eCopy, Inc. Uniformis Trinitas: Once More the Theopaschite Trinitarianism of Dioscorus of Aphrodito L. S. B. Mac Coull One of the historical vulnerabilities of literature, as a subject for study, is that it has never seemed difficult enough. -Martin Arnis, The War Against Cliche D IOSC~RUS OF APHRODITO/ "a cultured careerist bent ~n self-Improvement" who "represent[ed] on the provm­ ciallevel a phenomenon that was empire-wide, the kind of Byzantine Hellenism in which ... culture and public action could not be conceived of one without the other,"2 was a pro­ lific practitioner of the art of encomium. I:n' the most recent comprehensive study of his output he has been credited with - inventing a genre termed the "verse petition," 3 in which he showed his adroitness in using praise "as a mediumfor com­ munication and negotiation between rulers and people."4 These praise poems, written during an era of religious controversy in I For John with love and thanks, and happy memories of the day of "helleni­ stische Landwirtschaft," and--reminding liliri that Alexander the Great did not exist and he had an infinite number of limbs. 2J. G. Keenan, review of J.-L. Fournet, Hellenisme dans l'Egypte du VIe siecle: La bibliotheque et l'oeuvre de Dioscore d'Aphrodite I-II (Cairo 1999; hereafter FOURNET), BibO 58 (2001) 132-139, here 139. 3Foumet I 259-264 (and elsewhere). 4J. George, "Venantius Fortunatus: Panegyric in Merovingian Gaul," in The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in Late Antiquzty, ed. M. Whitby (Leiden 1998) 225-246, here 228, and cj. 244 (also quoted in L. S. B. MacCoull, review of Fournet, BASP 37 [2000]193-210, here 199 n.12, 201 n.20 on com­ bining rhetoric with political engagement). Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 42 (2001) 83-96 ©2002 GRBS / 84 UNIFORMIS TRINITAS the eastern empire, were equally steeped in and engaged with the nuances of sixth-century Christian religious discourse, especially as it can be followed inperiphery-vs-center disputes such as those between Egypt and Constantinople. It .used to be thought diffic~lt to label Dioscorus as either Miaphysite5 (anti­ Chalcedonian) or pro-Chalcedonian in religious stance6 from what could be deduced from his surviving works (more prose documents than verse literature).7 At present the scholarly consensus does seem to be that this member of the bilingual Egyptian provincial elite shared the One-Nature faith of most of his countrymen and -women, and was opposed to the "western innovations" of Dyophysitism seen as being wrongfully im­ posed on believers outside the capital. In this paper I should like to return to a single word used by Dioscorus in his po~try, J.LOVOet8{J<;8 as an epithet of the Tri~ity, that I studied earlier/ and show that it bore meaningful freight as it would have b~en received by the writer's audience in a context of sixth-century Christological debate. s As in A. Grillmeier and T. Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition [here­ after CCT] II.2: The Church of Constantinople in the Sixth Century (London 1995) 511 and elsewhere: avoiding the term "Monophysite." 6Thankfully, the old dichotomies of Coptic/rural/ill-educated/poor/ "Monophysite" vs Greek/ urban/ well-educated/ affluent/ Chalcedonian are no longer used. 7I myself simply opted for "Cyrillian" in Dioscorus ofAphrodito: His Work and his World (Berkeley 1988) 151 (but see below). C. Kuehri, Channels of Imperishfzble Fire: The Beginnings of Christian Mystical Poetry and Di~scorus of Aphrodzto (New York 1995) 69, 128, 135, 154, leaned toward anti-Chalce­ donian but on guite erroneous grounds (anti-Chalcedonians were not icono­ clasts: far from 1t). Fournet (II 572) opts for anti-Chalcedonian on the basis of a penetrating analysis of Dibscorus' s poem on Justin ll, and this sensible "default position" lias mostly convinced me. The present study is an attempt further to engage with another point in Fournet's commentaries. On Dioscorus's Christologr. see also T. Hainthaler, "Dioscorus of Aphrodito," in CCT'll.4: The Church of Alexandria with Nubia and Ethiopia after ~51 (London 1996) 100 (in a section titled "The Christology of the Scholars"). SIam grateful to Kent Rigsby for helping with TLG searches. 