Imago Dei--The Anthropomorphite Controversy & St Gregory the Great

In large part because of my great devotion to St John Cassian and his writings, I have long taken a keen interest in the 4^th- to 5^th-century ‘Anthropomorphite-Origenist’ controversy in Egypt, and for the same reason I have for the most part tended to identify heavily with the ‘Origenist’ side of the controversy. St Cassian’s points in Conference 10 in fact seem fairly uncontroversial, and the ‘anthropomorphite’ position seems fairly indefensible from an Orthodox perspective.

This view was beautifully complicated for me by Bishop Alexander’s contribution to the festschrift for Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware)—‘The Vision of God & the Form of Glory: More Reflections on the Anthropomorphite Controversy of AD 399’ (see an earlier contribution by His Grace to the subject here). While I definitely appreciated His Grace’s ‘final word’ attempting to ‘make up a little for the injustices I may have done a Cassian, an Origen, or an Evagrius in the course of making my argument’ [1], I also appreciated in a different sense his main argument that the simplistic ‘Serapion’ of Conference 10 may not be entirely representative of the anthropomorphites themselves or of their position.

Well, today I was finally getting round to reading Tim Vivian’s introduction to his little volume for the SVS Popular Patristic Series—Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt & Macarius of Alexandria. Vivian—in his discussion of Evagrius’s emphasis on imageless prayer and its possible role in the controversy—seems to hold a nuanced understanding of the controversy very similar to that of Bishop Alexander and informed by some of the same sources. Among others, he also refers to an essay by Fr Georges Florovsky that I don’t believe I have yet read myself entitled ‘Theophilus of Alexandria and Apa Aphou of Pemdje’. Vivian quotes Fr Georges’s explanation of the position of one of the ‘anthropomorphites’:

The sting of his argument was directed against the denial of God’s image in man, and there was no word whatever about any ‘human form’ in God. Aphou only contended that man, even in his present condition and in spite of all his misery and destitution, had to be regarded still as being created in the image of God, and must be, for that reason, respected. Aphou was primarily concerned with man’s dignity and honor. Theophilus, on the other hand, was embarrassed by man’s misery and depravity. [2]

I found this connection between the anthropomorphites’ emphasis on the imago Dei in man and the Origenists’ rejection of an imago hominis in God particularly interesting in light of something I had just read this morning in an author rather far removed in time and place from the controversy: St Gregory the Great. In his Homilies on Ezekiel, St Gregory links the human soul and God Himself in the process of mystical ascent, describing a kind of likeness between the two, but specifically rejecting the conception of not only the latter but of the former in terms of images. I shall quote this passage at length:

For we often wish to ponder the invisible nature of Almighty God but by no means avail, and the soul, wearied by the very difficulties, withdraws into herself and makes for herself and from herself the steps of her ascent, so that she first considers herself, if she can, and then examines insofar as she can that nature which is above her. But our mind, if spread out in carnal images, by no means suffices to consider itself or the nature of the soul because it is led by as many thoughts as it is, so to speak, blinded by obstacles. [3]

It is then that St Gregory begins to discuss precisely how God and the soul are connected and why they must both be approached without images. In the next passage the ellipses indicate where I have attempted to shorten the quote without, I hope, obscuring the argument.

9. Then the first step is to compose oneself, the second to see the like of this composure, the third to rise above oneself and by intention submit to the contemplation of the invisible Creator. But one by no means composes himself unless he has first learned to curb the apparitions of earthly and heavenly images from his mind’s eye and cast out and tread down whatever of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste occurs to his bodily thought, in order that he may inwardly seek such as is free thereof….Then all things are to be driven away by the hand of discernment from the mind’s eye so that the soul may regard herself as she was created, above the body but below God, so that being quickened by her superior she may quicken the inferior which she administers….And when she performs such different actions through the senses she arranges them not by a diversity, but by that one reason in which she was created. When therefore the soul thinks of herself without bodily images she has already entered the first door. But this door leads on to the other in order that something from the nature of Almighty God may be contemplated. So the soul in the body is the life of the flesh, but God Who quickens all is the life of souls. Then if the quickened life is of such magnitude that it cannot be comprehended, who avails to comprehend with his understanding how great is the majesty of the Life which quickens? But the very consideration and discernment thereof is already to enter to some extent, because from her appraisement the soul gathers what she perceives of the uncircumscribed Spirit which incomprehensibly rules those things which He incomprehensibly created. [4]

Now, this is a very difficult passage, in part because St Gregory seems to be speaking of a lofty mystical experience which most of us have not shared. But I note that even in speaking of what one might call the contemplation of one’s own soul, he teaches that images must be driven out. The necessity of imageless contemplation of God, then, is even greater, for if the creature is incomprehensible, how much more the Creator?

What’s interesting to me about this is that it clearly appears to belong to the Origenists’ tradition (I’d be interested to see research on what St Gregory knew of Origen and Evagrius), and yet it does not—as one might expect from the quoted passage from Fr Georges’s essay—deny the imago Dei in man. Indeed, St Gregory seems to make much indeed of the divine image in the human soul—ascribing to it the very incomprehensibility that for the Origenists required the cultivation of total imagelessness in prayer to its divine Prototype.

[1] Bishop Alexander (Golitzin), ‘The Vision of God & the Form of Glory: More Reflections on the Anthropomorphite Controversy of AD 399’, Abba—The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West: Festschrift for Bishop Kallistos Ware, ed. Fr John Behr, Fr Andrew Louth, & Dimitri Conomos (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 2003), p. 295.

