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An Effort at Systematization: St. John of Damascus

Origen, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Maximus, by exceeding the limits of mere polemics against heretics, had already produced "systems" of theological thought. St. John of I Damascus' system is of a very different type. There is no new creation in it; it is essentially a school manual, and was i used as such throughout the Byzantine Middle Ages. The [ 1 Fount of Wisdom, the Damascene's main work, comprising a Dialectic, a catalogue of heresies, and an Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, constitutes above all a handy summary of patristic theology. But once it is studied in the light of several minor works, sermons, short dogmatic treatises, and hymns, it represents more than a simple repetition of other people's ideas. By putting side by side the Cappa-docians' trinitarian terminology, the Chalcedonian Christol-ogy, the clarifications brought to it in the sixth century, and the ideas and terminology of Dionysius and Maximus, John of Damascus discovers their inner coherence, and with the help of supplementary sources—such as the writings of pseudo-Cyril on the Trinity—arrives at his final synthesis.

The now-classical definitions of the terms used in trini-larian theology and in Christology constitute the most interesting element of the Damascene's Dialectic. Nevertheless, it is in their very application to the theological reasonings of the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith that their Christian sense appears most clearly. For instance, he defines "nature" (q>6aiq) as "a species which cannot be divided into other species," the "most special species" (eibiKCOTCCTOV Ei&oq).¹ The word "nature" therefore reflects above all the difference, and one will remember that Athanasius previously had made use of it in precisely this sense: created humanity and uncreated divinity are two different natures. Although it cannot be divided into species, a nature can nevertheless be composite; man, for instance, is formed of a body and \\ soul, and the human body itself is composed of differeni elements. This combination constitutes the nature common to all men, to all bodies, etc. . . .* However, for the union ol distinct elements to be considered as a nature, their union must be permanent. In other words, the elements must real I \ be parts of the single nature, and their union must k "natural" and not accidental or limited in time. Therefore, one cannot say that Christ has one nature, since, on the one hand, the divinity existed as a perfect nature before the union and it is therefore not "a part" of Christ's nature,³ and, on the other hand, the composite divinity-humanity is an abso lutely unique and not a generic case: there is no "Christ n nature."⁴

Yet John of Damascus was well aware that the Father, and in particular Cyril of Alexandria, spoke of "one incarriai< nature" of the Word. He recognizes, therefore, that the word "nature" can mean also the concrete reality of an individual existence (ev cxto-jlco •&£Opou^£VT|), and thai in this sense it does not coincide with the concept of com mon nature distinguished "by contemplation" (ipiXf] #£<•>-plcx) in beings of the same species.⁵ John of Damascus admits, therefore, the full validity of Cyrillian theology with¹his insistence on the fact that the single nature is "incarnate "We also confess," he writes, "the single incarnate nai.-of the God-Word, because we say: incarnate, and procki in this way the essence of the flesh."⁶

Cyril's faith, he asserts, is common to the Chalcedon and the Monophysites:⁷ it expresses the reality of the inca tion of the Word who assumed not an abstract hu nature, common to all, but that of a concrete indivii hypostatized in the Son; in this sense the Christology of Cyril keeps its full validity for John of Damascus.

Fully conscious of the Cyrillian interpretation of Chalcedon, as defined in 553, John nevertheless devotes a large part of his theological work to attacking the Severian Mono-physites. While taking into account that they are orthodox in all things except their opposition to Chalcedon,⁸ he does not recognize any difference between the Monophysitism of Eutyches and the Christology of Dioscorus and Severus. The fact that the latter rejected Chalcedon apparently constitutes for him sufficient proof of their belonging to Eutychianism.⁹

John's doctrine of the incarnation is based on the Chal-cedonian definition, but the latter is framed in a system of terms and concepts that summarizes the results of the theological developments of the sixth and seventh centuries. First of all, he defines the notion of hypostasis as an existence "by itself" (to kcc-&' ecxuto loioaTctTCoc; 6<j>icn:6c[j.£vov) .^l° This is Leontius of Byzantium's definition, and from the same Leontius, John borrows the now-classical conception of I he enhypostaton, a reality that does not exist by itself but "appears in the hypostases: as for example, the aspect or the nature of men does not appear in a hypostasis of its own, kit in Peter or Paul." When enhypostata of different natures .ire "enhypostatized" into a single hypostasis, the latter becomes a composite hypostasis (uTtocrramq auvOsToq), the most common example being the human hypostasis, composed of a body and a soul.¹¹

