Pope Vigilius, in a letter of 552, describes how he took refuge in the church of *Peter (the Apostle, S00036) in the Hormisdas district of Constantinople in 551 during the Three Chapters controversy. Written in Latin in Chalcedon.
E08275
Documentary texts - Letter
Vigilius, Letter 'Dum in sanctae Euphemiae' (JK 931/JH 1861)
Vigilius describes this incident, which took place in August 551, in his account of the background to his subsequent decision, in December 551, to seek refuge in the church of Euphemia in Chalcedon.
Nam cum ad beati Petri basilicam in Ormisda fundatam Auguste mense nuper praeterito fugissemus, nullum latere confidimus quia <dum> in eadem ecclesia a comitatu praetoris cum multitudine armatorum militum ueniente tamquam ad bellum instructa acie a sancto eius altari tracti pedibus traheremur, tenuimus et super nos etiam ipsa altaris mensa ceciderat, nisi a clericorum nostrorum fuisset manibus sustentata. postea vero dum nobis diceretur quod exinde, nisi sacramenta uoluissemus accipere, sub omni uiolentia traheremur, et memorati iudices a piissimo imperatore directi uoluissent nobis sacramenta praestare, indiculum dedimus per quod dari personae nostrae scripto petiuimus iusiurandum. quod clementissimus princeps non quale nos uoluimus praeberi concessit, sed quale ipsi placuit, per iudices suos dandum esse dictauit. et dum saepe dicti iudices posito indiculo super altare et cataractam beati Petri apostoli [et] super crucem quae de ligno passionis domini habet inclausum, sed et super claues beati Petri apostoli praestitissent corporale iusiurandum, ad Placidianas tamquam nihil mali ulterius patientes secundum piissimi principis rediuimus uoluntatem.
'For when we took refuge in the Basilica of the Blessed Peter, built in Hormisdas, in the month of August lately past, we trust that no one is unaware that in this very church the suite of the praetor came with a mass of armed soldiers in serried array as if for war and tried to drag us by our feet from its sacred altar; we gripped onto it, and the very table of the altar would have fallen on top of us, had it not been held up by the hands of our clergy. Afterwards when we were told that we would be dragged from there with all violence unless we consented to accept oaths, and the said officials sent by the most pious emperor wanted to make us oaths, we presented a formula with which we asked a sworn pledge to be given to our person in writing. The most clement prince, granting not the one we wished to receive but one that pleased himself, gave orders for this to be given by his officials. And when the formula was placed on the altar and on the stocks of the blessed Peter the apostle, the oft-mentioned officials took a bodily oath over a cross that contained within it a piece of the wood of the Lord’s passion and also over the keys of the blessed Peter the apostle. We then returned to the Placidia Palace according to the most pious prince’s will, expecting to suffer no further maltreatment.'
Text: Schwartz 1940, 4-5.
Translation: Price 2009, 173.
Cult building - independent (church)
Rejection, Condemnation, SceptisismDestruction/desecration of saint's shrine
Non Liturgical ActivitySeeking asylum at church/shrine
Oath
RelicsContact relic - instrument of saint’s martyrdom
Contact relic - other object closely associated with saint
Oath made on a relic
Touching and kissing relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - Popes
Officials
Soldiers
Source
This is one of four related letters by or associated with Pope Vigilius (537-555), preserved as a group in a single manuscript, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1743 (8th c.), a late-Merovingian codex containing papal letters and acts of church councils, originally from the cathedral library at Reims (Schwartz 1940, 26). The letter of excommunication and a badly truncated version of Dum in sanctae Euphemiae are preserved in a few other manuscripts (Schwartz 1940, 27), but the full text of the latter, and the entirety of the other two documents, are unique to this manuscript. Schwartz 1940, 31, suggests that the entire group of documents was brought back from the East by the Frankish embassy whose members are addressed in Letter 4, hence its survival in a Gallic manuscript.The letters date from 551-552, a period when Pope Vigilius, who had been in Constantinople since 547, was under intense pressure from the emperor Justinian to accede to Justinian's condemnation of the so-called 'Three Chapters' (for explanation of this term, see discussion below).
In manuscript order, followed by Schwartz in his edition, the documents are:
1) An encyclical letter from Vigilius, dated 5 February 552, explaining why he had taken refuge in the church of Euphemia at Chalcedon. This is often referred to, from its opening words, as Dum in sanctae Euphemiae ('while in St Euphemia's'). Translated Price 2009, 170-79. See E08275 and E08326.
2) A letter from Vigilius, dated 14 August 551, excommunicating two of Justinian's leading clerical supporters, Menas, patriarch of Constantinople, and Theodore Ascidas, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Translated Price 2009, 161-5.
3) What seems to be a covering letter sent with a copy of the letter of excommunication. This is not dated but internal evidence shows that it dates from February 552. Not translated by Price. See E08329.
4) A letter written by some clerics from the church of Milan to a group of Frankish envoys on their way to Constantinople, informing them about the harassment of Pope Vigilius and other opponents of the condemnation of the Three Chapters. This is also not dated, but can be dated by internal evidence to late 551 or early 552. Translated Price 2009, 165-70. See E05616 and E08318.
The letter Dum in sancta Euphemiae
This is Letter 1 in Schwartz's edition and Letter 3 in Price's translation. For a detailed discussion, see E08326.
