Il. Papanikolaou, Aristotle.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Orthodox readings of Augustine / edited by George Demacopoulos and Aristotle
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-88141—327—4 (alk. paper) 1. Augustine,Saint, Bishop of Hippo.
1. Demacopoulos, George E.
Il. Papanikolaou, Aristotle.
BR65.A9O78 2008 230'.14092—dc22 2008029890 COPYRIGHT © 2008 BY ST VLADIMIR'S SEMINARY PRESS 575 Scarsdale Road, Crestwood, NY 10707 1-800-204-2665 www.syspress.com All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act, or in writing from the publisher.
ISBN 978—0~—88141—-327-4 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ig | Augustine and the Orthodox: cc »-e The West" in the East —»ea GEORGE E. DEMACOPOULOS AND ARISTOTLE PAPANIKOLAOU t remains one of the most surprising facts of Christian history that St Augustine became so influential for each of the subsequent western theological traditions, yet remained largely unread in the Christian East until the modern era. While it is true that the Greek fathers, in general, had a much wider readership in the West than the Latin fathers had in the East during the middle ages, it is still surprising that no part of Augustine's enormous corpus, apart from florilegia, seems to have circulated in the East prior to the thirteenth century." This was not for a lack of effort. During his lifetime, Augustine labored to gain the attention of the eastern Church, particularly during the Pelagian controversy.> He may
'We would like to thank Fr John Behr and Bradford Hinze, who read and offered many useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
2The two Latin fathers who were read in translation in the Greek East were John Cassian, whose Institutiones and Conlationes were excerpted, translated, and included in the wildly popular Apophthegmata Patrum (PG 65.71-440), and Pope Gregory I (the Great), whose Liber Regulae Pastoralis (SC 381-82) and Dialogorum (SC 251, 260, 265) were translated during his lifetime and circulated by imperial order throughout the Byzantine empire.
On the meager circulation of Augustinian florilegia prior to the time of Photius, see Berthold Altaner, "Augustinus in der griechischen Kirche bis auf Photius," in his Kleine
Patristische Schriften (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967), 76-98.
his Ep. 179 to John of Jerusalem and Ep. 4* and 6* to Cyril of Jerusalem and Atticus of Constantinople, respectively. For more on this, see Robert Eno's comments in his translations of the newly discovered letters. Eno, Saint Augustine: Letters Volume VI (1*-29*)
(Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1989), 38-40, 49-53. The "*" designates that the letter belongs to the new letters collected and edited by J. Divjak (CSEL 88). ll
ORTHODOX READINGS OF AUGUSTINE have even commissioned translations of his work into Greek to assist in the effort.* But despite these initiatives, and despite the unparalleled importance of Augustine for the subsequent western traditions, knowledge of his corpus in the East was virtually nonexistent until the thirteenth century, when his De Trinitate (On the Trinity) was first translated into Greek.5
This is not to say, however, that Augustine was unknown in the East— he was known, but mostly by reputation. Before news of his death reached
Constantinople, the emperor, Theodosius II, invited Augustine to attend the Council of Ephesus, which convened in 431. The council was primarily concerned with the christological questions reflected in the protracted debate between Cyril ofAlexandria and Nestorius. Nevertheless, there was time enough for the delegates to include a censure of the errors attributed to Pelagius.° This condemnation of the Pelagian teaching by an ecumenical synod was due, in large part, to Augustine's lobbying efforts in the final fifteen years of his life. Although Augustine is not mentioned by name in the acta of the Council of Ephesus, his reputation as a saint and father of the Church was preserved in the East long after his passing.
Byzantium There is little doubt that pockets within the Byzantine Church vaguely remained aware of the theological contributions of Augustine. The acta
"Josef Léssl, "Augustine in Byzantium," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 51 (2000):
267-73. See also Altaner, 73-76; and Alfons Fiirst, "Augustinus im Orient," Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte 110 (1999): 294-303.
is an interesting (partial) treatise attributed to Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428), Ex libro contra defensores peccati originalis (From the Book against the Defenders of Original Sin), which survives in Latin translation (PG 66.1005—12). Migne believed that Theodore responded directly to Augustine's works of the early 420s (PG 66.1010), possibly in 423, but Augustine is not actually named in the text.
Technically, Pelagius was not named; rather, the council named one of his chief early supporters—Celestius. See canons 1 and4 of the Council of Ephesus in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1: Nicaea I to Lateran V, ed. Norman Tanner (London: Sheed & Ward
Limited, 1990), 63-64.
