Literary Forgery and the

Monothelete Controversy:
Some Scrupulous Uses of Deception
Susan Wessel

L
ITERARY FORGERY has regularly been defined by students of
antiquity and the Middle Ages as the falsification of a
literary work with the intent to deceive.1 An examination
of the sources, however, suggests that late antique and early
Byzantine Christians understood differently the problem of
forgery. By studying discussions about forgery found in conciliar
acts, this paper attempts to revise the traditional definition of
literary forgery that most scholars have brought to bear upon
this complex phenomenon.
The only legislation condemning forgery that has survived
from Byzantium is canon sixty-three from the Council in Trullo
(A.D. 692), which decreed that all forged histories of the martyrs

1 The authoritative treatise on forgery is that of W. Speyer, Die literarische

Fälschung im heidnischen und christlichen Altertum: Ein Versuch ihrer
Deutung (Munich 1971). Speyer argues (13) that the condition for forgery has
been met only if the intent to deceive is present. B. M. Metzger, “Literary
Forgeries and Canonical Pseudepigrapha,” in New Testament Studies (Leiden
1980) 2: “A literary forgery is essentially a piece of work created or modified
with the intention to deceive.” G. Constable generally agrees: “forgers attribute
their own work to some one else and plagiarists pass off some one else’s work
as their own, but both intend to deceive. Neither term is commonly used for
unintentional deceptions,” Culture and Spirituality in Medieval Europe (Alder-
shot 1996) 3. This view of scholars follows the general contours of the law of
forgery in western nations. See, for example, H. C. Black, ed., Black’s Law
Dictionary5 (St. Paul 1979) 585. For an overview of forgery in the West see A.
Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship
(Princeton 1990). On forgery in early Christian texts, G. Bardy, “Faux et
fraudes littéraires dans l’Antiquité chrétienne,” in RHE 32 (1936) 5–23, 275–
302.

Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 42 (2001) 201–220

© 2002 GRBS
202 LITERARY FORGERY AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY

should be burned, and that those who continued to read them

be anathematized.2 Unlike modern western statutes against
forgery, the canon did not state a punishment for the forgers
themselves. Instead, it punished the fraudulent work’s audience
by singling out for anathemas those who continued to read or
listen to it.3 In refusing to punish the forgers, the church was not
being lenient. The ecclesiastical authorities had probably failed
to uncover the identity of the forgers and were therefore im-
plicitly recognizing the futility of trying to punish them. From
the Acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople
(680/1) we learn that the conciliar members were indeed willing
to punish a forger by anathematizing him once they had firmly
established his identity.4 That authorities at the Council in
Trullo, in the absence of a perpetrator, punished the audience for
the forged work suggests that they believed, unlike modern
scholars, that an ecclesiastical offense had been committed if
the audience was deceived by the forgery, regardless of the in-
tent of the author.
The Acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council provide information
that helps elucidate the mind and intent of those who altered
religious texts. Summoned by the emperor Constantine IV in
680, the council evaluated the doctrine of Monotheletism, by

2 P.-P. Joannou, Discipline générale antique. Les canons des conciles oecumé-
niques I.1 (Fonti IX [Rome 1962]) 200, toÁw d¢ taËta paradexom°nouw, µ …w
élhy°si toÊtoiw prosan°xontaw, énayemat¤zomen. Cf. G. A. Rhalles and M.
Potles, SÊntagma t«n ye¤vn ka‹ fler«n kanÒnvn II (Athens 1852) 452–453; G.
Nedungatt and M. Featherstone, edd., The Council in Trullo Revisited (Rome
1995); I. Rochow, “Zu ‘heidnischen’ Bräuchen bei der Bevölkerung des Byzan-
tinischen Reiches im 7. Jahrhundert,” Klio 60 (1978) 483–497; J. Williams, “Use
of Sources in the Canons of the Council,” Byzantion 66 (1996) 470–488.
3 The commentaries of Balsamon and Zonaras support this interpretation of
the canon. Balsamon wrote that the holy fathers passed this canonical decree
because those who read the false martyrologies were incited to blaspheme the
saints by laughing at them and by becoming incredulous; Zonaras wrote, “If,
however, some Christians use them [the false martyrologies], putting their faith
in them as if they were true, the canon decrees that they should be anathe-
matized”: Rhalles/Potles (supra n.2) 452–453.
4 ACO SER. 2 II.2 648.
 SUSAN WESSEL 203

