Abstract
At an earlier stage in my life, when I could spend more time in teaching and research, I was particularly interested in the sixth century, and the various attempts by the early church to understand both the humanity and the divinity of Christ. Some people understood Jesus as a truly good and holy person but an entirely human figure and so not ultimately different from another prophet. Other people understood Jesus as being primarily a divine figure, cloaked by a human appearance.
These divisions between ancient Syria and Egypt against Turkey and Greece were not only theological but also fuelled by differences of language and culture. They became so intense that in the year 451, the Emperor Marcian called a council at Chalcedon, opposite Istanbul, which produced a kind of treaty, a guideline to hold together the eastern empire. The treaty became official policy and people were meant to sign up to an imperial church. It became a standard to secure the purity of the Eucharist, a kind of customs union excluding heresy, and a freedom of movement for priests. But under the surface the resentments festered. In Constantinople, the two factions, the Chalcedonians and the Miaphysites, raced chariots against each other, the Greens against the Blues.
By the early sixth century, there was an emperor, Anastasius, who actually leant more to the perspective of Syria and Egypt. He allowed a man called Severus, who was Miaphysite, to become the bishop or patriarch of Antioch in Syria.
In the ancient church in the middle east, it was common to have two tablets, called the diptychs, and on them were written the names of the earlier bishops whom they remembered during the Eucharist. By the sixth century, as disagreements became more partisan and embittered, it became normal for new bishops to delete from the diptychs the names of people they didn’t like.
Almost uniquely, in Antioch in 512, Severus, at the moment of triumph for his faction, refused to do that. He wouldn’t delete the names of those with whom he disagreed. When priests changed sides, from the Chalcedonian side to his own Miaphysite party, Severus almost uniquely refused to insist that they be re-ordained. He refused to allow cowboy ordinations within his diocese by extremists of his own party.
Now why did he do this? Was it just pragmatic? Was it a political gesture to Constantinople, just to preserve the customs union?
I believe it was much more than that. When the chips were down, and the divisions came into the open, Severus insisted that despite differences there was only one church and that on fundamental issues they must stand together.
The different sides used propaganda, in which they published books of very edited extracts from the theological tradition to bolster their own cause. It was the fake news of the day. Severus shunned this, and published a book called The Lover of Truth (Philalethes), in which he put quotations back into their context.
Faced by opportunists in his own party, Severus refused the easy language of polarisation. He reached behind the differences and reminded his people of a more fundamental reality, they were all one church. He preferred the unity of the church to the purity of partisans.