The Acts of Early Church Councils Acts Production and Character Thomas Graumann Full Chapter

The Acts of Early Church Councils
Acts: Production and Character

Thomas Graumann
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The Minor Prophets as Christian Scripture in the Commentaries of
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Hauna T. Ondrey (2018)
Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East: A Study of Jacob of Serugh
Philip Michael Forness (2018)
God and Christ in Irenaeus
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Augustine’s Early Thought on the Redemptive Function of Divine Judgement
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Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors
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Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature: A Cosmopolitan
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The Acts of the Early

Church Councils
Production and Character
T HOM A S G R AUM A N N
1
1
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Acknowledgements
The study of church councils in the ancient world has found renewed interest and
received fresh impulses over the course of the last two decades. The publication in
2016 of the final volume of the acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (ad 787),
edited by Erich Lamberz, marked the conclusion of the editorial project of the
Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum which Eduard Schwartz had started almost
exactly one hundred years previously. With it the acts and documents of the ecu-
menical councils of antiquity are finally all available in modern critical editions.
Simultaneously, Richard Price has published English-language translations of the
great majority of these texts, and work is proceeding on the remainder. This
recent availability of critical editions and modern translations has opened up the
complex material to a new readership. It justifies a closer examination of the pro-
cesses that created these texts and a fuller analysis of their character. It is hoped
that clarification of the practical work of notaries and secretaries in the councils,
and of the expectations and intentions of the bishops and imperial officers under
whom they worked, may provide a helpful foundation for future study of conciliar
acts by historians and theologians alike.
The historical, cultural, and theological contingencies that characterize the
many councils conducted over the course of more than four centuries led to a
wide variety in the bureaucratic practices that produced their acts. No all-
encompassing, universally followed ‘handbook’ of textual practices in these coun-
cils may be reconstructed. Yet examination reveals a defined range of procedures
and conventions that illuminate the work of conciliar secretariats and show the
importance of the role they played. It is these that are the subject of the pre-
sent study.
In my work on conciliar acts and documents I have benefited from frequent
discussions with doctoral and other students in Cambridge, from the critical
feedback from audiences at conferences and workshops, and from the generous
advice of colleagues and friends too numerous to list here individually. Among
them, particular thanks are due to Rudolf Haensch (Munich), who guided me
into the world of ancient papyri, and to Peter Riedlberger (Bamberg), who helped
my understanding of ancient legal practice and who kindly read a draft. I had
stimulating discussions with the members of the research group in Bamberg that
he leads. The editors of the series and anonymous readers for the Press made
helpful suggestions for improvement. Yet, above all, I owe a debt of gratitude to
vi Acknowledgements
Richard Price (London), who generously gave up time to read the entire draft and
offered most valuable comments. Parallel to working on this study, I had the add
itional good fortune to collaborate with him on the English edition of the acts of
the Council of Ephesus. It is impossible to overstate the stimulus and enlighten-
ment that this provided.
Contents
Abbreviations and Conventionsix

Introduction1
PA RT I . T H E Q U E S T F O R D O C UM E N TAT IO N
1. The Earliest Church Councils: A Documentary History 13

2. ‘Council Acts’ and the Variations of Conciliar Documentation and
Recording Patterns 24
3. The Conference of Carthage (ad 411): An Imperial Model Case 32
Processes and Practices 33
Conflicts and Challenges 38
PA RT I I . ‘R E A D I N G’ A N D ‘ U SI N G’ AC T S
4. Examining the Records: Two Inquiries into Eutyches’ Trial (ad 449) 43
Types of Text: Authentica—isa—antigrapha—schedarion 44
Visual Features: Writing and Document Hands 51
5. Original Acts and Documents at Chalcedon (ad 451) 57
Objects of Reading 59
The Codex 61
The Schedarion 64
The Council-Roll: Physicality, Practicality, Symbolism 71
6. ‘Authentic’ Documents: Visual Features, Annotation, and
Administrative Handling 83
Collections 87
7. Assessing and Performing Authenticity: A View from
Later Councils 92
Constantinople III (ad 680/1) 93
Nicaea II (ad 787) 103
Conclusion 109
PA RT I I I . ‘ W R I T I N G’ AC T S : T H E C OU N C I L’ S
SE C R E TA R IAT I N AC T IO N
8. All the President’s Men: Administrative Aides and the ‘Official’

Secretariat 113
viii Contents
9. The Stenographic Protocol: Professionalism, Conventions, and

Challenges 126
Exact Words? Memory, Recording, and Writing 130
What (Not) to Record: Comprehensiveness, ‘Omission’, and
the Status of Utterances 138
(Don’t) Write This! Dictation, Instructions, and Appeals for Alteration 146
The Collective Voice of the Council 152
10. ‘Transferring’ Shorthand Notes to Longhand Transcript 167
PA RT I V. T H E W R I T T E N R E C O R D
11. The Hypomnēmata: Production and Qualities 181
Praxis tōn hypomnēmatōn 183
Pistis tōn hypomnēmatōn 192
12. Documents Incorporated–Incorporating Documents 202
Description and Identification of Documents 202
Accepting—Reading—Filing 210
Document Placement: Recitation, Composition, and Writing 214
Hierarchical Order: Imperial Letters 215
Running Order 222
Document-Reading and ‘Live’ Speech-Acts 227
Order and Argument 233
13. Abstracting and Summary Records 237
14. Collecting and Appending Signatures 243
15. The Structure and Elements of the ‘Ideal’ Session-Record and the
Role of ‘Editing’ 257
PA RT V. F I L E S , C O L L E C T IO N S , E D I T IO N S :
D O S SI E R I Z AT IO N A N D D I S SE M I NAT IO N
16. Council Acts Gathered and Organized: Minutes, Case Files, and
Collected Records 265
The Synodus Endemousa (Constantinople, ad 448) 266
Cyril’s Council at Ephesus (ad 431) 269
17. Ancillary Documentation and the Beginnings of Dossierization 277
18. The Preparation of ‘Editions’ and the Dissemination of
Documentation 283
Conclusion 297
Bibliography 309
Index 331
General Index 332
Abbreviations and Conventions
1. Abbreviations Used for Councils, Synods, and Assemblies
C.Aquil.(381) Concilium Aquileiense (anno 381)

Coll.Carth. Collatio Carthaginiensis (anno 411)
C.Ephes.(431) Concilium Universale Ephesenum (anno 431)
CA Collectio Atheniensis (ACO I.1.7, pp. 17–167)
CC Collectio Casinensis (ACO I.3–4)
CP Collectio Palatina (ACO I.5, pp. 1–215)
CQ Collectio Quesnelliana (ACO I.5, pp. 321–340)
CV Collectio Vaticana (ACO I.1.1–6)
CVer Collectio Veronensis (ACO I.2)
CW Collectio Winteriana (ACO I.5)
C.Ephes.II(449) Concilium Ephesenum Secundum (anno 449)
CChalc. Concilium Chalcedonense (anno 451, but containing proceedings
dating originally from 431–451)
III(ii) we number sessions after the Latin tradition (also used in Richard
Price’s translation, q.v.) and add in brackets the session’s number
in the Greek traditions where they differ
trans. Price We reference by name only the frequently cited translation by
Richard Price (see bibliography Concilium Chalecedonense).1
C.Cstpl.II(553) Concilium Universale Constantinopolitanum Secundum (anno 553)
C.Cstpl.III(680–1) Concilium Universale Constantinopolitanum Tertium (anno 680–1)
C.Nic.II(787) Concilium Universale Nicaenum Secundum (anno 787)
2. General Bibliographical Abbreviations
Papyri are quoted following the standard abbreviations of the Checklist of Editions of Greek,
Latin, Demotic, and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca, and Tablets, Founding Editors: John F. Oates
and William H. Willis (http://papyri.info/docs/checklist) and using the editions cited
there. We additionally provide the Trismegistos number (TM) as their unique identifier.
1 The translations of the acts of most ecumenical councils in the period provided by Richard Price
in the Series of Translated Texts for Historians (see our Bibliography of ancient texts) are widely used
for the convenience of the reader. We regularly modify them to bring out the specific concerns with
document characteristics, the processes of their production, and the linguistic specificity of both in
the ancient texts.
x Abbreviations and Conventions
ABAW.PH Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,

Philosophisch-historische Abteilung
ABAW.PPH Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Philosophisch-philologische und historische Klasse
ACHCByz Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation
de Byzance
ACO Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum
ACW Ancient Christian Writers
AHC Annuarium historiae conciliorum
AKG Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte
APAW.PH Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu
Berlin. Philologisch-historische Klasse
AW Athanasius Werke
BA Bibliotheque Augustinienne
BBS Berliner Byzantinistische Studien
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift
CCSG Corpus christianorum, series Graeca
CCSL Corpus christianorum, series Latina
CEFR Collection de l’École française de Rome
CrSt Christianesimo nella storia
CSCO Corpus scriptorum christianorum Orientalium
CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
FBR Forschungen zur byzantinischen Rechtsgeschichte
FC The Fathers of the Church
GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei
Jahrhunderte
HAW Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaften
HZ Historische Zeitschrift
JbAC.E Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsband
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
MBPF Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und antiken
Rechtsgeschichte
MEFRA Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Antiquité
Mus Le Muséon
n.F. neue Folge
ÖAW Österreichische Akademie die Wissenschaften
OCP Orientalia Christiana Periodica
OMRO Oudheidkundige Mededelingen uit het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden
te Leiden
OUP Oxford University Press
RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum
RE Pauly’s Real-Encyclopaedie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft
SBAW.PH Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Philosophisch-Historische Klasse
Abbreviations and Conventions xi
SC Sources chrétiennes
SEA Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum
STAC Studien und Text zu Antike und Christentum
StP Studia Patristica
TTH Translated Texts for Historians
TU Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen
Literatur
VigChr Vigiliae Christianae
WBS Wiener Byzantinistische Studien
ZKG Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte
ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZRG.Kan Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, kanonistische
Abteilung
ZRG.Rom Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, romanistische
Abteilung
3. Literature Cited in Abbreviation
CCO Clavis conciliorum occidentalium septem prioribus saeculis

celebratorum, edited by Andreas Weckwerth. CC Claves. Subsidia 3,
Turnhout: Brepols, 2013
COGD Conciliorum oecumenicorum generaliumque decreta, I: The
Oecumenical Councils From Nicaea I to Nicaea II (325–787),
curantibus Guiseppe Alberigo et al. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006
CPG Clavis patrum Graecorum, cura et studio Maurice Geerard, 5 vols.
Turnhout: Brepols, 1983; 1974; 1979; 1980; 1987 (2nd ed. 2018);
Supplementum, cura et studio Maurice Geerard and J. Noret.
Turnhout: Brepols, 1998; Addenda volumini III, a J. Noret parata.
Turnhout: Brepols, 2003
CPL Clavis Patrum Latinorum. Editio tertia aucta et emendata, edited
by Eligius Decker, Turnhout: Brepols, 1995
DACL Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie. 15 vols (in 30).
Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1903–51
DGE Diccionario Griego-Español. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas, Instituto de Filología. Red. bajo la dirección de
Francisco R. Adrados. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas, 2008–
EAC Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity, edited by Angelo Di
Berardino, Thomas C. Oden, Joel C. Elowsky, and James Hoover.
3 vols. Downers Grove, 2014
HLL Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike. Vol. 4: Klaus
Sallmann (ed.). Die Literatur des Umbruchs. Von der römischen
zur christlichen Literatur, 117 bis 284 n. Chr. München: C. H. Beck,
1997. Vol. 5: Reinhart Herzog (ed.). Restauration und Erneuerung.
xii Abbreviations and Conventions
Die lateinische Literatur von 284 bis 374 n. Chr. München:

C. H. Beck, 1989
Lexicon Gregorianum Lexicon Gregorianum: Wörterbuch zu den Schriften Gregors von
Nyssa, edited by the Forschungsstelle Gregor von Nyssa an der
Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität, bearb. von Friedhelm Mann,
10 vols, Leiden: Brill, 1999–2014
LSJ A Greek-English Lexicon, edited by Henry George Liddell and
Robert Scott et.al. Ninth edition with a revised supplement,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996
ODB The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, edited by Alexander P.
Kazhdan. 3 vols. Oxford: OUP, 1991
OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary, edited by Peter G.W. Glare, 2nd ed.
Oxford: OUP, 2012
PCBE I Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire. Vol. 1: Prosopographie
de l’Afrique chrétienne, edited by André Mandouze. Paris: Centre
national de la recherche scientifique, 1982
PGL A Patristic Greek Lexicon: with addenda and corrigenda, edited
by G.W.H. (Geoffrey William Hugo) Lampe. 10th ed. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1991
PLRE II Martindale, J.R. (John Robert). The Prosopography of the Later
Roman Empire. Vol. II: AD 395–527. Cambridge: CUP, 1980
PmbZ Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit, edited by the
Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften; nach
Vorarbeiten F. Winkelmanns erstellt von Ralph-Johannes Lilie . . .
[et al.]. 8 vols, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1998–2013
RE [Paulys] Realencyclopaedie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft.
Neue Bearbeitung begonnen von Georg Wissowa. 84 vols.
München/Stuttgart: Druckenmüller, 1894–
TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae © Digital Library, edited by Maria C.
Pantelia. University of California, Irvine. http://stephanus.tlg.
uci.edu
TLL Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Editus iussu et auctoritate consilii
ab academiis societatibusque diversam nationum electi. Leipzig:
Teubner, 1900–
Introduction
The councils of the late antique church are remembered for important theological
and organizational decisions taken by venerable, even saintly ecclesiastical digni
taries. In the case of imperial councils, the presence of emperors (or high officials
representing them) provides additional lustre. This, at least, is the impression
gained from iconographic depictions created of these events in later centuries.
Less glamorous and hardly ever depicted, however, these councils were also char
acterized by a substantial administrative operation, to which we owe the trans
mission of sizeable numbers of records and other texts from these occasions. Such
texts are commonly referred to as council acts.
The acts from church councils in the ancient world that we find in modern
editions such as the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum are the product of mul
tiple stages of textual collection and copying stretching over centuries before
arriving at those final shapes that form the basis of Eduard Schwartz’s magisterial
edition and the work of his successors. The processes of shaping, arranging, and
collecting individual texts into council acts began already during the meetings
from which they emerged and to which they bear witness. In this respect, coun
cils can be portrayed as exercises in textual practices: in note-taking, reading,
copying, transcribing, arranging, editing, handling, collecting, and distributing
significant quantities of texts, and in different formats and material manifestations.
And yet, the importance of using and producing ‘documents’ for the work of
the councils and the exertions of secretaries and scribes concerned with the pro
duction of these records has attracted little scholarly attention. Ancient depictions
of judicial scenes in the civil sphere frequently show a small table with a docu
ment or two displayed on top to illustrate symbolically the work of the court and
so alert us to the importance of paperwork.1 A similar depiction of a council, had
it been attempted, would have to show a much bigger pile of papers, documents,
and books, requiring a significantly larger table. In a rare exception from the
common neglect of these artefacts and the activities associated with them, the
illustrator of a Carolingian ninth-century manuscript sketched a council scene in
which much space is given to the secretaries and to the texts they handled and
1 Representing this convention, the trial of Jesus before Pilate is illustrated in this way in the sixth-
century Codex Purpureus Rossanensis, fol. 8r (ed. Arthur Haseloff, Codex Purpureus Rossanensis: Die
Miniaturen der griechischen Evangelien-Handschrift in Rossano, Berlin: Giesecke & Devrient, 1898).
The Acts of the Early Church Councils: Production and Character. Thomas Graumann, Oxford University Press.
© Thomas Graumann 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198868170.003.0001
2 The Acts of the Early Church Councils
produced.2 In the middle ground formed by an oval of the seated ecclesiastical

dignitaries, we see two lecterns with weighty codices opened and displayed, and
six scribes with their pens and ink wells and with scrolls of writing material across
their knees, hard at work to record proceedings. Despite its early medieval air,
this manuscript illustration allows us to imagine the similar administrative oper
ation running alongside the meetings of bishops in antiquity—normally remain
ing unseen in the background of transactions.
Councils must have been feast days for ecclesiastical (and civil) functionaries
and administrators. Their specialist skills were in high demand. Even before
meetings were formally opened, the administrative operation kicked into gear
and remained in full swing long after the bishops retired, exhausted from their
sessions. In Roman administration, the creation and handling of texts had devel
oped into a fine art of professional specialists and in ecclesiastical contexts, too, it
often remained the special preserve of the bureaucrats and the keepers of archives
and libraries. These men spoke a distinct language, replete with the technical ter
minology used in the imperial bureaucracies.3
While the workings of the administrators could appear impenetrable to the
uninitiated, the administrative paper trail and its operations was ubiquitous in
late Roman society. The numerous papyri preserved mostly from Egypt (where
climatic conditions were unusually favourable for the preservation of such mater
ials) illustrate the pervasiveness of the bureaucracies of government and of the
judicial institutions constantly invoked to assess, adjudicate, and arbitrate nearly
all aspects of life. Virtually every Roman citizen had experience at some level with
some of this pervasive sprawl of documents, and those in positions of responsibil
ity understood at least some of the mechanics that kept the paperwork flowing.
Churchmen shared in this cultural experience and formation. The increasing
integration of the church into the institutional set-up of empire made many of
them practitioners of the bureaucratic arts themselves, whether acting as
scribes and notaries, financial administrators (oikonomoi), ecclesiastical advocates
(ekdikoi), or, in the case of bishops, as judges. In their own dioceses, bishops were
regularly involved in the daily struggle and legal wrangling over deeds, petitions,
and lawsuits, which they were required to mediate and adjudicate. The records of
these, one imagines, absorbed just as much time and effort as theological reading,
writing, and biblical study. Many will have recognized themselves and their daily
2 Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS 32, digitalized at http://psalter.library.uu.nl; the drawing is

