QL 92 (2011) 361-375 doi: 10.2143/QL.92.4.

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© 2011, all rights reserved
 

SEVERUS OF ANTIOCH AS THEOLOGIAN,

DOGMATICIAN, PASTOR, AND HYMNOGRAPHER

A Consideration of His Work on the Feast of the Ascension1

The homilies and hymns of Severus, patriarch of Syrian Antioch from

512-518, are a precious source for the history of the liturgy in Antioch
and for the church in late antiquity in general.2 A dedicated opponent of
the Council of Chalcedon, Severus was a monk, lobbyist, preacher,
hymnographer, letter-writer, theologian, and pastor.3 Even during the
 
1. This paper grew out of a contribution to the International Workshop on Ascension
and Pentecost Sermons in Late Antique Christianity, organized by Professor Johan
Leemans and Dr Richard Bishop on 28 and 29 November 2011 at KU Leuven. I am
grateful to the organizers and to participants in the workshop for a generous and fruitful
exchange of ideas.
2. See Anton Baumstark, “Das Kirchenjahr in Antiocheia zwischen 512 und 518,”
Römische Quartalschrift 11 (1897) 31-66; Maurice Brière, Introduction à toutes les
homélies, PO 29/1, 50-62; Geoffrey J. Cuming, “The Liturgy of Antioch in the Time of
Severus (513-518),” in Time and Community. In Honor of Thomas Julian Talley, ed. J.
Neil Alexander (Washington, DC: Pastoral Press, 1990) 83-103; Frédéric Alpi, La route
royale: Sévère d’Antioche et les Églises d’Orient (512-518). Vol. 1: Texts. Vol. 2:
Sources et Documents, Bibliothèque archéologique et historique, 188 (Beirut: Ifpo, 2009)
esp. vol. 1, 63-194; Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen, The Churches of Syrian Antioch
300-638 CE, Late Antique History and Religion, 5 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012).
3. On Severus see the foundational work by Joseph Lebon, Le Monophysisme
sévérien: Étude historique, littéraire et théologique sur la résistance monophysite au
Concile de Chalcédoine jusqu’à la constitution de l’Église jacobite (Louvain: Josephus
Van Linthout, 1909); revised in idem, “La Christologie du monophysisme syrien,” in Das
Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 2, ed. Alois Grillmeier and
Heinrich Bacht (Würzburg: Echter, 1951) 425-580; Roberta C. Chesnut, Three
Monophysite Christologies: Severus of Antioch, Philoxenus of Mabbug and Jacob of
Sarug (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976) 9-56; Alois Grillmeier, Christ in
Christian Tradition. Vol. 2: From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great
(590-604). Part Two: The Church of Constantinople in the Sixth Century
(London/Louisville, KY: Mowbray and Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), with
Theresia Hainthaler, trans. John Cawte and Pauline Allen, 17-173; Ian R. Torrance,
Christology after Chalcedon: Severus of Antioch and Sergius the Monophysite (Norwich:
The Canterbury Press, 1998), repr. as The Correspondence of Severus and Sergius, Texts
362 Pauline Allen

twenty-year exile that followed his banishment from the patriarchate of

Antioch in 518, Severus was active. From his time in office we have 125
homilies, surviving for the most part only in Syriac translations from the
Greek, that illustrate liturgical life in sixth-century Antioch and its
vicinity. In addition, hymns for various feast-days and events like natural
disasters, wars, and funerals have come down to us, again in Syriac
translations.
From Severus we have three homilies4 and five hymns5 on the
Ascension, making this the only corpus of liturgical pieces on the feast
from the Greek East from the sixth to the eighth centuries.6 In addition,
there is one homily and one hymn on the Feast of Mid-Pentecost,7 a
somewhat curious, regionally restricted, and, in many locations, short-
lived celebration that was meant to bridge the liturgical gap half-way
between Easter and Pentecost.8 It is my intention in this paper to situate
all these works as far as possible in their Greek-speaking liturgical and
theological contexts, bearing in mind that we have to rely on Syriac
translations.9