which the Chalcedonians had attempted to forge a union with

the non-Chalcedonian or Oriental Orthodox churches,5 con-
ceding that Christ had one divine will while maintaining the
Chalcedonian position that Christ had two natures.6 The Chal-
cedonian bishops and priests gathered passages culled from the
corpus of patristic texts that they accepted as orthodox, com-
pared those texts with passages that the so-called Monotheletes
adduced to support their views, and, finally, decided whether
the passages put forth by their opponents were authentic
expressions of their understanding of Chalcedonian orthodoxy
or whether they had been forged. In doing so, they recorded in
the transcripts of the conciliar proceedings the processes by
which religious texts were determined to have been forged and
the motives of those who had allegedly committed the act of
falsification. Consistent with canon sixty-three, we learn from
these conciliar Acts that the common scholarly definition of
forgery as the intent to deceive does not adequately describe the
minds of the alleged forgers, whose acts of falsification were
meant to support their view of the orthodox conception of
truth.
In order to understand the broader context for the discussions
of forgery that took place at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, I
shall first briefly discuss Cyril of Alexandria’s use of the Apol-
linarian forgeries that circulated in the fifth century which
ignited the doctrinal controversies discussed in the councils that
followed, including the Appeal of the Trial of Eutyches in 449

5 Meaning the Coptic Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic,

Ethiopian Orthodox, and Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. See D. W.
Winkler, “Miaphysitism: A New Term for Use in the History of Dogma and in
Ecumenical Theology,” The Harp 10.3 (December 1997) 33–40.
6 ACO SER. 2 II.1 2–10. Apart from the excellent critical edition of Riedinger
in ACO (1990), there has, to my knowledge, been very little scholarly work on
the Sixth Ecumenical Council. For that reason it is worth setting forth in some
detail the discussions on forgery that took place there. Although Speyer ( supra
n.1: 276–277) gives a comprehensive taxonomy of forgery, his discussion of
forgery in the Monothelete controversy is brief.
204 LITERARY FORGERY AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY

(recorded in the Robber Synod and in the Acts of Chalcedon),

and the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553, which had similarly
introduced the problem of forgery into theological discussions
concerning questions of doctrine.7

The consequences of the Apollinarian forgeries

Cyril, bishop of Alexandria from 412 to 444, in developing his
christological doctrines relied on texts the Apollinarians had
forged. The Apollinarian forgeries, which circulated under the
name of Athanasius (bishop of Alexandria from 328 to 373),
stated the christological views that Apollinaris (bishop of
Laodiceia from 360) had developed in his polemics against the
Arians. He believed that there was one composite nature of the
divine and human natures in Christ, and that in Christ the
human soul was replaced by the Logos, a view that he ex-
pressed with the christological formula “one nature of God the
word enfleshed.” He later revised this opinion to say that
Christ had a human body and soul but a heavenly noËw or
reason. For both views, the Council of Constantinople in 381
condemned him.8 Cyril unwittingly used the problematic for-
mula “one nature of God enfleshed” to explain the relationship
between the human and divine natures of Christ because he
mistakenly believed that Athanasius had written them. The
name of Athanasius carried particular weight for Cyril because
throughout his early episcopacy he had been intent on establish-
ing himself as the new Athanasius in order to secure his own

7 ACO II.1.1 100–147 and IV.1.

8 Baldwin and Kazhdan, ODByz I 136. For a discussion of the Apollinarian
forgeries see generally A. Tuilier, “Remarques sur les fraudes des Apolli-
naristes et des Monophysites,” in J. Dummer, ed. Texte und Textkritik, Eine
Aufsatzsammlung (Texte u. Unters.z.Gesch.d.altchr.Lit. 133 [Berlin 1987])
581–590. See also E. Mühlenberg, Apollinaris von Laodicea (Göttingen 1969); C.
E. Raven, Apollinarianism (Cambridge 1923); H. Lietzmann, ed., Apollinaris von
Laodicea und seine Schule (Tübingen 1904).
 SUSAN WESSEL 205

position in the orthodox hierarchy.9 Indeed, having secured his

victory in the christological debates at the Council of Ephesus in
431, Cyril was thereby elevated to the status of being one of the
orthodox church fathers. While he was being acclaimed as a
father of the church, we now know that Cyril became aware
that he had relied on Apollinarian forgeries as early as 430,
when one of his opponents, Theodoret, brought it to his atten-
tion. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 clearly rejected the “one
nature” formula as the correct way of understanding Christ,
fully aware that Cyril had been deceived when he relied on it,
and that, even after learning that he had been deceived, he
continued to rely on it. The Council found that Cyril and his
writings were, nonetheless, orthodox.
The Council’s embrace of the formula that was based on
writings known to be forged made the formula a continuing
source of contention. Cyril’s most zealous supporters, the
monks of Egypt, whose representatives were present at Chal-
cedon, cared little that the “one nature” formula had derived
from treatises that the Apollinarian heretics had forged. Con-
vinced that the formula was a genuine expression of Cyrillian
orthodoxy—for the simple reason that Cyril had used it—the
monks continued to embrace it and refused to accept the de-
crees of Chalcedon to the contrary. The strict Cyrillians were
unwilling to excise even the Apollinarian forgeries from the
writings of Cyril.
In the history of this same controversy, the charge of forgery
was at times sufficient to remove the disputed text or conciliar
record from the body of orthodox writings. Eutyches, the ar-
chimandrite of a large monastery in Constantinople, accused

