Table Of ContentPersonhood in the Byzantine
Christian Tradition
Bringing together international scholars from across a range of linked disciplines
to examine the concept of the person in the Greek Christian East, Personhood in
the Byzantine Christian Tradition stretches in its scope from the New Testament
to contemporary debates surrounding personhood in Eastern Orthodoxy. Attention
is paid to a number of pertinent areas that have not hitherto received the scholarly
attention they deserve, such as Byzantine hymnography and iconology, the work
of early miaphysite thinkers, and the relevance of late Byzantine figures to the
discussion. Similarly, certain long-standing debates surrounding the question are
revisited or reframed, whether regarding the concept of the person in Maximus
the Confessor, or with contributions that bring patristic and modern Orthodox
theology into dialogue with a variety of contemporary currents in philosophy,
moral psychology, and political science.
In opening up new avenues of inquiry, or revisiting old avenues in new ways,
this volume brings forward an important and ongoing discussion regarding
concepts of personhood in the Byzantine Christian tradition and beyond, and
provides a key stimulus for further work in this field.
Alexis Torrance is Archbishop Demetrios College Chair of Byzantine Theology
and Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Theology and the Medieval Institute at
the University of Notre Dame.
Symeon Paschalidis is Professor of Patristics and Hagiography in the Faculty
of Theology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Director of the
Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies in Thessaloniki.
Personhood in the Byzantine
Christian Tradition
Early, Medieval, and Modern Perspectives
Edited by Alexis Torrance
and Symeon Paschalidis
First published 2018
by Routledge
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© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Alexis Torrance and Symeon
Paschalidis; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Alexis Torrance and Symeon Paschalidis to be identified as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Torrance, Alexis, 1985– editor. | Paschalidis, Symeon, editor.
Title: Personhood in the Byzantine Christian tradition : early, medieval,
and modern perspectives / edited by Alexis Torrance and Symeon
Paschalidis.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017060120 | ISBN 9781472472786 (hardback :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315600185 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Theological anthropology—Christianity. | Human beings. |
Orthodox Eastern Church—Doctrine.
Classification: LCC BX342.9.M35 P477 2018 | DDC
233/.50882819—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017060120
ISBN: 978-1-4724-7278-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-60018-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
ContentsContents
Acknowledgements viii
Contributors ix
Introduction 1
ALEXIS TORRANCE AND SYMEON PASCHALIDIS
SECTION I
Ancient Christian, early Byzantine 7
1 Personal relationship as a prerequisite for moral imitation
according to the Apostle Paul 9
CHRISTOS KARAKOLIS
2 Emotional “scripts” and personal moral identity: insights
from the Greek fathers 19
PAUL M. BLOWERS
3 Personhood in miaphysitism: Severus of Antioch and John
Philoponus 29
JOHANNES ZACHHUBER
SECTION II
Early to middle Byzantine 45
4 Hypostasis, person, and individual according to
St. Maximus the Confessor, with reference to the
Cappadocians and St. John of Damascus 47
JEAN-CLAUDE LARCHET
vi Contents
5 Mary, the mother of God, in dialogue: the drama of
personal encounter in the Byzantine liturgical tradition 68
MARY B. CUNNINGHAM
6 Personification in Byzantine hymnography: Kontakia and canons 80
DAMASKINOS (OLKINUORA) OF XENOPHONTOS
SECTION III
Late Byzantine 101
7 The exemplar of consubstantiality: St. Gregory Palamas’s
hesychast as an expression of a microcosmic approach to
personhood 103
DEMETRIOS HARPER
8 Nicholas Cabasilas of Thessaloniki: the historical dimension
of the person 114
MARIE-HÉLÈNE CONGOURDEAU
9 Freedom, necessity, and the laws of nature in the thought of
Gennadios Scholarios 128
MATTHEW C. BRIEL
SECTION IV
Modern 135
10 Flesh and Spirit: divergent Orthodox readings of the iconic
body in Byzantium and the twentieth century 137
EVAN FREEMAN
11 Nikos Nissiotis, the “theology of the ’60s,” and personhood:
continuity or discontinuity? 161
NIKOLAOS ASPROULIS
12 Eastern Christian conceptions of personhood and their
political significance 173
NICOLAS PREVELAKIS
Contents vii
13 Consubstantial selves: a discussion between Orthodox
personalism, existential psychology, Heinz Kohut, and
Jean-Luc Marion 182
NICHOLAS LOUDOVIKOS
Index 197
Acknowledgements
AcknowledgmentsAcknowledgments
We would like to thank all those who helped bring this volume to fruition. In
the first instance, we are grateful to the 13 contributors to this volume, whose
patience was often tried by us, but never shaken. The work of volume editing is
often likened to the thankless task of herding cats, but in this case, it proved a joy.
We are likewise grateful to the staff at Routledge, in particular Jack Boothroyd,
who was invaluable at shepherding us through the publication process. Several of
the contributions to this volume were initially given at a conference held in Thes-
saloniki in May 2014. We are grateful for the various financial and institutional
support that helped make that conference possible, including a European Union
grant via Greece’s National Strategic Reference Framework, the support of the
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the University Ecclesiastical Academy of
Thessaloniki, and a grant from the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius.
Alexis Torrance and Symeon Paschalidis
December 7, 2017
Contributors
ContributorsContributors
Nikolaos Asproulis is Deputy Director of the Volos Academy for Theological
Studies (Volos, Greece) and Lecturer at the Post-Graduate Program of Orthodox
Theology, School of Humanities, Hellenic Open University (Greece).
Paul M. Blowers is the Dean E. Walker Professor of Church History in the
Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan College, Tennessee. He is a scholar
of Greek and Byzantine patristics and has published extensively on Maximus the
Confessor.
Matthew C. Briel is Assistant Professor of Theology at Assumption College in
Worcester, Massachusetts.
Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, chercheur honoraire au CNRS and membre asso-
cié de l’UMR 8167 Orient Méditerranée (Monde byzantin), Collège de France,
Paris. She is presently working on a biography of Nicolas Cabasilas.
Mary B. Cunningham is Honorary Associate Professor of Historical Theology at
the University of Nottingham. She has published books and articles on the role of
the Virgin Mary in Byzantine and modern Orthodox Christian tradition, as well as
on subjects relating to Byzantine preaching, hagiography, and liturgy.
Evan Freeman is a PhD candidate in the Department of the History of Art at Yale
University and a lecturer in Liturgical Art at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological
Seminary.
Demetrios Harper is Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Theology,
Religion, and Philosophy at the University of Winchester and Assistant Editor of
Analogia: The Pemptousia Journal for Theological Studies.
Christos Karakolis is Associate Professor of New Testament at the Department
of Theology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece and
Research Fellow of the Department for Old and New Testament Studies at the
University of the Free State, South Africa.
