The late fifth and sixth centuries saw important developments in the theology, liturgy, and spirituality of the Eastern church. The sixth century was also the age of the man who became the model Byzantine emperor, Justinian.
Two other men flourished during the sixth century and made important contributions to the most important institutions of the medieval church in the West: Benedict of Nursia to monasticism and Gregory the Great to the papacy.
By the end of the sixth century the distinctive characteristics of the Eastern and Western churches had shaped two different ecclesiastical traditions, and in the East various subsets emerged.
I. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EAST BEFORE JUSTINIAN#
The councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon produced a three-way split in Eastern churches that continues to the present:
the Chalcedonians or Byzantine Orthodox
those usually called Monophysites or Oriental Orthodox (claiming the heritage of Cyril of Alexandria)
the Church of the East (unfairly called “Nestorian”)
There was much dissatisfaction in the East with the Western-inspired formula at Chalcedon (451), which sounded Nestorian to the followers of Cyril. The objections to Chalcedon were both doctrinal and jurisdictional.
The Cyrilline opponents of Chalcedon, which said that Jesus Christ was “one person in two natures,” wanted to say that he was “out of two natures” before the union, but after the union was one nature. This latter formula left the humanity of Christ rather abstract and impersonal, but it emphasized the unity of his being and the predominance of the divine in the resultant person.
The Greek monos in the word Monophysite implies “only one” nature. A better term would be Henophysite (or Miaphysite), for the Greek hen (feminine mia) says “one” without the implication of “only.”
Just as the Antiochians did not regard themselves as “Nestorian” and rejected the position of “two persons” with which Nestorius was charged, so the later followers of Cyril of Alexandria did not regard themselves as Eutychian and rejected the view that the human nature was wholly lost in the divine, the view to which the term “Monophysitism” would apply.
There were also national feelings against the Council of Chalcedon.
Egypt was virtually in revolt after the council, for it was loyal to its deposed patriarch, Dioscorus.
Both Alexandria and Antioch were displeased with the prestige given to Constantinople in its canon 28.
Those bishops who supported Chalcedon were called “Melchites,” royalists, supporters of the imperial church.
Rival bishops competed for possession of the sees of Alexandria and Antioch, but popular sentiment favored the Monophysite/Henophysite claimants. One of these, Peter the Fuller, off and on the bishop of Antioch, added to the Trisagion (“Holy, holy, holy”) the phrase, “who was crucified for us.” This addition became a focal point of controversy, but not only as something new in an important part of the liturgy.
The phrase could be orthodox on the understanding that what was said of the human nature of Jesus Christ could be said as well of the divine, and what was said of the divine could also be said of the human (communicatio idiomatum, “communication of the properties”), since he was one person; but by emphasizing the deity of the one who was crucified it was especially congenial to Monophysites.
Imperial policy for two centuries had to come to terms with Henophysite sentiment in the eastern provinces.
With the slipping away of imperial control in the West, the emperors could safely disregard the views of Pope Leo I, but they wanted to keep the loyalty of their eastern possessions.
They attempted to make modifications within the framework of Chalcedon, which they were not willing to repudiate, since it had established the canon law of the church and recognized the special position of Constantinople in the church.
The contest for the imperial office between Zeno (474–75, 476–91) and Basilicus (475–76) produced the first imperial efforts to settle theology apart from a council.
Basilicus in 476 issued the Encyclion, prepared by the Henophysites Timothy the Cat of Alexandria and Peter the Fuller of Antioch. It accepted the first three ecumenical councils, but condemned the Tome of Pope Leo and “all things done at Chalcedon” that were contrary to Nicaea.
Zeno regained power and in 482 modified the repudiation of Chalcedon with the Henoticon, an edict of reunion. It condemned both Nestorius and Eutyches, exalted the Twelve Anathemas sent by Cyril to Nestorius, and made no mention of Leo’s Tome.
This compromise intended to please moderates on both sides failed, as compromises so often do, to satisfy either the Henopysites or Chalcedonians.
The patriarch of Constantinople at the time was Acacius (471–89), who supported the effort to achieve unity. However, Pope Felix III in 484 excommunicated him on the grounds of his interfering in other Eastern churches, something he felt was an exercise of his rights under canon 28 of Chalcedon. For Rome the rights of bishops were more at stake than was orthodoxy. The “Acacian Schism” between Rome and Constantinople was brought to an end by Emperor Justin in 519.
