Encourse Wiki

Patrology — Topic 14

Properties3
tagstopic
coursePatrology
unitTopic 14

22 min read

Patrology — Topic 14

14.1 Sophronius of Jerusalem

Heraclius, who ascended the throne after overthrowing the brutal tyrant Phocas, came from a noble Armenian family (his father was proconsul of Africa) and was the first in the line of Byzantine emperors of Eastern origin. He spent most of his reign in battles with Persia, which in those years established itself as a world power with a claim to religious and military superiority over the Christian world. In 614 the Persians seized Jerusalem, capturing the patriarch and taking possession of the tree of the Holy Cross. In 615 they invaded Egypt, in 617 came to Chalcedon and found themselves in close proximity to Constantinople. The siege of the capital lasted from 622 to 628. Leaving Patriarch Sergius to guard the city, Heraclius personally led the Roman armies in Armenia. His tactic of creating a second front was successful, and the war finally ended in 628 with a victorious peace. The Persian king Khoz-roy was killed and the conquered territories were returned to Byzantium. Heraclius became a national hero. But the last years of his life were overshadowed by new concerns due to Arab attacks and the beginning of the Muslim movement. In 637 the Arabs conquered Jerusalem and subjugated the entire Middle East. Heraclius had a nervous fit of grief and was unable to fight.

Heraclius’ long stay in Armenia, where the local population sometimes preferred the Persian dominion for fear of religious persecution by the “Chalcedonian” empire, caused the emperor to make new attempts at rapprochement with the Monophysites. The Orthodox Empire persecuted the Monophysite populations of these regions, and so it is not surprising that they, choosing the lesser of two evils, preferred the Persians, who were indifferent to intra-Christian strife. The population of these territories conquered by the Persians was the one that Heraclius wanted to get on his side.

The historical situation of the time demanded an immediate solution to the national-political question. Heraclius, like many of his predecessors, tried to unite the empire through the unity of religion. Patriarch Sergius, who was from Syria and therefore had a good understanding of Oriental psychology, helped him in this. In an effort to reach a compromise with the Monophysites, Sergius produced a formula according to which there were two natures in Christ, but one energy. The word “energy” in Aristotelian terminology meant “the manifestation of a particular nature. Since even Chalcedonians recognized that in Christ two natures could only be distinguished mentally, and since the person, hypostasis of Christ was one, according to Sergius we can speak of one energy of this divine-human hypostasis.

It seemed to many that a compromise agreement with the Monophysites had finally been reached, supported by the authority of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who also uses the expression “one divine-human energy”. However, a closer examination reveals that this seemingly attractive theory does not really solve, but only deepens the problem, revealing the true essence of monophysitism as monoenergeticism. This seemingly obvious fact did not come to light at once: at first Sergius’ formula was a great success and greatly helped Heraclius. He succeeded in winning back the occupied territories from Persia, winning the sympathy of the local Monophysites, who liked mono- energism.

Heraclius also reunited with the Armenian and Syrian Monophysites, and in 631, after the fall of Alexandria, the Egyptian Monophysites also joined the church, to which Cyrus, the patriarch appointed by the emperor, who was also the governor of Egypt, contributed much to. Cyrus was a Monophysite, but after some hesitation he agreed to accept the doctrine of one energy, fascinated by the prospect of compromise with the Orthodox. The emperor rejoiced: it seemed that the reunion of Christians in monophysite countries had been achieved! It was officially proclaimed in 633 in the city of Erzerum (then Theodosiopolis).

Although everything had gone smoothly so far, it was obvious that the hastily sewn mono-energism needed theological justification. Sergius was well aware of the difficulty involved in using the expression «one energy». This difficulty was obvious to anyone familiar with Aristotelian metaphysics: each nature, as a concrete reality, possesses energy, and therefore the two natures of Christ must correspond to two energies. To solve the problem, Sergius had to resort to a theological subterfuge. He suggested - since it was a question of one Person - that we should not speak of “one energy”, but of “one will”, and thus get rid of the misunderstandings and ambiguities.

Sergius expounded this new version of his Christology in a letter to Pope Honorius (634), in which he informed the Roman Patriarch about the achieved reunion of the Eastern Christians and asked his advice about Monothelitism (the doctrine of one will).

