Eutychianorum furor! Heresiological Comparison and the Invention of Eutychians in Leo I’s Christological Polemic
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13099840 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Samuel Cohen (0000-0002-9072-1041, Sonoma State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-25 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Entangled Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2363-6696 • E-ISSN: 2363-6696 |
| Publisher | CERES / KHK Bochum (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.46586/er.11.2020.9434 |
| OpenAlex | W4210505430 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
This essay examines the use of heresiological rhetoric in the letters and tractates of Leo I (bishop of Rome, 440–461) written in defense of the Council of Chalcedon (451). In these texts, Leo claimed the Constantinopolitan monk Eutyches and his supporters, the Eutychians, were an existential threat to the faith. However, Leo’s Eutychians were a heresiological confabulation. Heresiology employs polemical comparison and hostile classification to demarcate the boundaries of authentic Christianity. Because heresiology understands heresy genealogically, contemporary error could be described and condemned thanks to its affiliation with previous heretical sects. This was largely a taxonomic exercise; naming heresies allowed their supposed errors to be categorized and compared, especially with its (imagined) antecedents. Leo employed precisely this kind of comparison to associate Eutyches with earlier heresiarchs. He then reduced all opposition to Chalcedon to ‘Eutychianism,’ the error named for Eutyches, or else to its opposite and equally incorrect counterpart ‘Nestorianism’—both of which were, according to Leo, part of the same diabolically inspired misunderstanding of Christ. In short, Leo transformed Eutyches, the man, into a ‘hermeneutical Eutychian,’ a discursive construct intended to advance Leo’s own theological agenda, especially the creation of an orthodox identity coterminous with adherence to Chalcedon
Art · Christology · Faith · Heresy · Literature · Mysticism · Opposition (politics · Political science · Rhetoric · Theology · Byzantine Studies and History · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · Law · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Studies
The Politics of Heresy in Ambrose of Milan
A Greek Roman EmpirePower and Belief under Theodosius II (408-450)
Living Letters of the Law
Archaeology And The ‘Arian Controversy’ In The Fourth Century
Hybridity as Subversion of Orthodoxy? Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity
Polemical Comparisons in Discourses of Religious Diversity
Nuancing Augustine's Hermeneutical Jew
A Reconsideration of Alexandrian Christology
The Church in Ancient Society
Verging on the polemical. Towards an interdisciplinary approach to medieval religious polemic
Justin Martyr Invents Judaism
| Highly cited | No |
|---|