Council of
Aquileia (381 A.D.)
[Source:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29/Councils_of_Aquileia.]
In the history of Christianity and
later of the Roman Catholic Church, the Roman city of
Aquileia at the head of the Adriatic was the seat of an ancient
episcopal see, the seat of the Patriarch of
Aquileia. That city held
a number of church synods (councils of bishops), referred to as the
Councils of Aquileia, which were part of the struggle between Arian
and orthodox ideas in Christianity. The Councils of
Aquileia were
held in 381,
553, 579, 698, 1184, 1409 and 1598 A.D.
The Council of
Aquileia of 381 A.D.
was held in September. This council requested the Emperors
Theodosius and Gratian to convene at Alexandria a general council of
all bishops in order to put an end to the Meletian schism at Antioch
that had been ongoing since 362 A.D. The council was summoned by the
Western Roman Emperor Gratian, to explicitly "solve the
contradictions of discordant teaching", but in fact was organized by
Aurelius Ambrosius (better known in English as Ambrose or St.
Ambrose), the bishop of Milan, presided over by Valarian, the Bishop
of Aquileia and attended by thirty-two bishops of the West from
Italy, Africa, Gaul and Illyria, among them St. Philastrius of
Brescia and St. Justus of Lyons, deposing from their offices two
bishops of the Eastern province of Dacia, Palladius of Ratiaria and
Secundianus of Singidunum who were partisans of Arianism, the
teaching first attributed to Arius (c. 250-336 A.D.), a Christian
presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt, that was based on the belief that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, created by God the Father, distinct
from the Father and therefore subordinate to the father. Opposed to
the Arian teaching was the mainstream doctrine of the Trinity which
was not founded in scripture but had been formally affirmed at the
first of seven ecumenical councils, the First Council of Nicaea of
325 A.D. that was convened by
Emperor Constantine and which had banished the two Arians
defenders to Illyria, along with Arius, deeming their beliefs to be
a heresy.
Palladius had applied to the Eastern Roman Emperor for an
opportunity to clear himself before a general council of the charges
concerning the nature of Christ and was unwilling to submit to a
council of the Western bishops only, for Ambrose had previously
assured the Emperor of the West that such a matter as the soundness
or heresy of just two bishops might be settled by a council simply
consisting of the bishops of the Diocese of Italy alone. Politics
and Christology were inextricably entangled in the 4th century: "You
have contrived, as appears by the sacred document (Gratian's amended
convocation) which you have brought forward, that this should not be
a full and General Council: in the absence of our Colleagues we
cannot answer", was Palladius' stand.
Ambrose was a staunch opponent of Arianism, and has been accused
of fostering persecutions of Arians, Jews, and pagans. Ambrose
proposed that Arius' letter from Nicomedia to Alexander, bishop of
Alexandria, should be read in detail, and Palladius be called upon
to defend or condemn each heretical proposition that disputed
Catholic orthodoxy. Arius had said that the Father alone is eternal;
the Catholics insisted that the Son was co-eternal. Palladius quoted
Scripture, which Ambrose skirted. Ambrose rested upon the verbal
formulas recently agreed upon by authority of the Church, while
Palladius refused to admit the legitimacy of the proceedings. The
other bishops unanimously pronounced anathema on all counts, and the
matter was settled. The surviving partial transcript of the
proceedings reveal the character of Ambrose and the manner and
technique of his argument. Of Palladius it is said by Vigilius, a
late 5th century bishop of Thapsus in Africa, that after Ambrose's
death (397 A.D.) he wrote a reply to Ambrose's writings against
Arianism, which Vigilius in turn wrote to counter.
Further reading:
- Proceedings of the council, among the letters of Ambrose
-
"Councils of Aquileia".
Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
1913.
- Scolies Ariennes sur le Concile d'Aquilee,
introduction, text, and notes Roger Gryson, Sources chretiennes
267 (Paris: Cerf, 1980).
- Neil B. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a
Christian Capital (Berkeley: U California Press, 1994).
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