9 Pope Celestine compared Cyril to Athanasius in his letter to the clergy and
people of Constantinople ( ACO I.1.1 88). Cyril in his treatise against the
Arians, Thesaurus de Trin. ( CPG 5215: PG 75.9–656), largely borrowed from
and paraphrased Athanasius’ Orationes adv. Arianos (CPG 2093: PG 26.11–
468).
206 LITERARY FORGERY AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY

Flavian, the bishop of Constantinople, and others of following

the teachings of Nestorius, the former bishop of Constantinople
whom the Council of Ephesus had condemned in 431. Nestorius
had taught, against Cyril, that there were not only two natures
but two hypostases that combined to make the one Christ. To
deal with Eutyches’ charges of Nestorianism against those who,
following the Formula of Union of 433, confessed two natures
after the Incarnation, bishop Flavian of Constantinople decided
to hold a synod at Constantinople in 448 to examine whether
Eutyches himself was orthodox. Under questioning, Eutyches
said that he believed, along with the teachings of Athanasius
and Cyril, that Christ was composed of two natures before the
union, but of only one nature after the union. The synod there-
upon deposed and excommunicated him for having followed
the one-nature formula of Apollinaris.
Eutyches disputed this decision by filing a petition in 449
with the emperor Theodosius II to reexamine the Acts of the
synod. The reason Eutyches gave for petitioning the emperor
was that the Acts of the synod of Constantinople (I, in 448)
had been falsified, and that the notaries and clerics who had
prepared them should be examined in an official inquiry.10 That
examination revealed to the new synod (Constantinople II,
April 449) several discrepancies in the Acts. Among the more
significant omissions, the Acts failed to record that Eutyches,
when asked to anathematize all persons who did not confess
two natures after the Incarnation, had replied that he would
never anathematize the holy fathers.11 Some bishops claimed
that the Acts of the synod had also failed to record that
Eutyches had at one point appealed to Rome, Alexandria,
Jerusalem, and Thessaloniki to judge his orthodoxy (175 ¶818).

10 ACO II.1.1 77–195, at 152–153 ¶572; see also C. J. Hefele, A History of the
Councils of the Church I–V (Edinburgh 1872–96: hereafer HEFELE) III 211f.
11 ACO II.1.1 172–173 ¶788; 174 ¶804.
 SUSAN WESSEL 207

Another bishop testified that Eutyches had agreed to whatever

Rome and Alexandria ordered him to say (175 ¶820). Although
both alleged omissions in the Acts could be liberally construed
as providing evidence that Eutyches was willing to conform to
the views of the patriarchal sees, the statements did not present
new evidence that he had revised his one-nature doctrine, the
view for which the first synod of Constantinople had con-
demned him. To the contrary, that Eutyches had refused to
anathematize the holy fathers suggests that he believed that the
holy fathers consisted only of those church fathers who con-
fessed one nature after the union. Implicitly finding that the acts
of Constantinople had been falsified, the new synod, partly on
technical grounds, overturned the judgment against him, a
finding that the Robber Synod (Ephesus II) confirmed in August
449. Asterios, the presbyter and notary (presumably) respon-
sible for the transcripts, testified that he had no knowledge that
the notaries and clerics who recorded the Acts had distorted
the conciliar record when they allegedly omitted these state-
ments (178–179 ¶846).
For the first time in a synodal gathering, therefore, small dis-
crepancies in a conciliar record, made without the complicity of
the notary in charge, were sufficient to support the charge of
forgery and falsification, and therefore to challenge the author-
ity of the conciliar transcripts being used to convict someone of
heresy.
By the mid-fifth century, Christians were thus becoming
aware of the historical and cultural processes by which saints
were canonized and heretics anathematized. In order to convict
one’s opponent of heresy and to secure one’s position among
the orthodox, it was necessary to collect evidence from the
writings of the church fathers, to present that evidence before an
official ecclesiastical gathering, to use stenographers to record
208 LITERARY FORGERY AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY

what happened, and, when that record did not support one’s
views, to declare the record to have been forged or falsified.
The Fifth Ecumenical Council (A.D. 553) provides further evi-
dence, along with Appeal of Eutyches in 449, that the charge of
forgery could be used to defend oneself against charges of
heresy or to rehabilitate someone who had fallen under the taint
of heresy.12 Ibas of Edessa, the fifth-century church father who
had written a letter criticizing the one-nature doctrine of Cyril of
Alexandria, came under scrutiny once again, this time post-
humously, at the Fifth Ecumenical Council. The strict Chalce-
donians believed that his letter unfairly criticized Cyril and
promoted the doctrines of Nestorius, and so should be
condemned as being contrary to the teachings of Chalcedon. In
contrast, the Diphysites claimed that the letter was indeed an
orthodox expression of the two-nature doctrine, having been
fully accepted by the Council of Chalcedon. To examine that
claim, the council considered not only the contents of the letter,
which it determined to be heretical, but its authenticity as well.
Since the author of the letter, Ibas of Edessa, was long dead,
they relied on the testimony he gave at the Council of Chalcedon
a little more than one hundred years earlier. From their exam-
ination of the evidence contained in the Acts of that council,
they determined (incorrectly) that the letter was a forgery.
In reaching that decision, they relied on several tests. First,
they tested the consistency of the author’s beliefs: the Council of
Chalcedon had demanded that Ibas acknowledge Ephesus and
anathematize Nestorius, which he did, but this was contrary to
the beliefs expressed in the letter. Next, they examined a more
complete body of evidence: the testimony of the papal legates,
which the bishops omitted, declared that Ibas was harmless,
and his doctrines orthodox. Finally, they reviewed the testi-

12 See generally P. Gray, “Forgery as an Instrument of Progress: Reconstruct-

ing the Theological Tradition in the Sixth Century,” BZ 81 (1988) 284–289.
 SUSAN WESSEL 209

mony of the alleged author: the council looked at the record of

the cross-examination of Ibas himself, who, when charged with
blaspheming against Cyril, claimed he had done nothing of the
sort. 13 Although the Fifth Ecumenical Council used logical
criteria to evaluate the authenticity of the letter, they never-
theless reached what we now know to be the wrong conclusion,
and it is not unfair to argue that they themselves knew it to be
wrong. There is very little evidence from the Acts of Chalcedon
to suggest that the letter had been forged or that the council in
451 had even seriously considered that possibility. What the
record presents is a bishop, Ibas of Edessa, desperately trying
to maintain his ecclesiastical position in the face of accusations
that he had slandered the orthodox Cyril. But by rejecting the
letter as a forgery, and by claiming that the council of Chal-
cedon had done the same, the bishops of the Fifth Ecumenical
Council were pursuing their deeply held purpose of preventing
their Diphysite opponents from appropriating this letter to sup-
port their doctrinal claims.14

Truth and deception in the Acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council

At the Sixth Ecumenical Council more than one hundred years
later, the charge of forgery was similarly used by the Chal-
cedonian bishops to defeat their opponents, the Monotheletes.
There, at Constantinople in 680, the doctrine of Monotheletism
was vigorously debated. The emperor Heraclius and his bishop
Sergius of Constantinople had proposed the doctrine half a
century earlier as a compromise with the non-Chalcedonian
Miaphysites.15 Emperor Constantine IV and the Chalcedonian

13 ACO IV.1 144–146.

14 ACO IV.1 137–138. The synod said that some persons, in an attempt to
vindicate the letter of Ibas to Maris the Persian, claimed that it was received by
the Council of Chalcedon, invoking what was said by one or two of the bishops
there.
15 Winkler (supra n.5) 33–40.
210 LITERARY FORGERY AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY

bishops gathered to determine whether, in their opinion, the

doctrine was simply a heretical innovation or was consistent
with the traditions of the fathers. To make that determination,
Constantine IV said that proof was needed from the ap-
propriate books, which he ordered to be brought from the
patriarchal library. Among the many patristic texts the emperor
and bishops examined was a letter purportedly written by the
patriarch Menas of Constantinople to pope Vigilius, around the
time of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, which stated that Christ
had only one will. If the letter were proven genuine, it would
have supported their view that the one-will doctrine was not a
recent innovation but a well-established doctrine, the orthodoxy
of which was confirmed by an orthodox bishop of Constan-
tinople and by the pope of Rome. The papal legates present at
the council immediately objected to the letter. Standing up, they
shouted their agreement when one of their number declared,
“The present book of the Fifth synod has been falsified
(§falseÊyh). Don’t let the letter of Menas to pope Vigilius be
read, because it has been forged (plastÒw)!”16
The letter they referred to was found in a parchment (sv-
mãtion) codex which George, the chartophylax, had taken from
the Patriarcheion of Constantinople. Divided into two books,
the manuscript contained the Acts of the Fifth Ecumenical
Council. Having acquired the necessary book, the emperor,
along with his officials and a few bishops, examined it closely
and proceeded to evaluate the claim of forgery. They found that
someone had inserted three unpaginated quaterniones into the
beginning of the book, but neglected to number properly the
pages that followed: the fourth quaternio was marked as the
first, and after it followed the second and third. Their suspi-
cions of forgery were confirmed, in their view, when they
discovered that the handwriting in the first three quaterniones, in