Moderates did accept the Henoticon, and it is now a doctrinal standard of the Jacobite Church. In 512 Severus became bishop of Antioch, and he gave a definitely anti-Chalcedonian interpretation to the Henoticon. The Mono/ Henophysitism which has lasted to modern times in Syria is Severan in theology.
Severus continued, as Cyril, to use “nature” (physis) and “person” (hypostasis) as synonymous. For him there is a logical, not a real, distinction between the two natures in Jesus Christ. Against the more extreme Monophysites (the Aphthartodocetae), who said the body of Christ even before the crucifixion was not corruptible, he ascribed incorruptibility to the body of Christ only after the glorification.
Following Severus’s death in 538, there was a dual succession to the patriarchate of Antioch:
One Melchite or “Orthodox”
The other anti-Chalcedonian or “Henophysite”
The church in Armenia adopted the Henophysite position in 491. The Synod of Dvin in 506 included bishops from Armenia, Georgia, and the Caucasus who rejected the creed of Chalcedon. The church of Georgia thereafter elected its own catholicos/patriarch. Around 600 it returned to Byzantine orthodoxy, however, and was excommunicated by the Armenian church.
Henophysite Christology spread from Syria to Persia in the sixth century.
Henophysite writers in Syriac included Jacob of Sarug (d. 521) and Philoxenus of Mabbug (d. 523).
In Egypt the Henophysites had no strong leader. Their common slogan was “one is the enfleshed nature of the God-Word.”
The Coptic church supplied the Ethiopian church with its catholicos or patriarch (the abuna — not until 1959 did the Ethiopians gain a native in this office), and the church in Ethiopia followed Egypt into Henophysitism.
Whereas the largest Christian party in Syria was Henophysite, in Persia it was Dyophysite, but in Persia, unlike in Syria, Christians were a minority in the population.
The Church of the East in Persia maintained the Antiochene Dyophysite (two-nature) Christology. Although officially accepting the creed of Nicaea (325) since a synod in 410, the church adopted an explicitly “Nestorian” creedal statement at a synod in 486 and then in 497 rejected the Henoticon. Another synod in 585 approved the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia as the church’s theological standard while anathematizing the “heresy of Eutyches.”
In the period around 500 flourished one of the influential persons in Greek Orthodox spirituality, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The real name of the person is unknown. He ascribed his combination of Christianity and Neoplatonism to a convert of Paul in Athens (Acts 17:34), and his contemporaries accepted his writings as genuine.
Pseudo-Dionysius, later claimed by both Chalcedonians and non-Chalcedonians, was imprecise in his Christology, speaking of Jesus Christ as a composite being with a single theandric (divine-human) energy. Learned in Neoplatonism, he was also a mystic.
Mysticism in its narrow, technical sense, refers to an experience of union with deity, but in current study is often broadened, as a species of spirituality, to refer to an experience of the presence of God. Pseudo-Dionysius fits the narrower definition, and he became the fountainhead of a strain of mysticism widely influential in Greek Christianity and, after being translated into Latin in the ninth century, influential in the West also.
Through confusion with the first bishop of Paris and martyr, Dionysius (Denys), Pseudo-Dionysius became the patron saint of France. His writings had some claim to the authority of Paul as containing the sort of teaching he supposedly communicated to philosophical Athenians.
Pseudo-Dionysius’s writings — On Celestial Hierarchy, On Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, On Divine Names, and Mystical Theology — stressed the tendency already found in Greek Christian authors like Origen, Athanasius, and Gregory of Nyssa to define the goal of human salvation as divinization. This deification is attained by purification, illumination, and perfection (union with God), which became the standard three stages of mysticism.
He further identified three stages in describing God:
Give him a name (affirmative theology)
Deny this name (negative theology)
Reconcile the contradiction by looking beyond terms of human experience (superlative theology)
The way of negation (via negativa) leads to contemplation (mystical theology), a simpler and purer idea of God.
His arrangement of angels into nine tiers became the basis of the medieval doctrine of angels. As part of his positive appropriation of Neoplatonism (in this case, the philosopher Iamblichus, c. 245–c. 325), he describes the sacraments as a kind of “Christian theurgy” (actions that produce divine power).
