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The Problem of Origenism.

Recent research has cast a completely new light on the history of Origenism in the fifth and sixth centuries. The publication of the works of Evagrius Ponticus has in particular clarified the issues, which divided rival monastic parties in Egypt, in Palestine, and in other areas of Eastern Christendom.

While the Trinitarian problematics of Origen served as one of the starting points for the Arian controversies of the fourth century, his views on creation, the Fall, man, and God-man relations fascinated the first Greek intellectuals to the point of inducing them to join the monastic movement. In his system, monastic asceticism and spirituality find a justification, but contradict the basic presuppositions of Biblical Christianity. As a result, Origen and his disciple Evagrius were condemned in 400 by Theophilus of Alexandria and in 553 at Constantinople II. But even these condemnations did not preclude the lasting influence of their systems, which served as background for the integrated Christian philosophy of Maximus the Confessor. Origenism thus remained at the centre of the theological thought of post-Chalcedonian Eastern Christianity, and its influence on spirituality and theological terminology did not end with the condemnation of the Origenistic system in 553 but continued at least until the iconoclastic crisis of the eighth century.

Origen was undoubtedly the most successful of the early apologists of Christianity. His system made the Christian religion acceptable to Neo-Platonists, but the acceptance of Christianity on Origenistic terms does not necessarily imply the rejection of the basic Neo-Platonic concepts of God and of the world. If the Cappadocian Fathers, for example, after reading Origen in their student years, were finally led to orthodox Christianity, others, such as their friend and contemporary Evagrius Ponticus, developed Origenism in a quite different direction.

In his famous De principiis, Origen first postulates creation as an eternal act of God. God has always been the all-powerful Creator, and “we cannot even call God almighty if there are none over whom He can exercise His power.” But since Origen is very careful to refute the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of matter, he maintains that the ever-existing created world is a world of “intellects,” not of matter. The basic Platonizing spiritualism implied here will always appeal to monastic circles looking for a metaphysical justification of asceticism. The next step in Origen’s thought is to consider that the “intellectual” world, which includes “all rational natures — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Angels, the Powers, the Dominions, and other Virtues as well as man himself in the dignity of his soul — are one unique substance.”10 A later patristic tradition will oppose to this idea the notion of the absolute transcendence of God expressed in apophatic theology; but for Origen, the monistic structure encompassing God and the “intellects” in one single substance is broken only by the Fall. Misusing their “freedom,” the intellects committed the sin of revolting against God. Some sinned heavily and became demons; others sinned less and became angels; others did still less and became archangels. Thus, each received a condition proportionate to its own sin. The remaining souls committed sins neither heavy enough to rank with the demons nor light enough to become angels, and so it was that God created the present world and link the soul with a body as a punishment.11 The present visible world, which includes man — understood as an intellect transformed through sin into a body — is the result of the Fall; man’s ultimate destiny is dematerialization and a return to a union with God’s substance.



Evagrius Ponticus significantly developed this Origenistic system by applying it to Christology. According to Evagrius, Jesus Christ was not the Logos taking flesh but only an “intellect” that had not committed the original sin and thus was not involved in the catastrophe of materialization. He assumed a body in order to show the way toward a restoration of man’s original union with God.12 Around this teaching of Evagrius’, serious conflicts, which lasted until the reign of Justinian, arose between feuding monastic parties. At the centre of these disturbances, which was the Lavra of St. Sabbas in Palestine, some monks claimed to be “equal to Christ” (isochristot) since in them through prayer and contemplation there is the original relationship with God, which also existed in Christ, had been restored. This extreme and obviously heretical form of Origenism was condemned first by imperial decree, then by the ecumenical council of 553. The writings of Origen and Evagrius were destroyed and preserved only partially in Latin or Syrian translations or protected by pseudonyms. Ancient Hellenism had to give way once again to the basic principles of Biblical Christianity.

 

Pseudo-Dionysius.

The condemnation of Origen and Evagrius did not mean however the total disappearance of the Platonic world-view from Byzantine Christianity. The Hellenic concept of the world as “order” and “hierarchy,” the strict Platonic division between the “intelligible” and the “sensible” worlds, and the Neo-Platonic grouping of beings into “triads” reappear in the famous writings of a mysterious early-sixth-century author who wrote under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite. The quasi-apostolic authority of this unknown author went unchallenged in both East and West throughout the Middle Ages.