Nevertheless, John very clearly rejects the Evagrian aspects of Leontius. The difference appears particularly in the use lie makes of the anthropological example of soul-body. In Leontius, as we saw, man was made of two perfect entities, which theoretically could pre-exist as two separate hypostases, and which really became two hypostases after death in order lo be united again at the resurrection.¹² Against this Origenist anthropology, and the Christology it represented, John clearly asserts that if, "at death, the soul is separated from the k>dy, the hypostasis of both remains the same."¹³ Similarly, Christ did not become "two hypostases" at the moment when ^his soul separated from his body, but "was hypostatically Ignited by the Word."¹⁴ For Christ, the hypostasis is not simply a "state" and a "relationship," as Leontius thought,! but a much more fundamental reality; and the image soul-body, which John still refers to occasionally in his Chris-1 tology, only appears to him as an analogy with a verjfl limited significance." What also separates John from Leon«f tius is that, following Cyril of Alexandria and the council of 553, he considers the hypostasis of Christ as the pre-existcut hypostasis of the Logos. Chalcedonian orthodox Christolo^yl does not conceive the hypostasis of Christ as having come into existence as a consequence of the union of twol enhypostata, the divine and the human, but as the assumption! by the Logos of the human nature in addition to the divine nature that he had possessed from all eternity. Orthodox! dyophysitism does not believe in a symmetrical putting i<> gether of two natures but in their union into a single hype. tasis that is divine from all eternity. The duality of the t v, < natures, or enhypostata, is expressed never in terms of sepau tion—for the incarnate Word is a unique being—but only! in terms of intelligible distinction (k.oct' £mvoiocv) ,¹⁶

In order to realize the exact significance of this "asyi metrical" Christology, one must consider first of all iisl soteriological bearing. "The Word has the initiative in tlicj work of the incarnation, and it is evident that the theory i enhypostasis, while asserting and underlying Christ's hum.r ity, shows in an unequivocal way the primordial greatness <>l the divinity."¹⁷

Only God can be the Savior; he himself is the Aut':»i
of salvation: flesh can but accept and cooperate with
divine action. "The Word himself became the hypostasis
the flesh," writes John of Damascus, "so that it wa, i
the same time flesh, flesh of the Word of God and animated,
rational, and intelligent flesh. This is why we do not speak
of a divinized man, but of a God who became man.""
"Remaining himself in the elevated state of his own divinity,
he also accepts what is inferior, divinely creating in himself
the human, and he mingles the Archetype with the image.""
Man, created in the image of the divine Archetype, is thus
restored to his original dignity by the fact that God himself
becomes man.

Excluding all pre-existence of Christ's humanity before the incarnation ("the Word himself became hypostasis for the flesh"; the latter could not have existed before, since it had no hypostasis), John of Damascus conceived the "composition" of the incarnate Word's hypostasis in a sense that i ccalls the thought of Leontius of Jerusalem. The Logos' liypostasis, "which beforehand was simple, entered into composition: it did not become a composite nature, but the composite hypostasis made up of the divinity which pre-existed in it, and of the flesh which it assumed and which is animated l>y a reasonable and intellectual soul."²⁰ This assumption of humanity by the Archetype, in whose image it had been created, constitutes the hypostatic union; it does not amount to the junction of two parallel entities, since there can be no parallelism when the Creator meets his creature, but simply a relationship of dependency. As there never was a human nature of Jesus outside of, independent of, the Logos' hypostasis, Mary gave birth to that very hypostasis in its composite state: "The holy Theotokos engendered a hypostasis manifested in two natures."²¹ Hence the importance of the term Theotokos: "This term summarizes all the mystery of the economy [of salvation], for if the mother is Theotokos, it is because her Son is surely God and surely man."²² For the [Word's hypostasis

does not exist as the hypostasis now of one nature, now of the other, but always without division or separation, as the hypostasis of both. Without being sundered or divided,... it belongs wholly to them both without division and totally. For the flesh of the Word of God did not have its own existence and did not become another hypostasis side by side with the hypostasis of the Word of God, but subsisting in that hypostasis it became enhypostatized and not an hypostasis having in itself its own existence. This is why it is not without an hypostasis, yet does not bring another hypostasis into the Trinity."

The act of the incarnation thus has the Logos as its only Subject: hence, a dissymmetric Christology conceived as a soteriological necessity. This dissymmetry, however, does not interefere with the fullness of Christ's humanity since there was in Christ a hypostatic union, not a fusion of natures. It is in the definition of the hypostatic union that the Greek Fathers, of whom the Damascene is an expression, illustrate what is characteristic to the conception of hypos-tasis, defined by its "particularities" (loico^ocTOc), different from those of nature.

