The Liturgical Cycles.

In its fully developed form reached in the fourteenth century, the Byzantine rite is still essentially dominated by the paschal theme of the early Christian message: in Christ, man passes from slavery to freedom, from darkness to light, from death to life. Byzantine liturgy may frequently use conceptual definitions, formal doctrinal confessions, or romantic poetry — as we shall see in our discussion of hymnography — but it is impossible to understand its structure and the internal logic of its cycles without grasping the dynamic suggestion of a passage from the “old” to the “new,” which is the central theme of almost every liturgical unit. Variations on this theme appear everywhere. The misery of man’s existence in the “old Adam” is given more or less emphasis, just as the bliss of new life is considered either as an already present reality or as a goal still to be achieved.

Each cycle normally corresponds to a particular liturgical book. The daily cycle, found in the Expanded Psalter, or its abbreviated form, the Horologion, uses the paschal theme in connection with the daily alternation of light and darkness. Following in its permanent, unchangeable structure, the ancient monastic patterns, which used to shun hymnography, Byzantine vespers and matins select almost exclusively scriptural texts to connect the coming of night with man’s fall and separation from God and sunrise with the advent of Christ, the “true light.” Vespers begin with an evocation of creation (Ps 104) and a suggestion of man’s helplessness after the Fall (Pss 140, 141, 129, 116), and end with the prayer of Simeon (Lk 2:29-32), the hope of salvation, the idea that night and death can also become blessed repose for those who hope in the coming of the Messiah. Alternating the themes of repentance and hope, matins represent an ascension toward the meeting of light: the ten Biblical canticles — including the eminently paschal Canticles of Moses (Ex 15:1-18; Dt 32:1-43) and of the Three Youths in Babylon (Dn 3:26-56, 67-88) — are part of a psalmodic ensemble called a canon, which culminates in the Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55) and the Benedictus (Lk 1:68-79) combined. At sunrise the triumphant Psalms 148, 149, 150 (the Latin lauds), the exclamation “Glory to Thee, who has shown us the light,” and the doxology reflect the Christian joy and assurance of God-given salvation.

Vespers obviously aim at suggesting the “old” situation of man, and thus the developed Byzantine rite includes Old Testament readings only at vespers. Matins, by contrast, are highlighted on certain appointed days by readings from the Gospels. The weekly cycle also uses the theme of the “old” and the “new” centring it on Sunday, the “eighth day,”¹⁴ the “day of the Lord” and of His second coming (Rv 1:10), the day of His resurrection and of His presence in the Eucharist. Still, the “old” Jewish Sabbath is not simply discarded: it is the day of awaiting, of commemoration of the dead, who expect resurrection, and also the day when Christ, in the tomb, descends into Hell to assure the dead of the forthcoming liberation. Thus, Saturday is considered together with Sunday as a Eucharistic day, even during Lent.

The feast of Easter serves as the movable centre of the yearly cycle. It has a period of preparation (Lent) and a fifty-day celebration (Pentecost), and its date determines the following liturgical year. For each of these periods there is a corresponding liturgical book containing the pertinent hymnography: the Triodion for Lent, the Pentecostarion for the period between Easter and Pentecost, and the Otyoetyos (Book of eight tones) containing the cycle of eight weeks, which repeats itself between the Second Sunday after Pentecost and the following Lent.

Finally, the twelve volumes of the Menaion (Book of months) contain proper offices for each day of the calendar year. The very great amount of hymnographic material, which is gradually accepted into the Menaion through the centuries is very uneven in quality, but the offices of the major feasts and of principal saints are generally celebrated with hymns composed by the best liturgical poets of Byzantium. Like the Western Sanetoral, the Menaion represents a later, post-Constantinian development of the liturgy based on historical interest for past events, on local piety connected with the veneration of particular saints and their relics, and on pilgrimages to holy places in Palestine. In each case, however, the Menaion establishes a connection with the central, paschal content of the Christian faith. Thus, for example, the feasts of the Nativity (December 25) and of the Epiphany of Christ (January 6) are preceded by periods of preparation which are patterned hymnographically and musically on the offices of Holy Week. Through this evocation, the cross and the Resurrection are shown as the ultimate goal of the Incarnation.

