Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature, and Will in the Christology of St. Maximus the Confessor – By Demetrios Bathrellos (original) (raw)
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Byzantine philosophy of the person and its theological implications
Bogoslovni Vestnik, 2018
This article analyzes both the historical roots and anthropological/ethical implications of the Byzantine, Eastern Orthodox interpretations of the imago Dei. Byzantine anthropology is contrasted with other anthropological approaches and emphasis is laid on the notion that by integrating all cognitive concepts of the main currents in Greek philosophy, Orthodox theology in Byzantium rejected autonomous anthropology. Byzantine thinkers give the human being great value because he is the crown of creation, initiated into the mysteries of the invisible creation and the king of the visible creation – due to his being created in God’s image. It is, however, not only the common origin that unites people into one family, but also the purpose of their existence which is the activation of their potential to achieve God’s likeness with the help of God’s grace. This means that the goal of the human being is to rise from plain biological existence into a fellowship of people in harmony with the whole creation. The participation of humans in the condition of a transcendent Fall is considered in conjunction with the danger of Gnosticism with which the Byzantine fathers had to come to terms with.
Studia Patristica, 2021
In their respective defenses of dyophysite Christology, both Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus repeatedly reject the concept of Christ as a single ‘mixed’ nature of God and man. In doing so, they deploy an interesting argument whereby Christ was not properly speaking an ‘individual’ stemming from a common genus (like ‘Christness’). This argument [whose roots are perhaps clearest in Leontius of Byzantium] will first be examined in its own right before turning to its reception and re-working in modern Orthodox theology, particularly the personalist (and anti-individualist) thought of John Zizioulas. The negative reaction to Zizioulas’ appropriation of this idea, exemplified in the work of Jean-Claude Larchet, will likewise be summarized. In the final section, an alternative view of the potential theological relevance of the argument that ‘Christ is not an individual’ will be offered, one that is not so much related to the person vs individual debate as to the ongoing discussion of the concept of ‘Godmanhood’ or ‘divine-humanity’ espoused by Vladimir Soloviev and developed in the early twentieth century by Sergius Bulgakov. In conclusion, it is argued that if one wishes to find a contemporary theological application for the early Byzantine rebuttal of Christ’s ‘individuality’, it would be more natural to link it with an argument avant la lettre against the notion of an overarching concept of ‘Godmanhood’ of which Christ is the individual instantiation, rather than as a developed commentary on the notion of the person/hypostasis in opposition to that of the individual.
A Contemplation on Byzantine Theology and Epistemology
Introduction The intellectual development and contribution of Byzantium has been a topic of interest and of study in recent times. This interest has been stimulated by a reevaluation of history and modern historical analysis near the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. The historical assessment and exposition of Byzantium has shown great progress since the early histories composed in the West. Histories, such as “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, a work of towering accomplishment written by the English historian and humanist Edward Gibbon, were unfortunately stigmatized by the authors’ evident ideological prejudice. With an almost bile-dipped pen, Gibbon himself explains his intentions of how he would continue to present the plight of the so-called “Byzantine” Empire in his prologue of “Volume the Five” saying, “These annals must continue to repeat a tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery.” Without diminishing the significance of the early contributions, modern historians such as George Ostrogorsky , Alexandr A. Vasiliev, John Julius Norwich, Steven Runciman, among many, have provided a fairer assessment of this period of history, which revealed a brighter and more vibrant, culturally and intellectually, Byzantium. The reexamination of Byzantine intellectual, theological and philosophical development was invoked by a need to renew Christian Orthodox apologetics —a need demanded by the times, shaped by modernity— and from an Orthodox introspection, a form of inter-Orthodox dialogue, concurrent with a renewed initiative to join in the inter-Christian dialogue. In this inter-Orthodox dialogue priority was given to demystifying the development of Byzantine theological thought right up to the twentieth century. To expose and brush off the coat of foreign matter that had slowly, over a period several centuries since the fall of Byzantium, accumulated, and obscured, distorted, and confounded its original content and understanding. The middle of the twentieth-century was a period of housekeeping for Orthodox theology, as it unraveled itself to reveal a more precise image, and hopefully, as it was developed, received and expressed through conciliar accord throughout the centuries by the Universal Church. Research in the formation of Byzantine theology opened up new horizons for the reexamination of Byzantine philosophy and epistemology. The stereotypical depictions of a so-called Byzantine Dark Age, benighted and uninterested in secular knowledge, consumed in mysticism and superstition, social and intellectual obscurantism, have since been exposed. The purpose of this paper is to outline the key developments in Christian Eastern Roman and Byzantine philosophical and theological thought in order to develop the main themes underpinning its epistemological foundations.
