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THEODORE OF STUDIUM
CHAPTER I.-
CHAPTER II.-
CHAPTER III.-
CHAPTER IV.-
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI.-
CHAPTER VII.-
CHAPTER VIII.-
CHAPTER IX
THEODORE’S CONTROVERSIAL WORK AGAINST THE ICONOCLASTS
FROM what we have hitherto
seen of Theodore’s life and character, we should expect to find all his
controversial writings marked by unity of purpose and fixity of principle. Nor
are we to be disappointed. Nay, more : it is in these writings more than
anywhere else that we find a clear expression of those dominant ideas which
were at once his goal and his aspiration throughout his career. For Theodore
was not, like many learned men whom an adverse fortune has placed in an
uncongenial atmosphere of religious controversy, a theologian by accident. In
whatever age of the world’s history he had lived, he would have devoted his
energies to the examination of theological principles and the elucidation of
religious doctrine. The controversy of his day was one with which he became as
closely identified as was Athanasius with the opposition to Arius. And,
although Theodore himself would certainly have deprecated any suggestion of
placing him on an equality with so famous a champion of the Catholic faith, yet
possibly he may for us have an almost equal interest. For the conflicts of
Theodore’s time are more easily translated into terms of modern thought, and
brought to act on our sympathies and antipathies, than are those of the fourth
century.
For when we look back on
the theological controversies of bygone times, we are inclined roughly to
distinguish between three kinds. There are some which are to us not only
unintelligible, but quite incapable of being stated so as to convey any kind of
meaning. We can only look for their origin in a confused state of mind which
has no notion of the inadequacy of definitions and arguments to the matters to
be defined and argued about, and for their continuance in some half-forgotten
prejudice, personal or national, which has become attached to a catch-word or
has given significance to a peculiar rite. There are others in which we seem to
see some of the thoughts and feelings of our own day represented in forms which
we would fain identify and translate, but which we need to approach with
caution lest insufficient historical training and imagination should land us in
total misconception. And again there are others in which it is comparatively
easy for us to realize the warmth of feeling they aroused and the deep
speculations to which they led. Such are all controversies which have to do with
cult and with habitual religious worship and aspiration. Among these last is
the controversy with which we have here to do, though when we examine it
closely we see that it comprised many elements likely to be overlooked by a
hasty or unhistorical mind, and that many associations have come to belong to
it which are not found at its origin.
A side question, involved,
so to speak, accidentally, yet very deeply, in the controversy is, as we have
seen, that of the nature of spiritual authority. Whatever the supreme voice in
matters of cult and of doctrine might be, it was not, to Theodore and his
companions, that of the secular government. We have already seen the stout
opposition they made to the imperial government in upholding the prerogative
of ecclesiastical law, whether in matters of ethics or of ritual. The authority
of Councils was generally received, but the question as to which councils were to be regarded as authoritative was not always
an easy one. The presence of the five Patriarchs was still made an essential
condition, but, as we have seen in the case of the Second Council of Nicaea,
the principle of representation had to be considerably stretched in order to
And representatives of dignitaries whose sees were under Mohammedan sway.
Theodore himself may have been quite prepared to cut the knot in the fashion
now followed in the West, and to look to Old Rome as the centre of spiritual
dominion. But we can hardly think that he would have quietly accepted the
decisions of a Pope who received his instructions, with paternal injunctions
and exhortations, from a Frankish Emperor of the West. Still less would the
rank and Ale of Byzantine clerics and monks have adopted such an attitude. A
united, self-governing Church, comprehending all Christian peoples, was still
the object of pious hopes, a desideratum which historical events were
constantly proving to be impossible. Written authorities: Scriptures, Canons,
Patristic writings, were acknowledged on both sides. But here many fields were
open for differences of interpretation and discrimination. And in this place,
we may recognize one good thing in what may seem the least intelligent part of
the controversy, that the need of examining authority was favorable to at least
a rudimentary criticism. The question whether or not any prohibitions laid down
by divine authority are universally binding or admit of limitations and
exceptions, is one that must be agitated before those who accept Holy Scripture
as authoritative can attain either to a rational exegesis or to a theory of
progressive revelation. The meaning and authority of canons necessitated a
study of Church history and of the principles of conciliar action. The right
estimation of patristic saws implied—or ought to have implied—not only
familiarity with a large body of literature, but some skill in discriminating
genuine from spurious writings. In this direction, Byzantine scholarship had
not advanced very far. To take an example: the Treatise of Barlaam and Josaphat is frequently quoted as St. Basil’s. But
the very recognition that some textual discrimination was needful was surely
good for the cause of learning.