Historians of Eastern Christian thought usually emphasize the role of Dionysius — together with that of Gregory of Nyssa and of Maximus the Confessor — in expounding apophatic theology. According to Vladimir Lossky, Dionysius, far from being “a Platonist with a tinge of Christianity,” is the very opposite: “a Christian thinker disguised as a Neo-Platonist, a theologian very much aware of his task, which was to conquer the ground held by Neo-Platonism by becoming a master of its philosophical method.”13 And, indeed, several elements of Dionysius’ thought appear as successful Christian counterparts both to Neo-Platonic and to Origenistic positions. Dionysius specifically rejects Origen’s notion of knowledge of God “by essence” since there cannot be “knowledge” of God, for knowledge can apply only to “beings,” and God is above being and superior to all opposition between being and non-being. With God, there can be a “union,” however: the supreme end of human existence; but this union is “ignorance” rather than knowledge for it presupposes detachment from all activity of the senses or of the intellect since the intellect is applicable only to created existence. God therefore is absolutely transcendent and above existence and — as long as one remains in the categories of existence — can be described only in negative terms.14 God does however make Himself known outside of His transcendent nature: “God is manifested by His ‘powers’ in all beings, is multiplied without abandoning His unity.” 15 Thus, the concepts of beauty, being, goodness, and the like reflect God but not His essence, only His “powers” and “energies,”16 which are not however a diminished form of deity or mere emanations but themselves fully God in whom created beings can participate in the proportion and analogy proper to each. Thus, the God of Dionysius is again the living God of the Bible and not the One of Plotinus; and in this respect, Dionysius will provide the basis for further positive developments of Christian thought.

One must remember however that Dionysius’ theology property — i.e. his doctrine of God and of the relationship between God and the world — is not wholly original (in fact, its essential elements appear in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers), and that, through his hierarchical view of the universe, Dionysius exercised a highly ambiguous influence, especially in the fields of ecclesiology and sacramental theology.

If for Origen, the hierarchy of created beings — angels, men, demons — are the result of the Fall, for Dionysius it is an immovable and divine order through which one reaches “assimilation and union with God.”17 The three “triads” — or nine orders — of the celestial hierarchy and the two “triads” of the ecclesiastical hierarchy are essentiality a system of mediations. Each order participates in God “according to its capacity,” but this participation is granted through the order immediately superior.18 The most obvious consequences of that system occur in the field of ecclesiology; for Dionysius, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which includes the triads “bishops (hierarchs)-priests-deacons” and “monks-laymen-catechumens (sinners),” is nothing but an earthly reflection of the celestial orders; each ecclesiastical order, therefore, is a personal state, not a function in the community. “A hierarch,” Dionysius writes, “is a deified and divine man, instructed in holy knowledge.”19 And since the hierarch is primarily a gnostic, an initiator there is fundamentally no difference between his role and that of a charismatic. The same applies of course to the other orders.20

And since Dionysius also holds very strictly to the Platonic divisions between the intellectual and material orders, the material being only a reflection and a symbol of the intellectual, his doctrine of the sacraments is both purely symbolic and individualistic; the function of the Eucharist, for example, is only to symbolize the union of the intellect with God and Christ.21

Our conclusion to these brief comments on Dionysius must be therefore that. In areas where he transcends Neo-Platonism — the area of the theologia — he is a real Christian without however being truly original; but that his doctrine of the hierarchies, even if it represents a genuine attempt to integrate the Neo-Platonic world-view into the Christian framework, is an obvious failure, the consequences of which have led to much confusion, especially in the fields of liturgy and of ecclesiological formulations. One wonders too if the Western Scholastic doctrine of the sacerdotal “character” and, to a lesser extent, the confusion, frequent in the Byzantine East, between the role of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and that of “holy men” do not go back ultimately to Dionysius.

 

Liturgy.

The appearance of the Dionysian writings coincides chronologically with a turning point in the history of Christian liturgy. When Justinian closed the last pagan temples and schools, Christianity became unquestionably the religion of the masses of the empire. The Christian liturgy originally conceived as the cult of small-persecuted communities now came to be celebrated in immense cathedrals — such as the magnificent “Great Church,” Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, one of the glories of Justinian’s reign — with thousands of worshippers in attendance. This completely new situation could not help but influence both the practice and the theology of the liturgy. The Eucharist, for example, could no longer really retain the external character of a community meal. The great mass of the people in attendance consisted of nominal Christians who could hardly meet the standard required of regular communicants. Starting with John Chrysostom, the clergy began to preach that preparation, fasting, and self-examination were the necessary prerequisites of communion and emphasized the mysterious, eschatological elements of the sacrament. The eighth and ninth centuries witnessed such additions as the iconostasis-screen between the sanctuary and the congregation and the use of the communion spoon, a means to avoid putting the sacramental elements into the hands of laymen. All these developments were aimed at protecting the mystery, but they resulted in separating the clergy from the faithful and in giving to the liturgy the aspect of a performance, rather than of a common action of the entire people of God.

The writings of pseudo-Dionysius contributed to the same trend. The author’s ideas about God’s grace descending upon the lower ranks of the hierarchy through the personal mediation of the hierarchs did much to shape new Byzantine liturgical forms, which he considered only as symbols revealing the mysteries to the eyes of the faithful. Appearances and disappearances of the celebrant, veiling and unveiling of the elements, opening and closing of the doors, and various gestures connected with the sacraments often originated in the rigid system of the hierarchical activity as described by Dionysius and found ready acceptance in a Church otherwise concerned with preserving the mysterious character of the cult from profanation by the masses now filling the temples.

Fortunately, Dionysian theology has had practically no effect upon such central texts as the baptismal prayer and the Eucharistic canons. It served principally to develop and explain the extremely rich fringes with which Byzantium now adorned the central sacramental actions of the Christian faith, without modifying its very heart, and thus leaving the door open to authentic liturgical and sacramental theology, which would still inspire the mainstream of Byzantine spirituality.

