Angels in Mark of Ephesos and Thomas Aqu
Angelic Hylomorphism
Further exploration of the De resurrectione reveals still more points of contact, which transcend direct influence and show, instead, a deeper synchronism and sympathy
32 ST Ia, q. 67, a. 3, resp. 33 See Commentary on the Sentences II, d. 13, esp. a. 2, q. 2. 34 Ed. Panti, Toronto 2013, pp. 193–238. 35 Sentencia libri De anima 420. Cf. ST Ia, q. 67, a. 3, obj. 3 and resp. 36 De potentia q. 4, a. 2, s.c. 6–10 and resp.; De potentia, continuatio Vicentii de Castronovo, ad s.c.
6–10. 37 Philosophical divergences do not, however, rule out all dependence. As Demetracopoulos has
shown, Mark’s knowledge of Aquinas is at times easily detectable at the textual level (see Demetra- copoulos 2011, 342–368).
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between East and West.ν An important example is found in Mark’s discussion of an- gelic hylomorphism, which forms his first argument for the necessity of a human res- urrection. Mark’s logic is founded on the notion that only God is simple. All creatures, even angels, admit of synthesis, even if they are incorporeal.ν
The things created by God admit of composition by reason of their distance from him, since they miss the mark of simplicity. And their lack of simplicity is filled by a kind of matter, subsisting with its own form. In us human beings, and in the irrational and soulless essences under us, this is called body. But in angels, since they both are and are called incorporeal, it is not body; but a material distinction is nevertheless observed even in them, whereby we distinguish, in thought alone, their substrate and the form that is contemplated as if above it. ⁰
For Mark, the fact that angels are composite, coupled with the fact that human com- position is born of corporeality, means that the resurrection is a common-sense fact of nature. Soul needs to be reunited with body in order to restore the proper order of things. A human being without a body, in other words, is simple, and do we really expect to be simpler even than the angels? ⁵
Here again, Eugenikos is shown to disagree quite clearly with Aquinas, since Thomas is a firm advocate of the absolute immateriality of angels. To the question whether “angels are composed of matter and form,” Thomas answers an unequivocal “no”: impossibile est quod substantia intellectualis habeat qualemcumque materiam. μ To distinguish the angels from God, Thomas does not resort to hylomorphic theory, but rather to the fact that angels possess act and potency. In this way, Thomas is able to distinguish the absolute simplicity of God, which like Mark he is eager to preserve, from the composite character of creatures.
38 Cf. Louth 2005, 57–58; Louth 2007, 6–7. 39 This is, of course, an ancient notion; cf. Verbeke 1945. Mark’s explicit dependence on patristic
authority for this argument is discussed further below. 40 De resurrectione, p. 54, 34–40 Schmemann. But cf. the letter To Theodosios, where Mark asserts that “no matter whatsoever intervenes” in the angelic apprehension of God (ed. Pilavakis, pp. 304– 05). (I am grateful to Christiaan Kappes for bringing this and other related passages to my attention, and for his helpful comments on a first draft of this paper.)
ῖ (De resurrectione pp. 54–55, 60–62 Schmemann). Cf. Eugenikos, Oratio prima de igne purgatorio 14.8, and Bessarion’s Responsio graeco- rum 19.8 (ed. Petit, Paris 1927, pp. 59, 78), where Mark and the Orthodox delegation note that it is their material substrate that will allow the demons to be burned by hellfire (Mt 25:41), whereas the disem- bodied soul, as a form lacking its matter, cannot be burned (i.e., in purgatory) prior to the resurrection.
42 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 2, resp. Cf. SG 2, 50, 1260: “For everything composed out of matter and form is body.”
Hylomorphism East and West | 9
Thus if matter is not involved, and supposing that the form itself subsists not-in-matter, there still remains the relation (comparatio) of form to its very existence (esse), as potentiality to act. And such is the composition to be understood in angels. ν
But even in spite of this disagreement, here, once more, Mark is seen to participate in
a broader Scholastic conversation. For the very notion that angels were composed of both form and matter, as is obvious from Aquinas’s treatment, was a deeply contested issue in the West. It was the doctrine of Alexander of Hales, and as such entered the thought of Bonaventure. Mark’s arguments, to an extent, mirror the perspective of these figures, even if he does not, in the De resurrectione, develop them with the same level of philosophical sophistication. For this reason, Mark’s hylomorphism is able to be placed in conversation with Aquinas, on the opposite side of an important Scholastic debate.
As with the inheritance of Gregory’s forty-fourth Oration, this confluence is cer- tainly due to the common patrimony of East and West, who were often reading the same Church Fathers. In defending his claim that even angels admit of a material sub- strate, Mark cites the influential writings of St. John of Damaskos.
For God alone is absolutely simple and immaterial, and neither composition nor division are in any way conceived in him. And many different saints testify to this, including the theologian of Damaskos, in his theological chapters.
This is, of course, a reference to the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, where St. John outlines his famous conception of relative materiality. According to St. John, an angel, “is called bodiless and immaterial in regard to us. But when compared with God, who alone is incomparable, everything appears dense and material, for only the divine is truly immaterial and bodiless.” John’s argument, that angels are circum- scribed (
) by place, is thus replicated by Eugenikos, who notes that “the great Paul has said that they are sent to minister (Heb 1:14), attaining different places at different times.”
43 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 2, ad 3. Cf. SG 2, 52, 1273: “One should not think, even though intellectual substances are not corporeal, nor composed (compositae) out of matter and form… that they are therefore equal to the divine simplicity. For a certain composition is found in them since in them existence is not the same as ‘what it is’;” see, also, SG 2, 53–54.