9L. S. B. MacCoull, "A Trinitarian Formula in Dioscorus of Aphrodito," BSAC 24 (1979-82) 103-110, and "Movoeto~~ in Dioscorus of Aphi-odito: An Addendum," 25 (1983) 61-64. These papers were reprinted in MacCoull, Coptic Perspectives on Late Antiquity (London 1993) as nos. IV and V. L. S. B. MACCOULL 85 1. The expression In 551 Dioscorus was in Constantinople (for the second time in his life) on a business trip to present to the imperial authorities a petition complaining of how he had been robbed of four litrai of gold pieces by a certain Theodore, bishop of the Pentapolis.10 Knowing, thahks to his classical-rhetorical educa­ tion, just what was the best way to catch the attention of a high imperial official so as to obtain a favorable response, Dioscorus wrote on the spot a poem of praise to such an official (the name is not pleserved) to accompany his suit.11 The poem is no. 5 in Fournet's edition, headed "EnkOmion de petition."12 In com­ pletely formulaic fashion, Dioscorus opens by praising the laudandus's noble ancestry, of benefit-dispensing forefathers who overcame violence with eusebeia and dikaiosyne (lines 1-6). This personage of the imperial court whom our poet is ad­ dressing resembles those ancestors, he sayst'iri every way (8): 1ttcr[n]v aep'ta~rov Tpta8o<; J.L[ov ]oet8eo<; op8{Jv I "lifting up/exalting the right faith of the one-beinged ["single in essence"] Trinity" (Fournet: "[sc. tu] doue de la foi orthodoxe en la Trinite consubstantielle")P This means to say that both the imperial official and his forebears for at least two generations (cf. 1tpo1ta'trop, 4; i.e., since the reign of Anastasius) have, be­ sides their breeding and generosity, been distinguished in the religious sphere by defending the "correct" or "upright" form of Trinitarian belief. Seventeen years later, in the spring of 568 while resident in the\ nome capital Antinoopolis,14 Dioscorus composed an even lOFournet I 318-321. 11Cf MacCoull (supra n.4) 200-201. 12Text and French translation: Fournet I 381-383; commentary: ll 487-495. 13The poet goes on to say that his laudandus surpasses the classical heroes Achilles, Ajax, and Diomedes, and that the noble's arete is more than the number of the stars and the waves of the sea. He then describes the hardships of his sea journey: and the wrong he has suffered, and asks the laudandus for help for him­ self and his children: an as expected in the genre. 14Fournet I 321-324. 86 UNIFORMIS TRINITAS longer and more elaborate "enkomion de petition"15 addressed to J oannes, dux of the Thebaid, 16 occasioned by the poet's troubles in the "Menas affair," the illegal exploitations of a greedy pagarch. This poem17 is composed in the full-dress form of the time, a 26-line iambic prologue introducing 65 lines of hexameters.18 In it the laudandus is compared to Noah, saving humanity by piloting aright the ship, or ark, of state (line 8): a telling metaphor to use three years into the new reign of Justin II whose representative the dux is (cf line 32).19 This nobly-born (line 1) dux is called the bringer of justice, the dispenser of justice, the embodiment of justice (1-16), the "new Solon" (12);20 as the son of "golden-crowned, wise Justice" (30) he is to administer themis, Right (35), as both the emperor's represen­ tative (32, 33/1 36) and the one who has risen upon Egypt like a new sun ("new Phaethon," 37) to crown an already illustr.ious imperial career (comprising posts in other provinces)22 by setting all to rights. Then Dioscorus reuses a line (here line 39) he already used in the Constantinopolitan poem (5.9), a line he mostly borrowed from Nonnus's Paraphrasis of the Gospel of John/3 to praise the dux's nobility of descent once again, and to lS"Le meilleur exemple du genre de l'enkomion de petition dont Dioscore se fait une specialite": Fournet IT 524. 