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The ‘Theopaschite Confession’ (Text and Historical Context): a Study in the Cyrilline Re-interpretation of Chalcedon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

J. A. McGuckin
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , April 1984 , pp. 239 - 255
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople 471–89. The schism caused by the promulgation of the Henotikon lasted from 482 to 519 throughout the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, and the patriarchates of Acacius, Flavitas, Euphemius, Macedonius and Timotheus.

2 The twelve anathemas were appended by Cyril to his third letter to Nestorius. For the text, see Stevenson, J.: Creeds, Councils and Controversies, London 1966 2ofGoogle Scholar. The theology manifested in the twelfth anathema owes something to Athanasius, Ad Epictetum 59.2: ‘who have been so reckless as to say that Christ who suffered in the flesh and was crucified is not Lord, Saviour, God and Son of the Father?’ This latter text was held in great veneration at Chalcedon.

3 Not unreasonably so, for in his letters to Nestorius, Cyril makes Physis and Hypostasis synonyms and refuses to make any distinction, in the one composite Christ, between human and divine. In his letter to John of Antioch in 433 he comes round to admitting that some kind of distinction has to be made in practice.

4 The Cyril of the formula of Reunion (433) (see Frend, W., The Rise of the Monophysite Movement, Cambridge 1972Google Scholar, chap. 1), not the Cyril of the twelve anathemas.

5 Patriarch 512–19. See Frend, Monophysites, 202f.

6 Literally the ‘sleepless’ monks because of their constant schedules of monastic offices. Fanatically pro-Roman in theology and politics, they acted as the papal agents in Constantinople and were the only eastern Christians explicitly excluded from the Roman edicts of excommunication. They were the major opponents of the Theopaschite party.

7 For a more complete analysis of the Henotikon, see Frend, Monophysites, chap. 4.

8 Macedonius, patriarch of Constantinople (496–511) represented such a viewpoint - on these terms he subscribed to the Henotikon and wished to heal the Acacian schism, but thereby fell foul of Anastasius and was sent into exile. See Frend, Monophysites, 200f.

9 Severus punned on the name of the Henotikon (instrument of unity) and labelled it Kenotikon (instrument of nothingness).

10 See Frend, Monophysites, chap. 2, ‘The emperor and his church’.

11 A practical impossibility as long as Rome was effectively outside the boundaries of his power.

12 For a brief analysis of the terms, see Dictionary of Christian Biography, Smith and Wace (eds.), London 1877, iii. 517.

13 Constantinople II, May 553 (Acts: cf Mansi, ix. 157–68). Canon 10 of the council represents the Theopaschite formula and hence it passed into the Greek liturgy in hymnal form (The only begotten Son of God).

14 A latinised and Latin-speaking province; roughly the area south of the mouth of the Danube.

15 See above note 2.

16 So named by C. Moeller, J. Lebon and others. For a brief analysis, see J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 34–5, 166.

17 Ibid., 34.

18 The neo-Chalcedonian movement only happened as the late but necessary reaction to the realisation that the ‘faith of Leo’ and the ‘faith of Cyril’, acclaimed as synonymous at Chalcedon, really represented two significantly different Christological approaches whose harmonisation was not as simply affected, or as immediately obvious, as the council fathers then made out.

19 Which suggests that Maxentius stayed in Constantinople to monitor the progress of the Synod of Reunion in 519 and is therefore not one of the two Johns mentioned in the superscription of the text and the list of signatories at the end.

20 Among the texts translated were Cyril's letters, nos. 17, 45 and 46, as well as the Tomus ad Armenos of Proclos, the patriarch of Constantinople (434–47). For the latter's relevance to the issues of the sixth century, see J. Quasten, Patrology, Utrecht 1975, iii. 524. It is possible that Dionysius also translated at this time the manual of proofs known as his Exempla Patrum to support the Theopaschite Christology: see E. Schwartz (ed.), Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, iv. 2.741–96, Berlin 1959.

21 Ad Epistolam Hormisdae responsio (motivated by Hormisdas's own complaint, about the behaviour of the Theopaschite party while in Rome, to the patriarch of Constantinople), P.G., lxxxvi. 93–112.

22 See Cayré, F., Manual of Patrology (ET), Paris 1940, ii. 194Google Scholar.

23 Ep. Fulgentii 17, P.L., lxv. 451–93.

24 Monophysite patriarch of Antioch (471–88, passim). He interpreted the Trisagion as a Christological not a Trinitarian invocation and appended to it the final phrase: ‘who was crucified for us’.

25 E: Dekkers Clavis Patrum Latinorum, Sacris Erudiri 3, Steenbrugge 1961, 153–4.

26 P.L., Ixiii. 83–92.

27 P.L., lxv. 442f.

28 The monks quote it as an Athanasian text, but it is in fact Apollinarian. The sentiment may be echoed in Athanasius's Ad Epictetum, lix. 8 (see note 2 above).

