The Council of Chalcedon and the Definition of Christian Tradition

Abstract

‘Few councils have been so rooted in tradition as the Council of Chalcedon.’ The words are those of Aloys Grillmeier, from the conclusion of the first volume of his monumental work Christ in Christian Tradition , and they are words with which the bishops who gathered at Chalcedon in 451 would have wholeheartedly agreed. Yet what do we mean by ‘Christian tradition’? How did that tradition develop over time? Who had the authority to determine what would come to be regarded as traditional? All of our contemporary sources for the great controversies that divided the Christian Church in the fourth and fifth centuries appeal to the authority of the one true and unchanging Christian tradition. Yet at the heart of those controversies lies a debate over the very nature and interpretation of Christian tradition itself. In this short paper I wish to explore the place of the Council of Chalcedon in that debate and the evidence of the Acts of Chalcedon that have now become so much more accessible through the superb new translation and commentary that Richard Price and Michael Gaddis have brought before us. In its broadest sense Christian tradition embraces everything handed down by the Church from the time of the apostles onwards, including doctrinal teachings, ethics, customs and liturgical practices. More narrowly, tradition represents the expression of the faith of the Church, preserving the Christian message revealed by Christ for later generations.