Sources of fragments by the iconoclastic patriarch John Grammaticus (837-843): Leontius of Byzantium

* This study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project No. 19011-00778, “Leontius of Byzantium and Patristics.”

A number of arguments were employed by both sides in the Iconoclastic Controversy, ranging from Scriptural arguments, appeal to tradition, and Christological arguments to epistemological arguments, which were especially pronounced in the second period, involving not only the issue of circumscription, but also unequivocal definition of things and their naming. However, despite the shift in emphasis after each argument was countered by the Iconophiles, all arguments of the Iconoclasts revolved around one main point – they claimed that the Icono-philes worshipped the wrong subject, while calling it “Christ” and inscribing His name on the icons.1

The Iconoclastic arguments of the second period can be reconstructed from the refutation by the Iconophiles, not only presenting the Iconoclastic side for polemical purposes, but also citing some fragments from Iconoclastic writings, including three fragments of the last Iconoclastic Patriarch John Grammaticus, from the anonymous refutation of his three fragments contained in the manuscript Scorialensis Y-II-7 (fols. 200-206v) edited by J. Gouillard and A. Evdo-kimova.² Two fragments are of particular interest for understanding the authentic Iconoclastic epistemological argument:

It is impossible to characterise a concrete man by a concept unless by an explanation through words, by means of which one can comprehend and define each being. For the proper accidents of a concrete being by which it has been separated from those belonging to the same species and, in another manner, are joined with those [who belong to different species], do not contribute in any manner and in any aspect to the perception of sight. For one cannot derive one’s race or mark one’s country, the certain kind of profession one spends time in, the sort of company one keeps, and of the rest of the ways of conduct worthy of praise or blame except by means of words, whereas it is impossible to truly distinguish a certain individual by means of some images.

ἀμήχανόν ἐστι τὸν τινὰ ἄνθρωπον ἐπινοίᾳ τινὶ χαρακτηριεῖσθαι μὴ τῆ ἐκ λόγων ὑφηγήσει, δι᾽ ἧς ἐστὶ τῶν ὄντων ἕκαστον ὁριστικῶς κατειληφέναι. τὰ γὰρ ἰδιάζοντα τοῦ τινος συμβεβηκότα δι᾽ ὧν τῶν ὁμοειδῶν ἀφέστηκε καὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐκείνοις ἑτέρως3 κεκοινώνηκεν

οὐδαμῶς τῇ τῆς ὄψεως καταλήψει κατ᾽ οὐδὲν ἀνύσιμον ὑπάρχει. οὐ γὰρ εἰ τοῦδε τινὸς κατάγεται τὸ γένος ἢ τήνδε πάτραν ἰδίαν ἐπιγράφεται, τὴν ποίαν μετιὼν τέχνην, διατριβήν τὲ ποίας καὶ ἑταιρείας εὐμοιρεῖ καὶ τῆς λοιπῆς τῶν τρόπων ἀγωγῆς, δι᾽ ἧς ἐπαινετός ἢ ἐπίψογος χρηματίζοι δι᾽ ἐπινοίας ἡστινοσοῦν ἤ τῆς ἐκ λόγων ἐπίγνωστος ἔσται, ὥστε τὸν τινὰ ἄνθρωπον εἰκονισμοῖς τισὶ πειρᾶσθαι διαγινώσκειν ἀληθῶς ἀδύνατον.4

According to the argument of Patriarch John the Grammarian from this fragment, the precise and unique identification of a certain person within the same species can be provided only by means of words, a description which would separate one from other members of the same species on the basis of a unique set of his characteristics (as that person’s place of origin, occupation, or way of conduct). Moreover, some visible characteristics which distinguish individuals from each other within the same species may coincide both for several individuals or even individuals belonging to different species (like color, shape, etc.),⁵ while the process of refinement or “sifting out” of a specific individual using his verbal descriptions can continue until the moment of final and complete identification. A verbal description is also convenient in that each time the set of context-creating characteristics can be different without affecting the accuracy of the result (that is, the apostle Peter can be characterized as “the apostle who renounced Christ three times”, or as the “apostle who tried to walk on the waters and almost drowned because of his lack of faith”). With this identification, we avoid both erroneous identification and traps of homonymy. From John Grammaticus’ point of view, identification of a person by means of his image is inefficient and therefore erroneous, resulting in total epistemological chaos, since looking at the image, one cannot be sure that this particular individual is depicted.

