Protestant objections to Catholic beliefs about Mary: a brief response

A friend of mine, the Director of a Presbyterian (PCA) mission in France living in Marsaille, recently wrote me asking a number of questions about Catholic Marian beliefs, which, it was suggested, might send Protestants scurrying off to the nearest pub. I responded by suggesting that the idea of scurrying off to the nearest pub may be more Catholic than Protestant, citing the example of an Irish priest who, after Mass, would beat his parishioners in the twenty-yard dash to the local pub down the hill. What was it that Hilaire Belloc used to say? --

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's always laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!

As to the matter he addressed, I could say next-to-nothing about "Our Lady of the Pilar of Zaragoza," whom he mentioned, but I could point out that all such "Ladies" refer to the Blessed Mother, of course. Here's what I wrote:

I imagine there are several things at issue here -- the perpetual virginity of Mary, the immaculate conception, the view of Mary as the Mother of Christians, the intercession of Mary, and the fear of Mary worship. All of these, and perhaps other issues are likely conflated in what Protestants find so objectionable about Catholic attitudes toward Mary. Hence you're asking me to foot a large bill in responding to this question, and I haven't time to do it justice, though, as Francis Schaeffer always said, honest questions certainly deserve honest answers.

Let's start with the last first: Mary worship. First of all, worship of Mary was explicity condemned from when it first arose in the 5th century cult of Mary worship among the Collyridians (see this LINK). Since Protestants typically identify worship with hymn-singing and praying, they identify the singing of hymns in honor of Mary or the petitioning (in prayer) for the intercession of Mary as forms of worship. But this is not so. If you examine what Cathlics understand worship to be, namely the enactment of Sacrifice of the Mass (which is the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary), you will see that it is strictly Christo-centric. There are petitions for the intercession of saints on earth (as I would petition you) and saints in heaven (who likely have more time on their hands and a better chance of fulfilling the qualifications specified by James 5:16b --that the prayers of a RIGHTEOUS man avail greatly-- by virtue of their completed sanctification), but there is no worship of anyone but Christ, within the context of the Holy Trinity.

Second, we honor Mary because, like Jesus, we seek to keep the commandment to honor father and mother, and since Jesus is our brother (that has a biblical basis, doesn't it?), His mother is also our mother. Further, when on the cross, Jesus committed his mom to the care of John, saying to her, "Behold your son," and vice versa, saying to him, "Behold, your mother." If Jesus had any other immediate family, she would have been entrusted to their care (a circumstantial argument about Jesus' "brothers" being literal "brothers," as well as the absence of any younger siblings during his visit to the temple when he was twelve in Luke). Hence, we understand the relationship between John and Mary to be paridigmatic for the relationship between ourselves and His mother too. In other words, there is a spiritual maternity at work here making her in some sense our mother by adoption. If you examine the end of Revelation ch. 12, the basis for the Mexican image of Our Lady of Guadalupe-- clothed in the sun, moon underfoot, crowned with twelve stars, etc., it says that the dragon (Satan) went out to make war with the remnant of her seed (=her offspring, or children), i.e., those "who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. In other words, Christians are her children too! This doesn't in any way diminish the sense in which we are children of God the Father. But the point here is that there is also this other sonship we have through Mary. If you were being honored, and you were in a banquet hall at a table with your mother at your right hand, and someone came in who knew you and wanted to talk to you, and you introduced him to your mother, but he talked only to you, brushing her off as unimportant, do you not think you would consider such a person rude, to put it mildly. Another OT antecedent is this: there were two ways to get access to the king in the Hebrew court-- through the chief chamberlain (or steward or prime minister, or whatever -- they guy who in Is. 22:22 is said to have the power of the "keys" of the kingdom, who obviously is an antecedent of Peter in Mt 16:16-18), and, secondly, the Queen Mother. You will recall how King Solomon rose to his feet when his mother entered his precincts. This, in effect, is an icon of the view many Catholics have of Mary. She is King Jesus' Queen Mother, and while we also can dare to waltz boldly up to Jesus himself like trusting spiritual brethren, there are times we don't know how to pray. That's why we ask others to pray for us. Who could more readily intercede for us than our spiritual mother in heaven, the Queen Mother of Christ the King?!

The principle of intercessory prayer I've already implicitly addressed, so let me skip on to the issue of the Immaculate Conception. While this belief was not defined dogmatically until 1854, it was a long-standing belief that went back as far as we know to the beginning of the Church. Augustine believed it (I can furnish proof texts, if you need them). First, the fact that something isn't defined until later in history doesn't mean the belief didn't develop until then. The dogma of the Trinity wasn't defined until the 4th century (Nicea 325), but by faith we Christians believe the Jehovah's Witness intepretation of Scripture is mistaken and that the subordination passages (where Jesus doesn't know what the Father knows) and the equality passages ("I and the Father are one," etc.) implicity harmonize to teach a trinitarian understanding of the hypostatic union of Christ's two natures to make him the second Person of the Holy Trinity. Likewise here. There may be some concern that this violates various texts such as Romans 3:23, but there is a problem in taking the "all" there in a strictly distributive sense (as opposed to -- what was it called -- a "commutative"?? sense). First, since it's talking about sin as a verb here, it's not referencing original sin but actual sin. But if you take that strictly and literally then it would have to include not only you and me but the mentally retarded and infants incapable of responsibility, and, perforce, Jesus Himself and Mary, and Adam and Eve before the Fall. So it's obvious that some qualifications are called for. Without going into all of these just now, we can say that there's no reason for supposing that Mary could not have lived without sinning any more than Elijah or Enoch could have lived without tasting of physical death. Further, to suppose Mary was sinless from the moment of her conception is not to assume that she needed no Savior. It's clear, in fact, from the Magnificat in Luke that she understands that she personally has a Savior. Why should we suppose, then, that the Savior is restricted to saving only those who have already fallen into sin, as those who have fallen into a mud puddle and need to be fished out, and cannot also save some by preventing them from falling into sin to begin with? The question is not altogether different from the way in which God saves infants, the mentally retarded, and Old Testament saints -- none of whom have the capacity of accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. In other words, all who are saved are saved through Christ alone, but the modes by which they are saved may differ significantly.

The perpetual virginity of Mary, of course, is one of the most well attested beliefs in Christian history. To begin with, neither Luther nor Calvin had a problem with it, though numerous Protestants today do. But the first mention of the thing in history -- any history at all that we know of -- is the writing of the outraged Jerome against Helvedius, who is the first person we know of in Church history to have questioned it. Hence, while an argument from silence (before Jerome) isn't a conclusive argument, the fact that the first time the thing surfaces is in an outraged condemnation of a dis-belief in the thing, serves as a significant circumstantial confirmation of the tradition that the belief ran back to the beginning. There is also what I've already said about Jesus' "brothers" not being immediate brothers. There's a great deal of great biblical data on this that I would go into had I the time -- the three Mary's at the the foot of the Cross, which show that James was not the blood brother of Jesus, the fact that Jesus was Mary's "firstborn" but the Lucan account shows no younger siblings when he was taken to the temple at age twelve. And much more. But perhaps that's not such a big issue for you anyway.

I hope this gives you something towards the beginning of an answer to your good question, my friend. If you'd like to look into the arguments further, here is a web-page I've put together with useful links on the question: LINK.

Jesus our Mother?

Following up on an earlier discussion about God as mother, a colleague of mine recently pointed out that St. Anselm of Canterbury calls Jesus our "mother." Anselm says, he wrote:

"But you, Jesus, good lord, are you not also a mother? Are you not that mother who, like a hen, collects her chickens under her wings? Truly, master, you are a mother" (Prayer 10 to St Paul).

My observation:

Marine sargeants also sometimes tell recruits during boot camp: "I'm your father, and I'm your mother now."

Point: though Anselm's language is metaphor ("you ARE a mother"), it's based on the biblical simile ("LIKE a hen"), which redounds upon function rather than substantial form. In other words, the basis for Anselm's comment is a simile in which Jesus is said to be like a mother. So Anselm's metaphorical license in saying that Jesus "is" a mother shouldn't be read as an attempt to define Jesus' nature as female, but as a poetic way of paying tribute to the maternal characteristics that can be found in His compassion and mercy. In terms of His substantial nature, Jeus is no more a mother than a drill sargeant is.

Colleague:

Anselm also speaks of the apostle Paul as a mother in his prayer. In fact, this manner of speaking was popular in the High Middle Ages, according to Caroline Walker Bynum.

Blosser:

I see that as poetic license.

Otherwise, I offer you this dare: next time you're present at one of your worship services, without any explanation, during the time when they allow extemporaneous prayers from the congregation, offer a prayer in the name of "Jesus, our heavenly mother." If you decline this dare, I'll know that whatever you may believe about Jesus being LIKE a mother, you don't really believe that's WHAT He is.

Colleague:

While Mt 23:37-39 suggests that Jesus is making a comparison between his concern for Jerusalem and a mother hen's concern for her chicks, Anselm speaks metaphorically, asserting that S (Jesus) is P (a mother). Yet, I do not believe that Anselm is imputing gender to the Lord Christ Jesus in the prayer above. Rather, he is asserting that S is P, but recognizes that there is a sense in which S is not P. That is to say, metaphor, in the words of Paul Ricoeur, dialectically preserves the tension between the "is" and the "is not." Finally, metaphor asserts an unfamiliar identity synthesis between S and P. This does not mean that an ontological identity persists, however, between S and P.

Blosser:

I agree with your account of metaphor generally, but I think you also may be interpolating a bit of the non-identity between two terms of Matthew's simile into the non-identity between the two terms of the metaphor, which, in any case, I'm sure you will agree are not the same thing. There is a sense (is there not?) in which the metaphorical "is" holds the two terms together in a closer identity synthesis than can be found in the simile's "is like."

I want to very strongly oppose the liberal demythologizing theological impulse to denigrate the identity-synthesis of metaphor into an empty Tillichean "symbol" that has no really existing referent. In fact, I want to say that metaphor ("God is our Father," "Angelina Jolie is a bomb," "the Lion is the King of animals," etc.) can bring us CLOSER to reality than a clinical scientific description in many cases (cf. Thomas Howard's Chance, or the Dance?, or see the two first chapters online here--paying especial attention to the role given to imagination in ch. 2).

Revisiting "extra ecclesiam nulla salus"

John Hick (pictured below), in The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age (Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), writes:

It was for more than a thousand years a firm Christian dogma that EXTRA ECCLESIAM NULLA SALUS, 'Outside the church there is no salvation.' Thus for example the Council of Florence (1438-45) declared that 'no one remaining outside the Catholic Church, not just pagans, but also Jews or heretics or schematics [sic], can become partakers of eternal life; but they will go to the 'everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels,' unless before the end of life they are joined to the Church' (Clarkson 1961, 78: Denzinger, 714). But very few Catholics would dream of affirming this today, and most who are asked about it only find it embarassing." (p. 6)

The last sentence would be true of the many Catholics whose ideas are informed primarily by the secular media or dissident Catholic periodicals like the National (anti-)Catholic Reporter. Those who undersand the relationship between the teachings of Vatican II and these traditional teachings realize there's nothing fundamentally "revisionist" about Vatican II documents. Doctrinal development does not mean change.

We've been through some of this before, but to review, the Church doesn't deny extra ecclesiam nulla salus, any more than it denies that there is any salvation outside of Jesus Christ. But as it acknowledges the possibility of those who are saved through J.C. without knowing anything about the historical Jesus, it likewise acknowledges the possibility of those who are saved through incorporation in Church as the Mystical Body of Christ without benefit of formal membership in the
Catholic Church.

[A tip of the hat to Edgar Foster for the Hick reference--gratia tibi]

On divine simplicity: an answer to Perry Robinson

Perry Robinson is a former Anglican who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy after weighing his options carefully. Currently a student working on his doctorate at St. Louis University, he has recently offered criticisms of the Western understanding of absolute divine simplicity and other aspects of Catholic teaching on Al Kimel's blog (Pontifications). Robinson has written what Pontifications calls "a lengthy, substantive, complex, and challenging apologia on behalf of Eastern Orthodoxy" in the form of theological counsel for "Anglicans in Exile" and has made it available online. Kimel warns that it is "a difficult piece" that will "require slow and patient reading." Robinson's essay [in PDF format] is available online under the title "Anglicans in Exile." The discussion of Robinson's essay by multiple contributors on Kimel's blog is available on his Pontifications blog: "Perry Robinson Offers Theological Counsel for 'Anglicans in Exile.'"

Robinson's reflection is thoughtful and considered. There is much that one could comment on here and much to admire. His insistence upon principled action, based on careful reasoning and animated by desire for truth is a quality both laudible and increasingly rare these days, sad to say. All of which makes it the more difficult to take issue with him.

When I first read Robinson's piece, I was struck by what seemed to me the precariousness of trying to balance nearly his whole apologia for Eastern Orthodoxy (not to mention his critique of nearly every significant distinctive of Roman Catholicism) upon a relatively obscure metaphysical argument from Gregory Palamas (d. ca. 1360). Orthodoxy theology is hardly a unified monolith, whatever St. Vladimir's Seminary and the OCA (Orthodox Church in America) may seem to suggest, and Palamite theological speculations can hardly to be taken as representing Orthodox dogma. One can readily find Orthodox theologians who dispute the views of Palamas, as well as sectors of Orthodoxy that seem utterly indifferent to his views, if not utterly ignorant of them. But an argument is made or unmade on its own merits, as Robinson reminds us, not on secondary considerations such as these; so let us examine his argument.

Robinson offers both positive arguments for Eastern Orthodoxy as well as negative arguments against what he appears to take as its most viable competitor: Roman Catholicism. But both the positive and the negative appear to come down to flip sides of the same coin: an argument about the nature of God. On the one side are the Palamite arguments underscoring the inter-personal diversity within the trinitarian Godhead, the freedom of God's will in His act of creation, and so forth--all of which Robinson identifies with Orthodoxy. On the other side are his criticisms of the classic Augustinian and Thomistic arguments for God's simplicity, as well as all the allegedly negative implications that follow from this, such as a supposedly semi-Sabellian, Modalist, and monotheletic Christology, an autocratic Papacy, and so forth--all of which he identifies with Roman Catholicism. He remarks: "The problems for Rome are principled problems and the arguments against their theological position are about as close as one gets in theology or philosophy to a knock down argument."

So what is the argument? In a section preceded by the heading "Why I Am Orthodox," Robinson summarizes it:

The argument is fairly simple. If God is absolutely simple, the act of will to create is identical to his essence. Since his essence is had by him necessarily, it follows by transitivity that the act of will to create is necessary as well.

Robinson is arguing that on the classical Catholic Augustinian-Thomistic understanding of God (which, as he pointes out, is found also in mainline Protestantism), it cannot be asserted that God's act of willing to create is truly free. Is Robinson right about this? Let us see for ourselves.

On his blog, Energies of the Trinity (January 17, 2005), Robinson offers a formal elaboration of this argument, the essential drift of which can be garnered from the excerpt below:

1. If God is absolutely simple (P), then his act of will to create is identical with his essence (R).
2. If God's act of will to create is identical with his essence (R), then his act of will to create is necessary. (Q)
3. If God is absolutely simple (P), then his act of will to create is necessary. (Q) (From 1, 2 by Hypothetical Syllogism)
4. God is absolutely simple. (Premise S)
5. Therefore, God's act of will to create is necessary (R). (From 2,4, by Modus Ponens).

Now this is quite interesting. There are several ways in which a syllogistic argument can go wrong. In order for an argument of this kind to yield a cogent conclusion, at least three conditions must be met: (1) the reasoning must be valid, (2) the premises must be true, and (3) the terms must be unequivocal. The logic of Robinson's argument cannot be faulted, as far as I can tell, so let us agree that his reasoning is valid. This does not yet mean that his argument is sound, however; we must still ask whether the other conditions are met. But as soon as we ask whether the premises are true we run into the problem of equivocity in his term "necessary." Let's take a closer look. Premise #1 says:

If God is absolutely simple (P), then his act of will to create is identical
with his essence (R).

This is clearly true, as it is understood in classic Catholic metaphysics.

What about the second premise? Premise #2 says:

If God's act of will to create is identical with his essence (R), then his act of will to create is necessary. (Q)

Is this true? The moment we ask the question, it can be seen that we must first ask what Robinson means. One cannot answer simply either with a "Yes, it's true" or "No, it's not true" here, because it all depends on what Robinson means by "necessary." On the one hand, it seems to be identified with "being identical with [God's] essence." On the other hand, in what he wants to conclude from his argument, it seems to mean that God's act of creation is not free but strictly determined by His nature (= essence).

What Robinson neglects to distinguish is whether he means necessity of supposition (e.g., if Socrates is sitting, then Socrates is not not-sitting) or absolute necessity (e.g., a dog is necessarily an animal). God wills His own goodness, and nothing else, with absolute necessity. The proper object of God's will is His own goodness, as the proper object of our will is happiness. God wills creatures for the sake of His own goodness (perfection-as-desirable) as end, but not as a means to His own attainment of that end (He is already in complete possession of it, and creatures add nothing to it). Rather, He wills creatures that they might attain Him as their end (likeness to His perfection and personal union with Him).

Thus, when Robinson states that "[God's] act of will to create is necessary," we must clearly distinguish what we mean. It is true if we are speaking of the necessity of supposition, but false if we are speaking of absolute necessity. God wills nothing of absolute necessity except his own goodness. But if God wills to create, then He is unable not to will it, as Socrates is unable to be not-sitting if he is sitting (= necessity of supposition). [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 19.3 corpus, ad 1, ad 4, and ad 6.]

If God wills to create, He wills this eternally. But from the eternity of this willing, nothing at all follows about its necessity, unless we are speaking of the necessity of supposition. If we speak of necessity of supposition, then Q ["God's act of will to create is necessary"] is true. But Q's truth has nothing to do with R ["God's act of will to create is identical with his essence"]. Q would be true of any act of will that was actually actual, so to speak, just as Socrates is not able not to will to stand and not to stand at the same time and in the same respect.

Here are some things that logically do follow from divine simplicity:

• If God's will is identical with his essence, then His will is eternal.
• If God's will is identical with his essence, then His will is unchangeable.

But from the eternity and unchangeability of the divine will, it simply does not follow that God wills whatever He wills of absolute necessity. Nor is any sort of necessity imposed upon the things God wills from the eternity and unchangeability of the divine will. They come to be with whatever kind of necessity or contingency He wills them to have [ST 19.8]. Nor does the efficacy of God's eternal will to create mean that the creature is eternal. God eternally wills the creature to exist according to whatever manner of existence it has. Nor do "will" and "act of will" differ in God, because there is no distinction between power and act in Him (that awe-ful divine simplicity again).

Thus: "If God's act of will to create is identical with his essence, then his act of will to create is necessary" comes down to saying: "If to be God is to be the divine Will, then to be God is to will this rather than that." The if-clause is true (divine simplicity). The then-clause does not follow, and is false.

Robinson's use of "necessary" thus seems equivocal. On the one hand, it is identified with "being identical with [God's] essence." On the other hand, in what he wants to conclude from his argument, it means that God's act of creation is not free and strictly determined by His nature. Yet this conclusion does not follow, thus yielding a paralogism. The cause of things is God's will, not any necessity of His nature. The fact that God wills what He wills eternally doesn't mean He has to will it. There is nothing causing His act of will: He wills x to cause y, but x does not cause Him to will y.

There simply is no problem in the implications of divine simplicity of the sort alleged by Robinson. Rather, where there may be a problem is in an impoverished notion of "essence"--the notion of what a thing is, that ends up supposing that it entails something like an engine of absolute necessities. "What God is"--"what it means to be God"--is something utterly inconceivable to us here below. We simply have no human concept of God. That is what the classic doctrine of God's "incomprehensibility" means, after all. The Book of Job shows as much. But we do know that whatever God is, it is one and the same with a boundless act of existing (esse) and a boundless goodness and a boundless freedom to communicate itself to creatures. There is no part of Him which is not Himself.

There is an irony here. How odd to attack the Catholic metaphysics of divine "simplicity," which is the ground of God's incomprehensibility, when Eastern Orthodoxy herself revels in the mystery of divine incomprehensibility.

By way of conclusion, I do not suppose for a moment that any argument for or against a metaphysical notion such as divine simplicity is ultimately going to be what sways individuals one way or another in their quest for a spiritual home. Still, as Aristotle clearly saw, the desire to know what is metaphysically true--true about what is--has a logic all of its own, and our obligation, as Robinson suggests, to own up to our own positions and provide honest answers to honest questions, ought not to be slighted.

[Gratia tibi, Kirk Kanzelberger, for remarks on St. Thomas.]

For additional reading on this topic see:

• Jay Wesley Richards, The Untamed God: A Philosophical Exploration of Divine Perfection, Immutability and Simplicity [includes chapters on theological essentialism, Barth, Hartshorne, and the hard-to-understand question of divine simplicity]
• St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation [Timothy McDermott's superlatively accessible paraphrase of this masterpiece by Aquinas]
• St. Thomas Aquinas, A Summa of the Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of st Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica Edited and Explained for Beginners [edited and annotated by Peter Kreeft--excellent for the beginner in Aquinas]
• Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism [an excellent analysis sorting out rival versions of Thomism, with critique of all-too-common caricatures of Thomism as fossilized, static metaphysical system with no capacity for treating of dynamic, relational, temporal dimensions of human experience]

Canonicity and the problem of circular reasoning

In this two-part analysis, (1) "Canon to the right of them; canon to the left of them," and (2) "Canon in front of them, rode the six hundred," the Pontificator offers a fine examination of two Protestant criteria for the determination of canonicity, (1) self-authentication and (2) apostolic authorship or authorization. The basic question, of course, centers on the authority to define canonicity. The question of pseudonymity that he treats in his second post is a secondary detail, and I won't address it here. Rather, I wish to comment briefly on the question of circular reasoning that he raises in his second post.

First, the claim is sometimes made that the Catholic Church is circular in appealing to Scripture to support her authority and then claiming the final say in how to interpret Scripture. But there is no circularity here, first, because she does not claim sola scriptura; and, second, because if she has the authority she claims, the case is no different logically from that of the NT writers appealing to the Old Testament (OT) for support while claiming divine warrant for their NT interpretations.

Second, others suggest that the Church's position is circular because it boils down to saying: "we must believe Rome because Rome says so." The concern here for avoiding self-serving abuses by those in authority is legitimate, but misplaced. The Catholic is not asked to submit to the Church because the Church says so, but because Catholics understand God to have appointed the Church and her lawfully ordained leaders as administrators of His commission. The Church is subject to the Word of God (including the message of the Bible), even while she guardian and master (as Magisterium) of the Bible's text and interpretation. The Vatican II document, Dei verbum, declares that the "Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant" (ch. 2, sec. 10, p. 756). The Church's authority is not an "enabling" one but a "restraining" one, which prevents any reigning Pope from arbitrarily inventing heretical new doctrines by binding him to an infallible tradition (including Scripture) traceable to the "apostolic deposit of faith."

The wording of Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter reserving priestly ordination to men alone, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, is instructive in this regard: he says, quoting Pope Paul VI, that the Church "does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination" (emphasis added). Again, Peter Kreeft also remarks in an article entitled "Gender and the Will of God," Crisis magazine (Sept. 1993): "The Catholic Church claims less authority than any other Christian church in the world; that is why she is so conservative. Protestant churches feel free to change 'the deposit of faith' ... or of morals (e.g. by allowing divorce, though Christ forbade it), or of worship" (20).

Third, still others claim that Catholicism is circular because it bases our conviction of the Bible's inspiration on the Church's infallibility and the Church's infallibility on the word of an inspired Bible. But it does not. While it may appeal to the Church's infallible teaching in support of our conviction that Scripture is inspired, it does not have to argue for the Church's infallibility from the Bible alone. It can argue this from other sources of early Church tradition as well. Hence there is no logical circularity here.

Fourth, there is a larger sense in which circularity, as Pontificator suggests, cannot be avoided in arguing for the ultimate criterion of a system. This is what Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas meant by saying that first principles are indemonstrable. Why should one be logical? Because it would be illogical not to be! Why should one believe God's Word? Because it is the Word of God, of course! Every system is based on presuppositions that control its epistemology, argument, and use of evidence; therefore ultimate circularity is philosophically inescapable. But this does not mean that circularity is permissible in other (penultimate) sorts of arguments. "The Bible is inspired because the Bible says its inspired" is a circular argument whose circularity is not justified. It lacks cogency. A document's self-attestation is insufficient warrant for accepting its claims. The argument can gain cogency only by enlarging its circle to include also the attestation of the Church and data of sacred and secular history. By contrast, "The Bible means what the Church says it means" is not circular in this way, since the Church's interpretation is not closed off from history, but empirically testable for fidelity and coherence both against Scripture and the other traditions of the Church.

Related reading:

• Al Kimel, "Did the Church "create" the Scripture?" (Pontificator)
• Philip Blosser, comment: Did the Church "create" Scripture? (Scripture and Catholic Tradition)
• Al Kimel, "Canon to the right of them; canon to the left of them"
• Philip Blosser, comment: "The question of authority in relation to the biblical canon"
• Al Kimel, "Canon in front of them, rode the six hundred"
• Philip Blosser, comment: "Canonicity and the problem of circular reasoning."

The question of authority in relation to the biblical canon

Al Kimel, at Pontificator, offers another incisive post on the issue if canonicity, this one entitled, "Canon to the right of them; canon to the left of them." The problem of canonicity reduces to the problem of authority and, for the Protestant, the problem of a bifurcation between the authority of Scripture and that of the Church, which, in truth, should not and cannot be separated. There is little more ironic than the spectacle of evangelicals vociferously defending the infallible divine guidance of the apostles in their inscripturation of God's Word turning, a moment later in conversations with Catholics, to backpedal furiously at the suggestion that God could have extended this infallible guidance beyond the apostles' act of writing to their verbal teaching and that of their authoritatively ordained successors.