44 See Colish 1995, 106–109; Lottin 1932, 21–39. 45 See Commentary on the Sentences II, d. 3, esp. a. 1. On the position of John Duns Scotus, see Sullivan
2010, 397–427. 46 De resurrectione, p. 54, 43–46 Schmemann. 47 St. John of Damaskos, Exact Exposition 2, 3 (ed. Kotter, Berlin 1973 p. 45). 48 De resurrectione, p. 54, 42–43 Schmemann. Cf. Exact Exposition 2, 3: “Angels are circumscribed,
for when they are in heaven, they are not on earth, and when they are sent by God to earth, they do not remain in heaven.... And they cannot be present and active in two places at once” (p. 46, Kotter).
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These arguments are not unknown to Thomas, and he engages them directly within his own treatment of angels. Damascenus dicit, in libro II, quod angelus incor- poreus et immaterialis dicitur quantum ad nos, sed comparatus ad Deum, corporeus et materialis invenitur. For Thomas, though, this does not mean that angels possess actual matter. For him relative materiality is not simply relative, it is subjective. Deo comparati they are material and corporeal, but they do not really possess matter. It only seems so (videtur), just as what is tepid appears cold when compared to what is actually warm. ⁰ Similarly, though the angels are circumscribed, “to be circumscribed by spatial limits is proper to bodies; whereas to be circumscribed by essential limits is common to all creatures, spiritual as well as corporeal.” ⁵ For Aquinas, therefore, the angel is pure form and omnino incorporeus, μ since “an angel and a body are said to occupy space in different senses (aequivoce).” ν For this reason Thomas can accept that angels are operative in a specific place without for that reason accepting that they are circumscribed materially. In this way, Thomas and Mark once again fall on opposite sides of a Scholastic debate, but it is a debate nonetheless, and there is no hint that the two thinkers are approaching the subject with methodologies that are fundamentally opposed or incompatible.
Consistent with this observation, the angelology of Eugenikos and Aquinas re- flects even further thematic parallels. As intimated above, Mark evinces a marked con- cern that, ultimately, angels emerge simpler in essence than the human being. For Thomas, too, the differentiation of the soul from the angels qua spirit was an important element in the elaboration of a hylomorphic anthropology. Like Mark, Thomas rec- ognized that the disembodied state evoked the bodiless condition of the angels, and
he was eager to distinguish the ontological condition of the soul from that of angels. In his examination into “whether the soul is of a species identical with the angels,” Aquinas claims that this was in fact the position of Origen. For Thomas, this is the reason that angels must be pure spirit, since their immateriality ensures that they pos- sess a principle of differentiation, not only from souls, but from one another. But when pressed further, Thomas will add that the soul differs from an angel also by the fact
49 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 1, obj. 1. 50 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 1, ad 1. 51 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 1, ad 3. 52 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 1, obj. 1. ST Ia, q. 50, a. 2, resp.: omnis substantia intellectualis est omnino immateri-
alis. 53 ST Ia, q. 52, a. 1, resp. 54 Cf. ST Ia, q. 50, a. 1, ad 3. 55 See n. 42 above. 56 Cf, e.g., Bonaventure, Commentary on the Sentences 2, d. 1, pars 2, a. 3; Alexander of Hales, Summa 2, q. 20, m. 5. 57 Cf. De potentia q. 3, a. 10, arg. 8. 58 Ia, q. 75, proem. 59 Ia, q. 75, a. 7, resp.
Hylomorphism East and West | 11
that it is the form of a certain matter (materiae alicuius). ⁰ As already intimated, this difference is rooted in the notion that “an angel is a nature complete in itself,” while soul carries with itself a perennial relation to body. ⁵
Despite their differences, then, both thinkers approach the subject of angels within the same frame of reference, and with a common appreciation for the problems involved in the middle state of souls. In discussing angelic matter, their conversation continues as if engaged in a disputatio. Not only do they disagree about the hylomor- phic character of angels, they are also seen to dispute the proper interpretation of St. John of Damaskos, and the sense in which “place” can be attributed to angels. But even in their disagreement, the two authors evince similar ways of thinking, which show their respective theories to be compatible in genre and method, even if one is not found to be the source of the other.
Identity
A final example of this trend can be found in Eugenikos’s doctrine of bodily identity, which is a corollary of his strict entelechism. As we saw earlier, for Mark a soul without
a body is not fully human. How, then, will this human being, namely that which is composed of soul and body—who from
the beginning was created in immortality, but was punished for his transgression and restored again by grace to his original dignity—how will he cast away that with which he was bequeathed immortality? In that case he would be not-man rather than man. μ
For this reason, Mark holds that the body does not disappear after death, but abides mysteriously, awaiting the resurrection, when it will be united once more with the soul that likewise longs to inhabit its former habitation. ν Following St. Paul (1 Cor 15:37), Eugenikos likens this mystery to that of the grain, which also decomposes in hope of another, transformed life, but without being altogether lost. Between the corrupted seed planted in the ground and the final product lies a “middle” analogous to the “invisible bond” between body and soul.
The blade which sprouts up intervenes between the decomposed seed and the grain that will be brought to completion when it ripens. And until then it endures as a kind of bond between the two until what has rotted is renewed and appears, more magnificent, all over again. And this relation is analogous to the bond between soul and body, with the difference that, in the case of
60 Ia, q. 76, a. 2, ad 1. 61 De potentia q. 3, a. 10, ad 10. 62 De resurrectione, p. 55, 72–76 Schmemann. 63 Cf. n. 15 above. 64 Cf. Bynum 1995, 1–18.
