Some
Catholic apologists, in an attempt to provide evidence for the supremacy of the
Church (if not the Bishop) of Rome
based on canons 3-5 of the Council of Sardica in 343. According to Catholic apologists,
Sardica put a custom into canon form (i.e., Rome’s ability to overturn
ecclesiastical sentences, etc).
Notwithstanding,
there is evidence that those apologists are reading too much into Sardica. In
the Corpus juris civilis, the modern
name applied to the massive collection and codification of previous Roman laws
commissioned by the emperor Justinian in 529 (likely completed around 534). The
Novellae (“new laws”) were issued
mostly by Justinian himself, and such documents present a subordinate position
of Rome and an implicit rejection of Sardica. Furthermore, it shows that,
notwithstanding the high position Rome did have, it was more “first among
equals” than what would later be dogmatised at Vatican I (1869-70). As Eastern
Orthodox scholar George E. Demacopoulos wrote:
THE SUBORDINATION OF ROME
In addition to being directly ignored by the Novellae, the interests of the Roman See
are sidelined in the Corpus in other
ways as well—namely in those cases where the promotion of the rights of other
individuals or their sees would have seen as an infringement on the narrative
of Roman and Petrine privilege. For example, some scholars have interpreted Novella 11’s promotion of Justinian’s
hometown in Dacia, renamed Justininia Prima, from a local diocese to an autonomous
archdiocese, as a direct affront to Roman claims. Prior to the promulgation of Novella 11 in 535, Justiniana Prima was
a minor diocese in the Metropolitanate of Thessalonica, which was at that time
a papal vicarage . . .Rome had for many years owned property and asserted its
authority throughout Illyria and Dacia. Its influence in Thessalonica, no
doubt, proved valuable in its interaction with the churches of the region. Novella 11 acknowledges that the
advancement of the See of Justiniana Prima would come at the expense of the
Metropolitanate of Thessalonica, but there is no reference in the legislation
to the See of Rome, or to the fact that Thessalonica was a papal vicarage.
Novella 123, the most explicit statement
of the Pentarchy in the Justinianic Corpus,
could also be viewed as an affront to traditional Roman claims . . . beginning
in the early fifth century of Rome consistently claimed appellate authority to
review the case of any cleric condemned anywhere in the Christian world. The
basis for this claim was rooted in the canons of the Council of Serdica, which
Roman scribes had combined with the canons of the Council of Nicaea since the
early fifth century. Justinian’s Novella 123,
however, offers an implicit rejection of the so-called Serdican privilege.
According to chapter 22 of Novella
323, the ecclesiastical world is divided among five autonomous jurisdiction,
each headed by its own patriarch (i.e., Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria,
Antioch, and Jerusalem). Each patriarch provides a court of appeal for clerics
condemned by lower episcopal bodies within their mega-jurisdiction. Chapters 23
and 24 affirm similar decrees in slightly revised forms. Novella 123 does not provide for an appellate system between the
patriarchates, and there is not a single specific mention of Rome in chapters
22-24. In short, Novella 123 rejects
Rome’s super-jurisdictional judicial oversight, which had emerged from and
grown steadily since the tenure of Pope Innocent I.
It is Novella
131 (dating to April 545), however, that makes the most explicit statement
about the relationship between the ecclesiastical centers of Rome and Constantinople.
Chapter 2 reads:
Hence, in accordance with the provisions of
these [ecumenical] councils, we order that the most holy Pope of ancient Rome
shall hold the first ran of all priests but the most blessed Archbishop of Constantinople,
or new Rome, shall occupy the second place after the Holy Apostolic See of
ancient Rome, which shall take precedence over all other sees.
To be sure, Novella 131 grants legal standing to the most foundational of papal
claims—that the See of Rome holds first rank. It also acknowledges that this
primatial status had been upheld by the ecumenical councils. Nevertheless, the
same text includes two elements that the bishops of Rome in this period
fundamentally rejected.
The first objectionable point is the
insinuation, implied in the language of “ancient” and “new,” that both the See
of Rome and the See of Constantinople derive their ecclesiastical primacy from
the imperial structure (the See of Rome has primacy because Rome was the
ancient capital; the See of Constantinople has second-place status because it
is New Rome, the new capital). Since the early fourth century, the bishops of Rome
had grown increasingly concerned about the movement of the capital to the East
and had, since the time, contrasted the apostolic credentials of the See of Rome
with the far less significant imperial credentials of the See of Constantinople.
The second objectionable point in this
passage from Novella 131 is the
second-place status afforded to Constantinople . . . Leo afforded second-place
status to Constantinople and effectively demoted the “Petrine” Sees of Alexandria
and Antioch. Even before Leo, Pope Damascus had refused to acknowledge Canon 3
of the Council of Constantinople (381), which, like Chalcedon, had attempted to
grant second-place status to the new imperial capital. Thus, Novella 131 directly affirms previous
counciliar decisions persistent objections from Rome.
In short, whereas Novella 131 might at first sight appear to be a direct affirmation
of Roman claims, it was, equally, a humiliation. Despite the repeated Roman
claim that it was apostolicity and not imperial affiliation that determined the
pecking order of regional churches, Novella
131 effectively added the weight of imperial law to the See of
Constantinople’s claim to second rank after Rome. (George E. Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse
and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity [Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2013], 121-23)
