Christology in Ninth-Century Constantinople

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Christology in Ninth-Century Constantinople Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 72(3-4), 291-318. doi: 10.2143/JECS.72.3.3288669 © 2020 by Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. All rights reserved. CHRISTOLOGY IN NINTH-CENTURY CONSTANTINOPLE NICETAS OF BYZANTIUM’S TREATISE AGAINST THE ARMENIANS 1 DIRK KRAUSMÜLLER (University of Vienna) When in 451 the Council of Chalcedon declared that the incarnated Word had to be conceptualised as two natures united in one hypostasis its conveners hoped to have put an end to decades of fierce controversy. This hope, how- ever, was soon dashed. In the Eastern provinces of the empire the response was overwhelmingly negative. There, religious leaders claimed that the formula of Chalcedon signalled a return to the position of Nestorius, which had been condemned two decades earlier at the Council of Ephesus. They maintained that those who acknowledged the existence of two natures separated the Word and the flesh from one another and thus nullified the effects of the incarnation on fallen humankind.2 According to them this danger could only be obviated when one believed that Christ was not only one hypostasis but also one nature.3 Christians who accepted the formula of Chalcedon were slow to respond to the attacks of the ‘Monophysites’. Only in the first half of the sixth century did they start to defend their position with arguments and to develop ontological frameworks that suited their purpose. As far as we can tell from the surviving evidence, theological speculation was largely confined to two places, Constantinople and Palestine. The conceptually most interest- ing Christological treatises of the time were written by Heraclianus, a deacon 1 This article is part of the project ‘Reassessing Ninth Century Philosophy. A Synchronic Approach to the Logical Traditions’ (9 SALT) that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innova- tion programme (grant agreement No. 648298). 2 See W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement. Chapters in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries (Cambridge, 1972). 3 See J. Lebon, ‘La christologie du monophysisme syrien’, in Das Konzil von Chalkedon. Geschichte und Gegenwart, I: Der Glaube von Chalkedon, eds. A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht (Würzburg, 1951), pp. 425-580. 292 DIRK KRAUSMÜLLER of St Sophia who served as adviser of Emperor Justinian and was later rewarded with the bishopric of Chalcedon,4 and by Leontius of Byzantium, a monk of the Lavra of St Sabas near Jerusalem who was influenced by the teachings of Origen and Evagrius Ponticus.5 In Palestine the Christological discourse continued incessantly into the eighth and early ninth centuries when John of Damascus, Theodore Abu Qurrah and other less well-known figures made important contributions.6 In Constantinople the situation was starkly different. No anti-Monophysite treatise seems to have been written after the middle of the seventh century.7 The most likely explanation for this discrepancy is the Arab conquests. As is well known this political event led to impoverishment and consequently to a decline in literary production in the capital.8 Perhaps more important, however, is the fact that after the loss of the Eastern provinces there were few Monophysite communities left on 4 See A. Grillmeier and Th. Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition, II.3: The Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch from 451 to 600, tr. M. Ehrhardt (Oxford, 2013), pp. 130-147; and D. Krausmüller, ‘Aristotelianism and the Disintegration of the Late Antique Theological Discourse’, in Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle. Christian and Late Platonist Commentary between Rome and Bukhara, eds. J. Loessl and J. W. Watt (Aldershot, 2011), pp. 151-164, on pp. 157-160, where it is argued that Heraclianus attempted to merge the Cappadocian ontology with its Aristotelian hylemorphic counterpart. 5 See D. Hombergen, The Second Origenist Controversy. A New Perspective on Cyril of Scythopolis’ Monastic Biographies as Historical Sources for Sixth-Century Origenism (Rome, 2001), pp. 133-138; B. E. Daley, ‘A Richer Union: Leontius of Byzantium and the Rela- tionship of Human and Divine in Christ’, Studia Patristica, 24 (1993), pp. 239-256; and D. Krausmüller, ‘Making Sense of the Formula of Chalcedon: the Cappadocians and Aris- totle in Leontius of Byzantium’s Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos’, Vigiliae Christianae, 65 (2011), pp. 484-513, where it is argued that Leontius made use of Neoplatonic commen- taries on Aristotle’s works. 6 On John of Damascus see A. Louth, St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2002); on Theodore Abu Qurrah see S. H. Griffith, The Intellectual Profile of an Arab Christian Writer of the First Abbasid Century (Tel Aviv, 1992); and J. C. Lamoreaux, Theodore Abu Qurrah, Library of the Christian East, 1 (Provo, Utah, 2005). 