Christological Theology of St. Severus

[HabteSelassie]

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious name of Our Lord and savior jesus Christ!

selam all
selam Severian, I was wondering if you or anyone else can help me with this, the name of our father serverus when written in Geez and Amharic it is read like this ... saaweeross, or saawiiross, i am not good with phonetics at all, the names are usually directly written and translated as said in the Syriac , Arabic or Aramaic etc, not their English version, this makes knowing their English version names difficult. so my question is on our book entitled ' the faith of the fathers' i read his letters and excerpts of homilies and commentaries , they are very few, and on one of them he writes a letter addressed to someone called 'youlianos(in geez) the horse man or horse rider?, his name might translate as julianos/Julian with a title of a horse rider? i am not sure, do you know of such a letter to such man? or do you know of a name that is close to the above youlianos ? or is this man not refered as emperor , is he /could he be the same as the emperor Justinian I?

another question.. how many kings did he write a letter to? there is one letter to the emperor Anastasius, then the other excerpts do not mention the name of the king he writes to, it just says 'on his letter to the king'

if you know it that's great if not, do not worry about it, i was just curious.

thank you.

Could the horse-name actually be in regards to either Severus or another's horse and not the rider, similar to the oligarchical tradition of more contemporary Ethiopia (i.e., 18th-mid 20th centuries) in folks going by their "horse name" such as the way folks on the streets of Addis referred to Janhoy Haile Selassie? In that context, maybe these letters very well were written for Justinian.

stay blessed,
habte selassie

[Hiwot]

selam all

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious name of Our Lord and savior jesus Christ!

selam all
selam Severian, I was wondering if you or anyone else can help me with this, the name of our father serverus when written in Geez and Amharic it is read like this ... saaweeross, or saawiiross, i am not good with phonetics at all, the names are usually directly written and translated as said in the Syriac , Arabic or Aramaic etc, not their English version, this makes knowing their English version names difficult. so my question is on our book entitled ' the faith of the fathers' i read his letters and excerpts of homilies and commentaries , they are very few, and on one of them he writes a letter addressed to someone called 'youlianos(in geez) the horse man or horse rider?, his name might translate as julianos/Julian with a title of a horse rider? i am not sure, do you know of such a letter to such man? or do you know of a name that is close to the above youlianos ? or is this man not refered as emperor , is he /could he be the same as the emperor Justinian I?

another question.. how many kings did he write a letter to? there is one letter to the emperor Anastasius, then the other excerpts do not mention the name of the king he writes to, it just says 'on his letter to the king'

if you know it that's great if not, do not worry about it, i was just curious.

thank you.

Could the horse-name actually be in regards to either Severus or another's horse and not the rider, similar to the oligarchical tradition of more contemporary Ethiopia (i.e., 18th-mid 20th centuries) in folks going by their "horse name" such as the way folks on the streets of Addis referred to Janhoy Haile Selassie? In that context, maybe these letters very well were written for Justinian.

stay blessed,
habte selassie

Habte, thank you for the reply. It is not the same usage of horse name/ warrior name/ . i found in further reading on the letter of St.Cyriacus of Antioch to the Holy Father Marcus II Patriarch of Alexandria , He mentions yoolianos the horse rider/man and condemns his heresy of calling the humanity of our Lord as having the nature of the Divine therefore that his humanity is not real and therefore the word did not suffer in flesh that is co-substantial with ours but rather in something like a magical flesh which is incapable of suffering thus rendering the passion of our Lord a make believe. St.Cyriacus says that this man taught along with others he names' waleetos and Mannie' that all the passion of our Lord was a make believe and not a real suffering because His Flesh they said was incapable of suffering, an in-corrupt flesh thus all the suffering to redeem humanity was just  Christ seemingly suffering but not really!

so St.Cyriacus goes in detail refuting that heresyand other heresies  and writes extensively in affirming the Orthodox Faith of the  One Nature of the Incarnate Logos, and further explaining the Hypostatic Union  as a real and perfect union of the Fullness of Divinity and the Fullness of Humanity without  mingling, confusion, alteration, or transmutation.

therefore yoolianos is who Severian said he was. thank you for taking the time to consider my request though. it must have been how the early fathers know of him with that title, but they have thier own title for him as well, a not so flattering one. 

selam hunu.

[jnorm888]

Where have I said that will is a property of person? I said that will belongs to a person.

If you believe that will is only to be attributed to a nature then surely no-one is liable to judgement because of sin. A person cannot be guilty of having a damaged foot. Likewise a person cannot be guilty of having a sinful will if it is only ever to be described as being a property of a nature.

On the contrary, we become personally responsible because all of the natural properties associated with the concrete hypostasis which we are belong to us.

There is only one will in Christ because there is only one owner, one person, one subject, one identity who wills and has will. But of course what is willed is diverse, and the faculty of willing is diverse. But if there are two wills (not faculties of will) then there are two subjects. It is not possible for it to be otherwise because the will (not the faculty of willing) defines personhood. Two wills which co-operate is the same as saying two persons who co-operate. However closely they co-operate they are not the same.

I have never said that will is a property of person, nor does the bishop you quote. He and I insist that the properties of the natures of which Christ is composed are all to be attributed to the one Word of God. Attributed means to name the owner. The willing of Christ, which is expressed in the human faculty of willing, and the willing of Christ, which is expressed inexpressibly in the divine faculty of willing are the same will. It cannot be otherwise.

The diversity is found in the natural faculty of willing which expresses what is willed and how it is willed, but the will itself also belongs to and expresses the hypostasis itself. It cannot be otherwise, else we would only be animals who act by blind instinct.

No-one disagrees that the faculty of willing is found in the natural properties, but when you say that there are two wills in Christ, which hypostasis is expressed and manifested in the human will, and which is expressed and manifested in the divine will? And in what manner are these different wills - not faculties of willing but wills. If they are not different and belong to and express the same divine person of the Word then as far as we are concerned they are one composite will, which is in agreement with the Christology of one composite nature and hypostasis.

When Christ willed to heal the man who had sat by the pool of Bethsaida who was it who willed? Was it Christ the man who willed humanly and the Word who willed to act divinely in healing, or was it the one Word Incarnate who willed both humanly and divinely? If we say that the one Word Incarnate willed to heal the man then we already agree that the one subject of the Word has one will which is expressed in willing activity through both his own humanity and his own divinity.

It then becomes a matter of arguing about the same thing.

If you say that Christ had his own will and the Word his own will, or that in the Garden of Gethsemane we see that the human will resists the divine will, then we disagree and I must say that such a view is problematic.

I am willing to speak of two wills only if it is accepted that the human will is entirely the servant of the divine will, and acts as the divine will incarnate.

But let me stress. We don't think that the will is located only in the person, as if it did not exist in the human nature. What is not assumed is not healed. St Severus is absolutely clear that the incarnation is God becoming man to take up again the conflict with Satan and by the obedience and will of man to choose God and the good. If there is no human faculty of will then this is not possible. But the faculty of will does not exist in isolation from the hypostatic and personal aspect of being. It is especially the locus for the hypostatic expression of a man.

A man without a will is just a vegetable. But a man without a will which expresses his hypostatic quality is just an animal acting on instinct.

To be able to will is natural. But the content of the will is hypostatic. And the content of the human and divine will in Christ is the same will of the Word expressed appropriately. The Divine Word both wills to hold the universe in being and wills to eat fish with his disciples. It is the same will, the same intent, the same content of will, but expressed IN and THROUGH diverse natural faculties of willing which are distinct to careful contemplation but not divided because they are united in the one hypostasis of the Word Incarnate.

Now you are saying there is only one will in Christ. I don't mean to be argumentative. I'm just confused now. Before you posted, I thought we had the same faith. Now, I am not convinced we do.

Father is saying One Will in the same way as when he says One Nature. He believes the human will to be subordinate to the Divine will. I'm not going to comment on that just yet. I'm going to wait a while.

