Authority and Performance: Sociological Perspectives on the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451)

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Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 A. Choices, Aims, and Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1. The Scholarly Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2. Scope and Methodological Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3. Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 B. The Council of Chalcedon: Historical Background, Procedure, and Documentation . . . . . . 30 1. Before Chalcedon: The Councils of Ephesus I and II . . . . . . 31 2. Ecumenical Church Councils as a Governmental Tool . . . . . 34 3. Chalcedon: Location and Narrative of Events . . . . . . . . . . 37 4. Chalcedon: Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 5. Documentation of the Council . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 C. The Convenor of Chalcedon: Marcian and his Theodosian Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 1. Accession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2. Marcian’s Military and Foreign Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3. Marcian as a Christian Emperor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 4. From Theodosius II to Marcian: A Heritage of Imperial Religious Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 5. The Two Romes: Byzantine and Roman Identities . . . . . . . 58 6. Features in Marcian’s Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 D. Socio-Anthropological Perspectives in Reading Ancient Texts . . 62 1. Method and Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 2. Grounds for Comparing Ancient and Modern Societies . . . . 66 3. The Purpose of Group Gatherings: Contributions from Social Anthropology . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 4. Non-verbal Gestures: Gesticulation and Tonality in Chalcedon 77 5. Speech Acts as Performatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 6. The Ceremonial Functions of Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 II. Political and Social Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 A. The Social Importance of Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 B. Networks of Delegates in Chalcedon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 1. The First Session: The Composition of the Imperial Delegation 93 2. Imperial Officials at the Sixth Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 3. State Officials as Religious Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 C. The Formation of ‘Cleavages’ in Chalcedon . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 III. Language and Ceremonial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 A. Discourse Analysis of Session I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 1. The Use of Honorific Titles in the First Session . . . . . . . . . 104 2. Seating Games: Rhetoric and its Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 3. Reading Out Loud as an Authoritative Act . . . . . . . . . . . 113 4. Theodoret’s Grand Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 5. The Role of the Imperial Establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 6. The Process of Boundary Marking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 7. Further Reactions to Ephesus I — Reading and Protesting . . . 129 8. He Who Defines is the One with Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 9. Dramatic Climaxes — Vocalization of the Dogma . . . . . . . 135 10. Dioscorus vs. Theodoret . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 11. Dynamics of Disputation and Concord . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 12. Cyril of Alexandria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 13. The Papal Delegates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 14. Communication Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 B. Discourse Analysis of Session II (On the Orthodox Faith) . . . . . 163 1. The Imperial Official as Leader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 2. Harmony as a Token of Divine Providence . . . . . . . . . . . 164 3. Anatolius’ Rhetorical Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 4. Rebellion against Anatolius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 C. Summary of Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 IV. The New Constantine: Marcian at Chalcedon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 A. Discourse Analysis of Session VI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 1. Bailey’s Normative Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 2. Marcian as a Custos Fidei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 3. Attendance and Signatory Lists — Ceremonial and Societal Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 4. The Emperor Marcian’s Speeches — General Features . . . . . 181 5. Marcian’s Speeches — Discourse Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 6. Concordia, Consensus, and Harmony, Again . . . . . . . . . . 198 B. Imperial Correspondence: The Sociolinguistic Angle . . . . . . . 204 V. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 VI. Epilogue: Discussing Religion in a Gadamerian Culture . . . . . . . . 211 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 A. Ancient Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 B. Modern Literature, Translations, and Reference Works . . . . . . 215 Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Index of Subjects and Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Index of Personal and Place Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Index of Modern Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233