Tikhon Alexander Pino
Hylomorphism East and West
Thomas Aquinas and Mark of Ephesos on the Body-Soul Relationship
Introduction
The relationship between the material body and the immaterial soul formed a cen- tral concern of both medieval Scholasticism and late Byzantine theology. Indebted to many of the same philosophical sources, and to the writings of the Church Fathers, East and West shared a common interest in questions relating to the ensoulment of the human person, the middle state of the soul after death, and the resurrection of the body. In approaching these issues, both Greeks and Latins had recourse to the Aris- totelian definition of the soul as the form of the body, which in turn constitutes the matter of the living human being understood as a substance.⁵ This theory, known as hylomorphism, or entelechism, would have, as its most famous expositor, none other than Thomas Aquinas. Thomas would synthesize Aristotelian psychology with the broader Christian understanding of the soul to produce one of the most well-known formulations of psychosomatic unity and interdependence, defining the soul as the substantial form of the body.
The influence of Thomas Aquinas on late Byzantine thought has received increas- ing recognition.μ Indeed, the corpus Thomisticum graece constitutes an important the- ological monument of the Palaiologan era. For this reason, it must be asked whether the appearance in Byzantium of hylomorphic formulations of the body-soul relation- ship are not due to the direct influence of Aquinas’s writings rather than to the shared philosophical heritage of East and West.
I am grateful to Dr. Mark Johnson of Marquette University for sharing his insights into the thought of Thomas Aquinas, and for his feedback and encouragement on an earlier draft of this paper. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.
1 See De anima 2, 1, 412a15–413a10, ed. W Biehl, Leipzig 1896 (in LCL 288, Cambridge, Mass. 1957, pp. 68–72).
2 See, especially, Papadopoulos 1967; Fyrigos 2004, 27–72; Demetracopoulos 2012; Plested 2012, 63– 134.
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Among the Greek writers who adopt a hylomorphic account of the human person is Mark Eugenikos, one of the most important theological voices at the twilight of the Byzantine Empire. Mark, who is best known for his opposition as Metropolitan of Eph- esos to the Council of Florence, adopts a hylomorphic theory of psychomatic unity in his early, ostensibly anti-Plethonic treatise On the Resurrection.ν This apology for the goodness of human corporeality contains a definition of the soul as the ἶ
of the body, which in turn constitutes the ὕ of the human composite. The possibility of direct dependence on Thomas has already been noted by Demetracopoulos. Yet the details of Mark’s hylomorphic anthropology have not been the subject of sustained scholarly examination. This paper will therefore examine whether, and to what ex- tent, the De resurrectione of Eugenikos actually relies on Aquinas for its conception of the body-soul relationship.
Points of Contact
Mark’s treatise is directed at those who flatly deny the resurrection of the flesh. To the extent that the “simple and unadorned faith in the meaning of this doctrine” is in- sufficient for some in his own day, Mark sets out, in the spirit of the best scholastic theology, to prove this basic tenet of faith with reason and proofs. The twin errors that he seeks to combat are both associated with the “Greeks,” namely reductive ma- terialism and Platonic disdain for the body.
For this, I think, is what eluded the wise men of the Greeks, making them ignorant. It darkened their ideas concerning the soul and made them to err. For looking to universal principles, and seeking in everything what is natural, some were ignorant of God. These are those who said that the soul is in no way separable but is immediately dissolved into non-being at death, since they deny that other forms, as well, are separable. But there are others who posited that forms are separable and subsist of themselves; and these conceded that the soul is immortal.
3 The anti-Plethonic character of the work is not overt, but is inferred from several of the arguments for a bodily resurrection; see Schmemann 1951, 62; Pilavakis 1987, 79. 4 Demetracopoulos 2011, 369, n. 327.
5 De resurrectione, ed. A. Schmemann, p. 53, 16–18. A better, critical edition of this text is still needed and has in fact been announced by the project Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus. 6 De resurrectione, pp. 53–54, 23–29 Schmemann. 7 This characterization may be read as a classic condemnation of Aristotelianism. Aristotle’s name
was long associated with precisely this type of materialism (see Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resur- rectione, ed. A Spira, Leiden 2014, p. 33, 18 – p. 34, 2; Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 27, 10. Aquinas ac- knowledges this patrimony, though he clearly disagrees with it; see SG 2, 79, 1610). By the late Byzan- tine period, though, “Aristotelianism” gradually lost its pejorative connotation and was eventually recast as a system compatible with Christianity, particularly in the battle with Plethon’s Platonism (cf. Demetracopoulos 2011, 367).
8 De resurrectione, p. 55, 88–95 Schmemann.
Hylomorphism East and West | 3
To this “irrationality,” Mark opposes the Christian understanding of the person. The rational and intellective soul, created according to the image of God and separable from its
kindred matter …when it is uncoupled from that to which it is yoked, advances to the things that are akin to it and attains a condition appropriate to itself.
The points of contact between the anthropology, and even the methodology, of Mark and Thomas are obvious enough. As already noted, Mark appears to follow Thomas, not only in supplying a rational defense of the resurrection, but especially in iden- tifying the human body as the matter of the human substance, whose soul consti- tutes its form (
ῶ ).⁵⁰ Both Mark and Thomas are also insistent that the human person is essentially composite ( ὴ ὐ
).⁵⁵ For this reason, even though the soul has its own operation,⁵μ the soul alone is not understood, in Platonic fashion, to constitute the individual human be- ing. Homo non est anima tantum, sed est aliquid compositum ex anima et corpore. Plato vero, ponens sentire esse proprium animae, ponere potuit quod homo esset anima utens
after death, this does not mean that death is some kind of liberation from corporeality. For it is uncoupled from the body and is freed from its passions, but it is in no way unyoked from
its natural relation towards it. For even when it is flying away, it yet directs its gaze towards its kindred dwelling-place, even though the latter has been dissolved into its constituent elements.⁵
9 De resurrectione, p. 56, 102–105 Schmemann. 10 De resurrectione, p. 55, 77 Schmemann; cf. p. 54, 35–38 Schmemann. See, also, ST Ia, q. 76, a. 1, resp.: “It is clear that the first thing whereby the body lives is the soul. And since life is manifested through different operations in different degrees of living things, that whereby we first of all perform each of these activities is the soul. For the soul is the first thing whereby we are nourished, whereby we sense, and whereby we execute locomotion. And in the same way it is that whereby we first of all understand. This principle, then, whereby we first of all understand, whether it is called intellect or intellective soul, is the form of the body. And this is the demonstration of Aristotle in De Anima, book 2.” Cf. SG 2, 68.