Another very important liturgical development of the fifth and sixth centuries was the large-scale adoption of hymnography of a Hellenistic nature. In the early Christian communities, the Church hymnal was comprised of the Psalter and some other poetic excerpts from Scripture with relatively few newer hymns. In the fifth and sixth centuries however with the insistence on more liturgical solemnity (often copied from court ceremonial) in the great urban churches and the unavoidable Hellenization of the Church, the influx of new poetry was inevitable.

This influx met strong opposition in monastic circles, which considered it improper to replace Biblical texts of the liturgy with human poetic compositions, but the resistance was not a lasting one. In fact, in the eighth and ninth centuries, the monks took the lead in hymnographical creativity.

But as early as the sixth century, the religious poetry of Romanos the Melody was regarded as revolutionary in Constantinople. The models of his poetry and music were generally localized in Syria where poetic religious compositions had already been popularized by Ephraem († 373).

Born in Emesus, Romanos came to Constantinople under Anastasius (491-518) and soon attained great fame by composing his fantasia. Generally based upon a Biblical theme or, in other words, exalting a Biblical personality, the kontakion is essentially a metrical homily recited or chanted by a cantor and accompanied by the entire congregation singing a simple refrain. It follows a uniform pattern beginning with a short prelude and followed by a series of poetic strophe.

Romanos’ poetry generally relies on imagery and drama and contains little or no at all theology. The Christological debates of the period, for example, are not at all reflected in his kontakya. Written in simple popular Greek, they must have played a tremendous role in bringing the themes of Biblical history to the masses; they undoubtedly strengthened profoundly that understanding of Christianity centred on the liturgy, which became so characteristic of the Byzantines.

Some of Romanos’ kontakya remain in the liturgical books in an abridged form, and the pattern, which he established, was reproduced almost exactly in the famous Akathistos hymnos, one of the most popular pieces of Byzantine hymnography. Although, as we shall see later, subsequent hymnographical patterns formed in the monasteries were quite different from those of Romanos, the work of the great melody of the sixth century played a central role in shaping Byzantine Christianity as distinct from the Latin, the Syrian, the Egyptian, and the Armenian.

The cultural framework of Byzantine theology after Chalcedon was increasingly limited to the Greek-speaking world. The wealth of the various non-Greek traditions of early Christianity — especially the Syrian and the Latin — was less and less taken into account by the theologians of the imperial capital. One should remember however that until the emergence of the twelfth-century revival of theology in the West, Constantinople remained the unquestioned intellectual centre of Christendom, with very little competition. One understands therefore that it developed a sense of increasing, though regrettable, and self-sufficiency.

 

Notes.

1. Origen, De principiis, Praefatio 8; ed. B. Koetschau, GCS 22 (1913), 14.6-13; trans. G. W. Butterworth, On the First Principles (London: SPCK, 1936), p. 5.

2. John Chrysostom, De paenitentia, horn. 6, 4; PG 49:320.

3. fcmile Brehier, Histoire de la philosophic (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1931), II, 494.

4. H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), I, VI.

5. Claude Tresmontant, La Mέtaphysique du christianisme et la naissance de la philosophic chretienne (Paris: du Seuil, 1961), p. 23.

6. Georges Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” Theology Today 7 (April 1950), 74-76.

7. Georges Florovsky, “The Idea of Creation in Christian Philosophy,” Eastern Church Quarterly 8 (1949), 53-77.

8. See fctienne Gilson, La philosophic an Moyen-Age (2nd ed., Paris: Payot, 1952), pp. 72-77.

9. Origen, De principiis, I, 2, 10; ed. Koetschau, p. 42; trans. Butterworth, p. 23.

10. Quoted by Jerome in Ep. 124, ad Avit., 15.

11. See anathemas of the Council of Constantinople (553) as given in F. Dickamp, Die origenistischen Streitigt^eiten im sechsten Jahrhundert und das junjte allgemeine Concil (Munstcr, 1898), pp. 90-96.

12. The essential texts are found in A. Guillaumont, Les “Kephalaia Gnostica” d’tvagre le Pontique et I’histoire de I’origenisme chez les Grecs et les Syriens (Paris: du Seuil, 1962), esp. pp. 156-160.

13. Vladimir Lossky, Vision of God (London: Faith Press, 1963), pp. 99-100.

14. Pseudo-Dionysius, Mystical Theology, V; PG 3:1045p-1048A.

15. Lossky, Vision, p. 102.

16. See, chiefly, pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names, II; PG 3:636ff.

17. Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Celestial Hierarchy, III, 2; PG 3:165λ.

18. See R. Roques, L’univers dionysien: Structure hierarchique du monde scion le pseudo-Denys (Paris: Aubier, 1954), p. 98ff.

19. Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, I, 3; PG 3:373c.

20. See the analysis of Roques, L’univers dionysien, pp. 172ff.

21. Ibid., pp. 267, 269.

 

 


Date: 2016-01-14; view: 512


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