In the search for the sources of this doctrine, the famous passage from the Contra Eunomium II, 4 by Basil of Caesarea immediately comes to mind.6 In that text, Basil polemicizes with the difference in names designating differences in substances, postulated by Eunomius, offering instead a contextual nature of naming revealing the qualities seen in an individual and his “distinctive character” rather than his substance. The context is defined by a number of descriptions which can be different inasmuch as they single out a unique individual:

Hence the designations do not signify the substances, but rather the distinctive features that characterize the individual. So whenever we hear “Peter,” the name does not cause us to think of his substance – now by ‘substance’ I mean the material substrate which the name itself cannot ever signify – but rather the notion of the distinguishing marks that are considered in connection with him is impressed upon our mind. For as soon as we hear the sound of this designation, we immediately think of the son of Jonah, the man from Bethsaida, the brother of Andrew, the one summoned from the fishermen to the ministry of the apostolate, the one who because of the superiority of his faith was charged with the building up of the church. None of these is his substance, understood as subsistence.7

In addition to the common argument and denial of the role of name in referring to the “material substrate” which is indeed the only thing possible to be shown on the representation, the fragment of John Grammaticus and the passage of Basil have some parallels: the “race” of John Grammaticus corresponds to “the son of Jonah” from Basil’s passage; “one’s country” from the fragment to “the man from Bethsaida” from the passage; “the certain kind of profession one spends time with” from the fragment to “the one summoned from the fishermen to the ministry of the apostolate” from the passage; and “of the rest of the ways of conduct worthy of praise or blame” from the fragment to the “the one who because of the superiority of his faith was charged with the building up of the church” from the passage.8

However, we may find a more immediate source of the fragment, if we consider it together with the following fragment of John Grammaticus, which shifts from an individual identification to a general identification on the level of species:

However, we cannot even simply and generally examine man, if we do not use the same method.9 For if man is defined as a rational mortal being, receptive of intellect and knowledge, how is it possible to entrust soulless and motionless things with [the task of] demonstrating the living motion, by which all that pertains to rationality has been enabled to be as it is10 by God the Creator?! Thus, according to logic, the worshippers of the Word cannot call this colour-made monstrosity “mortal,” nor can they say that it is receptive of any intellect and knowledge […]

ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ τὸν ἁπλῶς καὶ καθόλου ἄνθρωπον ἐνόν ἐστι περισκοπεῖν μὴ τῇ αὐτῇ κεχρημένον μεθόδῳ. Εἱ γὰρ αὐτὸν ὁριοῦνται τῷ “ὃν λογικὸν θνητὸν νοῦ καὶ ἐπιστήμης δεκτικόν,” πῶς οἷόν τέ ἐστιν ἔργοις ἀψύχοις καὶ ἀκινήτοις ἐμπιστεύειν παραδεικνύναι τὴν ζωτικὴν κίνησιν, ὑφ᾽ ἧς καταλληλότερον τὰ τῆς λογικότητος παρὰ τοῦ δημιουργήσαντος Θεοῦ τὸ οὕτως ἔχειν δεδύνηται. Ταύτη δέ γε κατὰ τὸ ἀκόλουθον οὔτε θνητὸν εἰκότως προσαγορεύοιτο, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ νοῦ τινος ἢ ἐπιστήμης δεκτικὸν τὸ χρωματουργικὸν τεράστιον ἀποκαλοῖτο τοῖς Λόγου προσκυνηταῖς. [....] τοίνυν κατ᾽ οὐδὲν ἀφωμοιωμένα τισι [......] εικ [....] πῶς ἄν καὶ εἶεν;11