The three major cycles of the yearly feasts commemorate the lives of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist. The Christological cycle includes the feasts of the Annunciation, Nativity, Epiphany, Circumcision, “Meeting” with Simeon (February 2), and the Transfiguration. The feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14) is also part of this cycle. The cycle of the Virgin includes the commemoration of her conception, nativity, presentation, and dormition. The cycle of John the Baptist is an early Palestinian creation with a Biblical foundation and serves as the model for the Mariological cycle. It includes the feasts of conception, nativity, and decollation. This entire system, represented iconographically on the so-called “Deisis” — a composition often shown centrally in the iconostasis and including the central figure of Christ flanked by Mary and John — suggests a parallelism between the Mother and the Precursor, the two representatives of the human race who stood closest to Jesus. No particular liturgical attention is paid to St. Joseph, except for a relatively modest commemoration on December 26 when he is included with other “ancestors” of Christ.

The Menaion contains explicit commemoration however of numerous Old Testament figures — prophets, kings, and others — the theological implication being that, after Christ’s descent into Hell, they, as well as those who pleased God in the new dispensation, are alive in Him.

Hymnology.

The introduction of massive hymnology in the “cathedral” rite is generally connected with the name of Romanos the Melody. There is very little historical evidence showing the reasons why the kontakia by Romanos and his imitators are very soon replaced in Byzantine liturgical cycles by different types of hymnography, but it may be assumed that the kontakion had to face monastic opposition. Although it dealt primarily with Biblical themes and often paraphrased Biblical texts, the kontakion nevertheless constituted a substitute for the Biblical psalms or canticles themselves and encouraged the use of music which the monks considered too secular. The long poetical pieces of Romanos of course had no organic place in the increasingly rigid and strictly Biblical framework of vespers, matins, and other liturgical units as they were being elaborated in the monastic Typika. Yet the fact that Romanos’ poetry though explicitly, Chalcedonian and Cyrillian, generally stands aloof from the great Christological disputes of the sixth and seventh centuries may also have contributed to the emergence of a hymnography more distinctly theological and doctrinal than the kontakya.

The original ascetic opposition of many monastic centres against hymnographical creativity did not persist. By the fifth century, Auxentios († in Bithynia ca. 470) was composing troparia, short poetical pieces of two or three sentences, sung according to the pattern of Biblical psalmody and probably in conjunction with Biblical psalms or canticles.¹⁵ This style of hymnography served as the alternative for the long and independent kontakia of Romanos. Short troparia, or stikhera, were composed to be sung after each verse of the regular Biblical texts accepted as parts of vespers and matins rather than as independent liturgical services. Complete series of troparia were written to accompany the ten Biblical canticles of matins. These series received the convenient appellation of canon, or “rule.” They often include after the sixth ode a vestigial remnant of a kontakion of Romanos, while parts of the same kontakion are paraphrased in other stikhera or troparia (Nativity services, for example). Thus, a few short pieces of Romanes’ poetry were kept in the liturgical books after the final adoption, in the ninth or tenth century, of the new patterns of hymnography. Palestinian monks of the Lavra of St. Sabbas (Andrew, who later became bishop in Crete, John of Damascus, Cosmas of Maiuma) seem to have played in the early-eighth century a decisive role in the reform, which was in fact a compromise between the original Biblical strictness of the monastic rule and the free lyricism of Romanos.

In the final form, it assumed in the ninth century — the later enrichments were only peripheral — the Byzantine hymnographical system was a poetic encyclopedia of patristic spirituality and theology. Its importance for our understanding of Byzantine religious thought cannot be exaggerated. Medieval Byzantium never attributed to schools, to intellectual speculation, or even to the magisterium the importance which they acquired in the West, but the centuries-old hymnographical tradition will be referred — for example by Gregory Palamas against Barlaam — as a certain criterion of orthodoxy and as an expression of Church tradition par excellence. It will remain so in the Slavic and other areas where Byzantine Christianity will be spread.