found on fol. 90v.
3 Even in Greek-speaking contexts, and despite the increased usage of Greek in government com
munications—recently traced by Fergus Millar, A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under
Theodosius II (408–450) (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006)—Latinisms and echoes of
Latin technical ‘jargon’ are certain indications of ‘insider’ speak. They are particularly pertinent in
legal contexts. See now Matias Buchholz, Römisches Recht auf Griechisch. Prolegomena zu einer lin-
guistischen Untersuchung der Zusammensetzung und Semantik des byzantinischen prozessrechtlichen
Wortschatzes (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2018).
Introduction 3
plight in Augustine’s well-known complaint of the inordinate burden that such

legal and administrative work placed on him.4 This dimension of their episcopal
duties made them all ‘semi-professionals’, or at least keen amateurs—out of neces
sity and by practice, if not always by training—in the business of handling texts
and record-keeping.5 Some inevitably moved in the imperial legal system and its
paperwork with more confidence than others.6 Specialists in the lower clerical
ranks soon emerged and gained importance quickly. The councils we shall exam
ine bring to light a number of specialists in the ranks of the clergy assisting their
bishops with their various technical competences.
Such occupations and backgrounds in the handling of everyday church affairs,
outside conciliar meetings, then, fostered the expectations of churchmen about
the required—and formally correct—engagement with documents and paper
work appropriate for an occasion of the significance of a council, even before we
take into account the involvement of imperial officers and their staff in many of
the councils examined in this study. They also equipped them with the skills and
knowledge to achieve it. The bishops and their office-staff active in late antique
councils conducted the necessary scrutiny of documents before accepting them—
or at least made the pretence of doing so—in the same way as imperial bureau
crats and legal experts. When preparing their own records, senior bishops—just
like civil office-holders—also used the technical formulae that signalled to their
subordinates and administrative aides the intended processing of the records,
acts, and documents transacted during the sessions, and in this way prompted
them to action.
Analogies of conciliar transactions with the work of law courts and delibera
tive civil assemblies that underscore such communality have long been observed.7
As the natural cultural environment of conciliar activity, such similarities cannot
surprise. Yet the significance of the seemingly lesser tasks in the ‘bureaucracy’ of
councils has failed to attract sufficient scholarly attention. And with it, the
4 Of his numerous complaints, see only Op.Mon. 29.37; Neil McLynn, ‘Administrator: Augustine in
His Diocese’, in Mark Vessey (ed.), A Companion to Augustine (Chichester: Wiley- Blackwell,
2012), 312–22.
5 Some, like Julian, the bishop of Lebedos, had experience of notarial work from earlier stages of
their career; CChalc. I.130.
6 Cf. Caroline Humfress, Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity (Oxford: OUP, 2007);
Caroline Humfress, ‘Bishops and Law Courts in Late Antiquity: How (Not) to Make Sense of the Legal
Evidence’, JECS 19:3 (2011): 375–400; Erika T. Hermanowicz, Possidius of Calama: A Study of the
North African Episcopate at the Time of Augustine (Oxford: OUP, 2008); Norman Russell, ‘Theophilus
of Alexandria as a Forensic Practitioner’, StP 50 (2011): 235–43. From the perspective of legal history,
see now Peter Riedlberger, Prolegomena zu den spätantiken Konstitutionen. Nebst einer Analyse der
erbrechtlichen und verwandten Sanktionen gegen Heterodoxe (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: frommann-
holzboog, 2020), 495–607.
7 See, classically, Heinrich Gelzer, ‘Die Konzilien als Reichsparlamente’, in Ausgewählte Kleine
Schriften (Leipzig: Teubner, 1907), 142–55; Pierre Batiffol, ‘Origine du règlement des conciles’, in
Etudes de liturgie et d’archéologie chrétienne (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1919), vol. 3, 84–153.
characteristics of conciliar ‘paperwork’ and the mechanics of its confection and

use have yet to be analysed.
The required textual-administrative processes for the production of conciliar
records, instigated by the commands of bishops and officials and executed by
notaries, secretaries, and scribes with the technical skills of their profession, were
not accidental to the work of councils and—it is the contention of this study—
barely even secondary to formal proceedings when it came to achieving the
councils’ desired efficacy. What is more, the supervision and control of the
administrative, text-based, and text-creating processes was also an essential tool
in steering the council and its transactions in the desired direction. The adminis
trative personnel behind the main actors on the conciliar stage who carried out
this work were indispensable for the operation of a council. Without them, the
bishops would be in danger of remaining largely ineffective. Yet with the right
aides at their beckoning, leading figures could shape events and records for their
benefit and to suit their agenda. The professional and personal affiliations of the
assistants working with bishops and officials—where they can be uncovered—
therefore hold at least one key to unlocking the lines of communication and influ
ence operating behind the public-facing exterior of the meetings (Chapter 8).
More important still is an understanding of the work these unseen men carried
out in between meetings and after the conclusion of sessions, so that the finalized
official record—on which so much depended at the time and which is still the
basis (often the only one) for any historical or theological investigation now—
could become a reality.
For the assessment and interpretation of conciliar acta, understanding the
practicalities of their creation is therefore imperative. Crucially, in a significant
number of instances, bishops, officers, and secretaries active in councils openly
addressed questions relating to the textual and administrative activities to which
these records owe their existence. Less frequently, the acts themselves signal for
unstated (but often reconstructable) reasons the special significance attached to
the documentary record for the purposes of the council. Such instances provide
fruitful starting points for our analysis.
With its concern for the textual practices and outputs of church councils, the
present study builds and seeks to advance existing scholarship on ancient coun
cils. Assessing past scholarship on the rich treasure of conciliar texts creates a
somewhat paradoxical impression. On the one hand, church councils have for
centuries occupied historians, theologians, and canon lawyers. In various and
manifold ways countless works in these areas have illuminated important aspects
of late antique Christianity and late Roman society, of Christian doctrine, and of
the generation and transformation of its legal traditions. Research has borne and
continues to bear rich fruit in all these areas. The council records examined here
have often been the foundational sources and resources for such endeavours.
Introduction 5
At the same time, the forbidding complexity and sheer quantity of conciliar
texts included in the great collections has probably more often impeded than
stimulated interest. In 1927, the first editor of the ACO could observe with some
despair that ‘nobody reads council acts’ (Acta conciliorum non leguntur).8 With
the exception of a few specialists, this remained true long after Schwartz’s own
editorial exertions began to provide these texts in modern critical editions. The
editorial project that Schwartz started almost exactly one hundred years ago came
to its conclusion only in 2016. A recent surge of scholarly interest appears to be
connected not least with the appearance in print of modern language translations,
chief among them the English translations of the Acts of the Ephesus I (431), the
Council of Chalcedon (451), the Second Council of Constantinople (553), the
Lateran Council (649), and Nicaea II (787) by Richard Price and a number of
collaborators.9
Almost inevitably, most theological and historical approaches to church coun
cils have been predominantly concerned with council acts as ‘sources’ for distinct
thematic research interests. The description of the material and its generation has
mostly been relegated to ‘introductory’ concerns and at the most prompted dis
cussion of how the historical-political and intellectual contexts shaping the coun
cils also impinged on their acts and affects their ‘reliability’ as historical sources.
Though potentially decisive for the historical and theological interpretation of the
‘source’-material, the document characteristics and the textual practices to which
the acts owe their existence have not been analysed and examined across different
councils and as important in their own right. Only Fergus Millar’s important
examination of government communication in the times of Theodosius II—much
of it manifested in council acts—begins to gesture in this direction.10
A fundamental interest in the acts in and of themselves, therefore, is almost
entirely confined to, and summed up by, the great editorial feats of the Acta
Conciliorum Oecumenicorum and the numerous attendant studies of their editors:
Eduard Schwartz, Johannes Straub, Rudolf Riedinger, Heinz Ohme, and Erich
Lamberz. To these must be added the editorial work on other councils outside of
this corpus: the Council of Aquileia by Manuela Zelzer; the Conference of
Carthage by Serge Lancel and more recently by Clemens Weidmann; and less
directly, but no less important, the ‘Urkunden’ (documents) of fourth-century
councils initiated by H.-G. Opitz and continued by H. Chr. Brennecke and his
collaborators.11 Many important insights are also found in the translation
8 Eduard Schwartz, ‘Die Kaiserin Pulcheria auf der Synode von Chalkedon’, in Festgabe für Adolf
Jülicher zum 70. Geburtstag (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1927), 212.
9 See the Bibliography, 309–11. 10 Millar, Greek Roman Empire.
11 Editions are given in the Bibliography, 309–11 and 315.
volumes by Richard Price mentioned previously, and his associated studies. Our
study owes an immense debt to the work of these scholars.
Yet for the provision of critical editions, the main focus of these scholars had to
be directed towards the archetypal form of the acts preserved in the manuscript
tradition, and the interest in the conditions and circumstances of their origins is
shaped by this principal purview.12 Different from such concerns (and comple
mentary to them), this examination instead focuses on the practices employed by
the conciliar secretariats themselves when creating the very first form and textual
artefact that constituted the ‘official’ protocol of a session, and of the acts of a
council—activities that are situated one step (at least) prior to the manuscript
tradition that pushes off from what they produced.13 Consequently, our study
does not presume to rewrite the history of the creation of council acts from the
perspective of their textual transmission, which the editors of the separate vol
umes of the ACO (and other standalone editions) have magisterially portrayed
for each separate occasion.
Our research of the creation of council acts, and the instances of their early use
and handling, instead aims to evaluate the importance of textual production,
receptions, and handling for the core business of various councils and for these
councils’ institutional convictions and self-perception. As both texts and objects,
the completed records express the council’s sense of purpose and embody its
claim to validity. The acts, in this perspective, are not the by-product and mere
textual fallout of the important transactions by the councils concerned, which
more or less directly present the ‘reality’ of discussions and decision-making and
can safely be evaluated in historical and theological research with that interest
alone. Instead the acts—as paperwork—lay claim in essence to the authority of
the council and the legitimacy of its proceedings and decisions. This character
of council acts as legitimizing texts necessarily focuses attention on the open
or veiled attempts by their makers to engage with an implied audience in a persua
sive manner. Eduard Schwartz has amply demonstrated this underlying purpose
as operative in the collections made of these texts in later centuries and pointed
out their resultant tendentiousness; he incisively called them ‘publizistische
Sammlungen’ (collections for the purpose of partisan argument).14 Similar aims
and mechanisms, we contend, not only inform such later collections but also
already shape the initial processes for the creation of the original acts. Council
12 Independent of such editorial work, only a few more studies have begun to analyse, sporadically on
the basis of select evidence from particular synods, elements relevant to the making of council acts.
Emin Tengström’s study of the work of stenographer and scribes at the Conference of Carthage has been
foundational in this respect; it forms a helpful springboard for our study (see Chapter 3, pp. 33–6).
13 How closely these theoretically distinct steps are linked is not least determined by the creation of
an authoritative ‘edition’ of acts by the conciliar authorities, or its absence (see Chapter 18, pp. 283–95).
14 Eduard Schwartz, Publizistische Sammlungen zum Acacianischen Schisma, ABAW.PH, N.F.10
(München: C.H. Beck, 1934).
Introduction 7
acts, then, are not simply, arguably not even predominantly, informational and
documentary in character and aspiration; they are rhetorical, argumentative,
persuasive, polemical from the outset—which tendencies later compilers and
copyists often developed further (at times redirecting and remoulding the
originators’ designs in the process). The acts must be understood as compositorial-
editorial products of a guiding quasi-authorial mind, even if their leading ‘voice’
may not be one individual’s but representative of complex negotiations of
divergent interests.
The argumentative and legitimizing values of the acts, we contend, are
inscribed in the practices of their creation and compilation; put differently, textual
practices speak of their creators’ intentionality and are the principal means to
execute them. These purposes and intentions are at the same time concretely
embodied in the acts and documents as physical objects. The acts, therefore,
simultaneously need to be understood in their materiality, as artefacts. These
ancient material objects are no longer directly available to the modern scholar,
having long since decayed together with the archives that kept them. Yet the
recorded descriptions and discussions of these objects by the clergy and officials
handling them allow reconstruction of important features, some of which may be
illustrated by papyrological evidence of similar documents from different social
and institutional contexts. Textual practices, then, are the way in which councils
actively construed their claims to ‘truth’ and authority, and material textual
embodiments of acts reveal and display the legitimizing claims of their makers.
The methodological approach of this study is directly informed by the activ
ities observed in conciliar gatherings. Several councils responded to the work of
previous assemblies and openly engaged in the critical scrutiny of the paperwork
left behind by those earlier transactions. At the same time and on the same occa
sions, the bishops (or officials) and the secretaries they instructed began to prod
uce records of the same kind they inspected and discussed. We thus observe two
strands of ancient engagement with conciliar (and related) documentation folded
into one: one provided a description of textual and administrative activity in
action while matters were being transacted, running alongside them and looking
forward to their eventual completion; the other offered critical comment on the
characteristics of documents previously created by other assemblies by the same
kinds of practices and for comparable purposes. The latter perspective allows us
to infer expectations and conventions governing the final shape and required for
mality of the record—whether the ancient critics held up earlier records as posi
tive models or as negative examples of the mistakes to avoid. ‘Proper’ documentary
form, reconstructed from expressions of ancient expectation, in turn provides us
with the standards by which to evaluate the records they left behind for us. The two
counter-directional yet complementary perspectives find expression in mirroring
parts in this study; they analyse the examination of existing records conducted in
councils (Part II) and the textual practices of the councils’ chancelleries for the
production of fresh records (Parts III and IV).
The need to focus on the overt discussions of bishops and administrators
directs our attention specifically to a number of individual examples from par
ticular councils, and so defines and demarcates the range of evidence we study.
The most informative examples for this research interest can be historically situ
ated in a short period of only fifty years in the first half of the fifth century, to
which sporadic earlier and subsequent evidence adds (see pp. 21–3 for more
detail). These distinctive sources offer a unique opportunity to study the processes
active in the textual gestation of acts, and to uncover the assumptions about
documentary propriety and purpose on which they rest. Most other conciliar
records—which must be the products of analogous practices and concerns—only
rarely draw attention to such factors but are more usually content to display
before the reader’s eye the finished, and polished, fruits of their labour. The rele
vant discussions of ancient practitioners in this way directly determine and define
the inevitable selection of relevant material chosen for close examination. This
requires analysis of the relevant phenomena across several councils. The persist
ence of the cultural techniques underpinning and enabling the procedures for the
creation of records allows us, moreover, to include evidence from the time of
Justinian. The similarities between legal and bureaucratic convention and lan
guage in Justinian’s legislation, and in the legal compilations overseen by him, and
the habits observed in fifth-century council texts are especially instructive.
The councils of even later periods of Byzantine history, in contrast, inhabit a
transformed world, and so do—in different ways—the councils of the Visigothic,
Vandal, Merowingian, and Frankish churches in the West contemporary to them.
Continuity and semblance in some of their activities can still be observed, while
the changed, and changing, cultural and political constellations are responsible
for the specific formation of both their procedures and their documentary con
cerns. They are not, for this reason, studied here in any detail. The only exception
is a very limited discussion of two distinct contexts, where acts from earlier coun
cils were scrutinized; they allow us to identify the characteristics of the relevant
texts from the vantage point of their ancient users (Chapter 7).
The resultant comparative and complementary approach does not, however,
entail the claim that we can presume a common, regularly employed set of rules
and techniques on these and all other occasions—as if applying a firm ‘manual’ of
conciliar bureaucracy. In fact, the opposite is the case: we shall have occasion
repeatedly to point out variety, variation, and divergence running alongside and
interposing with the frequent operation of essentially the same basic mechanisms.
The investigation, therefore, does not seek to arrive at a synthesis of purported
administrative uniformity through the accumulation of evidence from different
contexts. Specific contexts in specific councils, rather, function like case studies
Introduction 9
which between them draw the contours of the range of possibilities—and outline
their limits—within which the notaries and bishops worked and from which
they selected.
The selection of the principal evidence on which our study rests—as it is
directly derived from the ancient occasions of overt discussion of these
phenomena—identifies, finally, a certain type of conciliar text as most fruitful for
our investigation and as most deserving of our attention. The late antique discus
sions about documentary probity, which provide our starting point, are found in
session-protocols that present themselves as the direct records of ‘live’ oral inter
ventions by individual speakers. Our investigation concentrates effectively on
these ‘direct-speech’ protocols and the particular needs and requirements of their
making. Other modes of representing conciliar business, neglecting direct speech,
are in evidence, for which the techniques of written drafting are fundamental;
they do not require detailed analysis here. We shall sketch the fuller range of texts
emerging from other councils and in different periods which are not in the fore
ground of our investigation and discuss exceptions from, and intrinsic variations
of, the protocols in direct speech in Part I.
PART I
T HE QU E ST F OR
D O C UME N TAT ION
1
The Earliest Church Councils
A Documentary History
The majority of surviving council records, especially those that record the spoken
interventions of individual bishops and officials, originated in the fifth and subse-
quent centuries. Yet the desire to create and obtain records of what had been dis-
cussed and decided in meetings of ecclesiastical leaders arose much earlier and
developed alongside the formation of councils as institutions of the church. In
fact, the history of early church councils can be told as a history of their
documents.
Documentation of one kind or another and attendant written communication
were at the heart of conciliar activity and proved essential to the nature and pur-
pose of church councils from an early date. From the late second century onwards,
leading churchmen from more than a single locality (civitas or paroikia) con-
vened sporadically to discuss certain challenges arising in their churches and to
decide how to respond. Varying interpretations of what constituted ‘true’
Christianity required clarification not just within a single congregation but
increasingly on a broader scale, as did divergent liturgical practices and moral
choices of teaching and practice. These sporadic gatherings evolved over the
course of the third century into more regular synods or councils—the terms
synod (σύνοδος)/synodus and council (concilium) were used synonymously in
antiquity and do not denote a difference in membership, procedure, or authority.1
In Constantinian and post-Constantinian times councils became more frequent
at all levels of the churches’ life and gained a firmer institutional basis in the pro-
cess. They developed into the main institution of the church’s organizational and
disciplinary self-regulation, and provided the most important forum for her
efforts at doctrinal definition. In particular, the newly emerging formats of imper
ial councils, ideally representing the churches of the entire empire, acquired
exceptional significance and authority.
In the process councils also became the focal points for, and centres of, textual
production, documentation, transmission, and reception. Numerous and varied
texts were the products of church councils or were related to their activities. As
1 For the ancient terminology, see Adolf Lumpe, ‘Zur Geschichte der Wörter concilium und syno-
dus in der antiken christlichen Latinität’, AHC 2 (1970): 1–21; Adolf Lumpe, ‘Zur Geschichte des
Wortes σύνοδος in der antiken christlichen Gräzität’, AHC 6 (1974): 40–53.
much as the institutional development of councils was a gradual and protracted

