Dmitry Makarov. The problem of tritheism in Antirrheticus against Veccus by Georges Moskhambar (1281). Vol. 4. No. 2. 2019

Publication Details

Abstract

The article is a preface to the translation into Russian of the Chs. 1 to 3 of the Antirrheticus against Veccus, a crucial text for understanding the late-thirteenth-century inner-Byzantine Trinitarian polemics. The text was penned by a less known anti-Latin polemicist Georges Moskhambar ca. 1281. In our introductory article we make a short survey of the treatise, trying to demonstrate that Veccus’ accusation in Tritheism put forward by Moskhambar had had serious foundations. Veccus’ triadology indeed tended toward a kind of Tritheism. The treatise in question stands as an expression of the sharp dogmatic polemics which shaken the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate under John XI Veccus (1275–1282). As Moskhambar demonstrates, in the Holy Trinity can be neither order (taken as a subordination), nor any calculus of the Persons, as our mundane categories are out of order there. In the Trinity there is from eternity the interpenetration of the Hypostases based on their common and unique essence and energy, as well as their mutual aspiration toward each other. The Filioque doctrine tends to wholly deny it. The Latinophiles of the 13th century split the Holy Trinity into some three Subjects of unequal honor, thereby falling into the Tritheism and bending to adopt the concept of “particular essence” which was inadmissible from the viewpoint of the Orthodox dogmatics. From the other hand, while enumerating the Hypostases, Scripture and the Tradition can name each one of them first, second or third, this being a manifestation of the interpenetration. Moskhambar found support in the widely quoted by him Theological orations of St. Gregory the Theologian. Besides, he debunked that general confusion in the sphere of theological concepts which was so characteristic for Veccus’ Trinitarian views, and quite traditionally compared his opponent with Eunomius, the leader of the fourth-century Neo-Arians.

Keywords

Georges Moskhambar, John XI Veccus, Gregory the Theologian, Latinophiles, Tritheism, Trinitarian polemics.

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© Dmitry Makarov, 2019