SEVERUS of ANTIOCH Pauline Allen and C.T.R.Hayward
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SEVERUS OF ANTIOCH Pauline Allen and C.T.R.Hayward LONDON AND NEWYORK, 2004 1 CONTENTS Preface vi Abbreviations vii Part I Severus’s life and works 1 Severus’s life 3 2 Severus’s thought 31 3 Severus’s works 39 Part II Texts 4 Dogmatic and polemical works 59 5 Homilies 107 6 Letters 136 7 Hymns 169 Glossary 174 Notes 176 Bibliography 185 General index 193 Index of modern authors 201 2 1 SEVERUS’S LIFE BACKGROUND In 451 the Council of Chalcedon promulgated a definition of faith which outlawed the extremes of the theological traditions of Antioch and Alexandria, namely Nestorianism and Eutychianism, and attempted a balance between the christological terminology of each. Christ was proclaimed ‘in two natures’, as opposed to the expression ‘from two natures’ favoured by the Alexandrians. The Council also recognized the Tome of Pope Leo I of Rome as orthodox, and in harmony with the Fathers and with Cyril of Alexandria. The definition was problematical from the start because in the East it was seen as only an interpretation of the symbol or creed of Nicaea, whereas for Pope Leo I it was an absolute definition which allowed no addition or subtraction. Also critical was the resolution of the Council, later known as Canon 28, which gave to Constantinople (New Rome) equal privileges with Old Rome in ecclesiastical matters, and decreed that the eastern city should hold second place after Rome. As a result of this canon, the traditional influence of Alexandria was shortcircuited. To the bishop of Rome, the canon was also unfavourable, and he was reluctant to accept it explicitly The issue of the formula ‘in two natures’ and Canon 28, as well as the ratification of the Tome (considered by many in the East to be Nestorian), were to cause unrest and resentment among Christians in both East and West in the century that followed, and a lasting division in the churches of the eastern Roman empire. Christians were polarized into ‘dyophysites’ and ‘monophysites’. With good reason could this be called The Great Schism’. Page 4 Antioch in the aftermath of the Council. That monks and lay people also defined and enforced orthodoxy at this time is clear from such cases as that of Bishop Juvenal of Jerusalem, who lost the support of the influential monks in his see, and on his return to Jerusalem after the Council was forced to flee in the face of their determined opposition. The amount of popular literature written in the century after Chalcedon both for and against the Council demonstrated that reaction to the perceived issues was not confined to emperors or patriarchs. In the fifty years after Chalcedon, there were repeated efforts by the imperial government in the East to restore ecclesiastical and political unity. The most famous example of this was the Henotikon of Emperor Zeno in 482, which emphasized the faith of Nicaea. Although it was a masterpiece of imperial diplomacy, and nominally at least brought the eastern sees into communion, in the long run it was unsuccessful, because for those opposed to the Council only an outright condemnation of the Tome of Leo and of Chalcedon would suffice. This is the background against which we must situate the life and thought of Severus of Antioch. SOURCES FOR SEVERUS’S LIFE The sources for the life of Severus, anti-Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch from 512–18, are many and varied, with the result that we have a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of the man, his life and his times. In the first place, we have nearly 300 of his own letters, written prior to and during his patriarchate, as well as during his long exile. In addition, some of his 125 cathedral homilies, particularly Homilies XXVII and XXX, contain autobiographical information. In the Coptic version of Homily XXVII we find a section in which Severus narrates his conversion at Tripolis, showing that until he went to Beirut to study he was still a pagan (Garitte 1966:335–90). To his friend and fellow-student Zachariah Scholasticus, later bishop of Mitylene on Lesbos, we owe the first biography of Severus. Composed in Greek around 515 and surviving in a Syriac translation, it was a response to a pamphlet defaming the patriarch (Vie 7–10, 75) on the grounds that he was guilty of pagan practices and of being baptized late. Although it is a contemporary document, it needs in part to be used with caution because some of its details are in conflict with those given by Severus himself (Darling 1982:20). A second biography, similarly composed in Greek but surviving in a Syriac translation and some Coptic fragments, is that of John, abbot of the monastery of Beith Aphthonia on the Euphrates, who died c. 558. Another