When, however, we come to
the kernel of the controversy, the question whether or not it is lawful for
Christians to represent pictorially the figure of their Lord, and to show
reverence to such representation, we soon feel that we are on burning ground.
For whereas, in many theological disputes in which an appeal has been made to
the people, the popular interest seems forced and adventitious, we see here
that men and women are contending for that around which their deepest and tenderest feelings are turned, the evidence to their souls
of a divine power and presence. And to thinkers, whether lay or cleric, the
question involved rival conceptions as to the central doctrine of Christianity
and the deepest practical problem of all religion. It determined the meaning to
be attached to the doctrine of the Incarnation, and to the real or symbolic
apprehension of spiritual truth. No theological acumen is needed to see that
the doctrinal basis of iconoclasm was utterly destructive of any belief in a
human Christ, and that if extended to its furthest logical limits it would
break down the bridges by which impotent man has thought to obtain communication
with Infinite Power and Love.
It must not, of course, be
expected that the disputants on either side fully acknowledged, in all possible
bearings, the principles for which they strove. But perhaps in this
controversy, more than in most, the profoundest of the points at issue were
actually brought to the fore, and it is to the credit of Theodore that he
excelled the other disputants on his side both in his realization of the nature
of the struggle and the lucidity with which he marked out the ground.
We may, then, take these
two great religious principles, the human nature of Christ and the necessity of
symbolism in religious worship, as constituting the positive side of the
teaching which Theodore opposed to the practice of the iconoclasts. True,
neither of these principles, put in dogmatic form, would have been denied by
his opponents. They accepted the Nicene Creed and they reverenced the
Eucharistic elements and even some of the material objects displayed in
Catholic ritual,—such as the Cross and the Book of the Gospels. If it had not
been so, all argument with them would have been futile. But they did not, as a
rule, accept either doctrine as corner-stone of their whole system of life and
thought. With Theodore it was otherwise. In every act of his strenuous life, he
regarded himself as sharing in the efforts and the sufferings of a human
Master, who, if incapable of pictorial representation, was a mere phantom, no
suffering Saviour. And in every act of worship, he felt that in paying
reverence to the symbols of the divine, whether to the imitative representation
of a divine person, or to any other material suggestion of a divine presence,
the object of his devotion was the same, and the reality of his worship was
beyond doubt. Hence we find that not only in his directly controversial
writings, but in his catechetical exhortations to his monks and even in his
private correspondence, he frequently breaks out into expressions coming from
the regions in which his mind was always occupied; as when he says to a friend
who has written for instruction in Christian duties: “The true Christian is
nothing but a copy or impression of Christ”, or announces to the brethren the
deep philosophic principle that “The Archetype appears in the Image”.
Yet lest we should fall
into the common error of giving too modern an air to an old-world controversy,
we may notice a few points in which this one is linked with earlier disputes,
and in which it most notably differs from those which might seem to resemble it
at the present day. The old notion of the inherent impurity of the flesh, the
contamination which spirit must suffer by subjection to material limitations,
had been handed down by Pagan Neo-Platonists to various semi-Christian oriental
sects, and in the several branches of Manichean doctrine had exercised a
powerful influence upon those who had already adopted the ascetic ideal of
life. The anti-iconoclasts rightly saw something akin to Manichaeism in the
notion that a picture of Christ in human form was an insult to His divine
nature. John of Damascus, who was not a student of Plato, refuted the charge by
declaring that matter itself was a good creature of God. Theodore does not take
this ground, but he shows that the opinions of his opponents would involve the
Manichaean heresy that the body of Christ was a mere phantasm. He, as well as
his fellow-disputants, regard the points at issue in connection with those as
to the Person of Christ which had Riled the preceding centuries with
bitterness. The modern mind cannot feel much indignation against the doctrine
of the Monophysites or the Monothelites. In fact,
from the ordinary lay standpoint, it may seem that to divide the nature
or the will of any conceivable being would be utterly destructive of any unity
of person, and would remove the being so divided from the whole region of actuality.
We can hardly say whether or not this were the feeling of the fierce Egyptian
monks, who, raging against the orthodox with the words: “Let those who would
divide Christ be themselves divided”, cut down their opponents with the sword.