process, so too the aspirations, modalities, and habits of documenting them
evolved slowly over time and showed considerable variation.
For the earliest councils our main sources are the narratives, reports, and
docu mentary extracts presented in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of
Caesarea. He generally understood these early meetings of churchmen in the
light of anachronistic presuppositions, and described them in the mould of those
contemporary synods of the early fourth century he had come to know and in
which he had participated. We cannot, therefore, always ascribe safely second-
century documents from which he quotes or to which he alludes to the work of
‘synods’ and have to be cautious in assessing his presentation of particular fea-
tures.2 With this caution in mind, the question of conciliar ‘writing’ nevertheless
surfaces very early. An anonymous source cited by Eusebius mentions the wish of
local leaders for a ‘record’ or ‘memorandum’ (ὑπόμνημα) of a gathering, which
had convened to discuss the so-called New Prophecy—or Montanism—in Asia
Minor (probably in the 170s to 180s), and so reveals the early desire to hold on to
a record of the questions examined and opinions formed by those assembled.3 In
another context Eusebius knows of a letter written by the bishop of Antioch,
which carried the subscriptions (ὑποσημειώσεις) of many ‘bishops’. After the pat-
tern of the synods of his own day, Eusebius understands it as representing their
common judgement, and so constituting a synodical letter.4
When writing his Church History, as this and other cases confirm, Eusebius
had to hand dossiers of letters on certain controversies, presumably held in the
library of Caesarea, some of which contained letters relating to, and emerging
from, synodical meetings.5 Letter writing had been central to the Christian com-
munities from the start; they had spun a tight network of epistolary communica-
tion across the Mediterranean. Epistolary reporting from synodical meetings
could build on this custom and the habit of mutual exchange of information and
exhortation between congregations. Writing letters to individual addressees or
sending circular letters (encyclicals) to the church at large, consequently, was the
2 Cf. the discussion of individual instances of real or purported second- century synods in
Joseph A. Fischer and Adolf Lumpe, Die Synoden von den Anfängen bis zum Vorabend des Nicaenums
(Paderborn: Schöningh, 1997), 23–107.
3 Eus., h.e. V.16.5 (GCS 6/2, 460,23–5 Schwartz/Winkelmann).
4 Eus., h.e. V.19.3, interpreted as a synodical letter in Fischer and Lumpe, Synoden, 39–41. Eusebius
speaks (at 19.4) of the bishops as ‘co-deciders’ (συμψήφοι) and points out their distinct ‘handwritten
signatures’ (αὐτόγραφοι . . . σημειώσεις [GCS 6/2, 480,13–15 Schwartz/Winkelmann]). The practice of
signature-collection is certainly similar to later synodical conventions, even if it is not entirely clear
whether the document Eusebius mentions constitutes an early example of a synodical letter or is evi-
dence for another, less formalized effort to gather support for the views championed in the letter.
5 See Eus., h.e. V.23, with Andrew James Carriker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea (Leiden:
Brill, 2003), 245–7. Whether the ‘acts’ of such synods contained documents in addition to the letters
reporting them, and what the character of such hypothetical documents may have been, cannot be
ascertained.
The Earliest Church Councils 15
primary means by which the earliest councils presented their work, and remained
central to the councils’ communication during the entire period examined in this
study. Such letters not only informed their addressees but also invited their
acceptance and recognition of the decisions taken and the views adopted.
Access to further synodical letters placed Eusebius’ historical narrative on
surer footing from the middle of the third century onwards. His reports and select
documentation provide clearer evidence both for the institutional development
of councils and the kinds of documents associated with them. The information he
obtained about the condemnation of Paul of Samosata in an Antiochene council
of ad 268, for instance, is very clearly derived from the council’s circular letter, of
which he quotes select passages.6 The extracts from this council’s encyclical letter
demonstrate in an exemplary fashion that such letters usually reported the coun-
cil’s business in narrative style, and did not include a word-for-word record of the
actual discussions in conciliar sessions.
The same style of narrative reporting, and the importance of conciliar letter
writing generally, are equally apparent in the correspondence of Cyprian, bishop
of Carthage in North Africa (d. 258), in the middle of the third century. The sur-
viving corpus of Cyprian’s correspondence exemplifies the habit of epistolary
reporting from councils, and provides us with a significant number of relevant
documents. From them we learn that in North Africa the convention of synodical
gatherings had already developed at least a generation before Cyprian’s episco-
pacy, who apparently also had access to some records from these earlier councils.
Their format and style, however, cannot be reconstructed form his remarks.
Cyprian himself convened a number of synods in the 250s, first in order to deal
with the fallout from the Decian persecution and then in the dispute over baptis-
mal practice. Several letters preserved in his correspondence stem from these
occasions, written in the name of the assembled bishops who are listed as co-
senders.7 Information given in these surviving letters provides indirect evidence
that more letters and also other ‘acts’ of councils probably existed.8
From one of the councils led by Cyprian (held on 1 September 256) there is
also transmitted the first direct record of individual ‘live’ voices in an episcopal
6 Eus., h.e. VII.30.1–17. The letter opens (at 30.2) with the list of the senders and the address to the
‘fellow bishops in the entire world and the whole catholic church’. It then goes on to give a brief
account of the events concerning Paul, and his failings in conduct and teaching, which the bishops
condemned. The letter mentions the sending of records (ὑπομνήματα) (VII.30.11; 710,18f. Schwartz/
Winkelmann), probably based on the stenographic notes (VII.29.2) made of his ‘refutation and ques-
tioning’ (ἐλέγχους καὶ ἐρωτήσεις; 30.1; 704,23) by the presbyter Malchion. The genuineness of extracts
from this debate ‘quoted’ in fifth-century sources is disputed. See Carriker, Library, 247f. with
note 233.
7 Instead of or in addition to listing senders at the start, synodical letters on occasion also provide
the names of signatories at the end.
8 Cf. Adolf von Harnack, Über verlorene Briefe und Actenstücke die sich aus der cyprianischen
Briefsammlung ermitteln lassen (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1902). The synodical letters contained in Cyprian’s
correspondence are itemized CCO nos. 3–5.
gathering, the so-called LXXXVII Sententiae Episcoporum.9 In one sense, these

‘verdicts’ (sententiae) represent the first surviving council ‘minutes’ or protocol.
However, they only document the concluding stages of the meeting, when the
decision was finalized. The record opens with an address (a kind of relatio) by the
chairman, Bishop Cyprian. He narrates the issues prompting the council and
summarizes the discussions which had taken place before he spoke—and before
the protocol begins. The participating bishops are then invited to express their
considered verdict on the matter, and eighty-seven individual statements are
recorded, concluded by the summative statement of the chairing bishop
Cyprian.10 There is no suggestion that anything else, any part in particular, of the
previous discussions and deliberations had ever been recorded, or that the record
originally contained further documents.11 The text’s basic structure of relatio and
sententiae, and the observance of due documentary formality, starting with the
date and place of the meeting and outlining the range of participation (but in this
case not listing individuals), have long been likened to the protocols of civil
assemblies, notably of the Roman Senate.12 They share a common cultural
pattern.
The interest in recording discussion and theological exposition (rather than
only formal decisions) is exemplified by another (slightly earlier) text from the
middle of the third century preserved in a papyrus found in 1948, the record of
the so-called Dialogue with Heracleides, conducted by the most eminent theolo-
gian of the time, Origen (d. 254).13 Whether the gathering should be considered a
council in a strict sense is disputed but need not concern us here;14 too firm a
distinction of various kinds of meetings at this early time is misleading, since it
could suggest a level of institutional development and differentiation that
9 See CPL 56; CCO 6, and cf. the literature listed by Weckwerth, CCO, 57f.
10 Cyprian’s opening address at Sententiae Episcoporum, prooemium (ed. Diercks, CCSL 3E, lines
10–27); his concluding verdict at Sententiae episcoporum 87 (lines 508–14 Diercks).
11 Pace Fischer and Lumpe, Synoden, 298, who consider the absence of letter(s) of invitation and of
an encyclical letter announcing the council’s decisions an omission from the record. Yet whether the
inclusion of such letters in a conciliar ‘file’—resembling the much later letter collections of the fifth
and later centuries—was already conventional must be doubtful. Cyprian sent a copy of the sententiae
to Firmilian of Caesarea (Fischer and Lumpe, Synoden, 120–5), suggesting the possibility of further
similar dispatches. They required a cover letter, but not necessarily a more substantial report of the
council’s business in the style of a synodical encyclical.
12 See p. 3, n. 7 for procedural similarities between civil and ecclesiastical assemblies, and, in the
specific case, most recently Paolo Bernardini, Un solo battesimo una sola chiese. Il concilio di Cartagine del
Settembre 256 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2009), 168–72; cf. further Hermann Josef Sieben, Die Konzilsidee
der Alten Kirche (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1979), 478, with the older literature cited there.
13 Origenes, Disputatio cum Heracleida [hereafter Dial.] (ed. Scherer, SC 67, 22002). The papyrus
gives the title of διάλεκτος. In Origen, this term is used virtually synonymously with both διάλεξις und
διάλογος (and occasionally with ζήτησις); cf. Scherer, SC 67, 52–3, and his annotation to Orig., Dial.
1.16 (54,13–15 Scherer). For the range of meaning, see LSJ, 109 s.v.
14 Fischer and Lumpe, Synoden, 141–50, treat the meeting in an appendix. Might the interest in the
brilliant theologian Origen and his teaching, rather than a wish to document the (quasi-?) synodical
gathering, have motivated the recording of this material? Rufinus, De Falsificatione 7 quotes from a
lost letter by Origen, which directly attests to the common practice of recording his discussions.
obscures the likely similarities in day-to-day practice, and the cultural commu-
nality underpinning events and shaping attendant textual practices. For the
recording practices here in view, the Dialogue provides helpful illustration. In this
instance, too, recording begins only after some previous conversation had
already taken place. The Dialogue starts from a short confession of faith by the
otherwise unknown Bishop Heracleides and initially takes the form of question-
ing (ἀνάκρισις), by which Origen explores the bishop’s opinions and tries to dis
abuse him (in almost Socratic style) of his errors. It swiftly turns into a teacher’s
monologue after the bishop had meekly conceded to the better judgement of
Origen at every turn.15 The debate with Heracleides and its recording were not
unique. Eusebius reports another synodical discussion between Origen and one
Bishop Beryl of Bostra in Arabia, written records of which, he claimed, survived
to his day; they preserved the questions Origen asked of him (the only element of
interest to Eusebius) and so presumably contained the recorded statements of all
those involved.16
Our relatively scarce information for the third century, chiefly relying on the
Church History of Eusebius of Caesarea and the correspondence of Cyprian, is
suggestive, then, of an at least occasional and still uneven practice of recording
important elements of (some) councils and cognate church assemblies.
During the fourth century and following the increasing institutional integra-
tion of the church into the legal and administrative machinery of the Roman
Empire inaugurated by Constantine, such efforts become more frequent and
regular. The development towards frequent and regular synods and the attendant
creation of council records constitute important pillars in the strengthening of
institutional certainties in the church in this period. Eduard Schwartz points out
that note- taking and the creation of records on such occasions became
15 From Dial. 2.28 onwards only Origen speaks. Based on analogies between his approach and
what happened in philosophical school settings, Sieben, Konzilsidee, 476 described this event as
closely resembling a ‘Schuldisputation’, and extrapolated from it an ‘academic’ type of councils (471).
Sieben’s distinction of such ‘types’ of councils is of some heuristic value for analysing conciliar activ
ities and purposes; yet the reality of early councils indicates, to me, a glissando of procedural expect
ations, dependent not least on the divergent and often conflicting interests of participants, more than
a fixed set of regulations. See Thomas Graumann, ‘Altkirchliche Konzilien zwischen theologischer
Disputation und rechtlichem Disput ’, in Ecclesia disputans, ed. Christoph Dartmann et al. (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2015), 35–60.
16 Eus., h.e. VI.33.1–3 (588,4–24 Schwartz/Winkelmann). Eusebius’ phrase suggests the confection
of (partial) records retaining direct speech; at least the words of Origen appear to have been recorded
(καὶ φέρεταί γε εἰς ἔτι νῦν ἔγγραφα τοῦ τε Βηρύλλου καὶ τῆς δι’ αὐτὸν γενομένης συνόδου, ὁμοῦ τὰς
Ὠριγένους πρὸς αὐτὸν ζητήσεις καὶ τὰς λεχθείσας ἐπὶ τῆς αὐτοῦ παροικίας διαλέξεις ἕκαστά τε τῶν τότε
πεπραγμένων περιέχοντα (‘The dealings with Beryl and the records of the synod organized because of
him, as well as Origen’s questions to him and the disputations held in his congregation, and every-
thing else related to the matter, are to this day extant’); VI.33.3, [588,15–18]). Eusebius additionally
speaks of another synod held in Arabia which involved Origen presenting his expert opinions (h.e.
VI.37); the short notice does not allow any conclusions as to the possible confection and form of
records. See the very full discussion of the comparatively sparse historical information about both
synods in Fischer and Lumpe, Synoden, 127–41.
progressively habitual to match what had long been routine in the senate, in law
courts and in the imperial consistorium.17 Our earlier examples have demon-
strated that imperial involvement did not initiate, or cause, the recording of pro-
ceedings in church. It also remained inconsistently applied for some time
thereafter. Even the first imperially mandated empire-wide council, held at Nicaea
in 325, did not instantly adopt ‘imperial’ administrative conventions wholesale.
An attendance list of bishops has survived along with the so-called canons (deci-
sions about discipline and organization), a doctrinal creed, and several pertaining
letters.18 But no records of the decisive theological (or in fact any) discussions and
of individual churchmen speaking were apparently ever made. The story narrated
in an anonymous Church History of the late fifth century (the traditionally so-
called Pseudo-Gelasius of Cyzicus),19 which claims detection of the complete acts
of Nicaea in a very old book ‘in the attic’, has no credibility and cannot sustain the
idea of original acts from the council.20 Such purported records never existed.21
The same must be said for the next council later to be considered ecumenical,
that of Constantinople 381.22 The lacking preparation of protocols of the Nicene
Council in particular—beyond putting on record its creed and canons—serves to
illustrate the significant lacunae in conciliar documentation in the period, even in
the case of a council, which was to become the foundational moment of the
imperial church and the unsurpassed expression of its orthodoxy in the collective
memories of later generations.
Nevertheless, the intended regularity of twice annual provincial synods (as
decreed at Nicaea, canon 5); the festive occasions when bishops came together
celebrating the dedication of new churches (often imperially sponsored); their
17 Eduard Schwartz, ‘Das Nicaenum und das Constantinopolitanum auf der Synode von
Chalkedon’, ZNW 25 (1926): 44.
18 See CPG 8511–27; the most important material is conveniently gathered in Pietras, Nicaea.
19 The Church History was written during or just after the reign of Basiliscus, ca. 475; it is more a
compilation than a history. Other than a fictional, novelistic account of the Nicene council, Ps.-
Gelasius relies on excerpts and documents known from earlier historians and offers no additional
historical value. For an authoritative discussion of Ps.-Gelasius’ discredited claims, his sources, his-
torical situation, and past scholarship, see Günther Christian Hansen, Anonymus von Cyzikus. Historia
Ecclesiastica/Kirchengeschichte (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), I.7–53. Ramsay MacMullen’s claim (Voting
about God in Early Church Councils (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 8 with n. 9), based
on this story and confusing ‘Gelasius’ with the pope of the same name, of the deliberate suppression of
original acts must be rejected. The story could be considered a case of ‘pseudo-documentarism’ (see
Karen Ní Mheallaigh, ‘Pseudo-Documentarism and the Limits of Ancient Fiction’, The American
Journal of Philology 129 (2008): 403–31).
20 Ps. Gelasius, h.e., proem. 2–6; 20 (GCS n.F. 9, 1f.; 4 Hansen).
21 Hier., Lucif. 20 (SC 473, lines 16f. Canellis), claims cognizance of ‘acta’ and ‘nomina episcopo-
rum’ of the Nicene Council. Whether this material amounted to more than the subscription list
(nomina) and the decisions (the creed and canons) must be doubtful. ‘Acta’ need not mean verbatim
records. In substance, Jerome’s information is derived from Athanasius and other writers. The claim
thus provides rhetorical support for the ‘Orthodox’ interlocutor but is not historically reliable. Cf.
Canellis, ‘Introduction’, SC 473, 56–8 and the literature cited there.
22 Evangelos Chrysos, ‘Die Akten des Konzils von Konstantinopel I (381)’, in Romanitas—
Christianitas, ed. Gerhard Wirth (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982), 426–35.
meetings to elect and ordain bishops when sees had fallen vacant; and not least
the many gatherings—whether local, provincial, regional or trans-regional, or
empire-wide—prompted by the theological controversies following Nicaea all
contributed to a bustle of conciliar activity over the course of the fourth century.23
In the many synods that followed Nicaea, numerous documents were issued and
debated, and at least in some cases records of conversations and discussions were
certainly drawn up. Undisputable examples include the protocol of a dispute
between Photius of Sirmium and Basil of Ancyra held at Sirmium in 351,24 and
those of a celebratory enactment of regained community at the Council of Rimini
in 359 (the so-called second session of the council), from which Jerome quotes a
section.25
The accidents of textual transmission and the as yet uneven practices of the
time conspire to leave us with only a largely indirect transmission of the docu-
ments and acts from fourth-century councils. The great majority survive—most
often in extracts—only in secondary narrative or polemical contexts, quoted
there by authors who were intent on using such documents to bolster their cases,
to denounce the misdemeanours and doctrinal errors of their opponents, and to
impart their own understanding of ‘orthodoxy’ and their interpretation of the
recent and more distant past of church affairs and doctrinal controversies.
Carefully and cautiously disrobed of these narrative vestments, authentic concil-
iar documents and testimonies of the fourth century emerge in plentiful supply,
which H.G. Opitz and his successors have edited as ‘Urkunden’ and ‘Dokumente’
of the Arian controversies.26
More is surely lost than has been preserved. It would be unhelpful to speculate
on how many more occasions detailed records of transactions were drawn up,
and what might have been their character in each case. We may nevertheless con-
clude from the surviving evidence that during the fourth century already the pro-
duction of conciliar documents and ‘paperwork’ formed a significant aspect of
the bishops’ work on the occasion of their meetings, and in addition provided a
23 MacMullen, Voting, 7, calculated the number of councils for the period of the fourth and fifth
centuries on the basis of twice-annual meetings in every Roman province. While serving as general
illustration of the high frequency of such events, the mechanical reckoning and the resultant numbers
cannot convince.
24 Cf. Epiph., haer. 71,1–6 (GCS 37, 249–55 Holl/Dummer).
25 Cf. Hier., Lucif. 17–18 (lines 148–57 Canellis). The value of these extracts is not diminished if, as
Duval, ‘manœuvre frauduleuse’, 81f. has suggested, Jerome learned them ‘second hand’ from Hilary of
Poitier’s lost treatise Adversus Ursacium et Valentem (see Hier., vir.ill. 100.3). To give but two further
examples for the required recording practices outside, strictly, of conciliar contexts, Theodoret’s
Church History includes the verbatim exchanges—written down at the time, he claims—between the
Roman bishop Liberius and the emperor Constantius and members of his entourage (h.e. II.15.10 and
16.1–26; GCS n.F. 5, 131–5 Parmentier/Hansen), and points out the work of tachygraphers ordered by
Constantius to take down for their master the homilies given by the competing candidates for the
episcopal throne of Antioch (h.e. II.30.6–8,172f. Parmentier/Hansen).
26 See Athanasius Werke [AW] III.1.1 (1934/5)—(currently) III.1.5 (2020); more volumes are in
preparation.
focal point for much literary activity and epistolary communication in between
councils. The many synods of the fourth century variously produced, discussed,
and issued in particular a number of doctrinal declarations and formulae, ana
themas, and decrees in search of a ‘precise’ and/or agreeable wording of trinitar-
ian orthodoxy. To a significant extent their work can therefore be described as
engaging in textual practices: the drafting, amending, and discussion of docu-
ments and entire treatises as well as specific questions of terminology and phrase-
ology. Tentative beginnings of compilation of conciliar documents can also be
reconstructed; negotiations over possible communality and grounds for theological
agreement between representatives of different theological preferences, it seems,
could employ this method of textual assemblage. In the middle of the fourth
century, for example, three bishops produced a collection or dossier of position
papers and conciliar decisions at the court at Sirmium.27 It was not intended for
historical documentation—however partisan in character28—but represented an
attempt to directly influence imperial religious politics and to set out in this way a
kind of ‘charter’ of orthodoxy.
The indirect nature and piecemeal fashion of surviving extracts and documents
make it extremely difficult to adumbrate procedural conventions from this mater
ial, and especially to observe and reconstruct textual practices carried out during
and after the meetings. Some occasions provide at least a glimpse into some fea-
tures of the records and underlying recording practices. The canons of the
Council of Serdica (343) preserve the remnants of a narrative recording style that
allows recognizing individual sponsors of proposed regulations, and represents
their suggestions in the form of direct speech along the way to the meeting’s dis
ciplinary decisions. The representation is, however, formulaic and retains no
elements of deliberation or any counter-proposals.29 Later in the fourth century,
the Council of Aquileia (381) provides the first significant and fairly extensive
27 These activities are sometimes ascribed to the ‘fourth’ council of Sirmium (358); we are dealing,
rather, with the deliberations and activities of a small group. The church historian Sozomenos charac-
terizes their work as the ‘gathering together in one document’ (εἰς μίαν γραφὴν ἀθροίσαντες; h.e.
IV.15.2 (GCS n.F. 4, 158,7 Bidez/Hansen)) of past decisions and central positional texts of the bishops
involved. The further details of Sozomenos’ account (h.e., IV.15.2 and 15.3–6) linking the collection to
the case of Liberius are ‘imaginative reconstruction’ (Timothy Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 232) and lack historical credibility. For the texts
associated with the meeting, see AW III.1.4, 409–19.
28 An example of this kind of ‘historical’ collection is the Synodicon of Sabinus of Heraclea, com-
piled around 367/8; Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, ‘Die antinicänische Synodalsammlung des Sabinus von
Heraclea’, VigChr 24 (1970): 105–26; Winrich Löhr, ‘Beobachtungen zu Sabinos von Herakleia’, ZKG
98 (1987): 386–91.
29 Hamilton Hess, The Early Development of Canon Law and the Council of Serdica (Oxford: OUP,
2002), for the texts esp. 212–55. Textual formality is not the concern of the otherwise instructive
recent study by Christopher W.B. Stephens, Canon Law and Episcopal Authority. The Canons of
Antioch and Serdica (Oxford: OUP, 2015).
protocol of a council session, which records the exchanges between individual

