Jerusalem and Christ's Wills

Wilken's ch. 29 is covers the city of Jerusalem in the first half of the seventh century, and christological controversies in that period. 

Madaba Map (wikipedia). Near the beginning of the chapter, Wilken briefly mentions this mosaic map of Jerusalem discovered in a sixth-century church building in Jordan "several decades ago," that is, at the end of the nineteenth century. The church building was largely destroyed in the late eighth century. As Wilken notes, the map identifies Jerusalem as "the holy city," which is visible (in Greek) at the top left of the image (the section with a white-ish background). 

Madaba Map, Wikimedia Commons

The True Cross (wikipedia). According to Wikipedia, "The Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Church of the East all claim to possess relics of the True Cross as objects of veneration. Historians generally dispute the authenticity of the relics, as do Protestant and other Christian churches, who do not hold them in high regard." In 1992, Jan Willem Drijvers published a book (his 1989 Groningen dissertation) on the finding of the True Cross by Helena, mother of Constantine, and he has made the whole book available on his academia page (here). 

Wilken quotes Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 10.19, available in translation here. Wikipedia also includes a little section on Cyril's comments on the True Cross, in which it cites his Lecture 4 and his Letter to Constantius II. This latter work is apparently not available in English (or, at least, my light googling has uncovered no translation), but this article tells me that the standard edition is available in this article, to which I do not have access right now. 

Wilken next talks about the wars between the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Persian Empire in the early seventh century (wikipedia). During this war, Jerusalem fell to the Persians in 614 (wikipedia). About 15 years ago, Gideon Avni published an archaeological report of the conquest (here and here). Of the written sources for the conquest (wikipedia), the most detailed account is by the monk Antiochus Strategos (wikipedia), whose sermon has recently appeared in a new translation (open access). The patriarch of Jerusalem was Zacharias (wikipedia), and the Byzantine emperor was Heraclius (wikipedia).

There is no more doleful scene in the Church's early history, no event that evoked such an outpouring of grief among the Christian people. The only thing comparable was the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410, a catastrophe that stunned the Christian world. Rome's fall was an intellectual challenge, for pagan critics charged that Christians were to blame for abandoning the worship of the gods of their ancestors. The sack of Jerusalem, however, was an event of another magnitude. For the Jerusalem occupied by the Persians was the city celebrated in the Psalms, denounced by the prophets, Zion, the city of David celebrated in the Church's prayers and sung in its hymns, the city of Christ's death and resurrection. (Wilken p. 282)

Wilken quotes from two poems by Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem 634–638 (wikipedia), lamenting Jerusalem's fall.  However, by the time Sophronius was elected patriarch, Jerusalem was back under Byzantine control, having been retaken by Heraclius in 630. Sophronius did not die before Jerusalem was captured once again, but Wilken saves that story for the next chapter. 

Christology, again. Wilken spends the second half of this chapter catching up on the developments in the christological controversies created by Chalcedon. He introduces us to Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662, wikipedia; see the Oxford Handbook), whom he describes as "a thinker of uncommon brilliance, spiritual depth, courage, and sheer doggedness" (p. 283). 

Maximus the Confessor, Wikimedia Commons

Maximus defended Chalcedon's wording of "two natures," and—contra Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople—two wills, citing as evidence of two wills the prayer of Christ in Gethsemane. Maximus thus was a dyothelite, and Sergius was a monothelite. "For Maximus the doctrine of the one will placed in jeopardy the full reality of the incarnation" (Wilken p. 285). As wikipedia tells us (and Wilken gets to it at the very end of this chapter), monothelitism was rejected by the Sixth Ecumenical Council (wikipedia). 

But monothelitism was supported imperially by the Ekthesis of Heraclius (wikipedia), but this was opposed by immediately succeeding popes, including Martin the Confessor (wikipedia), leading to the pope's arrest by the emperor. Martin was tried in Constantinople and condemned for treason, and exiled to the Crimea. "In the end even the faithful in Rome abandoned him and elected a successor while he was still alive. A year later in September 655 he died in exile from cold and starvation. For his faithfulness in the face of deposition, humiliation, exile, and death, later generations bestowed on Pope Martin the venerable title of martyr, the last pope in history to have been given that honor" (Wilken p. 286). He is recognized as a saint by both Catholics and Orthodox. 

Maximus the Confessor was also placed on trial, convicted, and his tongue cut out and his right hand cut off, and then exiled. Accounts of the trial were preserved, and the documents have been collected and edited by Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil.