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Popular religion and christological controversy in the fifth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

W. H. C. Frend*
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow

Extract

How far does the great religious controversy of the fifth century centred on the mystery of the Incarnation reflect popular religious ideas of the east Roman world? It is well known that factors that had little to do with theological speculation, such as the rivalry for prestige and leadership between Constantinople and Alexandria, played a large part in bringing the controversy between rival concepts of christology to their climax in the twenty years that separate the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. More discussion, perhaps, is needed concerning the contribution of articulate public opinion to the course of events, and in particular, to the persistence of the opposition to the Chalcedonian definition after 451.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1972

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References

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page no 20 note 2 Such as Count Terentius, to whom Basil wrote one of his most interesting letters on the Trinity, Ep 214, ed R. J. de Ferrari (London, Loeb ed, 1930).

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page no 22 note 1 Grillmeier suggests the period 429/30 (i.e. during the interchanges with Nestorius) as that in which the apollinarian formulas find their way into Cyril’s theological language: Christ in Christian Tradition, p 400.

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page no 22 note 3 Ep 1S2,PG,LXXXIII (1864) col 1441, compare Epp 153,154 and in 157 where Theodoret protests to Theodosius II that the Antiochene bishops were becoming ‘a prey to tyranny’.

page no 23 note 1 Recorded in detail in the Acta of the second council of Ephesus, ed [J.] Hemming, Akten [der Ephesinischen synode vom Jahre 449], in Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, neue Folge XV (Göttingen 1914-17) Phil. Hist. Klasse, PP 15–55.

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page no 25 note 2 Ibid, lxiv, p 120.

page no 25 note 3 Ibid, ix, p 22.

page no 25 note 4 Ibid, lxx and lxxii, lxxv, lxxvi, lxxviii, lxxiii, etc.

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page no 26 note 1 Ibid, xiv.

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