Doctrine and Debate in the East Christian World, 300–1500

Averil Cameron, Robert Hoyland, Averil Cameron, Robert Hoyland

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781409400349
• eBook ISBN: 9781351943215
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Historia del mundo

The reign of Constantine (306-37), the starting point for the series in which this volume appears, saw Christianity begin its journey from being just one of a number of competing cults to being the official religion of the Roman/Byzantine Empire. The involvement of emperors had the, perhaps inevitable, result of a preoccupation with producing, promoting and enforcing a single agreed version of the Christian creed. Under this pressure Christianity in the East fragmented into different sects, disagreeing over the nature of Christ, but also, in some measure, seeking to resist imperial interference and to elaborate Christianities more reflective of and sensitive to local concerns and cultures. This volume presents an introduction to, and a selection of the key studies on, the ways in which and means by which these Eastern Christianities debated with one another and with their competitors: pagans, Jews, Muslims and Latin Christians. It also includes the iconoclast controversy, which divided parts of the East Christian world in the seventh to ninth centuries, and devotes space both to the methodological tools that evolved in the process of debate and the promulgation of doctrine, and to the literary genres through which the debates were expressed.

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The Making of a Heretic: The Life of Origen in Epiphanius Panarion 64

J. Rebecca Lyman

The passionate anti-Origenism of the bishop of Cyprus is well known as is the tangle of ascetic networks, episcopal politics, and doctrinal passions of the late fourth century which created the ‘Origenist controversy’. Epiphanius’ motivations in urging the condemnation of a long dead teacher have been found in his Egyptian ascetic experiences, and his dedicated, if simple minded, devotion to Nicene credal orthodoxy¹. In her recent book on Epiphanius’ heresiology, A. Pourkier has offered some insights into his originality, including an emphasis on individual heresiarchs and their character². The purpose of this brief paper is to suggest that his polemical description of Origen’s life in Panarion 64 reflects new definitions of heresy emerging in the increasingly ascetic and imperial church of the fourth century.

Even before the Origenist controversy, Epiphanius’ entire life was lived in the context of theological dispute and ascetic institutions from his nurturing in the Nicene faith by his parents to encounters with Gnostics as a young monk in Egypt to problems with sectarian ascetics in his monastery in Palestine to his dialogues with Apollinarians in Cyprus and negotiations with episcopal factions in Antioch. The diversity and range of theological opinion was therefore not theoretical to Epiphanius; his interest in heresiology reflected his experience as ascetic and bishop within the divided fourth century church³. As has been thoroughly outlined by Dechow and Clark, Epiphanius’ theological interests were deeply shaped by his asceticism and conflicts within the networks of ascetic teachers and communities; Origen was increasingly controversial not only for his subordinationism, but because his speculations on the origin of the soul and body were seen by some as harmful to the ascetic enterprise⁴. The work of Epiphanius therefore represents an ascetic response to conflicts concerning not only doctrinal orthodoxy, but also ascetic practice⁵.

As argued recently by F. Williams and A. Pourkier, even Epiphanius’ literary style reflected his ascetic training and the ascetic audience of the Ancoratus and Panarion. He was not as well educated, eloquent or theologically sophisticated as many other Christian authors of the fourth century. He wrote or perhaps dictated a simple ‘ecclesiastical koine’ to be accessible to his ascetic audience, accented by diatribe and storytelling⁶. Although he used the earlier tools of Christian heresiology which included the distinct genealogies and demonic inspiration of heretics, and their theological and scriptural incoherence, Epiphanius according to Pourkier accented the heresiarch; the age of hagiography was also the age of heresiology⁷. Epiphanius’ vivid polemical imagery of snakes, medicines, demons, and failed heresiarchs illustrates the continuing importance of the figural in Christian teaching⁸. The negative charge of the spiritual power of the holy man was presented in the heresiarch.

If asceticism thus provides the general context of Epiphanius’ heresiology, the particular theological context is the Apollinarian debates of the 370’s which frame his account of Origen’s life. As outlined by Dechow, Epiphanius was writing his chapters on Origen in the second part of 376 at the same time that he was engaged in negotiations concerning the orthodox episcopal succession in Antioch and attempting to resolve a dispute with the Apollinarians. The doctrinal problems around Apollinarius, a fellow defender of Nicene orthodoxy and friend of Athanasius, had troubled Epiphanius for a number of years. In 370 he had challenged students of Apollinarius in Cyprus to debate their Christology; he had not condemned Apollinarius, but rather his pupils who had garbled his teaching⁹. This dispute was especially painful to Epiphanius because of the early brilliance of Apollinarius’ teaching in defence of Nicaea¹⁰. In the Ancoratus Origen and Apollinarius’ disciples are associated, but twenty-four years later he will condemn Origen and Apollinarius together as the most significant of all heretics.