16 ACO SER. 2 II.1 40.

 SUSAN WESSEL 211

which the letter of Menas to Vigilius was found, differed from

that of the rest of the first book.17 Alerted to this deception, the
emperor asked Peter, the secretary, to read into the conciliar
record the second book of the Acts of the Fifth Ecumenical
Council, presumably because he feared that additional forgeries
would be found there. He came upon two letters that Vigilius
was said to have written, one to the emperor Justinian and the
other to his wife Theodora.18 In it, pope Vigilius was made to
confess that Christ is one hypostasis, one prosopon, and one
operation, a doctrine related to Monotheletism, known as
Monenergism. The papal legates again protested, saying that
Vigilius had not taught that doctrine, and that, like the first, the
second book of the Acts had also been falsified.19 They de-
manded that the council conduct a full examination into the
matter by searching the entire Acts of the Fifth Council for any
indication that they taught either one will or one activity. The
legates believed that the Acts taught neither, a belief that the
conciliar bishops confirmed after they read the entire Acts of
the Fifth Council.
The bishops of the Sixth Council wished to examine addi-
tional evidence, and so they asked the chartophylax George to
search the library of the Patriarcheion for another manuscript, a
so-called authentic papyrus (xart“on aÈyentikÒn) codex
containing only the Acts of the Seventh Session of the Fifth
Council.20 While searching the patriarchal library, George dis-
covered another papyrus codex which contained the entire Acts
of the Fifth Ecumenical Council. At the request of the conciliar
bishops, George, having sworn that he himself had not altered

17 ACO SER. 2 II.1 40, 42. See also Hefele IV 290.

18 ACO SER. 2 II.2 638.
19 Upon hearing this Monenergist confession, the legates protested that “If
Vigilius had taught one operation and had it been accepted by the synod, then
the phrase ‘one operation’ would have been included in the definition” (ACO
SER. 2 II.1 42).
20 ACO SER. 2 II.2 640. See also Hefele IV 290–291.
212 LITERARY FORGERY AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY

the manuscripts, introduced all three codices into the conciliar

record. The bishops compared the three manuscript collections,
along with several other papyrus volumes, and made several
discoveries that they believed corroborated the earlier findings
of the council. Someone had added three quaterniones (one
quaternio equals four bifolia or sixteen pages) in the first book of
the initial codex, the parchment codex. In these quaterniones the
disputed letter of Menas was found. In the second book of this
codex, someone had mutilated the fifteenth quaternio, adding
four unpaginated leaves before the sixteenth quaternio, in which
were contained the two disputed letters of Vigilius. Someone
had similarly mutilated the “authentic” papyrus codex of the
Acts of the Seventh Session. The three disputed letters were not
contained, however, in the papyrus codex found by George or in
the additional papyrus manuscripts (644, 646). On the basis of
these findings, the council decided that someone had forged the
three disputed letters, which were thereupon struck from the
conciliar record (648). Having marked the forged letters with an
obelus, the council proceeded to anathematize the forgers.
Seeking to uncover their identity, the council inquired into the
manuscripts’ history of textual transmission. Macrobius of
Seleuceia testified that he had received a book of the Fifth Coun-
cil that had been given to him by Philip, the magister militum.
There he found the Seventh Session to have been falsified. “I
asked Philip, ‘To whom did you give this book?’ He replied, ‘I
gave it to Stephanus the monk, a disciple of Macarius.’ The
falsified passages were written in the handwriting of the monk
George, who was also a disciple of Macarius. When Macarius
was patriarch, I visited his house and I often observed George
the monk writing, and so I know that this was written in his
own hand. Thus, I ask the synod to bring George in for question-
ing.” Having examined the book, George said:
 SUSAN WESSEL 213

The book that Macarius, the most holy metropolitan of Seleu-

ceia, brought and gave to me belonged to Philip, commander of
the imperial retinue (toË strathlãtou toË basilikoË Ùcik¤ou).
He was a neighbor of the father, Stephanos, who followed the
heresy of Macarius. When Theodore, the patriarch of the Im-
perial City (which God watches over), and the aforementioned
Macarius were in negotiations concerning the faith, they took
from the Patriarcheion (as Stephanus and Macarius said) a copy
of the pamphlets of Vigilius. We added them into quaterniones
and they gave them to the most pious emperor … Philip brought
this book [i.e., of pamphlets] to Stephanos, the heretic, for
inspection, and said, “I have come from the East with a book of
the Fifth Synod. See whether it is good.” This book [from the
East] did not contain the aforementioned pamphlets of Vigilius.
The heretic Stephanus said that there was something missing in
it. Philip said, “if you know what is missing, fill it in.” Steph-
anus told me that I should copy these same pamphlets. So I
made copies of the pamphlets and gave them to Stephanus.
Truly these [were written] in my own hand and I recognize them.
Stephanus and Macarius added the pamphlets of Vigilius not
only to the present book, but to many other books of the Fifth
Council that came to them, books which did not [originally]
contain the pamphlets of Vigilius.21