[2] Fr Georges Florovsky, ‘Theophilus of Alexandria and Apa Aphou of Pemdje’, Aspects of Church History, Vol. 4 of Collected Works (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1975), p. 119; qtd. in Tim Vivian, Introduction, Four Desert Fathers: Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius of Egypt & Macarius of Alexandria (Crestwood, NY: 2004), p. 45.

[3] St Gregory the Great, The Homilies of St Gregory the Great On the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, tr. Theodosia Gray, ed. Presbytera Juliana Cownie (Etna, CA: CTOS, 1990), p. 209.

[4] Ibid., pp. 209-10.

Rachel & Leah in Purgatory

 

From the beginning to the end of last school year, I met with a group once a week to discuss Dante's Purgatorio canto by canto. We had some very learned and insightful readers participating in that group, and there was a lot of really challenging discussion. At one point, we paused in some perplexity over a passage in Canto 27. While resting and admiring the stars, Dante tells us:

Thus ruminating, as I gazed at these,

sleep overtook me, sleep which many a time

brings tidings of a thing before it sees

The light; for in that hour when Venus shines

upon the mountainside her orient gleam,

ever enkindled by the fire of love,

A young and lovely lady in a dream

appeared to me upon the meadowland,

gathering flowers, and she said in song,

'Let anyone who may demand my name

know that I am Leah, and I go to make

myself a garland by my lovely hands.

Here I adorn myself for the delight

I will enjoy when looking in my glass.

My sister Rachel never leaves that sight

But gazes in her glass the whole day through.

She for her lovely eyes, I for my hands--

her yearning is to see, and mine to do.' (ll. 91-108) [1]

The allusion here is to Genesis 29:17 (LXX): 'And the eyes of Lea were weak. But Rachel was beautiful in appearance, and exceedingly fair in countenance.' But what was the significance of this verse to Dante?

Anthony Esolen's endnote on this passage says: 'Medieval exegetes saw in Rachel and Leah an allegory of the contemplative and the active life, inferring from the weakness of Leah's eyes a keenness of vision in Rachel, and inferring from Leah's fecundity a propensity for the practical virtues.' [2] Unfortunately, Esolen doesn't cite any examples of these exegetes. But while glancing through Richard Gamble's anthology of readings in education, The Great Tradition, I came across just such a reading in an excerpt from St Gregory the Great's homilies on Ezekiel. [3] I cite the original source, translated by Theodosia Gray and published by the Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies:

10. These two ways of life were, as was also said before us, symbolized by Blessed Jacob's two wives, viz. Leah and Rachel. For Leah is interpreted as meaning laborious and Rachel truly as a sheep, or a manifest beginning. Then the active life is laborious because it is fatiguing in work, but the simple contemplative strives also to see its beginning, viz. Him Who said: 'I am the beginning, for which reason I speak to you' (Jh. 8:25). Then Blessed Jacob had indeed desired Rachel but in the night accepted Leah because all who are turned to the Lord have desired the contemplative life and seek the quiet of the Eternal Kingdom, but must first in the night of this present life perform the works which they can, sweat with effort, i.e. accept Leah in order that they afterward rest in the arms of Rachel, in order to see the beginning. Then Rachel was a seer, and sterile, Leah truly purblind, but fertile, Rachel beautiful and barren, because the contemplative life is splendid in the spirit but, whereas it seeks to rest in silence, it does not produce sons from preaching. It sees and does not bring forth, because in zeal for its quiet it is less kindled in the collection of others, and does not suffice to reveal to others by preaching how much it inwardly perceives. Leah truly is purblind and fertile because the active life, while it is engaged in labor, sees less but when, now by word now by example, it kindles its neighbors to follow suit, it produces many sons in the good work. And if it does not avail to stretch its mind in contemplation yet it is able to beget followers from that which it does outwardly. [4]

All of this, of course, very easily explains the contrasts in lines 107-8--'She for her lovely eyes, I for my hands-- / her yearning is to see, and mine to do'--where eyes/seeing correspond to the contemplative gaze, and hands/doing to the works of the active life.

But what of the reference to a mirror? For one thing, if the gaze is associated with contemplation and therefore Rachel, why does Leah speak to Dante of eventually 'looking in my glass' (l. 104)? For that matter, why is even Leah gazing at 'her glass the whole day through' (l. 106)? At least one of our Dante Club members thought it suggestive of vanity. Esolen at least had nothing to say about it.

My guess was stimulated by the memory of a talk I once heard Fr Justin Sinaites give, and about which I once blogged here. Fr Justin made reference to something he'd read in Fr Andrew Louth's work about the Fathers' understanding of mirrors, and I made the effort to try to track down the passage to which he was likely alluding. I found it in The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys:

[In Contra Gentes, St Athanasius the Great] speaks of the soul 'being a mirror in which it can see the image of the Father' (CG 8). And later in the same work he says: 'So when the soul has put off every stain of sin with which it is tinged, and keeps pure only what is in the image, then when this shines forth it can truly contemplate as in a mirror the Word, the image of the Father, and in him meditate on the Father, of whom the Savior is the image' (CG 34). This idea of the soul as a mirror which, when pure can reflect the image of God seems to be original to Athanasius. (There are faint hints of it in Theophilus and Plotinus, but nothing as clear and definitive as we find in Athanasius.)

