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Repentance as the Context of Sainthood in the Ascetical Theology of Mark the Monk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Alexis Torrance
Alexis Torrance*
Affiliation:
Christ Church, University of Oxford
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Extract

It seems fitting to begin with a tribute to the late Henry Chadwick, whose thorough, even-handed, and ever readable work contributed much to our understanding of the theme of sanctity in the early Church. In particular, his address at a conference on ‘The Byzantine Saint’ held in Birmingham in 1980 exemplified his capacity to identify and constructively pursue the broad issues at stake. In speaking of the early saints and the content of their lives, Chadwick explains, ‘we are tempted either to tell the stories of their mortifications and then, as was said of Lytton Strachey, ostentatiously refrain from laughing, or we go in search of trendy non-religious explanations of the social needs that created them’. He goes on to acknowledge, as most would, the importance of sociological interpretations and their potential for the study of sanctity, but warns that ‘a stripping away of their religious motivation will leave the historian with a distorted picture’. It is along this route of keeping the religious or theological motivations and presuppositions of sanctity in mind, that the present essay will proceed. It focuses on the neglected concept of μετάνoια or ‘repentance’ (lit. a ‘change of mind’) which dominates much of the ascetic theology of the early Christian East, particularly as expounded by the influential fifth-century theologian Mark the Monk (or ‘the Hermit’ / ‘the Ascetic’).

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 47: Saints and Sanctity , 2011 , pp. 80 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2011

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References

1 Chadwick, H., ‘Pachomios and the Idea of Sanctity’, in Hackel, S., ed., The Byzantine Saint (London, 1981), 11–24 Google Scholar, at 12.

2 Ibid.

3 Studies of Mark include: Ware, K. T., ‘The Ascetic Writings of Mark the Hermit’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar; Chadwick, H., ‘The Identity and Date of Mark the Monk’, Eastern Churches Review 4 (1982), 125–30 Google Scholar; Hesse, O., ‘Was Mark the Monk a Sixth-Century Higumen near Tarsus?’, Eastern Churches Review 8 (1976), 174–8 Google Scholar; Grillmeier, A., ‘Marco eremita e l’origenismo. Saggio di reinterpretazione di Op. XI’, Cristianesimo nella storia 1 (1980), 9–58 Google Scholar; Plested, M., The Macarian Legacy: The Place of Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Oxford, 2004), 75–132 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carlton, C., ‘Kyriakos Anthropos in Mark the Monk’. JECS 15 (2007), 381–405 Google Scholar; and the introduction to the SC edition of Mark’s works by G.-M. de Durand (Traités I, SC 445, 13—35).

4 On which see K. T. Ware, Introduction to Marc le Moine: Traités spirituels et théologiques, trans. C.-A. Zirnheld (Begrolles-en-Mauge, 1985), ix-li, at ix.

5 For more on the ‘afterlife’ of Mark, see Ware, ‘Ascetic Writings’, 457–69.

6 See Wortley, J., ‘The Genre and Sources of the Synagoge’, in Mullett, M. and Kirby, A., eds, The Theotokos Evergetis and Eleventh-Century Monasticism (Belfast, 1994), 306–24, at 320.Google Scholar

7 De Paenhentia [hereafter Paen.] 1.1-7 (SC 445, 214).

8 See Ware, K. T., ‘The Orthodox Experience of Repentance’, Sobornost 2.1 (1980), 18–28 Google Scholar; Chryssavgis, J., Repentance and Confession (Boston, MA, 1990)Google Scholar; Rapp, C., ‘For Next to God You are my Salvation: Reflections on the Rise of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’, in Howard-Johnston, J. and Hayward, P. A., eds, The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford, 1999), 63–81 Google Scholar; Horn, C. B., ‘Penitence in Early Christianity in its Historical and Theological Setting: Trajectories from Eastern and Western Sources’, in Boda, M. and Smith, G.T., eds, Repentance in Christian Theology (Collegeville, MN, 2006), 153–87 Google Scholar; Trevett, C., ‘“I have heard from some Teachers”: The Second-Century Struggle for Forgiveness and Reconciliation’, in Cooper, K. and Gregory, J., eds, Retribution, Repentance and Reconciliation, SCH 40 (Woodbridge, 2004), 5–28 Google Scholar; Price, R., ‘Informal Penance in Early Medieval Christendom’, in ibid. 29–38.Google Scholar

9 Paen 1.4 (SC 445, 214).

10 Baptism in Mark is discussed by Ware, K. T., ‘The Sacrament of Baptism and the Ascetic Life in the Teaching of Mark the Monk’, Studia Patristica 10 (1970), 441–52.Google Scholar

11 Paen. 7.25-6 (SC 445, 238).

12 Paen 7–8 (SC 445, 234–44). The crucial verses are Heb. 6: 6, ‘If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance [unlike most modern translators, Mark took ενζ μετάνoια to mean ‘unto / into repentance’, not ‘through repentance’], seeing as they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame’; Heb. 10: 26, ‘For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins’ (citations from the Authorized Version, slightly modified).