The Protestant position is self-defeating, because it rests on a presupposition that cannot be supported from Scripture or from history--namely, that the whole content of God's revealed will for the ongoing instruction of His Church was committed "wholly to writing," so that no unwritten residue of divinely inspired instruction survived from the oral teachings of Jesus and His apostles that remained binding on God's people after the NT was written. This assumption, stated more or less audaciously, is nearly ubiquitous among Protestants. But how could one claim to know this? The data of Scripture don't make this case. and the data of history and the Church Fathers weigh heavily against it. It does not even make good sense. First, if all bindingly authoritative oral instruction ceased with the death of the last apostle, and if the early churches did not have copies of all the NT books until well after that time, who spoke for the Lord Jesus and the apostles in the interim? Second, how is one to plausibly imagine the transition from the partially oral framework of authoritative instruction (OT + teachings of Jesus and apostles) to a wholly written framework (OT + NT) required by this hypothesis? Gregory Krehbiel offers a wry scenario:

One imagines all the churches dutifully obeying Paul's oral instructions on the Eucharist [1 Cor 11:34] and anxiously awaiting the publication in the Antiochian Post of the last apostle's obituary, at which point they are to rewrite their book of church order and eliminate everything based on oral instructions.

The whole idea, of course, seem ridiculous, but scarcely more so than some of the assertions commonly made in this connection

But then, in all seriousness, what is the Protestant partisan of scriptura vs. ecclesia magistra to say about those who remembered the oral instructions of the apostles--concerning, say, the Eucharistic liturgy--who perhaps even wrote down and preserved these, even though they never made it into the NT canon? The writings of the early Church are filled with extrabiblical sayings of Jesus, practices of the Christian community, liturgical and Eucharistic formulas, and so forth, which presuppose the divine origin and authority of these things. On the Catholic view, this is not a problem, since the writings of the NT are viewed as part and parcel of a larger normative tradition, not as a complete set of catechetical instructions for new believers, but as occasional writings with an "eye to the situation in the churches," often intended to correct abuses. But what is the Protestant Partisan to do with instructions and practices that claim to be apostolic but were never put in writing in the NT? Again, Krehbiel offers an imaginative scenario:

Imagine, if you will, John Calvin, Bible in hand, visiting the church of Corinth in the year 125. Calvin notices some practices in the church of which he has never read specific mention in Scripture, and he rebukes the church for "adding to God's word."

One of the presbyters approaches Calvin and says, "Have you not read in Paul's first epistle to this church, in the passage about the Lord’s Supper, 'And the rest I will set in order when I come'? (1 Cor 11:34) Dear brother, I was a young man when the apostle visited this church. These church practices you condemn came from the apostle's very lips. Are you greater than Paul? We also have in our possession Paul's letter to the church of the Thessalonians. He commands them to continue in the traditions, whether delivered by word of mouth or by epistle. (2 Thes 2:15) Are we to obey you or the apostle?" (Krehbiel, A Defense of Roman Catholic Doctrine Against Reformed Protestantism [Laurel, MD, 1992], p. 6).

The logic of apostolic authority runs seamlessly into the logic of ecclesiastical magisterial authority. Peter Kreeft (Fundamentals of the Faith, Appendix B) oversimplifies, but makes his points clearly when he says there are at least four things wrong with the Protestant position:

First, it separates Church and Scripture. But theyare one. They are not two rival horses in the authority race, but one rider (the Church) on one horse (Scripture). The Church as writer, canonizer, and interpreter of Scripture is not another source of revelation but the author and guardian and teacher of the one source, Scripture. We are not taught by a teacher without a book or by a book without a teacher, but by one teacher, the Church, with one book, Scripture.

Second, sola scriptura is self-contradictory, for it says we should believe only what Scripture teaches, but Scripture never says this! If we believe only what Scripture teaches, we will not believe sola scriptura, for Scripture does not teach sola scriptura.

Third, sola scriptura violates the principle of causality: that an effect cannot be greater than its cause. The Church (the apostles) wrote Scripture, and the successors of the apostles, the bishops of the Church, decided on the canon, the list of books to be declared scriptural and infallible. If Scriptue is infallible, then its cause, the Church, must also be infallible.

Fourth, there is the practical argument that private interpretation leads to denominationalism. Let five hundred people interpret the Bible without Church authority and there will soon be five hundred denominations. But denominationalism is an intolerable scandal by scriptural standards-see John 17:20-23 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-17.

Fifth, sola scriptura is unhistorical, for the first generation of Christians did not have the New Testament, only the Church, to teach them.

Obviously there are a couple of points that require some finessing here, but they clearly focus the issue of authority where it needs to be focussed. Is there on earth an institution that exists in licit episcopal succession from the time of Christ that directly bears the authority he deligated to his apostles? If so, the jig's up and the problems are all minor details. If not, it's each private interpretation of Scripture and tradition for itself, and we may as well all pack up our bags and go home.

For further reading:

• Philip Blosser, "Philosophical and Practical Problems with Sola Scriptura" in Robert A. Sungenis, ed., Not By Scripture Alone
• Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith
• Mark Shea, By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition

Did the Church "create" Scripture?

Al Kimel over at his exceptional Pontifications blog has a brilliant discussion of the question "Did the Church 'create' the Scripture?" I think he's done a remarkable job of covering all the major issues here in fairly short compass. The notion that Scriptures are "self-authenticating"--a notion that a commentator, Mr. Atwood reiterates--is quite commonly voiced in various Protestant, particularly Reformed, circles. I know they taught that at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia when I attended there in the seventies. Like all those other ultimately subjectivist criteria (the "inner promptings of the Holy Spirit," "what preaches Christ," etc.), it ends up functioning as a wax nose that can be turned in nearly any direction the interpreter desires. Luther would have left out Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation, which Luther classified in the first edition of his Deutche Bibel (pictured left) as non-canonical books, along with the Deuterocanonicals. Most Protestants today would be rightly scandalized by a Bible that omitted Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. The one thing you didn't address is the bizarre fact that most Protestants do, however, omit the Deuterocanonical books without batting an eye. I say "bizarre" because they typically cite St. Athanasius' Easter encyclical of AD 367 as the first public record of the complete list of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament--as does the popular evangelical textbook by Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough, Encountering the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), p. 27--without batting an eye, either ignoring or ignorant of the fact that the same Athanasian list includes all of the Deuterocanonicals as well. It does them no help to cite the canon of ecclesiastical consensus at this point, because the consensus clearly recognized the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture. Greek was the lingua franca of the New Testament ethos, and the "Scripture" to which St. Paul referred in II Tim. 3:16 as "inspired," and the "Scripture" to which other NT writers quoted and cited in their epistles and gospels was for all practical purposes the Septuagint (LXX), which included the Deuterocanonicals. I think it's the Nestle-Alland edition of the Greek NT that contains the appendix listing the multitude of allusions in the NT to the Deuterocanonical books (worth checking out). Also every listing of the canonical books of the Bible in the Council of Rome (AD 382), Council of Carthage (AD 397), St. Innocent (405), and Council of Trent (AD 1546) includes all of the Deuterocanonicals, even though they are called by slightly different names (Link). This fact alone says something about how the process of canonization occurred and where the authority lies. To me it's a safe truth that when the Apostle John declared that the "Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth" (John 14:6), he did not mean by "you" every Tom, Dick, or Harry who with his CD-ROM concordance at hand sets out to interpret the Bible by his own best lights (we have over 300 major denominatinal factions to attest to that: the Holy Spirit is not the author of confusion).

Papal Primacy and the Photian Schism of 879-880

Perry Robinson responds to my post, "Eastern Orthodoxy's Witness to the Primacy of Rome in the Acacian Schism of 484-519" (on my Scripture and Catholic Tradition blog) as follows:

This is rather laughable. Producing proof texts is not an argument. Moreover, what needs to show is that such terms as "Apostolic See" "Chief" etc. exclude the Orthodox interpretation of those passages and single out the Catholic interpretation. But of course this would require an understanding and demonstration of Orthodox ecclesiology. Since this has not been done the citations hardly count as a demonstration. Orthodox ecclesiology is quite comfortable with the facts of history as they are and seeing Rome at the time when it held to the true faith, more out of ignorance than knowledge, as chief bishop hardly counts against the Orthodox position. It certainly doesn't count against the Orthodox position to note that the bishop of Rome called his brother bishops to account when they fell under the pressue of the empire and they returned the favor on occasion.

When someone responds with an ad hominem or otherwise dismissive remark as our friend Robinson does above, one suspects that a nerve has been touched somewhere. It goes without saying that producing proof texts is not an argument, but this sidesteps the issue of what I was in fact doing: offering data, evidence--evidence from Church history (Eastern as well as Western) of the abundant witness to Papal primacy and supremacy in the centuries substantially ante-dating the Great Schism of 1054, and even the Photian Schism of 879-880, which was its first harbinger and bellwether. Sometimes arguments really shouldn't be necessary, as when data may suffice for argument. Hence, the "Q.E.D." remark at the end of my January 19 post.