Not being a sophisticated theologian, Pope Honorius agreed with all of Sergius’ arguments. On this basis the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-681) condemned him as a heretic, and up to the ninth century all popes pronounced him anathema, and his letter was subsequently used as an argument against the dogma of papal infallibility. In defending Honorius, many Catholic scholars like to say that he did not pronounce this judgment ex cathedra. But it can hardly be denied that in this case Honorius acted precisely in the role of a pope, pronouncing a judgment on a dogmatic question in response to a request from a Constantinopolitan colleague.

At about the same time, the newly elected Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, wrote a circular council letter (“Synodicus”) expressing his disagreement with the doctrine of one will. In proving the existence of two wills in Christ, Sophronius argued that in Him each nature acts naturally in its own essence and that it is only from these acts that we know the difference of natures: the presence of one energy or will deprives this distinction of all meaning, turning it into a pure abstraction. In spite of his loneliness among the episcopate of his time, Sophronius stood his ground. He was a brave and independent man, ready to fight to the end for the purity of Orthodoxy. His only ally and friend was Maximus the Confessor, whom Sophronius had met in Alexandria.

Jerusalem was taken by the Arabs in 637. Patriarch Sophronius, who felt no particular allegiance to Constantinople, cooperated with the Caliph Omar, who declared Jerusalem an open city and immediately built there a famous mosque on the very spot where Solomon’s temple had stood in earlier times. In gratitude for Sophronius’ cooperation, Omar gave all the Christian holy places to the patriarch of Jerusalem.

Sophronius soon died, and with him it would seem that the polemic against “one energy” should have ceased.

14.2 Maximus the Confessor

Maximus was born in 580 into an aristocratic Constantinople family and received an excellent education. He can undoubtedly be called, along with Origen, one of the most sophisticated and sophisticated Christian thinkers of the holy fatherly period. He began his secular career at the court of Heraclius in 610, at the age of 30, and, judging from his early years, he had a brilliant future ahead of him. But Maximus chose a different path and became a monk, settling in a monastery in the Asia Minor city of Chrysopolis. It is interesting, that he remained forever a simple monk and never claimed any of the church ranks. He traveled extensively and in 632 was in Africa, where he took part in the Monothelite controversy. Apparently, there was a circle of Byzantine monks in Alexandria who followed all the events vividly. It was there that Maximus met Sophronius and became friends with him. In 649 he is in Rome as a member of the Lateran Council and the theological adviser to Pope Martin (although, to all appearances, Maximus did not know Latin).

When Pope Martin was arrested in 653, Maximus was arrested with him. Since he was a simple monk, he was tortured separately, but the charges against him were the same as against the Pope - theological and political. A verbatim transcript of his case, Acta Maximi , has come down to us. Maximus stood his ground firmly, and the history of his trial shows what a great spiritual role his personality played at that time. When it was pointed out to him that he, an ordinary monk, was rebelling against the opinion of all the patriarchs, Maximus replied that even if an angel from heaven preached heresy, he, Maximus, would still stand up for the truth. Responding to an offer to agree with Typos at least in the name of the unity of Byzantium and Rome, he declared, “I am not thinking about the unity or separation of the Romans and Greeks, but about my not departing from the right faith.” He challenged the behavior of Heraclius and Constant II, saying that “it is not the business of kings, but of priests to examine and determine the saving dogmas of the catholic Church.”

Maximus was exiled to Thrace, from where he continued to write against Monothelitism. In 662 he was brought back to Constantinople, an anathema was pronounced on him, Pope Martin and Patriarch Sophronius. He was tortured again, having his tongue and right hand cut off. Then the Monk Maximus was banished a second time, this time to the Caucasus, where he soon died (3 August 662) at the age of 82, without having waited for the triumph of Orthodoxy at the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680) under the emperor Constantine IV (668-685).

The writings of Maximus the Confessor occupy two volumes in Migne’s Patrology.

His exegetical writings include a large book, Questions and Answers to Th alassius, which is an explanation of “difficult passages” in Scripture; a C ommentary on Psalm 59; and a C ommentary on the Lord’s Prayer. The greatest theological work of St. Maximus is a collection of Essays on “difficult places” by Dionysius the Areopagite and St. Gregory the Theologian (Ambigua). His Mystagogia (or Mystagogy), written under the great influence of the Areopagitics of Pseudo-Dionysius, is a first-of-its-kind explanation of the Divine Liturgy. The short Discourse with Pyrrhus contains the main Christological views of Maximus. They are set forth in the form of a dialogue with the very patriarch Pyrrhus, who succeeded Sergius, then was deposed and went to Africa, where he met Maximus. Under the influence of this acquaintance Pyrrhus abandoned his Monothelite views, but, returning to Constantinople, he again indulged in his former delusions. From a theological point of view the letters of Maximus the Confessor are also interesting, many of which are dogmatic epistles devoted to an analysis of the Monothelite heresy. Among his ascetic writings are the 400 C hapters of On Love and the 200 Gnostic Chapters , which are examples of mystical theology (“Gnostic” here refers not to Gnostic teaching, but to ways of knowing God).