11 De resurrectione, p. 54, 46–48 Schmemann. See Sentencia libri De Anima 197–223; cf. SG 2, 57, 1326; De potentia q. 3, a. 9, arg. 2. 12 Habet operationem per se (ST Ia, q. 75, a. 2, resp.). Cf. Eugenikos:
’ὑὴ (De resurrectione, p. 56, 107–108 Schmemann). 13 ST Ia, q. 75, a. 4, resp.; cf. SG 2, 57. This is most famously espoused in the Commentary on 1 Corinthi- ans 15, 2, 924: Anima mea non est ego (ed. R. Cai, Turin 1953, vol. 2, p. 411). See, also, ST Ia, q. 76, a. 1, ad 5: “The existence of the whole composite is also the existence of the soul itself (quod illud esse quod est totius compositi, est etiam ipsius animae);” and ST IIa IIae, q. 83, a. 11, obj. 5. Cf., also, Eu- genikos: “Neither the soul by itself nor the body, but both together are deserving of the name ‘man’” (De resurrectione, p. 55, 71–72 Schmemann).
14 De resurrectione, p. 56, 115–118 Schmemann.
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For both Eugenikos and Aquinas, this enduring connection between the soul and body is the basis for the resurrection, since the soul possesses a teleological longing for the body. Body itself thus becomes a permanent mark of the soul so that the resurrection of the flesh becomes a necessity. Without resurrection, the human person would remain forever incomplete after the dissolution of death.⁵ “He would be not-man rather than man.”⁵ Whereas Mark will speak of this relationship as a “bond,” Thomas speaks of an aptitudo and inclinatio:
To be united to the body belongs (convenit) to the soul in accordance with itself, just as it belongs to a light body in accordance with itself to be lifted up. And just as a light body remains light even though it has been separated from its proper place—albeit with an aptitude and inclination toward its proper place—in the same way the human soul remains in its own existence when it has been separated from the body, having a natural aptitude and inclination towards union with the body.⁵
This is because the soul, even though it “exists in the body as a subsistent thing,” does not possess “the perfection (completio) of its nature, which it has in union with the body.”⁵ On this, Mark and Thomas are in agreement.
Separation
As already noted, this consonance between Aquinas and Eugenikos is suggestive, es- pecially given the availability of the two Summae in Byzantium. But these basic simi- larities quickly give way to important divergences, centering especially on the problem of soul’s separability from body. Mark, as we have seen, puts the separability of forms at the heart of Greek errors concerning the soul. He himself is confident that forms are not generally separable from matter.⁵ Nevertheless, due to his Christian belief in the afterlife of the soul, Mark must explain how, after death, the human eidos is able is to exist without its matter. Mark’s position is that this is not due to any inherent, natural feature of souls qua form, but rather to “the power of God, which brought them forth
15 For the metaphysical problems that this creates for Aquinas, and possible resolutions, see Brower 2014, 279–310; Nevitt 2014, 1–19. I am grateful to Dr. Nicholas Kahm for sharing his insights, along with many resources, on Thomistic anthropology.
16 De resurrectione, p. 55, 72–76 Schmemann. 17 ST Ia, q. 76, a. 1, ad 6. Cf. De potentia q. 3, a. 10, arg. 4. 18 De potentia q. 3, a. 10, ad. 16. Cf. Sentencia libri De anima 215: Soul “does not have a complete
species, but rather is part of a species.” 19 This is consistent with the idea that Mark is, philosophically, an Aristotelian (see Demetracopoulos
2011, 367). Cf. De anima 2, 1 (413a 4): ὐ ἔ
. “It is perfectly clear that neither the soul, nor any of its parts (if it should have them), is separable. For sometimes the entelechy belongs to the very parts” (413a 4–8; LCL 288:72).
Hylomorphism East and West | 5
out of non-being.”μ⁰ The immortality of the soul is thus an exception to metaphysical norms; indeed, it is something of a miracle.
This stands in obvious contrast to Aquinas, who develops a sophisticated theory of subsistent forms to account for what he sees as the natural immortality of the soul after death.μ⁵ In describing the rational soul Aquinas will even refer to the intellect as
a substance.μμ Thomas’s understanding derives from his reading of Aristotle, whose psychology as laid out in the De anima appears to equivocate on the absolute sep- arability of soul. Though the soul, qua entelechy, perishes together with the body, Aristotle also holds that, “nothing prevents some parts [of soul] from being separated from body, since they are not the entelechies of any body.”μν This is applied especially to the intellect, since for Aristotle, “intellect seems to subsist as a kind of substance, perishing not.”μ On the basis of these passages, Thomas is able to hold that the soul transcends its role as informing principle. Indeed, it has a dimension which is inde- pendent of body (virtus intellectiva non est corporis actus).μ This not only accounts for the inner life of man, allowing him to think and know, but it explains the subsis- tence of the soul even when separated from the body. Unlike other forms, quae non sunt subsistentes, the human soul thus remains in suo esse, even when the body, its matter, has been destroyed.μ This basic argument for the immortality of the soul dif- fers from that of Eugenikos, for whom the sundering of body and soul is an unnatural event requiring the intervention of God.