16For his career see Fournet I 331-336, correcting my earlier attempts. 17No. 11 in Fournet's edition: I 394-399, commentary II 524-549. lSSee Fournet I 278-288, and his "Un nouvel epithalame de Dioscore d'Aphrodite adresse a un gouverneur civil de Thebai:de," AntTard 6 (1998) 65-82, here 73 on matching meter to addressee. · 19Cf Fournet I 339 on assimilation of the dux to the emperor. 20Cf MacCoull (supra n.7) 140: the subject is justice. 211ta~~acrtA.eu~ flickers back and forth between meaning "the, emperor" and meaning "God": see Fournet's discussion (II 493-494); and contra cf Kuehn (supra n.7) 185-188, 207, who thinks (mistakenly, I hold) that it never means "emperor" in Dioscorus. 22So Fournet IT 533. 23"Never, never was there anyone like y:ou ... ": Fournet II 489:bk. 9 of the Paraphrasis is a versification of the story of the healing of .the man born blind, a healing accomplished by one like whom there is no other. See now Alan Cameron, "The Poet, the l3ishop, and the Harlot," GRBS 41 (2000) 175-188, for Nonnus. L. S. B. MACCOULL 87 introduce mention of his third characteristic besides pedigree and justice: EV x8ovt 1tCX.f.l~CXO'tA:ilo~ ad f.l£8e1tOUO'CXV aprorflv axpavtou TptaOo~ f.lOVO£t0[e]o~ £[A.]A.ax£(~) o&pov. "in the realm of the Emperor, you have brought as a gift the ever-present help of the undefiled Trinity, single in essence" (MacCoull [supra n.7] 140); "In the land of the All-Sovereign, as an ever present help I he received the gift of the simple, unmixed Trinity" (Kuehn [supra n.7] 182; he understands the first three words [n.97] as "if!_ the spiritual realm of God or Christ"; "unmixed" is a misleadingly erroneous rendering of axpavto~24 [see below]); "L'aide de l'immaculee Trinite con­ substantielle, qui toujours t' accompagne sur la terre du roi de l'univers, tu l'as re<;ue en don" (Fournet I 399). Here the imperial official has not the faith of the Trinity but the helping gift of the _ Trinity, a Trinity that has, besides f.lOVonC>ft~, an additional epithet, axpavto~. He has unconquerable help at hand to aid him in his just task. Over twenty years ago I was struck by the unusual Trinitarian epithet f.lOVO£t0Tt~ and WOndered what it meant:25 applied to the Trinity it clearly meant something special, something no one at the time would hav~.missed. In 551 and again in 568 Diosco­ rus worshipped. a Trinity that had ev d<>o~~ one "essence" or "form" or "kind." He invoked this divine being at times of great personal need, seeing it as deeply involved with the well-beii1,g of the empire.26 He applied this epithet to the divine being for a reason. 24This ~rror is repeated in J. ~- W. G. ~iebeschuetz,_Decline and Fall of the Roman Czty (Oxford 2001) 230 (m ch. 7, Transformation of Greek Literary Culture under the Influence of Christianity"). 25 Supra n.9. 