Mathews Severios, Word Became Flesh: The
Christology of Philoxenos of Mabbug
Robert A.
Kitchen
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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James E. Walters
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2021
Volume 24.2
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv24n2prkitchen
Robert A. Kitchen
Mathews Severios, Word Became Flesh: The
Christology of Philoxenos of Mabbug
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol24/HV24N2PRKitchen.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2021
vol 24
issue 2
pp 554-557
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
File created by James E. Walters
Mathews Severios, Word Became Flesh: The
Christology of Philoxenos of Mabbug, Studien zur Orientalischen
Kirchen-geschichte 63 (Zurich: LIT Verlag, 2020). Pp. 304; €54.90.
Time is not always of the essence, especially for
scholarship of Syriac Late Antiquity. Mathews Mar Severios is the Metropolitan of
the Kandanad West Diocese of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in Kerala, India.
Severios submitted his doctoral dissertation in 1984 to the Pontifical Oriental
Institute, Rome, on the christology of Philoxenos of Mabbug, under the guidance of
Ortiz de Urbina, Vincenzo Poggi, René Lavenant, and Pierre Yousif. As happens with
many dissertations, it was not immediately published, but with the encouragement of
Martin Tamcke, editor of the series Studien zur Orientalischen
Kirchengeschichte, and with updates in research on Philoxenos, Severios
finally brought his labor to full light.
Mar Severios’ title, Word Became Flesh,
targets a critical phrase of Philoxenos in his lengthy and intricate christological
debates with a monk Ḥabib. The Ten Discourses against Ḥabib
are well known from the research of André de Halleux and Luise Abramowski, but
little studied. Severios’ most important contribution is his point-by-point
transcription of Ḥabib’s criticisms of Philoxenos’ miaphysite christology, and the
responses to Ḥabib by Philoxenos. The complex subtleties of these accusations and
retorts, with plenty of vitriol seasoning the dialogue, require a reader’s full
concentration. Severios produces an effective and insightful commentary on the
correspondence, conveying a positive picture of the miaphysite theological rationale
during its most vibrant and politically viable era.
Beginning with a thorough investigation of the name(s) of the
bishop of Mabbug, Severios settles on the ascetical “wandering” character of the
term aksenōyō. The episcopal name of Philoxenos, Severios
suggests, was a Greek accommodation for a see in Roman territory. He continues with
a chronology of the life and works of Philoxenos, including a number of details
culled from Eli of Qartamin’s thirteenth-century mīmrō on
Philoxenos.
The majority of Severios’ narrative is devoted to Ḥabib’s
reaction to Philoxenos’ “Letter to the Monks,” the text and French translation of
which were published in Patrologia Orientalis (1982) by M.
Brière and F. Graffin. Ḥabib, otherwise unknown, was apparently a monk whom
Philoxenos knew previously. Ḥabib shows himself to be a dyophysite, but neither
defends nor opposes directly Chalcedon or the so-called Nestorian interpretation.
Philoxenos, in turn, saw Ḥabib’s arguments as conniving and deceitful, and, in fact,
veiled Nestorianism. Philoxenos bluntly painted all dyophysites, including the
signers of the Chalcedonian definition, as Nestorians.
Severios helpfully summarizes and evaluates the principal
questions and objections of Ḥabib, discerned from Philoxenos’ letters. The bishop
does not systematically list these questions, so Severios organizes Ḥabib’s
doctrinal challenges according to topic. The author does acknowledge instances in
which Ḥabib was not incorrect in his criticism of the elder theologian.
Severios proceeds to an even lengthier treatment of Philoxenos’
replies to Ḥabib, similarly arranging the topics systematically, assiduously
footnoting the origins of the terms and concepts Philoxenos is employing. These
summaries provide a significant research tool that should become an essential
departure point for anyone examining this debate and the basics of miaphysite
Christology.
Ḥabib accuses Philoxenos of advocating notions of Bardaisan,
Mani, Marcion, and Eutyches, but the bishop retorts that all these promoted a
docetic christology, whereas he holds that Christ was fully human and his body was
real and true. As Ḥabib bitterly charges Philoxenos with erring on numerous aspects
of Christ, the two pivotal battlegrounds are, first, Philoxenos’ phrase “the
becoming of Christ without change,” which Ḥabib rejects as violating the divine
nature of Christ (how can the divinity change?), and, second, the suffering, death,
and resurrection of Christ—the theopaschite issue—which Ḥabib declares is
illogical.
A primary deficiency of Ḥabib’s arguments to which Severios
points, following Philoxenos’ hints, is that he was not familiar with the Church
Fathers. Ḥabib did not recognize, or was not aware, that several councils and
leading theologians had approved on multiple occasions the theological statements
asserted by Philoxenos, which Ḥabib attacked as heretical. This is particularly
shown in “becoming without change,” as Philoxenos demonstrates the phenomenon of how
things can “become” something they were previously not—writing letters, the mystery
of baptism, things appearing to the eye, and the creation of human beings—without
changing or losing what they were. Philoxenos observes that the Word “was incarnated
and became human” was declared in Nicaea, and later confirmed in Constantinople, of
which Ḥabib was apparently unaware.
As for God dying on the Cross, which Ḥabib rejects as logically
and linguistically impossible, Philoxenos counters that Ḥabib is thinking at too low
a level, since Christ transcends the kyānā or nature of a
human being. The death of Christ is a matter to be perceived and comprehended by the
“faculty” of faith, which the bishop perceives as a sixth sense, rather than by pure
logic. If Christ were an ordinary human being, Philoxenos insists, the crucifixion
would not have had salvific power for humanity as a whole.
Severios readily adopts the Philoxenian side, for after all,
these Ten Letters were unapologetically intended to
demonstrate the miaphysite advantage in thinking and in faith. Yet the subtlety of
thought exchanged, in which both protagonists misunderstood each other to some
degree, is evidence of how close their ideas were to one another, and at times it is
difficult to distinguish how they were different. By his additions to this monograph
thirty-six years after submitting the dissertation, Severios seems to perceive in
their struggle a mirror of the frustrations of contemporary doctrinal debate,
although he does not explicitly say so.
Severios adds an intriguing set of appendices to this deeply
theological dissertation, namely, a collection of statements from four major
consultations: between Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox (twice); Roman
Catholic and Syrian Orthodox; and the Roman Catholic Church and the Malankara
Orthodox Syrian Church of India. These statements are carefully worded declarations
that say a lot more from their context than by their words. The very fact that these
statements are being written at all is the good news, and while the participants are
ecstatic, their words are carefully measured in full recognition of what unites and
divides their churches. They rejoice, nevertheless, in their continued conversation
with hope for an agreement, perhaps a union of the Body of Christ, still just out of
reach.
Metropolitan Severios’ Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is part
of these conversations, not by coincidence, so that while Philoxenos and Ḥabib are
not as amicable correspondents as these ecumenical consultations, the author appears
to be connecting these 1500-year-old theological debates with the still difficult
reconciliations in progress today.