Crisis of Empire. Phil Booth

and heretic, Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian, would continue to dominate the cultural output of Sophronius and his circle, but whereas the former would in the Miracles prove indifferent to the spiritual demands of communion outside contexts of conversion, in later decades, the same group would attempt a far more comprehensive and more urgent reevaluation of Chalcedonian ecclesiological perception. As the empire was pitched into a geopolitical crisis that placed some Chalcedonian communities under “barbarian” rule and that forced Chalcedonian Christians to explain evident divine disfavor, the same circle set about exploring a new model of the Christian life, pursuing a far more profound and pervasive renegotiation of the conceptual divide between asceticism and eucharist than had hitherto been attempted, either in Chalcedonian or in anti-Chalcedonian circles. Therein, Moschus, Sophronius, and Maximus abandoned long-standing monastic claims to spiritual independence of ecclesial realities but at the same time asserted a more integrated model of the orthodox Christian community, guaranteeing its righteousness even as the Christian empire proved ephemeral.

      1. Acts of the Council of Gangra, Canons 2, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18.

      2. Acts of the Council of Gangra, Canons 1, 3, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16.

      3. Acts of the Council of Gangra, Canon 5 [Joannou 91].

      4. Acts of the Council of Gangra, Canon 6 [Joannou 91f.]. See also Acts of the Council of Gangra, Canon 4 (against those who refuse to receive communion from a priest who is married); 11 (against those who refuse an invitation to a love feast); 19 (against those ascetics who disregard the fasts prescribed by the Church); 20 (against those who condemn the assemblies in honor of the martyrs).

      5. See, e.g., in the East (Cappadocian fathers): Sterk (2004), esp. 35–140. In the West (John Cassian): Markus (1990) esp. 181–97; also P. Brown (1976).

      6. Caner (2002).

      7. On the Syrian paradigm see Drijvers (1981); Caner (2002) 50–82. On Athanasius’s Life of Antony and the normative Egyptian paradigm see Brakke (1995) 201–65; Caner (2002) 4–18.

      8. Caner (2002) 206–12, 235–41; cf. Dagron (1970) 271–75.

      9. Canons of the Council of Chalcedon [Joannou 72–74]; with the interpretation of Caner (2002) 210f. concerning the final sentence (Ton mentoi episkopon tēs poleōs chrē tēn deousan pronoian poieisthai tōn monastēriōn).

      10. See esp. Caner (2002) 241.

      11. On those texts see esp. the comprehensive treatment of Fitschen (1998), esp. 18–88.

      12. For the Messalian synthesis of radical ascetic tendencies see Caner (2002) 83–125; Plested (2004) 17–27, esp. 21; Déroche (1995) 154–225.

      13. See Theodoret, Compendium of Heretical Doctrines 4.11 [PG 83, 429C].

      14. Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 4.11 [Parmentier and Hansen 229]. For the same antisacramental errors cf. the anti-Messalian lists of Timothy of Constantinople, On the Reception of Heretics [PG 86, 45D–52C]; John of Damascus, On Heresies 80 [PG 94, 729A–732B], with Stewart (1991) 52–69, esp. 63f.

      15. See, e.g., Theodorus Lector, Tripartite History 2.74 [Hansen 37]; A. Gribomont (1957). For a full discussion see Fitschen (1998) 138–42.

      16. On Macarius and his Syrian background see Stewart (1991) 9–11, 84–95; Fitschen (1998) 162–75; Plested (2004) 12–30. On the correspondences see esp. Fitschen (1998) 176–238.

      17. See, e.g., Stewart (1991) 52–59; Fitschen (1998) 238; Plested (2004) 23–27.

      18. Plested (2004) 40.

      19. Ps.-Macarius, Collection I 52.1, 52.2.1–3 [Berthold vol. 2, 138–41].

      20. Cf. Stewart (1991) 220. Ibid. 218–21 points also to Ps.-Macarius, Collection I 7.18, on the human person as temple and draws attention to important parallels between Ps.-Macarius’s conception of the structures of the Church and that of the Book of Steps, esp. Memra 12. For the same connections between Messalian attitudes to the Church, Ps.-Macarius, and the Books of Steps, see Fitschen (1998) 108–28; Escolan (1999) 91–123, esp. 106; also Stewart (1991) 84–92, 162–66, 198–203, 216–23, 227–32; Golitzin (1994) 371–85; Caner (2002) 106–17.

