Mark of Ephesus

Mark composed a wealth of poetic texts honoring God and the saints, many of which were intended for use in a liturgical setting. In addition to canons and services to Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, and the angels, Mark honored his favorite Fathers of the Church: Gregory Palamas, John Damascene, Symeon Metaphrastes, along with a wealth of more ancient saints. Additionally, Mark composed verses celebrating the lives and achievements of his heroes, such as Joseph Bryennios.[2]

Mark was a devoted disciple of Gregory Palamas. Throughout his life he composed several treatises in defense of the essence-energies distinction, and he defended the unique contributions of Hesychast theology in the face of charges of innovation.

One of Mark's most important theological contributions was his opposition to the Roman Catholic Filioque. At the Council of Florence, the examination of this controversy had both text-critical and exegetical dimensions, as the participants debated the authenticity of sources, the precision of grammatical constructions, and the canon of authoritative patristic texts. Mark had played an early role in the gathering of manuscripts, and his contested readings at the synod have since been vindicated for their precision and accuracy.[3]

Echoing centuries of polemic, going back to Photius, the debates surrounding the Filioque admitted resonances of more recent discussions, such as those of John Bekkos and Gregory of Cyprus. In the end, Mark could not concede that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as the Father, even by using the Orthodox phrase of "through the Son," since Mark considered this to be an equivocation in light of the obvious theological disagreements between East and West. For Eugenikos, the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father, and the phrase "through the Son" did not express anything like the theology of the Filioque.

Mark's criticism of the doctrine of Purgatory, the other major topic at Florence, involved him in questions relating to the nature of the human composite. Basing himself on Palamite conceptions of man, Mark articulated a theory of the human person rooted in Christology and Orthodox doctrines of Creation. Mark's discourses at Florence are, in this regard, supplemented by writings which he produced in response to the Platonism of Gemisthus Plethon, who preached a radical identification of the human person with the soul, to the detriment of embodied life.[4]

The Palaiologan period in which Mark lived witnessed the translation of the works of Thomas Aquinas into Greek, an event whose repercussions have yet to be fully documented and expounded. In spite of remaining ambiguities, though, it has become increasingly clear that the Hesychasts were not unaware of Latin theology.

Some scholars have hypothesized that Mark adopts Thomas Aquinas' hylomorphism in his defense of the Resurrection, and that he experiments with arguments from Thomas Aquinas' Summa contra Gentiles in order to argue for the concomitance of mercy in God's condemnation of unrepentant sinners to hell. "Further, Eugenicus’ treatise Peri anastaseôs (ed. A. SCHMEMANN, “Une œuvre inédite de St Marc d’Éphèse: Peri anastaseôs”, in: Theología 22 (1951): 51–64; text on pp. 53–60) is merely a defence of the rational possibility of the doctrine of resurrection and a rational refutation of some philosophical objections against it based almost entirely on Thomas Aquinas’ description of the natural unity of the human soul with the body in explicitly hylomorphic and anti-Platonic terms (see Summa contra Gentiles IV,79-81; cf. Vat. gr. 616, ff. 289r-294v)."[5] Also, eminent Eastern Orthodox scholars have already suggested that, during Mark's courteous and apologetic period of preparation for the Council of Florence, the Ephesine explicitly omitted condemnations of Aquinas by name, even if his two "Antirrhetics against Manuel Kalekas" contained condemnation of Thomistic Trinitarian theology, especially Thomas' implicit rejection of the essence-energies distinction and the Thomas' assertion that Aristotelean "habits" were very similar to the charisms or the Holy Spirit (e.g., Faith, Hope, & Charity).[6] What is more, Mark had a great love for Augustine of Hippo, spending money at Florence to buy manuscripts of the same. In fact, at Florence he copiously cites Augustinian and Ps.-Augustinian works approvingly as an authority in favor of Orthodoxy.[7] Finally, Mark was savvy enough to understand Bernard of Clairvaux's writings from an unknown translation (likely through his former pupil Scholarius). He used Bernard to argue for the Palamite position on the beatific vision.[8] In effect, Mark of Ephesus' liberal use of Latin authorities paved the way for the fuller synthesis of his pupil Gennadius Scholarius after his master's death.[9]

Even if Mark was initially zealous for the "divine work of union" (τὸ θεῖον ἔργον τῆς εἰρήνης καὶ ἑνώσεως τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν)[10] in his opening speech to Pope Eugene IV, Mark was disgusted at the Latin efforts and plots to prevent him from reading the acts of the Ecumenical Councils aloud, wherein the canons prohibited additions to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. At the beginning of the council, in the same opening speech, Mark noted that two issues alone were necessary to overcome the historical divisions between the Latin and Greek Churches; namely, (1.) The issue of the Filioque or Latins' assertion that the Father and the Son are conjointly a cause of the Holy Spirit, and (2.) the issue of unleavened bread, whereby the Latins had historically abandoned the orthodox (vs. Armenian) practice of using leavened bread for the sake of azymes. Because Mark found reasons to reject uniquely Latin authorities, councils, and texts unavailable in Greek or unapproved by jointly canonical synods, he became increasingly exasperated at Latin attempts to introduce a host of new authorities into the debates that often turned out to be spurious. In the end, Mark refused to sign the council documents following a debate with John Montenero, who claimed that there was a difference in the dignity of persons in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This had the effect of convincing Mark that the Thomists were subordinationists since Montenero was willing to defend a distinction in the persons according to "dignity" (dignitas or axiôma).[11]

Unsurprisingly, Mark concentrated on anti-Latin propaganda by recourse to differences that were most obvious to the simple Greek populace. For example, he noted that the Latins had no throne reserved for their hierarch in the sanctuary, the Latin priests shaved their faces "like women celebrating Mass," and various other minutiae.[12] In this, Mark did not ignore various abstractions of metaphysics, yet he was more realistic and practical in his apologetics and an excellent propagandist. Therefore, one must read Mark's post-Florentine and anti-Latin propaganda through the optic of Mark's ends. Even if Mark dissented from Florence for traditional, theological motives he was quick to cite practical differences that emphasized the gulf between Latins and Greeks.