One of the most important merits of the Venerable Maximus is that, taking advantage of the positive achievements of Origen’s thought, he succeeded in overcoming the delusions of Origenism concerning the creation of the world. The starting point of his teaching was the doctrine of the Logos as the principle of creation. Agreeing with the prologue of John’s Gospel, the Alexandrian tradition understood the divine Word as the pre-existent principle “in which” all things were created and which from eternity and forever contains in itself all the diversity of the created world. In this sense we can say that God “knew” everything beforehand. According to Maximus, everything that exists exists eternally in God, in His hypostatic Logos, as divine thoughts, not as Plato’s world of ideas, external to God. Divine thoughts are hypostatically centered in the divine Word. The world is created by the action of the divine will, which brings into fulfillment the divine foreknowledge inherent in the Logos from eternity.

In Origen’s system the existence of everything in our world is described by the following triad: στάσις stasis (stability or state of stability), κίνησις kinesis (motion), and γένεσις genesis (becoming or creation). The spirits created by God were eternally in a state of stability (stasis). In other words, according to Origen, God and the entire created world were at first in stillness, a state in the Platonic sense equivalent to perfection. Then there was movement (kinesis): spirits got bored of contemplating the essence of God, they began to get distracted from their stillness, and this was their fall. The result was the origin of the world (genesis) as we know it. Thus, for Origen, the created world is the result of the fall, which he understands as a movement of distraction from perfection.

Maximus the Confessor contrasts this view of the creation of the world with his own, diametrically opposed scheme. In the beginning God created the world by the action of His divine will (genesis). The action of the divine will is expressed in the movement of kinesis. This movement eventually seeks its completion and completeness, the stability in God stasis, which is the purpose of creation. The concept of movement, regarded by Origenism as evil, turns out to be good in the system of St. Maximus because it is rooted from beginning to end in the plan of God.

Continuing our discussion of Maximus, it should be emphasized once again that, unlike most Christian theologians of the holy Fathers’ period (with the exception of Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa), he had a real, comprehensive philosophical vision. Not being, as with many theologians, a reaction to this or that heresy, his thought was systematic, so it can be argued that had it not been for the Monothelite controversy, Maximus would still have developed his doctrine of the two wills. He was also exceptional in that he was not a bishop, but remained a simple monk all his life. He died a martyr’s death, having suffered for his devotion to the truth.

As noted above, the Confessor reintroduced the concept of the Word, purifying it from the Neoplatonic idea of the eternal pre-existence of the world, according to which not only the ideal images of the created world, but the world itself pre-exists in the divine mind. For the Venerable Maximus such a view of the structure of the world is impossible: God created the world, both visible and invisible, out of nothing. In contrast to the Neo-Platonists, for Maximus the ideas of the created world are rooted in the being of God Himself, without, however, being His essence.

An important element of Venerable Maximus’ thought is his ascetic teaching, in which he follows the tradition of Evagrius, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and others. The Christian life consists in a struggle with the passions. The passions represent dependence on everything that is not God: love for this world and not for heaven, attachment to matter and not to spirit, to earth and not to heaven. This also includes the whole sphere of the relationship between the sexes, understood in the light of Christian revelation; both ways, marriage and celibacy, lead to the transformation of the relationship from one of opposition to one of unity. St. Maximus himself was a strict, chaste ascetic.

The ascetic life leads to the vision of God and theosis , which constitute the goal of human life. Since God became fully human, fully clothed with human nature, having taken on the whole person, soul and body, therefore, the whole person, his soul and body, is called to become fully God by grace. The Confessor emphasizes that in graceful communion with God we are united not with parts of God, but with all His fullness.

At present, numerous scholars of the writings of Maximus the Confessor are arguing about the relation between his idea of deification and the idea of natural contemplation.