speakers in the form of oratio recta.30
Eduard Schwartz’s suggestion, therefore, that extensive recording in the form of
a ‘protocol’ or ‘minutes’ representing direct speech became more widespread and
increasingly habitual over the course of the century appropriately captures the
evolving regularity of such practices. Yet their residual patchiness and negligence
must be noted. The sheer increase in the frequency of councils undoubtedly
furthered the development of regular documentation in line with the progressive
adoption and adaptation of common cultural conventions and combined with the
increase in administrative responsibilities and tasks of church governance. Church
administration and conflict resolution fulfilled functions similar to the tasks of
civil governance and not unreasonably, therefore, also employed similar methods
and instruments to address similar needs, holding meetings and establishing
formal records being central among them.
* * *
After these antecedents, the very best and abundant information about the con-
fection of conciliar records transpires barely a generation later, and a wealth of
texts emerges from a number of ecclesiastical conventions within a period of less
than fifty years in the first half and middle of the fifth century. First, a meeting of
bishops from two competing churches in North Africa gives us very detailed—
though again incomplete—records of proceedings, which also offer ample illus-
tration of the processes involved in their confection. This so-called Conference of
Carthage (ad 411) will provide us with a model case from which to push off our
investigation (Chapter 3), even though it is unique in many respects, and chal-
lenges the historian to reconstruct the ordinary from the exceptional. Another
twenty years later, secondly, the First Council of Ephesus (431) left behind a rich
treasure of acts, which reveal some of the practices employed and the intentions
pursued in drawing up records. Even more evocative, we find a rich vein of mater
ial emerging within a span of only three years, between 448 and 451, in a sequence
of meetings and councils, which culminate in the Fourth Ecumenical Council of
Chalcedon (451). With respect to the government correspondence and commu-
nication included in these acts, Fergus Millar has described these years as the
most densely documented period of Roman history.31 The same is probably true
of the ecclesiastical paperwork produced by or aimed at the church councils in
these years. The acts of the Council of Chalcedon contain in a complex layering
30 Acta concilii Aquileiensis (ed. Zelzer, CSEL 82/3); cf. bibliography in CCO, 296–8. What survives
breaks off abruptly during proceedings.
31 Millar, Greek Roman Empire, 157; G(eoffrey) E(rnest) M(aurice) De Ste. Croix, ‘The Council of
Chalcedon’, in Michael Whitby and Joseph Streeter (eds.), Christian Persecution, Martyrdom, and
Orthodoxy (Oxford: OUP, 2006), 259f., called it the best-known event in ancient history.
the documentation of several more events, which, over the course of three years,
had repeatedly attempted to adjudicate the case of one monk, the leader (archi-
mandrite) of a Constantinopolitan monastery by the name of Eutyches, and con-
cerned themselves with the Christological questions his case had thrown up.
These records contain: the proceedings of the Synodos Endemousa (the
Constantinopolitan Resident Synod or Home Synod) conducted against Eutyches
in seven sessions (November 448); two hearings before two imperial commis-
sions investigating the veracity or manipulation of this synod’s records (13 and
27 April 449); and the session of the Second Council of Ephesus (8 August 449)
that revised this synod’s decisions by reinstating Eutyches and condemning
his judges. Finally, the Council of Chalcedon (8 October to 1 November 451)
rehearses all this material again in its first session, and adds critical commentary.
To this already very full documentation, other examples can be added. Later
sessions of the Chalcedonian Council heard a number of disciplinary cases. In
addition to the records of their own proceedings, they bring to light further
records from a number of provincial assemblies, chiefly in the 440s, which had
previously been concerned with the relevant cases.32 These expand our treasure of
conciliar paperwork even further. This dense period of feverish conciliar activity
affords the unique opportunity to witness the handling and creation of conciliar
records in illuminating ways. Despite their geographical, chronological, and lin-
guistic particularity, these different occasions reveal enough communality to
make it possible to place them side by side, and in this way generate a relatively
certain framework for the reconstruction of scribal and editorial practices on
such occasions and for the period studied here.
Evidence from later councils sporadically offers additional elucidation, when
comparable concerns are addressed and similar approaches can be discerned. In
the councils held during the reign of Justinian, the formal appearance of a record
of oral interaction is regularly maintained as the most common form of ‘session-
protocols’, but the emphasis increasingly shifts to the documentation of material
‘read out’, resulting in a marked reduction of elements of ‘live’ discussion, which
is both lessened in quantity and increasingly formulaic in style. The
Constantinopolitan Council of 553 thus presents quite different modes of live
interaction, albeit still in the conventional form of a ‘direct-speech’ protocol: the
second ‘session’ in fact amounts to no more than an executive announcement by
32 CChalc. IX–X contains the records of hearings and meetings in the case of Bishop Ibas of Edessa
(of 448–9; cf. CPG 8903 and 8938); further proceedings and material in his case, transacted at the
Second Council of Ephesus, survive in a Syriac translation. These include proceedings before different
ecclesiastical bodies and imperial officials. Since our investigation has to concentrate in large part on
the precise technical terminology for textual and documentary practices, these Syriac acts are of
limited help, because such technical features are not normally reproduced with suitable linguistic pre-
cision to allow for more than general comparison. What can be observed from the Syriac acts about
the procedural concerns for, and the attentiveness to, documents and their characteristics on these
occasions in general supports and confirms the assessments in our study.
the chairman (framed by the conventional opening elements of a protocol, which

are suspect to ‘literary’ creation); he probably simply read out a prepared state-
ment to this effect.33 Other sessions, especially the fourth and fifth, consist of the
recitation of carefully prepared and arranged florilegia with only a minimum of
occasional ‘comment’ interspersed. Such explanatory statements could conceiv
ably have been written (at least in part) into the record at its first textual produc-
tion, and need not represent actual speaking in the meeting.34 The acts of the
Lateran Council (ad 649) in the next century are suspected of virtually complete
literary composition.35 From these and comparable instances no fresh evidence
for the textual practices required for the recording, transcribing, and shaping of a
record based on the ‘live’ interaction in sessions emerges that could significantly
nuance or fundamentally alter our interpretation of these processes—other than
alerting us to the ever-increasing importance of written drafting over recorded
speaking.
Yet these later councils also sometimes discuss much more explicitly and con-
sciously the issues arising from creating, using, and examining existing council
acts. Two such instances will help to shed light on what remains more obscure in
the earlier events. Our study therefore includes a short chapter that discusses two
occasions in which during the Constantinopolitan Council of 680–1 and that of
Nicaea II (787) the use of ‘correct’ texts from earlier times, and its relevance for
conciliar propriety, became a matter of importance. The features exhibited in the
records of these occasions are illuminating of important facets under investiga-
tion. It is not the intention of our study otherwise to characterize the acts of these
councils. All the more, in selecting and using this material in the described per-
spective, careful attention needs to be paid to the specific contexts and distinct
historical situation in each case, without supposing simply identical conventions,
practices, and intentions over a span of nearly four centuries, or imagining linear
teleological developments between them.
33 C.Cstpl.II(553), II (trans. Price, Constantinople, I.206–18).