20 De resurrectione, p. 55, 80–81 Schmemann. 21 See, e.g., SG 2.51, where subsistent forms are distinguished from immanent, or material forms. Cf.
SG 2, 79–81; and see Kretzmann 1999, 403–418. 22 See, e.g., SG 2, 56; 68–69; 77, 90; De potentia q. 3, a. 10, arg. 11. Cf. Bazán 1997, 95–126. 23 De Anima 2, 1 (413a 7–8). Cf. Sentencia libri De anima 242, 677–699. 24 De Anima 1, 4 (408b 19–20). Cf. 3, 4 (429a 11–12); 1, 1 (403a 11–13); 3, 5 (439a 15–25). “This intellect
is separable, impassible, and unmingled, being in essence an activity…. It alone is, when separated, what it is, and it alone is immortal and eternal ...and without this there is no thought.” Whether this “intellect” is the same as the human soul is not clear from the text of the De anima itself: “Concerning the intellect and the faculty of contemplation, it is as yet unclear. It seems to be another kind ( ἕ
) of soul. And this alone admits of separation, as immortality from corruptibility” (De anima 2, 2, 413b 25–28). Cf. Plotinus, Enneads 4, 7, 8(5), ed. Henry and Schwyzer, Brussels 1959, p. 210, 15–16). 25 ST Ia, q. 76, a, 1, ad 1; cf. ad 4. See, also, SG 2, 61; 68–70; De potentia q. 3, a. 9, arg. 1. 26 Again, this is by virtue of the fact that the human being is essentially a composite. ST Ia, q. 76, a. 1, ad 5: Anima illud esse in quo ipsa subsistit, communicat materiae corporali, ex qua et anima intellectiva
fit unum, ita quod illud esse quod est totius compositi, est etiam ipsius animae. Quod non accidit in aliis formis, quae non sunt subsistentes. Et propter hoc anima humana remanet in suo esse, destructo corpore, non autem aliae formae.
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Light the Form of the Sun
To illustrate the supernatural character of the soul’s separability, Mark draws an analogy with the sun, whose eidos, following an important passage from St. Gregory Nazianzen’s forty-fourth Oration, he identifies as the sun’s light. “For light,” Gregory had authoritatively, if somewhat cryptically, stated, “is the form of the sun.”μ This statement forms the basis of Mark’s belief about the soul.
But if it seems strange to anyone to say that the soul is to the body what form is to matter—since we do not allow, as those who think this way, that forms are separable from matter—we respond thus. Forms by their proper nature are inseparable from substrates, since they are divisible only in thought. But by the power of God, who brought them out of non-being, they are nonetheless quite capable of being separated. For we know that the light, which from the beginning was the form of the sun, existed before the sun,μ having been created by itself; and we believe that later it will be separated once more from the fiery substance and bestowed as a habitation upon the blessed. What, then, is so wonderful if we posit also in the case of the soul that from the beginning it was created together with its substrate, as its form, just as light is the form of the sun?μ
Mark’s language here (
;) reinforces the fact that for both his own metaphysics and that of Gregory, this is a miraculous (but not impossible) occur- rence, since neither light nor the soul are independent substances. For Gregory, God had created the form before the matter “that he might work a still great wonder (ἴ
ῃ ῖ ),” and demonstrate his power by bringing into being what ordinarily exists only in combination with something else.ν⁰ This power, for Mark, is what allows the soul to exist after death, and its supernatural character is precisely what foiled the wisdom of the Greeks.ν⁵
But the principle that “light is the form of the sun,” though taken authoritatively from the writings of St. Gregory Nazianzen, is difficult to reconcile with Thomistic and Aristotelian metaphysics. Though Gregory had made this statement specifically in ref- erence to the hylomorphic character of creatures, it would prove a difficult, if persis- tent, axiom of patristic ontology. In a testament to the authority of the Cappadocian Father whom the Byzantines called “the Theologian,” this definition was to have en- during value. The reception of this peculiar formula was not limited to the East, and Aquinas’s work engages its legacy in the Latin world. Alii vero dixerunt quod lux est
27 Oration 44, 4 (PG 36:611–612): “For while in the case of other creatures he brought matter into being first and created form later…, in this case—in order to work a still greater wonder—he caused the form to exist before the matter (for light is the form of the sun).”
28 Genesis 1:3–5, 14–18. Cf. Gregory Palamas, Homilies 35, 5. 29 De resurrectione, p. 55, 76–86 Schmemann. 30 Oration 44, 4 (PG 36:611–612). Cf. Poemata arcana 4, 7–8, ed. C. Moreschini, Oxford 1997, p. 16. 31 In Mark’s treatise, the statements concerning Greek errors on the soul follow directly upon his
rationale for the miraculous separability of souls.
