Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

ishops and patriarchs 733
Constantinople lacked the territorial superiority affirmed in the canons of
Nicaea in 325 for Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, as well as the apostolic
name claimed by them. Among its bishops, John Chrysostom had been
deposed because he interfered to suppress simony in churches in Asia,
where his writ did not run, and heard appeals against the condemnation by
Theophilus of Alexandria of Origenist monks. Nestorius similarly
incurred the hostility of senior colleagues by seeming to hear appeals
against the judgements of Alexandria and Rome, 8 and by intervening in
parts of Asia Minor and also in Macedonia, where the bishop of
Thessalonica’s special relation to Rome made it particularly sensitive. 9
Constantinople’s standing was clarified at the Council of Chalcedon, as
already stated. Along with territorial jurisdiction went a primacy of honour
as second to ‘great and elder Rome’, asserted in 381 at the Council of
Constantinople and strengthened in 451 at Chalcedon. It was then claimed
that the Fathers in 381 ‘gave equal privileges to the most holy throne of
New Rome, judging with reason that the city which was honoured with the
sovereignty and senate, and which enjoyed equal privileges with the elder
royal Rome, should also be magnified like her in ecclesiastical matters,
being the second after her’. 10 Leo rejected this formula, which expresses
the civic grounds of ecclesiastical primacy at the expense of its theological
ground. He based his rejection on the canon of Nicaea which gave such
honour only to the apostolic sees; Nicaea could not be challenged merely
on civil grounds. 11 Emperors and bishops in Constantinople would alike
ignore Leo’s repudiation.
The affirmation of Constantinople in 451 was not unopposed in the
east. Alexandrian bishops had complicated local constituencies to
manage, with ecclesiastical rivalries, competing doctrines, communal tensions,
non-Christian religion and culture, and large and quarrelsome
monastic communities throughout their diocesan territory. With this they
must reconcile the need to assure themselves that they would not be isolated
in the empire. Cyril’s quarrel with Nestorius was essentially over
jurisdiction: Nestorius gave ear to the appeals of persons condemned by
Cyril in disciplinary hearings, thus implying appellate power. 12 Cyril’s successor
Dioscorus tried to reaffirm Alexandria’s hegemony, succumbing to
Constantinople and Rome in 451. In Egypt itself after Chalcedon only
imperial force could impose Proterius as bishop until his assassination in
457. Timothy Aelurus (457–77) thereafter enjoyed wide local support,
while his Chalcedonian rival Timothy Salophakialos (460–82) had only a
few families hostile to the Dioscuran party and one powerful monastery
8 The non-doctrinal aspects of this dispute are emphasized in McGuckin (1994) ch. 1.
9 Leo, Ep. 98.4; 105.2; 106.5. 10 Canon 28; cf. Leo, Ep. 98.4. 11 Leo, Ep. 98.4; 105.2.
12 The story is often told: recently by McGuckin (1994) ch. 1; also the introduction to Wickham
(1983) and Wickham’s article in TRE 24. For developing conciliar theory, see Sieben (1986) 231–69.
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