26 Cf Cod. just. 1.1.5.2, the importance of which will be seen below. / 88 UNIFORMIS TRINIT AS 2. The background In his commentary on .Dioscorus 11.41 Fournet looks, as always in his illuminating method of interconnecting the literary and the documentary, to an oath-clause in a sixth-century Herakleopolite papyrus document, to conclude that "~ovoEt8ft<; est ici [in Dioscorus] synonyme du banal o~ooucrto<;."27 Un­ fortunately, he immediately then cites the extremely suspect and variously dated pro-Chalcedonian tractate De Sectis (CPG 6823)28 to defend the statement that d<>o<; and oucria were "quasi-homonyms:" This I fear cannot qe defended, and es­ pecially the use of a strict-Chalcedonian text from considerably later.29 The quotation from De Sectis given by Fournet (II 534) is from what the tractate's author specifically designates as a "memorandum on heresies," and its polemic succeeds only in 27Fournet ll 534, citing CPR I 30, which, like Dioscorus's line here, also calls the Trinity axpavto<;, an epithet found both in docUmentary invocations (reign of Maurice and after) and m ecclesiastical literature. (It goes back to the fourth century as an epithet for God, as in the poem "Address to the Just," line 59 [a p_oem that, like Dioscorus's work,. c_om~~es, epic !ffid recent diction]: see P.Bodm. XXX-XXXVII "Codex des Vzswns, Poemes dzvers, ed. A. Hurst and J. Rudhardt [Munich 1999] 62.) It might be noted with regard to the citation of Theodoret of Cyrrhus that Fournet gives (In Ps. 57:6 [PG 80.1297c-1300B]}, Theodoret, a staunch anti-Cyrillian, is attacking the "Macedonians" as the "charmers, charm they never so wisely," who perform a pseudo-baptism pro­ cedure using a twisted Trinitarian formula and "cutting up (otate~vovte<;) the divinity of tfte axpavto<; Trinity which is in one ousia, one basileia, one kyriotes, one theotes, one dynamis, one demiourgia." This sounds just like Miaphysite accusation of the Dyophysites, "cu~g up" the one Christ. _For Theodoret:s heresiological procedure, not genealogical l:iut conceptuiil and influenced by his own experiences in the fifth-centurr, controve~sies, see H. ~ill~t!' "Orthodo~y and Heresy in Theodoret of Cyrus Compendzum ofHereszes, _m Orthodoxze, christianisme, histoire, edd. S. Elin et al. (Rome 2000) 261-273. 28 Ably elucidated by Hainthaler, "The Chalcedonian writin~ De Sectis," in CCT Il.2 493-502. The doctoral thesis of M. Waegeman providing a critical edition is listed in CPG Suppl. (Tumhout 1998) 393. 29M. Waegeman, "The Text Tradition of the Treatise De Sectis (Ps.-Leontius Byzantinus}," AntCl45 (1976) 190-196, and "The Old Testament Canon in the Treatise De Sectis," 50 (1981} 813-818. I thank Irfan Shahld for sending me the data on Cod.Vindob.theol.gr. 190, a late witness. M. van Esbroeck ftowever dated the De Sectis to between 543 and 551: "La date et l'auteur duDe Sectis attribue a Leonce de Byzance," in After Chalcedon: Studies in Theology and Church History Offered to Professor Albert van Roey, ed. C. Laga et al. (Leuven 1985) 415-424. L. S. B. MACCOULL 89 confusing matters.30 Sixth-century disputes raged over just this kind of terminological accuracy in theological discourse in several eastern Christian languages (misunderstanding among which did not help matters).31 It is neither "vain overinter­ pretation" nor "pedantry"32 to look carefully at this nuanced poetic expression33 and try to hear just what Dioscorus's sixth­ century audience would ha':e understood.34 I gave up too easily in 2000 in acquiescing to Fournet's "synonyme du plus neutre o~ooucrto<;" (II 534).35 Where did Dioscorus get the word ~ovon8ft<;? From Cyril, 30 PG 86.1193A: "The first thing needed in writing a memorandum on heresies is to understand four items in fhe Fathers' [sc. Chalcedonian Fathers'] usage: ousia, physis, hypostasis, prosopon. We must know that in them ousia and physis are the same thing; and again, hypostasis and prosopon are the same thing. Ousia or physis is in them what philosophers term eidos. And eidos is what is asserted of many things that differ by number. And they [sc. Fathers] call hypostasis or prosapon what philosophers term 'indivisible ousia': and we have rightly added 'indivisible ousia', for ecclesiastical writers do not ~Call what in accidental things is indivisible either prosopon or hypostasis." ,If anything, what Chal­ cedonians accuse "Monophysites" of doing is using'physis and hypostasis, a· different pairing, as interChangeable synonyms. For Johri Philoponus's refuta­ tion of tfus in his Diaitetes (before A.D. 553}, that qenoma (hypostasis) and parsopa (prosopon) are what Dyophysites use interchangeably, .see Ioannis Philoponi Opuscula Monophysitzca, ed. A. Sanda (Beirut 1930) 20-21 (Syriac text}, 55-56 (Latin translation). 