      21. As suggested in Plested (2004) 40; contra Fitschen (1998) 238, suggesting the Messalians are radical interpreters of the Ps.-Macarian model.

      22. Von Balthasar (1961), trans. Daley (2003) 319. Cf. Plested (2004) 40; also ibid. 109–11 and Golitzin (1994) 379–85 on the theme of the inner liturgy within the Ps.-Macarian corpus.

      23. Evagrius Ponticus, To Monks 118–19 [Greßmann 163]. For the same sentiments cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Commentary on Ecclesiastes 13; Letter of Faith 4; On Malign Thoughts [PG 79, 1228C].

      24. Pace Clark (1992) 65, talking of the “spiritualized and allegorized” nature of Evagrius’s concept of the eucharist (but mistranslating the Greek, as though autas refers to aretai rather than sarkes). It is nevertheless clear that some contemporaries likewise interpreted the Evagrian position on the sacraments; see ibid. 63–66, 110–11, 116, 156–57; incl. Apophthegmata Patrum (Alphabetical), Daniel 7 [PG 65, 156D–160A].

      25. E.g., Konstantinovksy (2009) 8.

      26. See, e.g., Evagrius Ponticus, The Gnostic 14; The Monk 100. For the theme of the inner liturgy cf. Evagrius Ponticus, Gnostic Centuries 5.53, 84.

      27. See, e.g., Mazza (1989).

      28. See above, n. 7.

      29. See, e.g., Dekkers (1957) esp. 33–41; Guillaumont (1989) 83f.; Callam (1996) 115.

      30. See, e.g., the famous comment of John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Letter to the Hebrews 17.4 [PG 63, 131–32]: ekeinoi gar [en tēi erēmōi] hapax tou eniautou metechousi, pollakis de kai dia duo etōn.

      31. For the combination of an emphasis upon episcopal subordination with indifference to the sacramental submission of ascetics see also, e.g., Theodoret’s Religious History, with Canivet (1977) 231f.; also Guillaumont (1989) 88; Urbainczyk (2002) 115–29; Binggeli (2009) 423f.

      32. See, e.g., on the Pachomians, Bohairic Life of Pachomius 25; First Greek Life of Pachomius 27; Rules of Saint Pachomius 15; Regulations of Horsiesius 14. On the eucharist in Pachomius’s monasteries see Guillaumont (1989) 86.

      33. See Palladius, Lausiac History 26.1, 27.2. See also Taft (2003) 6f., and cf. Lausiac History 59, where separation from communion is presented as a virtue.

      34. For the celebration of Evagrius and other Origenist monks within Palladius’s original Lausiac History, and the later attempt to remove or temper it, see Gabriel Bunge’s introduction in Bunge and Vogüé (1994) 20–27.

      35. See, e.g., History of the Monks in Egypt 25.2 [Festugière 134].

      36. History of the Monks in Egypt 2.8 [Festugière 37].

      37. History of the Monks in Egypt 8.56–57 [Festugière 68f.]. Cf. History of the Monks in Egypt 16 (in which the priest Eulogius insists on the purification of thoughts before receiving communion).

      38. Cf. Golitzin (1994) 321.

      39. On the phenomenon see Sterk (2004); Escolan (1999) 267–311.

      40. For this sacramentalization and liturgification of monastic practice in this period (evidenced in a range of texts) see Patrich (1995) 229–53; and for evidence of resistance to the process see, e.g., Escolan (1999) 294–306; Frøyshov (2000).

      41. See esp. Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Euthymius 26–27 [Schwartz 39–45]; with Flusin (1983) 73–76; also Hombergen (2001) 177–206.

      42. For the parallels between Justinian’s legislation and the hagiographies of Cyril of Scythopolis I am much indebted to Daniel Neary’s unpublished Oxford undergraduate thesis, “Cyril of Scythopolis and the Image of Justinianic Orthopraxy” (2010). For the same project, but with reference to the Letters of Barsanuphius and John, see Lesieur (2011).

      43. Justinian, Novels 133.5 [Schoell and Kroll 673f.]

      44.