...[W]hen the Fathers spoke of the soul reflecting the image of God like a mirror they were using an analogy to explain how the soul is the image of God. SO self-knowledge involves knowledge of God, because God has made the soul to reflect His image. The idea of the soul as a mirror reflecting God is thus for the Fathers...a metaphor that sees the soul as a real, though dependent, image of God and also suggests that this image of God in the soul is perceived in self-knowledge.

So Athanasius' metaphor of the soul as a mirror in which God is reflected suggests that there is a real similarity between the soul and God, and preserves the notion that self-knowledge is itself a way of knowing God. But it does this without suggesting that there is a natural kinship between the soul and God. There is no ontological continuity between the image in the mirror and that of which it is the image; so, in the case of the soul reflecting the image of God, this similarity discloses a much deeper dissimilarity at the level of substance. On this understanding, theopoiesis, divinization, will not mean the rediscovery of any kinship between the soul and God, but rather that, as it is purified, the soul more accurately reflects the image of God, or becomes more truly that image. [5]

I don't know whether Dante would have been familiar with some translation of St Athanasius's text, or whether he might have taken this image from some later Father, but it strikes me that this is precisely what is going on in Purgatorio 27. Recall again lines 103-6:

 

Here I adorn myself for the delight

I will enjoy when looking in my glass.

My sister Rachel never leaves that sight

But gazes in her glass the whole day through.

 

I believe that Leah is adorning herself by purifying her soul or heart through the practice of the virtues so that she can behold God, whereas Rachel has already begun the contemplation of His image by means of her 'lovely eyes'.

 

 

[1] Dante Alighieri, Purgatory, tr. Anthony Esolen (NY: Modern Library, 2004), p. 295.

 

[2] Ibid., p. 481.

 

[3] The passage is found in Richard E. Gamble, ed., The Great Tradition: Classic Readings On What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being (Wilmington, DE: ISI, 2008), p. 239.

 

[4] Theodosia Gray, tr., The Homilies of Saint Gregory the Great On the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, ed. Presbytera Juliana Cownie (Etna, CA: CTOS, 1990), pp. 175-6.

 

[5] Fr Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), pp. 79-80.

'Wise Men Hunt after Truth'—Introducing St Eustathius of Thessalonica

In a post back in March called ‘Robert Fitzgerald on Homer’, I quoted a passage from Fitzgerald’s postscript to the Odyssey where the famous translator made a reference to ‘the twelfth century archbishop of Thessaloniki, Eustathius’. [1] I myself then added in brackets the title ‘Saint’ just before the archbishop’s name. This took a little research, as I am ashamed to admit that I knew nothing of this man despite having lived in his city for two years. The warrant for the title was discovered in this excellent article (worth looking at for the beautiful images of Vatopaidi’s frescoes) from the online edition of Pemptousia, the magazine of faith and culture published by the Athonite Monastery of Vatopaidi, where Efthymios Tsigaridas refers to St Eustathius as ‘one of the most important spiritual figures of the 12th century’. [2]

Well, in the hustle and bustle of life, I managed to forget about St Eustathius—until yesterday. I was finally reading Peter Leithart’s Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture, recommended to me by no less an authority than Esteban Vazquez, and happened to skip ahead a little bit, when I found this:

Christ was the ‘true Orpheus’, who brought his bride back from Hades, and Odysseus tied to the mast was a type of Jesus on the cross, resisting the siren temptations of the world. [3] Eustathius, twelfth-century bishop of Thessalonica, repeats a commonplace about the plant Hermes gives Odysseus to protect him from Circe’s magic:

By Hermes Homer most tellingly indicates the logos and by moly he indicates paideia, our spiritual education that is to say; for this can only be developed with great travail, ek molou, and by means of suffering and misfortune. The root of moly is black because the beginnings of paideia are always dark as shadows and extraordinarily ill-formed. Therefore our spiritual development is as the carrying of a heavy load and in no wise sweet. Yet moly has a flower and it is white as milk, for the end that paideia aims at and seeks to achieve, lies before us in a gleaming brightness and all is sweet and satisfying. Hermes it is who gives us this moly, and this is nothing less then those logos-inspired directives which do not by any means lie ready for the human understanding to grasp. For moly comes from God and is a gracious gift. [4]

At last my slumbering curiosity was aroused! Prevented by a faulty internet connection from making the mistake documented in this post, I searched through my own volumes at home until I came across the following passage in Vasiliev’s History of the Byzantine Empire:

Among the celebrated figures of the twelfth century in the field of general culture belongs also the talented teacher and friend of Michael Acominatus, the archbishop of Thessalonica, Eustathius, ‘the most brilliant luminary of the Byzantine world of learning since Michael Psellus’ (Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Athen, I, 205, 207). He received his education in Constantinople, became deacon of the church of St Sophia, and was a teacher of rhetoric. He wrote most of his works there, but his historical writings and various occasional compositions he wrote later at Thessalonica. Eustathius’ house in Constantinople was a sort of school for young students; it became a center around which the best minds of the capital and youths anxious to learn collected. As religious head of Thessalonica, the city next in importance to the capital, Eustathius devoted much of his energy to raising the spiritual and moral standard of contemporary monastic conditions, which sometimes created enemies against him among the monks. From a cultural point of view his repeated appeals to the monks not to squander the treasures of the libraries are very interesting; he wrote: ‘Woe to me! Why will you, O dunces, liken a monastic library to your souls? As you do not possess any knowledge, you are willing to deprive the library also of its scientific means? Let it preserve its treasures. After you there will come either a man of learning or an admirer of science, and the first, by spending a certain time in the libraries, will grow more clever than he was before; the other, ashamed of his complete ignorance, will, by reading books, find that which he desires’ (Migne, PG CXXXV, 836). Eustathius died between 1192 and 1194. His pupil and friend, the metropolitan of Athens, Michael Acominatus, honored his memory with a moving funeral oration. 