29 Cross, F. L., Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford 1974 13, also 1072Google Scholar. For the use of the term, ‘Theopaschitianism’ as distinct from ‘Theopaschitism’, see Harnack, History of Dogma (ET), London 1888, iv. 230–1.

30 F. Loofs identified this Leontius with L. of Byzantium, the originator of the enhypostasia formula and a voice of major importance in the process of the re-evaluation of Chalcedon. Altaner, however, has denied the identification: Patrology, London 1960 6Google Scholar.

31 The sixteenth-century Louvain MS reads substantia here for subsistentia.

32 Text in Pusey's trans., reprinted Oxford 1965.

33 Alluding to Cyril's anathemas, nos. 1 and 3. See Stevenson, Creeds, 287–7.

34 Gregory of Nazianzen, Ep. 101. English text in Hardy, Christology, 217. The sense of the text, which is obscure in the Latin as well as the original Greek, is an ironical retort of Gregory: if his opponents maintain the wrong model of Christological union, supposing it to be by grace not by nature, then their faithlessness in this witnesses that they themselves are devoid of grace.

35 Cyril's third anathema.

36 Acts of the Synod of Antioch, A.D. 268. Riedmatten, H. de, Les Actes du procès de Paul de Samosate. Étude sur la Christologie du troisième au quatrième siècle, Fribourg 1952Google Scholar.

37 See note 28 above.

38 Gregory Nazianzen, Third Theological Oration. Text in Hardy, Christology 173 (para. 18).

39 The classic Theopaschite formula, ‘unus ex trinitate came passus est’, is moderated slightly here. It has its roots in Cyril's third letter to Nestorius, para. 6 (Stevenson, Creeds, 283), and the twelfth anathema attached to the letter (Stevenson, 288).

40 John iii. 13.

41 Cyril's twelfth anathema.

42 John i. 1.

43 Luke ii. 51.

44 Col. i. 16.

45 Isa. ix. 6.

46 Ps. xlv. 6–7.

47 No attempt is made to reconcile the theological sense of Leo's doctrine with the advanced Cyrilline sense witnessed in the way the twelve anathemas are immediately defended after this.

48 I Tim. ii. 5.

49 Rom. v. 18.

50 Rom. v. 12.

51 Phil. ii. 7.

52 John viii. 36.

53 I Cor. ii. 8.

54 Matt. xvi. 17.

55 I Cor. xii. 3.

56 The text here begins to attack the anti-Augustinian doctrine of grace begun by Cassian and followed through by Faustus of Riez and the other members of the Lerins school. Faustus receives particular condemnation in the final anathemas of the text.

57 Phil. i. 29.

58 I Tim. ii. 4.

59 This last proposition is to be understood not as the belief of the Scythians but as the logical result of the system they wish to refute. The immediately following sentence begins their own exposition on the subject.

60 Rom. xi. 33.

61 Matt. xi. 21.

62 Acts xvi. 6–7.

63 Rom. ix. 21.

64 Rom. i. 33–6.

65 LXX Prov. viii. 35.

66 This text is taken as one of the major indications of antiquity that Basil the Great did, in fact, compose elements of the liturgy that takes his name. (Quasten, Patrology, iii. 226, also Gamier, J. (ed.), Opera Omnia S. Basilii, Paris 1839Google Scholar, ii. Praefatio xiii, 59f). The text quoted here does not survive in either of the extant Basilian liturgies with which I am familiar (Alexandrian and Coptic), but there are several echoes of the same theological sentiment throughout. In the Alexandrian liturgy, for example (Gamier, ii. cols. 968–9), there is the ‘prayer for the inclination of the head’: ‘Lord and master, father of mercies and God of all consolation, bless us as we bow our heads before you; sanctify us, guard and strengthen us, and confirm us in virtue. Turn us away from all evil deed and work with us in every good deed. Save us from condemnation that we may look upon these pure and life-giving mysteries...’ The final prayer before the elevation of the Spoudikon is also relevant (Gamier, ii. col. 970). In the Coptic liturgy we have the following phrase which reads, in Garnier's translation: (Opera, ii, col. 976) ‘quae autem bona, quae autem placita surit nobis iube’. See also Basil, De Spiritu Sane to, xxvi. 63.

67 The monks have misquoted their source. The reference is not from Innocent's conciliar letter, but is, in fact, Ep. 21 of Celestine to the Gallic bishops (used three times again below).

68 Rom. viii. 54.

69 Council of Milevis, A.D. 416, at which St Augustine was one of the bishops present.

70 Celestine, Ep. xxi. 2.

71 Ibid., Ep. xxi. 12.

72 Ibid., Ep. xxi. 13.

73 Caelestius and Julian found protection with Nestorius at Constantinople in 429, but when the patriarch fell, at Ephesus in 431, they were condemned along with him in the final session of the council. For the Scythian monks, the association of the men symbolically demonstrates how the Christological issue is intimately bound up with the question of grace.

74 Acts xv. 11.