biography is ascribed to one of Severus’s successors as anti-Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch, Athanasius Gamala or the Camel-Driver (594–630/1), which has come down to us in Coptic fragments and in 3 an Ethiopic version derived from an Arabic model, which in its turn was possibly a translation from Coptic. Dependent on John of Beith Aphthonia is the Syriac biography in metrical homiletic form of George, bishop of the Arabs, who was born around 640 (George, bishop of the Arabs 1993: XI–XIII). We have a fifth bio graphy, written in Syriac by Qyriaqos, the Syrian Orthodox patriarch of Antioch from 793–817, which was discovered in 1975 and remains unpublished (Vööbus 1975–6:117–24). A sixth biography, composed in Arabic by a certain bishop of Assiut, probably John, in the fifteenth century, was discovered by Youhanna Nessim Youssef in 2002 in the monastery of St Menas at Mariout. All of these hagiographical works need to be used with varying degrees of caution, and checked wherever possible against other historical sources. Given his pivotal role in the ecclesiastical politics of his time, Severus features in most of the historical and theological works which were composed either in or about the period, from the Chalcedonian as well as the anti-Chalcedonian side. Because these are too numerous to list here, we mention only the anti-Chalcedonian Church History of Zachariah Scholasticus and his continuator, ps.Zachariah, which contains several of the patriarch’s letters, and the Chalcedonian Church History of Evagrius Scholasticus (d. before 600), which preserves unique information about him. BEFORE THE PATRIARCHATE Severus was born around 456 in Sozopolis (Pisidia) to a well-to-do family. Despite the assertions of his friend and biographer, Zachariah, that his grandfather, also called Severus, was bishop of the city, had attended the Council of Ephesus in 439, and had been one of the bishops who condemned Nestorius, it is clear from Severus’s own words that the family was pagan. 1 Thus his relatively late baptism should not be attributed—as it is by Zachariah—to an unduly long catechumenate as supposedly practised in Pisidia( Vie 11), but to a radical conversion from paganism to Christianity (Darling 1982:24). After the death of his father, in 485 Severus and his two older brothers were sent by their mother to Alexandria to study grammar and rhetoric, both Latin and Greek ( Vie 11), a prerequisite for legal studies. In Alexandria Severus met Zachariah, his future biographer, and for the next twelve or so Page 6 years the fortunes of the two young men were inexorably intertwined. Because Zachariah wrote his biography as a defence of Severus against claims that at the beginning of his career he had worshipped demons and idols and given himself over to magical practices ( Vie 9, 75), much of the work deals with pagan and magical practices in Alexandria and Beirut, where the two fellow-students went on to study law. While the account is partisan, it discloses incidentally details of the students’ timetables, programmes of courses, the names and provenance of students and the names of professors, the liveliness of paganism in the two cities at the end of the fifth century, and student life at the time (Poggi 1986:59, 62; Blázquez 1998:415– 36). No doubt one of Zachariah’s aims in dropping the names of young rich Christian men who went on to stellar careers in church and state was to add weight to his claims that Severus was not guilty of paganism or magic ( Vie 10). Severus is presented consistently as an unbaptized adviser to his fellow students, who as Christians were fighting paganism in both Egypt and Phoenicia ( Vie 44, 65, 91). According to Zachariah, his Christian fellow students in Alexandria persuaded Severus to abandon the reading of the great Antiochene orator Libanius in favour of two illustrious Christian Cappadocians, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nazianzen ( Vie 13). This study programme was to be continued by both Severus and Zachariah when they met up in Beirut in 488, a year after the future patriarch had arrived there ( Vie 46). The Cappadocians in fact were to become models for Severus both personally and ecclesiologically, and he believed that they would be his judges at the Last Judgement. 2 Zachariah instructed his friend in the Scriptures and the Fathers: the two of them pursued their legal studies from Monday to Friday, rested on Saturday morning, then spent the remainder of the weekend studying theology ( Vie 52–3). At the end of his five-year stay in Beirut, Severus had composed a legal work and graduated as master of law (Poggi 1986:65). His legal training remains discernible in his writings, and accounts for his interest in canon law, as evidenced particularly in his letters.