A thoughtful observer of the political life of his epoch, an educated theologian who boldly acknowledged the corruption of monastic life, as well as a profound scholar whose knowledge in ancient literature secured him an honorable place not only in the history of Byzantine civilization but also in the history of classical philology, Eustathius is undoubtedly a prominent personality in the cultural life of Byzantium in the twelfth century. His literary legacy may be divided into two groups: in the first group are his vast and accurate commentaries on the Iliad and Odyssey, on Pindarus, and some others; to the second group belong the works written at Thessalonica: a history of the conquest of Thessalonica by the Normans in 1185; his very important correspondence; the famous treatise on the reforms of monastic life; an oration on the occasion of the death of the Emperor Manuel, and other writings. Eustathius’ works have not yet been adequately used for the study of the political and cultural history of Byzantium. [5]

Leaving no print stone unturned, I even ransacked Lesky’s History of Greek Literature for references to Eustathius—the most interesting of which was: ‘In the commentary on the two poems compiled by Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica from 1175, a good deal of ancient criticism and exegesis survives, embedded in a prolix exposition. The work of the four men [‘scholars who were influention in transmitting Alexandrian learning to posterity’] was known to him through the commentary of Apion and Herodorus.’ [6] Stephen Scully (on whom there will be more in future posts) quotes the archbishop on the sanctity of the polis: ‘Not only is Thebes (in the Troad) called sacred [hiere], but so is every polis, as it guards those within, which [act of guarding], indeed, is divine [theion] (at Il. I.366).’ [7]

Kazhdan’s and Epstein’s Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh & Twelfth Centuries yielded a bit more. There is the remark that ‘Eustathios was one of the best-educated scholars of his time, an excellent representative of the self-conscious, intellectual elite of twelfth-century Byzantine society....Eustathios’s influence on his associates is evident in their quotations from his works and in their imitations of his literary style.’ [8] There is a longish passage on the expansion of ‘naturalistic detail...into a spacial and social dimension’ [9] in St Eustathius’s writing, [10] supplemented by a sizeable excerpt from his description of the fall of Thessaloniki to the Normans in the Appendix. [11] But more interestingly, there are the following observations concerning his Homeric criticism:

Homeric criticism became more profound and varied in the twelfth century. Though Eustathios of Thessaloniki was familiar with the ancient commentaries, now lost, his exegesis was often the fruit of his own consideration. He did not restrict himself to the interpretation of difficult words and grammatical constructions; rather he attempted to understand Homeric heros in terms of contemporary linguistic usage, ethnography, political institutions, and cultural life. Also included in his explanations of the text are popular folkloric elements—dwarfs in England (Inglika) who used arrows tiny as needles, inhabitants of Taurika, probably the Kievan Rus, who made wooden books out of boxes. [12]

When I finally exhausted the possibilities on my shelves, the internet had returned and I duly poked around a bit. From the Orthodox, there was a rather second-rate article on ‘Hellenic Paideia &Church Fathers’ by Demetrios Constantelos, author of the lamentable Marriage, Sexuality, & Celibacy: A Greek Orthodox View, in which by far the most interesting comment on St Eustathius is a quotation from the funeral oration preached for him by Michael Acominatus—‘all young students of literature sought his company, and his home was truly a shrine of the Muses, another Academy, Stoa, and Peripatos.’ [13]

More imporantly, there was a great treatment of St Eustathius in Philip Schaff’s History of the Christian Church (found here, at CCEL). Schaff informs us, ‘His education was carried on in the convent of St Euphemia, but he became a monk in the convent of St Florus. He early distinguished himself for learning, piety and eloquence...’ He then writes glowingly of the Saint, ‘He was a model bishop, pious faithful, unselfish, unsparing in rebuke and wise in counsel, “one of those pure characters so rarely met among the Greeks [!]—a man who well knew the failings (superstition, mock-holiness and indecorous frivolity) of his nation and his times, which he was more exempt from than any of his contemporaries” (Neander IV, 530-1).’ [14]

It took me longest to find again something I had actually seen when I originally looked into the question of St Eustathius’s sanctity—Anthony Makrinos’s faculty page at the University College London website. Makrinos specialises in St Eustathius, and has Book 1 of his commentary on the Odyssey forthcoming from Brill. I look forward to tracking down some of Makrinos’s articles.