 
from Christian Late Antiquity, 11 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2011); Pauline Allen
and C. T. Robert Hayward, Severus of Antioch, The Early Church Fathers (London/New
York: Routledge, 2004).
4. Homilies 24 and 47, ed. Maurice Brière and François Graffin, PO 37/1 (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1975) 134-145, and PO 35/3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969) 304-315, respectively;
and Homily 71, ed. Maurice Brière, PO 12/1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985) 52-70.
5. These are Hymns 103-i-IV, 104-ii-III, 105-iii-VI, 106-iv-IV, and 107-v-VII, all
edited with English translation by Ernest W. Brooks, PO 6/1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971)
141-146.
6. There is no recent comprehensive treatment of the Ascension feast and its place in
the post-paschal liturgical cycle. See, however, Georg Kretschmar, “Himmelfahrt und
Pfingsten,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte Vierte Folge, 66 (1954-1955) 209-253;
Robert Cabié, La Pentecôte: L’évolution de la Cinquantaine pascale au cours des cinq
premiers siècles, Bibliothèque de Liturgie (Tournai: Desclée, 1965); Alfons Weiser and
Horst Georg Pöhlmann, “Himmelfahrt Christi. I: Neues Testament. II:
Kirchengeschichtlich/Systematisch-theologisch,” Theologische Realenzyklopädie 15
(1986) 330-341; Harald Buchinger, “Pfingsten,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum,
forthcoming.
7. Homily 46, ed. Maurice Brière and François Graffin, PO 35/3 (Turnhout: Brepols,
1969) 288-303; Hymn 102-i-V, ed. Brooks, PO 6/1, 140.
8. See the exhaustive study on this feast by Hubertus R. Drobner, “Die Festpredigten
der Mesopentecoste in der alten Kirche,” Augustinianum 33 (1993) 137-170 (= Richerche
patristiche in onore di Dom Basil Studer).
9. On which see Christopher J. A. Lash, “Techniques of a Translator: Worknotes on
the Methods of Jacob of Edessa in Translating the Homilies of Severus of Antioch,” in
Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, ed. Johannes Dümmer, Johannes
Irmscher, and Kurt Treu, Texte und Untersuchungen zur altchristlichen Literatur, 125
(Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1981) 365-383.
 Severus of Antioch on the Feast of the Ascension 363

Homilies10

Homily 24 on the Ascension was delivered on Thursday, 16 May 513. In

its title we are told that not only the feast-day itself will be
commemorated but also the gift of a purple robe from the emperor
Anastasius (491-518).11 At the outset Christ’s earthly pedigree is briefly
given: he is the Son of Man, the son of Mary, of Bethlehem and of
Nazareth, who has gone up into heaven. In these celestial realms, among
the spiritual and bodiless armies, he is both a foreigner and not a
foreigner, in that for the first time he is occupying a familiar throne in his
earthly body, while, in becoming human without change as a result of the
incarnation, he had in fact never left heaven, even as he was mixing with
human beings.12 These observations are then put into the perspective of
the divine economy, now accomplished on this feast-day, which dictated
that while the Logos filled the earth before his incarnation, now in
ascended human bodily form he is filling everything, and at the same
time raising human beings towards a life in heaven with him. The
soteriological theme that Christ’s bodily ascension presages that of
humanity recurs in Severus’ thought and was part of the Ascension
tradition; it is borne out by the patriarch here by reference to Ephesians
2:6, 7: He raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus…13 This redemption of the human race
from the curse of expulsion from Paradise, from its capitulation to Satan,
demons, human passions, and idolatry, says Severus, has been effected
 
10. On Severus as a homilist see Baumstark, “Das Kirchenjahr” (a negative view);
Hans-Joachim Höhn in Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2/2, 128-147
(presenting Severus simply as a dogmatician); commendatory in Alexandre Olivar,
“Sever d’Antioquia et la història de la predicació,” Rivista Catalana di Teologia 5 (1980)
403-442; idem, La Predicación Cristiana Antigua, Biblioteca Herder: Sección de teología
y filosofía (Barcelona: Editorial Herder, 1991) 180-201; cf. Pauline Allen, “Severus of
Antioch and the Homily: The End of the Beginning?,” in The Sixth Century – End or
Beginning?, ed. Pauline Allen and Elizabeth Jeffreys, Byzantina Australiensia, 10
(Brisbane: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1996) 165-177; eadem, “A
Bishop’s Spirituality: The Case of Severus of Antioch,” in Prayer and Spirituality in the
Early Church, ed. Pauline Allen, Raymond Canning, and Lawrence Cross, vol. 1
(Brisbane: Centre for Early Christian Studies, 1998) 169-180; René Roux, L’exégèse
biblique dans les Homélies Cathédrales de Sévère d’Antioche, Studia Ephemeridis
Augustinianum, 84 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2002); Youhanna
Nessim Youssef, “The Coptic Marian Homilies of Severus of Antioch,” Bulletin de la
Société d’Archéologie Copte 43 (2004) 127-140. On early Christian homilies in general
see the survey in Federico Fatti, “Predicazione,” Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di
Antichità Cristiane. Vol. 3: P-Z (Genoa/Milan: Marietti, 2008) 4257-4298 (with lit.).
11. PO 37/1, 135.
12. This is a quotation from Baruch 3:38 that occurs later in the homily as well, and
may have been part of the readings of the day. For the contents see PO 37/1, 135.
13. PO 37/1, 135.
364 Pauline Allen

