Showing posts with label Edict of Thessalonica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edict of Thessalonica. Show all posts

Sunday, August 13, 2023

The First Excommunicate

Priscillian (c.340 - 385) was a good enough theologian that he was made Bishop of Ávila Spain in 380, but controversial enough that he had many enemies among his fellow bishops. His preaching of a life of strict asceticism—including fasting on Sundays and Christmas, avoiding meat and wine, celibacy, etc.—especially annoyed Bishop Hyginus of Corduba (Cordova) and Bishop Hydatius of Augusta Emerita (Mérida, Spain), who accused his ideas of being Gnostic.

In fact, Priscillian did get his ideas from Marcus, a native of Memphis in Egypt, who came to Spain and taught Gnostic theories. We don't know if Marcus and Priscillian had direct contact, but apparently Priscillian was converted by two of Marcus' followers, a woman named Agape and a rhetorician named Helpidius. Priscillian's rhetorical gifts helped convert others to take an oath to follow his lifestyle, including a couple bishops, Instantius and Salvianus.

A synod of 380 held by Hyginus and Hydatius pronounced Priscillian, Helpidius, Salvianus, and Instantius as rejected from the faith of Christianity. This is the first known example of excommunication in the Christian church. A Bishop Ithacius of Ossonoba (Faro, Portugal) was given the task of making the heretics mend their ways. He failed, and this was the motivation for Instantius and Salvianus to defy the synod and elevate Priscillian to bishop.

In retaliation, Ithacius appealed to Roman Emperor Gratian, who had recently along with Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica, making Nicene (Catholic) Christianity the only approved form in the Roman Empire. Gratian deprived the Priscillianists of their churches and sent them into exile. The persecuted bishops decided to go to Rome and appeal to Pope Damasus I who, like them, was from Iberia. Damasus denied them an audience, however, so they went to Milan to appeal to the popular St. Ambrose, who had a reputation for standing up to the emperor, but he likewise would not meet with them.

Their next step was bribery at the Imperial Court, which did work: they got their churches back and the exile lifted. They also got Ithacius exiled from Iberia; Ithacius appealed to Gratian, but before he could get help, Gratian was killed and Magnus Maximus became emperor. Maximus wanted to have the orthodox bishops on his side, so he called for a synod in Bordeaux in 384 during which Ithacius was so vehement in his condemnation of Priscillian et alia that St. Martin of Tours got involved, annoyed that what he considered an ecclesiastical issue was being dealt with by a secular authority. Martin got the emperor to agree that the synod would not result in shedding blood.

Martin left the synod, however, and the emperor's prefect Evodius was appointed judge in the case. Evodius decreed that Priscillian and the others were guilty of practicing magic (possibly because of the Gnostic origins of Priscillianism), and the Priscillianists were condemned to death. Priscillian may well be the first excommunication and the first execution for heresy.*

Priscillianism was not done with, however. St. Martin returned to the emperor and stopped him from sending military to Iberia to exterminate the heretics they would find.Ambrose sternly denounced the handling and result of the situation.Some of the Gallican bishops denounced Ithacius and his behavior. A synod of Iberian bishops eventually deposed Ithacius; Hydatius was compelled to resign.

The executions (some would say martyrdom, of course) caused Priscillianism to grow. A synod in 400 in Toledo actually reconciled some Priscillianist bishops to the Church, one of whom wrote a moral treatise from the Priscillianist viewpoint. The advance of the Vandals into Iberia helped spread Priscillianism as the adherents fled before the invaders. Attempts by Augustine and Pope Leo I to suppress the movement failed. It took the 561 First Council of Braga that specifically targeted its doctrines to get it to die out.

So what was so dangerous about Gnostic ideas? Let's talk about that next time.

*And now I have fulfilled the promise ibn the footnote of that post.

Thursday, April 7, 2022

Edict of Thessalonica

Although Constantine had called the 1st Council of Nicaea to make sure there was an established orthodoxy for Christianity throughout the empire, the resulting Nicene Creed did not accurately express the beliefs of all Christians. There were still many Arians who viewed Christ's nature as subordinate to God the Father. Constantine's son in the east, Constantius, was an Arian, and even exiled some Nicene bishops. His successor, Julian, rejected Christianity personally, and supported all religions. Julian's successor, the Christian Jovian, reigned for eight months before being succeeded by another Arian, Valens. By 379, when Valens was succeeded by Theodosius I, Arianism was the dominant form of Christianity in the Eastern Empire, while Nicene Christianity was dominant in the West.

Like Constantine, Theodosius wanted to establish a single Christian orthodoxy for the empire, and he issued an edict:

It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our Clemency and Moderation, should continue to profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We order the followers of this law to embrace the name of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the punishment of our authority which in accordance with the will of Heaven we shall decide to inflict.

Note the term "Catholic Christians." "Catholic" means "universal," and was an attempt to stress that everyone should have the exact same beliefs. (Of course, threatening heretics was also supposed to be a powerful motivator.) This edict was released on 27 February 380, and was followed in 381 by the first Council of Constantinople, which slightly revised the Nicene Creed.

Of course, enforcement of the edict was going to be necessary. In 381 there was an edict that forbade heretics from settling in cities, followed in 392 and 394 by laws forbidding heretics from living in Constantinople. In 383, Theodosius ordered all non-Nicene sects to submit written creeds to him for review. He declared them all invalid (Arian, Macedonian, Anomoean), except for the Novatian Creed (their big difference was that they claimed no lapsed Christian who had performed a pagan sacrifice should be allowed back into Christianity; what distinguished them from the Donatists was that Novatians did not submit to Rome, whereas Donatists followed Rome, but felt that some of their fellow clergy were traditors. Also, Donatists were willing to welcome traditors back into the fold with a baptism, whereas Novatians did not believe in second chances. Novatians were declared schismatics, and eventually also labeled heretics and persecuted. They survived until the 8th century.

The illustration on the pages is a painting by Rubens of Theodosius being refused entry to the church in Milan by St. Ambrose. Why this was the case, why Milan was important, and what this has to do with the decline of the Empire, will be next.