Cops and Robbers in Ephesus

As I have been noting on here for a decade now as each volume rolls out, anglophone Christians owe a debt of gratitude to Liverpool University Press for their invaluable series devoted to translations of conciliar texts. The latest, just released in paperback, is The Council of Ephesus of 431: Documents and Proceedings by Richard Price with Introduction and Notes by Thomas Graumann.

About this the publisher tells us this:

The First Council of Ephesus (431) was the climax of the so-called Nestorian Controversy. Convoked by the emperor Theodosius II to restore peace to the Church, it immediately divided into two rival councils, both meeting at Ephesus. Attempts by the emperor's representatives to get the bishops on both sides to meet together had no success, and after four months the council was dissolved without having ever properly met. But a number of decrees by the larger of the two rival councils, in particular the condemnation of Nestorius of Constantinople, were subsequently accepted as the valid decrees of the 'ecumenical council of Ephesus'. The documentation, consisting of conciliar proceedings, letters and other documents, provides information not only about events in Ephesus itself, but also about lobbying and public demonstrations in Constantinople. There is no episode in late Roman history where we are so well informed about how politics were conducted in the imperial capital. This makes the Acts a document of first importance for the history of the Later Roman Empire as well for that of the Church.

Texts and Acts of Ephesus

Continuing with their admirable and welcome publication of the texts of the ecumenical councils, Liverpool University Press, whose previous offerings I have noted on here, now has in print, thanks to the labours of Richard Price and Thomas Graumann, The Council of Ephesus of 431: Documents and Proceedings (LUP, 2020, 528pp.).

About this hefty collection, the publisher tells us this:

The First Council of Ephesus (431) was the climax of the so-called Nestorian Controversy. Convoked by the emperor Theodosius II to restore peace to the Church, it immediately divided into two rival councils, both meeting at Ephesus. Attempts by the emperor's representatives to get the bishops on both sides to meet together had no success, and after four months the council was dissolved without having ever properly met. But a number of decrees by the larger of the two rival councils, in particular the condemnation of Nestorius of Constantinople, were subsequently accepted as the valid decrees of the 'ecumenical council of Ephesus'. The documentation, consisting of conciliar proceedings, letters and other documents, provides information not only about events in Ephesus itself, but also about lobbying and public demonstrations in Constantinople. There is no episode in late Roman history where we are so well informed about how politics were conducted in the imperial capital. This makes the Acts a document of first importance for the history of the Later Roman Empire as well for that of the Church.

The Acts of Nicaea II

Hard to believe just a couple short weeks ago Byzantine Christians were celebrating the Sunday of Orthodoxy with its thunderous commemoration of the triumph of icons and defeat of iconoclasts. That seems another lifetime now, or perhaps several.

What exactly was this "triumph?" What was iconoclasm, and its response at the seventh ecumenical council of Nicaea in 787? A new paperback edition of a book first published in 2018 will remind us of what was decided and dogmatized: The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787), trans. with commentary by Richard Price (Liverpool University Press, 2020), 752pp.

I've heard of some academic presses in England suspending publication pending the conclusion of this pandemic, but I don't know if Liverpool University Press is one of them. They list a release date of next week for this book, part of their ongoing and valuable series, Translated Texts for Historians.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

The Second Council of Nicaea (787) decreed that religious images were to set up in churches and venerated. It thereby established the cult of icons as a central element in the piety of the Orthodox churches, as it has remained ever since. In the West its decrees received a new emphasis in the Counter-Reformation, in the defence of the role of art in religion. It is a text of prime importance for the iconoclast controversy of eighth-century Byzantium, one of the most explored and contested topics in Byzantine history. But it has also a more general significance - in the history of culture and the history of art. This edition offers the first translation that is based on the new critical edition of this text in the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum series, and the first full commentary of this work that has ever been written. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers from a variety of disciplines.

The Acts of Nicaea II

I have for years quoted Joseph Ratzinger's demonstrable claim, in The Spirit of the Liturgy, that part of the explanation for periodic outbreaks of iconoclasm in the West, including after Vatican II, stems from the fact that the West never adequately received the acts of Nicaea II, and has therefore never seriously integrated its insights into the life of the Western Church. This rather messy history of reception is told in Alain Besançon's invaluable The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm; and more recently in T.F.X. Noble's book Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians.

But whatever excuses about inadequate, incomplete, or inaccessible texts the West may have had in the past are gone in the face of a newly published book, translated by Richard Price, who also supplies a commentary to The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787) (Liverpool University Press, 2018), 688pp.

Part of Liverpool's ongoing and very important series, Translated Texts for Historians LUP, this hefty book, the publisher tells us, treats

The Second Council of Nicaea (787), which decreed that religious images were to set up in churches and venerated. It thereby established the cult of icons as a central element in the piety of the Orthodox churches, as it has remained ever since. In the West its decrees received a new emphasis in the Counter-Reformation, in the defence of the role of art in religion. It is a text of prime importance for the iconoclast controversy of eighth-century Byzantium, one of the most explored and contested topics in Byzantine history. But it has also a more general significance - in the history of culture and the history of art. This edition offers the first translation that is based on the new critical edition of this text in the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum series, and the first full commentary of this work that has ever been written. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers from a variety of disciplines.