But I have saved the best for last. At the Notre Dame library site, I found a pdf of a translation by David Jenkins, David Bachrach, and Darin Hayton of the ‘introduction’ to St Eustathius’s commentary on the Iliad. I urge all to read the entire thing, and I am tempted to repost much of it here, but this post has already become intolerably long. I will content myself with one central controversial question:

However, since this work is full of myths there is the risk of wondering whether he runs afoul. First of all, these Homeric myths are not intended to be humorous. They are instead the phantoms or veils of noble thoughts. Some are molded by him to fit his subject matter, while others naturally allegorize his themes. Finally, many of these myths that were composed by the ancients and drawn aptly into his poetry are not allegories specifically related to the Trojans at all, but rather are used as those who first composed them intended. But a man so prolific in wisdom did not delight in myths alone. For if wisdom is truthful observation, then the wise man observes truthfully. How can we say that Homer did not do the same? He performed his art by bringing together many elements and mingling them together in his work. Thus, he first entices and charms by surface appearance then captures in this net, so they say, those who shrink from the subtlety of philosophy. Then, having given them a taste of the sweetness in truth, he sends them off to proceed as wise men to hunt after truth in other places. Moreover, he becomes the model for creating credible myths in order that he mgiht lead those eager to learn in this technique just as he does in all others. But it is especially remarkable that, although his work is full of myths, he is not shunned but loved. [15]

I’d love to see more of the Homeric criticism, and I’d also like to see more research on St Eustathius from an Orthodox theological perspective (I’m not sure that there’s been any to speak of—he’s not even mentioned in Fr Meyendorff’s Byzantine Theology). I’d be particularly interested in learning more about the veneration of the Saint. Despite the icon at Vatopaidi, [16] I’ve yet to see any references to a feastday or hymnography for him.

[1] Robert Fitzgerald, ‘Postscript’, The Odyssey, by Homer, tr. Robert Fitzgerald (NY: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1998), p. 476.

[2] Efthymios N. Tsigaridas, ‘The Wall-paintings of the Nave’, Pemptousia—accessed 13 June 2012, here.

[3] The Christian reading of Odysseus tied to the mast goes back at least to Clement of Alexandria, whose reference to the scene I first discovered here on the late, great blog, Ora et labora (Felix Culpa, wherever you are, you are in our prayers!), and later in the source from which it’s quoted there—Alan Jacobs’s wonderful A Theology of Reading: The Hermeneutics of Love (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), p. 13. Unfortunately, however, Jacobs believes such readings are not compatible with the ‘hermeneutics of love’ (not merely his own idea, but one based on St Augustine). I think Leithart is more on target here when he observes that the Christian allegorical reading of the pagans ‘reflects a profound insight into the supremacy and universality of Christ’ (p. 181).

[4] Peter Leithart, Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture (Waco, TX: Baylor, 2009), pp. 180-1.

[5] A.A. Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire 324-1453, Vol. 2, tr. (Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin, 1976), pp. 495-6.

[6] Albin Lesky, A History of Greek Literature, tr. Cornelis de Heer & James Willis (London: Duckworth, 1996), p. 77.

[7] Stephen Scully, Homer & the Sacred City (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1994), p. 21.

[8] A.P. Kazhdan & Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the 11^th & 12^th Centuries (Berkeley, CA: U of California, 1985), p. 218.

[9] Ibid., p. 216.

[10] Ibid., pp. 216-8.

[11] Ibid., p. 261-2.

[12] Ibid., p. 134.

[13] Demetrios J. Constantelos, ‘Hellenic Paideia & Church Fathers: Educational Principles & Cultural Heritage’, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America—accessed 13 June 2012, here.

[14] Philip Schaff, ‘Eustathius of Thessalonica’, History of the Christian Church, Vol. IV: Medieval Christianity from Gregory I to Gregory VII, AD 590-1073—accessed 13 June 2012, here.

[15] Eustathios of Thessaloniki, ‘Critical Remarks on Homer’s Iliad: Introduction’, tr. David Jenkins, David Bachrach, & Darin Hayton, Byzantine Studies Collection, Hesburgh Libraries—University of Notre Dame—accessed 13 June 2012, here.

[16] The only other reference I’ve seen to him so far as a Saint is in the title of Constantelos’s source—Agios Eustathios Praktika Theologikou Synedriou ['Saint Eustathios—Acts of the Theological Conference'], ed. Christoforos Kontakis (Thessaloniki 1989). I have of course looked in the indexes to the Prologue from Ochrid and the HTM Great Horologion.

'The Light of Thy Virtues Has Shone in the World'—St Macarius of Corinth

Today, 17 April on the Church’s calendar, we celebrate the memory of St Macarius (Notaras) (1731-1805), Bishop of Corinth. In the words of Constantine Cavarnos, ‘St Macarios was not only a great reformer of the Church, an inspirer, enlightener, helper and spiritual guide of men, but also a great ascetic, who strove to perfect himself and attain union with God.’ [1] Chrestos Yannaras refers to him as an example of ‘a conscious Hellenic presence’ which ‘from time to time across the centuries . . . shines through, linking Gregory Palamas to the present day.’ [2] Furthermore, Yannaras concludes his study of the history of modern Greek theology by referring to St Macarius as one of a series of ‘signposts . . . pointing to the real Hellenism, the historical embodiment of the Church’s Gospel.’ [3] Finally, Basil Skouteris writes:

In the person of St Macarius, we have a combination of many qualities: his saintliness, his innate wisdom, the support of the ancient tradition, and the ability as a speaker and a writer. His social activity, his philanthropy and spirit of renewal are certainly something wondrous. [4]

I posted at great length on the life of St Macarius last year (here), including first and foremost his rôle in the editing and publication of the Philokalia and Evergetinos, so I won’t try to rehash all of the details today. But I did find Skouteris’s description one aspect of his life on Chios rather interesting. Skouteris tells us:

At that stage of life we see St Macarius as he is about to create a circle of intellectuals around him, who were distinguished for their austere lives. Some were from Chios and some from other areas. Among them first and foremost was Athanasius of Paros with whom he had a close relationship and together they tried to repel the later innovations that entered the Church. They strove for the return to the traditions of the Ancient Church. There were others who demanded those things also: (a) Neiolos Calognomus, a native of Chios and a monk of Mt Athos, who was a close friend and fellow ascetic of Macarius. To Calognomus is attributed the building of St George at Resta wereNicephorus of Chios stayed after St George’s death, who was his student; (b) Joseph of Agrapha at Phournas, who followed Niphon from Mt Athos to Samos, Icaria, and Patmos, where he met Macarius and followed him to Chios; Joseph was an archimandrite, an intellectual and a writer for the Great Church; he composed a liturgical service to the Righteous Newmartyr Nicholas; for a while he was a teacher at the School of Chios; Nicephorus was also a teacher of that school as was Dorotheus Proios under Athanasius of Paros; (c) Meletius of Nicomedia, another Chiote and native of Prousa; (d) Joseph of Rhodes, a preacher, and author of many sacred poems. [5]

I note this passage because one of the things that fascinates me most about St Macarius is the extent to which he devoted his life to inspiring, encouraging, and guiding others. It also interested me that while Skouteris described this circle as ‘intellectuals’, they are also characterised by the austerity of their lives and their commitment to ‘the traditions of the Ancient Church’. It strikes me that the Church in America could really use such a circle in our own day, but while intellectuals and even traditionalists surely abound, I’m afraid austerity might be rather harder to come by!

I conclude with two things from Cavarnos’s wonderful book on St Macarius: a passage from the Saint’s New Martyrologium, and a hymn from the Akolouthia for the Saint by Nicephorus the Chian.

Now the Christians of the present age hear from Church histories the martyrdoms, the tortures that were endured by the Demetrioses, the Georges, the James’s, and in a word by all the other exceedingly brave old Martyrs—those who lived between the time of Christ and that of Constantine the Great; and they have to believe all these things as true, as a duty in matters of simple faith, which, according to Paul, ‘is a confirmation of things not seen’ (Heb. 11:1). But the antiquity of the period, the long time that has intervened from then to the present, can cause in some, if not unbelief, at least some doubt or hesitation. One may, that is, wonder how men, who by nature are weak and timid, endured so many and frightful tortures. But these new Martyrs of Christ, having acted boldly on the scene of the world, uproot from the hearts of Christians all doubt and hesitation, and implant or renew in them unhesitating faith in the old Martyrs. Just as new food strengthens all those bodies that are weak from starvation, and just as new rain causes trees that are dried from drought to bloom again so these new Martyrs strengthen and renew the weak, withered and old faith of present-day Christians. [6]

Finally, as Cavarnos writes, ‘Among the many hymns chanted in his honor, contained in the service by Nikephoros the Chian, is the following characteristic one’:

The voice of the Lord in the Gospels has found fulfillment in thee, as it found in the holy Ascetics and Hierarchs of old, O holy Father, Hierarch Macrios. For the light of thy virtues has shone in the world after the manner of the sun, O admirable one; and the heavenly Father, together with the Son and the Spirit—the Holy Trinity, our God—is glorified by all. [7]

[1] Constantine Cavarnos, tr. & ed., St Macarios of Corinth, augmented ed., Vol. 2 of Modern Orthodox Saints (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 1993), p. 39.

[2] Chrestos Yannaras, Orthodoxy & the West: Hellenic Self-Identity in the Modern Age, tr. Fr Peter Chamberas & Norman Russell (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross, 2006), p. 252.

[3] Ibid., p. 308.

[4] Basil Skouteris, ‘Macarius Notaras & his Movement of Reform’, tr. Leo Papadopoulos, Orthodox Life, 54.4 (July—August 2004), p. 44.

[5] Ibid., p. 36.

[6] Cavarnos, pp. 87-8.

[7] Ibid., p. 41.

'Theologian & Collector of Oddments'—St Isidore of Seville

Today, 4 April on the Church’s calendar, we celebrate the memory of St Isidore (c. 560-636), Archbishop of Seville. An article on the Orthodox Saints of Spain (here) notes that he was ‘venerated as a miracle-worker’ in his lifetime. In Dante’s Paradiso X, the ‘flame’ of St Isidore is pointed out by Thomas Aquinas in the fourth circle, that of the sun, among ‘the ardent souls’ renowned for wisdom [1] and Anthony Esolen calls him a ‘theologian and collector of oddments of knowledge and folklore, whose Sentences and Etymologies enjoyed wide repute in the Middle Ages’. [2] According to Thomas Owen Clancy and Gilbert Márkus, St Isidore was ‘a gifted student and writer known for his generous almsgiving’, and as a bishop was ‘an able administrator’. [3] Here is the account of St Isidore’s life from the Oxford Dictionary of Saints:

Born at Seville of a noble family from Cartagena, Isidore was educated mainly by his brother Leander, a monk, but did not become one himself. From this monastic formation he acquired and communicated an encyclopedia knowledge in his books, which became most influential in medieval clerical and monastic education. His importance as archbishop was also considerable. He ruled for thirty-six years, succeeding his brother Leander, and energetically completing his work of converting the Visigoths from Arianism and organizing the Church in Spain through synods and councils. The most notable were the councils of Seville (619) and Toledo (633), over both of which he presided in person; one of their achievements was the decree (centuries before Charlemagne’s similar one) that a cathedral school should be established in every diocese. Besides being a successful and influential educator, Isidore completed the Mozarabic missal and breviary and was notable for his abundant charity to the poor. Soon before his death, he had himself clothed in sackcloth and ashes. . . .