Hylomorphism East and West | 7
forma substantialis solis.νμ This is perhaps a reference to Bonaventure, who had af- firmed, like Mark, that light was the substantial form of the sun in his Commentary on the Sentences.νν Robert Grosseteste espouses the same principle in his De luce, where
he constructs an entire metaphysics of light as form.ν But for Aquinas, this conception of form had nothing to do with traditional Aristotelian hylomorphism, for which form constitutes a thing’s species or actuality, intelligible to the mind but not perceivable by the senses in and of themselves. Nulla forma substantialis est per se sensibilis, sed solo intellectu comprehensibilis. Instead, for Thomas, light is an “active quality” of the sun.ν Consequently, for Thomas, the creation of the sun was substantially complete on the first day, even if it received greater refinement on the fourth.ν
There are, then, deeper differences between Eugenikos and Aquinas than appear at first sight. But it would be a mistake to stop at these differences and claim that there is no relationship between the thought of Thomas and Mark on the body-soul relationship. It is true that a strong dependence on Thomistic anthropology has not so far been found in the De resurrectione.ν But another remarkable fact has emerged. Though our Greek and Latin authors differ as to their understanding of the separabil- ity of the soul, the two authors are nevertheless seen to participate in a kind of dia- logue. Not only do they debate the soul’s natural immortality and separability, but an influential phrase from the Church Fathers is negotiated in each of their writings. To put it more precisely, Mark Eugenikos, even in departing from Aquinas, is seen to par- ticipate in a broader Scholastic conversation concerning form—a conversation taking place between Thomas and Bonaventure as well as Robert Grosseteste. To this extent, scholastic discourse can be seen to extend beyond the Latin world, involving both East and West in a debate that has hitherto been thought of as exclusively Western in scope.
Angelic Hylomorphism
Further exploration of the De resurrectione reveals still more points of contact, which transcend direct influence and show, instead, a deeper synchronism and sympathy
32 ST Ia, q. 67, a. 3, resp. 33 See Commentary on the Sentences II, d. 13, esp. a. 2, q. 2. 34 Ed. Panti, Toronto 2013, pp. 193–238. 35 Sentencia libri De anima 420. Cf. ST Ia, q. 67, a. 3, obj. 3 and resp. 36 De potentia q. 4, a. 2, s.c. 6–10 and resp.; De potentia, continuatio Vicentii de Castronovo, ad s.c.
6–10. 37 Philosophical divergences do not, however, rule out all dependence. As Demetracopoulos has
shown, Mark’s knowledge of Aquinas is at times easily detectable at the textual level (see Demetra- copoulos 2011, 342–368).
8 | Tikhon Alexander Pino
between East and West.ν An important example is found in Mark’s discussion of an- gelic hylomorphism, which forms his first argument for the necessity of a human res- urrection. Mark’s logic is founded on the notion that only God is simple. All creatures, even angels, admit of synthesis, even if they are incorporeal.ν
The things created by God admit of composition by reason of their distance from him, since they miss the mark of simplicity. And their lack of simplicity is filled by a kind of matter, subsisting with its own form. In us human beings, and in the irrational and soulless essences under us, this is called body. But in angels, since they both are and are called incorporeal, it is not body; but a material distinction is nevertheless observed even in them, whereby we distinguish, in thought alone, their substrate and the form that is contemplated as if above it. ⁰
For Mark, the fact that angels are composite, coupled with the fact that human com- position is born of corporeality, means that the resurrection is a common-sense fact of nature. Soul needs to be reunited with body in order to restore the proper order of things. A human being without a body, in other words, is simple, and do we really expect to be simpler even than the angels? ⁵
Here again, Eugenikos is shown to disagree quite clearly with Aquinas, since Thomas is a firm advocate of the absolute immateriality of angels. To the question whether “angels are composed of matter and form,” Thomas answers an unequivocal “no”: impossibile est quod substantia intellectualis habeat qualemcumque materiam. μ To distinguish the angels from God, Thomas does not resort to hylomorphic theory, but rather to the fact that angels possess act and potency. In this way, Thomas is able to distinguish the absolute simplicity of God, which like Mark he is eager to preserve, from the composite character of creatures.
38 Cf. Louth 2005, 57–58; Louth 2007, 6–7. 39 This is, of course, an ancient notion; cf. Verbeke 1945. Mark’s explicit dependence on patristic
authority for this argument is discussed further below. 40 De resurrectione, p. 54, 34–40 Schmemann. But cf. the letter To Theodosios, where Mark asserts that “no matter whatsoever intervenes” in the angelic apprehension of God (ed. Pilavakis, pp. 304– 05). (I am grateful to Christiaan Kappes for bringing this and other related passages to my attention, and for his helpful comments on a first draft of this paper.)
ῖ (De resurrectione pp. 54–55, 60–62 Schmemann). Cf. Eugenikos, Oratio prima de igne purgatorio 14.8, and Bessarion’s Responsio graeco- rum 19.8 (ed. Petit, Paris 1927, pp. 59, 78), where Mark and the Orthodox delegation note that it is their material substrate that will allow the demons to be burned by hellfire (Mt 25:41), whereas the disem- bodied soul, as a form lacking its matter, cannot be burned (i.e., in purgatory) prior to the resurrection.
42 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 2, resp. Cf. SG 2, 50, 1260: “For everything composed out of matter and form is body.”
Hylomorphism East and West | 9
Thus if matter is not involved, and supposing that the form itself subsists not-in-matter, there still remains the relation (comparatio) of form to its very existence (esse), as potentiality to act. And such is the composition to be understood in angels. ν
But even in spite of this disagreement, here, once more, Mark is seen to participate in
a broader Scholastic conversation. For the very notion that angels were composed of both form and matter, as is obvious from Aquinas’s treatment, was a deeply contested issue in the West. It was the doctrine of Alexander of Hales, and as such entered the thought of Bonaventure. Mark’s arguments, to an extent, mirror the perspective of these figures, even if he does not, in the De resurrectione, develop them with the same level of philosophical sophistication. For this reason, Mark’s hylomorphism is able to be placed in conversation with Aquinas, on the opposite side of an important Scholastic debate.
As with the inheritance of Gregory’s forty-fourth Oration, this confluence is cer- tainly due to the common patrimony of East and West, who were often reading the same Church Fathers. In defending his claim that even angels admit of a material sub- strate, Mark cites the influential writings of St. John of Damaskos.
