Third Council of Toledo

Third Council of Toledo

The Third Council of Toledo (589) marks the entry of Catholic Christianity into the rule of Visigothic Spain, and the introduction into Western Christianity of the filioque clause. ["Filioque." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005] The council also enacted restrictions on Jews, and the conversion of the country to orthodox Christianity led to repeated persecutions of Jews.Durant, Will. Age of Faith. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1972]

Arian Goths

In the 4th century, the bishop Wulfila ("c" 310 - 383) invented a script for the Gothic language, translated the Bible into Gothic, and converted the Goths to Arian Christianity. When the Visigoths traveled west, they encountered Latin Christians for whom Arianism was anathema. The Visigoths held to their Arian beliefs and refused to join the orthodox church.

Bishop Leander and King Reccared

The Council was organized by Bishop Leander of Seville, who had worked tirelessly to convert the Arian Visigothic kings and had succeeded with Reccared. Abbot Eutropius had the chief day-to-day management of the council, according to the chronicler John of Biclaro. In the king's name Leander brought together bishops and nobles in May of 589.

Council proceedings

The Council opened on May 4 with three days of prayer and fasting. Then the public confession of King Reccared was read aloud by a notary. Its theological precision defining Trinitarian and Arian tenets, establishing Reccared's newly-achieved orthodox belief, and its extensive quotation from scripture reveal that it was in fact ghostwritten for the king, doubtless by Leander.

In it Reccared declared that God had inspired him to lead the Goths back to the true faith, from which they had been led astray by false teachers. (In fact they had been Christianized by the Arian Ulfilas, but Leander's themse was reconciliation.) Not only the Goths but the Suevi, who by the fault of others had been led into heresy, he had brought back. These noble nations he dedicated to God by the hands of the bishops, whom he called on to complete the work. He then anathematized Arius and his doctrine, and declared his acceptance of the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon and pronounced an anathema on all who returned to Arianism after being received into the church by the chrism, or the laying on of hands; then followed the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople and the definition of Chalcedon, and the tome concluded with the signatures of Reccared and Baddo his queen.

This confession was received with a general acclamation.

One of the Catholic bishops then called on the assembled bishops, clergy, and Gothic nobles to declare publicly their renunciation of Arianism and their acceptance of Catholicism. They replied that though they had done so already when with the king they had gone over to the church, they would comply.

Then followed 23 anathemas directed against Arius and his doctrines, succeeded by the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople and the definition of Chalcedon, the whole being subscribed by 8 Arian bishops with their clergy, and by all the Gothic nobles. The bishops were Ugnas of Barcelona, Ubiligisclus of Valencia, Murila of Palencia, Sunnila of Viseo, Gardingus of Tuy, Bechila of Lugo, Argiovitus of Oporto, and Froisclus of Tortosa. The names of the eight are Germanic in origin. Four come from sees within the former kingdom of the Suevi, probably showing that Leovigild, after his conquest, had displaced the Catholic by Arian bishops.

Reccared then bid the council with his licence to draw up any requisite canons, particularly one directing the creed to be recited at Communion, so that henceforward no one could plead ignorance as an excuse for misbelief. Then followed 23 canons with a confirmatory edict of the king.
*The 1st confirmed the decrees of previous councils of the Catholic Church and synodical letters of the popes;
*the 2nd directed the recitation of the creed of Constantinople at the communion, with the addition of the Filioque clause: "Credo in Spiritum Sanctum qui ex patre filioque procedit" ("I believe in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and Son") which was never accepted in the Christian East and led to drawn-out controversy;
*the 5th forbade the converted Arian bishops, priests, and deacons to live with their wives;
*the 7th directed that the Scriptures should be read at a bishop's table during meals;
*the 9th transferred Arian churches to the bishops of their dioceses;
*the 13th forbade clerics to proceed against clerics before lay tribunals;
*the 14th forbade Jews to have Christian wives, concubines, or slaves, ordered the children of such unions to be baptized, and disqualified Jews from any office in which they might have to punish Christians. Christian slaves whom they had circumcised, or made to share in their rites, were ipso facto freed;
*the 21st forbade civil authorities to lay burdens on clerics or the slaves of the church or clergy;
*the 22nd forbade wailing at funerals;
*the 23rd forbade celebrating the eves of saints' days with dances and songs, characterized as "indecent".