7 Maximus the Confessor (d. 662) who wrote several treatises against the Monophysites, cannot be counted as a Constantinopolitan. See P. Allen and B. Neil, Maximus the Confessor and his Companions. Documents from Exile (Oxford, 2013), pp. 88-101; and S. Brock, ‘An Early Syriac Life of Maximus the Confessor’, Analecta Bollandiana, 91 (1973), pp. 299- 346. 8 For an overview of the topic see J. Haldon, ‘Dark-Age Literature’, in Byzantine Culture. Papers from the Conference ‘Byzantine Days of Istanbul’, May 21-23, 2010, ed. D. Sakel (Ankara, 2014), pp. 71-82. CHRISTOLOGY IN NINTH-CENTURY CONSTANTINOPLE 293 Byzantine territory.9 Thus there was no longer a need to justify one’s own beliefs. The situation changed only in the late ninth century when the Byzan- tines sought closer relations with the Monophysite Armenians.10 1. THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE BYZANTINES AND THE ARMENIANS In the year 877 Patriarch Photius of Constantinople sent a letter to the Armenian prince Ashot in which he proposed a union between the Byzantine and the Armenian churches.11 Five years later there came a response, penned by the Armenian bishop Isaac Mrut, in which the offer was declined.12 In this exchange mention was made of doctrinal differences. Photius sought to show that as a theological position Monophysitism was both absurd and blasphe- mous. He declared that the supposed one nature of Christ would have to be either simple or composite. In the former case either the humanity or the divinity would have disappeared whereas in the latter case the humanity and the divinity would be mixed and thus lose their respective properties.13 Isaac denied the validity of these objections. He insisted that the one nature was composite and that the mixture was of such a kind that it did not destroy the two components.14 In addition, he put forward many more arguments that were to show the error of Chalcedonian Christology. This material has been studied in depth by Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev who also translated the two texts, which have only survived in Armenian.15 By contrast, the Byzan- tine response to Isaac’s letter has as yet received little attention from scholars. Two texts are extant, which refute Isaac Mrut’s arguments point by point. One is a lengthy letter by Photius written in fiendishly difficult Greek and 9 See J. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century. The Transformation of a Culture (Cam- bridge, 1990), pp. 338-339. 10 On Byzantine-Armenian relations see T. W. Greenwood, ‘Chapter 8: Armenian Neigh- bours’, in The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, c. 500-1492, ed. J. Shepherd (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 333-364. 11 I. Dorfmann-Lazarev, Arméniens et Byzantins à l’époque de Photius: Deux débats théo- logiques après le triomphe de l’Orthodoxie, CSCO. Subsidia, 117 (Leuven, 2004), pp. 82- 83. 12 Ibid., pp. 85-86. 13 Ibid., pp. 25-32, esp. pp. 29-30. 14 Ibid., pp. 33-53, esp. 44-52. 15 See note 12. 294 DIRK KRAUSMÜLLER containing many rhetorical flourishes and classical allusions.16 The other is a treatise in a workman-like style, which does not eschew technical termi- nology.17 Dated to the years 882 or 883, it gives the impression of having also been composed by Photius himself.18 Yet the lemma shows clearly that the patriarch had delegated this task to Nicetas Byzantius, a specialist in doc- trinal polemics who is best known for his writings against Islam and against the Latins.19 Both Photius and Nicetas quote passages from Isaac’s letter, which they then refute. Given the similarity of the subject matter it is not surprising that their counter-arguments are at times quite similar.20 Yet this does not mean that one is a calque of the other. This can be seen quite clearly in one context. Isaac Mrut seeks to brand Pope Leo a heretic by juxtaposing passages from his writings with similar passages in Nestorius’ oeuvre.21 Photius responds by quoting statements from the works of Cyril of Alexandria, where the same terminology was used.22 This was a tactical masterstroke since the Monophysites regarded Cyril as the highest authority in Christological mat- ters. By contrast, Nicetas laboriously analyses the wording of the passages in order to show that Leo’s statements do not resemble those of Nestorius.23 16 Photius, Epistula 284, eds. B. Laourdas and L. G. Westerink, Photius, Epistulae et Amphi- lochia, III: Epistularum pars tertia (Leipzig, 1985), pp. 1-97, partially edited with a French translation by J. Darrouzès, ‘Deux lettres inédites de Photius aux Arméniens’, Revue des Études Byzantines, 29 (1971), pp. 137-181, on pp. 141-153. See the comments in Dorfmann- Lazarev, Arméniens et Byzantins, pp. 87-91 (see n. 12). 17 Refutatio epistolae regis Armeniae, PG 105, 588-656. 18 See especially the beginning of the treatise, Nicetas Byzantius, Refutatio, PG 105, col.
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