Although the bishops of the Sixth Council were unable to dis-

cover the identity of the person(s) who they believed had
altered the pamphlets of Vigilius by interpolating a Monenergist
confession, they nonetheless attempted to trace the means by
which these pamphlets were inserted into the Greek version of
the Acts of the Fifth Council.
Stephanus and Macarius discovered another book containing
the Acts of the Fifth Council, which they claimed to have bought
from the wife of the patrician (patr¤kiow) Innocent for six
nomismata. The bishops called upon Constantine, the Latin
grammarian, to testify concerning the contents of that book. He
said that when Paul was patriarch of Constantinople (641–

21 ACO SER. 2 II.2 650. See also Hefele V 170.

214 LITERARY FORGERY AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY

654), bishop Fortunatus of Carthage, a Monothelete, came to

Constantinople. The question arose whether he should take his
seat before or after the other metropolitans present. While
searching the patriarchal library for the Acts of the Fifth Coun-
cil, in order to learn from them the answer to their question, they
found, among other things, a Latin translation of the Acts of
that Council. They commissioned Constantine to compare this
manuscript (its Seventh Session) with the so-called authentic
Greek copy of the Acts, and to insert from there what was
missing from it. Working with deacon Sergius, who was con-
sidered to be a good writer, Constantine added the two letters
of pope Vigilius, which they translated from Greek into Latin.22
From this testimony we learn not only how a Latin manuscript
of the Fifth Council may have been falsified from the Greek, but
that this early Latin manuscript, purchased from the wife of
Innocent more than thirty years earlier, was considered to be
more accurate than the Greek. It was probably a copy of the
Latin translation that had been made for pope Vigilius in
Constantinople while he was living there (547–554). That the
Latin text did not originally contain the two disputed letters of
Vigilius suggests either that the letters were forged, since they do
not appear in this early Latin translation, or that the letters are
genuine but that a Monenergist had falsified them by adding the
phrase “one activity.” Hefele is probably correct in holding the
latter theory plausible because the disputed letters expressed
views that were otherwise consistent with what we know of
Vigilius, namely that he had refused and then promised to
anathematize the Three Chapters at the very time the letters
were said to have been written.23 Although the council decreed

22 ACO SER. 2 II.2 652. Hefele V 171; IV 291. See E. Chrysos, ÉEkklhsiastikØ
politikØ toË ÉIoustinianoË (Thessaloniki 1969) 180f.
23 Hefele IV 292. The Three Chapters were certain writings that the Miaphy-
sites had opposed for criticizing Cyril of Alexandria. They included the
writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus, who at the Council of Ephesus had written
against Cyril of Alexandria; the letter of bishop Ibas of Edessa to Maris the
 SUSAN WESSEL 215

that all three letters inserted into the Acts of the Fifth Ecu-
menical Council had been forged, we can now safely say that
only one of the unearthed letters, that of Menas to Vigilius,
which is no longer extant, was a complete fabrication.24
The forger chose to fabricate this letter because he wished to
create an orthodox lineage for the phrase “one activity.” He did
so by producing a Monenergist letter that purported to have
been written by a Chalcedonian pope to an orthodox patriarch,
and then by inserting it into the Acts of an Ecumenical Council.
The relationship between Menas and pope Vigilius was a
stormy one, Menas having struck Vigilius’ name from the
diptychs for refusing to condemn the Three Chapters. By forging
such a letter between them, the Monenergist wished to show
that even a pope who was well known for being reluctant to
appease the Miaphysites had eventually agreed to support their
views. But that very fact also told against the forger. His
deception was discovered even in ancient times, at least partly
because the Monenergist phrase “one activity” seemed so im-
plausible in a letter that was received without protest by an
anti-Miaphysite, pro-Chalcedonian pope. The physical evidence
of course also testified against the letter’s authenticity.
How the forger himself may have understood his act of
inserting the fabricated letter into the proceedings of the council
is also worth examining. Gray suggests that the forger recon-
structed the past not simply to convince his opponents that his
position was orthodox but to assure himself that his vision of
orthodoxy as monolithic and unchanging would not be
challenged by the taint of innovation, that his beliefs simply
perpetuated the authentic traditions of the fathers.25 From the