Patriarch John Grammaticus starts with a general definition of man on the basis of the Aristotelian definition of “a mortal living being receptive of intellect and knowledge”¹² and concludes that it is impossible to render the essence of the person by means of “motionless” images deprived of soul and intellect, and that icons as such are epistemologically fraudulent not only at the level of individuals but also at the level of species. Such an argument is based on the principle that a true image should convey the essential characteristics of the original or possess consubstantiality, which in the Iconoclastic doctrine corresponded to the Eucharist as a consubstantial “icon” of Christ.¹³ The fragment shows a doctrinal parallel to the passage from Theodoret of Cyrrhus, in his Questions on Octateuchus , where Theodoret explains what is that which was created in the image of God:

But also when man creates, he imitates in a certain way the Creator as an icon imitates the archetype. For the icon also has the traces of the archetype yet it only has the appearance of the members but does not have the activity for it is deprived of soul by which the body is moved.

ἀλλὰ καὶ οὕτω δημιουργῶν ὁ ἄνθρωπος, μιμεῖται ἁμῆ γὲ πῃ τὸν ποιητήν, ὡς εἰκὼν τὸ ἀρχέτυπον καὶ γὰρ ἡ εἰκὼν ἔχει τὰ τοῦ ἀρχετύπου ἰνδάλματα, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν τῶν μορίων εἶδος ἔχει, τὰς δὲ ἐνεργείας οὐκ ἔχει· ἑστέρηται γὰρ ψυχῆς, δι’ ἧς κινεῖται τὸ σώμα.14

As with the fragment of John Grammaticus, the passage from Theodoret states that an image only renders the external members of the person depicted, but falls short of rendering the person’s essence because the image is “soulless” and “motionless,” while the essence of the soul is defined by its ability to move the body.15 Besides the similarity in doctrine, the two passages also expose certain textual parallels: Theodoret’s icon “ἑστέρηται γὰρ ψυχῆς, δι’ ἧς κινεῖται τὸ σώμα,” is close to John Grammaticus’: “πῶς οἷόν τέ ἐστιν ἔργοις ἀψύχοις καὶ ἀκινήτοις ἐμπιστεύειν παραδεικνύναι τὴν ζωτικὴν κίνησιν…”

This passage of Theodoret of Cyrrhus on Genesis was not intended as a refutation of icons. The doctrine expressed there was a part of the general Antiochean line of anti-Apollinarian polemics, which emphasized the importance of the soul as the mover of the body. This passage depends upon the fragment on the same Biblical verses by Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 416) preserved in catenae .¹⁶ Theo-doret, however, provides an important development: he makes the qualification that the part within the domain of divine activities which was given to man as an imitation is the soul.

Theodoret here seems to respond to the doctrine of Apollinaris of Loadicea. In a fragment quoted in Justinian's Letter to the Monks of Alexandria (Contra Monophysitas), Apollinaris stated that a person can possess only one mover. This scheme must have derived from strict Aristotelian anthropology, where the composite of soul and body constitutes one perfect entity and the soul is the mover of the body.17 Perhaps in an ordinary person the soul moves the body, but the case seems to be more complicated with Christ: the Aristotelian scheme applied to the Christological union leads to the existence of two movers in Christ: the Word himself and Christ’s human soul. Apollinaris solved the problem by eliminating one extra mover, namely, Christ’s human soul and claiming that it was the Word who occupied the place of human intellect in Christ, thus, becoming himself the sole “mover” of Christ's body.18

In his response to Apollinarian anthropology, Theodoret stressed the importance of the soul as mover of the body and bearer of activity. However, if we look at the passage from a slightly different angle, what we have here is the essential foundation of the relation between the image and the archetype which was later used by the Iconoclasts: the icon is soulless and immovable since it has only external features of the archetype but not its essential qualities.

