit in fact not too long ago there was a massive study done on evangelio and they were asked amongst other things what was their position on the Holy Spirit and a number of people were shocked that somewhere near 50% of evangelicals these are lay folks of course not pastors had trouble identifying the spirit as anything other than a spiritual force in fact that was the predominant language used by those who had trouble articulating the understanding of the Spirit he's not a person he's a force he's an energy he's something that empowers us let's say he's not God himself come down he's not the counselor that is sent by the son after Jesus ascends to heaven in just in terms of biblical theology and I'm setting us up for what content the nobles going to do here just to be honest but in terms of biblical theology we do have to take into account the challenge here in general at least at a cursory reading of the scriptures one of the issues that people often have with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is that the Spirit never speaks himself audibly he speaks as the Creed and as the scriptures say by the prophets also the Holy Spirit coming into our hearts and crying Abba Father is an application of the work of Jesus that applies salvation to us and sanctifies us in fact that there was a sort of a unique phrase used by an old Puritan in which he referred to the Holy Spirit as the shy sovereign now of course he doesn't mean that the Spirit is shy and sort of hiding back but he's pointing to this biblical challenge that people at a glance say well I see the father speaking and obviously the Sun comes incarnated but there is a challenge by some in determining where the Holy Spirit fits in here well Basil the Great writes a book on this and he defends it fully but basil was not the only one gregory of nyssa also attacks the new madame Atkins as well as Athanasius now in terms of the theological debates this is not a new eruption of fights and challenges and theological issues this is rather an extension and evolution you might say of the ongoing fight between the Nicene faith and the relative kaleidoscope of different sub aryan positions in the end of this though at least in the run-up to the Council of Constantinople in 370 for the Bishop of Rome Damascus the first openly denounces new meta mechanism or Macedonian ISM and not surprisingly seven years later you have called the Council of Constantinople which will put a further stamp of approval on the condemnation of this view and both Damascus and the council see no madam akan ISM as an extension of the on-going debates related to Arianism so this is not changed or developed itself there is one debate though that does arise unintentionally we might add that adds a new wrinkle to the question beyond simply the subject of the debates with Aryans and that is the rise of the teachings of Apollinaris now Apollinaris is important because he's one of those who after the Council of Nicaea develops again I'll say unintentionally a Christological heresy that is condemned now i said in a previous lecture that the debates about who god is related to father and son and with the council of constantinople with also relating it to a spirit if that's the first question the second question i said is that those who become content with their language of how the father and son relate in particular often transition to a meditation or reflection on how the law goes on how god the son came down and became incarnate and not surprisingly some of these guys fumble and bumble their language that's exactly what a pollen arias does Apollinaris is a friend of Athanasius he was a staunch defender of the Nicene faith and therefore an absolute defender of the full divinity of christ the problem though is that he develops insufficient language to describe the Incarnation apollon arianism is the view and this is related directly to the teachings of Apollinaris and it's short lived but it's important Apollinaris is an example of someone who is effort to defend one view radically over States it and leaves exposed or underdeveloped or does not reflect sufficiently on the implications of being too hard in one direction and what that might do with other doctrines I always encourage students to realize Prinze web together they influence each other if you go hard hyperbolic language on one issue you're going to trend typically to avoiding ignoring or obscuring other biblical teaching in a matter of speaking that's what Apollinaris does here in his effort to defend the full divinity of Christ he has an insufficient understanding of the Incarnation Apollinaris his teachings are that Christ had a human body but that his mind was not human and that it was taken over by the log-off by God and therefore that is the nature of the Incarnation I jokingly refer to this is the Being John Malkovich problem Apollinaris it would almost seem cares not so much about the human body of Christ that he is fully human but simply wants to make sure that the divine logos is driving the car sort of jesus take the wheel or something and Apollinaris then in other words simply is content with stressing doubling down on the doctrine of the full divinity of Christ but he does so to the extent that he has an insufficient understanding of how Christ comes to dwell and to take on human flesh now historians and theologians have pointed out again and again that athenais shoes and the Cappadocia pnes and others already have built into their language and are already aware of the fact that they're not simply concerned with the divinity of Christ but they were also concerned with the full humanity of Christ and this is picked up in particular by the Cappadocia ng's there is a wonderful statement by gregory nazianzen ghin and again and again by theologians and historians as examples of how a strong understanding of homoousios should also defend a strong understanding of the Incarnation and the quote by Ossie answers is quote that which he has not assumed he has not healed but that which is United to God is also saved Athanasius makes a similar argument in his on the Incarnation and perhaps the most important set of verses that they're basing this on is Romans 5 go to Roman's 5 and read it I always tell students there is language that Paul uses there that if we were simply talking off the top of her heads we would be disinclined to use frankly out of our piety he says that while death came by a man so also salvation has come by a man now again I tell students if in our piety we were to sort of say this off the top of her head and not realize that we're quoting Romans we would be inclined to say death came by a man but salvation comes by God now it's not wrong to say that salvation comes by God it does but Paul's point in romans five and the theological principle that athenais shoes and Gregory naazy and Zeus apply here when they say that that which is not assumed is not healed is simply the fact that Christ has to die as a human he has to be as the book of Hebrews says like us in every way except without sin because it's not enough that he's God he also has to die on our behalf as one of us he has to be the second Adam as we say in relationship to Romans 5 so what Apollinaris has done here is double down on the divinity of Christ and frankly obscured and confused and ruined the incarnation of Christ which does the same thing as arianism it challenges and it throws into ruin our understanding of our salvation by now hopefully you see that the issues driving so many of these controversies is not vain speculation or fights or squabbles over philosophy but the issues related to salvation people that get into these fights mostly get into them usually at least in these early decades because of what it does to our