Eduard Schwartz's famous remark – ‘acta conciliorum non leguntur!’ – has looked rather less secure over the last few years, as an increasing number of scholars have begun to interrogate the immensely rich documentary record of the early ecumenical councils. Luise Frenkel's monograph – an expanded version of her doctoral thesis – represents a valuable contribution to this recent trend.
The book examines the involvement of just one bishop (Theodotus of Ancyra), at just one council (Ephesus, 431). Theodotus was, by Frenkel's own admission, neither a key player at Ephesus, nor a particularly profound or ground-breaking theologian. His written corpus is small, and he is little-remembered beyond occasional footnotes in dusty tomes on early Mariology. None the less, Theodotus is distinctive, and worthy of study, because several of his homilies (some delivered at the council itself, some composed earlier but reworked) were included within the Ephesine conciliar acta. Frenkel's monograph delves into this intriguing feature of the record of Ephesus, and so interacts with wider scholarship on late antique homiletics, conciliar procedure and Christological doctrine.
After setting Theodotus in his geographical, cultural and ecclesial context, Frenkel provides a detailed examination of his involvement in the council itself. The bishop had a significant role at the controversial first Cyrilline session of 22 June, most notably in testifying that Nestorius had asserted, with regard to the Incarnation, that ‘God should not be said to be two or three months old’. The phrase was subsequently deployed with relish in the sloganised polemics of the Cyrilline party. Frenkel's reflections on Theodotus’ motivations, theological stance and degree of complicity in Cyril's agenda during the long hot summer of 431 are consistently well-reasoned, and always careful to avoid saying more than the evidence strictly allows. There are one or two mis-steps (such as in claiming, incorrectly, that Theodotus was absent from the record of the session of 22 July), but these are rare.
In the second half of the monograph, Frenkel offers a thorough analysis of the conciliar homilies themselves, including tackling questions of dating, audience and the function of the texts within the wider acta. The most interesting material here is not so much Theodotus’ doctrinal arguments (which are largely unremarkable), but rather his attempts to articulate the orthodoxy of his position, and the legitimacy of Cyril's council. For here we glimpse the subtle process by which a contested conciliar decision was presented as entirely uncontested, so that the proclamation of consensus might effect the very consensus that was in fact lacking. Similarly, the exalted terms in which Theodotus lauds Cyril (he is the ‘precious stone’ at the centre of the ‘crown of Fathers’) are likely indicative of the precariousness, not the strength, of Cyril's position in the aftermath of 22 June. It is perhaps to be regretted that Frenkel did not consider in more detail Theodotus’ Expositio symboli Nicaeni, for here too Theodotus sought to legitimate Cyril's council through a creative reading of ecclesial tradition.
The book ends with a translation into English of Theodotus’ four conciliar homilies, and provides a thorough bibliography. The work as a whole is a dense read (not aided, on occasion, by a slightly meandering structure), but a profitable one none the less. It will commend itself to those interested in Early Church conciliar process and argumentation.