It was seen earlier²⁴ how Leontius of Jerusalem, in attempting to define the composite hypostasis of Christ, described it as having acquired by the incarnation new characteristics (Ibico^cxTCx). His argument took as a starting point Basil's definition of the hypostasis as "a nature limited by particular characteristics"; in the case of Christ, the nature of the Logos would simply have become "more composite" than before the incarnation. Leontius' reasoning was insufficient in that it defined Christ's humanity as "an individual nature" and as a coherence of particular characteristics, without admitting that it was a hypostasis. John of Damascus' clearer conception of hypostasis, which rules out its reduc tion to the notion of individual nature, overcomes this difficulty.

John writes:

The Word's hypostasis, previously simple, becomes composite, but preserves the particular andl distinctive character of the divine filiation of thef God-Word, by which it is distinguished from the Father and the Spirit; it also carries, according to the flesh, particular and distinctive characteristics distinguishing it from its mother and all other human beings; moreover, it possesses the char-j acteristics of the divine nature, by which it is united} with the Father and the Spirit, as well as the char J acteristics of human nature, by which it is united tal its mother and to us.²⁵

This passage shows that, according to John, the enhypos-tatization of human nature into the Logos can give that human nature a properly human or "carnal" principle of individuation; in other words, Jesus, even though he does not possess a human hypostasis, is individualixed—in relationship to his mother and to us—as man, and not just as God, and that human individuation is based on his hypostatic existence, which is divine.

The God-Word has not assumed nature as pure theory (this would not be the incarnation, but deceit, and the appearance of an incarnation), neither has he assumed that which is contemplated in the species (ev tco ei&ei), for he has not assumed all the hypostases, but an individual nature (tr]V £v cxto^ico), which is the same as that of the species {but which} only came into existence through the [Logos'] hypostasis (sv ttj ocutou UTTocrtocaei uirocp^aaav) .²⁶

As the source of existence, and not the product of natural existence, the hypostasis thus represents the key notion of orthodox Chalcedonian soteriology: the incarnate hypostasis of the Word, by becoming for Jesus' human nature the source of a properly human existence, becomes precisely because of this the fount of salvation. In the light of this conception of hypostasis, the crucial Cyrillian formula acquires its exact value: "The Word suffered in the flesh." "Being God." writes John of Damascus, "[the Word] assumed passible flesh; being God, he became man in order that he might suffer.""

God, being impassible by nature, suffers hypostatically "in the flesh": it is evident, therefore, that the hypostasis remains in some way independent of the characteristics of its own nature; it can be liberated from it by assuming the characteristics of the flesh. However, the characteristics of the divine and the human natures make possible the fact and the consequences of the hypostatic union.

You may ask why do we say that the nature of the flesh was deified and suffered, while we do not attribute [deification and suffering] to all the hypostases of mankind? Why, then, do we say that the nature of the Word became incarnate, without attributing incarnation to the Father and the Spirit ?²⁸Because human nature in its totality can be modified by what is natural to it, as well as by what is foreign to it or is beyond it (oektikt] ecm tcov kcctcx (puoiv Kcct Tccxpa (f>6aiv kou uirsp <j>6cnv), while the divine nature can receive neither modification nor addition. On the other hand, the [Word's] flesh constitutes the first fruits of our nature; it is not an individual hypostasis [of the human nature], UTCoaTCxcnq i5ioa6aTOCTO(;, but an enhypostatized nature, a part of Christ's composite hypostasis; it was united to the God-Word not for its own sake, but for the common salvation of our nature.²⁹

The Logos' divine hypostasis in this way assumed a definite human nature, especially by the following distinctive marks. First, in contrast with divine nature, whose essential characteristic is to be unchangeable (ccTpSTtToq) and impassible (cJCTtadi^q), it was created like the whole human nature, for the purpose of being deified; its natural character is dynamic and its destiny is to participate super-naturally in divine life; we have already seen that for the-Greek Fathers, the concepts of nature, grace, and the super natural are not opposed to one another but are complemcn tary.

Second, having no human hypostasis of its own, ami being individualized (enhypostatized) by the Logos' hypos tasis—the Archetype of all men—it constitutes or represents in a sense, the whole of mankind (without losing, as we saw it, the individual human character of Jesus, son nl Mary). Jesus is not only an individual within the human race, he is also the new Adam, "first fruits of our nature,' the Christ and the Servant foretold by the prophets of the Old Testament, who summarizes in himself the destinies of the whole of Israel, Israel becoming his Body, the Church. Each one of us can in this way see in Jesus not only a fellow human being but also the Model in whose image we were created, the Father of those who practice righteousness (1 Jn 2:29), with whom we are joined by an infinitely more intimate link than with any other human being who is humanly hypostatized. In Christ is the very root of our existence. The biblical notion of the new creation is in this way characterized by the fact that the divine model is not exterior to the new creation that is enhypostatized in him.