Augustine and the Orthodox: "The West" in the East B of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (meeting in Constantinople in 553) acknowledges Augustine in three ways: it lists him among the "holy fathers and doctors of the Church'' it includes excerpts from his writings among the florilegia;* and it documents that some of his letters were read publicly during the deliberations of the fifth session.? What is perhaps ironic with respect to the present East/West dichotomy concerning Augustine is that this appropriation of the bishop of Hippo in 553 was used to convince Pope Vigilius to accept the condemnation of the Three Chapters.!° In other words, the Greek and African delegates at the council used the authority of Augustine to convince Pope Vigilius to accept the consensus of the assembly!!! Subsequent eastern councils similarly acknowledged the authority of Augustine and, in at least one case, cited a florilegium taken from the In Evangelium Johannis tractatus (Tractates on the Gospel of John).'* There may be no better example of the Byzantine Church's high regard for Augustine than Photius' defense of him in the midst of the filioque controversy. Photius entered the trinitarian maelstrom in the late 860s when he included an attack on the filioque as part ofa larger campaign to protect the Byzantine Church (and his own position as patriarch) from 7Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum (hereafter ACO), ed. Johannes Straub, tome 4, vol.
1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co, 1971), 37.
4.1.212: "Augustini religiosae memoriae, qui inter Africanos episcopos splenduit, diversae epistolae recitatae sunt significantes quod oportet haereticos et post mortem anathematizari." According to the acta, these letters were read by a delegate from North
10Sententia adversus "tria Capitula" (Sentence against the Three Chapters) in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 10-11. Among other reasons, Vigilius did not want to condemn the three clerics because they were already deceased. The delegates pointed to the fact that Augustine had, in his lifetime, sanctioned posthumous condemnations.
"Ultimately, he did so and even used Augustine's Retr. as a precedent for his own change of position. Virgilius, Epistula II ad Eutychium, contained in ACO 4.1.245-47.
"For example, the acta of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople, 680-681) refers to him as the "most excellent and blessed Augustine." Perhaps even more surprisingly, the acta of the Comnenian Council of Constantinople (1166-1167) inserts him in the florilegia between Gregory of Nyssa and John Damascene as "O &yiog Abyovotivog and includes a paraphrase of his Tract. Ev. Jo. 78.3. See PG 140.217.
ORTHODOX READINGS OF AUGUSTINE the encroachments of Pope Nicholas I.'* For our purposes, what is significant about this confrontation is Photius' method for dealing with the possibility that someone of Augustine's stature could have authorized a teaching as flawed as the filioque. Twice Photius responded to the fact that the Franks supported their teaching with the authority of Augustine: in his famous Mystagogia, and in Ep. 291, written to the archbishop of Aquileia."
Although it provided the content for nearly all subsequent Byzantine critiques of the filioque, Photius' Mystagogia was not a systematic treatise.
He prepared it in haste, without access to his library, and it reads like a collection of overlapping arguments rather than a sustained thesis. Because he did not have the actual Latin texts at his disposal, Photius relied upon alternative methods when he addressed the fact that the Franks claimed to ground their position in the teachings ofAmbrose, Jerome, and Augustine. For example, he proposed that the original texts of these saints might have been corrupted or that more pressing reasons, now unknown, required these fathers temporarily to resort to an exaggeration of the Orthodox teaching in order to prevent some other, more dangerous, alternative.!® Another of his strategies, however, might be the most compelling for modern readers. Photius argued that if Augustine taught something only slightly divergent from the rule of faith, without any malicious intent and without the foreknowledge of a subsequent error, he cannot be held accountable for the later provocateurs of heresy who would use his teachings illegitimately to promote their own error.'¢ He also insisted that the conscientious Christian is the one who hides the human flaws of their
"fathers" (like the sons of Noah who covered their father's nakedness) rather than expose them for their own purposes.!"
In the letter to the archbishop of Aquileia, Photius was less thorough in his defense of Augustine but equally scandalized that the Franks would
'5For a general overview of the controversy, see Henry Chadwick, East and West: The Makingof a Rift in the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 124-92.
"The dating of the Mystagogia is complicated. Its revised form may well stem from his second exile, near the end of his life, c. 886-893. Ep. 291 dates to either 883 or 884.
'S5Photius, Mystagogia 71-72 (PG 102.352-53).
'oTbid., 68 (PG 102.345-48).