Discussion
Vigilius had been in Constantinople since 547 (for detailed accounts see Sotinel 1992; Price 2009, 42-58), under pressure from Justinian to accede to the emperor's condemnation of the so-called 'Three Chapters'. In 543 or 544, Justinian had issued an edict (not extant) condemning the entire person and oeuvre of the 5th c. theologian Theodore of Mopsuestia (ob. 428), together with specific works by two of his contemporaries, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa (the condemned persons/works were collectively known as the 'Three Chapters'). Justinian seems to have hoped that it would ameliorate the chronic division in the eastern empire between supporters and opponents of the Council of Chalcedon (451) if the Chalcedonian side condemned Theodore, Theodoret and Ibas, whose ideas were particularly objectionable to the non-Chalcedonian supporters of a 'one-nature' (Monophysite or Miaphysite) Christology. However, while having little visible effect in this direction, the edict aroused bitter opposition in the West, where the condemnation of theologians who had all been implicitly or explicitly held in good standing at Chalcedon was seen as a veiled attempt to overturn the council, regarded in the West as one of the foundations of orthodoxy (for the theological background, see Price 2009, 16-41, 59-98; for examination of various aspects of the controversy, Chazelle and Cubitt 2007). By 551 Vigilius and Justinian had agreed to hold a church council to try to resolve the issue (eventually held in 553 as the Second Council of Constantinople), but in July 551 Justinian angered Vigilius by issuing a new edict condemning the Chapters (the edict On the Orthodox Faith, translated Price 2009, 129-59), thus seemingly pre-empting the council. It is at this point that Vigilius' letter begins to narrate events in detail.According to Vigilius' account (Schwartz 1940, 2-3; Price 2009, 171-2) he responded to Justinian's move by meeting informally with clergy from Constantinople in his residence, the Placidia Palace in the Hormisdas district of Constantinople, and warned them that if they assented to the edict they would be excommunicated. On 14 August he moved to the basilica of Peter, also in the Hormisdas district, where he formally excommunicated two of Justinian's senior ecclesiastical supporters, Menas, the patriarch of Constantinople, and Theodore Ascidas, bishop of Caesarea, though he did not yet make their excommunication public. Vigilius' account shows that moving from his official residence to the basilica of Peter was a deliberate and considered act on his part: it may have been made in anticipation of retaliation by Justinian, but it was not a spontaneous flight from the emperor's anger as implied by the letter to the Frankish envoys (E08318). As noted by Price 2009, 49: 'The choice of church was doubtless determined partly by proximity to his own residence and partly by the symbolic value of seeking refuge under the patronage of St Peter.' (The church was in fact dedicated to both Peter and Paul but Vigilius and the letter to the Frankish envoys mention only Peter.)
Subsequently the incident narrated in this extract took place, when an official and a detachment of soldiers attempted to seize Vigilius and drag him from the church while Vigilius clung to the altar, which collapsed during the struggle. (Vigilius does not mention a detail given in the letter to the Frankish envoys, that the attempt to remove him was abandoned because of signs of of opposition from the crowd that had gathered.) Vigilius states that under renewed threat of physical removal he agreed to accept oaths from the officials to maintain his safety (which itself involved negotiation, as the formula which Vigilius wished to use for the oath was rejected by Justinian, who insisted on one of his own). As described by Vigilius, the formula (indiculus) to be recited was placed on the altar and on the cataracta of St Peter (translated by Price as 'stocks') and the officials swore a 'bodily oath' (corporale iurisiurandum) on a cross containing a piece of wood from the True Cross and on the keys of St Peter (a bodily oath being one sworn while touching the relics – Price 2009, 173, n. 36). The basilica of Peter and Paul had been founded by Justinian in 519, and an exchange of letters survives in the Collectio Avellana relating to his request for relics from the then pope, Hormisdas (E00615, E00616, E00617) but the relics mentioned here do not match those in the earlier correspondence.
Various garbled accounts of the attempt to seize Vigilius appear in other sources. The Liber Pontificalis (E01372) jumbles together the two occasions when Vigilius sought asylum and gives them an entirely fictional context, claiming that he 'fled into St Euphemia's basilica and clutched a column of the altar' after being accused of murdering his predecessor Silverius. The incident is mentioned by the Greek historians John Malalas and Theophanes (the latter probably dependent on the former, but preserving details not in Malalas' extant text). Malalas (E05742) mentions that Vigilius took refuge in a church, and Theophanes (E08025) describes him being dragged from the altar, but both locate the incident in a church of *Sergios (S00023). This is an interesting error, since the churches of Peter and Paul and of Sergios and Bakchos stood directly adjacent to each other and shared an atrium (see E04332), so it is easy to see how they might have been confused, especially in popular reports.
Bibliography
Edition:Schwartz, E., I, Vigiliusbriefe. II, Zur Kirchenpolitik Justinians (Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Abteilung. Jahrgang 1940, Heft 2; Munich, 1940).
Translation:
Price, R., The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553 with related texts on the Three Chapters Controversy (Translated Texts for Historians 51; Liverpool, 2009). All references are to vol. 1 unless otherwise stated.
Further reading:
Chazelle, C., and Cubitt, C. (eds.), The Crisis of the Oikoumene: The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean (Turnhout, 2007).
Sotinel, C., "Autorité pontificale et pouvoir impérial sous le règne de Justinien: le pape Vigile," Mélanges de l'Ecole française
de Rome. Antiquité 104:1 (1992), 439-463.
David Lambert
23/08/2022
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain |
|---|
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