His reputation is due principally to his writings. Bede, at the time of his death, was working on a translation of extracts from Isidore’s book On the Wonders of Nature (De natura rerum), [4] but the Etymologies is his most famous work. This is a kind of encyclopedia which contains elements of grammar, rhetoric, theology, history, mathematics, and medicine, presented in the form of etymologies, which are in fact often erroneous. His Chronica Majora, which covers the years from the Creation to 615, is an influential compilation from various other church historians, but with special information on Spanish history. Other works include biographies of famous men (completing Jerome’s work), a summary of Christian doctrine, rules for monks and nuns, and the History of the Goths. From the time of Bede onwards the writings of Isidore figure in medieval library lists almost as frequently as those of Gregory the Great, with whom he shares the unofficial title of ‘Schoolmaster of the Middle Ages’. [5]

A glance at the Catholic Encyclopedia (here) reveals that Farmer’s statement that St Isidore was educated by his brother, while true, is slightly misleading. J.B. O’Connor’s article notes that he ‘received his elementary education in the Cathedral school of Seville’ where ‘the trivium and quadrivium were taught by a body of learned men, among whom was the archbishop, Leander’—his brother. (O’Connor also tells us that St Isidore had ‘mastered Latin, Greek, and Hebrew’.)

Concerning St Isidore’s most famous book, the Etymologies, the full title of which is Originum seu Etymologiarum libri XX, Frederick Copleston tells us:

In this work Isidore deals with the seven liberal arts, as also with a great number of scientific or quasi-scientific facts and theories on subjects from Scripture and jurisprudence and medicine to achritecture, agriculture, war, navigation, and so on. He shows his conviction about the divine origin of sovereignty and the paramount authority of morality, law and justice in civil society, even in regard to the conduct and acts of the monarch. [6]

The other Frederick, Artz, gives us a very detailed outline of the work in his Mind of the Middle Ages:

Books I through III are devoted to the seven liberal arts; Book IV is on medicine, V on law and on divisions of time, VI on the Bible and church services, VII concerns God, angels, and saints, VIII the church and sects, IX languages, reces, kingdoms, armies, X is a miscellaneous etymological word list, XI concerns men and fabulous monsters, XII animals, XIII the universe, XIV the earth and its parts, XV buildings and lands, XVI stones, minerals, and metals, XVII agriculture and botany, XVIII wars and games, XIX ships, building materials, dress, and, finally, XX food, drink and furniture. [7]

C.S. Lewis considers the Etymologies an important part of the background of mediæval and Renaissance literature—indeed, St Isidore is a perfect illustration of Lewis’s observation that ‘Distinction, definition, tabulation’ were the ‘delight’ of mediæval man [8]—but rather downplays St Isidore’s achievement a little unkindly:

As the title implies his ostensible subject was language, but the frontier between explaining the meaning of words and describing the nature of things is easily violated. He makes hardly any effort to keep on the linguistic side of it, and his book thus becomes an encyclopaedia. It is a work of very mediocre intelligence, but often gives us scraps of information we cannot easily runt to ground in better authors. [9]

Similarly, Artz notes, ‘The spell of words on Isidore is strong; he strings them along and one wonders how much he understood some of his own vocabulary.’ But overall Artz is a bit more positive in his assessment, noting what an ‘enormous task’ such a book must have been considering the availability of books in 7th-c. Spain, and concluding, ‘It remained, however, until Vincent of Beauvais composed his Speculum in the thirteenth century, the most accessible book in which one could find information about many subjects—a sort of “old lumber room in which had been stored away many of the cast off clothes of antiquity”.’ [10]

To turn our attention to St Isidore’s other works, De natura rerum, ‘On the Nature of Things’, is ‘a synthesis in forty-eight chapters of the wisdom of his age about time (days, night, weeks, months and years), cosmology (earth, sky, planets, water, sun, moon and stars), climate, plague and one or two other natural phenomena’. [11] Copleston mentions two others as well—the Libri tres sententiarum, ‘a collection of theological and moral theses taken from St Augustine and St Gregory the Great’, and a ‘treatise on numbers, Liber Numerorum, which treats of the numbers occurring in the Sacred Scriptures’ and ‘is often fanciful in the extreme in the mystical meanings which it attaches to numbers.’ [12]

Clancy and Márkus note the presence of both the Etymologies and the De natura in the library of Iona monastery. They write, ‘His numerous writings were seized on with delight by Irish writers, and exercised an immediate and lasting influence. . . . The Irish were fascinated by Isidore’s works on nature . . . .’ [13]

In conclusion, I would just point out that after writing all of the above, I discovered online (here) a pdf of an entire book on St Isidore: Ernest Brehaut’s An Encyclopedist of the Dark Ages: Isidore of Seville. Brehaut writes:

His many writings, and especially his great encyclopedia, the Etymologies, are among the most important sources for the history of intellectual culture in the early middle ages, since in them are gathered together and summed up all such dead remnants of secular learning as had not been absolutely rejected by the superstition of his own and earlier ages; they furnish, so to speak, a cross-section of the debris of scientific thought at the point where it is most artificial and unreal. [14]

Here, finally, is part of the chapter on angels in Book VII of St Isidore’s Etymologies, as extracted in Brehaut’s book:

Chapter 5. On angels.