doctrines of salvation they want to protect that we can say that God came down to save and they want to make sure that they limit those who would confuse the language who saying things like apolinaria says here that God had a human body but that the mind the principle organizing thing that's driving him was God now I sometimes like to translate this into 21st century language because in modern English in particular after the psychological revolution of Freud and others when we hear the word mind we think the gray matter in our head or maybe we think the abstract mind of our intellect perhaps a better sort of modern translation of this is that what Apollinaris is saying is that God took on flesh sort of like we might put on clothes but that the overall consciousness the awareness the the person speaking when we hear the voice of Christ is the Divine Word the logos so his instincts are not subversively chaotic in attempting to ruin the church but rather he has again driven against one flank of an issue Arianism so hard that he is exposed and left open a real weakness in his understanding of how Christ took on flesh and died on our behalf and so all these issues the de Madame Atkins the on-going debates with semi arianism and now the issues related to Apollinaris and his teachings about Christ and the Incarnation all come to a head in 381 with a Council of Constantinople in the council is called by Theodosius the first and we've looked at him before in our discussion on the Byzantine world the Theodosius is really the first and one of the greatest defenders of the Nicene faith in the east as Emperor following on the heels of Constantine's sons most of whom at least in the East defended some level of Arianism and some were pretty staunch the defenders of Arianism Theodosius comes on the scene and he is a nice scene is therefore in an effort to propel the issues to greater clarity and to put to rest once and for all that even semi Arianism is not to be tolerated Theodosius calls for another council and the council of constantinople therefore is known in later history as the second ecumenical council but you have to realize that Casa --then opal is brought together to expand and clarify and I would hasten to say correct some of the misunderstandings of the Nicene Creed and it's important to note then that the creed that so many of us call the Nicene Creed is technically not the nicene creed as I've said before but the Nicene constantinople creed that is to say content and opal expands and clarifies and changes and in particular creates new language and relationship to the holy spirit well the council meets and of the six cannons or proclamations that they make there are three that we should notice first and foremost the very first cannon of the council the very first action taken is a joint condemnation of the teachings of apollon arias as well as the unequivocal condemnation of all the various shades of Arianism and semi arianism that still existed they put to rest in other words that Nicaea has no room for semi arianism and it was not so Balian and to make this extra clear in the second canon of the council they affirmed and stress that the council of nicaea is the language that will be used in the church when it comes to describing the relationship of father and son so right off the bat the council unequivocally denies semi Arianism has a place or foothold in the language of biblical fidelity or in the church they also double down on Nicaea and strictly speaking the issue of Arianism at least at a formal theological position is relatively over by this point Theodosius will not only support the council but will also enforce the findings of the council against those who are semi Arian there is one canon de the third Canon which we need a site and this can involves the elevation of the bishop or the patriarch of Constantinople as the council says to being equal with the Bishop of Rome this is important because what's going on here is something that is a real seed or at least the first crack in the armor between east and west as the centuries will wear on the Bishop of Rome already was beginning to describe himself as perhaps first among equals perhaps the lead voice certainly nothing like the medieval papacy but the Bishop of Rome had a certain pride of place in much of the ancient shirts but what this council does not surprisingly at the city of Constantinople is it elevates the bishop or the patriarch of Constantinople to essentially equal status with the Western bishop or patriarch now the West and the Bishop of Rome got upset by this and they attempted to counter it they did not like any other patriarch being openly equated to their own power and as the centuries wear on there is a great deal of consternation about the equation or the superiority between these two patriarchs or these two bishops and I'm saying this now because when we get down to 1054 centuries from now and we have the eastern schism with the Western Church the Orthodox Church leaving from the Catholic Church in the West a lot of what's rumbling in the backdrop can really be said to not begin here but at least this is some of the staging area for the debates that are going to happen not surprisingly the schism in 1054 between East and West takes place predominantly between the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of Constantinople as the two alpha male egos sort of slog it out back and forth and so I just mention it now so that you are aware that at this council in the second ecumenical council there is a move to elevate the patriarch of Constantinople to be equal status with the Western Bishop so in the end when you get to the Council of Constantinople in 381 you have a relative end to the controversies in the crisis related to Arianism now it doesn't die out overnight as we'll see going forward Arianism doesn't simply die everywhere rather it gets put to rest in the East Arianism through the teachings of Bishop Ellis up in the northern barbarian tribes the Germanic tribes of northern Europe takes root in the tribes that we typically call the gods of the Visigoths and with the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire as things begin to crumble there and as the connections between East and West become weaker there is an ongoing evolution of the problem of Arianism in the West that is sort of transferred from the east after the Council of Constantinople and not surprisingly that fight between Aryans in the Orthodox of the Nicene moves then from east to west it takes on a different role in fact as we'll see in a couple of lectures one of the driving reasons why the Pope will eventually coronate Charlemagne is the need for a staunch Nicene Emperor who like the emperors of old of the East will stamp out arianism in the realms of Europe but those lectures will come at a later date for now Constantinople in 381 has clarified once and for all that Arianism is not the Orthodox faith left unanswered though in the arguments that are going to continue on which we'll look at in our Lex lectures are the issues of just what is our doctrine of our understanding of Christ is fully God and fully man

Channel: Ryan Reeves

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Keywords: Constantinople (City/Town/Village), First Council Of Constantinople, Christianity (Religion), Theodosius I (Monarch), Cappadocian Fathers, Basil Of Caesarea (Religious Leader), Gregory Of Nazianzus (Religious Leader), Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius Of Alexandria (Religious Leader), Jesus Christ (Deity), God The Father (Deity), God the Son (Deity), The Bible (Religious Text), Seminary (Literature Subject)

Id: WrlR1aFODDI

Length: 25min 50sec (1550 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 23 2015