34 C.Cstpl.II(553), IV–V (trans. Price, Constantinople, I.225–370). For the construal of an argu-
mentative thread by the sequencing of excerpted documents, see Thomas Graumann, ‘Orthodoxy,
Authority and the (Re)Construction of the Past in Church Councils’, in Jörg Ulrich, Anders-Christian
Jacobsen, and David Brakke (eds.), Invention, Rewriting, Usurpation (Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang,
2011), 219–37.
35 The case is made by Rudolf Riedinger in numerous studies, collected in Kleine Schriften zu den
Konzilsakten des 7. Jahrhunderts (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998). Recently Price, Lateran, 59–68 has again
argued in favour of accepting in the records elements of real interaction, including real speech-acts by
the assembled bishops. Even on such an evaluation, the overwhelmingly ‘written’ character of the
council, in the preparation of ‘statements’ made, cannot be doubted.
2
‘Council Acts’ and the Variations of
Conciliar Documentation and Recording
Patterns
The brief historical survey reveals a considerable range and variety of the forms
and modes by which the councils’ transactions and decisions were represented
and recorded, even before we analyse in detail the substantial sets of acts from the
fifth century. Such variations are not just a feature of the earliest uncertain devel-
opments in the gradual emergence and formation of conciliar documentation.
They can be observed, rather, across different contexts and throughout the entire
period examined here.
For the different textual formats of conciliar records, the shaping influence of
the manuscript tradition needs to be taken into consideration in each case. The
extraction and re-contextualization of elements of conciliar texts in historio-
graphic and polemical writing, which we observed especially in texts originating
from fourth-century councils, indicates the nature and purpose of such processes.
Repeated instances of subsequent manuscript copying and the compilatory activ
ities of later generations could further curtail, extract, condense, or completely
suppress certain elements of initially fuller records. Yet the differences in the sur-
viving textual formats of council records are not exclusively the result of distor-
tion and abridgement introduced by later selection, compilation, and manuscript
transmission. The variations encountered are instead frequently the product of
distinct secretarial practices and the editorial choices of their superiors, and rep-
resent the fundamental choices available to the council’s secretariat at the time of
their convention. Conciliar ‘acts’ are not characterized by generic fixity but admit
significant intrinsic flexibility and variation from which ancient practitioners
could choose and which they adjusted to the needs and purposes on each
occasion.1
Within the range of evidence for recording and representation of conciliar
business found in the acts, the ‘live-speech’-records of bishops in session prove
most stimulating for the kind of analysis proposed here. Yet in focusing on the
1 Literary forms and component parts of conciliar acts from councils in the West are examined by
Andreas Weckwerth, Ablauf, Organisation und Selbstverständnis westlicher antiker Synoden im Spiegel
ihrer Akten (Münster: Aschendorff, 2010), 4–25.
VARIATIONS OF DOCUMENTATION AND RECORDING PATTERNS 25
detailed ‘word-for-word’ minutes of councils, it is essential to constantly bear in

mind that other options and styles of recording and representation were available,
and textual formats and practices other than detailed note-taking of individual
speakers’ interventions could be chosen for putting on record a council’s deliber
ations and decisions. Direct speech could be omitted entirely, and varying com
binations and complex interrelations between recording oratio recta (direct
speech), the use and presentation of written documents (usually presented as
being read out aloud), and the summary narration of transactions and decisions
are in evidence. Varying combinations and hybrid forms of documentary styles
can be traced, and will require our analysis (see Chapters 12–13). Decisions could
also be recorded without any indication of the processes of deliberation on the
one hand, but holding on to the representation of direct speech on the other. The
first surviving protocol of a council, the sententiae of the Carthaginian Council of
256, in this way selectively recorded only the bishops’ final verdicts but retains the
features of their delivery in direct speech. By what procedure and through what
deliberations these decisions were reached is not documented, except for a sum-
mative narration in the opening relatio of the presiding bishop. The essential oral-
ity of proposals and decisions—but omitting any indication of the deliberating
processes (let alone recording them)—can also be found in the case of the canons
of the Council of Serdica (343), which are presented as utterances of named pro-
ponents (NN dixit) and sanctioned by the council’s repeated communal state-
ment: ‘placet’ (‘agreed’). These pared-down framing notices are not enough to
reconstruct, or intended to represent, the running of a session with deliberations
or counter-proposals.2
Other so-called canons from other councils more usually show no equivalent
traces of individual proposal and collective decision and refrain from elements
resembling direct speech. These short legal proscriptions in a generalizing and
abstracting style that address and prohibit or prescribe certain types of behaviour
constitute a different genre which follows its own conventions.3 The compilations
2 Transmitted separately, it is impossible to link these canons (as texts) in any meaningful way to
the further transactions of the council and the many documents emerging from it (see Dokumente
43.1–13; AW III.1.4, 179–279). The canons survive independently of these documents, in varying enu-
meration and combination in a number of canonical collections and in both Latin and Greek versions,
for which see Hess, Early Development, 210–55; for the Latin canons, Angelo Di Beradino (ed.),
I Canoni dei Concili della Chiesa Antica, vol. II.1.1 (Rome: Augustinianum, 2010), 315–37.
3 The creation of ‘canons’ can also result from a secondary subdivision of conciliar decisions into
individual sentences, and listing and counting them individually in canonical collections.
Fundamental for the early development of canon law, not here in focus, is Heinz Ohme, ‘Kanon I
(Begriff)’, RAC 20 (2004): 1–20; Heinz Ohme, ‘Kirchenrecht’, RAC 20 (2004): 1099–139; Heinz Ohme,
‘Sources of the Greek Canon Law to the Quinisext Council (691/2): Councils and Church Fathers’, in
Wilfried Hartmann and Kenneth Pennington (eds.), The History of Byzantine and Eastern Canon Law
(Washington, DC: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 2012), 34–84; David Wagschal, Law and Legality
in the Greek East (Oxford: OUP, 2015); cf. Stephens, Canon Law, who does not discuss genre. The lin-
guistic and literary forms of canons (in Latin-language contexts) are discussed in Samuel Laeuchli,
Power and Sexuality: The Emergence of Canon Law at the Synod of Elvira (Philadelphia, PA: Temple
of canon law, in both East and West, sometimes extracted from much more
complex proceedings and arranged in thematic order only those elements that
seemed of lasting judicial importance and useful in current disciplinary adjudica-
tion. Canon law in this sense follows and shows efforts not dissimilar to the law
compilations in the civil sphere. Much of what we know of late antique councils
in the western parts of the late Roman empire and in those Germanic successor
kingdoms that follow it early has been transmitted in legal collections and displays
thematic ordering and compilatory condensation of what may have been fuller
records initially. Yet a frequently dominant legalistic and juristic approach to
individual concerns also prompted the composing of such canons originally, and
is not always the work of later compilers and canon lawyers intent on distilling
only what seemed relevant to their day.
As equivalent textual option in the realm of conceptual theology, we frequently
find sets of short generalizing statements, intent on ruling out certain misconcep-
tions and rejecting certain theological propositions. These are called anathemas;
many examples issued over the course of the fourth century (whether separate or
in conjunction with positive statements of belief, as in the case of the Nicene
Creed) illustrate this style and genre.4 It is indicative of the generic flexibility and
the close kinship of both forms that the anti-Pelagian ‘canons’ of a North-African
council are phrased in the style and using the terminology of ‘anathemas’.5
Anathemas also condense and reframe whatever deliberations and argumenta-
tion may have taken place into short resolutions on specific (usually doctrinal)
problems, the preparation of which must be written drafting. Canons and ana
themas often respond obliquely (and sometimes overtly) to other texts of a simi-
lar nature and decreed by a different group on another occasion, strengthening
the case for working practices that predominantly rely on careful textual compos
ition and drafting rather than oral exchange. These textual practices can also be
observed in the positive doctrinal statements emerging in great number from
fourth-century assemblies.6 Various expositions (ektheseis), definitions, creeds,
University Press, 1972), 17–55; Andreas Weckwerth, Das erste Konzil von Toledo (Münster:
Aschendorff, 2004), 69–77, Andreas Weckwerth, ‘Der Entstehungsprozess synodaler Kanones im
Kontext westlicher Synoden’, in Wolfram Brandes (ed.), Konzilien und kanonisches Recht in Spätantike
und frühem Mittelalter (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 223–37. For the transmission of Western conciliar
documents and acts in canonical collections, see CCO, 44–8. This weighs heavily on the extent and
shape of the surviving material.
4 Their form is typically that of a conditional clause stating the refuted view, followed by the expres-
sion of that position’s and any expositor’s condemnation: ‘If someone says [does not say] . . . ’; or ‘who-
soever says [does not say] . . . ’, ‘let it’ [or ‘let him’] ‘be anathema’. Relevant material may be found in
Dokumente.
5 Decisions of the Synod of Carthage 418 (CCO 32–3), with discussion in Thomas Graumann, ‘Die
Verschriftlichung synodaler Entscheidungen. Beobachtungen von den Synoden des östlichen
Reichsteils’, in Konzilien und kanonisches Recht in Spätantike und frühem Mittelalter, 8–10.
6 Understanding creedal texts as the products of a process of ‘building-block’ assemblage is pro-
posed by Markus Vinzent, ‘Die Entstehung des “Römischen Glaubensbekenntnisses”’, in Wolfram
Kinzig, Christoph Markschies, and Markus Vinzent, Tauffragen und Bekenntnis (Berlin: De Gruyter,
and creedal-style formulae were adopted and promulgated by various councils

during the period, which for the most part must be interpreted as the work of
drafting commissions, not as representing ‘live’ oral exchanges—but in many
cases doubtless provide their distillation. Sometimes the drafting is the work of
individuals tasked to put into a form of words the doctrinal consensus of the
assembled group.7 These texts alert us to the importance of ‘writing down’ the
council’s viewpoints and resolutions; and they illustrate the frequently prevailing
focus on the considered final ‘outcome’ expressed in such textual aggregates,
rather than the perceived need and the will to lay out before peers and the public
the processes of deliberation and discussion in narrative ‘live-speech’ protocols.
A particularly illuminating example for the complex intertwining of written
drafting and orality in a conciliar session is provided by the eighth and final ses-
sion of the council of 553. We have mentioned the use and reading aloud of pre-
pared florilegia in earlier sessions of this council. Such recitation of ‘evidentiary’
documentation is frequent. In contrast, here the council’s own ‘voice’, its deliber
ations and decisions, emerges from such a document drafted in advance, and
gives the protocol (and the meeting) its distinct character. The entire session
exclusively consists in the reading out of the final verdict, a few formulaic remarks
introducing it, and the listing of the names of bishops participating and giving
their verdict.8 The recited document is a lengthy and elaborate text that recapitu-
lates and sums up the council’s deliberations from previous sessions, and formu-
lates the council’s decision in the form of ‘anathemas’ that result from them. The
anathemas can be identified as editorially modified and amplified versions of
those anathemas that Justinian had issued before the council. That the text is the
written composition of an ‘author’ (probably the archbishop, with others perhaps
assisting), and entered the session’s protocol as such, is evident. Recording of
‘orality’ in the protocol here simply supplies the proposal and command for reci-
tation, and so adumbrates the usual features of a session, in the procedural con-
text of which the text read out is thus placed.
repr. 2010), 235–40; cf. Wolfram Kinzig and Markus Vinzent, ‘Recent Research on the Origin of the
Creed’, JTS 50 (1999): 535–59.
7 An example is the work of one Bishop Marcus in drafting the so-called ‘dated’ Sirmian Creed
(359); Hil., coll.antiar. B 6.3 = Dokumente 57.1 (AW III.1.4, 421 Brennecke): . . . post habitam usque in
noctem de fide disputationem et ad certam regulam perductam Marcum ab omnibus nobis electum
fidem dictasse, in qua fide sic conscriptum est . . . (‘After conducting a discussion about the faith into
the night and until it arrived at a firm rule, Marcus was chosen by all of us to dictate the [formula of]
faith, in which faith it is written thus . . .’). See Thomas Graumann, ‘Theologische Diskussion und
Entscheidung auf Synoden: Verfahrensformen und ‑erwartungen’, in Uta Heil and Annette von
Stockhausen (eds.), Die Synoden im trinitarischen Streit (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), 65–7.
8 ACO IV.1, 203–31, trans. Price, Constantinople, II.106–39. Almost four pages of this record are
taken up by the list of participants; a further eleven pages record the doubtless pre-drafted, identical
verdicts of the leading bishops, and list the names of the remaining subscribers (220–31); only eleven
lines (207.26–36) introduce the reading of the prepared document containing the council’s final deci-
sion (208–20).
Along a scale of possibilities for recording, then, a full ‘direct-speech’, narrative

record of transactions that portrays live speech-acts in sequence and retains the
words uttered during deliberations marks one end of the spectrum. The writing
up merely of the final decision in the shape of lists of canons or anathemas or as
individual ‘decrees’ (horos) and theological formulas marks the other end. In
between these two poles varying combinations of the textual choices and attend
ant recording practices may be observed.
Evangelos Chrysos has argued that only assemblies that took a judicial or arbi-
trational decision prepared a discursive protocol including direct speech. He con
sidered the judicial needs of demonstrable proof and procedural fairness,
equivalent to the requirements in civil cases, the reason for the preparation of this
type of protocol, whereas in deliberations of a theological nature direct speech
remained undocumented.9 While not fitting every instance, the distinction of
these basic types and styles of recording usefully alerts us to the important ques-
tion of a potential relationship between recording styles and varying agendas and
intentions of council meetings.10 One protocol, ostensibly fitting the pattern
described by Chrysos, of the decision about ordination rights on the island of
Cyprus (taken at Ephesus, 431), for instance, defeats potential judicial scrutiny by
anonymizing speakers and hiding their responsibility.11 The same effect is even
more pronounced by the different and opposite strategy observable in an
Antiochene council (of 445) that fails to record any substantive information
about the case in hand and only holds on to the procedural framework by citing
the words of the chairman (we shall analyse both documents in more detail in
Chapter 13). Most importantly, however, the discrimination between judicial and
9 Evangelos Chrysos, ‘Konzilsakten und Konzilsprotokolle vom 4. bis 7. Jahrhundert’, AHC 15

(1983): 30–40, cf. Evangelos Chrysos, ‘The Synodical Acts as Literary Products’, in L’icône dans la
théologie et l’art (Chambésy-Genève: Editions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat œcuménique, 1990),
85–93. Chrysos, ‘Konzilsakten und Konzilsprotokolle’, 31–4, specifically advocates a linguistic distinc-
tion between the abridging and summarizing types of records as the ‘Akten (acts)’ of a council, and
those records representing individual spoken interventions, as the ‘Protokoll im eigentlichen Sinne
(protocol/minutes in the strict sense)’. A survey of ‘acts’ and ‘protocols’ from councils between 394
and 680/1 (Chrysos, ‘Konzilsakten und Konzilsprotokolle’, 35–8) aims to substantiate the distribution
between using ‘protocols’ in judicial, and ‘acts’ in deliberative, theological contexts. See, in summary,
Chrysos, ‘Konzilsakten’, in Friedhelm Winkelmann and Wolfram Brandes (eds.), Quellen zur
Geschichte des frühen Bzyanz (4.–9. Jahrhundert) (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1990), 149–55.
10 The variations observable in the Ephesine Council of 431 and that of Chalcedon in 451 alone
already make a distinction along the lines of judicial and deliberative assemblies and their attendant
records problematic; see Chapter 7. The recent survey of Western, ‘Latin’ conciliar texts also clearly
shows a significant variety of recording styles that militates against this firm discrimination; see
Weckwerth, Ablauf, 4f. and the listings Weckwerth, CCO, passim. Heinz Ohme, ‘Die Konstantinopler
Synoden von 638/9 (?) und die Ekthesis des Kaisers Herakleios (610–640)’, ZKG 129 (2018): 293f.,
observes that two Home Synods under Pyrrhus (in ad 638) were recorded by minutes that included
individual interventions, although they did not constitute criminal procedures (he otherwise upholds
Chrysos’ distinction). The strict distinction of two types cannot be retained without qualification, and
the interest in reliable records arises in both contexts.
11 See Thomas Graumann, ‘Protokollierung, Aktenerstellung und Dokumentation am Beispiel des
Konzils von Ephesus (431)’, AHC 42 (2010): 7–34, and p. 30 of this volume.
theological-deliberative purposes of councils breaks down when matters of