II. THE AGE OF JUSTINIAN (527–65) IN THE EAST#
A. Military-Civil Achievements#
Latin remained the official language of government, even though the heart of the empire was the Greek Near East.
Justinian sought to regain the lost lands of the empire. In this goal he was aided by the able general Belisarius.
In 534 the Byzantines put an end to the Vandal kingdom in North Africa.
The Gothic War, 553– 55, reestablished rule in Italy.
In 554 a foothold was gained in Spain.
These conquests drained the economic resources of the empire. The Lombards invaded Italy in 556 and weakened the Byzantine position. They gained control of the peninsula except for a strip of land (the garter on the leg of Italy) from Ravenna to Rome.
Under Justinian there was undertaken a compilation of civil law, the Corpus Iuris Civilis (the editor in chief was Tribonian), which was to be the basis of legal codes in Europe for centuries. It contains four parts:
the Institutes, a manual explaining the principles of law for students
the Digests, juridical decisions (pandects) classified and harmonized
the Code proper, over 4,000 laws from Hadrian to Justinian, based on the earlier compilation of Theodosius II
the Novellae, new laws of Justinian and later two of his successors
From the eleventh century Justinian’s compilation of law slowly established itself in the western European countries except for England, where the old common law prevailed.
Often seen as a restorer of imperial power, Justinian saw himself as in many ways an innovator making improvements in law and government. Later historians assess his policies of military expansion as so exhausting financial resources as to be more or less disastrous for the empire. An outbreak of the Bubonic Plague in the last decades of Justinian’s rule further weakened his empire.
B. Religio-Political Policy#
Justinian took an active interest in church affairs. He was a good canon lawyer and theologian, so he entered church conflicts not as an outsider invading a foreign domain, but as an insider trying to fulfill better the duties incumbent upon him. He regarded the patriarch of Constantinople as his chief minister for ecclesiastical affairs.
In the legislation of Justinian the word “patriarchate” and the idea expressed by it of the church ruled by five patriarchs (pentarchy) was made official. Thus was completed the constitutional work of Chalcedon, recognizing five chief churches in Christendom — Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
A series of controversies filled Justinian’s reign and he was personally involved in many of them.
The Theopaschite controversy involved the expansion in the liturgy to include the formula “One of the Trinity suffered for us in the flesh.” The statement could be orthodox, but it was suspect to the Chalcedonians, for it sounded Monophysite and it was new. Justinian secured acceptance of the Theopaschite formula in Rome and Constantinople in 534.
Both Dyophysites and Henophysites were afraid that Chalcedon could not be interpreted without Nestorian implications. The Neochalcedonians — Justinian himself, John of Scythopolis, Leontius of Byzantium, and later Leontius of Jerusalem — gave a way of interpreting Chalcedon consistent with the Christology of Cyril of Alexandria.
The Origenist controversy began among the monks, some of whom were the bitterest foes of Origen’s spiritualizing theology. There had been an anti-Origen reaction at the end of the fourth century, especially against the use to which Evagrius of Pontus put the theology of Origen.
During Justinian’s reign there was a fresh growth of Evagrian Origenism. It was opposed by Saba (d. 532), monastic superior in Palestine whose followers continued to persecute Origenist monks.
In 543 or 544 Justinian condemned nine points from Origen’s On First Principles and Origen himself. There began the destruction of Origen’s works that has resulted in the loss of many of his writings in their Greek originals.
In 553, in advance of the official opening of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, Justinian secured fifteen anathemas against Evagrius from the bishops already assembled.
The special concern of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553), the second at Constantinople, was the “Three Chapters.” There was considerable opposition to three Antiochian theologians, who because of their greater stress on the humanity of Jesus Christ were suspect of Nestorianism:
Theodore of Mopsuestia
Ibas of Edessa
Theodoret of Cyrus
In order to appease the Alexandrian church, Justinian agreed to condemn them.
In 544 Justinian issued an edict, the “Three Chapters,” against their writings. He was careful not to impair formally the Definition of Faith at Chalcedon, but the condemnation of the writings of these Antiochenes was designed to remove any possibility of giving it a Nestorian interpretation. The Cyrillic interpretation of Chalcedon (Chalcedony) was now the only official one.
The Eastern churches, even the Orthodox, have continued to give more emphasis to the divinity than to the humanity of Jesus Christ.
