Yuichi Tsunoda: Composite physis without particularities: Leontius of Byzantium’s understanding of Severus of Antioch’s Miaphysite Christology

This paper elucidates how Leontius of Byzantium (c. 485-c.543) understood the composite physis, which is the fundamental concept in Severus of Antioch (c. 465-538) ’s Miaphysite Christology. First, Severus of Antioch understood the Incarnation as the process of the dynamic economic activity of the divine Logos, which makes the humanity its own. Severus held that Christ is the one composite physis as the incarnate Logos, which possesses the humanity. The composite physis comprises two particularities, namely the divine particularities and the human particularities. The divine particularities contain the divine properties and the human particularities include the human properties. The notion “particularity” indicates the integrity of entity and the intrinsic otherness. In the single physis of the incarnate Logos, the otherness of the divinity and the humanity continues and thus the two particularities remain without any confusion. Second, Leontius of Byzantium interpreted Severus’s Christology from his perspective of the hypostatic union. Severus held that the two properties indicate the two particularities. In contrast, Leontius thought the two properties should indicate their underlying realities, namely the two distinct physeis. He did not recognize the entities of two particularities and so he did not recognize any real distinction of the divinity and the humanity in the one composite physis. Consequently, without considering the two particularities, he understood that there is a confusion of the divinity and the humanity in the composite physis of Severus’s Christology.

Kirill Zinkovskiy - "The term «ἐνυπόστατον» and its theological meaning" Hieromonk Methody (Zinkovsky), Hieromonk Kirill (Zinkovsky) St.Petersburg Orthodox Theological Academy

Modern theologians have expressed, and continue to suggest, different, sometimes contradictory, opinions regarding the historical usage of the term «enhypostatic» by various Church Fathers and more recent theologians. Touching on the history of the research works fulfilled in this field we concentrate on the main problem of the interpretation of the meaning of the term «ἐνυπόστατον» used by Leontius, John Grammaticus and St.John Damascene. The paper analyses in detail St. John’s definition of the term «ἐνυπόστατον», his explanation of the inequality of the notions «hypostasis» and «enhypostatic», correlation of the term «hypostasis» with the notions of «individuated nature» and  «πρόσωπον». It’s shown how the term «ἐνυπόστατον» acquired  its new meaning in the Christological context. A qualitative difference between incarnation of the God the Word as a Person and «incarnation by grace» is discussed. 

The central idea of this article is that the term «enhypostatic» enables the description of both the real subsistence of one or several distinct natures in one hypostasis, and that of one nature in several hypostases. It is suggested that the term «enhypostatic» is fairly universal and can be applied efficiently almost in all areas of theology. Meanwhile the primary meaning of the term (in the sense of really existing, objective as opposed to illusory) retains its great value. It is shown how this primary meaning stops one from manipulating the term arbitrarily.

The key characteristic of human likeness with God as hypostatic-natural unity is presented. It’s argued that this unity of hypostasis and nature is defined most powerfully by the term «ἐνυπόστατον». 

Juan Antonio Jiménez Sánchez - The Monk Hypatius and the Olympic Games of Chalcedon

A passage of the Life of Hypatius, written by Callinicus of Rufinianae about 450, provides interesting information concerning the pagan cults and spectacles in the Bithynian countryside in the first half of the 5^th century. According to Callinicus, Leontius, praefectus Vrbis of Constantinople in 434-435, decided to establish again the Olympic Games at the theatre of Chalcedon. This local festival might be composed by athletic, literary, and musical competitions. The pagan elements in these festivals did not exist in that time, because paganism had been banned by Theodose the Great in the previous century. However, the response of Hypatius, the founder and first abbot of the monastery of Rufinianae (near Chalcedon), was forceful. He affirmed that these games promoted idolatry and, having assembled twenty monks, marched on Chalcedon with the intention of entering into the theatre and killing the praefectus if it was necessary. Frightened, Leontius revoked his decision of offering games and Hypatius appeared as a champion of the faith. This conflict between Leontius and Hypatius represent a good example of the struggle between a victorious Christianity and a dying paganism in the Later Roman Empire.

Thomas Cattoi: An Evagrian hypostasis? Leontios of Byzantium's understanding of subjectivity in Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos

In his treatise Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos, Leontios of Byzantium articulates his own Christological vision, attempting to show how the Chalcedonian paradigm offers an antidote to the evacuation of the incarnation implicit in aphthartodocetism, but also to the Nestorian  tendencies of authors such as Theodore of Mopsuestia.  Leontios challenges the Monophysite understanding of the incarnation as a “natural union” (henōsis physikē), insisting rather that soul and body are ontologically perfect in themselves, and preferring to use the term “essential union” (henōsis ousiōdes) to characterize the unity between divinity and humanity in the person of Christ. While Leontios asserts the physical reality of Christ’s body as well as the presence of a single subject in the person of Christ, this is accomplished by way of retrieving a surreptitiously Evagrian understanding of the relationship between the eternal Logos and Christ’s own humanity. The reason why Leontios was able to reintroduce elements of Origenist anthropology behind the bastions of Chalcedonian Christology was his skilful reliance on the semantic polyvalence of the term hypostasis, which could denote a principle of subjectivity or a composite reality formed of two distinct natures. While the Chalcedonian paradigm relied on the former meaning of the term in line with the Cappadocian Fathers, and viewed the hypostasis of the eternal Word as Christ’s own principle of subjectivity,  Leontios’ vision reserved the term hypostasis for the reality that comes into existence at the moment of the incarnation and that can be defined by specific physical characteristics.

           

The purpose of this paper is to reassess Leontios’ notion of hypostasis in Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos, highlighting the points of contact, as well as the differences, between Leontios’ (crypto-Evagrian?) relational understanding of the concept, and its more “normative” reading -denoting personhood- that underpinned the Chalcedonian definition.