Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

80 3. justin i and justinian
deeply divisive in Palestine, and formally condemned Origen and
Origenism. Immediately afterwards he published an edict known as the
Three Chapters which formally condemned certain writings by the fifthcentury
theologians Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and
Ibas of Edessa which were held to be Nestorian. 101 The emperor hoped
thereby to conciliate the Monophysites and hold ecclesiastical interests in
balance but only found himself in deeper trouble. The Monophysites were
unimpressed, and the edict aroused passionate opposition among Latinspeaking
Catholics in North Africa and Italy, who considered that it went
too far in a Monophysite direction. Holding a balance was next to impossible:
the African Junillus, for instance, who had recently been appointed
imperial quaestor, was himself the translator and adapter of a work clearly
inspired by Theodore of Mopsuestia. The imperial decision incensed the
African church, and bishop Facundus of Hermiane in Byzacena at once
started work on a treatise in twelve books defending the authorities condemned
in the edict. 102
Stung, the emperor summoned pope Vigilius to Constantinople and
pressurized him to accept. Vigilius arrived in Constantinople early in 547, 103
under equal pressure from the Roman and African clergy to refuse (the
deacon Ferrandus of Carthage had categorically denied the emperor’s right
to impose his own views in this way). At length Vigilius reluctantly acceded
to the edict in his Iudicatum of 548, but this document was forthwith
rejected in Dalmatia, Scythia and Gaul, 104 and provoked Vigilius’ formal
condemnation at a council held at Carthage in 550. Having been received
by the emperor with a great show of ecclesiastical pomp in 547, he now
found his name formally erased from the diptychs (formal lists) of orthodox
bishops. 105 Justinian next issued a summons to the recalcitrant African
bishops to come to Constantinople. When they arrived, Reparatus of
Carthage and others were deposed and exiled, and the rest kept under
arrest. Among the African bishops who took refuge at the church of St
Euphemia at Chalcedon, where Verecundus of Iunci died, was the chronicler
Victor of Tunnuna. 106 There were also difficulties in the east, and the
patriarchs Menas of Constantinople, Zoilus of Alexandria, Ephraem of
Antioch and Peter of Jerusalem agreed to sign the edict only under the
greatest pressure.
Faced with such a level of unrest, the emperor determined to refer the
matter to a council of the whole church. Meanwhile, however, he himself
101 Capizzi, Giustiniano ch. 3; Stein, Bas-Empire ii.392–5; 632–8.
102 Junillus, Instituta regularia divinae legis, PL lxviii.15–42; Facundus, Pro defensione, ed. Clément and
Vander-Plaetse, CCSL 90 a, 1974, 1–398; see further O’Donnell (1979) 169ff.; Cameron, Averil (1982)
46–8. 103 Procop. Wars vii.16.1; Malal. 483.3–5; Marcell. Cont. s.a.
104 Stein, Bas-Empire ii.638–46. 105 Malal. 484.11–13; 485.4–7; cf. Theoph. Chron. 225.21–5.
106 Vict. Tunn. Chron. s.a. 551, 552.
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