Tuesday, January 14, 2020

George E. Demacopoulos on an Example of the Subordination of Rome in Early Christianity


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)