Of course our Eastern Orthodox (or, as I think more accurately describes them, our Anti-Western Orthodox) friends will parry with obfuscating remarks about the difference between Orthodox and Catholic interpretations, as does Robinson. To raise the question of interpretation may seem fair enough. Yet there are some facts that are simply too large to be reasonably parried by alternative interpretations, and the Acacian Schism of 484-519 is clearly one of these. It is not so much a case of what the Pope wrote (in his Formula) on that occasion, as it is a case of what he did. He issued an ultimatum forcing the dissident and schismatic Eastern bishops to submit and sign his Formula on the dotted line, signifying their submission. This was hardly mere moral suasion: it was an exercise of juridical authority. It was the bishop of Rome acting as universal bishop and shepherd of the Church, which is the job description of the pope. What part of that, I wonder, is not clear?

I have been struck for some time by the singular absence of comment from the Anti-Western Orthodox quarter on historical data of this ineluctable kind. In my first post on the Anti-Western Orthodox question, I offered several examples of testimony to Papal Primacy in the ancient Church. There are many others, of course, but I singled out Pope St. Boniface (d. 422), Pope St. Leo the Great (d. 461), Pope St. Gelasius (d. 496), Pope St. Agatho (d. 681), and St. Maximus the Confessor (d. 622) (pictured right) to offer a cross-section of the unanimous assumption of Roman supremacy that exists in the historical record of Sacred Tradition. But rather than address these directly, as I pointed out, our Anti-Western Orthodox friends turned to various arcane theological considerations, claiming that these are the root of the problem with the "Western interpretation" of Papal Primacy. However, their speculative arcana are far from clear or cogent; and, more importantly, they are a way of ignoring the blatant historical fact that the early Church (East and West) accepted universal Papal jurisdiction from the beginning right up to the time of the Photian Schism of the ninth century. The events surrounding the Acacian Schism of 484-519 offer just one clear and dramatic example of this.

Robinson admits that during the Acacian Schism, "the bishop of Rome called his brother bishops to account when they fell under the pressure of the empire," but he seems intent on viewing the incident as an isolated case, as evidenced by his remark that the Pope's brother bishops in the East "returned the favor on occasion." Robinson's references to the Pope as the "bishop of Rome" and to his "brother bishops" also underscores his commitment to the contemporary Anti-Western Orthodox view that the "Primacy of Honor" they accord to the pope in fact means nothing, and that the pope has no more authority than any of the autonomous (autocephalos, "self-heading") Anti-Western Orthodox bishops.

But the significant fact is that the pattern of Roman authority and jurisdiction exercised in the Acacian Schism is not exceptional, but the constant underlying ecclesiastical presupposition throughout those early centuries of the united Church of the first seven Ecumenical Councils when Robinson would have to concede that Rome "held the true faith." What part of the words of St. Maximus (d. 622) do our Anti-Western Orthodox friends not understand, when he says that all the churches in the world have from the time of Christ had the Petrine See of Rome "as their base and foundation"; or the warning of Pope Boniface (d. 422) that "whoever separates himself from [Rome] becomes an exile from the Christian religion"; or the assertion of Pope Leo the Great (d. 461) that those entrusted with the care of the Church "have not an equal jurisdiction" but "pre-eminence over the rest was given to one," namely the "See of Peter, and nothing anywhere [may] disagree with its head"; or the declaration of Pope Gelasius (d. 496) that "no one is permitted to appeal against [Rome's] judgment"; or the declaration of Pope Agatho (d. 681) that Rome's authority "has always been faithfully followed and embraced as that of the Prince of the Apostles by the whole Church"? (See my original post, "Petrine jurisdiction exercised in the ancient Church.")

Robinson insists, as the Anti-Western Orthodox are wont to do, that the onus is on Catholics to show that such terms as "Apostolic See" exclude the Orthodox interpretation of them and signify what the Catholic Church understands by them. In the first place, this strikes me as the moral equivalent of asking someone to prove that the world is more than five minutes old and did not suddenly come into being five minutes ago with all the appearance it now has of age. Whatever facts one may adduce will be precluded from counting as counter-evidence from the outset. Of course, there is something counter-intuitive about questioning the ordinary deliverances of reason and expecting anyone to assume the onus of proving the veracity of his ordinary experience. I would ask if it makes any more sense to question the deliverances of historical research and ask Catholics to assume the onus of proving the veracity of the Church's traditional understanding. In the second place, why shouldn't the onus be on those who question the obvious? Given the massive witness of Sacred Tradition, Robinson's insistence that the onus is on Catholics to show that such terms as "Apostolic See" exclude the Orthodox interpretation of those passages and signify the Catholic interpretation seems to put the shoe on the wrong foot. Without intending any malice, it reminds me of Bill Clinton's cavil (when, under examination about Lewinski, he declared): "It depends upon what the meaning of 'is' is." How much "interpretation" does "is" require?

Robinson says

Orthodox ecclesiology is quite comfortable with the facts of history as they are and seeing Rome at the time when it held to the true faith, more out of ignorance than knowledge, as chief bishop hardly counts against the Orthodox position."

This reminds me of the myriad Protestant Fundamentalists who declare themselves "quite comfortable with the facts of history" even though they insist that by the time of Constantine the Church had massively apostatized, only to recover its footing in the sixteenth-century. If asked about the Church's later Nicean formulation against Arius or defense of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, their response would be that even a blind hog in a pigsty can occasionally stumble onto an acorn. Robinson expansively concedes the fact that in the Acacian Schism "the bishop of Rome called his brother bishops to account when they fell under the pressure of the empire," but implies that this doesn't count against the Anti-Western Orthodox rejection of Rome's authority, since they "returned the favor on occasion." What the Fundamentalist and Anti-Western Orthodox share in common is the reservation to themselves of the authority to decide when it was that Rome "held to the true faith." By what standard? The Fundamentalist would say Scripture. The Anti-Western Orthodox would say Tradition. But each interprets his canon selectively, in light of his own independent heuristic tradition; and both ignore the singular fact that both Scripture and Tradition, as understood by the Sacred Tradition that includes both, testify massively to Petrine Primacy. On the question of Petrine authority, this reveals Anti-Western Orthodoxy to be as out-of-touch with Sacred Tradition as Protestant Fundamentalism.

The basic fact of the Acacian Schism is that the Pope (Pope St. Hormisdas, pictured left) exercised his jurisdiction over the whole Church in calling the schismatic Eastern bishops back to submission, compelling them by the power of his authority to sign his Formula on the dotted line. There is no wiggle-room for quibbling about interpretations of words when the bold outline of his decisive act speaks so loudly and clearly: actions do speak louder than words. The rest is quibbling over secondary and tertiary details. And these details, of course, are the perennial focus of our Anti-Western Orthodox brethren, who wish to divert our attention, as well as their own, from the clear facts in question.

Accordingly, Robinson brings up the Fifth Ecumenical Council, which, he says, "makes clear that each one of the Patriarchates just as with the Apostles were sufficient to their task by their own office," and quotes the passage that includes the words, "... so that no one of [the Apostles] needed the counsel of another in the execution of his work." But how are we meant to infer from this that the prerogatives of the Petrine office amply attested both in Scripture (e.g., Mt. 16:18-19, Gal. 1:18, 2:1-2) and in Tradition (e.g., Clement I, Irenaeus, Julius, Boniface, Basil, Gregory Nazianzus, Ephrem, Leo I, Gelasius, Stephen of Dora, Agatho, Hormisdas, Maximus, Chrysostom, Theodore) are of no account, or reduced to some etiolated "primacy of honor" with no real authority, much as seen in the Queen of England? Why should anyone think this?

He also notes the moot point that the Fourth Council of Constantinople of 869 and the Council of Florence of 1439 (the Eighth and Seventeenth Ecumenical Councils) are not recognized by the Anti-Western Orthodox churches. Further, he notes that the Fourth Council of Constantinople was rejected by another Photian council in 879-880 (rejected as a "pseudo-synod" by the Catholic Church). Robinson says that this Photian council "had the assent of all sides, including Pope John VIII," that "it was not only upheld by Rome but also forbade the inclusion of the Filioque," and that he does not see how Catholics by their own theological position "can admit that the council of 869 is a legitimate and general council since it was overturned by the Church whole and entire, including the Pope." Robinson refers here to a discussion by Fr. George Dion. Dragas ("The Eighth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople IV (879/880) and the Condemnation of the Filioque Addition and Doctrine" (which originally appeared in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Vol. 44, Nos. 1-4, 1999, pp. 357-369), who offers an Anti-Western Orthodox panegyric lauding Photius's revolt against Rome.