orthodoxy were most commonly treated as cases of individuals allegedly violating
it. Councils frequently examined and judged whether someone’s tenets were
acceptable, and subjected the person advocating them to synodical verdict, but
seldom considered ‘right belief ’ in the abstract.
The variations in recording style and documentary presentation thus cross
over distinctions between theological and judicial topics of transaction, and the
different preferences for the representation of speech-acts (or lack thereof), and
the relative weight they are afforded in combination with the presentation of writ-
ten evidence and narrative exposition find other causes. Even in those documen-
tary formats that represent to a greater or lesser extent the unfolding of
transactions, there are varying states of comprehensiveness or abridgement in the
documentation of discussion, as well as significant abstraction from and sum-
mary of presumed interaction. How closely the record follows and lays out the
supposed activities in a meeting and holds on to ‘live’ speaking on the occasions
is markedly different between individual events. Complete ‘accuracy’ in a modern
sense, it is important to recognize, was neither regularly intended by ancient
practitioners nor necessarily possible practically to achieve for them.12 What con-
stituted an ‘accurate’ record in the eyes of its producers was ultimately a matter of
judgement by the determining forces in and behind a council. Accuracy meas-
ured by exact and full representation of what had happened and what had been
said was not key. Rather, expediency and strategic advantageousness in represent-
ing the council’s understanding of its task and achievement determined the style
of record. Accordingly, the shifting balance between speech and document, and
the importance of ‘writing’ as well as ‘recording’, will be a constant focus of our
interpretation.
The intrinsic variability in the recording of direct speech, and the possibility to
give preference to compilatory and ‘written’ forms instead, are both illustrated by
the various records surviving from at least ten meetings of bishops, divided into
12 Protocols of sessions are often said to at least intend, if not always achieve, verbatim representa-
tion; so most recently Hagit Amirav, Authority and Performance (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2015), 24–5. Fergus Millar, whose authority, on the basis of a personal conversation, Amirav
claims for her assertion is in fact more cautious when he describes the records as ‘representing them-
selves as verbatim transcriptions of meetings, sessions or hearings’ (Millar, Greek Roman Empire, 249,
my emphasis). Yet such assertions require significant qualification. In comparison to fictional speeches
found frequently in historiographical writing, or to the editorial elaboration which turns some of
Cicero’s orations into showcases of his rhetorical talent, conciliar protocols are indeed infinitively
closer to ‘real’ speaking. Nevertheless, verbatim precision in recording individual statements was
clearly not always a priority, nor was comprehensiveness regularly sought. Instead, judicious filtering
of which expressions and which statements ‘mattered’ prevailed. Frequent discussion about the rela-
tionship between ‘words’ and ‘meaning’ and about statements requiring recording or not admitting to
recording will be analysed in Part III. Amirav’s study further lacks any consideration of the complex
interrelations between recording and writing, and between ‘speech’ and documents; the extremely
brief description of ‘conciliary record keeping’ (47f.) is insufficient and its understanding as ‘part of
the ritual’ (47) misguided.
two conflicting camps, at the first council of Ephesus (431).13 Five of the seven
records of sessions on the side of Cyril of Alexandria—held on 22 June (CPG
8675), 10/11 July (CPG 8710), and 16/17 July (CPG 8716)—portray and trace the
transactions through the interventions of named individuals given in direct
speech. Yet, even in the protocol of the first and decisive session on 22 June almost
the entire second half is composed of document ‘reading’ to which no ‘live’
responses emerge; the relationship of ‘reading’ and editorial composition of the
transcript needs to be decoded.14 The further protocol of 22 July (CPG 8721)—
so-called session six—only makes the faintest pretence at representing live speak-
ing by the secretary officiating; in reality the ‘recorded’ speech stands in for the
editorial introduction and interlacing of documents compiled.15 Similarly, the
records of two meetings of the rival assembly of Eastern bishops (on 26 and
29 June) display the same practice of recording direct speech but also represent
‘statements’ that must be summaries of a number of such speech-acts not indi-
vidually recorded, as well as statements made for the council collectively.16 The
protocol of a final Cyrillian session (CPG 8744) also represents direct speech but
does so by paradoxically obscuring the identities of speakers; it requires separate
discussion.17 By contrast to these, the style of recording and presentation of fur-
ther decisions by the Cyrillian majoritarian council changes fundamentally. The
record of the decision about the respective rights of two episcopal sees in the
province of Europa (CPG 8745) is constructed exclusively from documents, and
gives no oral exchanges from a purported examination of the matter: only the
libellus of the plaintiffs and the decision reached in the case are presented. The
latter is introduced by the formula: ‘the holy and ecumenical synod said’, which
phrase simply introduces the pronouncement of the verdict rather than empha-
sizing the act of speaking.18 Transaction of a similar case from the province of
Pamphylia (CPG 8747) is presented in the classical form of a synodical letter,
which gives a narrative outline of the issue and the council’s decision; no oratio
recta could normally be expected in this genre.19 The format retrieves the long-
standing convention of composing such letters, which we observed from the
13 CPG, vol. IV, 68–86, catalogues the proceedings and decisions by both parties. The records are
discussed in more detail in Graumann, ‘Protokollierung’. Millar, Greek Roman Empire, 254–9 offers a
survey of documentation (including from Ephesus) from the reign of Theodosius II, containing what
appear to be recorded ‘verbatim’ interventions. Millar’s catalogue does not include other formats dis-
cussed here.
14 For analysis, see Graumann, ‘“Reading” the First Council of Ephesus (431)’, in Richard Price and
Mary Whitby (eds.), Chalcedon in Context (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009), 27–44.
15 See my discussion ‘The “Session” of 22 July: Introduction’, in Price and Graumann, trans., The
Council of Ephesus of 431, 431–43.
16 See CPG 8691 and 8695. On the recording of the ‘collective’ voice of the meeting, see Chapter 9.
17 Cf. pp. 241–2.
18 ACO I.1.7, 123.17. It is not inconceivable that the (written) decision could have been read out or
verbalized by the president, and thus became ‘oral’, but the depiction of speaking is clearly not the
formula’s main focus. Cf. Chapter 9, and Graumann, ‘Verschriftlichung’.
19 CA 83 (ACO I.1.7, 123f.).
very earliest synodical assemblies, and which throughout the entire period here
examined complement the protocols and records analysed in this study. Finally,
the decree (horos) on the Messalians (CPG 8746)20 is composed of a narrative
about plaintiffs presenting themselves; it mentions the reading of earlier synodical
documents (not written out) and confirms an existing decision. All formulaic
elements of a council minute are missing as well as any direct speech or detailed
documentation; plaints and documents mentioned are not proffered. With the
stripping of required formality, the text presents itself like the register or an
extract from a synodical letter or protocol.21
Behind the common appellation of acts, we can conclude, hide significant vari-
ations of the way in which transactions were recorded and presented, and even
those formats that represent direct speech reveal great flexibility. Determined by a
mixture of pragmatism, convention, and the calculation of which documentary
strategy seemed most profitable for the particular needs and intentions of specific
meetings (this survey of the variations of conciliar documents emerging from just
one council demonstrates), conciliar secretariats chose different textual formats
at different occasions and even for different meetings in a single council. It is, in
particular, not apposite to expect an unbending connection between the aim to
present a demonstrably fair and inescapable judicial decision reached by the
meeting and the choice of a distinct style of minuting. The work of the council’s
secretariats, and the intentions of council leaders whose designs they executed,
extended to a purposeful selection of minuting and reporting methods within a
range of styles informed by cultural conventions and habits and by internal eccle-
siastical precedence. A number of protocols we shall examine in this study con-
firm and further emphasize the point (see Chapters 12 and 13).
20 CA 80 (ACO I.1.7, 117f.). In the specific case, the excerpting and summarizing practices behind
these texts’ separate transmission can be suspected of accentuating the tendencies to abstract from any
discussion.
21 A similar survey to that of the records from Ephesus of those from the council of Chalcedon
would arrive at essentially the same conclusion.
3
The Conference of Carthage (ad 411)
An Imperial Model Case
The most useful starting point for our investigation into the creation of conciliar
records and the attendant documentary practices is the Collatio Carthaginiensis.
Because of the specific historical circumstances and distinct purposes of this
meeting, the processes of note-taking and the creation of acts are displayed in
unusual clarity. To set up the critical examination of council acts on other occa-
sions, a brief sketch of the main technical measures and steps that emerge from
this occasion may therefore prove useful.
This so-
called Conference of Carthage—a meeting sitting uncomfortably
between the formats of a ‘trial’ and an open disputation on matters of religion1—
between Catholics and Donatists held in Carthage, the main centre of the North-
African province Africa Proconsularis, in ad 411 was intended to provide a
definitive ruling on the relative merits of both parties’ competing claims for being
the true incorporation of Christianity in North Africa. At the turn of the fourth to
fifth century, the Donatists were still the majority church in North Africa. Yet, in
the reigns of Theodosius I and his son Honorius, a renewed literary offensive by
the Catholic side against them (not least by Augustine of Hippo), in combination
with frequent lobbying for imperial legislation and for an expansive application of
existing antiheretical legislation to target the Donatists, had put them on the
defensive. An edict by Emperor Honorius (in ad 405) mandating the ‘unity’ of
1 The ancient documents use a number of appellations for the event (disputatio, conlatio, concilium,
conloquium, disceptatio, cognitio), collected and discussed most recently in Ivonne Tholen, Die
Donatisten in den Predigten Augustins (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 273–7. Tholen understands the con-
vention as a ‘trial’ of religious matters (264), and the legal dimension has been widely emphasized in
recent scholarship. At the same time, there remain elements of a dispute within the unwritten rules of
‘ecclesiastical’ argument; see Arne Hogrefe, Umstrittene Vergangenheit (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009);
equating these with purported ‘conciliar’ conventions (at 177, 187), however, rests on unfounded
assumptions of such regulations; see my discussion in ‘Upstanding Donatists: Symbolic
Communication at the Conference of Carthage (411)’, ZAC 15 (2011): 347–9. The resultant ambiguity
is now also highlighted by Peter van Nuffelen, ‘How Shall We Plead? The Conference of Carthage
(411) on Styles of Argument’, in Peter Gemeinhardt, Lieve Van Hoof, and Peter Van Nuffelen (eds.),
Education and Religion in Late Antique Christianity (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 147–9. While the
conventional appellation ‘Conference’ of Carthage conjures up unhelpful connotations, it is retained
here in the interest of readability. For recent portrayals of the events and their context, see
Brent D. Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine
(Cambridge: CUP, 2011), 544–86; Richard Miles (ed.), The Donatist Schism: Controversy and Contexts
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016); cf., for varying perspectives on the wider controversy,
David E. Wilhite, Ancient African Christianity (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 195–239.
Another random document with
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partidas de Bessieres, el infame aventurero que, defendiendo e
despotismo, quería lograr lo que no pudo conseguir combatiendo po
la república.
Pero la principal causa de mi inquietud era no ver a mi lado a la
persona que más me interesaba en aquellos días. Le esperé toda la
mañana y toda la tarde, y como a ninguna hora parecía y había hecho
promesa de visitarme, creí que le pasaba algo desagradable. Por la
noche no pude refrenar mi ardorosa impaciencia, y volé a su casa
Tampoco estaba en ella, y el anciano portero y maestro de escuela
armado de fusil en medio de la portería, furioso y exaltado cual s
acabara de escaparse de un manicomio, me inspiró tanto miedo que
no quise esperar allí.
Pasé la noche en un estado de angustia horrible. Corrían rumores
de que pronto tendríamos saqueo, prisiones, muertes y escandalosas
escenas. Se decía que los liberales más señalados eran perseguidos
por las calles como perros rabiosos y apedreadas sus casas. Yo no
podía vivir. Al amanecer del otro día, que era el 20 de mayo, busqué a
Salvador en diversos puntos, y tampoco le pude encontrar. Antes de
volver a casa vi movimientos de tropas en la Puerta del Sol, y me
dijeron que Bessieres había aparecido con sus cuadrillas, que yo
llamaba de asesinos de la fe, por detrás del Retiro, amenazando entra
en Madrid. La plebe de los barrios bajos se le había reunido, y como
hambrientos perros aullaban mirando a la corte con ansias de
devorarla. Todo Madrid estaba aterrado, y yo más que nadie, no por e
temor del saqueo, sino por la sospecha de que la persona más cara a
mi corazón hubiera sido víctima del furor de la plebe.
Esperé también todo aquel día. Campos entró a darnos noticias de
lo que pasaba. Oíamos cañonazos lejanos, y a cada instante creíamos
ver llegar y difundirse por las calles a la desenfrenada turba soez
ebria de sangre y de pillaje. Pero Dios no quiso que en aquel día
triunfaran los malvados. El general Zayas destrozó a los asesinos de la
fe, acuchillando a los chisperos y mujerzuelas que entre ellos
graznaban. La plebe, aterrada, volvió a sus oscuras guaridas, y mucha
gente mala huyó a los campos, aguardando a poder entrar con los
franceses. Desde que supimos el gran peligro a que habíamos estado
expuestos los habitantes de Madrid, todos deseábamos que llegasen
de una vez los Cien mil hijos de San Luis, para que, estableciendo un
gobierno regular, contuvieran a la canalla azuzada por los realistas
furibundos.
Al fin salí de la angustia que me atormentaba. En la mañana del día
21, el prófugo, por quien yo había derramado tantas lágrimas, se
presentó delante de mí en estado bastante lastimoso, desencajado y
lleno de contusiones, con los ojos encendidos, seca la boca, cubierta
de sudor la hermosa frente, rotos y llenos de polvo los vestidos.
Al punto comprendí que había sido maltratado por las feroces
bestias populares. No le dije nada, y me apresuré a cuidarle
proporcionándole alimento y reposo. Él me miraba con ojos
extraviados. Apretando los puños exclamó:
—¿Has visto a la canalla?
Necesitaba sosiego, y por todos los medios procuré tranquilizarle.
—No pienses más en eso —le dije—, y regocíjate ahora en la paz
de mi compañía y en esta dulce soledad en que estamos.
—¡No puedo, no puedo! —exclamó con gran agitación.
Y después repetía:
—¿Has visto a la canalla? Pero ¡qué canalla es la canalla!
Más tarde me contó que había corrido un gran riesgo, porque a
salir de un sitio en que estaban reunidas varias personas contrarias a
despotismo, fue acometido, pudiendo salvar a duras penas la vida
gracias a su energía y al coraje con que se defendió.
Su estado febril inspirome bastante ansiedad aquella noche que
pasó junto a mí; pero a la mañana siguiente, su prodigiosa naturaleza
había triunfado de la ebullición de la sangre irritada.
—No puedo ir a mi casa —me dijo—, y aun será peligroso que
salga a la calle; pero yo necesito disponer mi viaje.
—¿Vuelves al norte?
—No: tengo que ir a Sevilla, donde está lo que queda de gobierno
liberal. No tengo ya ni un resto siquiera de esperanza; pero es preciso
que cumpla fielmente la comisión del general Mina, y vaya hasta las
últimas extremidades, para que nos quede al menos el consuelo de
haberlo intentado todo, y para que se pueda decir esta verdad terrible
«No hubo un solo liberal en España que supiera cumplir con su
deber.»
—Pues si vas a Andalucía iré contigo —dije, regocijándome ya con
la idea de acompañarle y huir de Madrid, donde mi conciencia no
podía estar tranquila.
—El viaje no será fácil —respondió sin demostrar grande
entusiasmo por mi compañía—, mayormente para una señora.
—Para mí todo es fácil.
—No se encontrarán carruajes.
—Como ruede el dinero, rodarán los coches.
—La policía vigilará la salida de los liberales.
—No importa.
Sin pérdida de tiempo empecé mis diligencias para nuestro viaje
Ningún propietario de coches quería arriesgar su material ni sus
caballerías, porque los facciosos se apoderaban de ellas. No me
acobardó, sin embargo, y seguí mis pesquisas. Campos también
deseaba proporcionar a mi amigo fácil escapatoria.
La entrada de los franceses, el día 23, me dio alguna esperanza
mas, por desgracia, entre las fuerzas de vanguardia no venía el conde
de Montguyon. Vi, en cambio, muchos guerrilleros del norte, de fiero
aspecto, y temblé de pavor, deseando entonces más vivamente huir de
la corte.
¡Y qué desorden en los primeros momentos de aquel día! Po
mucha prisa que se dieron los franceses a establecerse, no lograron
impedir mil excesos.
Centenares de hombres, cuyo furor había sido pagado, corrían po
las calles celebrando entre borracheras el horrible carnaval de
despotismo. Rompían a pedradas los cristales, trazaban cruces en las
puertas de las casas donde vivían patriotas, como señal de futuras
matanzas; escarnecían a todo el que no era conocido por su
exaltación absolutista; gritaban como locos, maldiciendo la libertad y la
nación. No escapaban de sus groserías las personas indiferentes a la
política, porque era preciso haber sido perro de presa del absolutismo
para obtener perdón. Algunos frailes de los que más habían
escandalizado en el púlpito con sus sermones sanguinarios, eran
llevados en triunfo.
Saliendo de misa de San Isidro, me vi insultada y seguida por una
turba de mujerzuelas feroces, solo porque llevaba un lazo verde. E
color verde era ya el color de la ignominia, como emblema de
liberalismo, que tantas veces había escrito sobre él Constitución o
muerte. Vi maltratar a un joven de buen porte, solo porque usaba
bigote, y desde aquel día, el tal adorno de las varoniles caras fue seña
de francmasonismo y de extranjería filosófica.
Quien vio una vez tales escenas, no puede olvidarlas. Mis ideas
habían cambiado mucho desde mi viaje a Francia. Conservando e
mismo respeto al trono y al gobierno fuerte, había perdido e
entusiasmo realista. Pero en aquel día tristísimo se desvanecieron en
mi cabeza no pocos fantasmas; y aunque seguí creyendo que uno solo
gobierna mejor que doscientos, el absolutismo popular me inspiró
aversión y repugnancia indecibles.
No había concluido de referir en mi casa el gran peligro que había
corrido por llevar un lazo verde, cuando entró Campos. Traía
semblante muy alegre.
—Ya está resuelta la cuestión de tu viaje —dijo a Salvador—. Esta
noche puedes marchar, si quieres.
—¿Cómo? —preguntamos él y yo.
—De un modo tan sencillo como seguro. El marqués de Falfán de
los Godos[4] había pensado marchar a Andalucía... ¡Como la pobre
Andrea está tan delicada...! En fin, se han decidido a salir esta noche
Tienen silla de postas propia. Al punto me he acordado de ti. Falfán de
los Godos tiene gusto en llevarte.
[4] Véase El Grande Oriente.
—Eso no puede ser —dije vivamente, saliendo al encuentro de

aquella proposición con verdadera furia, que trataba de disimular.
—¿Por qué no ha de poder ser, señora mía? —dijo Campos—. En
la silla de postas irán cómoda y seguramente el marqués, mi sobrina
con su hijo, la doncella y dos criados, que seremos nosotros, Salvado
y yo. Perfectísimamente.
El taimado masón se restregaba las manos en señal de regocijo.
—Me parece una excelente idea —afirmó Monsalud mirándome—
¿No crees tú lo mismo?
Yo no contesté nada. Estaba furiosa. El vio sin duda en mis ojos la
tempestad que se había desatado en mi corazón; mas no po
conocerlo se apresuró a conjurarla. Antes bien, ocupose de dispone
su viaje con una calma, con una indiferencia hacia mí que me irritaron
más. Mi dignidad me impedía pedir un puesto en aquel coche que se
llevaría la mitad de mi alma. La misma dignidad me impedía recordarle
nuestro dulce proyecto de ir juntos. Encerreme breve rato en mi cuarto
para que nadie conociese la alteración nerviosa que me sacudía, y con
los dientes hice pedazos un pañuelo inocente. Mis ojos, secos e
inflamados, no podían dar salida a la angustia de mi corazón
derramando una sola lágrima.
Cuando me presenté de nuevo, mi apariencia no podía ser más
tranquila. Afectaba naturalidad y hasta alegría: tal era la perfección de
mi disimulo. Evoqué todas las fuerzas de mi voluntad para forjar la
máscara de hierro, bajo la cual escondía mi verdadero semblante lleno
de luto y consternación. ¡Qué intenso padecer! ¿Cómo no, si Salvado
mismo me había contado toda la historia de sus relaciones con Andrea
Campos, después marquesa de Falfán de los Godos? Yo la había
tratado bastante después de su matrimonio. La admirable hermosura
de la americanilla, representándose en mi imaginación, me la
quemaba como un hierro abrasado.
Tuve valor para verles partir. Vi a la sobrina de Campos subir a
coche, haciéndose la interesante con su languidez de dama enfermita
vi al viejo marqués engomado y lustroso, como un muñeco que acaba
de salir del taller de juguetes; vi a Salvador tomando en brazos y
besando cariñoso al niño de la marquesa... No quise ver más... ¡E
coche partió!... ¡Se fueron!...
XXI
Se fueron y yo me quedé. Las lágrimas que antes no habían

