[MR] Women Priests and objectivity

[Towey, Brian]

Folks, I have no opinion at all on the ancient ordination of women, and so
far I have stayed out of this discussion.  But, as the topic drifts toward
historicity I have a few comments to offer.

>  ...Luther's time, when for the first time the political as well as
religious climate was ripe 
> for someone to accuse the Church itself of being heretical. 

Actually, that was not the first time the Church was accused of heresy.  In
fact, the use of "catholic" and "orthodox" as the capital-letter sectarian
names Catholic and Orthodox dates to a much earlier schism over the
introduction of the Filioque to the Constantinopolitan creed.  

Here's part of the lengthy Catholic Encyclopedia article on it
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06073a.htm):

	"At the beginning of nineth (sic) century, John, a Greek monk of the
monastery of St. Sabas, charged the monks of Mt. Olivet with heresy, they
had inserted the Filioque into the Creed. In the second half the same
century, Photius the successor of the unjustly deposed Ignatius, Patriarch
of Constatinople (858), denied the Procession of Holy Ghost from the Son,
and opposed the insertion of the Filioque into the Constantinopolitan creed.
The same position was maintained towards the end of the tenth century by the
Patriarchs Sisinnius and Sergius, and about the middle of the eleventh
century by the Patriarch Michael Caerularius, who renewed and completed the
Greek schism. "

The Greek Church declared the Roman Church heretical for "disobeying the
injunction of the Third Council, of Ephesus (431), and of the Fourth, of
Chalcedon (451) [which] had forbidden to introduce another faith or another
Creed, and had imposed the penalty of deposition on bishops and clerics, and
of excommunication on monks and laymen for transgressing this law."

That's why they call themselves Orthodox, thus implying that the western
Church is heterodox.

In response, "inside the [western] Church the doctrine of the Filioque was
declared to be a dogma of faith in the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), the
Second Council of Lyons (1274), and the Council of Florence (1438-1445)."
The western Church insisted that it had the right to clarify the creed, if
not to change it, and increasingly claimed the title of Catholic with a
capital C, implying that the eastern Church was merely a splinter group.

We medievalists are accustomed to a great deal of ambiguity over historical
detail.  We really don't know how much a goodly amount of spices was, or
whether a 12th C gambeson was quilted or stuffed, or what steps completed
the figure of certain dances that are only described sketchily.  BUT, when
it comes to theology and church history, things are very different.  We know
exactly who said what and when, who supported it, who opposed it, what the
final ruling was, and how it was accepted.  Errors in logic or doctrine were
spelled out in excruciating detail.

Reading from the same encyclopedia, here is an example of a controversy
picked pretty much at random.  Note the premium placed on logical
consistency throughout the passage, and the line-by-line indexing of source
documents from the 5th century:

	"In spite of the efforts of Athanasius, Nestorius, who had been
elected Patriarch of Constantinople (428), found a loophole to avoid the
definition of Nicaea. Nestorius called the union of the two natures a
mysterious and an inseparable joining (symapheian), but would admit no unity
(enosin) in the strict sense of the word to be the result of this joining
(see "Serm.", ii, n. 4; xii, n. 2, in P. L., XLVIII). The union of the two
natures is not physical (physike) but moral, a mere juxtaposition in state
of being (schetike); the Word indwells in Jesus like as God indwells in the
just (loc. cit.); the indwelling of the Word in Jesus is, however, more
excellent than the indwelling of God in the just man by grace, for that the
indwelling of the Word purposes the Redemption of all mankind and the most
perfect manifestation of the Divine activity (Serm. vii, n. 24); as a
consequence, Mary is the Mother of Christ (Christotokos), not the Mother of
God (Theotokos). As is usual in these Oriental heresies, the metaphysical
refinement of Nestorius was faulty, and led him into a practical denial of
the mystery that he had set himself to explain. During the discussion that
Nestorius aroused, he strove to explain that his indwelling (enoikesis)
theory was quite enough to keep him within the demands of Nicaea; he
insisted that "the Man Jesus should be co-adored with the Divine union and
almighty God [ton te theia symapheia to pantokratori theo symproskynoumenon
anthropon] "(Serm., vii, n. 35); he forcibly denied that Christ was two
persons, but proclaimed Him as one person (prosopon) made up of two
substances. The oneness of the Person was however only moral, and not at all
physical. "

As medievalists, we are sometimes distracted by the quaint and primitive
technology of the period.  We mustn't forget that logic, rhetoric and
grammar (the Trivium) were the core of classical education, and that
scholars of the day were the equal of any now living in the arts of debate
and deduction.

Were heresy and orthodoxy strictly defined?  Do we have primary evidence of
it?  Yes, indeed!  

-Charles Fleming