3Ieioo<; in Coptic is CMO'L and it is carefully distinguished from ovcu., +YCl.C/MlN6, 2YTIOCTACl.C, etc. 32So Fournet II 534. 33Fournet (II 534) thinks Dioscorus borrowed the word from some theo­ logical treatise now lost. ~. 34 A note on meter and word choice: Dioscorus, in composing epic hexameters in sixth-century Greek, innovated to great effect in using words from the everyday world in poetry, where they were metrically usable, and finding workable metrical substitutes where they were not (Fournet I 313; MacCoull [supra n.4] 200-201). This is not exactly what happened here. In both cases (~.8 and 11.41) ~ovodoeo<; is in the genitive modifyfug a genitive Tpuxoo<; which it immediately follows. The sequence v v- v v- v v spans either the third to fifth feet or the second to fourth feet of the line. Admittedly o~ooucriou could not be made to work. However, other choices expressing those meanings of "one rule, one lordship, one power," and the like would have beenfossib1e. Theological considerations were, I believe, at work in the selection o ~voaOft<; of all epi­ thets. On finding synonyms for the unutilized homoousios that would work in hexameter verse see Grillmeier and Hainthaler, CCI 11.4 96-97 ("The christo­ logical statement of Nonnus' s paraphrase of John"). 35,MacCoull (supra n.4) 205. 90 UNIFORMIS TRINITAS certainly, and from John Philoponus (whether or not the Alexandrian polymath-had ever been his teacher, at whatever remove).36 But it goes much further back in timeP following a trajectory straight along a high road of late antique thought, to a source Dioscorus would have known. The word goes back to Plato's Symposium,38 to Diotima's speech, to that vision of the One Beauty that captivates all human souls (210E-212A, at 211E): a:\Yto 'to 9etov KaA.f]v ... )lovon3ec; Kan3etv. 39 It was this vision in its patristic dress that helped lead Dioscorus to his choice of words.40 In Against the Macedonians on the Holy Spirit ( CPG 3142), the Cappadocian Gregory of Nyssa asserts that the Trinitarian Three differ only in what can be said Ka9' u1t6cnaow, and bases all he says upon Scripture. As far as the divine qn}mc; is concerned, he continues, it is thus believed to be &1tA.'h Kat )lOVOEl.Ollc; Kat acruve'toc; (PG 45.1304; III.1 89-91 J.), and we in- 36See Hainthaler, "John Philoponus, Philosopher and Theologian in Alex­ andria," in CCT ll.4 107-146, and again (for Dwscorus) 100; contra, Fournet, review of MacCoull, Coptic Perspectives, in AntTard 5 (1997) 368-372, here 370. 37Cf Fournet II 534: "ce vocable a forte connotation philosophique et theo­ logique." 38 Also to Phaedo 80B, "used to characterize ideal being which, having a single form [emphasis added], is ever constant and abiding": C. Steel, The Chang­ ing Self (Brussels 1978) 57 n.17. Priscian states that this uni-formity cannot be predicated of the soul (ibid.; also 139 n.86), a point we shall see repeated in pro-Chalcedonian texts such as Pamphilus's Solutio. The Phaedo was known in Byzantine Egypt partly via a Coptic translation of Gregory of Nyssa's Ma­ crinia, the "Clinstian Phaedo"; and"Philoponus wrote a (lost) commentary on it. For a view of how Phaedo 80B was being under§tO~ comes to be one of the four Chalcedonian Christological adverbs. 43 Cf W. BeierwaltesJ "-Dionysios Areopagites: ein christlicher Proklos?" in Platon in der abendliindischen Geistesgeschichte: Neue Forschungen zum Pla­ tonismus, edd. Th. Kobusch and B. Mojsisch (Darmstadt 1997) 71-100, esp. 84-90. . ~, 44Kuehn (supra n.7) 185 n.109 says "at least ten times." 