The difficulty in using hymnographical materials as a source for theology lies in the tremendous volume and diversity of the hymns. Of course, the many hagiographical legends and poetic exaggerations found in them can be used only in the context in which they are originally written. The Byzantines however obviously understood the difference between doctrinal statements and poetry, for some hymns were explicitly called dogmatifka troparia; those of Saturday vespers, for example, which were always dedicated to the meaning of the Incarnation in terms of the Chalcedonian definition:

Who will not bless you, Ο all-holy Virgin? Who will not sing praises to the One whom you bore? The only-begotten Son, who shone forth before all ages from the Father, the same came forth from you, Ο pure one. Ineffably He became incarnate being by nature God and became man by nature for our sakes; not being divided in two persons but known in two natures without confusion. Him do you beseech, Ο pure and blessed one, that He will have mercy on our souls [Tone 6].

This text obviously is meant to be a confession of faith as well as a prayer or a piece of religious poetry. Other boundlessly emotional hymns addressed to Mary, the Theotokos use Biblical images and symbols to describe her role in salvation history:

Hail, Ο earth unsown! Hail, Ο bush, which burned, yet was not consumed! Hail, Ο abyss unfathomable! Hail, Ο bridge leading to heaven and lofty ladder, which Jacob saw! Hail, Ο divine container of manna! Hail, Ο abrogation of the curse! Hail, Ο recall of Adam! The Lord is with you [Annunciation vespers].

The Marian emotionalism displayed by Byzantine hymnographers — the same ones who were able to use the strictest possible theological language in other texts — is often an expression of liturgical wisdom and common sense. The liturgy of the Church, a sacred play involving the whole of man, must assume and transform all forms of human feeling and must not be restricted to satisfying only his intellectual capacity. The alternation and correlation between the various aspects of religious experience is probably the secret of the lasting impact exercised by Byzantine Church hymnography upon generations of human souls.

This humaneness of Byzantine hymnography is also shown in the Triodion, a book for use during the Lenten period, composed in large part by Theodore the Studite and his immediate disciples. A monument of monastic spirituality, the Triodion assumes a patristic system of anthropology according to which man is truly man only when he is in real communion with God: then also is he truly free. In his present fallen state, however, man is a prisoner of Satan, and, as we saw in connection with the spiritual doctrine of Evagrius, his liberation and salvation presuppose the suppression of his “passions” — i.e., of that, which makes him love creatures rather than God. The way to “passionlessness” (apatheia) is through repentance:

Ο how many are the good things I miss! How beautiful was the Kingdom I lost through my passions! I spent the wealth I once possessed by transgressing the commandment. Alas, Ο impassionate soul! You were condemned to fire eternal. But before end comes, call on Christ, our God. Accept me as the prodigal son, Ο God, and have mercy on me [Sunday of the prodigal son, vespers].

Abstinence and asceticism are the tools proposed to fight passions; but even if the ascetic note is somewhat exaggerated, the true dimension of the Christian life and hope is never lost: “The Kingdom of God is neither food nor drink but joy in the Holy Spirit,” proclaims a stikheron of the first week of Lent; “Give money to the poor, have compassion on the suffering: this is the true fast, which pleases God.” Monastic-oriented asceticism does not make the authors lose sight of marriage, family life, and social responsibility:

Marriage is honourable, the couch is blameless; for Christ, in advance, blessed the one and the other by partaking food in the flesh and by changing water into wine in Cana... , so that you may change, Ο soul [Canon of Andrew of Crete, ode 9].

But all the appeals to “repentance” and to “change” would be meaningless if a foretaste of the blessed and joyful Kingdom to come is not also given. The triumphant hymns of the paschal night, composed by John of Damascus, paraphrasing a paschal sermon of Gregory of Nazianzus, are an immortal monument of Christian joy:

This is the day of resurrection!

Let us shine joyfully, Ο peoples!

The Pascha of the Lord, the Paschal

From death to life, and from earth to heaven,

Christ has led us, and we sing hymns of victory.