Dechow has argued that the continuing polemical association of Apollinarius and Origen in Epiphanius’ writings was due to his concerns about their Christology and anthropology, and to the opposition of simple believers to speculative theology¹¹. However, given Epiphanius’ interest in biography, I think that there is another link between them which is persistently troubling to Epiphanius: they are both great teachers of the church who go wrong. In the public doctrinal debates of the fourth century church, doctrinal division was revealed as an embarrassing and persistent problem of the Christian community¹². As outlined by A. Le Boulluec, one of the strategies of the heresiological rhetoric of the second century was to mask the connection of dissenting groups to the mainstream church; they were described as alien interlopers whose theological falsity could be proved by their separate genealogy, even if paradoxically the passion of the refutation betrayed their close relation to the community¹³. Such an inherited strategy was less useful to Epiphanius for famous and venerated teachers such as Origen or Apollinarius who clearly began within the orthodox tradition. As Basil wrote to Epiphanius concerning the Apollinarian schism, ‘Not only is heresy divided against orthodoxy, but even right doctrine against itself’¹⁴ In the context of the continuing debates of the fourth century, Origen could symbolize not merely learning or speculation in contrast to desert simplicity or credal orthodoxy. Like Marcellus or Apollinarius, Origen was another great orthodox teacher who had gone bad. He is the symbol of unstable orthodoxy.

Therefore, in 376 Epiphanius crafted a new picture of a heretic in his account of Origen’s life. Most scholars have dismissed his account of Origen’s apostasy in Alexandria as a ‘vulgar episode’ or ‘confused gossip’¹⁵. My interest here is less in whether the story is true but rather how and why the story is told. In surprising contrast to earlier heresiarchs in his work, Epiphanius initially treats Origen rather kindly: in the first eight sections of Panarion 64, Origen is not a snake, a seducer, a weed, a poison, possessed by a demon, proud or even contentious in the usual vocabulary of his heresiology¹⁶. Unlike other wrong teachers such as Bardesanes or Tatian, he does not attribute Origen’ s error to alien influences or genealogies of Qther heretics¹⁷. In fact he separates the historical Origen from the odd groups of so-called Origenists in the desert in Panarion 63.

How then is Origen unmasked? In the opening sections of Panarion 64 Epiphanius tells us that Origen was the well-educated son of a holy martyr, brought up in the church, well known for his extensive learning, and wholly dedicated to God. He then includes one of the ‘many brave deeds which ancient traditions relate of him’: Origen is shaved, seated by the steps of the Serapeum and ordered to give out palm branches for worship. However, Origen ‘raised his voice boldly, without fear or hesitation he cried, “Come and take not the idol’s branch, but Christ’s branch!”’. But, Epiphanius tells us, ‘he did not retain to the end the reward of his virtue. For because of the excellence of his eloquence and education, he became the object of great envy’¹⁸.

In the next scene (64.2.2–9) Origen was therefore singled out for persecution. He is ordered to either be abused by an Ethiopian or to offer sacrifice. Origen stands silently, in imitation of Christ. Finally, ‘… breaking into speech, he chose to sacrifice’; but ‘… not even this did he do willingly as many accounts state … but they put the incense into his hands and placed it upon the fire on the altar’. In spite of the involuntary nature of the act, the confessors and martyrs expel him from the church, and he withdrew to Palestine. When he arrives silently in the assembly in Jerusalem, the priests urge him to speak, because ‘he was such an exegete and educated man’. They urge and compel him, but he stands only to repeat Psalm 49.16: ‘To the sinner God says, “Why do you relate my precepts and take up my covenant in your mouth?”’ and sat down in tears, everyone weeping with him.

These themes of compulsion, silence, and learning continue in the next section (64.3.1–4) where he is urged to meet Ambrose, ‘one of the leading men in the imperial palace’. The former heretic is converte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• General Editors’ Preface
• Introduction
• Supplementary Bibliography
• Part One – The Formative Period
• Part Two – The Encounter with Islam
• Part Three – Iconoclasm
• Part Four – Anti-Latin Texts
• Part Five – The Tools of Argument
• Index