14.3 Anastasius of Sinai

Anastasius of Sinai (7th century - after 701) was abbot of the monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai. Very little is known about his life. Anastasius was actively involved in the struggle against heresies (Monophysitism, Aftarthodoxy, Monothelitism) and for this reason he visited Alexandria, Palestine and Syria.

Anastasius’ most famous work is ῾Οδηγός (Viae dux) « Guide», 24 parts of which are devoted to a polemic with various forms of Monophysitism. Each thesis is supported by extensive references to the works of the holy Fathers. Among the dogmatic and polemical works are also “Six Chapters against the Monophysites” and “Sixteen Chapters against the Monophysites”. The most voluminous work preserved under the name of Anastasius is « Questions and Answers on Various Topics ».

Christology is the central theme of Anastasius’ theology. Soteriology, exegetics, and especially anthropology are closely related to the Christological controversies of the time, especially the polemic against the heresies of Monophysitism and Monothelitism. In his theological system Anastasius makes extensive use of Aristotle’s conceptual apparatus and dialectic, though he often accuses his opponents of Aristotelianism and refusal to consider nature outside the concrete reality of the person. He defines man as “an animal rational, mortal, capable of understanding and learning” (Quaest. 23). Seeing man’s nature as “a type of the divine dispensation,” Anastasius places him above the angels. The “image and likeness of God” in man is understood by Anastasius far more broadly than the theologians who preceded him. For him it lies not only in “the sovereign and self-authoritative [position] of man,” “the intelligent and invisible origin of the soul,” “the incorruptible and sinless origin” of Adam, and the sacrament of Baptism (the first three properties are also inherent in angels), but also in the fact that in man is reflected the very “mystery of the TriuneGodhead,” with “the soul [created] in the image of the Godhead, and the combination of soul and body in us [is created] in the likeness of the Incarnation of the Word.” Already in the very creation of man Anastasius sees the inexpressible image of the Holy Trinity. The mystery of the Trinity is also revealed in the three-part structure of the human soul: the soul itself is the image of the Father, the intellect is that of the Son, the spirit is that of the Holy Spirit; all 3 parts of the human soul “possess an undivided and inseparable unity in the image of the One and Only Trinity”. Just as “there is no intelligent soul outside of its inherent mind”, “the Father never existed before the Son”. Likewise Anastasius proves “that the Son and Father are not preceded by the Almighty Spirit”. The very arrangement of the human soul, according to Anastasius, refutes the heresies of Arius and Macedonius.

The conception of man in his mother’s womb, when neither the body “is arranged before the soul, nor the soul preempts the body” (an implicit polemic with Origenism), is the image of the “hypostatic union of the two essences of Christ”.

By teaching about the image of God in man, Anastasius proves the invalidity of the Monothelite view, which accused the doctrine of two wills in Christ of “affirming [in Him] one will that is good and the other that is diabolical”. In man, created in the image of both the Most Holy Trinity and the Incarnate God of the Word, the natural will is not sinful, but only thanks to “the God- created and God-given will of our rational soul… all the good and acceptable will of the divine is realized”. In Christ human nature becomes co-divine ὁμόθεος, an expression already found in St. Gregory the Theologian.

14.4 John of Damascus

Very little is known about the life of John of Damascus. Damascene was born about 675 and died in 749. He came from a Christian family living in the Muslim-occupied Middle East. Christians lived among Muslims as in a ghetto, and the laws of the Quran did not apply to them. Christian communities were administered by Christian officials appointed by the Caliph. Such an official was St. John’s father, Sergius, and John inherited his high position. The biographer calls him by the Arabic name Mansur (which means “victorious”), but there is no record of Damascene’s Arabic ancestry. He apparently did not know Arabic, and his works were written in Greek in a fine Byzantine style. His career at the court of the caliph at Damascus came to an end when John, having released all his slaves, retired to the monastery of St. Sava in Palestine. In 734 he was ordained a priest.

1. “The Source of Knowledge,” a book consisting of three parts: a) “Dialectics,” containing an exposition of Aristotle’s philosophy; b) “The List of Heresies,” including 103 titles; c) “An Exact Statement of the Orthodox Faith.” This last part represents the first experience of its kind of systematic presentation of Christian theology. For many centuries this book served as a textbook of theology. It is a compilation of the holy Fathers’ notions and thoughts belonging to the authors of the first centuries of Christianity.