But on the orthodox side there is another point to be remembered. At that day,
belief in the divinity of Christ was so entirely dominant, that but for the
hypothesis of the Two Natures and even the Two Wills, there would have been no
room for any human qualities at all. We can trace this tendency in another
direction. Some of the Iconoclasts, especially the Emperor Constantine Caballinus,
wished to reject the term, “Mother of God”, as applied to the Virgin Mary. What,
he asked, was the dignity of a box that had once held gold? Would it not be
more fitting to speak of Mary as Mother of Christ This was rejected as arrant Nestorianism. Nestorianism,
however, was not the assertion of the humanity of Christ, but rather the
reduction to a minimum of all the concomitants of human nature as affecting His
life on earth. Birth from the Virgin Mary,—a doctrine which in later times has
seemed to over-emphasize a supermundane origin and
threatened to destroy the possibility of normal human life—was probably, to
those who opposed Nestorius, certainly to those who opposed Caballinus, the one
guarantee of Christ’s human existence, beginning, as all such existence must,
in generation from a woman. So strange and even opposite are the meanings of
theological symbols or articles at different periods.
Then again—though, when he
is dealing with questions of worship, Theodore seems to be on ground where we
can safely follow him—we must not expect to find in his works the comparisons
which a psychologist would make between the thoughts and feelings aroused by
the sight of a picture and by the mental contemplation of the reality. The
distinction between psychology and metaphysics was not observed in the Greek
writings of those days. True, there were arising in the West a few lonely
thinkers who realized that the feelings and thoughts suggested by an object
must actually belong to the subject, that the soul of the thinker must be some
measure of the world of thought and feeling in which he moves and dwells. But
in general, men who wished to ask what they worshipped and why, naturally
looked above or around rather than within. To us the saying of St. Basil, more
quoted than any other in this controversy, “The honour paid to the image goes up to the prototype”, might seem capable of intelligible
explanation. For we might interpret it to mean that the feeling of reverence
first evoked by a pictorial representation and then associated with that
representation by conscious cultivation and expression, is exactly similar to
the feeling which would be excited if the original were contemplated by itself;
or—in case this condition were an impossible one—that what one really venerated
in the image was the suggestion of that of which it was a copy, and that
therefore the reverential feeling was similar to that aroused by other copies
of the same object. But the Greek theologians of this time were not as
psychological as we are, besides the fact that the words translated worship and honour were only too prone to become associated with physical prostration or genuflexion. Therefore they use metaphysical modes of
thought, and dwell on the intimate relation between copy and prototype. Here
again, the modern thinker is surprised to see no stress laid on the degree of
adequacy with which the copy has been artistically rendered. It might seem to
us that the iconoclasts might easily have said : “Are these poor, stiff figures
worthy to be regarded as in any sense a representation, or even a useful
reminder, of beings whose countenances must have beamed with a divine glory and
beauty?”. And it would have been easy to answer, on the other side: “Perhaps
the icons are hopelessly inadequate. But art has generally been, and might
always be, the handmaid of religion. And if we forbid the representation in art
of all that we deeply reverence, art will fall—as it has fallen among the
Mohammedans—to the level of a sumptuous decoration of material life”. But these
arguments would not have appealed to a generation that, while it possessed the
art treasures of the past and retained some skill in such art as was structural
and decorative, had lost the secret of copying nature, and with it all capacity
for criticizing art pure and simple. To the people of the ninth century the picture
or icon, icon, was like the original, and it was in virtue of this likeness
that it was to be venerated or rejected. The skill or want of skill possessed
by the artist was merely a question of degree.
Nor was the common-sense or
educational view of the icons much appreciated by Theodore, though, as we have
seen, it was much regarded by the Latin fathers, and had found expression at
the Council of Frankfort. The notion that the walls of a church might be made a
picture Bible, for the instruction of the illiterate, had commended itself to
the practical mind of Pope Gregory the Great, who, more than a century and a
half before this time, had issued a reprimand to Serenus,
Bishop of Marseilles, for removing from his churches those pictures or statues
which were practically the books of the unlearned. The use is not denied by the
Greek disputants, but they generally prefer to take higher ground.
Nevertheless, they do not
take the highest ground possible. Among the Fathers whom they quote are
some—notably the pseudo-Dionysius Areopagitica—to
whom the whole material universe, as it appears to mortal sense, is but a
reflection, or an image, of the spiritual and divine. If man is to be
prohibited from worshipping by means of symbols, he will never be able to worship
at all, for no human mind can rise to the contemplation of Deity absolute. The
Incarnation of the Logos and the Sacraments of the Church are alike in being a
necessity for the limited nature of finite creatures. If icons are regarded in
the same way as the sacraments—as pledges of an incomprehensible reality—the
reverence paid to them is not only justifiable, but constitutes in itself an
element in our worship of the Divine. But the wings of mysticism had been more
or less clipped by the ecclesiastical shears, though the Areopagite himself was accounted a saint. The reverence paid to the Eucharistic elements
was regarded by Theodore as sui generis. He prefers to compare the icons to venerated crosses and books.