querido salir de mis ojos, brotaron a raudales, abrasándome las
mejillas. No podía dejar de pensar en la hipocritona, que corría por los
campos desiertos, lanzada por mí al interminable viaje de la
desesperación; pero lejos de tenerle lástima, aquel recuerdo avivaba
mi hondo furor, haciéndome exclamar: «¡Me alegro, mil veces me
alegro!»
¡Cuán grande había sido mi castigo! Para que este fuera más
evidente, fui condenada por Dios al mismo suplicio de viajar buscando
a una persona amada, de correr un día y otro día como el que huye de
su sombra, siempre impaciente, siempre anhelante, precipitada de la
esperanza al desengaño y del desengaño a una nueva esperanza
Porque sí, yo emprendí también el viaje a Andalucía tres días
después. Estaba en la alternativa de morir de despecho o corre
también. Hubo en mí desde aquel día algo de la maldición espantosa
que pesaba sobre el judío errante, y me sentí como arrastrada por la
fuerza de un huracán.
¡Ay!, el huracán estaba dentro de mí misma, en mi cólera, en mis
celos, en un loco afán de no hallarme lejos de dos personas, cuya
imagen ni un solo instante se apartaba de mi pensamiento. Si mis
lectores me han conocido ya por lo que va contado de mi borrascosa
vida, comprenderán que yo no podía quedarme en Madrid. Mi carácte
me lanzaba fuera como la pólvora lanza la bala.
Partí... Pero antes debo decir cómo pude conseguir los medios para
ello. Mi primer paso fue recurrir a Eguía; mas desde la entrada de los
franceses le habían arrinconado como trasto inútil, y una regencia
fresca y lozana funcionaba en su lugar. Nombrola Angulema de
acuerdo con el Consejo de Estado, y la componían los duques de
Infantado y de Montemart, el barón de Eroles, el obispo de Osma y
don Antonio Gómez Calderón. Secretario de ella era el venenoso
Calomarde, al cual me dirigí solicitando un pase y licencia para el uso
de coche-posta. Recibiome tan fríamente y con tanta soberbia e
hinchazón, que no pude menos de recordar al don Soplado del poeta
sainetero don Ramón de la Cruz.
Le desprecié como merecía, y recurrí a don Víctor Sáez, nombrado
ministro de Estado; pero este me recordó a la rana cuando quiso
parecerse al buey. Tuvo el mal gusto de echarme en cara mi supuesta
conversión al constitucionalismo y a la Carta francesa, diciéndome mi
necedades presuntuosas y aun amenazándome. Su fatuidad
semejante a la del pavo cuando se sopla y arrastra las alas para mete
ruido, me hizo reír en sus propias barbas. El único que se me mostró
algo propicio fue Erro, hombre honrado y modesto. Pero nada positivo
saqué de la flamante situación, que daba pruebas de su agudeza
política volviendo las cosas al propio ser y estado que tenían en 7 de
marzo de 1810, restableciendo los antiguos Consejos y la Sala de
Alcaldes de Casa y Corte. Era esto volver a los tontillos, a
guardainfante y al pelo empolvado.
Por mi ventura, llegó a Madrid el conde de Montguyon. Le vi
hízome la centésima declaración de amor, y luego, con semblante
dolorido, me dijo:
—Soy muy desgraciado, señora, en no poder estar cerca de vos
Tengo que partir con el general Bourdessoulle para esa poética región
que llaman la Mancha, idealizada por las aventuras del gran caballero.
Entonces le manifesté que si me proporcionaba los medios de hace
el viaje, poniendo yo por mi cuenta todos los gastos, le seguiría a
aquel encantado país que hizo célebre el caballero sin par. Al oír esto
se volvió todo obsequios, y tres días después tenía yo a mi disposición
una silla de postas con caballos del cuartel general de Bourdessoulle
y un pase que me aseguraba el respeto de las turbas por todo e
tránsito que iba a recorrer.
Partí al fin de Madrid acompañada de mi doncella. Salí como e
agua de una exclusa cuando se le abren las compuertas que la
sujetan. Yo no veía bastante llanura por donde correr; en ningún
momento me parecía que andaba bastante mi coche; enfadábame e
cansancio de las mulas, la pesadez de los mesoneros y la flema de
mayoral, que se ponía siempre de parte de las caballerías en mi febri
contienda con el tiempo y la distancia.
En los pueblos por donde rápidamente pasaba, vi escenas que me
causaron tanta indignación como vergüenza. En Ocaña habían quitado
las imágenes que adornaban el ángulo de algunas calles, poniendo en
su lugar el retrato de Fernando, entre cirios y ramos de flores, y debajo
la piadosa inscripción: «¡Vivan las caenas!» En Tembleque presencié
el acto solemne de arrojar al pilón donde bebían las mulas, a dos o
tres liberales y otros tantos milicianos. En Madridejos tuve miedo
porque una turba que invadía el camino cantando coplas tan
disparatadas como obscenas, quiso detenerme, fundada en que e
mayoral había tocado con su látigo el estandarte realista que llevaba
un fraile. Necesité mostrar mucha serenidad, y aun derramar algún
dinero para que no me causasen daño; pero no pude seguir hasta que
no llegaron a aquel ilustrado pueblo las avanzadas de la caballería
francesa.
En Puerto Lápice se rompió una ballesta de mi coche
ocasionándome detención de dos días. Las horas eran siglos para mí
Quemaba la tierra bajo mis pies. Yo hubiera deseado poseer la
autoridad de una reina asiática para vencer tantas dificultades, atando
a los hombres al pescante de mi coche. La desproporción enorme
entre mi impetuoso anhelo y los medios materiales de que disponía
me llevaron a un lamentable estado nervioso que de ningún modo
podía calmar. Únicamente logré un poco de alivio a aquel penoso
hervor de mi carácter empleando un medio bastante pueril, pero que
no parecerá muy absurdo a las mujeres que se me asemejan
Consistía en tomar el látigo del mayoral y ponerme a descarga
furiosos latigazos sobre los robles del camino en Sierra Morena, y
sobre los olivos de Andalucía.
En Despeñaperros hallé nuevos obstáculos. Allí había una especie
de ejército español, mandado por una especie de general, que tenía e
encargo de hacer una especie de resistencia a las tropas de
Bourdessoulle. Dios había decidido que no hubiese otro Bailén en la
historia, y los inocentes que creían en un nuevo 19 de julio de 1808 se
llevaron gran chasco. ¡Parece mentira! Quince años después, los
papeles de aquel drama habían cambiado. Los personajes eran los
mismos. Creeríase que habían resucitado los muertos de la gloriosa
época, pero que al vestirse se habían equivocado de uniforme.
En pocas horas fue desbaratado Plasencia (que así se llamaba e
general que defendía la puerta de Andalucía), y los franceses pisaron
el glorioso campo de las Navas de Tolosa, de Mengíbar y de Bailén
Menos afortunada yo, fui otra vez detenida, y el conde de Montguyon
a quien Bourdessoulle mandó situarse en Guarromán, mostró muy
poco interés porque yo siguiera adelante. Con todo, tales artes usé
para sacar partido de su caballería andante, que me libré de él muy
lindamente. Por fin, el 6 de junio entré en Córdoba, donde no me
detuve más que lo preciso.
El 9 por la tarde vi a lo lejos una inmensa mole rojiza que
iluminaban los rayos del sol poniente. Ante mí se extendían hermosas
llanadas de trigo, como un campo de oro, cuya reverberación amarilla
ofendía los ojos. Yo no había visto un cielo más alegre, ni un ambiente
más respirable y que más embelesase los sentidos, ni un crepúsculo
más delicioso. La enorme torre que se destacaba a lo lejos sobre
apretado caserío, y entre otras mil torres pequeñas, iba creciendo a
medida que yo me acercaba, y parecía venir a mi encuentro con
gigantesco paso. La torre era la Giralda, y la ciudad Sevilla.
XXII
¡Sevilla! ¡De qué manera tan grata hería mi imaginación este

nombre! ¡Qué idealismo tan placentero despertaba en mí! No creo que
nadie haya entrado en aquel pueblo con indiferencia, y desde luego
aseguro que el que entre en Sevilla como si entrara en Pinto es un
bruto. ¡El Burlador, don Pedro el Cruel, Murillo! Bastan estas tres
figuras para poblar el inmenso recinto que es en todas sus partes
teatro de la novela y el drama, lienzo y marco de la pintura. ¡Y hasta
las pinturas sagradas son allí voluptuosas! Para que nada le falte
hasta tiene a Manolito Gázquez, cuyas hipérboles graciosas han dado
la vuelta a España, y parece que forman la base de la riqueza
anecdótica nacional.
En Sevilla la noche y el día se disputan a cuál es más bello; pero
cuando llega el rigor del verano, vence irremisiblemente la noche
asumiendo todos los encantos de la naturaleza y de la poesía. Para
ellas son los delicados aromas de jazmines y rosas; para ella e
picante rumor de las conversaciones amorosas; para ella la dulce
tibieza de un ambiente que recrea y enamora, las quejumbrosas
guitarras que expresan todo aquello a que no pueden alcanzar las
lenguas. Cuando yo llegué se dejaba sentir bastante el calor, sin se
insoportable; pero las noches eran deliciosas, un paraíso en el cual no
se echaba de menos el sol.
Hallé un cómodo hospedaje en la calle de Génova, y desde la
noche de mi llegada vi a muchos diputados que moraban allí y a otros
que iban a visitarles. Era un hervidero de gente habladora, una olla
puesta al fuego. Sus ardientes disputas, sus gestos, sus furores
indicaban la gravedad de la situación.
Vivían conmigo Argüelles, Canga-Argüelles, Salvato, Flórez
Calderón, el canónigo Villanueva y el almirante don Cayetano Valdés
Iban a visitar a estos Galiano, Istúriz, Bertrán de Lis, don Ángel de
Saavedra, después duque de Rivas, y otros. Con algunos de ellos
tenía yo amistad. Oyéndoles, supe que se había descubierto una
conspiración tramada por cierto general inglés llamado Downie, e
mismo que había organizado una partida de combatientes en la guerra
de la Independencia. La conspiración debió ser muy inocente
conforme a las modas de aquel tiempo, y todo en ella fue de sainete
hasta el descubrimiento, hecho por un cirujano.
Tan solo descansé la noche de mi llegada, y el día siguiente, que
era el 10 de junio, di principio a mis investigaciones, saliendo a hace
algunas visitas. Al pasar por las calles más principales experimentaba
profunda emoción, creyendo ver semblantes conocidos. Yo no sé qué
había en aquella fisonomía de la multitud para turbarme tanto; pero
esto pasa cuando lo que amamos se pierde en las oleadas del gentío
al cual presta su rostro y su persona toda.
Aprovechando bien el día, pude ver a muchas personas, y dar con
alguna que me indicó el domicilio de los marqueses de Falfán. Este
era el principal objeto de mis impacientes ansias. Pero en aquel día 10
de junio, precursor de una de las fechas más célebres de nuestra
historia, nadie hablaba de otra cosa que de política, de la resistencia
del rey a trasladarse a Cádiz, y del empeño de los ministros en
llevársele de grado o por fuerza. Advertí entonces que no era Sevilla
población muy liberal, y que en la contienda entablada, la mayoría de
los paisanos de Manolito Gázquez se ponían de parte del rey. Por un
fenómeno extraño, la aristocracia aparecía más enemiga de
absolutismo que el pueblo; pero esto no me causaba sorpresa, po
haber observado el mismo contrasentido en Madrid.
No pudiendo refrenar mi impaciencia, aquella misma noche fui a
casa del marqués de Falfán. Las visitas de noche son sumamente
agradables en verano, en aquel país, contribuyendo a ello los frescos
patios trocados en salones de tertulia. Nadie puede, sin haber visto
estos agradables recintos, formar idea de ellos y del hermoso conjunto
que presentan las plantas, la fuente de mármol con su murmurante
surtidor, los espejos, los cuadros, al mismo tiempo iluminados por las
bujías y por el rayo de luna que penetra burlando el toldo; la dulce
cháchara de las conversaciones, más dulce a causa del gracioso
ceceo bético, y, por último, las lindas andaluzas que alegrarían un
cementerio, cuanto más un patio de Sevilla.
Había pocas personas en casa de Falfán. Encontré a la marquesa
muy desmejorada y triste en gran manera, lo cual no sé si me causó
pena o alegría. Creo que ambas cosas a la vez. Yo justifiqué mi viaje a
Sevilla, suponiendo asuntos de intereses, y no me atreví a pregunta
por él ni siquiera a nombrarle, para que mi afectada indiferencia alejara
todo recelo. Tenía esperanza de verle entrar en el patio cuando menos
lo pensase, y me preparaba para no turbarme en el momento de su
aparición. Cualquier ruido de la puerta me hacía temblar, dándome los
escalofríos propios de la pasión en acecho.
Sin que me esté mal el decirlo, y poniendo la verdad por delante de
todo, aun de la modestia, yo estaba guapísima aquella noche, vestida
al estilo de París con una elegancia superior a cuanto veían mis ojos
Harto me lo probaban los de los caballeros allí presentes, que no se
apartaban de mí, causando envidia a todas. Como los andaluces no
son cortos de genio, aquella noche recibí galanterías y donaires para
el año entero.
Mi afán consistía en sacar alguna luz, algún dato, alguna noticia de
mi conversación con la marquesa de Falfán; pero fuese discreción
suma o ignorancia de la hermosa dama, ello es que nada dejó
comprender. Hablaba lo menos posible, y con sus miradas, lo mismo
que con el sentido de sus palabras, solo una cosa me decía
claramente, a saber: que me aborrecía de todo corazón. Yo, maestra
consumada, disimulaba mejor que ella.
El marqués de Falfán de los Godos, hablándome de política, me
distrajo de esta batalla que yo daba a la taciturna reserva de Andrea
Las aficiones que yo había mostrado en Madrid a las cosas públicas
me perdieron entonces, porque el buen señor me atacó con verdadera
ferocidad de charlatanismo, deseando saber mi opinión sobre sucesos
y personas. Mi fastidioso interlocutor era liberal templado, partidario de
un justo medio muy justamente mediano, y de las dos Cámaras y de
veto absoluto. Había tenido sus repulgos de masón, repetía los dichos
de Martínez de la Rosa, y era bastante volteriano en asuntos
religiosos. Defendía al clero como fuerza política; pero se burlaba de
los curas, del Papa y aun del dogma mismo, sin que esto fuera
obstáculo para creer en la conveniencia de que hubiese muchos
clérigos, muchos obispos, muchísimas misas y hasta Inquisición. En
suma: las ideas del marqués eran el capullo de donde, corriendo días
salió la mariposa del partido moderado.
Decir cuánto me mareó aquella noche, fuera imposible. Tuve que
saber cosas que a la verdad me interesaban poco, por ejemplo: que
Calatrava, a la sazón presidente del ministerio, no era hombre
apropiado a las circunstancias; que los masones primitivos o
descalzos estaban en gran pugna con los secundarios o calzados, y
ambos con los carbonarios y comuneros; que los partidarios de San
Miguel trabajaban por echarlo todo a perder más de lo que estaba, y
que cuando ocurrió el cambio de ministerio que había llevado al pode
a los amigos de Calatrava, se habían visto cosas muy feas
Exaltándose a medida que entraba en materia, me dijo que él (Falfán
de los Godos) habría sido ministro si hubiera querido cuando se negó
a serlo Flores Estrada; pero que no quiso meterse en danzas; que é
(el propio marqués) había previsto los terribles sucesos que ya
estaban cerca, y que la ruina del pobre sistema era ya inminente y
segura. Apoyábanle en esto todos los presentes, mientras yo me
aburría a mis anchas oyéndole. Era para morir.
Habiendo dicho uno de los tertulios que Su Majestad se negaría
resueltamente a salir de Sevilla, el marqués habló así:
—Pues el gobierno insiste en llevárselo a Cádiz, ¡qué tontería...! y
como el rey insiste en no ir, el gobierno piensa declararle loco... ¡Loco
Su Majestad, señores, el hombre más cuerdo de toda España, el único
español que sabe a dónde va y por dónde ha de ir!
Luego, dirigiéndose a mí y como quien habla en secreto, me dijo
que Calatrava era un hombre atolondrado; Yandiola, ministro de
Hacienda, una nulidad, y el de la Guerra, Sánchez Salvador, un
insensato.
Yo estaba nerviosa a más no poder. Las palabras se me venían a la
boca para contestarle de este modo:
«¿Y a mí qué me cuenta usted de todo eso, señor marqués? ¿Qué
me importa a mí que Calatrava sea un majadero, Yandiola y Sánchez
Salvador dos majaderos, y usted más majadero que todos ellos?»
Pero con no poco trabajo me contenía. Obligada a decir algo, a
causa de mi pícara reputación, me complacía en contradecirle, de
modo que todo lo que para él era blanco, yo lo veía negro. A cuantos
el marqués denigró, yo les supuse talentos desmedidos. En lo relativo
a declarar loco a Su Majestad, dije que me parecía el acto más cuerdo
y acertado del mundo.
—Pero, señora —me dijo el marqués—, esto equivale a destronar a
Su Majestad, porque si le declaran incapacitado para reinar...
—Justamente, señor marqués —repuse—. Le destronan y luego le
vuelven a entronizar; le quitan y le ponen, según conviene a las
circunstancias. ¿Hay cosa más natural? ¿No es el rey quien abre y
cierra las Cortes? Pues las Cortes abren o cierran al rey cuando
quieren.
Tomaron a risa, como lo merecían, mis observaciones; pero no po
verme tan inclinada a las burlas, cejó Falfán en su fastidioso disertar.
Entonces entró el príncipe de Anglona, personaje distinguido de la
fracción de Martínez de la Rosa, y el duque del Parque, cuya vista me
causó grande alegría. El príncipe dijo que al día siguiente habría
sesión muy interesante, para discutir lo que debiera hacerse en virtud
de la negativa del rey a salir de Sevilla. Yo le pedí una papeleta de
tribuna al duque, y ofreció mandármela. Anglona se brindó a llevarme
a Palacio. Formado mi plan para el día siguiente, determiné ver a Su
Majestad y asistir a la sesión de las Cortes, encendiendo de este modo
una vela a San Miguel y otra al diablo.
El del Parque, cuando no podían oírlo los demás, dijo con
malignidad:
—Mi secretario, a quien usted conoce, le llevará mañana la
papeleta para la galería reservada de las Cortes.
Al oír esto parece que se abrieron delante de mí los cielos. Mi alma
se llenó de alegría, que a no ser por el gran disimulo que eché sobre
ella, como se echa hipocresía sobre un pecado, hubiera sido advertida
por la concurrencia. Desde aquel momento, todo se transformó a mis
ojos. Cuanto dijo el marqués de Falfán de los Godos lo encontré
discreto y agudo, y sus majaderías me parecieron prodigios de ingenio
y perspicacia política. A todo le contesté, desplegando verbosidad
abundante como en mis mejores tiempos de Madrid, emitiendo juicios
picarescos y sentenciosos, juzgando a los personajes con graciosa
malevolencia, y retratándoles con breves rasgos de caricatura. Ya
tenía lo que me había faltado en toda la noche, ingenio. Respondí a
las galanterías, supe marear a más de cuatro, mortifiqué a la
marquesa, alegré la reunión. Al retirarme, no dejaba más que tristezas
y presentimientos detrás de mí. Yo me llevaba todas las alegrías.
XXIII
Desde muy temprano me levanté, pues poco dormí aquella noche