45 Thesaurus Pseudo-Dionysii Areopagitae (CETEDOC), ed. M. Nasta (Tum­ hout 1995) 66b and fiche 0028; cf Corpus Dionysiacum II, ed. G. Heiland A.M. Ritter (PTS 36 [Berlin/New York 1991]) 289 (index). (See also Ph. Chevallier, Dionysiaca [Bruges 1937] I 177, 182; II 358, 466.) 46CoqJUs Dionysiacum I De Divinis Nominibus, ed. B. R. Suchla (PTS 33 [Berlin/New York 1990]) 151.15-16. . 47 As in Plato, Cratylus 416c; and again Proclus, Theol.Plat. 1.18 (I 87 S./W.), and In Ale. 1.328, ed. L. G. Westerink (Amsterdam 1954) 153, transl. W. O'Neill (The Hague 1965) 215; and John Philoponus, De Opificio Mundi (ca A.D. 547-560) 7.6, ed. C. Scholten (Fontes Chiistianae 23.1-3 [Freiburg 1997]) Ill 92 UNIFORMIS TRINITAS and has no truck with evil, DN 4.18-34 (Suchla 162-179), and especially 4.20 (166.3, !lOvonoft<; used of participation in the Good/Beautiful).48 Here, I believe, is the background for Diosco­ rus's word choice. It turns out that this is a choice he made in circumstances deeply engaged with his own times. 3. An echo from the capital (and its aftermath) To the root of the matter at last: "One of the Trinity was crucified"49 (or " ... suffered''). This phrase, once labeled the "Theopaschite formula," 50 had reverberated in the eastern empire for over three decades before Dioscorus came -to Constantinople. In the controversy over this phrase51 Justinian himself intervened more than once. 52 "One of the Trinity" was a formula deeply implicated with Christology,53 and the entire phrase was supported by Empress Theodora, Aphrodito's patroness. 54 In 527 Justinian had inserted the phrase into the 612-613. Cf. L. Fladerer, Johannes Philoponos, De Opificio Mundi: Spiitantikes Sprachdenken und christliche Exegese (Beitr.z.Alt. 133 [Stuttgart 1999]) 388- 389. 48Jn DN 13.1 this adverb is rendered "in a unitary manner" by S. Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena (Leiden 1978) 182. Yet again this comes partly through Proclus, Theol.P1at. 1.181 (I 82-88 S./W.). 49The section title for the admirably clear exposition of the whole phenom­ enon in Grillmeier and Hainthaler, CCT IT.2 317-343, with extensive literature. See alsoP. T. R. Gray, The Defense of Chalcedon in the East (451-553) (Leiden 1979) 48-58, and C. Sotinel, "Le role des expertises dans les debats theo­ logiques du VI• siecle," in Studia Patristica 34, edd. M. F. Wiles et al. (Leuven 2001) 234-249. SO Here I differentiate this matter from the so-called "Monophysite addition ['who was crucified for us'] to the Trishagion" problem: fort):l.at s~e Grillmeier and Hainthaler, CCT IT.2 253-262. --- sl For the early part of the controversy ~e non-Chalced?ni~ patriarch _of Alexandria was Trmothy Ill, on whose Chnstology see Grillme1er and Ham- thaler, CCT ITA 42-45. __ S2CCT 11.2 322-324, 338-341. 53CCT IT.2 327-333; cf, 11.4 87: "The unus ex Trinitate is a constitu~nt part of·­ anti-Chalcedonian theology"; also 256 (in a section entitled "On Christoiogy in the Liturgical Prayer of the Coptic Church"). 54CCT 2.2, 338 with n.96; P.Cair.Masp. II 67283 (with MacCoull [supra n.7] 21-22). Note that in both poems in which Dioscorus uses the Trinitarian epi­ thet !lOVOEt&f]c; ·he also uses the image of the patron's stretching out his or lier helping hand, an image he first used in the prose petition to Theodora from A.D. L. S. B. MACCOULL 93 very text of Roman law (Cod.Iust. 1.1.5.2), and in 533 he included it in a confession sent to (among other cities) Alexandria. Above all, El<; rov 'tTl<; ayia<; Tpuioo<; is a line from the famous Christ troparion '0 llovoyevi]<; 'Yto<; Kat A6yo<; 'tOU E>eou that Justinian had put in place in the liturgies of the capital's churches as early as 535 I 6 and in the rebuilt Hagia Sophia as of .537/8.55 The troparion is recited to .this day in the Coptic church on Good Friday. 