Religions
The article presents the theological ideas and mystical–religious teachings of the Greek-Byzantine Church Fathers, which, at the same time, are philosophical because Byzantine theologians also reflected on human and their life, on the relationship between man and God, on the possibilities of God-cognition and obtaining higher sacred knowledge. Based on the analysis of the anthropological and epistemological ideas of the Greek Church Fathers, we highlight that philosophizing was always at the heart of Byzantine theology. Therefore, the Byzantine tradition of the Church Fathers is considered a unique type of philosophy of religion, which originated in the historical formation of the Christian faith in the era of the Triadic and Christological theological debates of the 4th to 7th centuries. This article reflects the teachings of three of the brightest thinkers-theologians of Byzantium—John Climacus, Maximus the Confessor, and Symeon the New Theologian. Their teachings are the foundati...
dumbarton oaks papers | 71 175 who dared to propose an analysis of (sensible) reality. Byzantine philosophers-especially during the elev enth century and the first quarter of the twelfth with authors like John Italos and Eustratios of Nicaea-offer valuable contributions to this debate. 2 Parallel to the philosophical debates and nour ished by them, there is a theological tradition for the problem of universals, which mobilizes the same kinds of fundamental alternatives. The status of universal entities was discussed, within the framework of dog matic Christian positions, with vocabulary, concepts, and most importantly ontological theses that originate in the philosophical tradition. Some discussions in Trinitarian theology (of which John Philoponus is the most striking example 3 ) are a good illustration of this.
THE EASTERN ORTHODOX DOCTRINE OF THEOSIS
It has been close to a millennium since the great schism of 1054, which officially split the church into two opposite camps, the western Roman Catholic and the eastern Greek Orthodox. Christian history has not known another event of such ecclesiastical resonance. However, theologically speaking, it seems that the apostolic fathers, the apologists, early Christian writers, teachers and theologians have always had a somewhat different approach and emphasis depending on what part of the Christian world they lived in and wrote to. Sometimes their theological argumentation paralleled, sometimes it differed drastically. As the chasm between the two branches of the Christian church widened it affected the theological dialogue between them. This lead to the fact that some theologians representing one school of Christian though emphasized certain truths and ideas, which were much less important or even foreign to those from across the ecclesiastical divide. One striking example of this historical reality is the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis or divinization. Especially, if one considers the fact that “it is not too much to say that the divinization of humanity is the central theme, chief aim, basic purpose, or primary religious ideal of Orthodoxy.” The goal of this paper is to provide an adequate analysis of this doctrine in light of its origin and development, as well as its historical and current role in Eastern and Western systematic theologies today. Several distinctive presuppositions of Eastern Orthodox thinkers in interpreting the text of Scripture and formulating theology will be emphasized. This analysis will be followed by a summary and an evaluation of this doctrine in light of Scripture, which, in turn, will be interpreted using literal historical-grammatical hermeneutics.
This paper examines a comparison made by the eleventh-century Byzantine historian Michael Attaleiates between the ancient Romans of the Republic and their descendants, the Byzantines of Attaleiates' own time. In an effort to explain, during the course of a theological argument, why the ancients were victorious despite being pagans while the Byzantines were losing despite being Christians, Attaleiates draws surprising conclusions. Arguing "between the lines," he suggests that all religions are equivalent in certain fundamental respects. It is in human virtue that one must trust for victory, and God does not care about our exact theological beliefs. The paper also considers one aspect of the reception of the Roman tradition in Byzantium (a civilization usually cast in terms of its Greek and Christian legacy), arguing that the Republic remained an important source of inspiration. * I thank Warren Treadgold, Wolfgang Haase, and the journal's readers for suggestions that improved my argument on many points.