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Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi: the Doctrine of the Theotokos As a Liturgical Creed in the Coptic Orthodox Church

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Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi: the Doctrine of the Theotokos As a Liturgical Creed in the Coptic Orthodox Church Journal of Coptic Studies 14 (2012) 47–62 doi: 10.2143/JCS.14.0.2184687 LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI: THE DOCTRINE OF THE THEOTOKOS AS A LITURGICAL CREED IN THE COPTIC ORTHODOX CHURCH BY BISHOY DAWOOD 1. Introduction In the Surah entitled “The Table Spread” in the Quran, Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, proclaimed a long revelation from God, and in a part that spoke of the role of Mary and teachings of Jesus, the following was mentioned: “And behold! Allah will say: ‘O Jesus the son of Mary! Did you say to men, ‘worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of Allah’?’” (Sura 5:116).1 It is of note here that not only the strict mono- theistic religion of Islam objected to the Christian worshipping of Jesus as God, but it was commonly believed that Christians also worshipped his mother, Mary, as a goddess. This may have been the result of a mis- understanding of the term Theotokos, literally meaning “God-bearer”, but also means “Mother of God”, which was attributed to Mary by the Christians, who used the phrase Theotokos in their liturgical worship. Likewise, in Protestant theology, there was a reaction to the excessive adoration of the Virgin Mary in the non-liturgical devotions of the churches of the Latin West, which was termed “Mariolatry.” However, as Jaroslav Pelikan noted, the Eastern churches commemorated and cel- ebrated Mary as the Theotokos in their liturgical worship and hymnology.2 The place of the Theotokos in the liturgical worship of the Eastern Chris- tian churches does not only show the spiritual relation between the Virgin Mother and the people who commemorate her, but it is primarily a creedal affirmation of the Christology of the believers praying those hymns addressed to the Theotokos. As such, the term Theotokos does not imply the generation of God from a goddess-mother as in polytheistic religions, nor does it involve the worship of Mary — both of which are popular 1 “Surah 5: Maida, or The Table Spread”. In: Ali, The Quran, 75. 2 Pelikan, Credo, 410. 995694_JOCS_14_2012_04_Dawood.indd5694_JOCS_14_2012_04_Dawood.indd 4747 119/12/129/12/12 111:441:44 48 BISHOY DAWOOD misconceptions of the doctrine of the Theotokos. On the contrary, its liturgical use is a creedal affirmation of how the term Theotokos applies to Mary in her maternal relation to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Logos of God — as John Meyendorff correctly noted, the doctrine of the Theo- tokos is not a Mariological doctrine, but a Christological doctrine.3 I will argue in this paper that the use of the term Theotokos in the hymnology of the Eastern Christian churches is, in fact, the Christological Creed of the Church, which did not take the shape of a conventional “Confession of Faith” as did the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, but was expressed liturgically in the hymnology of the Eastern churches. In this paper, I will first argue that the phrase “lex orandi, lex credendi” (the law of prayer is the law of belief) is applicable to the situations in which creedal affirmations are made in liturgical worship in the Eastern Christian churches rather than in the conventional form of a Confession of Faith. In this paper, I will focus on how the term and hymns of the Theotokos are used to affirm the Christology of the church in a liturgical manner, as there is no Confession of Faith (comparable to the Nicene- Constantinopolitan Creed) that comes down from an Ecumenical Council that the believers could recite concerning their Christology. After briefly examining the history of the term Theotokos and the Christological con- troversy of the fifth century A.D., I will show how the hymnology of the Coptic Orthodox Church, particularly in the liturgical rite of the Midnight Tasbeha (Praises) Vigils, is an example of creedal affirmations of Chris- tology through hymns on the Theotokos. 2. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi Much has been written about the Christian creeds that affirm the belief in one Triune God and salvation through Christ and the Holy Spirit, as found, for instance, in Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Scholars noted that there have been many reasons why creeds arose in Christianity, one of the prominent reasons being the use of a declaratory profession of faith in the form of a creed by the catechumens before baptism. There were, though, other reasons for creeds to arise: preaching, catechetical instruction, and anti-heretical and anti-pagan polemics.4 However, not much attention has been given to another manifestation of the creeds in the liturgical worship of the Church. Some scholars noted 3 Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 148. 