56 Dioscorus would have heard it in Constantinople in 551. This gave him his clue to how to build a bric;Ige between One-Nature Egyptian believers on the one hand and imperial officials answerable to the emperor on the other. The latter were representing an emperor who promoted the mystery that "one of the Trinity was crucified." So when Dioscorus addressed his laudandi in encomia of petition, he praised them for having and exalting the faith of the !lOVOEtOTt<; Trinity, a Trinity "unique in its species ['God']," "uni-form," one of Whom became human and died. The choice of words was not banal or pedantic: it was deeply expressive of late­ antique Mediterranean reality, in particular an Egyptian reality. A century and a quarter earlier the archimandrite Shenoute, quite possibly another of Dioscorus's sources, had written, " ... 547/8. In addition to A. Papathomas, "Zwischen juristischen Formeln und kiinstlerischer Schopfung: Weutestamentliche Elemente in den Urkunden des spatantiken Dichters und Notars Flavius Dioskoros von Aphrodito," Hermes 128 (2000) 481-499, here492, compare in the OT, and for the poetry, Ec­ clesiasticus 7:32, 29:1; also Kuehri (supra n.7) 225-227. See afso J. H. F. Dijkstra, "A World Full of the Word: The Biblical Learning of Dioscorus," paper presented in Groningen, November 2001 (I thank Dr Dijkstra for sending ~~copy). . ssccT IT.2 339, 341. 561. Borsai, "Le tro_paire byzantin '0 Monogenes' dans le pratique du chant copte,'' Studia Muszcologia 14 (1972) 329-352, esp. 331-338. The phrase "being one of the Holy Trinity" ends with a four-note descending phrase often repeated in the troparion as transmitted orally in the twentieth century, pro~ablr exp~essing a. textual nu.ance as described by William T. FlY.IU1, Medzeva Muszc as Medzeval Exegeszs (Lanham 1999) 68--69, 80-90, 168 ('in a richer reading of the text than can be supplied by the words alone"), 245. (Flynn quotes an astonishing eleventh-century Burgundian Christmas Gloria trope, that reads Natus est nobis hodie Salvator in trinitate semper colendus.) / 94 UNIFORMIS TRINIT AS we are naming the consubstantial Trinity when we say Jesus ... with the name Jesus the holy Trinity is named."57 For their part, mainstream Chalcedonians were not slow in appropriating the epithet for their own discourses, as can be seen from the late sixth- (or early seventh-) century treatise attributed to one Pamphilus and entitled Solutio Difficultatum.58 The neo-Chalcedonian writer starts by asking for definitions of the usual suspect terms-hypostasis, physis, ousia-and eventu­ ally gets to the legitimacy of the "anthropological argument": In Christ's case is it possible to speak of a composite ousia as it is in the case of a human being, given that we also teach a eom­ posite hypostasis? (qu. 8). Answer: No creature is one in physis, i.e. simple and !lOvon3f)~; "only the ousia of the holy and wor­ shipped Trinity is simple and without form and ~without all doubleness .... In the case of the holy and blessed physis of the holy Trinity, since the ousia is simple and !lOvon3f)~ as already said, this we cannot assert .... God is one by physis, yet is trishypostatos."59 And on the big question of how Christ ca:r;t be in two physeis (qu. 10), Pamphilus reiterates a Proclan-,Ps.