There is a good deal that neither Robinson nor Fr. Dragas tells us here--not least, the fact that as soon as Photius sent the Acts of his council to Rome for the Pope's ratification, Pope John VIII (872-82) (pictured left) instead responded by excommunicating him, solemnly condemning him in 881, and permanently reinstating the ban on him in 882. Dragas has extensive notes on the decrees by which John VIII struck down the earlier censures of Photius by the synod of 869. He includes the detailed texts of John VIII rescinding the earlier decrees of the earlier synod. Dragas writes:

I have included these texts here because I repeatedly encounter comments in the works of Western scholars, especially Roman Catholics, who offer confusing and even disputed information about the unanimous Eastern and Western condemnation of the anti-Photian Council of 869-870. (Dragas, n. 7.)

But Dragas says nothing about the false pretenses under which Photius convened his council of 879-880 and petitioned Pope John VIII to send legates; and he is altogether mute about John VIII's refusal to confirm the Acts of the Photian council and excommunication of Photius after his discovery of Photius's true intentions in the council of 879-880. How Dragas (or Robinson) can continue to celebrate the "unanimous Eastern and Western condemnation of the anti-Photian Council of 869-870" as though it had any canonical standing under Roman canon law is anybody's guess. The fact that Rome later called the Photian council "Conciliabrulum Oecumenicum Pseudooctavum" is hardly an acknowledgement of its canonical legitimacy, as Dragas seems to imply. What part of "Pseudo" is not clear in "Pseudooctavum"? My hunch is that such misinformation stems from the incestuous reliance of Anti-Western Orthodox writers exclusively on schalarship slanted to their cause, in this case, even reliance upon the otherwise excellent pioneering work of Francis Dvornic, which is highly problematic in certain respects, as well as those who have relied on his tendentious assumptions (such as Meijer, Phidas, Siamakis, etc.).

Photius was truly one of the most remarkable characters in all Church history; but he was also the chief architect of the great Eastern Schism. The Anti-Western Orthodox regard him rightly as the greatest historical champion of their cause against Rome. They went so far as to canonize him, and on Feb. 6th, when they observe his feast, their office overflows with his praise. He is the "far-shining radiant star of the church," the "most inspired guide of the Orthodox," "thrice blessed speaker of God," "wise and divine glory of the hierarchy, who broke the horns of Roman pride" ("Menologion" for Feb. 6, ed. Maltzew, I, pp. 916ff.).

There is far more to Photius than meets the eye in Anti-Western Orthodox accounts of him, however, and those who have not appraised themselves of "the rest of the story" would do well to investigate it for themselves. Certainly no well-informed Christian can help remembering Photius with mixed feelings. While it is true that there is no shadow of suspicion against his private life, he is also well-known for his insatiable and unscrupulous ambition--hardly qualities one typically finds in a saint--which more than anything else was responsible for the greatest schism in Church history. And schism, it will be recalled, was regarded by the Church Fathers as a sin worse than homicide. The conclusion of a detailed entry on "Photius of Constantinople" in the Catholic Encyclopedia reads as follows:

... His insatiable ambition, his determination to obtain and keep the patriarchal see, led him to the extreme of dishonesty. His claim was worthless. That Ignatius was the rightful patriarch as long as he lived, and Photius an intruder, cannot be denied by any one who does not conceive the Church as merely the slave of a civil government. And to keep this place Photius descended to the lowest depth of deceit. At the very time he was protesting his obedience to the Pope he was dictating to the emperor insolent letters that denied all papal jurisdiction. He misrepresented the story of Ignatius's deposition with unblushing lies, and he at least connived at Ignatius's ill-treatment in banishment. He proclaimed openly his entire subservience to the State in the whole question of his intrusion. He stops at nothing in his war against the Latins. He heaps up accusations against them that he must have known were lies. His effrontery on occasions is almost incredible. For instance, as one more grievance against Rome, he never tires of inveighing against the fact that Pope Marinus I (882-84) [pictured left], John VIII's successor, was translated from another see, instead of being ordained from the Roman clergy. He describes this as an atrocious breach of canon law, quoting against it the first and second canons of Sardica; and at the same time he himself continually transferred bishops in his patriarchate.

The whole Photian Council was an exercise in colossal bamboozlement, an art honed to masterful perfection in the Byzantine Photius. Photius rose to prominence when the Partiarch of Constantinople, Ignatius (846-57), was deposed and banished by Emperor Michael III (842-67) in 857 for refusing communion to Bardas, a chief State official, for having incestuous relations with his daughter-in-law, and the more pliant Photius was intruded into his place. Photius was hurried through Holy Orders in six days. On Christmas Day, 857, Gregory Asbestas of Syracuse, a bishop who had been excommunicated for insubordination, illicitly ordained Photius patriarch. The emperor tried in vain to make Ignatius resign his See. Photius also did all he could to get the Pope to ratify their expulsion of Ignatius, the legitimate occupant of the Partriarchal See. The emperor sought to obtain from Pope Nicholas I (858-67) recognition of Photius by a letter grossly misrepresenting the facts and requesting legates to be sent to settle the issue in a synod. The Pope sent two legates, Rodoald of Porto and Zachary of Anagni, with cautious instructions to hear both sides and report back to him. The synod occurred in St. Sophia's in May, 861. The legates were bribed, agreed to Ignatius's deposition and Photius's succession, and returned to Rome with letters for the Pope. The emperor's Secretary of State, Leo, followed the legates to Rome with further assurances and letters, in which both the emperor and Photius emphatically acknowledged Papal Primacy and categorically (and conveniently!) invoke the Pope's jurisdiction to confirm what has happened.

Meanwhile Ignatius, in exile, sent his friend the Archimandrite Theognostus to Rome in 862 with an urgent letter setting forth his own case. Nicholas, having heard both sides, decided for Ignatius and answered the letters from Emperor Michael III and Photius by insisting that Ignatius must be restored and the usurpation of his See must cease. Rome never wavered from this position, and this is what set the stage for the Photian schism. In 863 the Pope held a synod at the Lateran in which the two legates were tried and excommunicated. Nicholas's decision reinstating Ignatius as lawful Patriarch of Constantinople was reiterated. Photius was to be excommunicated unless he relinquished his usurpation at once.

However, instead of obeying the Pope, to whom he had just appealed, Photius resolved, with the emperor's backing, to deny Rome's authority altogether. Ignatius was not restored to his See, but kept in prison, and the Pope's letters were kept from publication. Photius collaborated with the emperor in notifying Rome that the Eastern Patriarchs were in support of Photius, in questioning the propriety of the Pope's excommunication of the legates, and threatening Rome with imperial military action unless the Pope altered his decision and gave his support to Photius. In 867, Photius went on the offensive by declaring his excommunication of the Pope and the Western churches. The pretexts given were that the Latin churches (1) fast on Saturday, (2) do not begin Lent until Ash Wednesday, (3) do not allow priest to marry, (4) do not allow priests to administer confirmation, and (5) have added the filioque clause to the creed (indeed, Photius's discovery of utility of the filioque grievance as a political weapon vastly disproportionate to its theological value seems to have been original with him). For these reasons, Photius's encyclical declared, the Latins are "forerunners of apostasy, servants of Antichrist who deserve a thousand deaths, liars, fighters against God."

Later in the same year (867), Emperor Michael III was murdered, and Basil I (867-86) succeeded him. Photius was ejected from the patriarchate, and Ignatius restored. Pope Adrian (867-72), who succeeded Nicholas, answered Ignatius's appeal for legates to attend a synod designed to examine the whole matter. The legates arrived in Constantinople in September of 869, and in October the synod was convened, which Catholics recognize as the Eighth Ecumenical Council (the Fourth Council of Constantinople). This council tried Photius, confirmed his deposition, and, since he refused to renounce his claim, excommunicated him. He was banished to a monastery at Stenos on the Bosphorus, where he spent seven years, writing letters to supporters, organizing his party, and biding his time for another chance. Photius ingratiated himself with the emperor, who recalled him in 876 to the court. He feigned reconciliation with Ignatius and ingratiated himself within the Patriarch's circle to such an extent that when Ignatius died, a strong party demanded that Photius should succeed him. An imperial embassy was sent to Rome to explain that everyone at Constantinople wanted Photius to be patriarch. Pope John VIII, wishing to avoid provoking yet another conflict with Constantinople, agreed, absolved Photius from all censure, and acknowledged him as partriarch. A more fateful judgment cannot be imagined.

