ANASTASIUS OF SINAI, Saint. - Priest and hegumen of Mount Sinai, d. after 700, honored as a saint by the Byzantine Church on April 21. A notable exegete and polemicist, his life is almost unknown and his literary work is still little known and incompletely published. This is due to the existence of his numerous namesakes, many of them Sinaites like him and, like him, living in the 7th-8th century. It is known only that he was in Alexandria before 640 and under the Monophysite patriarch John 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 fought first of all the Christological heresies of Nestorianism, Monophysitism and Monothelitism. A Syntagma against Nestorius, specially singled out by A. in the Hodegos, ch. 4 (PG 89, 97), seems lost, as does a Tome in defense addressed to the people, ibid., ch. 8 (col. 121). His principal work, directed against Monophysitism, is The Guide, Ὀδηγός, already cited. Composed around 685, in the depths of the desert, without documents at hand, the work is not immune from defects and one searches in vain in it for a logical order. The patristic quotations are entrusted to memory and it is therefore not surprising if critics find false quotations in it. Cf. J. Zellinger, Studien zu Severian von Gabala (Münsterische Beiträge zur Theologie), 8, Münster 1926, p. 126, which makes known to us how the fragment cited under the name of Severian of Gabala, ch. 16 (PG 89, 262-264) is not by this author. Moreover, a critical edition of it is lacking. Under the title Anastasiana, J. B. Pitra published two authentic opuscules of A.: 1st Capitulum in quo brevis sermo est de haeresibus quae ab initio fuerunt et de synodis adversus eas habitis; 2nd 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 Hexaemeron in 12 books, of which only the last is published in the original text. Of the others only an ancient translation by an unknown author is published. As a true Alexandrian he allegorizes excessively and interprets the whole of Genesis of Christ and the Church (PG 89, 851-1078). To the sixth book, which treats of the τὸ κατ' εἰκόνα, that is, of the likeness of God in man, one can link the fragment entitled ἐκ τοῦ κατ' εἰκόνα (PG 89, 1143-50), and the third discourse on the same subject: περὶ τοῦ κατ' εἰκόνα λόγος τρίτος (ibid., 1151-80), where one has the surprise of finding a history of Monothelitism from its origins to the year 700. The collection entitled Questions and Answers, which groups 154 numbers (PG 89, 311-834), is not authentic in its present form. It is for criticism to clarify its origin; nevertheless the principal part perhaps belongs to our A. In book VII (PG 89, 944) the author points out to us another of his lost works, which would have as its title: Mystical contemplation of the saving sufferings of Christ, our God.
A. is also the author of some sermons. There are published: 1st Two discourses On Psalm VI, which constitute only a single sermon for the beginning of Lent (PG 89, 1079-1114), also preserved in Syriac and Arabic versions; 2nd A discourse On the Mass and Communion; 3rd A sermon On the Dead (ibid., 1191-1202); 4th A fragment of a discourse On Blasphemy, published by A. Papadopoulos Kerameus, Ἀνάλεκτα Ἱεροσολυμετικῆς σταχολογίας, I, St. Petersburg 1891, pp. 400-404; 5th 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, is unpublished.
On the attribution to A. of the florilegium entitled Doctrina Patrum de incarnatione Verbi, v. ANASTASIO L'APOCRISIARIO.
Bibliography6 works
Martino Jugie