[Father Peter]

Hi jnorm,

Probably I wouldn't express myself in saying the human will is subordinate to the divine will, as this seems to me to suggest that they have some activity of their own and in independent existence.

I'd probably want to have a reference to the Word of God as the one who himself orders his being human and divine, and in whom his own human faculty of will is always used to accomplish his own divine will, and where the substance of the human will is reflective of the substance of the divine will.

Just as the humanity of Christ expresses God the Word in true human form, so the human faculty of will, as an aspect of that true humanity, expresses the will of God the Word in a truly human manner. There is no division, nor, in a sense, would I say that there was a subordination, but a union. Both faculties of willing (though we cannot really describe the divinity in such a way) belong to the same one who wills, and what he wills is the same, though humanly and divinely.

It is en theoria (not in theory) that we can see that there are human things which are willed and divine things which are willed, and things which are common. But even the human things are divinely willed, and the divine things are not without the natural consent of humanity.

Nevertheless, the Word of God incarnate is not bound by any real and true movement of his own humanity, and the natural faculty of human willing is deified by union with the divinity.

I agree with this statement as far as it goes...

..his human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his divine and omnipotent will.  For it was right that the flesh should be moved but subject to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius.  For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his flesh is called and is the proper will of God the Word, as he himself says:  “I came down from heaven, not that I might do mine own will but the will of the Father which sent me!” where he calls his own will the will of his flesh, inasmuch as his flesh was also his own.  For as his most holy and immaculate animated flesh was not destroyed because it was deified but continued in its own state and nature (ὄρῳ τε καὶ λόγῳ), so also his human will, although deified, was not suppressed, but was rather preserved according to the saying of Gregory Theologus:  “His will [i.e., the Saviour’s] is not contrary to God but altogether deified.”

[CoptoGeek]

There's an article in St. Nersess Theological Review entitled,

"Severus of Antioch: Eastern and Oriental Perspectives," St Nersess Theological Review 3:1-2 (1998) pp. 23-35, by Fr. John Behr, the Dean of SVS.

For someone with access to an academic library, it should be an excellent read to get the perspective of a knowledgeable EO Scholar.

[jnorm888]

Hi jnorm,

Probably I wouldn't express myself in saying the human will is subordinate to the divine will, as this seems to me to suggest that they have some activity of their own and in independent existence.

I'd probably want to have a reference to the Word of God as the one who himself orders his being human and divine, and in whom his own human faculty of will is always used to accomplish his own divine will, and where the substance of the human will is reflective of the substance of the divine will.

Just as the humanity of Christ expresses God the Word in true human form, so the human faculty of will, as an aspect of that true humanity, expresses the will of God the Word in a truly human manner. There is no division, nor, in a sense, would I say that there was a subordination, but a union. Both faculties of willing (though we cannot really describe the divinity in such a way) belong to the same one who wills, and what he wills is the same, though humanly and divinely.

It is en theoria (not in theory) that we can see that there are human things which are willed and divine things which are willed, and things which are common. But even the human things are divinely willed, and the divine things are not without the natural consent of humanity.

Nevertheless, the Word of God incarnate is not bound by any real and true movement of his own humanity, and the natural faculty of human willing is deified by union with the divinity.

I agree with this statement as far as it goes...

..his human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his divine and omnipotent will.  For it was right that the flesh should be moved but subject to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius.  For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his flesh is called and is the proper will of God the Word, as he himself says:  “I came down from heaven, not that I might do mine own will but the will of the Father which sent me!” where he calls his own will the will of his flesh, inasmuch as his flesh was also his own.  For as his most holy and immaculate animated flesh was not destroyed because it was deified but continued in its own state and nature (ὄρῳ τε καὶ λόγῳ), so also his human will, although deified, was not suppressed, but was rather preserved according to the saying of Gregory Theologus:  “His will [i.e., the Saviour’s] is not contrary to God but altogether deified.”

I just now caught this! Thanks for responding!

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