13 This interpretation is shared with Ambrose of Milan and John Chrysostom: Ambrose, De Paenitentia 2.2 (PL 16, 497C); John Chrysostom, In epistulam ad Hebraeos 9.5 (PG 63, 78). All three, incidentally, are explicitly reacting to the Novatianist interpretation of these verses (this is the only point at which Mark explicitly names a heretical group).

14 Paen. 6.25-7 (SC 445, 232). This sentence, along with others in the same vein, is cited by the late seventh-century Syrian ascetic Dadisho Qatraya: Commentary on Abba Isaiah (CSCO 326–27), Discourse 14.6; cf. 15.43; 3.9.

15 Paen. 12.3-5, 15–17 (SC 445, 252).

16 ‘Christ became the guarantor of repentance for us: the one who abandons it rejects the guarantor’: Paen. 12.19-20 (SC 445, 252).

17 Paen. 12.6-9 (SC 445, 252). It is suggested (Ware, ‘Ascetic Writings’, 199–200, 348) that this and two other passages (Paen. 10.15-38 (SC 445, 246–8); On the Spiritual Law [hereafter Leg.] 155 (SC 445, 114)) may imply a person repenting for original as well as actual sin. The point, however, in the passages from Paen. is not that there is a need to repent for original sin, but that original sin necessitates that all, even a perfect person, find salvation in Christ, who commands us to repent (and so repentance is unavoidable). The most natural reading of Leg. 155 is that a person should consider himself responsible for the vain chatter of others because of ‘an old debt’ in his own life, not ‘the ancient debt’ of Adam.

18 Paen. 11. 10–13 (SC 445, 248–50).

19 Paen. 10.1-14 (SC 445, 246): μετα=oνα κεχρεωστκεν εως θανατν. Elsewhere he makes a comparable and striking point regarding the inability of present virtue to make up for past laxity: ‘the greatest degree of virtue which we have accomplished today is a reproach for our past negligence, not a compensation for it’: On that there is no Justification by Works [hereafter Justif] 43 (SC 445, 142). Neither of these points mean that Mark considers forgiveness unattainable, only that, according to him, no matter how much we do (and we should always do as much as we can), we are not worthy of forgiveness.

20 Mark twice alludes to Heb. 4: 15, speaking of Christ’s humanity as full, only ‘without sin’: On the Incarnation [hereafter Incarn.] 49.22-3 (SC 455, 310); To Nicholas [hereafter Nic] 9.6-7 (SC 455, 136).

21 Conversation with a Lawyer [hereafter Causid.] 15.12-23 (SC 455, 70), citing John 1: 29; Gal. 3: 3; 2 Cor. 5: 14.

22 Paen. 11.15-17 (SC 445, 250).

23 Causid. 18.36-8 (SC 455, 80).

24 Causid. 19 (SC 455, 80–4).

25 This is interesting from an ecclesiological perspective, since this became the common term used for godparents at baptism in the Christian East.

26 Causid. 20.5-6 (SC 455, 84).

27 Causid. 20.21-4 (SC 455, 84).

28 Causid. 20.27-9, 60–3 (SC 455, 84–8).

29 Causid. 20.63-7 (SC 455, 88).

30 Justif. 123 (SC 445, 166).

31 Paen. 11.30-2 (SC 445, 250).

32 Apophthegmata Patrum, Lot 2 (PG 65, 256).

33 Apophthegmata Patrum, Poemen 6 (PG 65, 320).

34 First Greek Life 100, in Pachomian Koinonia: The Lives, Rules, and other Writings of Saint Pachomius, I, The Life of Saint Pechomius and his Disciples, trans. A. Veilleux, Cistercian Studies 45 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1980), 367.

35 Epistle 5, The Letters of Saint Antony the Great, trans. D. Chitty (Oxford, 1975), 14–16.

36 John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints 41 (PO 18, 652—3).

37 Barsanuphius and John, Letter 73 (SC 427, 348–50).

38 John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 4.23 (PG 88, 685D).

39 Homily 71, Ascetical Homilies of St Isaac the Syrian, trans. D. Miller (Boston, MA, 1984), 344–5.