A concurrent controversy to the Fifth Ecumenical Council was connected with Pope Vigilius. Vigilius was an ambitious deacon appointed papal representative at Constantinople. He was advanced by Theodora, who thought he would be favorable to her. After Rome was retaken by the Byzantines in 536, Pope Silverius was deposed in 537 and Vigilius was consecrated as his successor.
The new pope, however, did not favor the Henophysites and refused to join in the condemnation of the three Antiochian theologians. He was brought to Constantinople and, after considerable waverings, agreed in 548 to their condemnation, but with express reservations in favor of Chalcedon.
This condemnation provoked strong opposition in the West, and a council at Carthage even excommunicated him. Vigilius retracted his condemnation of the Antiochenes. He was brought to the East again, but he declined to preside at the Second Council of Constantinople (553). He finally consented to its decrees. Before reaching Rome, he died (555).
Northern Italy withdrew support from the papacy, and Grado and Aquileia raised themselves to the level of patriarchs, so that part of Gregory the Great’s policy was to regain control in the region.
Ultimately Justinian’s policy of winning back those he called “Monophysites” failed. They continued strong in the eastern provinces, now with an increasing national consciousness. Justinian’s concessions were not enough, for the “Henophysites” demanded express condemnation of Chalcedon. Justinian turned to repressive measures, which dealt them severe blows.
In the decade after 540 a real separated church emerged. This was due in Syria largely to the unflagging work of Jacob Baradaeus (Jacob the Ragged), who was consecrated metropolitan of Edessa in 542, but spent most of his life traveling on foot throughout the Near East, appointing clergy of “Henophysite” sympathies, strengthening his fellow believers, and defending their doctrine.
From Jacob derives the name “Jacobite” for the “Henophysites” in Syria, whose own name for themselves is the Syrian Orthodox Church. Monasticism was important in the Syrian church, and the monastery of Mar Barsauma (founded in the fifth century) became an important Jacobite center until its destruction in the fourteenth cenutry. In Egypt the Coptic church was also “Henophysite.”
C. Christian Culture of the Period of Justinian#
Justinian closed the Academy in Athens in 529, a date symbolically significant for the transition from the ancient to the medieval world, for it was the same year as:
The Council of Vaison in Gaul that instructed all priests to give a Christian education to children admitted to the rank of readers (symbolic of the transfer of education to the church in the West)
The Council of Orange that established Semiaugustinianism as the faith of the West
The founding of the monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy by Benedict
Justinian took measures against pagans and heretics. The canonical decisions of the church were enshrined in civil law.
In theological controversies the argument from authority assumed an ever more important place. Whereas the fourth-century theologians argued from Scripture, after 381 arguments increasingly appealed to the earlier Fathers as well as to Scripture.
At the Council of Ephesus in 431 the reading aloud of written documents with the bishops giving their judgment replaced conciliar proceedings composed primarily of oral debate. Accordingly, the Byzantine theologians increasingly argued using quotations from the Fathers. This is shown in the production of catenas (quotations from earlier commentators in exegesis of Scripture) and florilegia (quotations on theological topics).
There was another side, however, to the sixth century. Much literature was produced, and there was enough subtle theological thought to demonstrate that creativity had not ceased with Cyril — witness for starters Leontius of Byzantium and Leontius of Jerusalem.
Orthodoxy’s greatest liturgical poet, Romanos Melodos, also flourished during the first half of the sixth century. He mastered the form of hymn known as the Kontakion, which flourished from the fifth to the seventh centuries.
The Kontakion was a sermon in verse, chanted by the preacher or a cantor, that consisted of an introduction and varying numbers of stanzas connected to the introduction by a refrain and to one another by an acrostic and by a shared metrical structure.
In response to Justinian’s command that tribes on the periphery of the empire be converted to Christianity, much of Nubia (in modern times southern Egypt and northern Sudan and more nearly corresponding to the “Ethiopia” of the Bible than modern Ethiopia) accepted Christianity (eventually in its Henophysite form), accelerating a movement that had begun as early as the fourth century.
The Nubian Christian kingdom flourished in the ninth and tenth centuries, but the rising tide of Islam from the twelfth century led to the extinction of Nubian Christianity by the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
The reign of Justinian saw the flowering of the first great period of Byzantine art, and some of its masterpieces are still to be seen, especially in Ravenna, Italy. Ravenna in the fifth and sixth centuries was the meeting place of East and West and already in the fifth century was the site of some of the greatest of Christian mosaic decorations of religious buildings
The so-called Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
The Baptistery of the Orthodox
The churches of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo and Sant’ Apollinare in Classe
To the sixth century belongs one of the greatest glories of Christian mosaic art, the interior of the church of San Vitale.