One point in the controversy shadows forth the conflict of a later, but
still mediaeval period. The stress laid on the identity of name in the thing represented and its original (as, when we see a
picture of a palm, we say “this is a palm”) anticipates the views of the
Nominalists. But fundamentally, the position of the icon-defenders is nearer
that of Realists.
The purely theoretical
bearings of the question are somewhat obscured by the fact that on both sides
the leaders had to keep a party together. Thus the arguments and appeals used
are always liable to shift as they are addressed to thinking people or to the
prejudiced and ignorant. The iconoclasts could always cite the Second
Commandment and could express disgust at the weak superstitions of the time,
and they probably found a good deal of support in the undoubted fact that the
most determined iconoclasts had lived successful lives and died peaceful
deaths, whereas many of the iconodules had brought
disaster on the Empire and misery on their own heads. The champions of the
images had their philosophic and theological grounds, and could defend them
with ability and zeal, but they were not above the use of silly stories about
miraculous pictures, and—whether consciously or not— they encouraged acts which
seem at least to indicate the grossest superstition. Thus Theodore writes a
letter to a certain John the Spatharius, who had
taken an icon of St. Demetrius as sponsor for his child. This deed, says
Theodore, shows a faith like that of the centurion in the gospel, but reversed.
The centurion believed in the power of the Word to act instead of physical
presence, the Spatharius believed in the power of the
physical presence of the image to act instead of the archetype. He need not
doubt that his gift has been accepted and that the holy martyr has taken charge
of the babe.
It is quite possible that
Theodore, like many other intellectual persons, may have under-estimated the
dead weight of materialism which loads the spirit of the average man. Some of
the combatants on the other side, by no means oblivious of the material
condition of the problems involved, would, if they allowed the images to
remain, have placed them beyond the reach of physical contact, and thus
prevented kisses, though not genuflexions. We do not,
strange to say, meet as yet with the fantastic theory which ultimately gained
ground in the Eastern Church, that images in the round were to be prohibited,
pictures in the Rat to be respected. These distinctions do not enter into the
general theory of the subject, and some of them were refinements of a later
age.
Another point that
bewilders the modern reader is the inclusion of images of saints in the
prohibition to represent divinity in material form. To Theodore and his friends
this prohibition seems a sacrilegious attempt to deprive Christ of His
followers. This objection may seem to us rather futile. We might have expected
him to say that anything which stimulates our gratitude and admiration for the
great men of the past must needs, if the characters admired are noble and
worthy, raise our souls to the contemplation of the Divine Excellence, since,
as was often repeated, man was made in the image of God. The iconoclasts’ view
of the Virgin, to whom no more statues were to be erected, was regarded as
disparaging the human birth of Christ, not—according to a quite possible
interpretation—as raising her to the rank of divinity.
Thus looking at the general
nature of the questions involved in this controversy, we may say that the
arguments urged by the anti-iconoclasts were psychological, metaphysical, and
dogmatic. On the psychological side, neither they nor their opponents made the
most of the case, because none of them considered that “the proper study of
mankind is man”. On the metaphysical, Theodore had a very strong case, which,
though he used the names and some of the ideas of its greatest formulators, he
hardly dared to set in its strongest light. On the theological side also he had
a clear vantage-ground, and he used it with great argumentative skill.
The most formal treatises of Theodore on the subject of the icons which
have come down to us are the three Antirrhetici adversus Iconomachos. Other
writings, which he sent to friends and afterwards refers to, have been lost;
unless in some cases they may be identified with some of his longer dogmatic
epistles. It is not at all likely that anything has perished which would throw
much light on the subject as it presented itself to his mind. In the
catechetical discourses, wherever the subject comes up, as it was never far
from his heart or lips, and in letters to wavering disciples or to inquiring
correspondents, he not only insists on the same principles but uses the same
quotations and illustrations, though they naturally seem to wear a slightly
different appearance according to the type of mind to which they are addressed.
A brief account of the Antirrhetici,
supplemented by reference to some of his more private writings, will
sufficiently show his general views and methods.