Ο Christ, the great and holy Pascha, Ο wisdom, Word, and Power of God! Permit us to partake more fully of Thee in the unending day of Thy Kingdom.

Notes

1. “The Russian Primary Chronicle,” trans. S. H. Cross, Harvard Studies in Philology and Literature 12 (1930), 199.

2. A. Baumstark, Liturgie comparée (CheVtogne, 1953), pp. 109-113.

3. Ibid., pp. 104-106.

4. See A. Schmemann, “The Byzantine Synthesis,” Introduction to Liturgical Theology (London: Faith Press, 1966), pp. 116-166.

5. Gregory Palamas, Horn. 60; ed. S. Oikonomos (Athens, 1861), p. 250.

6. Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit, 27; ed. B. Pruche, SC 17 (Paris: Cerf, 1945), p. 233.

7. Louis Bouyer, Eucharist (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), pp. 302-303.

8. PG 119:1033.

9. Baumstark, Liturgie comparée, p. 124.

10. MS Patmos 266, published by A. Dmitrievsky, Opisanie Liturgi’cheskikh Rukopisei (Kiev, 1901) I, 1-152.

11. Symeon of Thessalonica; PG 155:556D.

12. Baumstark, Liturgie comparée, p. 114.

13. See M. Skaballanovich, Tolkovyi Tipikon (Kiev, 1910), pp. 410-416.

14. Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit, 27; Pruche ed., p. 237.

15. See the Life of Auxentios, ActSS., Feb. 11, 770ff.

Doctrinal Themes.

The historical outline found in the first nine chapters of this book was an attempt to cover the theological controversies, the distinctive tendencies, and the basic sources of the theological thought in Byzantium. We now turn to a more systematic picture of Byzantine theology. The East was less prone than the West to conceptualize. It preferred to maintain its faithfulness to the “mind of Christ” through the liturgy of the Church, through the tradition of holiness, through a living gnosis of the Truth. In any systematic presentation of Byzantine theology, there is therefore a danger of forcing it into the mold of rational categories foreign to its very nature. This is precisely what occurred in many textbooks of dogmatic theology, which appeared in the Orthodox East after the eighteenth century, which claimed to remain faithful to the theology of the Byzantine Fathers. They have been ably characterized by Georges Florovsky as expressions of a “Western captivity” of the Orthodox mind, for it is not enough to quote an abundance of proof-texts from patristic or Byzantine authors: true consistency requires a unity of method and congeniality of approach.

I have attempted to achieve this by adopting in the following chapters a plan of exposition which conforms to the content of the Christian experience itself: man, created and fallen, meets Christ, accepts the action of the Spirit, and is thus introduced into communion with the Triune God. The reader judges for himself whether this plan is or is not more adequate than the other to the subject matter itself.

Inevitably, a systematic exposition of doctrinal themes in Byzantine theology requires frequent reference to writings, which sometimes fall outside the chronological limits defined in the Introduction. It is impossible, for example, to speak of either anthropology or Trinitarian theology in Byzantium without referring to Origen and to the doctrines of the great Fathers of the fourth century, whom the Byzantines recognizes as their teachers par excellence.

It was also inevitable, on the other hand, that my treatment of the Byzantine authors be influenced by the fact that, as an Orthodox theologian, I personally see the great tradition of the undivided Church as continuing in Byzantium and through it carrying its message to modern times as well.

Creation.

Patristic thought on creation developed within the framework of age-long polemics against Origenism. The issue in the debate was the Greek concept of an eternal cosmos and the Biblical linear view of history, which began with the creative fiat. The starting point of Origen’s view on the origin of the world was that the act of creation was an expression of God’s nature and that, since this nature is changeless, there could never be a “time” when God would not be creating. Consequently, the world has always existed because God’s goodness has always needed an object.¹ In Origenism, eternity of creation was, in fact, ontologically indistinguishable from the eternity of the Logos. Both proceeded eternally from God. This identification led Arius after his rejecting the eternity of creation to the concept that the Logos had also been generated in time. The anti-Arian theology of Athanasius of Alexandria defined the categories which became standard in later Byzantine authors: the distinction between generation and creation.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 502