The high point of artistic achievement under Justinian was the domed basilica of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, designed by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, one of the great architectural accomplishments of all time.
In Eastern orthodoxy, the basic manifestation of the church is the eucharistic assembly. The orthodox liturgy came to exhibit increased pomp, display, and splendor. It emphasized the sense of holy awe before the divine mysteries. Especially characteristic was the dramatic community spirit of the celebration. Here the deacon played an irreplaceable role as the intermediary between the celebrants and the people; he directed the congregation’s prayer, called on the people to answer, and indicated the important moments of the ceremony.
Popular devotion developed along lines already traced:
Beneration of martyrs and now saints
Trust in their intercessions and miraculous powers
Attachment to their relics
Fondness for pilgrimages
The veneration of Mary also assumed a preeminent place. The title Theotokos (“God bearer” or “Mother of God”), which had been approved in the fifth century, was at first a Christological and not a Mariological statement, but it furthered the exaltation of Mary.
In hymns and homilies to the Virgin, Mariology (as poetry rather than speculative theology) appeared in the East several centuries in advance of the West, which did not catch up until the twelfth century, but then eventually took the lead in Marian devotion.
The church came to permeate society to an extent hitherto unknown. In fact, in the East there did not exist to the same extent the gulf that emerged in the West between clergy and laity. There was not, however, a confusion of the two realms, spiritual and temporal, but rather a close association of them. The Byzantine ideal was the interpenetration of religion and society.
The eastern emperor certainly exercised much influence in the affairs of the church. But Orthodox thinkers have rejected the term “Caesaropapism” (the emperor functioning as the equivalent of a pope) to describe the involvement of the emperor in the affairs of the church. They insist that the distinction of the emperor from the clergy was always maintained.
III. BENEDICT OF NURSIA, THE “PATRIARCH OF WESTERN MONASTICISM”#
Benedict (c. 480–540), after his education in Rome, retired to Subiaco to live as a hermit in a cave. When confronted with a temptation, he would throw himself on the bramble bushes, sure to get his mind on something else.
Deciding he could be of service to other monks, Benedict set up twelve monasteries of twelve monks each. Some resented his efforts to impose a stricter rule on them, and Benedict once avoided a poisoned cup.
In 529 Benedict moved to Monte Cassino, where he established his famous monastery. Benedict seemed to contemporary believers to have powers not given to ordinary people and extraordinary miracles were attributed to him. He does not appear to have been ordained, nor to have contemplated an order for clerics; at first monastic life and ecclesiastical duties were felt to be incompatible. His sister, Scholastica, formed a convent for women nearby that became the basis for Benedictine houses for women.
Benedict brought the traditional Roman virtues of gravity, stability, authority, and moderation to the monastic life. His rule for his monks is notable for its qualities:
1. Exactness and comprehensiveness
In contrast to Basil’s rules, which were primarily moral, Benedict’s rule provides not just maxims, but detailed instructions about what to do when.
2. Moderation
It was severe enough to overcome human inclinations, but was not concerned to torment the body as Pachomius and Cassian did and so did not discourage its followers.
3. Order
It introduced stability into monastic life in contrast to wandering monks or the small groups that had no discipline. The life of Benedictine monks was to be a balanced regimen of divine praise (opus Dei, the “work of God”), spiritual reading (lectio divina, “divine reading”), and physical work (labor manuum, “work with hands”).
The monastery was to be organized under an abbot, who held the powers of a Roman householder as the pater familias of the monastery.
The monks elected the abbot, who then appointed the other officers.
The abbot’s chief assistant was the prior.
“Deans” were heads of ten monks.
One monk was over the cellar and one over other supplies.
The abbot assembled the whole community to deliberate matters of common concern, the chapter.
The rule in chapter 4 presents the “instruments of spiritual progress,” moral instructions of what to do and what not to do. chapters 5–7 discuss the virtues of obedience, silence, and humility—with much attention to the last. The twelve steps of humility became the basis of Benedictine spirituality.
