BIZANTINA, LITERATURE. – The purely profane literature is excluded here. Moreover, the principal writers and writings belonging to the patristic period before the eighth century are treated in the individual entries. Liturgical and juridical writings, for their part, are discussed in specific chapters.
I. THE THEOLOGIANS
An enormous quantity of Byzantine writings remains unpublished, and therefore a definitive judgment is not yet possible. Yet the tendency to regard the writers of “Byzantine questions” with contempt is steadily being corrected. Byzantine medieval theological production, although inferior to Latin theology in scholastic speculation, is capable of standing comparison with II. Its characteristic feature is that it developed within a closed circuit until the fourteenth century, when it began to undergo Western influence. Another characteristic is its close dependence on post-Nicene patristic writings, at times carried to the point of a narrow conservatism resistant to scientific progress. The same attempt by Giovanni Italo and Michele Psellos (eleventh century) in a scholastic direction was cut short by the Byzantine authorities. Hence the lack of originality that pervades all Byzantine theology.This is apparent in biblical exegesis, which is always traditionalist. This also biblical chains (v.). Ignorance of Hebrew caused a decline in textual criticism. The Hexapla of Origene were allowed to disappear. The same lack of originality caused the distinction between Antiochene and Alexandrian exegesis to vanish. Despite everything, the Byzantines deserve credit for having preserved fragments of lost patristic commentaries. Among the commentaries after the patristic age, we may mention those of Teofilatto di Bulgaria and Eutimio Zigabeno (eleventh–twelfth centuries). In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Psalter was commented on by the monks Neofito il Recluso and Niceforo Blemmydes. Commentaries in the form of questions and answers are numerous, and some are truly remarkable, such as those placed ANASTASIO SINAITA, SANTO (v.), the Amphilochiana of Pozio, the Questions of Michele Psellos, the chapters on difficulties in Sacred Scripture by Michele Glykas, and the Efeso (v.). Patristic writings, too, were commented on by the Byzantines. The principal works in question are the Theological Discourses of s. Gregorio Nazianzeno, studied by Elia di Creta, Basilio il Giovane, Niceta di Eraclea, and Giorgio Acropolita, and the Pseudo-Dionigi, interpreted by Giorgio Pachimere and others.
As for non-polemical dogmatic theology, it was not much in vogue at Byzantium, where no “theological Summas” were compiled apart from those of s. Giovanni Damasceno and Emmanuele Calecas, the latter dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century. More personal and somewhat polemical in character are the dogmatic collections of Eutimio Zigabeno (Panoplia dogmatica), the Sacred Arsenal of Andronico Camateros, still unpublished, and the Treasury of Orthodoxy of Niceta Acominatos, a large compilation in twenty-seven books, not all of them published. I shall leave aside the monographs, such as those De vitae termino, written by Michele Psellos, Niceforo Blemmydes, Marco d'Efeso, and above all Giorgio Scholarios. The sacred homilies, too, are full of doctrinal content, such as those celebrating the Mother of God. No one has spoken of her better than the Byzantine orators. They peacefully preach the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin at a time when it was being debated in the West. The doctrine of Mary’s universal mediation is likewise proclaimed without reservation by Teofane di Nicea (fourteenth century) in a discourse recently published (M. Jugie, in Lateranum, nuova serie, 1 [1935]). Contemporary Latin oratory has nothing comparable to the beautiful homilies of Nicola Cabasilas, Gregorio Palamas, and Giorgio Scholarios. It is readily understandable that polemical dogmatic production should exceed irenic production when one considers the continuous religious controversies that took place at Byzantium. Once the iconoclastic controversy, the last among those of the patristic period, had been closed by the Feast of Orthodoxy (11 March 843), the anti-Latin controversy soon broke out. Pozio opened the attack with his Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. The two themes of the procession of the Spirit and the alleged Latin liturgical abuses, especially the Eucharistic use of unleavened bread, supplied the principal material for the most celebrated Byzantine polemicists, among whom Nilo Cabasilas (published in part by E. Candal, in Studi e Testi, 116, Roma 1945) and Giorgio Scholarios stand out; they were opposed by other “Latin-minded” theologians such as Niceforo Meliteniota, Giorgio Metochita, Giorgio Acropolita, Demetrio Cidone, translator of s. Tommaso, his brother Procoro, and Emmanuele Calecas, who became Catholic and later a Dominican, author of a polemical treatise Contra Graecos. In the first half of the fifteenth century the unionists who remained faithful to the union of Florence shone forth, namely Bessarione, Gregorio Mammas, and Giuseppe di Metone. Byzantine writings in the polemic against the Armenian Monophysites and against the Jews are rather scarce, and, even more surprisingly, so are those against the Muslims. By contrast, the controversy over palamism (v.) gave rise to a vast body of books, almost all unpublished.
II. THE MORALISTS
The homilies inspired by the holy Fathers, and especially by Chrysostom, are particularly rich in moral content. Many complete collections of sermons for the entire year have come down to us, such as that of Giovanni Agapeto, called “Hieromnemon,” Byzantine patriarch in the 12th century, erroneously attributed at times to Giovanni Xifilino and at times to Teofilatto di Bulgaria (under the latter’s name half of it was published by S. Eustratiades). Also noteworthy are the sermons of Giovanni Glykas, still unpublished, and those of Gregorio Palamas, already published.In the field of asceticism and mysticism, Byzantine literature has left us abundant and valuable writings, most of them unpublished. Of an ascetic nature are the conferences of s. Teodoro Studita to the monks. But mysticism in particular enjoyed the preference of the Byzantines. The greatest mystic is Simeone il Giovane, il teologo (949–1022), not always orthodox, whose life and doctrine were expounded for us by his disciple Niceta Sietato (cf. I. Hausherr, in Orient. Christiana, 12 [1928], pp. 1–254). In the 13th and 14th centuries we encounter the representatives of Athonite hesychasm: Gregorio il Sinaita, Teolepto di Filadelfia, and Gregorio Palamas. Nicola Cabasilas wrote a genuine treatise on the spiritual life in his De vita in Christo, not free from Latin influences. In the 15th century, Giorgio Scholarios condensed evangelical morality into a small masterpiece entitled: On the First Service of God, or the Evangelical Law. In the field of morality too, the Byzantines showed a taste for compilations, among which we may mention The Interpretation of the Divine Commandments of the Lord by the monk Nikon of Raithu in the 11th century.
The recent works of Ehrhard, surveying the Byzantine hagiographical collections—almost always collections of panegyrical sermons—preserved in the various libraries, have brought to light an extremely abundant body of material that has not yet been exploited (cf. Texte und Untersuchungen, from vol. 50 onward). From this brief survey it is evident that, in the various branches of religious scholarship, the Byzantines produced noteworthy works, not yet completely catalogued and imperfectly known. If they did not possess the originality and the broad syntheses of the Latins, they must nevertheless be credited with the great merit of having maintained direct contact with the great representatives of Greek patristic thought during the first seven centuries. Yet their disregard of the Latin tradition favored the schism and its persistence. There was too much polemic and too little serene attention to the truths of the faith. In certain dogmatic areas, such as Mariology, and in asceticism and mysticism, the Byzantines have nothing to envy in their Latin contemporaries.
Orientalia Christiana. Revue de l'Orient chrétien and Βυζαντινά Σαυθά. A compendium of Byzantine theology in M. Jugie, Theologia dogmatica christianorum orientalium..., I, Paris 1926, pp. 395–400. Cf. also S. Salaville, Philosophie et théologie en épisodes scolastiques à B. de 1039 à 1117, in Échos d'Orient, 29 (1930), pp. 132–56. Martino Jugie