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THE
BATTLE OF THE TRISAGION
It is well known that
in the late fifth century the anti-Chalcedonian bishop Peter the Fuller
introduced into last clause of the Trisagion the words "who was
crucified for us", and that this still forms part of the Trisagion
in many of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, though with variations for
the various seasons of the Christian year. An attempt to introduce this
addition into the Liturgy in the Great Church of Constantinople one
Sunday in the early sixth century started a riot which nearly cost the
Emperor Anastasios his throne. The then Patriarch of Antioch Severos was
present in the church and he described the scene in a letter to a fellow
bishop. Unfortunately his account only survives in a damaged Coptic
manuscript. The incident, however, inspired Edward Gibbon, in chapter 47
of his great history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, to one
of his most brilliant diatribes. I have put it on this page not simply a
fine example of English prose, but also as a warning of the dangers of
adopting an over zealous attitude to liturgical texts.
CHAPTER
47
In the fever of the times, the
sense, or rather the sound of a syllable, was sufficient to disturb the
peace of an empire. The Trisagion (thrice holy,) "Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God of Hosts!" is supposed, by the Greeks, to be the identical
hymn which the angels and cherubim eternally repeat before the throne of
God, and which, about the middle of the fifth century, was miraculously
revealed to the church of Constantinople. The devotion of Antioch soon
added, "who was crucified for us!" and this grateful address,
either to Christ alone, or to the whole Trinity, may be justified by the
rules of theology, and has been gradually adopted by the Catholics of
the East and West. But it had been imagined by a Monophysite bishop;
the gift of an enemy was at first rejected as a dire and
dangerous blasphemy, and the rash innovation had nearly cost the emperor
Anastasius his throne and his life. The
people of Constantinople was devoid of any rational principles of
freedom; but they held, as a lawful cause of rebellion, the color of a
livery in the races, or the color of a mystery in the schools. The
Trisagion, with and without this obnoxious addition, was chanted in the
cathedral by two adverse choirs, and when their lungs were exhausted,
they had recourse to the more solid arguments of sticks and stones; the
aggressors were punished by the emperor, and defended by the patriarch;
and the crown and mitre were staked on the event of this momentous
quarrel. The streets were instantly crowded with innumerable swarms of
men, women, and children; the legions of monks, in regular array,
marched, and shouted, and fought at their head, "Christians! this
is the day of martyrdom: let us not desert our spiritual father;
anathema to the Manichaean tyrant! he is unworthy to reign." Such
was the Catholic cry; and the galleys of Anastasius lay upon their oars
before the palace, till the patriarch had pardoned his penitent, and
hushed the waves of the troubled multitude. The triumph of Macedonius
was checked by a speedy exile; but the zeal of his flock was again
exasperated by the same question, "Whether one of the Trinity had
been crucified?" On this momentous occasion, the blue and green
factions of Constantinople suspended their discord, and the civil and
military powers were annihilated in their presence. The keys of the
city, and the standards of the guards, were deposited in the forum of
Constantine, the principal station and camp of the faithful. Day and
night they were incessantly busied either in singing hymns to the honor
of their God, or in pillaging and murdering the servants of their
prince. The head of his favorite monk, the friend, as they styled him,
of the enemy of the Holy Trinity, was borne aloft on a spear; and the
firebrands, which had been darted against heretical structures, diffused
the undistinguishing flames over the most orthodox buildings. The
statues of the emperor were broken, and his person was concealed in a
suburb, till, at the end of three days, he dared to implore the mercy of
his subjects. Without his diadem, and in the posture of a suppliant,
Anastasius appeared on the throne of the circus. The Catholics, before
his face, rehearsed their genuine Trisagion; they exulted in the offer,
which he proclaimed by the voice of a herald, of abdicating the purple;
they listened to the admonition, that, since all could not reign, they
should previously agree in the choice of a sovereign; and they accepted
the blood of two unpopular ministers, whom their master, without
hesitation, condemned to the lions. These furious but transient
seditions were encouraged by the success of Vitalian, who, with an army
of Huns and Bulgarians, for the most part idolaters, declared himself
the champion of the Catholic faith. In this pious rebellion he
depopulated Thrace, besieged Constantinople, exterminated sixty-five
thousand of his fellow-Christians, till he obtained the recall of the
bishops, the satisfaction of the pope, and the establishment of the
council of Chalcedon, an orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the
dying Anastasius, and more faithfully performed by the uncle of
Justinian. And such was the event of the first of the religious wars
which have been waged in the name and by the disciples, of the God of
peace.
Edward Gibbon
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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