The Crisis of the Oikoumene: The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean (review)

Published collections of conference papers usually fail the basic tests of substantial content, consistency of quality, coherence, and disciplined editing. However, Celia Chazelle and Catherine Cubitt’s The Crisis of the Oikoumene passes all these tests with distinction, resulting in an excellent and substantial monograph on an important but little researched topic, the story of the “Three Chapters” controversy and its aftermath. The emperor Justinian was persuaded in 543 to condemn Theodore of Mopsuestia, mentor of Nestorius, and certain disputed works of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa, even though they had been reinstated by the Council of Chalcedon (451) after condemnation at Ephesus II (449). Justinian’s decree devoted a chapter to each theologian—hence the “three Chapters”—and it provoked immediate and strong reaction both for (it met a major Monophysite objection to Chalcedon) and against (it impugned the integrity of Chalcedon, and it was illegitimate to condemn the dead). The resulting ecumenical council (Constantinople II, 553) was followed only by dissent, discord, and schism with two successive popes (Vigilius and Pelagius I) seriously compromised along the way.

This book is divided into three parts: “. . . Eastern and Southern Mediterranean” beginning with a clear exposition of the theological issues at stake (Richard Price) and moving to the impact on Africa (Yves Moderan);“2. Italy and the Papacy” (Claire Sotinel, Carole Straw, and Celia Chazelle), and “3. The Frankish and Lombardic Response” (Claudio Azzara, Ian Wood, and Walter Pohl). The various chapters are enveloped by a lucid and incisive introduction and epilogue from the expert pens of Robert Markus and Claire Sotinel. The two key chapters are those by Moderan and Sotinel, which build on their previous contributions to volume 3 of the Desclée Histoire du Christianisme (Paris, 1998). Moderan carefully explains that the strength, unity, and volume of the negative African reaction to the Three Chapters edict reflects their still recent experience of persecution under the Arian Vandal kings when most of the key players were already bishops. Sotinel explains how strict opposition to the Three Chapters in the northern Italian provinces helped establish the independence from Rome of Milan and especially Aquileia that remained the case until the Lombards assumed authority. In northern Italy opposition was not just episcopal but also popular, while another consequence of the schism was the production of local annotated lists of bishops such as the Liber Pontificalis. Straw provides a detailed exegesis of Gregory’s letter to the Istrians written in an attempt to play down the implications of the Three Chapters and the Council of 553. Chazelle’s chapter on the diagrams in Cassiodorus’s lost Codex Grandior of the Bible and Institutiones is an intricate argument held together by what its author calls “gossamer threads” (p.163). Without much pressure they might easily break. Azzara focuses on the patriarchate of Aquileia and the northern provinces and how the Lombards accommodated to it. Wood pieces together a picture of how confused accounts of the Three Chapters reached Gaul from northern Italy as much as from Rome, leading to increased detachment of Gallic bishops from papal influence. Pohl elucidates the ambiguous account in Paul the Deacon’s Lombard History by pointing to its dependence on the history of the schismatic Secundus of Trent.

Although Illyricum is partly covered in passing by Markus and Sotinel, it arguably deserved a dedicated chapter (note that the index’s “Illyria” should read “Illyrian”), and the lack of coverage of the different reactions in the East makes “the crisis of the oikoumene” an overstatement. More could be said, too, about the role of Justinian’s key advisers (e.g., Theodore Askidas) in promoting and prolonging the controversy. Finally, given the editors’ success with this volume, perhaps they could be persuaded to redeploy their...