­ Dionysian-Cappadocian truism that "the Divine ('to 9etov) is simple and !lOVO£t3€~, being outside of all doubleness and compositeness,"60 maintaining that the two natures are plain from patristic tradition and that it is useless to split hairs about what kind of genus-and-species classification the divine can be 57Shenute Contra Origenistas, ed. T. Orlandi (Rome 19.85) §08~3; see also Grillmeier and Hainthaler, CCT II.4 186. Cf the contemporary P~?xenus ?f Mabbug, Ep. ad Zenonem imp. 123, to the effect that one of the Trrmty ~as m the womb, in the river in baptism, and on the cross (CCT 11.4 357). · sa Pamphili ~heologi diversorum capitu_m seu Difficultatum Solutio,, ed. J. Declerck in Dzversorum Postchalcedonenszum auctorum collectanea I (CCSG 19 [Turnho~t/Leuven 1989]) 127-261 (text); cf 17-24 on dating of tJ:te. tre~tise.,._A list of places where Pamphilus depends on the tractate De Sectzs IS g~ven m Declerck's index, p.378. 59 Solutio 179-180 Declerck, JlOVOEtO~<; at 180.60-62_ This woul~ appea~ to predate MaxUp.us the Co~~ssor, cite~ by Fournet (II 534) as the first applica­ tion of JlOVOEt~<; to the Tnruty after Dwscorus. 60Solutio 199.100 Declerck. L. S. B. MACCOULL 95 caught in. Even a Chalcedonian does not have by this time to believe that all the words are just interchangeable synonyms.61 4. Conclusion Dioscorus has come a long way since 1966: by now he even has his own entry (by C. Haas) in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World;62 and in November 2001 the University of Groningen held a conference session devoted to him under the title" A Centre of Learning in a Christianising World: The Case of Dioscorus." We no longer suffer from talk of the "worst poet ever" of earlier decades.63 As has recently been written about another late antique figure, Dioscorus was "not a towering in­ tellect of timeless importance but an articulate human being fully engaged with his physical and emotional environment."64 A legal functionary, writer, teacher, and Christian, Dioscorus combined the Homeric and the biblical learning that were his twin second natures to confront the issues of his time.65 In de­ scribing the Christian Trirtity as !lOVon3ft~ he used poetry to embody the Christological view of his province and his tradi:.. tion, in a form the rulers could grasp. We have also been told that "in the late" Roman atmosphere of developing theological principles and shifting Imperial legislation there was plenty of , 61 Cf 0. Kindiy, "An Excursus ~ the Byzantine ~e~~ogical Terminology of Maximus the Confessor: Hypostaszs, Dusza, and Physzs, XXVII BSC Abstracts (Notre Dame 2001) 47. 62£dd. G. W. Bowersock, F. R. L. Brown, and 0. Grabar (Cambridge [Mass.] 1999) 411. . 63The "minor writer of the decadence, the writer who is incomplete but none the less individual, distils a balm more irritant, more sudorific, more acid than the authp~ of the same period who is truly great and. truly perfect": L-K. Huysmans, Against Nature [A Rebours], transi. R. Baldick (Harmondsworth 1959) 185. 645. A. H. Kennell, Magnus Felix Ennodius: A Gentleman of the Church (Ann Arbor 2000) 2. 65Making allowances for the differences between a fi!th-cent:nY Latin-speak­ ing ecclesiastic and a sixth-century Greek- and CophC-Sf>eakmg layman, the parall~ls ~ith Ennodius are man~: cf _Ke.nnell ~supra n;?4) 64,,;'f!:le peaceable cohabitation of Homer and the Bible mside [his] head ; 201, his apparently traditional language, studded with references to the classical past, masks a fundamental cliange in sensibility"; also 50, 192. / 96 UNIFORMIS TRINITAS scope for the traditional activities of wily advocates and able iurisperiti. "66 A fortiori how much the more for an able iurisperitus who could, like Dioscorus, compose poetry in a cultural register that would reach an elite audience and effectively convey his theological message. 67 February, 2002 Society for Coptic Archaeoldgy (North America) 914 E. Lemon St. #137 Tempe, AZ 85281 , haflele@imap4.asu.e9.u c 66C. Humfress, "Roman Law, Forensic Argument and the Formation of Christian Orthodoxy (III-VI Centuries)," in Elm (supra n.27) 125-147, here 128. 67 Also as always in loving memory of Mirrit Boutros Ghali, whom John will remember ("You are all my visions": A Beautiful Mind). -