Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

LIFE AND TIMES 11
23) did not like the sound of it, but in Constantinople there were those,
including the Emperor’s nephew and eventual successor Justinian,
who saw in this formula the possibility of a breakthrough. From the
time of Justinian’s accession in 527 this formula—the so-called
‘theopaschite’ formula—became the centre-piece of an attempt to
achieve unity between the divided parties in the East and also with
Rome. This theological position-once called ‘Neochalcedonianism’, but
now more commonly called ‘Cyrilline Chalcedonianism’— attempted
to interpret Chalcedon in the light of the teaching of Cyril, and in
particular his stress that the person of the Incarnation was God the
Word, ‘one of the Trinity’, and that everything the Incarnate One
experienced, including his sufferings, was to be ascribed to the divine
person of the union. This was not simply a compromise formula: the
appeal of Cyril (acclaimed in the seventh century by Anastasius of
Sinai as the ‘seal of the Fathers’) was genuine, and even during the
Acacian schism there had been an attempt by John of Caesarea to
defend the Chalcedonian Definition as consonant with the teaching of
Cyril, and largely expressed in his own words (taken out of context, as
Severus retorted in his response to John). In the 530s Justinian sought
to achieve unity on this basis: he failed, not least because there were
enough rival bishops in various sees in the East to cause practical
problems. The consecration in 543 of Jacob Baradaeus (Burd‘ono) as
Bishop of Edessa and his indefatigable enthusiasm in establishing a
rival episcopal hierarchy of ‘Jacobites’ or ‘Monophysites’ (as their
enemies called them) finally put paid to Justinian’s efforts. Having
failed to achieve union by negotiation, Justinian turned to persecution:
the sufferings of the Monophysites only confirmed them in their
beliefs and further deepened the divisions in the East, in Syria and
Egypt for the most part. 16
But Justinian’s ‘Cyrilline Chalcedonianism’ was more than a tactical
compromise: it represented to him and many others a necessary
clarification of Chalcedon. At the fifth Ecumenical Council, held at
Constantinople in 553, it received conciliar authority: according to the
tenth anathema, ‘If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus
Christ, who was crucified in the flesh, is true God and Lord of Glory
and one of the Holy Trinity, let him be anathema!’ 17 It was also
enshrined in a hymn, ‘Only-begotten Son’, attributed to Justinian
himself, and still sung at each celebration of the liturgy in the
Orthodox Church: ‘You were crucified, Christ God, trampling death by
death, being one of the Holy Trinity,…save us!’ Justinian’s efforts
were not perhaps entirely fruitless. The Monophysites themselves had
problems of unity and particularly during the reigns of Justin II (565–
78) and Tiberius I (578–82) some of the leaders of the Syrian
Monophysites were tempted to join the Orthodox (Imperial) Church. 18