In the rule, ten hours out of a day were to be spent in worship and meditation. On the basis of Psalms 119, verses 62 and 164, eight times of prayer were appointed:
the night office or vigils (2:00 A.M. in winter)
lauds (at daybreak)
prime
terce
sext
none (the four little offices, which were field hours)
vespers (a half-hour before sunset)
compline (before retiring)
Beginning with the night office each Sunday, the whole psalter was sung every week.
The Benedictine Rule came to supplant all other rules so that Western monasticism in the eighth to twelfth centuries was Benedictine. Benedictine monasteries became a symbol of stability in a world of flux.
An irony of the early Middle Ages is that at the end of ancient civilization, it was those who withdrew from society who built the new order.
The great future of Benedict’s rule came not only from its own qualities, but also from the support Gregory the Great gave by telling the story of Benedict in his Dialogues.
IV. GREGORY THE GREAT, THE FIRST MONKISH POPE#
Pope Gregory I (590–604) has been called “the Great” since the eleventh century. Recognized by the Roman church as one of its four great Latin doctors, Gregory’s greatness was as a pastor, a builder of the church, a popularizer of a modified Augustinianism, a moral theologian, and a spiritual master.
Born into an aristocratic Roman family and well educated for his time, Gregory became prefect of Rome in 573, learning every detail of the municipal administration. Shortly afterwards, he retired from public life to become a monk, establishing seven monasteries on the pattern of Monte Cassino, although there is no evidence that he adopted the Benedictine Rule.
Gregory brought the ethos of a monastic community to Roman church administration with his papacy. Pope Pelagius II sent him as his representative to Constantinople, where he lived from 579 to 586 and was impressed with the Eastern liturgy, but failed to learn Greek. After his return to Rome, the city suffered from flood and a plague. The latter claimed the life of Pelagius II, and the people acclaimed Gregory his successor.
In contrast to Gelasius’s quite separate spheres for church and state, and Augustine’s view of the state as essentially secular, Gregory had a rather Byzantine view on church-state relations, seeing a mutuality in which:
The church gives direction to the state
The state helps the church and reforms it if necessary
In dealing with the East, Gregory had a special problem with the claim of John IV the Faster (for his frequent fasts), patriarch of Constantinople (582–95), to be “ecumenical patriarch.”
“Ecumenical” in Eastern usage had come to be widely used with reference to patriarchs in order to express their power in their patriarchates.
John now made a simple application of the word to the supreme position of Constantinople in the East. It was not a claim to authority over Rome, but Gregory saw the title as a matter of pride and thought it could only mean “sole” patriarch. He rejected the title for himself as well, and in this context stated his own concept of his office as “servant of the servants of God,” which itself later became a papal title.
Gregory was more important in the West than the exarch of Byzantium, whose authority was largely confined to his capital in Ravenna. As the effective image of authority, Gregory made peace with the Lombards. Gregory had to reassert papal dignity against the bishops of Ravenna, Milan, Grado, and Aquileia, who claimed patriarchal dignity.
Gregory laid the basis for the temporal power of the papacy. In the vacuum of power he took over certain functions of civil government, not from ambition but from necessity. Here he profited from his civil experience.
He appointed governors of Italian cities, and he administered the landed properties that over the years had been bequeathed to the Roman church.
These estates (latefundia) were scattered throughout Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and North Africa.
Known as “the patrimony of Peter,” they furnished food and finances for Rome.
Many of Gregory’s letters deal with administration of these estates and show him to have been knowledgeable of the details of administrative, economic, and social life.
While in Constantinople, Gregory began writing his Moralia, an exposition of Job, which he finished while pope. As the title indicates, Gregory was especially interested in the moral sense of Scripture, more than the literal or the mystical sense, and this holds for his homilies as well.
Gregory modified John Cassian’s and Evagrius’s lists of eight principal sins, and his list was then transmitted, with some variation, to medieval moral teaching as the “seven deadly sins”:
pride (or vainglory)
covetousness (or avarice)
lust
envy
gluttony
anger
sloth (or acedia—weariness of heart, apathy, or depression)
Gregory’s expositions of Scripture contained an analysis of spiritual experience that was to be influential on monastic devotional life. This analysis involved a compunction for sinful tendencies, detachment from sin, self, and the world, and an ardent and patient desire for God—all leading to peace.