The first Antirrheticus is
in the form of a dialogue between a heretic and an orthodox believer. The
advantage of this style of treatment is that the ordinary stock objections to
the writers own views are brought forward, with all the scriptural and
patristic citations commonly used in their support. There is, however, no
exhibition of dramatic skill, not the faintest reminiscence of a Platonic
dialogue. The persons speaking are not characters, but mouthpieces of divergent
schools. And the colloquy in which they are supposed to be engaged does not
exhibit any graces of courtesy or forbearance.
The first charge brought by Haereticus is one of quasi-pagan idolatry. This is
easily refuted by distinguishing between false gods and the true God incarnate.
There was no question here of giving to the creature the honour due to the Creator, nor was there any attempt to represent the Divine in
tangible form. When Heretic goes back to the Divine nature of Christ, Orthodox
shows that His birth and sufferings marked Him as man, circumscribed in the
flesh,—not mere man, or man in general, but a particular man, who ate and
drank, hungered and thirsted, laboured and rested.
Heretic now shifts ground and cites, the total prohibition of images by the
Mosaic Law. Orthodox opposes the Cherubim and the Brazen Serpent, made by
divine command. If the Jews were not allowed to liken Divinity to any creature,
they were still permitted to use symbols. And the words of the prophets
denouncing vain idols do not apply to the human Christ. Other points arc
brought up: the multiplying of objects reverenced, while the real object of
worship is One; the sufficiency of the Eucharist as sole image of Christ; the
duality of worship where the original and the image are worshipped together.
These are answered by reference to customs of Church ritual,—at Christmas and
Easter and on Palm Sunday—and by assertion of the principle that, in all
cases, it is not the material object, but the Divine Being thereby signified,
to Whom reverence is paid. The identity is of name, not of nature, the image on
a coin being an opposite illustration. Heretic attempts a dilemma: If the
Divinity of Christ is in His image, it is circumscribed; if not, the worship is
unlawful. Orthodox answers that the Divinity is present, not in nature but by
type. Heretic would, as a compromise, have the images exhibited, but not
worshipped. Orthodox distinguishes the two kinds of worship or reverence. The
orthodox arguments are clenched by the assertion, that if the contrary is true,
the Church has greatly erred,—an impossible conclusion. At the end, a list of
iconoclastic statements is set forth for condemnation, the first and the
seventh being:—
I. “If any one shall not
confess our Lord Jesus Christ, come in the flesh, to be circumscribed in flesh,
whilst remaining in His Divine Nature uncircumscribed—he
is a heretic”.
VII. “If any one
worshipping the image of Christ shall say that in it physically the Divinity is
worshipped, not in so far as it is a shadow of the flesh united thereto, since
the Divine is everywhere—he is a heretic”.
The Second Antirrheticus goes over much the same ground, in the same way, but gives a larger number of
citations and deals with intermediate positions. Here the heretic acknowledges
at the outset that Christ was circumscribed in the flesh, but denies the
propriety of reverencing His likeness. Orthodoxus tries to show that, since the Incarnation, Christ has been the Prototype of His
own image, a doctrine which the heretic denies. The relation of image to
prototype, and the one adoration paid to both, is illustrated by sayings from
the Fathers, especially Basil and Dionysius, to the latter of whom are
attributed the words : “The true in the semblance, the archetype in the image,
each in each according to the difference in substance”. With regard to the
absence of teaching as to images in Scripture: “There are many things which are
not written in so many words, but which are taught equally with the Scriptures
by the Holy Fathers. The doctrine that the Son is of one substance with the
Father is not in the inspired Scriptures, but was proclaimed afterwards by the
Fathers; also the divinity of the Holy Ghost; and that the Mother of Our Lord
is Theotokos—and many more”.
There is a description from Sophronius of a great picture in a church
representing Christ with the Virgin and saints, apostles and martyrs. A story
is told (ascribed to Athanasius), of an image or picture of Christ, which, when
pierced, shed blood and water. The analogy of the venerated cross is again
brought in. When, in reference to the sacred things of the Jews, Heretic says
that they were not worshipped, Orthodox tries to draw him on from point to
point, to confess that what is holy should be venerated, then worshipped. The
idolatry paid to the Brazen Serpent is said to be not a case in point, since the
Serpent was not a true type of Christ. Heretic seems to have an apostolic saying
on his side : “Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know
we him no more”. But since this interpretation of the text would only mean that
the risen body of Christ had no physical properties, Orthodox is able to refute
him easily from the Gospel story of the doubt of St. Thomas. He concludes by
proving the spuriousness of the passage from Epiphanius quoted against him, and
denouncing the heresy of Manichees and Valentinians, that God dwelt among men in appearance and
imagination only.