4 Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 30. 995694_JOCS_14_2012_04_Dawood.indd5694_JOCS_14_2012_04_Dawood.indd 4848 119/12/129/12/12 111:441:44 LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI 49 that the fragments of creeds in the Pauline epistles were hymns chanted in the early churches, and are derived from the community’s tradition.5 In fact, before being set as a formal Confession of Faith, the beliefs of the people of the church was first liturgical, then creedal. One example was the controversy on the Holy Spirit’s divinity: before the Council of Constantinople affirmed that the Holy Spirit is co-worshipped and co- glorified with the Father and the Son by expanding the Nicene Creed, the Church Fathers argued that this faith is what was prayed and believed by the Church. The Holy Spirit was already being worshipped and glorified, and the Creed that resulted from the Council of Constantinople clarified and asserted the faith that was practiced liturgically by the Church. Basil, for instance, argued for the equality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son in his book On the Holy Spirit through what he mentioned as the use of the prepositions “and” and “with” in the liturgical worship of his church: “Lately while I pray with the people, we sometimes finish the doxology to God the Father with the form ‘Glory to the Father with the Son, together with the Holy Spirit…”.6 For Basil, the law of prayer — the doxology chanted by the Church — is the law of faith — the Church’s belief in the equal glory given to the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. Another example comes from the Didascalia, a third century church order of Syrian origin, which contains a Doxology for Jesus Christ that says: “To him who has power and might… To him who, in the days of Pontius Pilate was crucified and who died… To him who rose from the dead… To him who ascended to the heavens… To him who is to come with power and with glory to judge the dead and the living…”.7 It will be noted that the Doxology, which was chanted liturgically (as the Didascalia is a church order that focuses on the liturgy) is just like a Creed (written before the Nicene Creed) that is at once a profession of the faith of the believers and a prayer chanted to Christ. Furthermore, Jaroslav Pelikan noted how the law of prayer is the law of faith in the three Christian denominations of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants: the Catholics liturgically observed the Feast of the Assump- tion of the Virgin Mary for many years before the dogma of the bodily assumption of the Virgin was defined in 1950; the Orthodox believed in the descent of Christ into Hades as mentioned in the liturgical hymns of 5 Ibid., 13. 6 St. Basil, On the Holy Spirit, 17. 7 Diess, The Didascalia of the Apostles, 179. 995694_JOCS_14_2012_04_Dawood.indd5694_JOCS_14_2012_04_Dawood.indd 4949 119/12/129/12/12 111:441:44 50 BISHOY DAWOOD the Church, even though this is not mentioned in the Creed; the Protes- tants also used a Eucharistic prayer in the Waldensian liturgy to support their beliefs.8 That the law of prayer is the law of faith in the case of the Church’s hymns on the Theotokos is what I shall argue in this paper: just as the hymns preserved in the Pauline epistles are understood to be creedal formulas that proclaimed the faith of the early church in a setting that is liturgical, and as Basil affirmed the co-glory of the Spirit with the Father and the Son on the basis of a doxology; the Christology of the churches, which developed after the fifth century controversies over Christology, was preserved and proclaimed in the liturgical worship of those churches and took the form of hymns that were chanted by the believers, never taking the form of a formal Confession of Faith. 3. A Brief History of the Term Theotokos Alexandria was the city of the orthodox fathers and of the heterodox theorists, and it may be the case that in its churches and its Catechetical School the term Theotokos was first used in the Christian world. In reac- tion to Adoptionists and Docetists, Clement and Origen of Alexandria both taught that the Logos of God took flesh from the Virgin Mary, and within this Christological context, the first instance of the term Theotokos appears in Origen’s writings.9 Although some scholars do not think that Origen may have coined the term Theotokos, it did occur with more certainty in the later Alexandrian fathers, Alexander and Athanasius.10 Athanasius’ use of the term occurs, for instance, in his “Against the Arians”, such as in the following statement (which Cyril of Alexandria appealed to later during the Nestorian controversy): Now the scope and character of Holy Scripture, as we have often said, is this — it contains a double account of the Saviour; that He was ever God, and is the Son, being the Father’s Word and Radiance and Wisdom; and that afterwards for us He took flesh of a Virgin, Mary Bearer of God [Theotokos], and was made man.11 8 Pelikan, Credo, 166, 167.
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