The Pastoral Rule, written on his accession to the papal throne, remains Gregory’s most influential work, through its incorporation in the breviary for daily reading by Roman priests. The Pastoral Rule had a comparable influence on Western clergy as Benedict’s rule had on Western monks. The Pastoral Rule may be characterized as an essay on humility as the key to the unity of the church.
The pastor should be greater than the people, as a shepherd goes before his flock.
He should be pure and a leader.
A preacher must reach all types of people; he must be loved in order to be heeded.
Moreover, he must be careful of extremes.
In theological matters Gregory transmitted to the Middle Ages the Semiaugustinianism represented by the Council of Orange (529). He supported the reverence for saints and relics and the idea of purgatory, teaching that the sacrifice of the mass helps souls there. Gregory was pessimistic about conditions of his time and expected the imminent end of the world.
Gregory’s Dialogues show the uncritical credulity and superstitions of the time. These accounts of monks promoted monasticism. Gregory, moreover, granted privileges to monks that served to loosen episcopal control and so opened the way for the eventual bringing of monks under direct papal control. He did not hesitate to raise monks to the priesthood and saw the possibility of using monks as missionaries. One of his most important influences was the mission to England.
Gregory took an interest in the liturgy of the church, but the so-called Gregorian Sacramentary is later.
Likewise, the Gregorian Chant (plainsong or plainchant, which was monophonic) has minimal if any association with him (despite the later tradition that he reformed the chants used at Rome). It may derive from an ancient Roman melody, earlier than Gregory, used in singing the Psalms, but it achieved its classical form after him during the ninth century in the Frankish kingdom.
Nor did Gregory have a role in developing the schola cantorum (“school of singers”) in Rome, which probably originated at the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century.
V. THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITURGY#
The great liturgies arose in the fourth to sixth centuries, and most were codified in the sixth to seventh centuries (although this is sometimes attested only by later documents). They represent much more elaboration than was found in the second- and third-century liturgies.
Several factors favored the creation and utilization of written liturgies.
There are natural tendencies to uniformity in the language of worship. Things well said, or impressive ways of doing things, tend to be repeated.
Unlearned bishops and presbyters needed guidance in the conduct of worship.
A stable written liturgy made the services more orderly.
The desire to hold to what was ancient and believed to be apostolic became even more deeply engrained, and this tendency worked against any desire for change.
The concern for orthodoxy and fear of heretical doctrines further sanctified what was old and blocked major innovations. What liturgical changes were made sparked controversy.
The Jewish synagogue liturgy received classical formulation at a comparable period. Whether there were any mutual influences, or only parallel developments in the two religions at a comparable stage of their development, is not now clear.
The main families of liturgies show certain broad similarities in structure, themes, and occasionally even in wording, but had distinctive features. These main families may now be listed.
Eastern liturgies#
The principal Eastern families of liturgies and their main representatives are the following:
1. Alexandrian or Egyptian
Early attestations are in the prayers of Serapion and the Der Balizeh papyrus. The first complete text is the Liturgy of Mark. The Coptic Liturgy of St. Cyril is in use today.
2. Jerusalem
Its practice is represented by the Liturgy of James. Along with the next two families (as well as the liturgy of the Armenian church), it may be grouped together under the heading West Syrian.
3. Clementine
This is the pseudonymous name for the liturgy found in book 8 of the Apostolic Constitutions from the end of the fourth century. It may derive from Antioch, which provided the basis for the next liturgy.
4. Constantinopolitan
Two liturgies are associated with the eastern capital and are known by the names of two of the great Eastern fathers. The Liturgy of Basil is the older and in its eucharistic prayers may go back to Basil and his church at Caesarea of Cappadocia. The Liturgy of Chrysostom was in use before 431, but was linked with Chrysostom only from the tenth century. The latter is the liturgy in common use in the Greek church, with the former used on certain special days.
5. East Syrian
This family includes the “Nestorian,” Syro-Malabar, and Addai and Mari liturgies.
Western liturgies#
The principal families of Western liturgies are the following:
1. Roman
Important manuscript witnesses are later and include the following Sacramentaries: Leonine or Verona (early seventh century, preserving earlier prayers), Gelasian (mid-eighth century), and Gregorian (end of eighth or beginning of ninth century, represented by the Hadrianum sent by Pope Hadrian to Charlemagne)—both of the latter preserving sixth/seventh-century material. The later Ordines romani give detailed descriptions (Ordo XI is the earliest).
