Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/861

 Caesarea. Feeling ran so high and so much endangered the public peace that the synod was broken up by the emperor's command without pronouncing any sentence (Labbe, iv. 1413; Theophan. p. iii; Vit. S. Sab. ap. Coteler, Mon. Eccl. Graec. iii. 297 ff.). In the subsequent proceedings, when rival bodies of monks poured down from the mountain ranges into the streets of Antioch, and were joined by different parties among the citizens, converting the city into a scene of uproar and bloodshed (Evagr. H. E. iii. 32), Philoxenus was left practically master of the field. Flavian was banished, and the Monophysite Severus, the friend and associate of Philoxenus, was put in his place towards the close of 512 (ib. iii. 33). The triumph of Philoxenus, however, was but short. In 518 Anastasius was succeeded by the more orthodox Justin, who immediately on his accession, declaring himself an adherent of Chalcedon, restored the expelled orthodox bishops and banished the heterodox. Philoxenus is said to have been banished to Philippopolis in Thrace (Asseman. Bibl. Orient. ii. 19; Theophan. p. 141; Chron. Edess. 87), and thence to Gangra in Paphlagonia, where he died of suffocation by smoke (Bar-heb. ii. 56). He is commemorated by the Jacobites in their liturgy as a doctor and confessor.

The Syriac translation of N.T. known as the "Philoxenian Version," subsequently revised by Thomas of Harkel, in which form alone we possess it, was executed in 508 at his desire by his chorepiscopus Polycarp (Moses Agnellus, ap. Asseman. Bibl. Orient. ii. 83; ib. i. 408). It is extremely literal; "the Syriac idiom is constantly bent to suit the Greek, and everything is in some manner expressed in the Greek phrase and order" (Westcott in Smith's D. B. vol. iii. p. 1635 ).

Philoxenus and Severus were the authors of the dominant form of Monophysite doctrines which, while maintaining the unity of the natures of Christ, endeavoured to preserve a distinction between the divine and the human. This doctrine is laid down in eight propositions at variance with the tenets of the early Christians, whom he stigmatized as Phantasiasts. Christ was the Son of Man, i.e. Son of the yet unfallen man, and the Logos took the body and soul of man as they were before Adam's fall. The very personality of God the Word descended from heaven and became man in the womb of the Virgin, personally without conversion. Thus He became a man Who could be seen, felt, handled, and yet as God He continued to possess the spiritual, invisible, impalpable character essential to Deity. Neither the deity nor the humanity was absorbed one by the other, nor converted one into the other. Nor again was a third evolved by a combination of the two natures as by chemical transformation. They taught one nature constituted out of two, not simple but twofold, μία φύσις σύνθετος, or μία φύσις διττή. The one Person of the Incarnate Word was not a duality but a unity. The same Son Who was one before the Incarnation was equally one when united to the body. In all said, done, or suffered by Christ, there was only one and the same God the Word, Who became man, and took on Himself the condition of want and suffering, not naturally but voluntarily, for the accomplishment of man's redemption. It followed that God the Word suffered and died, and not merely a body distinct from or obedient to Him, or in which He dwelt, but with which He was not one. Their view as to the personal work of Christ is briefly summed up in the Theopaschite formula, "unus a Trinitate descendit de coelo, incarnatus est, crucifixus, mortuus, resurrexit, ascendit in caelum." Philoxenus held that "potuit non mori," not that "non potuit mori." It followed that he affirmed a single will in Christ. In the Eucharist he held that the living body of the living God was received, not anything belonging to a corruptible man like ourselves. He was decidedly opposed to all pictorial representations of Christ, as well as of all spiritual beings. No true honour, he said, was done to Christ by making pictures of Him, since His only acceptable worship was that in spirit and in truth. To depict the Holy Spirit as a dove was puerile, for it is said economically that He was seen in the likeness, not in the body, of a dove. It was contrary to reason to represent angels, purely spiritual beings, by human bodies. He acted up to these opinions and blotted out pictures of angels, removing out of sight those of Christ (Joann. Diaconus, de Eccl. Hist. ap. Labbe, vii. 369).

He was a very copious writer, and described by Assemani as one of the best and most elegant in the Syrian tongue (Bibl. Orient. i. 475; ii. 20). Assemani gives a catalogue of 23 of his works. To these may be added 13 homilies on Christian life and character (Wright, 764); 12 chapters against the holders of the Two Wills (ib. 730, 749); 10 against those who divided Christ (ib. 730). Evagr. H. E. iii. 31, 32; Theod. Lect. fragm. p. 569; Theophan. Chronogr. pp. 115, 128, 129, 131, 141; Labbe, iv. 1153, vii. 88, 368; Tillem. ''Mém. eccl.'' xvi. 677–681, 701–706; Neander, H. E. iv. 255, Clark's trans.; Gieseler, H. E. ii. 94; Schröckh, ''Kirch. Geschich.'' xviii. 526–538; Dorner, Person of Christ, div. ii. vol. i. pp. 133–135, Clark's trans.

[E.V.]

Phocas, of Sinope, a celebrated martyr, of whom very little is actually known and whose real date is uncertain. Combefis places his martyrdom in the last years of Trajan, but Tillemont considers a later persecution, either that of Decius or that of Diocletian, more probable. Our sole knowledge of Phocas is from an oration in his honour by Asterius of Amasea. He states that Phocas was an honest and industrious gardener at Sinope, a convert to Christianity, and exceedingly hospitable to strangers. Being denounced as a Christian and sentenced to death, a party of soldiers was despatched to Sinope to carry the sentence into execution. Phocas hospitably entertained them, and on discovering their mission forbore to escape, as he might easily have done, and, on their asking him where they could find Phocas, made himself known to them and was at once decapitated. His trunk was buried in a grave he had dug for himself, over which a church was subsequently built. His relics were so fruitful in miracles that he obtained the name of Thaumaturgus. His body was transferred to