2. The word angel is the name of a function, not of a nature, for they are always spirits, but are called angels when they are sent.

3. And the license of painters makes wings for them in order to denote their swift passage in every direction, just as also in the fables of the poets the winds are said to have wings on account of their velocity . . . .

4. The sacred writings testify that there are nine orders of angels, namely, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, virtues, principalities, powers, cherubim and seraphim. And we shall explain by derivation why the names of these functions were so applied.

5. Angels are so called because they are sent down from heaven to carry messages to men. . . .

6. Archangels in the Greek tongue means summi nuntii in the Latin. For they who carry small or trifling messages are called angels; and they who announce the most important things are called archangels. . . . Archangels are so called because they hold the leadership among angels. . . . For they are leaders and chiefs under whose control services are assigned to each and every angel.

17. Certain functions of angels by which signs and wonders are done in the world are called virtues, on account of which the virtues are named.

18. Those are powers to whom hostile virtues are subject, and they are called by the name of powers because evil spirits are constrained by their power not to harm the world as much as they desire.

19. Principalities are those who are in command of the hosts of the angles. And they have received the name of principality because they send the subordinate angles here and there to do the divine service. . . .

20. Dominions are they who are in charge even of the virtues and principalities, and they are called dominions because they rule the rest of the hosts of the angels.

21. Thrones are the hosts of angels who in the Latin are called sedes; and they are called thrones because the creator presides over them, and through them accomplishes his decisions.

22. Cherubim . . . are the higher hosts of angels who, being placed nearer, are fuller of the divine wisdom than the rest. . . .

24. The seraphim in like manner are a multitude of angels, and the word is translated from the Hebrew into the Latin as ardentes or incendentes, and they are called ardentes because between them and God no other angels stand, and therefore the nearer they stand in his presence the more they are lighted by the brightness of divine light.

25. And they veil the fact and feet of God sitting on his throne, and therefore the rest of the throng of angels are not able to see fully the essence of God, since the seraphim cover him.

28. To each and every one, as has been said before, his proper duties are appointed, and it is agreed that they obtained these according to merit at the beginning of the world. That angels have charge over both places and men, an angel testifies through the prophet, saying: ‘Princeps regni Persarum mihi restitit’ (Dan. x. 13).

29. Whence it is evident that there is no place that angels have not charge of. They have charge also over the beginnings of all works.

30. Such is the order or classification of the angels who after the fall of the wicked stood in celestial strength. For after the apostate angels fell, these were established in the continuance of eternal blessedness.

32. As to the two seraphim that are read of in Isaiah, they show in a figure the meaning of the Old and New Testament. But as to their covering the face and feet of God, it is because we cannot know the past before the universe, nor the future after the universe, but according to their testimony we contemplate only the intervening time. [15]

[1] Dante Alighieri, Paradise, tr. Anthony Esolen, illust. Gustave Dore (NY: Modern Library, 2007), p. 107.

[2] Dante, p. 428, and n. to p. 107, l. 131.

[3] Thomas Owen Clancy and Gilbert Márkus, OP, Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U, 1995), p. 220.

[4] This strikes me as a poor rendering of the Latin title, and is not followed in any of the other sources I consulted. In Studies in Words, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge U, 2002), C.S. Lewis points out that De Natura Rerum is a whole genre of ancient writing. He writes, ‘In the fifth century we have that [philosophical poem] of Empedocles About the Phusis tôn ontôn (the Phusis of the things that are)’ (p. 35). On the next page, he notes Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, and then speculates:

Both could mean ‘What things are like’, and both would be simply two more instances of phusis and natura in the sense of ‘character, sort’. . . . Men begin by asking what this or that thing is like, asking for its phusis. They then get the idea of asking what ‘everything’ or ‘the whole show’ is like. The answer will give the phusis of everything. (p. 36)

Certainly Lewis calls our usual sense of ‘nature’, ‘the natural world’, which the translation given in Farmer is apt to imply, ‘of all the senses of all the words treated in these pages . . . the most dangerous, the one we are readiest to intrude where it is not required’ (p. 37).

[5] David Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 5th ed. (Oxford: Oxford U, 2004), p. 264.

[6] Frederick Copleston, SJ, Mediæval Philosophy, Part I: Augustine & Bonaventure, Vol. 2 of A History of Philosophy (Garden City, NY: Image, 1962), p. 120.

[7] Frederick Artz, The Mind of the Middle Ages: An Historical Survey, AD 200-1500, 3rd rev. ed. (Chicago: U of Chicago, 1980), p. 193.

[8] C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval & Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge U, 2002), p. 10.

[9] Ibid., pp. 90-1.

[10] Artz, p. 193.

[11] Clancy & Márkus, p. 221.

[12] Copleston, p. 120.

[13] Clancy & Márkus, pp. 220, 221.

[14] Ernest Brehaut, An Encyclopedist of the Dark Ages: Isidore of Seville (NY: Columbia U, 1912), p. 8. My page numbering follows that of the pdf of Brehaut, which seems to differ from that of the printed edition.

[15] Ibid., pp. 123-4.