2. Gallican
This is best typified in the Missale Gothicum (c. 700). The Bobbio Missal (end of seventh century or eighth century) is a mixed Gallican and Roman liturgy. The next three may be considered subspecies of the Gallican.
3. Ambrosian
This was the liturgy of Milan, which survives in use there; whatever part Ambrose had in formulating it, later accretions make his elements impossible to identify.
4. Mozarabic
Developed in the sixth century, this was in use in Iberia until the eleventh century and survives at Toledo.
5. Celtic
The Stowe Missal (eighth century and later) preserves a Hiberno (Irish)-Gallican liturgy.
The term “Mass” (from the Latin missa or dismissio) was in use in the fourth century for a liturgical rite and by the mid-fifth century was applied to the eucharistic service. The formula of dismissal, Ite missa est (“Go, this is the dismissal”), apparently gave the name of “Mass” to the whole service, perhaps from the dismissal’s association with a blessing.
The two principal Western liturgies as practiced in the sixth and seventh centuries, the blending of which became the medieval mass, may be compared.
VI. THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE EASTERN AND WESTERN CHURCHES#
The development of the church in the first six centuries has been outlined in the following manner:
An “early catholic” church (the second century and some would push this back into the later documents of the New Testament)
An “old catholic church” (late second and third century)
A “state catholic church” (fourth century)
A “Roman catholic church” (fifth century in the West)
A “Byzantine orthodox church” (sixth century in the East)
The Germanic invasions brought political instability to the West, but stable government continued in the eastern half of the empire.
Events of the year 451 may serve to symbolize the differences:
An alliance of Visigoths, Franks, and Romans in Gaul turned back Attila the Hun, who then entered Italy, where Leo the Great negotiated his withdrawal
A vast assembly of bishops met in Chalcedon to discuss the nature of Jesus Christ
After the division of the empire in 395 between the sons of Theodosius I, the unity of East and West was never re-established.
The land bridge of the Balkans between East and West suffered the heaviest from barbarian invasions after 380, and Roman influence withdrew to the Dalmatian coast.
The invasions of the Avars and Slavs in the sixth century finally blocked direct communication across this region.
This, plus the subsequent Arab conquest of the eastern provinces and control of the sea routes, added to the Germanic conquest of the West, caused the separate development of Eastern and Western Christianity, and accentuated the differences that already existed between the Greek and Latin mentalities of these two major branches of Christianity.
It is characteristic that we call the Eastern church “orthodox” and the Western “catholic.”
In the East the controversies were over God and Christ; in the West over the nature of the church and of human beings.
The East was more concerned with the great philosophical issues raised by the faith; the West was more legal and practical in its concerns.
In the fourth century:
The East was dominated theologically by the Arian controversy over the Godhead
The West, in North Africa, the major ecclesiastical problem was Donatism, concerned with the nature of the church and the sacraments.
In the fifth century:
The East was exercised over the theological issue of the nature of Jesus Christ
The West was torn by a controversy over the anthropological issue raised by the conflict between Pelagius and Augustine
All the major controversies may be seen as concerned with salvation:
Arianism with how God saves and Donatism with how the church fits into salvation
The Christological debates with the divine role and Pelagianism with the human role in salvation
In regard to the eucharistic liturgy:
The East emphasized the divine presence, the West the act of sacrifice
Hence, the East put more emphasis on the epiclesis, the invocation of the presence of the Holy Spirit; the West on the words of institution, reliving the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
In regard to church organization:
The patriarch of Constantinople operated in the shadow of the emperor
The bishop of Rome faced no such competing political power
Differences between the Western church and the Byzantine church (and between western society and Byzantine society) may be summed up by saying that the Eastern church did not have a Middle Ages. Much more continuity was maintained by the Orthodox churches.
The major factor here was the Germanic invasions and the subsequent conversion of the Germanic peoples. The Eastern churches had somewhat comparable experiences in the conversion of the Slavs and the Muslim invasions, but the results were different. The conversion of the Slavs did not change the Byzantine church in a way comparable to the effects of the Germanic peoples on the Latin church.
Furthermore, the Muslim invasions were much more devastating to the churches that came under Muslim control than the Germanic invasions were in the West, because the Muslim conquerors were not converted to Christianity.