By 878 Photius had achieved lawfully the patriarchate that he had formerly usurped. Rome acknowledged him as Patriarch of Constantinople and restored him to her communion. There was no possible legitimate reason now for a fresh quarrel. But Photius used his new position to re-open his personal long-festering political vendetta against Rome. Accordingly, he applied to Rome for legates to come to another synod. There was no legitimate reason for a synod, but he persuaded Pope John VIII that it would clear up the last remains of the earlier schism, and bring healing and restore solidarity between East and West. His real motive, in cannot be doubted, was to undo the effect of the Eighth Ecumenical Council of 869 that had deposed him. The Pope sent three legates, Cardinal Peter of St. Chysogonus, Paul, Bishop of Ancona, and Eugene, Bishop of Ostia. The synod was opened in St. Sophia's in November of 879. This is the the council that has come to be known to Catholics as the Pseudosynodus Photiana (Photian Pseudo-Synod) or Conciliabulum Oecumenicum Pseudooctavum (Pseudo-Eighth Ecumenical Council) which the Anti-Western Orthodox count as the Eighth Ecumnical Council.

Photius had his own way throughout the council. He altered the letters sent to him, to the Emperor Basil, and to the Byzantine Church by Pope John VIII, which were read at the Council of 879-80 convoked to clear his name (Francis Dvornik attests to this in Byzantium and the Roman Primacy. Photius revoked the acts of the former synod (of 869), repeated all his accusations against the Western churches, focusing especially on the filioque grievance, anathematized all who added anything to the creed, and claimed Bulgaria as part of the Byzantine Pariarchate. Given such data, it is a testament to the insular narrowness of Anti-Western Orthodox scholarship that Dragas could offer so naïve a description of Photius as this:

... the image of St. Photios [Photius] that emerges from the acts of the Eighth Ecumenical Council is one of moderation, sensitivity and maturity. Confrontation is avaoided but without compromising firmness in matters that relate to the faith. Generosity towards others is displayed and maturity permeates everyting.

Photius had rigged his council. He had garnered John VIII's support under the false pretense that he meant to heal the remains of the earlier schism by restoring Eastern dissenters to the one true fold of Rome. But the fact that there was a great majority for all of Photius's defiant measures in the synod shows the extent to which he had prepared for the synod by building up his Anti-Western party in the East. The legates, like their predecessors in 861, agreed to everything the majority desired, pending the ratification of the Pope. As soon as they had returned to Rome, Photius sent the Acts to the Pope for his confirmation. Instead, however, Pope John VIII naturally again excommunicated him, solemnly condemning him in 881 and reinstating the ban against him in 882. The successor of John VIII, Pope Marinus I (882-884), who had presided over the Fourth Council of Constantinople in 869 as one of the legates of Adrian II, vigorously renewed John VIII's condemnation of Photius, rescinding the Acts of the Photian Council of 879 and formally reinstating the Fourth Council of Constantinople of 869 as the official Eighth Ecumenical Council of the Church. [See note below concerning these details, which are contested.] So the Photian Schism broke out in full force for several years until the death of Emperor Basil I in 886. In light of these details, Dragas' declaration that Photian Council of 879-880 "is indeed the Eighth Ecumenical of the Catholic Church, Eastern and Western and Orthodox," that it is "a Council of Unity," carries little credibility, let alone intelligibility.

Emperor Basil was succeeded by his son, Leo VI (886-912), who intensely disliked Photius, accused him of treason and embezzlement of public money, and immediately deposed him and banished him. Photius's place as patriarch was then taken by Leo's younger brother, Stephen (886-93). Stephen's intrusion was no less a violation of canon law than that of Photius in 857, so Rome refused to recognize him. It was only under his successor Antony II (893-95) that a synod restored reunion for a century and a half, until the time of Michael Cerularius (1045-58). At this point, Photius disappears from history. Not even the Armenian monastery in which he spent his last years is certainly known, although historical research shows that Photius (despite his liturgical and doctrinal quarrels with the Latin Franks in Bulgaria) died in communion with the Holy See (see James Likoudis, "History of the Byzantine Greco-Slav Schism: Basic Facts and Events Giving Rise to the Eastern Orthodox Churches"). The date of his death is generally given as February 6, 897.

But Photius had left a large and influential anti-Roman party, eager to repudiate the Pope's primacy and embrace schism. It was this party, to which Cerularius belonged, which triumphed in Constantinople, so that Photius is rightly considered the architect of the the Great Schism--or as I prefer to call it, the Anti-Western Orthodox Schism--which still endures. A proud and obstinate Cerelarius was excommunicated by Rome in 1054, along with all the Eastern churches that followed him into Anti-Western schism. But the greatest credit for this fatal breach in Christendom must go to the brilliant and scheming Photius, who broke faith with Sacred Tradition by denying Peter in the office of his successors by means of his proud and obstinate "non serviam!"

Note:

The ecumenical status of the Fourth Council of Constantinople of 869-870 has long been contested by the Anti-Western Orthodox. During the ecumenically-charged milieu leading up to and following the Second Vatican Council, many Roman Catholic scholars and ecumenists, eager to mend relations with their Eastern Orthodox brethren, have been back-pedaling and down-playing their former criticisms of Photius, amending and revising their accounts of the Photian Schism. In this process, some further details have been brought to light, but in some instances earlier details have been obfiscated and covered over. One of the most prominent Catholic scholars during this period has been Francis Dvornik (or Dvornic), whose books, The Photian Schism: History and Legend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948; rpt. 1970) and Byzantium and the Roman Primacy (New York: Fordham University Press, 1966; rpt. 1979) have been viewed by Anti-Western Orthodox scholars as having come a significant way towards accommodating some of their interpretations. To their delight, Dvornik accepts, for example, their claim that the belief that the successors of John VIII--Marinus I, Stephen V, and Formosus--had broken with Photius is a legendary invention. It must be conceded, in fact, that Photius did die in communion with Rome. Dvornik's claim that Photius never actually questioned Roman primacy seems well-attested. However, the notion that the ecumenical status of the Fourth Council of Constantinople in 869-870 is fundamentally compromised by the acts of the Photian Council of 879-880 cannot be seriously maintained. First, the matter is ultimately a question of authority, and whether the matter was immediately settled in the ninth century or not is in the final analysis irrelevant. Second, the Council claimed for itself an ecumenical status by calling itself the universalis octava synodus; and it had at least the necessary geographical characteristics because of the authority of all the heads of the Church who were either present or represented.

Was it recognized as ecumenical by the Holy See? Three facts are certain and incontestable. First, Adrian II had already approved it in his letter of Nov. 10, 871, as well as in his letter to the faithful of Salerno and Amalfi in 875; and John VIII called it sancta octava synodus, thereby formally recognizing its ecumenical status. Second, the Council has been listed among the ecumenical councils recognized by the Roman Catholic Church since the beginning of the 12th century. Third, the Byzantine Church itself accepted the Council as ecumenical until the Photian Synod of 879-880, which is thought to have abrogated its Acts; and those portions of the Byzantine Church that reunited with Rome since that time have considered it as ecumenical.

The crux of debate is reducible to the question whether Pope John VIII, by means of his supreme power of binding and loosing, actually annulled the acts of the Council of 869-870, thus depriving it of ecumenical status. This is of course what is claimed by Anti-Western Orthodox scholars, who have a curious (if convenient) interest at this point in the Roman primacy of John VIII. The answer is affirmative if the Greek text of the last two sessions of the Photian Synod are considered authentic, which may be doubted, not least because of Photius's history of altering the letters sent to him, to the Emperor Basil, and to the Byzantine Church by Pope John VIII, before having them read at the Photian Synod of 879-880. The answer is negative if takes into consideration other documents, such as the letter of Pope Stephen V to Emperor Basil I in 885-886. This letter states, in fact, that 20 years after the Fourth Council of Constantinople (869-870), Photius was still trying to have it annulled, a step that would be inexplicable if prior to this time John VIII had already taken the initiative in this matter.

While ecumenically-minded scholars such as Dvornik have written irenically in support of the thesis of abrogation by John VIII, others such as Venance Grumel and Martin Jugie have defended the thesis of non-abrogation and ecumenicity of the Fourth Council of Constantinople (869-870) as the Eighth Ecumenical Council of the Church. Ultimately, however, the issue is one of ecclesiastical authority, in testimony of which stands the record of decrees of the Holy See.

Eastern Orthodoxy's Witness to Papal Primacy: The Acacian Schism of 484-519

Pope John Paul II has referred to the Eastern Orthodox churches collectively as the "other lung" of the univeral Church. Rome permits Catholics in areas of the world where there are no Catholic churches to receive the Sacraments in these Eastern churches, thus recognizing their validity. The Divine Liturgy of these churches is widely recognized and appreciated by Western Catholics for its sublime beauty, depth, and antiquity (even though perhaps not quite as ancient as the Roman Canon of the traditional Latin Rite). Eastern Orthodox churches have preserved and passed down the Apostolic Faith virtually intact in their communities. They have preserved traditions of mystical and ascetical theology that are the admiration of all those acquainted with them. Furthermore, when it comes to accounting for Church history, Eastern Orthodox Christians have their just share of complaints about the scandalous behavior of certain Roman Legates towards them in times past, as well as about the corrosive inroads of the Western Enlightenment and its abominable fruit of desacralization and secularization among Catholics in the West.