Las noches de Sevilla no parece que son, como las de otras partes
para dormir. Son para soñar en vela... Le aguardaba con tanta
impaciencia, que a cada instante salía al balcón, esperando verle entre
la multitud que pasaba por la calle de Génova. De repente me
anunciaron una visita. Creí verle entrar: salí corriendo; pero mi corazón
dio un vuelco, quedándose frío y quieto cual si hubiera tropezado en
una pared. Tenía delante al príncipe de Anglona, un señor muy bueno
un caballero muy simpático, muy atento, pero cuya presencia me
contrariaba extraordinariamente en aquel instante.
Venía para llevarme al Alcázar.
—Su Majestad —me dijo— recibe ahora muy temprano. Anoche le
manifesté que estaba usted aquí, y me rogó que la llevase a su
presencia hoy mismo.
Yo quise hacer objeciones, pretextando la inusitada hora, pues no
habían dado las once; pero nada me valió. Érame imposible resistir a
aquella majadería insoportable que revestía las formas de la más
delicada atención. Tampoco podía defenderme con dolor de cabeza
vapores u otros recursos que tenemos para tales trances. Humillé la
frente como víctima expiatoria de las conveniencias sociales, y
después de arreglarme dispúseme a aceptar un puesto en la carroza
del Príncipe, no sin dejar antes a mi criada instrucciones muy prolijas
para que detuviera hasta mi vuelta al que forzosamente había de venir
Partí resuelta a hacer a Su Majestad visita de médico. En aquella
ocasión deploré por primera vez que existieran reyes en el mundo.
Poca es la distancia que hay de la calle de Génova al Alcázar
Antes de las doce estaba yo en la cámara de Su Majestad, y salía
gozoso a saludarme el descendiente de cien reyes, pegado a su regia
nariz. No parecía nada contento; pero mostró mucho placer en verme
dándome a besar su mano y rogándome que a su lado me sentase
Tanta bondad, que a cualquiera habría ensoberbecido, a mí me hizo
muy poca gracia, y menos cuando con sus preguntas daba a entende
que la visita sería larga.
Fernando quiso saber por mí algunas particularidades de la entrada
de los franceses en Madrid, de la defección de La Bisbal en
Somosierra y de la derrota de Plasencia en Despeñaperros. Yo
contesté a todo, cuidando de la brevedad más que de otra cosa, y
fingiéndome ignorante de varios hechos que sabía perfectamente
pero ninguna de estas estratagemas me valía, porque Fernando VII
que en el preguntar había sido siempre absoluto, no se hartaba de oí
contar cada paso del ejército francés; y como, además de mis
palabras, le recreaba bastante, como he dicho en otra ocasión, la boca
que las decía, de aquí que no llevara camino de saciar en muchas
horas la curiosidad de su entendimiento y la concupiscencia de sus
voraces ojos.
«¡Ay! ¡Qué felices son las repúblicas! —pensé—. Al menos, en ellas
no hay reyes pesados y preguntones que quieran saber noticias de la
guerra a costa de la felicidad de sus súbditos.»
Yo le miraba, haciendo esfuerzos heroicos para disimular m
descontento. Al responderle, decía en mi interior:
«Me alegraría de que te encerraran en una jaula como loco
rematado.»
Él entonces, sin indicios de conocer mi cansancio, hablome así con
cierto tono de confianza:
—Se empeñan en que han de llevarme a Cádiz, y yo me empeño
en no salir de Sevilla. Veremos si se atreven a llevarme a la fuerza, o
si yo cedo al fin.
—No se atreverán, señor.
—Ellos saben —continuó— que en Cádiz hay una terrible epidemia
pero eso no les importa. ¡A Cádiz de cabeza! ¿Nada importa, señores
diputados, que yo y toda la real familia nos expongamos a perecer...?
Veremos lo que decide el Consejo...
—Decidirá lo más conveniente.
—Yo les digo a esos señores: ¿creen ustedes posible resistir a los
franceses? No. Pues si al fin se ha de capitular, ¿no es mejor hacerlo
en Sevilla?
—Admirable raciocinio, señor.
—Nada: a Cádiz, a Cádiz, y entre tanto, ni coches para el viaje, n
recursos...
Parecía mortificado por dos o tres ideas fijas, que agitadas se
sucedían en su mente y se enlazaban formando esa dolorosa serie de
vibrantes círculos cerebrales que, si no producen la locura, la imitan
Me fue preciso, en vista de tanta pesadez, fingirme enferma y pedirle
permiso para retirarme. Él, entonces, ¡oh fiero y descomunal tirano!, se
empeñó en que me quedase en el Alcázar, donde se me prepararía
habitación conveniente.
«Te comprendo, déspota», dije para mí, sofocando mi cólera.
No había más remedio que ser huraña y descortés, rehusando los
obsequios y tapando mis oídos a preguntillas que empezaban a deja
de ser políticas. Al retirarme, Su Majestad me dijo:
—No saldré de Sevilla, no saldré... Veremos si se atreven.
—No se atreverán, señor —le respondí—. Vuestra Majestad podrá
con una voluntad firme, desbaratar las maquinaciones de los pérfidos.
Estas vulgaridades palaciegas le agradaban. Dejele entregado a
sus febriles inquietudes, y corrí a calmar las mías. Por el camino iba
contando el tiempo transcurrido, que me parecía largo, como todo lo
que precede a la felicidad que se espera. Llegué a mi casa, sub
precipitadamente, creyendo que él saldría a recibirme con los brazos
abiertos; pero en mis habitaciones hallé un silencio y un vacío
tristísimos... No estaba. Mi primer impulso fue de ira contra él por la
audacia inaudita, por la infame crueldad de no estar allí; pero luego
tornáronse contra el rey mis furores, cuando Mariana, mi fiel criada
me dijo que el caballero se había cansado de esperar.
—¿Luego ha estado aquí?
—Sí, señora; ha estado más de hora y media. No haría diez
minutos que usted había salido, cuando entró...
—¿Y no dijo que volvería?
—No dijo nada más sino que tenía que ir a las Cortes.
—Yo también tengo que ir a las Cortes —afirmé, sintiéndome como
una máquina loca que mueve a la vez con precipitada carrera todas
sus ruedas—. Vamos, vístete, Mariana, que no quiero perder esa gran
sesión.
Por no ir sola, yo llevaba siempre conmigo a mi leal criada, vestida
de señora, imitando en esto la usanza francesa de las señoritas de
compañía. Esto era sumamente cómodo para mí, porque me libraba
de la necesidad de admitir en muchos casos la compañía de hombres
importunos o antipáticos. En poco tiempo, haciendo yo de sirviente y
Mariana de señora, quedó vestida, no tan bien que se desconociese
su inferioridad; pero con suficiente elegancia para poder ir al lado mío
Muchos la creían hermana soltera o parienta pobre.
XXIV
Fuimos a las Cortes, que estaban en San Hermenegildo, en la calle

de la Palma, frente a San Miguel. Difícil hallamos la entrada a causa
de la mucha gente que llenaba la calle, agolpándose a las puertas de
edificio como las apiñadas lapas en la roca. Mujeres menos resueltas
que nosotras habrían vuelto la espalda; pero Mariana y yo sabíamos
romper las cortezas del vulgo, y al fin nos abrimos paso, y entrando
con desenfado y pie ligero subimos a la galería. Antes de penetrar en
ella, oímos la voz de un orador que resonaba en medio del más
imponente silencio.
Mucho hubimos de bregar para encontrar sitio; pero al fin, pidiendo
mil veces perdón y oyendo murmullos de descontento a un lado y otro
logramos acomodarnos. Mi primer cuidado no fue atender a lo que
aquel gran orador decía, cosas sin duda altamente dignas de aplauso
mi primer cuidado fue registrar con los ojos toda la galería reservada
por ver si estaba allí quien me cautivaba más que los discursos. Pero
ni a derecha ni a izquierda, ni delante ni detrás le vi, con lo cual la gran
pieza oratoria que se estaba pronunciando empezó a serme muy
fastidiosa.
—¿Quién habla? —pregunté a una señora vieja que estaba junto a
mí.
—Alcalá Galiano, el gran orador —repuso en tono de extrañeza po
mi ignorancia.
—¿Y de qué habla? —pregunté, sin temor de que la señora vieja
me creyera cerril.
—¿De qué ha de hablar? Del suceso del día.
La señora volvió el rostro hacia el salón, demostrando más interés
por el discurso que por mis preguntas. Yo no quise molestar más, y
traté de atender también. El orador hablaba de la patria, del inminente
peligro de la patria, de la salvación de la patria y de la gloria de la
patria. Es el gran tema de todos los oradores, incluso los buenos. No
he conocido a ningún político que no estropeara la palabra patriotismo
hasta dejarla inservible, y en esto se me parecen a los malos poetas
que al nombrar constantemente en sus versos la inspiración, la lira, e
estro, la musa ardiente, la fantasía, hablan de lo que no conocen.
Alcalá Galiano era tan feo y tan elocuente como Mirabeau. Su
figura, bien poco académica, y su cara, no semejante a la de Antinoo
se embellecían con la virtud de un talismán prodigioso: la palabra. Le
pasaba lo contrario que a muchas personas de admirable hermosura
las cuales se vuelven feas desde que abren la boca. Aquel día, e
joven diputado andaluz había tomado por su cuenta el llevar adelante
la hazaña más revolucionaria que registran nuestros anales.
Sentían los españoles la comezón de destronar algo, y el afán de
probar la embriaguez revolucionaria, que sin duda embelesa a los
pueblos de Occidente como a los chinos el opio, y dijeron: «Hagamos
temblar a los reyes, pues que ha llegado la hora de que los reyes
tiemblen delante del pueblo...» Mas era aquí la gente demasiado
bondadosa para una calaverada sangrienta. En otra parte, al ver al rey
sistemáticamente contrario a la representación nacional, hubiéranle
cortado la cabeza; aquí le privaron del uso de la razón temporalmente
diciendo: «Señor, vuestro deseo de esperar aquí a los franceses nos
prueba que estáis loco. Con arreglo a la Constitución, declaramos que
sois digno de un manicomio y de perder la autoridad real. Vámonos a
Cádiz, y cuando estemos allí, os adornaremos de nuevo con vuestra
cabal razón, y seguiremos partiendo un confite como hasta aquí.»
Admirable recurso habría sido este, a mi parecer, desde el punto de
vista liberal, teniendo un gran ejército para reforzar el argumento en
los campos de batalla. Sin fuerza, aquel hecho probaba que los
diputados estaban más locos que el rey, y así se lo dije a Falfán de los
Godos. Con esto se comprende que el marqués había entrado en la
galería, colocándose detrás de mí. Él ponía mucha más atención que
yo al discurso y aun a los rumores que sonaban arriba y abajo.
—Han llenado de gentuza la tribuna pública —me dijo en voz queda
— para que aplauda las atrocidades que habla ese hombre.
No sé si era o no gente pagada; pero es lo cierto que a cada párrafo
coruscante, terminado en la salvación de la patria o en el afrentoso
yugo de esta nación heroica, la galería pública mugía como una

The Acts of Early Church Councils Acts Production and Character Thomas Graumann Full Chapter

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The Acts of Early Church Councils

Acts: Production and Character

THE OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES series includes scholarly volumes on

The Acts of the Early

Abbreviations and Conventionsix

1. The Earliest Church Councils: A Documentary History 13

8. All the President’s Men: Administrative Aides and the ‘Official’

9. The Stenographic Protocol: Professionalism, Conventions, and

Abbreviations and Conventions

1. Abbreviations Used for Councils, Synods, and Assemblies

C.Aquil.(381) Concilium Aquileiense (anno 381)

2. General Bibliographical Abbreviations

x Abbreviations and Conventions

ABAW.PH Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,

Abbreviations and Conventions xi

3. Literature Cited in Abbreviation

CCO Clavis conciliorum occidentalium septem prioribus saeculis

xii Abbreviations and Conventions

Die lateinische Literatur von 284 bis 374 n. Chr. München:

2 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

produced.2 In the middle ground formed by an oval of the seated ecclesiastical

2 Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS 32, digitalized at http://psalter.library.uu.nl; the drawing is

plight in Augustine’s well-­known complaint of the inordinate burden that such

4 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

characteristics of conciliar ‘paperwork’ and the mechanics of its confection and

6 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

8 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

14 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

much as the institutional development of councils was a gradual and protracted

The Earliest Church Councils 15

16 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

gathering, the so-­called LXXXVII Sententiae Episcoporum.9 In one sense, these

The Earliest Church Councils 17

18 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

The Earliest Church Councils 19

20 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

The Earliest Church Councils 21

protocol of a council session, which records the exchanges between individual

22 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

The Earliest Church Councils 23

the chairman (framed by the conventional opening elements of a protocol, which

33 C.Cstpl.II(553), II (trans. Price, Constantinople, I.206–18).

VARIATIONS OF DOCUMENTATION AND RECORDING PATTERNS 25

detailed ‘word-­for-­word’ minutes of councils, it is essential to constantly bear in

26 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

VARIATIONS OF DOCUMENTATION AND RECORDING PATTERNS 27

and creedal-­style formulae were adopted and promulgated by various councils

28 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

Along a scale of possibilities for recording, then, a full ‘direct-­speech’, narrative

9 Evangelos Chrysos, ‘Konzilsakten und Konzilsprotokolle vom 4. bis 7. Jahrhundert’, AHC 15

VARIATIONS OF DOCUMENTATION AND RECORDING PATTERNS 29

theological-­deliberative purposes of councils breaks down when matters of

30 The Acts of the Early Church Councils

VARIATIONS OF DOCUMENTATION AND RECORDING PATTERNS 31

—Eso no puede ser —dije vivamente, saliendo al encuentro de

Se fueron y yo me quedé. Las lágrimas que antes no habían

¡Sevilla! ¡De qué manera tan grata hería mi imaginación este

Desde muy temprano me levanté, pues poco dormí aquella noche

Fuimos a las Cortes, que estaban en San Hermenegildo, en la calle

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Abbreviations and Conventionsix

plight in Augustine’s well-known complaint of the inordinate burden that such

gathering, the so-called LXXXVII Sententiae Episcoporum.9 In one sense, these

detailed ‘word-for-word’ minutes of councils, it is essential to constantly bear in

and creedal-style formulae were adopted and promulgated by various councils

Along a scale of possibilities for recording, then, a full ‘direct-speech’, narrative

theological-deliberative purposes of councils breaks down when matters of