These christological categories determine, in St. John of Damascus, the doctrines of salvation and of redemption.

In the beginning, man was created with a dynamic nature, destined to progress to divine communion: Adam was "in a state of deification, by participation in the divine enlightenment" (•&eo6[j.£vov [aeToxrj Trjq Geicxq 4XXdcp.ipecoq) .^soJohn thus ignores, as does the whole of the Greek patristic tradition, the notion of a static "pure nature." Hence, participation in God was what gave Adam immortality, for he was not immortal by nature, but by grace.³¹ This dependence of man on God, however, is not considered as a reduction of man's dignity as such; on the contrary, man, precisely because he participates at the same time in God and in the realm of creation, is conceived as superior to the angels themselves,³² and as king of the created universe: "Man is a microcosm; for he possesses a soul and a body, and is placed between spirit and matter; he is the place in which the visible and invisible creations, the tangible and intelligible creations, are linked together."³³ And man also received a mission. In John's words:

God gave us the power to do what is good; but he also made us free (auTe^ouaiouq), in order that the good might come both from him and from us; for whoever chooses the good, receives God's collaboration to do the good, so that, having preserved what is natural to us, we might receive what is supernatural—incorruptibility and deification—by union with God, by becoming members of his household by the power of our will. . . .For if our will does not submit to the divine will, but if our free intellect uses its passionate element to follow its own choice on its own initiative, it does evil.³⁴

Original human nature, which participated in divine life and glory, is thus "without sin by nature" and "free in its will,"³⁵ or again, by the very fact of being created, it is "susceptible to change" (TpETrrri),³⁶ God alone being by nature unchangeable (ocTpSTrroq). The change, however, only intervenes by the free choice of the person. Freedom, of which the hypostasis is the acting agent, and not nature, can become the seat of sin. "Sin is not in nature but rather in the free choice," says John of Damascus.³⁷

To designate this freedom of choice, he currently used a terminology introduced by Maximus: gnome or thelema gnomikon. He defines this gnomic will as a function of the created hypostasis and therefore "susceptible to change,"³¹in opposition to the natural will that is accomplished only in conformity with the divine plan and will. By nature, as a creature, man not only is "good," but he possesses the dynamic faculty of communicating with God and of progressing toward the divine image: this is his natural will. But there is also in him a faculty of discernment, a free will that chooses, and therefore hesitates, and eventually can revolt against God. This is the gnomic will, a function of the created hypostasis.

Thus, in Adam, "the gnome desired what was contrary to the divine will: this was the transgression."³⁹ And as the hypostasis is the determining source of the natural dynamism, the gnomic choice of Adam's hypostasis immediately inter-fered with the dynamic faculties of nature itself. Turned from its destiny, which was to draw from the inexhaustible divine fount of life, reduced to an autonomous existence when it had been created to communicate with God, hum;m nature fell under the control of death. It has been seen tli;ii the Greek Fathers conceived original sin as first of all hereditary mortality that maintained mankind under the devil's control. This cosmic and almost personalized conception of death, which is already found in St. Paul— "...death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those who had not sinned by a transgression similar to that of Adam. ..." (Rom 5:14)—is taken up again by St. John of Damascus. The consequence of Adam's sin was that the soul, made to control the body, because it was the reasonable and free element linking man with God,⁴⁰ submitted to the body, the seat of animals passions and of corruptibility.⁴¹ And Adam was overcome by mortality (veKpcoau; or 9vr|To-TT]q),⁴² of which physical death is but one manifestation, and which is essentially a spiritual state of separation from God and of submission to the devil. Man can no longer liberate himself by his own strength. He is in submission to the cosmic powers that the prince of this world temporarily controls; and he is deprived of that authentic freedom that resided in fulfilling the natural will in conformity with God's plan for creation.

This catastrophe suffered by Adam was not only his personal catastrophe but that of the whole of mankind. The means chosen by God to maintain man within creation was to give man himself a way of reproducing himself. The separation of the sexes and the creation of woman is envisaged by John as an act of God's mercy. Knowing before-hand that man would fail in his original task, God gave him a "help" (Gen 2:18): "Knowing in his foreknowledge that man would fall into transgression and would submit to corruption, God created woman that she might be a help by his side, similar to him, a help who might after the transgression maintain, through generation, the perpetuation of the human race...."⁴³

This rather restricted view of the origin of the sexes should not be understood in an Augustinian sense. John does not consider that the mode of reproduction as such implies sin and that consequently woman can only be an instrument of corruption. On the contrary, the perpetuation of mankind, made possible by the separation of the sexes, is a providential grace allowing human nature partially to overcome the consequence of its ancestors' sin, to overcome

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