Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

732 24. the organization of the church
three Palestines, Caesarea, Scythopolis and Petra; ‘Arabia’ (Bostra) would
be added in 553. Thus five ancient patriarchates enjoy super-metropolitan
powers: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. These
are consistently referred to in the documents of the sixth century, and constitute
the ‘pentarchy’. 4
There were, however, different perceptions of this patriarchal system.
Rome remained pre-eminent in the west, being the only western apostolic
see – that is, founded (as was believed) by the apostles themselves. Its
bishops, however, regarded their primacy as extending to the east, and
steadily enlarged both its theory and practice. Celestine of Rome in 430
commissioned Cyril of Alexandria to depose Nestorius if he would not
repent, ‘appropriating to yourself the authority of our see, and using our
position’. 5 So Cyril acted as and for the bishop of Rome. Sixtus III
(432–40) of Rome in 433 ratified the Formula of Union by which the disorders
of the Council of Ephesus were resolved, acting in concert with
Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople, but emphasizing the importance
of agreeing with the tradition of Peter. 6 His successor Leo I (440–61) condemned
Eutyches in 448–9. Eutyches was not only christologically
unsound, but rejected the Formula of 433 as an improper addition to the
Nicene Creed.
Leo intensified the idea of Petrine tradition by using the principle of
inheritance, claiming that the bishops of Rome inherited the bishopric and
primacy of Peter: Peter was not only the source of Roman tradition, but
was present in his heir and successor. The primacy of Peter among the
apostles was the same as the primacy of his successors among the bishops.
Leo not only preached this view, but advanced it in practice. His greatest
success was in bringing to heel bishop Hilary of Arles, an ascetic trained in
Lérins, who expected the highest standards of his fellow bishops. Hilary
held councils and deposed and ordained bishops without reference to
Rome. He went beyond his immediate jurisdiction in the province of
Viennensis. Leo not only argued his case to the bishops, emphasizing his
authority as successor of Peter, but achieved an imperial Constitutio from
Valentinian III in 445, ratifying his own sentence. Hilary was allowed to
remain a bishop in Arles, but deprived even of his normal metropolitan
powers. The Constitutio forbade the bishops of the Gallic or other provinces
to do anything without the authority of ‘the venerable Pope of the
Eternal City’, and the enactments of the apostolic see were to be law for
all. 7
With the collapse of imperial order in the west, Constantinople became
for most purposes the centre of Christendom, as well as of the empire.
4 See Gahbauer (1993), (1996).
5 Celestine, Ep. 11.3–4 (ACO i.1.1.p.76); for a fuller account see ch. 27 (Allen), pp. 811,34 below.
6 Sixtus III, Ep. 6. 7 See generally Studer (1991).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008