———
Persian, which had likewise criticized Cyril and the person and writings of
Theodore of Mopsuestia, who had been the teacher of Nestorius.
24 Concerning the history of the transmission of the manuscripts of the Fifth
Ecumenical Council, see Hefele IV 293ff; see generally Chrysos (supra n.22).
25 Gray (supra n.12) 289.
216 LITERARY FORGERY AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY

Acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council we get a tantalizing

glimpse into the mind of a Monothelete who admitted to having
taken passages from the orthodox fathers, excised them from
their original context, and collected them in a florilegium of
patristic texts. When asked why he did so, the Monothelete re-
plied, “I selected only those passages that supported my point
of view (katå tÚn ‡dion skopÒn).”26 His answer demonstrates
that forgers and falsifiers of texts did not exercise their craft
only to reassure themselves, as Gray’s cogent analysis of the
problem suggests. Instead, the Monothelete forger was fully
aware that his orthodoxy depended upon his being able to fully
document his doctrinal views with passages from the orthodox
fathers.
The religious forgeries of early Byzantium are thus the place
where the two defining characteristics of the orthodox church,
authority and tradition, intersect. By the seventh century, the
patristic past had become crystallized in the works of certain
church fathers, and the only way to claim them was through
texts, such as letters and patristic florilegia. It did not matter
that the texts and florilegia were forged, falsified, or otherwise
manipulated, so long as they could be made to exude authority
in a conciliar setting, and so long as they could avoid being
detected by one’s opponents who were ready to use philological
tools for the purpose of uncovering the deception.
From the Acts of the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils we
learn that those who unmasked these literary deceptions were
fully aware that their opponents had attempted to deceive
them. Deceivers as well as their intended victims understood
that any new doctrines had to be made to appear consistent
with what the church fathers had said. Knowing how to
manipulate the past, either by textual exegesis, rhetorical per-
suasion, or outright deception, the forgers could make the past

26 ACO SER. 2 II.1 238 (CPG 9427).

 SUSAN WESSEL 217

consistent with their perception of the present. When late

antique and Byzantine Christians altered the past by means of
forgery, sometimes their opponents recognized the deception
and uncovered it. But at other times, opponents allowed texts
they knew to have been forged to be absorbed into the orthodox
tradition, and the literary deception became a source of con-
tinuing controversy.
In sorting out the fraudulent from the authentic, the early
Byzantines relied on their cultural assumptions that the truth is
fixed and immutable, something to be discovered, not made.
The notion was based on a set of assumptions about the nature
of truth and falsehood quite different from our own. Writing in
the third century, Origen of Alexandria understood falsehood
as being a kind of veil that covered the truth, which existed,
immutable, beneath it. Arising first in the soul, false teachings
needed to be stripped away and purified by the Word in order
to reveal the truth.27 The spirit of each individual, by its very
nature, desired to know that truth.28 For Origen, truth, being
stable and fixed, was, finally, intimately connected with God.
The same was the case for Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite,
who assigned to God the name Truth,29 and for Maximus the
Confessor, who said that truth, being simple, unique, one, im-
mutable, impassive, indivisible, and all-seeing, revealed God.30
The notion that truth was immutable was firmly rooted in the
earliest Christian texts.31 Paul’s second letter to the Thes-

27 Origen Hom. in Ierem. 5.15 ( CPG 1438): P. Nautin, Origène. Homélies sur
Jérémie I (SC 232 [1976]) 318, 320.
28 Origen Princ. 2.11.4: P. Koestschau, Origenes Werke V (GCS 22 [1913])
187; PG 11.243 B–C.
29 De div. nom. (CPG 6602): PG 3.596A.
30 Myst. 5 (CPG 7704): PG 91.673C – D .
31 This understanding of truth also permeates early Christian ideas about
what constituted the official canon. Eusebius saw ecclesiastical writings as
falling into one of three categories. In the first were the writings that the church
accepted as being genuine and true. He identifies others as disputed, although
they were well known to ecclesiastical writers. In the third category were the
218 LITERARY FORGERY AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY

salonians (2:10) cast into eternal damnation those whom “the

lawless one will deceive in the end time” because they refused
to love the truth. In Corinth a few years later, Paul warned
about the false apostles who had come to deceive the Corin-
thians by disguising themselves as servants of righteousness.
Such acts of deception did little to tarnish the truth for John
Chrysostom, who believed that the truth revealed itself most
clearly at the very moment during which the unfaithful assailed
it.32 Those who continued to wage war against it succeeded in
wounding only themselves.33
Late antique Christians thus believed that texts could bear
witness to the immutable truth of orthodoxy, but texts could
not alter it. However, the texts themselves could be altered, and
when the forgers did so they may very well have perceived their
activity as being ethical. Far from deceiving themselves, the
forgers believed that truth, being stable, resided beyond the text
that reflected it. 34 As Cyril of Alexandria put it in the fifth
century, the truths of Scripture are hidden behind a veil of
figurative language. Their meaning is revealed only when we

