7th–8th centuries

The Authority of the Fathers in the East: The Theologian as "Confessor" and the Consensus Patrum

According to Lane, after the age of the fathers the Eastern church became "aggressively traditional": Scripture is to be understood according to the teaching of the fathers, the consensus of the fathers is affirmed at councils, and the highest level of authority belongs to the seven Ecumenical Councils. Maximus the Confessor understood the theologian's task as guarding what had been handed down: "We do not devise new formulas… but confess what was said by the fathers." According to Pelikan, truth was thought of as uniform and unchanging, "innovation" was almost a synonym for "blasphemy," and authority belonged to the consensus patrum – the agreement of the fathers as the expression of the mind of the Church. This principle was accepted by all parties to the disputes – Monothelites and Dyothelites, iconoclasts and iconodules, Greeks and Latins.