The third Antirrheticus is
more logically arranged than the two others, and is not in dialogue form, the
objections from the iconoclastic side being stated impersonally.
It is divided under four
heads :—
I.
On the bodily representation of Christ;
II. That Christ circumscribed
has an artificial image, in which He is made manifest, as it in Him ;
II.
That the worship paid to both is one and undivided ; that to Christ and
that to His image; and
IV. That since Christ is the
prototype of His own image, He has one similitude (or relation?) with it, as
one worship.
Under the first head,
Theodore shows how the assumption of humanity by Christ involved the assumption
of a body with all necessary human attributes. He could thus be seen, even more
than heard, since sight is prior to hearing. The Manichean doctrine of an
incorporeal Christ, as well as the conception already noticed of a Christ who
was “man in general”, not a particular man, are mentioned to be condemned, and
the possibility of depicting Christ without denying either His divinity or the
incorporeal nature of the Godhead is made to depend on the dogma of the “two
natures”.
The Second Statement to be established : that Christ has an artificial
image, takes the word icon in the general sense of bodily form, not in that of image in particular. A
form or similitude may be natural or artificial. The Divine similitude of
Christ belongs to Him through His Divine Father. The human similitude, in
virtue of which He can be presented to human sense, comes from His human
Mother. Suffering humanity involves earthly properties and an “image”.
The Third Proposition, as to the one worship
of Christ and of His Image, follows from what has been already laid down. Prototype and image are correlative. There cannot possibly be rivalry between
them. The worship of the image is worship of Christ because the image is what
it is in virtue of likeness to Christ. Thus when we come to the Fourth
Proposition, that Christ being the Prototype of His own Image, His relation (or
resemblance) to it is single, and so also is His worship, we seem to have in it
a restatement of the intimate relation between archetype and copy, which does
not amount to identity of nature or substance, but which involves complete
resemblance. If it is objected that “we walk by faith, not by sight” the answer
is that we, nevertheless, do see—though “darkly, as in a mirror”. If what the
mind perceives is not also presented to the eye, the mental vision itself will
not remain.
In the many letters which
Theodore devotes to this subject, the same arguments and explanations occur. In
some he cites the authority of Councils, especially that of the Quinisext or Trullan, which
ordered that crucifixes should henceforth bear the figure of Christ, not, as
formerly, that of the Lamb. To John the Grammarian he writes learnedly on
substance and accident, worship and service. He often insists, to his pupils,
that the worship of images is only relative and he writes a very severe letter
to one who had embarked on the controversy without a clear understanding of the
terms used, and so had risked falling into many heresies. In another letter he
refutes, by a quotation from Basil, the opinion that images are a condescension
to the illiterate. Perhaps Basil is quoted more than any other Father
throughout the controversy, and his saying, “Honour goes up from the image to the Prototype”, though originally applied in a quite
different connection, is constantly brought in for explanation and comment.
Possibly this summary
account of the writings of Theodore against the iconoclasts may leave in the
mind a feeling of weariness, and of protest against his logomachy and want of
actuality. If, it may be said, great questions were at issue, their greatness
is obscured by the haze of pseudo-science and logical subtlety. Theodore seems
hardly to have grasped the great idea which the Greek Fathers had derived from
Plato, that the whole universe is but a sensible manifestation of a reality
beyond mortal apprehension. He can scarcely be said to have woven his
conceptions of the visible and the invisible into a sacramental theory of
religion and of life. Yet if we examine his career and his influence on others,
we can, perhaps, feel pretty sure which aspect of the subject was most
constantly and practically realized by him and his followers.
There is a verse of sacred
song, written by a Studite monk of the next generation, who had deeply imbibed
the spirit of Theodore, often sung in our English churches :—
“Oh happy if ye labour,
As Jesus did for men;
Oh happy if ye hunger,
As Jesus hungered then”.
The lines are not of great
literary merit. Nor do they contain any teaching which might not be accepted by
John the Grammarian or, for matter of that, by Constantine Caballinus himself.
But they strike a deep vein of Christian feeling, and after all, it seems
hardly likely that they could have been written by anyone who held that it was
derogatory to the dignity of the Eternal Logos to delineate the form of Christ
“circumscribed in the flesh”.
CHAPTER X
THIRD EXILE OF THEODORE, 815-821
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