Severus of Antioch
SEVERUS OF ANTIOCH (c. 465–538) was a rhetorician, theologian, and monophysite patriarch of Antioch (512–518). Severus was born in Apollonia, Thrace (modern-day Sozopol, Bulgaria), most likely in 465. He studied philosophy in Alexandria and rhetoric in Berytus (present-day Beirut), where, under the influence of Zacharias the Scholastic, he also acquired an interest in religious questions. After his baptism in Tripoli in 488, Severus became a monk at the monastery of Peter of Oberian, at Maiouma, near Gaza. In an attempt to live a more ascetic life, he left the monastery for the desert. But this soon proved harmful to his health, so he eventually returned to Maiouma.
There he established his own monastery and was ordained presbyter and archimandrite. The monophysite monks sent him to Constantinople in 508 to protest the subversive activities of the Orthodox monk Niphalios, who had managed to turn the Maiouma monks against Severus. Once in Constantinople, Severus gained the favor of the emperor Anastasius I (491–518) for the persecuted monophysite monks. Severus bided his time in Constantinople writing polemical works against the Council of Chalcedon. It was during this period that he wrote his most important work, the Philalethes.
In 512 Severus left Constantinople for Antioch where he was subsequently elected patriarch. As patriarch he attempted to strengthen monophysitism through the election of bishops, but his efforts failed. The death of Anastasius I in 518 precipitated a drastic change in ecclesiastical policy. With the ascendancy of the pro-Chalcedonian emperor Justin I (518–527), monophysitism lost favor, and Severus was eventually deposed as patriarch and expelled from Antioch. Severus fled to the Monastery of Ennaton in Egypt and lived for a time with Timothy IV, the monophysite patriarch of Alexandria. He encouraged the Copts at Ennaton to oppose the orthodox patriarchs. Severus also came into conflict with the former follower, Julian of Halicarnassus, whom he had known since his first visit to Constantinople in 508, over his colleague's extreme monophysitism. Severus was an intelligent thinker who sought a middle ground between the orthodox position and monophysitism.
In 535 Severus received (through the ministrations of the empress Theodora) an invitation from the emperor Justinian to come to Constantinople; there he worked with the patriarch Anthimus in an effort to restore monophysitism. Opposition arose to their proposals, and Anthimus was deposed and Severus condemned by the Synod of Constantinople (536).
He was once again forced to flee to Egypt, where he continued to write until his death in Alexandria in 538. Jacobite Syrians and the Copts venerate him as a saint; his feast day is celebrated on February 8.
Severus wrote a great number of works in Greek, but only a small portion of them is extant. A homily is preserved under the name of Gregory of Nyssa (Patrologia Graeca 46.627–652). Most of his writings are preserved in Syriac, such as the Philalethes, in which Severus refutes 244 chapters from the work of Cyril of Alexandria. He also wrote five treatises against Julian of Halicarnassus; three discourses against the orthodox patriarch Grammaticus; four letters against the extreme monophysite Sergius; and two letters against the orthodox Niphalios. A collection of his letters has been preserved as well as the homilies he delivered on various feasts. He is incorrectly identified as the author of a Syriac anaphora. Many liturgical hymns are also attributed to him, and he is regarded by many as the author of the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite (Pseudo-Dionysius). Many modern scholars have concluded that his teachings approximate those of Cyril of Alexandria. He continues to influence the thought of non-Chalcedonian Syrians and Copts.
Bibliography
Severus's Philalethes, Orationes ad Nephalium, Liber contra Impium Grammaticum, and his writings against Julian of Halicarnassus are available in volumes 4–7, 68–69, 104–105, 124–127, and 136–137 of Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalum, Scriptores Syri (Paris, 1929–1971). English translations, by E. W. Brooks, of Severus's letters and hymns can be found in volumes 6, 7, 12, and 14 of Patrologia Orientalis, edited by R. Graffin and F. Nau (Paris, 1911–1920).
No English work on Severus is readily available. Secondary sources in other languages include Hans Georg Beck's Kirche und theologische Literatur in byzantinischen Reich (Munich, 1977), pp. 387–390, Ioannou Eustratiou's Sebéros: Ho monophusites patriarches Antiochieas (Leipzig, 1894), Joseph Lebon's Le monophysisme sévérien (Louvain, 1909), and M. Preisker's "Severus von Antiochen" (Ph. D. diss., University of Halle, 1903).
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