———
writings the church had rejected, such as the Gospels of Peter and Thomas, the
Acts of Andrew and John, none of which was cited by ecclesiastical writers.
Eusebius regarded works in this category as having been forged not only be-
cause they were written by persons other than the Apostles to whom they were
ascribed but because their content was inconsistent with what he believed to
be the immutable truth of orthodoxy ( HE 3.25.1–7: II 104–105 Schwartz). See
generally Metzger ( supra n.1) 1–22; D. G. Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon: An
Investigation into the Relationship of Authorship and Authority in Jewish and
Earliest Christian Tradition (Tübingen 1986); N. Brox, ed., Pseudepigraphie in
der heidnischen und jüdisch-christlichen Antike (Darmstadt 1977).
32 Hom. in Io. 58.1 (CPG 4425): PG 59.315.
33 Hom. in Philip. 2–3 (CPG 4432): PG 62.194.
34 In the medieval West, it was thought that truth resided within the text. See
for example P. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from
Socrates to Foucault (Oxford 1995) 73: “Insofar as philosophy was considered
exegesis, the search for truth, throughout this period [the Middle Ages], was
confounded with the search for the meaning of ‘authentic’ texts; that is, of those
texts considered as authoritative. Truth was contained within these texts ; it
was the property of their authors, as it was also the property of those groups
who recognized the authority of these authors, and who were consequently the
‘heirs’ of this original truth.”
 SUSAN WESSEL 219

look to the unchanging truth of the Incarnation, Death, and

Resurrection. 35 250 years later, the bishops of the Sixth Ecu-
menical Council put it more succinctly, “Truth is constant (sta-
yhrã) and remains so, but falsehood varies and adopts that
which is mutually contradictory.”36 By altering religious texts, it
seems very likely that the early Byzantines thought they were
merely attesting to this stable core of meaning that formed the
basis of their beliefs.37

Conclusions
In the conciliar discussions studied here, the charge of forgery
was used to discredit the authority of one’s opponents (the
Fifth and Sixth Councils) and even that of the conciliar record
being used to convict one of heresy (Appeal of Eutyches). The
Acts of the Sixth Council reveal that early Byzantine forgers
and falsifiers of Christian texts did not “intend to deceive”
their opponents in the way that most modern scholars believe.
The forgers merely thought that they were altering or fabricating
texts in order to attest to the unchanging truth of their
theological views. This suggests that late antique and early
Byzantine Christians understood the problem of forgery in
characteristically paradoxical terms: it was both a rhetorical
charge that could be leveled against adversaries to remove

35 Just as a magnificent city has several public images of its king, so the
figures that comprise sacred Scripture are a type (tÊpow ) of a greater spiritual
reality. And that reality encompasses all of Christ’s mystery. See, for example,
Cyril of Alexandria’s Glaphyra in Pentateuchum (CPG 5201: PG 69.308C ):
“The point of divinely inspired Scripture is to signify to us, through countless
means, the mystery of Christ,” skopÚw tª yeopneÊstƒ Grafª, tÚ XristoË
mustÆrion diå mur¤vn ˜svn ≤m›n katashm∞nai pragmãtvn.
36 ACO SER. 2 II.1 114.15–16.
37 After the Sixth Ecumenical Council was concluded, however, Justinian II
took precautions in 687 to make sure that the acts of that council would not be
falsified. As the keeper of the “unfalsified faith of Christ,” the emperor believed
that it was his duty to protect the Acts against falsification. He thus convoked
the patriarchs, the papal deputy, the archbishops and bishops, and many State
officials and officers of the army and commanded them to read and seal the acts.
See ACO SER. 2 II.2 886–887 (CPG 9442).
220 LITERARY FORGERY AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY

certain texts from theological discussion, and simultaneously a

means by which one could alter texts to make them consistent
with one’s most deeply held beliefs. To understand the
phenomenon of religious forgery in late antiquity and early
Byzantium, one should perhaps follow the implicit directive of
canon sixty-three and consider whether the allegedly forged
work troubled its audience and not whether the so-called forger
intended to deceive.38

April, 2002 310 Nassau St., Apt. 4

Princeton, NJ 08540
[email protected]

38 This paper is a revision of a lecture delivered at Princeton for the Work-

shop in Hellenic Studies when I was a Mary Seeger O’Boyle Post-Doctoral
Fellow there. I would like to thank Dimitri Gondicas and the Program in
Hellenic Studies for their support. I would also like to thank Alexander Alexa-
kis and Eleni Gara for reading the manuscript and offering helpful suggestions.
Finally, the editorial board of GRBS and its anonymous reader made numerous
useful comments. I am of course responsible for any remaining problems.