ANASTASIO SINAITA, saint. — Priest and hegumen of Mount Sinai, he died after 700 and was honored as a saint by the Byzantine Church on 21 April. A notable exegete and polemicist, his life is almost entirely unknown, and his literary work is still little known and incompletely published. This is due to the existence of numerous persons bearing his name, many of them Sinaites like him and, like him, living in the seventh and eighth centuries. It is known only that he was in Alexandria before 640 and under the Monophysite patriarch Giovanni III (678–85), and that he was still alive more than twenty years after the Sixth Ecumenical Council of 680–81.
As a polemicist, he first of all combated the Christological heresies of Nestorianism, Monophysitism, and Monothelitism. A Syntagma against Nestorius, expressly highlighted by A. in the Hodegós, chap. 4 (PG 89, 97), seems to have been lost, as does a Defensive Tome addressed to the people, ibid., chap. 8 (col. 121). His principal work, directed against Monophysitism, is The Guide, Ὀδηγός, already mentioned. Composed around 685, in the midst of the desert and without documents at hand, the work is not free from defects, and one searches it in vain for a logical order. The patristic citations were committed to memory, and it is therefore not surprising that critics have found false quotations in II. Cf. J. Zellinger, Studien zu Severian von Gabala (Münsterische Beiträge zur Theologie), 8, Münster 1926, p. 126, who informs us that the fragment cited under the name of Severian of Gabala, chap. 16 (PG 89, 262–264), is not by that author. Moreover, a critical edition is lacking. Under the title Anastasiana, J. B. Pitra published two authentic short works by A.: 1º Capitulum in quo brevis sermo est de haeresibus quae ab initio fuerunt et de synodis adversus eas habitis; 2º Concina et perspicua fidei nostrae notitia (Iuris ecclesiastici Graecorum historia et monumenta), Rome 1868, pp. 257–74. In the second, Monothelitism is already mentioned. A. had also written a work in several books against the Jews, which has been lost. The Disputatio adversus Iudaeos, published under his name (PG 89, 1203–72), is not his.
As an exegete, he left a Commentary on the Hexameron in twelve books, of which only the last has been published in the original text. Of the others, only an ancient translation by an unknown author has been published. As a true Alexandrian, he allegorizes excessively and understands the whole of Genesis as referring to Christ and the Church (PG 89, 851–1078). The sixth book, which treats of τὸ κατ' εἰκόνα, that is, of the likeness of God in man, may be connected with the fragment entitled ἐκ τοῦ κατ' εἰκόνα (PG 89, 1143–50), and with the third discourse on the same subject: περὶ τοῦ κατ' εἰκόνα λόγος τρίτος (ibid., 1151–80), where one is surprised to find a history of Monothelitism from its origins to the year 700. The collection entitled Questions and Answers, which groups 154 items (PG 89, 311–834), is not authentic in its present form. It is the task of criticism to clarify its origin; nevertheless, the main part perhaps belongs to our A. In Book VII (PG 89, 944), the author points out another of his works, now lost, which would have been entitled: Mystical Contemplation of the Saving Sufferings of Christ, our God.
A. is also the author of several sermons. The following have been published: 1º Two discourses On Psalm VI, which in fact constitute a single sermon for the beginning of Lent (PG 89, 1079–1114), also preserved in a Syriac and an Arabic version; 2º A discourse Concerning the Mass and Communion; 3º A sermon On the Deceased (ibid., 1191–1202); 4º A fragment of a discourse On Blasphemy, published by A. Papadopoulos Kerameus, Ἀνάλεκτα Ἱεροσολυμετικῆς σταχολογίας, I, St Petersburg 1891, pp. 400–404; 5º A sermon For Good Friday, preserved in an Arabic translation and published in a German translation by L. Scheicho in Theologisch-Praktische Quartalschrift, 65 (1912), pp. 780–795. A sermon On the Descent of Christ’s Soul into Hell, preserved in a Syriac translation, remains unpublished.
On the attribution to A. of the florilegium entitled Doctrina Patrum de incarnatione Verbi, V. ANASTASIO L'APOCRISIARIO.