The canons were subscribed first by the king, then by 5 of the 6 metropolitans, of whom Masona signed first; 62 bishops signed in person, 6 by proxy. All those of Tarraconensis and Septimania appeared personally or by proxy; in other provinces several were missing.

The proceedings closed with a triumphant homily by Leander on the conversion of the Goths, preserved by his brother Isidore as "Homilia de triumpho ecclesiae ob conversionem Gothorum" a homily upon the "triumph of the Church and the conversion of the Goths."

Effects of the council

Soon Argiovitus was ejected from his see of Oporto, and replaced by a more dependably Catholic bishop, Constancio.

The rescriptions against Jews were soon followed by required conversions, which led to a wholesale flight of Jews from Visigothic Spain to Ceuta and technically Visigothic nearby territories in North Africa. There a community of exiles and malcontents formed, that were later to provide useful alliance and information at the time of the Moorish invasion in 711.

The filioque clause spread through the Latin-literate West but not through the Greek-speaking East. The Franks adopted it, but its use caused controversy in the 9th century. ["Filioque." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005] Its use spread to Rome soon after 1000, ["Filioque." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005] and it contributed to the Great Schism (1054) between the Eastern Orthodox and Catholics.

ources

*Thompson, E. A. (1969) "The Goths in Spain". Oxford: Clarendon Press.
* [http://www.benedictus.mgh.de/quellen/chga/chga_045t.htm Synodus Toletana tertia,] minutes from the "Collectio Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis" (Vat. lat. 1341)

References

External links

* [http://www.ccel.org/w/wace/biodict/htm/iii.xviii.ii.htm Henry Wace, "Dictionary of Christian Biography"] : the basis for facts of this entry


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Fourteenth Council of Toledo — The Fourteenth Council of Toledo first met on 14 November 684 under King Erwig. It was called in response to a letter from Pope Leo II directing the king, a Count Simplicius, and the recently deceased Quiricus, metropolitan of Toledo, to call a… …   Wikipedia

  • Ninth Council of Toledo — The Ninth Council of Toledo was a provincial synod of bishops of Carthaginiensis. It began on 2 November 655 under the auspices of King Reccesuinth. It ended on November 24 in the Church of Santa María. It was attended by only sixteen or… …   Wikipedia

  • Fifteenth Council of Toledo — The Fifteenth Council of Toledo first met on 11 May 688 under King Egica. It was the king s first of three councils. In 680 681, the sixth ecumenical council, the Third Council of Constantinople, had repudiated monothelitism and affirmed the… …   Wikipedia

  • Seventeenth Council of Toledo — The Seventeenth Council of Toledo first met on 9 November 694 under King Egica. It was the king s third council and primarily directed, as was the Sixteenth, against the Jews, of whom Egica seems to have had a profound distrust and dislike. The… …   Wikipedia

  • Toledo, councils of — Eighteen councils of the Visigothic church held in Toledo, Spain, from с 400 to 702. Most attending were bishops, with some members of the lower clergy and the nobility. The decisions often affected civil and political affairs, and nearly all… …   Universalium

  • TOLEDO — TOLEDO, city in Castile, central spain ; capital of Castile until 1561. Early Jewish Settlement and Visigothic Period There is no substantive information available on the beginnings of the Jewish settlement in Toledo, which was only a small… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Toledo (Spain) —     Toledo     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► Toledo     ARCHDIOCESE OF TOLEDO (TOLETANENSIS)     Primatial see of Spain, whose archbishop, raised almost always to the dignity of Cardinal, occupies the first place in the ranks of the higher Spanish… …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • Councils of Toledo — (Concilia toletana). From the 5th century to the 7th century, about thirty synods, variously counted, were held at Toledo in what would come to be part of Spain. The earliest, directed against Priscillianism, assembled in 400. The third synod of… …   Wikipedia

  • Council of Trent —     Council of Trent     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► Council of Trent     The nineteenth ecumenical council opened at Trent on 13 December, 1545, and closed there on 4 December, 1563. Its main object was the definitive determination of the… …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • Toledo, Cebu — Toledo City Dakbayan sa Toledo   City   Map of Cebu showing the location of Toledo City …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”