2. Three Sermons “On images” were written in 730, at the very beginning of the Iconoclastic dispute, immediately after the banning of icons by Emperor Leo III Isaurus. The fact that John immediately published his letters testifies to the considerable spiritual freedom he had, despite the Arabian occupation, far from the Byzantine capital.

3. “Sacred Parallels” (known by the Latin name Sacra Parallela), a collection of quotations and sayings from Scripture on moral themes of no particular theological value.

4. Several short polemical writings against the Monophysites, Nestorians, and Manichaeans.

5. Ecclesiastical hymns are an exceptionally valuable part of St. John of Damascus’ heritage.

Tradition attributes to John of Damascus the composition of the Octoechos, which consists of a cycle of services during eight successive weeks, sung in eight different “Tones” or melodic systems. He is also considered the author of many holiday hymns, including the Paschal Canon, canons for the Nativity, Transfiguration, Dormition, and Ascension, and many troparions, and kondakions dedicated to various feasts and saints.

The study of John Damascene’s theological thought requires first of all an acquaintance with his main work, The Source of Knowledge. The first part of the book, Dialectics , has an introductory and methodological character, showing that Aristotle’s Logic was recognized in Byzantium as the main “school of thought.” As far as theology is concerned, much of interest can be found in the second part, which is a catalog of heresies. The first thing that strikes the eye is a certain, by our standards, strange approach to the very concept of “heresy. First in the list is “barbarism,” followed by “Scythianism,” “Hellenism,” and Judaism. Obviously, the Byzantines of the 8th century had a completely different logic of reasoning than we do, reflecting their specific Greco-Roman mindset. Understanding heresy in its literal sense (reflecting “division” in Greek), they considered “barbarians” and “Scythians” all those who did not belong to the empire, that is, to the divinely established unity.

In this catalog we also find such heresies as “gnosimachia,” or “enmity to knowledge.” Under number 81 is the familiar Christological heresy, Aphthartodocetism, and under number 101 is Islam, the description of which shows that Damascene was not familiar with Islam, and even the Quran, apparently, he read only in excerpts. Islam in his view is, on the one hand, “the prejudice of the Ismaelites,” but also the terrible scourge of the Christians. He calls Mohammed “the Antichrist”.

The third part of the “Source of Knowledge” is mainly a collection of teachings of the Fathers. In his presentation of the dogma of the Holy Trinity Damascene follows the doctrine of the Cappadocians, in Christology he follows the Chalcedonian doctrine. His presentation of Chalcedonian Christology is marked by clarity and precision: the center of salvation is the hypostatic unity of the natures in Christ. Following St. Maximus the Confessor, from the duality of nature Damascene deduces the duality of wills and the doctrine of “communicatio idiomatum” (intercommunication of qualities between the Godhead and the human nature of Christ). St. John ends the book with a statement of the Christian dogma of deification, that is, the participation of the members of the Church in the deified humanity of Christ (in particular, through the Eucharist).

In his Sermons “On Images” John Damascene proceeded from an understanding of iconoclasm as a Christological heresy. The iconoclasts based their objections on the Old Testament prohibition against idolatry, ignoring the Incarnation of God. In response, St. John writes the following:

“In antiquity (that is, in the Old Testament) God, incorporeal and without form, was never pictured. Now that God appeared in the flesh and lived among men, we picture a visible God… I have seen the human image of God, and my soul is saved. I behold the image of God as Jacob saw it, and otherwise: for with the eyes of his mind he saw an immaterial prototype of the future, and I behold a reminder of the One I saw in the flesh” (“On Images”).

Damascene speaks of matter as God’s creation, not as something despicable and lowly: ”…And since the Word of God has taken up residence in him, matter has become pre-historical, and therefore material images are necessary and have positive meaning.”

In his polemic against the charges of idolatry, John of Damascus distinguishes between adoration, absolute worship (λατρεία latria), befitting only God, and veneration, relative worship (προσκύνησις proskinesis), rendered to created things, to which icons belong. This terminological distinction was confirmed by the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Damascene’s Dicourses On Images are undoubtedly his greatest contribution to Orthodox tradition.

The further history of the controversy over icons is linked to the name of Emperor Constantine V, who in 754 assembled the Iconoclastic Council, at which the “Christological” arguments against iconoclasm were also put forward.

  • 14.1 Sophronius of Jerusalem
    • 14.2 Maximus the Confessor
    • 14.3 Anastasius of Sinai
    • 14.4 John of Damascus

Fathers After Chalcedon

Graph View

Backlinks