The writings of Theodoret, if indeed, a source for certain positions in the theology of the Iconoclasts, were not acknowledged by the Iconoclasts and do not appear in their florilegia. Most likely this is due to the fact that Theodoret could not be considered an authority because his Orthodoxy was challenged by the condemnation of several of his writings against St. Cyril of Alexandria at the Fifth Ecumenical Council. We have no indubitable proof that Theodoret was used by the Iconoclasts, besides the doctrinal similarity and a slight textual parallel in the fragment of Patriarch John Grammaticus. But we know that the commission which was headed by John Grammaticus (not yet Patriarch at the time) assembled the Patristic evidence for the Council of Saint Sophia in 815.¹⁹ Furthermore, John Grammaticus must have found a “stronger” fragment, which he believed to be by St. Basil of Caesarea. This fragment contained the same doctrine on the inadequacy of artificial images as compared to man as a perfect image of God in the interpretation of the same passage of the creation of man “in the image and likeness” that was in Theodoret – yet nobody could cast any doubts on the Orthodoxy of St. Basil of Caesarea. Thus, we read in the passage from St. Basil contained in the florilegium of the Council of Saint Sophia, assembled by the committee which included the future Iconoclastic Patriarch John Grammaticus:

If the power to become “in the likeness,” were not granted to us, it would not have been in our own potency that we could acquire the likeness of God. But He made us similar to God by power: for He gave us the power to become similar to God; He made us able to work towards the likeness of God, when the benefit of our action is perfect. So that it would not be as on the images which come into being from an artist and remain purposeless and vain: for when you see [something] depicted accurately by a variety of colors, you do not praise the image but admire the artist.

…εἰ μὴ τὴν τοῦ γενέσθαι καθ᾽ ὁμοίωσιν δύναμιν ἡμῖν ἐχαρίσατο, οὐκ ἂν τῇ ἑαυτῶν ἐξουσίᾳ τὴν πρὸς θεὸν ὁμοίωσιν ἐδεξάμεθα. νῦν μέντοι δυνάμει ἡμᾶς ἐποίησεν ὁμοιωτικοὺς θεῷ. δύναμιν δὲ δοὺς πρὸς τὸ ὁμοιοῦσθαι θεῷ ἀφῆκεν ἡμᾶς ἐργάτας εἶναι τῆς πρὸς θεὸν

ὁμοιώσεως, ἵνα ἰσάγγελος ἢ τῆς ἐργασίας μισθός, ἵνα μὴ ὥσπερ εἰκόνες ὦμεν παρὰ ζωγράφου γενόμεναι εἰκῇ κείμεναι, ἵνα μὴ τὰ τῆς ἡμετέρας ὁμοιώσεως ἄλλῳ ἔπαινον φέρῃ. ὅταν γὰρ τὴν εἰκόνα ἴδῃς ἀκριβῶς μεμορφωμένην πρὸς τὸ πρωτότυπον, οὐ τὴν εἰκόνα ἐπαινεῖς, ἀλλὰ τὸν ζωγράρον θαυμάζεις.20

Why was the principle of strict correspondence of an image to the definition of substance and complete refusal of homonymy between substances so important to the Iconoclasts? In Metaphysics Z, 4–6 and 10–11, Aristotle explored substance as the essence of being (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι). Examining the definition of substance, Aristotle argued that “essence belongs to all things the account of which is a definition” (1030a4–5); such definitions are given to the “primary” species of a genus (and not derivative things such as artworks, giving an example of the Iliad). In determining the essence of being of something, we must first indicate its function, since the material substrate is not included into the definition of substance, but only into the whole. The soul is the substance and form of the body for animated beings.²¹ If we try to translate Aristotle’s argument into the language of the Iconoclastic debate, the substance of man can be made known only by a logical definition as a “mortal living being receptive of intellect and knowledge.” An image does not carry any part of this logical definition, but renders only the material component that is part of the composite, but not of the substance.

We may find a parallel to the curious expression “color-made monstrosity” (τὸ χρωματουργικὸν τεράστιον) of John Grammaticus in the sixth century commentaries on Aristotle. Commenting upon Aristotle’s Physics II, 192b8: “Of things which are, some are by nature and some through other causes,” John Philoponus asks the question of how monsters appear, and gives the answer that in the case of a monster (τὸ τέρας), the matter of the composite becomes unsuitable for receiving the proper form imposed by its logos of nature, but receiving an unnatural, “unorganised and indeterminate” form:

…suppose the surrounding atmosphere, mixed in such and such a way by the rotation of the heavenly [spheres], did something to the matter of a man in the process of generation so that he became unfitted to receive the form which nature would naturally impose upon him: then human nature would fail of its aim through the unsuitability of the matter, but another form would arise, which would be against nature in respect of the particular nature, but according to nature and by nature as regards the whole of nature – for nothing therein is against nature, since not even destruction is against nature, at any rate if generation is according to nature; and since generation is according to nature, destruction too will out of necessity be according to nature, assuming the generation of one thing is the destruction of another.22

Thus, applying the logic of John Philoponus to the fragment of John Grammaticus, in the case of the human being, the suitable matter of the body receives its natural form “imposed by” the soul, and all human beings correspond to the definition of substance homonymically bearing the name “man,” common for the human species, while individual names are specific for each human hypostasis. The matter of the icon – wood and colors – lacks the human soul and is incapable of receiving the suitable natural human form from the soul,23 thus resulting in a “color-made monstrosity” having only the name but lacking the proper nature of whomever it intends to represent.

It is precisely in the Christological controversies of the sixth century that we may find the source of John Grammaticus’ fragments. The role of constituent parts of the definition of substance in identifying beings belonging to the same species in the second fragment points to the figure of another polemicist of the sixth century, Leontius of Byzantium. The immediate source of both fragments of John Grammaticus very likely was the statement of the Orthodox concerning the characteristics of nature and hypostasis at the end of the dialogue with the Seve-rian miaphysite, Epilyseis or the Solutions Proposed to the Arguments of Severus by Leontius of Byzantium, in a way summarizing and concluding the argument of the whole treatise:

For the characteristics which are admitted into the concept of the hypostasis mark off each individual from one another; but those admitted into the concept of the nature do not mark off the individual, but tell one kind of individual from another. The characteristics of the single individual, then, make it single: those which exist commonly are not predicated more properly of a general class, in any sense, than they are of the things of which they are generally said, even if they include all the individuals referred to under the same species.

And let us not forget this: the features which characterize the nature are constituent parts of its essence, while those which characterize a hypostasis belong, in a way, to the category of accidents, whether they are separable or inseparable. And in simple beings, the characteristics of both [nature and hypostasis] are simple, while in conjoined and compound beings they are compound. This is how it is with the human person, and with the definition of him: animal, rational, mortal, capable of opposites by turns (for this is the surest definition of his essence)24. All characterize his essence, while shape, color, size, time, place, parents, upbringing, way of life, and all that goes with them, characterize his hypostasis. The sum of them, they say, cannot hold true for anyone else, and nevertheless they belong to one man-namely, this one. And those marks properly belong to the characteristics of nature which exist in the same essence, while the characteristics of the hypostasis also include those which belong to different categories, when they are combined in the natural unity of an individual.

Τὰ γαρ εἰς τὸν τῆς ὑποστάσεως λόγον παραλαμβανόμενα ἰδιώματα τινὰ ἀπότινων ἕκαστον εἶναι ποιεῖ· τὰ δὲ εἰς τὸν τῆς φύσεως, οὐ τόν τινα μὲν, τι ὃε ἀπό τινος εἶναι ποιεῖ. Τὰ τοίνυν τοῦ μόνου, καὶ μόνον εἶναι ποιεῖ· τὰ δὲ κοινῶς ὑπάρχοντα οὐδέν τι μᾶλλον καθόλου τῶν καθόλου λέγεται, εἰ καὶ πάντας τοῦς ὕπο τὸ αὖτο εἶδος ἀναφερομένους περιείληφεν.