For God alone is absolutely simple and immaterial, and neither composition nor division are in any way conceived in him. And many different saints testify to this, including the theologian of Damaskos, in his theological chapters.
This is, of course, a reference to the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, where St. John outlines his famous conception of relative materiality. According to St. John, an angel, “is called bodiless and immaterial in regard to us. But when compared with God, who alone is incomparable, everything appears dense and material, for only the divine is truly immaterial and bodiless.” John’s argument, that angels are circum- scribed (
) by place, is thus replicated by Eugenikos, who notes that “the great Paul has said that they are sent to minister (Heb 1:14), attaining different places at different times.”
43 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 2, ad 3. Cf. SG 2, 52, 1273: “One should not think, even though intellectual substances are not corporeal, nor composed (compositae) out of matter and form… that they are therefore equal to the divine simplicity. For a certain composition is found in them since in them existence is not the same as ‘what it is’;” see, also, SG 2, 53–54.
44 See Colish 1995, 106–109; Lottin 1932, 21–39. 45 See Commentary on the Sentences II, d. 3, esp. a. 1. On the position of John Duns Scotus, see Sullivan
2010, 397–427. 46 De resurrectione, p. 54, 43–46 Schmemann. 47 St. John of Damaskos, Exact Exposition 2, 3 (ed. Kotter, Berlin 1973 p. 45). 48 De resurrectione, p. 54, 42–43 Schmemann. Cf. Exact Exposition 2, 3: “Angels are circumscribed,
for when they are in heaven, they are not on earth, and when they are sent by God to earth, they do not remain in heaven.... And they cannot be present and active in two places at once” (p. 46, Kotter).
10 | Tikhon Alexander Pino
These arguments are not unknown to Thomas, and he engages them directly within his own treatment of angels. Damascenus dicit, in libro II, quod angelus incor- poreus et immaterialis dicitur quantum ad nos, sed comparatus ad Deum, corporeus et materialis invenitur. For Thomas, though, this does not mean that angels possess actual matter. For him relative materiality is not simply relative, it is subjective. Deo comparati they are material and corporeal, but they do not really possess matter. It only seems so (videtur), just as what is tepid appears cold when compared to what is actually warm. ⁰ Similarly, though the angels are circumscribed, “to be circumscribed by spatial limits is proper to bodies; whereas to be circumscribed by essential limits is common to all creatures, spiritual as well as corporeal.” ⁵ For Aquinas, therefore, the angel is pure form and omnino incorporeus, μ since “an angel and a body are said to occupy space in different senses (aequivoce).” ν For this reason Thomas can accept that angels are operative in a specific place without for that reason accepting that they are circumscribed materially. In this way, Thomas and Mark once again fall on opposite sides of a Scholastic debate, but it is a debate nonetheless, and there is no hint that the two thinkers are approaching the subject with methodologies that are fundamentally opposed or incompatible.
Consistent with this observation, the angelology of Eugenikos and Aquinas re- flects even further thematic parallels. As intimated above, Mark evinces a marked con- cern that, ultimately, angels emerge simpler in essence than the human being. For Thomas, too, the differentiation of the soul from the angels qua spirit was an important element in the elaboration of a hylomorphic anthropology. Like Mark, Thomas rec- ognized that the disembodied state evoked the bodiless condition of the angels, and
he was eager to distinguish the ontological condition of the soul from that of angels. In his examination into “whether the soul is of a species identical with the angels,” Aquinas claims that this was in fact the position of Origen. For Thomas, this is the reason that angels must be pure spirit, since their immateriality ensures that they pos- sess a principle of differentiation, not only from souls, but from one another. But when pressed further, Thomas will add that the soul differs from an angel also by the fact
49 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 1, obj. 1. 50 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 1, ad 1. 51 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 1, ad 3. 52 ST Ia, q. 50, a. 1, obj. 1. ST Ia, q. 50, a. 2, resp.: omnis substantia intellectualis est omnino immateri-
alis. 53 ST Ia, q. 52, a. 1, resp. 54 Cf. ST Ia, q. 50, a. 1, ad 3. 55 See n. 42 above. 56 Cf, e.g., Bonaventure, Commentary on the Sentences 2, d. 1, pars 2, a. 3; Alexander of Hales, Summa 2, q. 20, m. 5. 57 Cf. De potentia q. 3, a. 10, arg. 8. 58 Ia, q. 75, proem. 59 Ia, q. 75, a. 7, resp.
Hylomorphism East and West | 11
that it is the form of a certain matter (materiae alicuius). ⁰ As already intimated, this difference is rooted in the notion that “an angel is a nature complete in itself,” while soul carries with itself a perennial relation to body. ⁵
Despite their differences, then, both thinkers approach the subject of angels within the same frame of reference, and with a common appreciation for the problems involved in the middle state of souls. In discussing angelic matter, their conversation continues as if engaged in a disputatio. Not only do they disagree about the hylomor- phic character of angels, they are also seen to dispute the proper interpretation of St. John of Damaskos, and the sense in which “place” can be attributed to angels. But even in their disagreement, the two authors evince similar ways of thinking, which show their respective theories to be compatible in genre and method, even if one is not found to be the source of the other.