All too often, however, Eastern Orthodox Christians have projected these just complaints into blanket dismissals of everything Western, so that their identity seems more dependent on a negative "anti-Westernism" than on whatever may be positively "Eastern." Furthermore, contemporary developments in the world suggest that it is not only Western Catholics who must face up to the massive challenges of social secularization and the inroads of modernity and postmodernity into their communities. The era of the ethnic religious 'ghetto' is quickly evaporating, whatever security its insularity may have provided. More seriously, the just historical complaints of the Orthodox have led, despite protestations to the contrary, to an effective dismissal of Roman Primacy in any sense whatsoever. Even the occasional lip service to a "primacy of honor" is eviscerated of significance by what most of our Eastern Orthodox brethren actually say and do. At this point, these brethren will find themselves, if they can bring themselves to look, in position of "rupture" from their own Eastern Orthodox tradition. Moreover, as I hope to show, their own tradition offers ample witness to Papal Primacy in a sense that far surpasses the etiolated notion of a "Primacy of Honor."

One good example of the Eastern Orthodox witness to Papal Primacy if found in what I shall call the Acacian Schism of 484-519. This schism began in AD 484 when Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople (pictured left) warmly espoused the Emperor Zeno's politically-motivated meddling in theology. Zeno, the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (474-91), composed a script entitled Henotikon (Unification), to win over the Egyptian and Syrian monophysites, by condemning the definitions of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon about the unity of the divine and human natures in the second Person of the Holy Trinity, while exonerating the heretics Nestorius and Eutyches whom Chalcedon condemned. At first nearly all of the Eastern bishops hastened to subscribe to the Emperor's script--a pattern repeated with great frequency in Byzantium.

By the time of the Acacian Schism of 484-519, the bishops of Rome in the West had not only braved a long list of pagan Roman Emperors but also learned to cope with continual meedling by Christian Emperors in Constantinople in the affairs of the Church. These Byzantine emperors, emboldened by their frequent success in cowing into submission the bishops, archbishops and patriarchs of Constantinople, attempted to do the same with the bishops of Rome, some of whom they sent into exile, such as Martin I, who died in exile.

When Pope St. Felix II (483-492) (pictured right) caught wind of Zeno's Henotikon, he promptly protested. But his protest was in vain, as Acaius ordered the names of popes to be struck from the diptychs. In Constantinople, only a group of monks called Acoemetae) (Greek: "Akoimetai" from privative a and koiman, to rest; meaning "those who hardly slept") held fast to communion with Rome. Outside of Constantinople, bishops insistent on orthodoxy and unity eventually called upon a later bishop of Rome, Pope St. Symmachus (498-514) (pictured left), requesting communion with Blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and assuring him that they would "obey the decision of the Apostolic See." Early in the pontificate of the next pope, Pope St. Hormisdas (514-523), Metropolitan John of Nicopolis and his subordinates begged the pope to restore them to communion with Rome and pleaded their fidelity to Chalcedon.

It is in the response of Pope Hormisdas (pictured left) to the Eastern schismatics and in the transactions between Rome and Constantinople which followed, that the meaning of Petrine Primacy to both East and West becomes ineluctably clear. Pope Hormisdas exercised his primacy and supremacy by decisively putting an end to the long-standing schism. He composed his Libellus, which is better remembered as the Formula of Hormisdas, and sent it to Nicoplolis (the See of Metropolitan John who had called on his help) as well as to Constantinople. No less important than what Pope Hormisdas wrote (which we shall examine mementarily) is what he did. His action was decisive: he demanded that the Eastern bishops and emperor sign the document, signifying their assent to its content and submission to his authority.

The emperor at the time (518), Anastasius I, resisted. But his successor, Justin I, yielded to Rome, garnering for himself the exceptional legacy of being a great champion of Orthodoxy among the Eastern emperors and producing a domino effect in the Eastern Episcopate. This led to the singular event that brought to an end the Acacian Schism of 484-519: two hundred Eastern bishops were summoned to Constantinople and, in complicity to the demand of Pope Hormisdas, made to sign the document that has come to be known to posterity as the Formula of Hormisdas.

The most substantial first part of the Formula offers a review of the acts of the perpetrators of the schism, with references also to three earlier instances of heresy that the bishops of Rome duly condemned. The Pope also refers to his papal predecessors' references to themselves as the successors of Peter and to the powers conferred on them by Christ at the founding of His Church. In fact, the Formula begins with an emphatic reference to that act of Christ (Matthew 16:18). Throughout the first part, Pope Hormisdas uses the plural "We" to convey his identification of his own authority with that of his predecessors, who did not refrain from imposing doctrine and discipline on other bishops, whether from East or West. In the quotations from the Formula that follow, these key passages will be presented in Italics just as they are in Adrian Fortescue's The Orthodox Eastern Church (1907, 1925; rpt. New York: B. Franklin, 1969--used copies available).

In the first part of the Formula, those to whom it is addressed are asked to consider the consequences and to individually sign the Formula, which spells out what each of them must hold de fide. At this point, therefore, there is a significant shift from the first person plural ("We") to the first person singular ("I"). No leeway is granted to those called upon to sign the Formula to change anything in it, or to interpret it in any other way than unconditional adherence to the See of Rome:

"The first [condition of] salvation is to keep the rule of the true faith and in no way to forsake the laws of the Fathers. And the worlds of our Lord Jesus Christ: Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my church, cannot be passed over; they are proved by the facts, because in the Apostolic See the Catholic Religion is always kept immaculate."

So that there can be no doubt about what is being enacted in the signing of the document, the Formula asks its signatories to condemn all those whom the Roman See has condemned:

"We then, wishing by no means to be parted from that hope and faith, following also in everything the laws of the Fathers, anathematize all heresies, especially the heretic Nestorius, sometime Bishop of the City of Constantinople, who was condemned at the Council of Ephesus by the blessed Celestine, pope of the City of Rome, and by Cyril, bishop of the City of Alexandria. We also anathematize both Eutyches and Dioscorus of Alexandria, condemned by the holy Synod of Chalcedon, which we follow and embrace and which We likewise condemn and anathematize Acacius, some time Bishop of Constantinople, who was condemned by the Apostolic See.... Further, we condemn Peter of Antioch [see Epiphanius of Constantinople] with all his followers and followers of all the above-mentioned."

The signatories are then asked to profess their adherence to the Tome of Pope St. Leo the Great (pictured below right) and to personally and individually promise fidelity to Pope Hormisdas and his successors (note the way in which the wording changes to first person singular ["I"] as it comes to the signing of the Formula following the first sentence below):

"We receive and approve all the letters of the blessed Pope Leo, which he wrote about the Christian religion; and, as we have said, we follow the Apostolic See in everything and teach all its laws. Therefore, I hope that I may deserve to be with you in that one Communion taught by the Apostolic See, in which Communion is the whole, real and perfect solidity of the Christian Religion. And I promise that in the future I will not say in the holy Mysteries the names of those who are banished from the Communion of the Catholic Church, that is, who do not agree with the Apostolic See. And if in any way I ever attempt to depart from this my profession, I acknowledge that by my own sentence I shall be an accomplice of those whom I have condemned. This my profession I sign with my own hand and address to you, Hormisdas, the holy and venerable Pope of the City of Rome."

The Papal Legates who presided over the convocation of the two hundred bishops in Constantinople allowed no room for discussion of the Formula. When a number of bishops from Thessaly wanted to changes some words, the Legates replied:

"It is not in your power to do this; if you will sign, thank God; if you will not, we have come and greeted you, we will now walk away."

Patriarchs Epiphanius (520-536) and Mennas (536-552) signed the Formula, as well as Emperor Justinian (527-565), who was responsible for initiating the Byzantine period by institutionalizing anti-Roman sentiments in Constantinople. The Formula was also signed by the bishops at the Fourth Council of Constantinople (Eighth Ecumenical Council) in 869. It formed an integral part of the declarations of the two reunion Councils, the second Council of Lyons (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439). Finally, it played a central role in the deliberations that led in the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) to the definition of papal infallibility.

... Quot erat demonstrandum.

Sources:

• Adrian Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church (1907, 1925; rpt. New York: B. Franklin, 1969--used copies available)
• Stanley L. Jaki, Eastern Orthodoxy's Witness to Papal Primacy (2004) (Real View Books, 1436 Devonshire Lane, Port Huron, MI: 48060)
• Kenneth D. Whitehead, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic: The Early Church Was the Catholic Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000)
• The Formula of Pope St. Hormisdas (online)
• Further resources on the Eastern Schism