Καὶ τοῦτο δὲ μὴ ἀγνοῶμεν, ὡς τὰ τὴν φύσιν χαρακτηρίζοντα συστατικὰ τῆς οὐσίας εἰσὶ, τὰ δὲ τὴν ὑπόστασιν οἷον συμβεβηκότων λόγον ἐπέχει, κἂν εἶεν χωριστὰ ἢ ἀχώριστα· καὶ ἁπλῶν μὲν ἁπλαῖ αἱ κατ’ ἄμφω ἰδιότητες, συγκειμένων δὲ καὶ συνθέτων σύνθετοι. Ὥσπερ ἐπὶ ἀνθρώπου ἔχει, καὶ τοῦ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν ὅρου· τὴν μὲν οὐσίαν αὐτοῦ χαρακτηρίζει τὸ ζωὸν, τὸ λογικὸν, τὸ θνητὸν, τὸ τῶν ἐναντίων ἀνὰ μέρος δεκτικόν (οὗτος γὰρ ὁ ἄπταιστος τῆς οὐσίας αὐτοῦ ὅρος), τὴν δὲ ὑπόστασιν σχῆμα, χρῶμα, μέγεθος, χρόνος, τόπος, οἱ γονεῖς, ἡ ἀνατροφὴ, ἡ ἀγωγὴ, καὶ ὅσα τούτοις ἕπεται, ὧν τὸ ἀθροισμά φασιν ἐπ᾽ οὐδενὸς ἑτέρου ἀληθεύειν δύναται, καὶ ὅμως ἑνὸς ταῦτα ἀνθρώπου, τοῦ τινος δηλονότι. Καὶ τῶν μὲν τῆς φύσεως ἰδιωμάτων κυρίως ἐκεῖνα μετέχει τὰ τῆς αὐτῆς οὐσίας ὑπάρχοντα, τῶν δὲ τῆς ὑποστάσεως καὶ ὧν ὁ λόγος διάφορος, ἐπὰν εἴς τινος ἕνωσιν καὶ συμφυίαν παρείληπται.25

This passage contains all conceptual and verbal pieces of the fragments of John Grammaticus. Clearly, John Grammaticus excluded the properties of shape, color, size from the Leontius’s enumeration of human characteristics, since it would concede to the Iconophile argument that their reproduction of the image safeguards its validity.26 Most importantly, the epistemological formulations of

Leontius had been specifically tailored to Christological polemics, and the fragments of John Grammaticus were likely to have belonged to a Christological polemical treatise where the “anthropological epistemology” of the fragments was only a part of the wider dyophysite Christology of the Iconoclasts.27

Identification of the Christological epistemology of Leontius of Byzantium as a source of the Iconoclastic doctrine opens a new perspective on Iconoclastic Christology. The core of the Christological dilemma of the Iconoclasts that representing Christ on icons introduces either a mixture of the natures of Christ or their division,28 can be found in the treatise Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos by Leontius of Byzantium who defends the Chalcedonian formula “one hypostasis of Christ in two natures” arguing that despite the seemingly opposite Christologies, both Nestorianism and Monophysiticm are based on one and the same failure of making a proper distinction between union according to substance and union according to the hypostasis.29 Leontius accuses two opposite heresies of one error; the Iconoclasts accuse the Iconophiles of two opposite heresies, possibly following the argument of Leontius in a reversed form. In addition, several puzzling doctrinal statements of the Council of Hiereia30 can also be logically placed within the conceptual framework elaborated by Leontius of Byzantium: in the Incarnation, the hypostasis of the Son and Word with divine substance and substantial divine properties, and with the inseparable hypostatic property of Sonhood has assumed enhypostasized human nature as an unqualified substrate in Leontius’ sense31 with only substantial human qualities understood in Aristotelian terms as “rational, mortal and receptive of intellect and knowledge,” which safeguarded the validity of the two natures of Christ. Therefore, according to the Iconoclasts, the hypostasis of Christ, as opposed to humans, could not be characterized by individualizing hypostatic qualities such as color, shape, and size, to avoid the “Nestorian” separate human hypostasis, and therefore it could not be circumscribed or depicted even according to his humanity.32 It should be mentioned that the Iconoclastic refusal to ascribe the characteristics of color, shape, and size to the hypostasis of the Word Incarnated did not mean Christ’s colorlessness or shapelessness, but only that any such characteristics would be arbitrary and therefore epistemologically false.

Despite the fragmentary nature of John Grammaticus’ writings, it is clear that he intended to build a coherent epistemological system, dwelling on a variety of sources. His knowledge of referential texts and concepts was promoted by his role of composer of the florilegium for the Council of St. Sophia in 815, and follows both the earlier Iconoclastic doctrine and the sixth-century Christological conceptual framework which radically modified the Cappadocian concepts of substance and hypostasis on the basis of Aristotle’s doctrines.³³