Identity
A final example of this trend can be found in Eugenikos’s doctrine of bodily identity, which is a corollary of his strict entelechism. As we saw earlier, for Mark a soul without
a body is not fully human. How, then, will this human being, namely that which is composed of soul and body—who from
the beginning was created in immortality, but was punished for his transgression and restored again by grace to his original dignity—how will he cast away that with which he was bequeathed immortality? In that case he would be not-man rather than man. μ
For this reason, Mark holds that the body does not disappear after death, but abides mysteriously, awaiting the resurrection, when it will be united once more with the soul that likewise longs to inhabit its former habitation. ν Following St. Paul (1 Cor 15:37), Eugenikos likens this mystery to that of the grain, which also decomposes in hope of another, transformed life, but without being altogether lost. Between the corrupted seed planted in the ground and the final product lies a “middle” analogous to the “invisible bond” between body and soul.
The blade which sprouts up intervenes between the decomposed seed and the grain that will be brought to completion when it ripens. And until then it endures as a kind of bond between the two until what has rotted is renewed and appears, more magnificent, all over again. And this relation is analogous to the bond between soul and body, with the difference that, in the case of
60 Ia, q. 76, a. 2, ad 1. 61 De potentia q. 3, a. 10, ad 10. 62 De resurrectione, p. 55, 72–76 Schmemann. 63 Cf. n. 15 above. 64 Cf. Bynum 1995, 1–18.
12 | Tikhon Alexander Pino the seed and the grain, both terms are sensible: the point whence nature had its beginning and
that towards which it is impelled through intermediate states. These latter, obviously, are also sensible: the roots, the stalk, the blade around it; afterward the spikelets and the husks, and the grain that is being perfected in them little by little. But in the case of soul and body, each of the extremes is beyond sensation. That which subsists of itself will, in its own time, fashion for itself
a new body, while the bond is also intelligible and beyond sensation. For this reason we tend to think that the soul is completely freed from the body, since we see neither it nor its bond with the body. Even the body itself we don’t see, since it is soon dissolved into those things of which it was composed. Yet even the souls of the saints bear witness that the soul, even though existing of itself, is oriented still toward its kindred and somehow bound to it.
Mark’s theory here is indebted primarily to his reading of St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Maximos the Confessor, for whom the “relation” and “bond” between body and soul was permanent. In Gregory’s De anima et resurrectione and De opificio hominis, upon which Mark is dependent throughout his entire treatise, the Cappadocian develops
a theory of the absolute correlativity of body and soul, such that their union is eter- nal. The soul has a natural schesis with the body, which is also described as a union (both a
), and unconfused communion (
and a
), affection (
ἀ ). By virtue of the soul’s unextended nature, and its transcen- dence of space, it is able to survive the dissolution of the body. It continues to be with (
ῖ ) ⁰ the body and abide with it. ⁵ It stands by it as a guard, μ and con- tinues its influence on the body. ν St. Gregory even uses the language of attraction or pull, allowing Eugenikos to liken the soul’s influence on body to that of a magnet on iron: invisible, and mysterious, but real.
For Mark, the soul’s continuing presence to the body even in death is proven by the miracle-working power of relics (i.e., the corpses of the blessed), through which
65 De resurrectione pp. 56–57, 122–137 Schmemann. 66 For the image of the seed, see De opificio hominis 27, 29 (PG 44:228CD, 236A, 240AB); De anima et
resurrectione, p. 117, 22 – p. 122, 17 Spira. For the notion of soul “going to its kindred,” see De Opificio hominis 26, 27 (PG 44:162B, 224D, 225C); De anima et resurrectione, p. 7, 14–15; p. 28, 14–15; p. 55, 18–20; p. 57, 14–17 Spira.
67 De opificio hominis (PG 44:177B). 68 De opificio hominis 27 (PG 44:225B). Cf. De anima et resurrectione, p. 28, 2 Spira. 69 De anima et resurrectione, p. 30, 12 – p. 31, 15 Spira. 70 De anima et resurrectione, p. 30, 4, 19; p. 55, 19; p. 62, 5 Spira. 71 De anima et resurrectione, p. 31, 7 Spira. Cf. De anima et resurrectione:
ὰὴ (p. 55, 19 Spira). 72 De anima et resurrectione, p. 55, 19–20 Spira. 73 De anima et resurrectione p. 28, 6–10 Spira. 74 Εἰ ὲ
...; (De resurrectione, p. 57, 139–142 Schmemann). Cf. De opificio hominis 27 (PG 44:225C): ἐ ’ ἑ
ὁ ῇ. This is related to, but distinct from, the teleological tendency of soul towards body.
Hylomorphism East and West | 13
the souls of the saints continue to operate. All of this, ultimately, allows Mark, like Gregory, to distinguish between the soul’s extrication from sinful, passionate flesh, from an absolute, Platonic liberation from corporeality, a distinction that was not un- known to Aquinas. For both Gregory and Eugenikos, the release from present bur- dens is brought about by a renewal of the body, not its destruction.
Maximos the Confessor takes up Gregory’s anti-Origenist arguments in his sev- enth and forty-second Ambigua, where he refutes the Origenist doctrine of the pre- existence of souls. In these texts, Maximos argues for the absolute simultaneity and enduring correlativity of body and soul. Though the two have different principles and modes of origination, and are not identical in their being, body and soul neverthe- less constitute a single subsistence. ⁰ As such, their relation (
) is “immutable,” since the loss of either “part” would logically destroy the whole. ⁵ “It is inconceiv- able to speak of (and impossible to find) the soul and body except in relation to each other, since each one introduces together with itself the idea of the other to which it belongs.” μ For this reason, Maximos can assert, against the Origenist appropriation of Platonism, that “there will be no complete and utter reduction of bodies to non- being,” since this would mean the annihilation of the human person, who is essen- tially a composite of both. ν
But neither Maximos nor Gregory had formulated their anthropology in the con- text of a hylomorphic account of the human person. Insofar as Aristotle had de- fined form as “the first actuality of a natural body potentially possessed of life,”