precisely by the incarnation of the second Adam, who was one before the
incarnation, and afterwards one from two natures. This emphasis on one
from two is, of course, a typical anti-Chalcedonian theological statement
about the incarnation,14 and one with which the patriarch of Antioch
gladly continues. As usual, the emphasis is on the hypostatic union of the
Logos, through the Spirit and Mary, with a body consubstantial with
ours, except for sin (cf. Heb 4:15), a hit against the docetic doctrine, and
on the fact that, against the Apollinarians, Christ is said to have had a
human intelligence. He is one Son, not rejecting his divinity, and he
became human without confusion. One hypostasis from two natures,
argues Severus, involves also one prosopon and one nature incarnate of
God the Word.15 This in turn means that the Trinity is not a quaternity, a
frequent argument from the anti-Chalcedonian side against the so-called
Nestorian (or even Chalcedonian) ‘cutting’ of the two natures in Christ,
such that a fourth person was introduced into the Trinity.16 Similarly, if
one divides the duality of natures, which Severus and other anti-
Chalcedonians would concede only existed en theoria or in
contemplation/intellectually,17 then the human nature is not worthy of
veneration because it is not united by nature to the divine nature, which
is. It is this same Christ who by his resurrection has caused us to rise with
him.18 Thus we can already see clearly that on behalf of his congregation
Severus’ anti-Chalcedonian Christology was tellingly pressed into service
for the Feast of the Ascension, which commemorated the bodily ascent of
the Logos into heaven. To that extent the patriarch concentrates on an
articulation of orthodoxy in a city whose allegiances were divided, rather
than on the festal aspect of the celebration. Since we know that the
accession of the outsider Severus to the see of Antioch in November 512
was not universally popular and that it took time for him to be accepted,19
it is unsurprising here to see him trying to put his doctrinal stamp on his
new see six months after his arrival.
The preacher continues with the argument that the post-resurrection
appearances to the disciples, where Christ ate and drank with them, are a
proof against the claims of the phantasiasts or Eutychians that the
incarnation was a figment of the imagination.20 In asking the disciples for
 
14. See Pauline Allen, art. “Monophysiten,” Theologische Realenzyklopädie 23
(1993) 219-233; Ian R. Torrance, art. “Severus von Antiochien,” Theologische
Realenzyklopädie 31 (2000) 184-186.
15. PO 37/1, 137. A catch-cry of anti-Chalcedonian Christology, to which is often
added the term hypostasis. See Lebon, “La Christologie,” 463-467.
16. PO 37/1, 137.
17. See Lebon, “La Christologie,” 500-507.
18. PO 6/1, 137.
19. Details in Allen and Hayward, Severus of Antioch, 12-13, 17-18.
20. PO 6/1, 139.
 Severus of Antioch on the Feast of the Ascension 365

something to eat, the risen Christ was demonstrating that, just as before
when he ate and drank and mixed with them (the latter being another
allusion to Baruch 3:38), so too now he was demonstrating his continuing
identity. However, there is a loftier explanation of the eating and drinking
scenario, according to Severus, namely that eating a piece of grilled fish
(cf. Luke 24:41-43) indicates the accomplishment of the divine plan, and
consequently the redemption of human beings. In an exegesis which
would have been unthinkable a little over a century before in the
preaching of another famous Antiochene, John Chrysostom, Severus
explains that our human nature, which had been drowned in the water of
a dissolute life like a fish, as a consequence of its union with God the
Word, who is a mystical and incomprehensible fire, has become grilled
and warmed over.21 Furthermore, the honeycomb which Severus says
Christ ate with the fish signifies that the humanity in its burnt state
accepted his commandments enthusiastically. The detail of honeycomb in
post-resurrection appearances seems to be a complete departure from
biblical texts, thus leading us into a fanciful exegesis.
Next Severus stresses again that the one who rose from the dead after
having been cut in the side with a lance and nailed by his hands and feet,
ascended to heaven, demonstrating to the celestial powers the meaning of
the divine economy. Although he had tasted death, he had not tasted
corruption:22 perhaps here already we have indications of Severus’ debate
with Julian of Halicarnassus on the topic of the corruptibility of Christ’s
flesh.23 In the light of all these considerations, argues Severus, should we
not fix our gaze on heaven and fly to the royal throne where we shall sit
with the Father, thanks to the first-fruits of our race,24 namely Jesus
Christ?
The homily then turns to the gift of a purple robe which Emperor
Anastasius has made to the church of Antioch. Since much is made here
of the emperor’s piety, by which is meant his support of the anti-

 
21. PO 37/1, 139. On Severus’ ‘allegorical’ exegesis see Roux, L’exégèse biblique,
211, who points out that Severus never defines his methods of exegesis as allegorical
because that would be to imply the negation of the historicity of the biblical texts: ‘La
champ d’action de l’exégète se situe donc entre le texte biblique, la regula fidei et l’utilité
de l’auditoire’.
22. PO 37/1, 139-140.
23. On this debate see René Draguet, Julien d’Halicarnassse et sa controverse avec
Sévère d’Antioche sur l’incorruptibilité du corps du Christ (Louvain: Imprimerie P.
Smeesters, 1924); Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, 2/2, 79-89.
24. On this expression from 1 Cor 15:20, 23, which is common in Ascension
homilies, see Elie D. Moutsoulas, “APARCHE: Ein kurzer Überblick über die wesentlichen
Bedeutungen des Wortes in heidnischer, jüdischer und christlicher Literatur,” Sacris
Erudiri 15 (1964) 5-14.
366 Pauline Allen

Chalcedonian position,25 it is but a short step to associate the gift of the

robe with the items of clothing that were strewn on the road by the
faithful on Palm Sunday and thus to reinforce the pre- to post-paschal
events in the liturgical cycle.26 Severus makes no obvious connection
between the gift of the robe and the Ascension feast, but perhaps the gift
was a recognition and approbation (or bolstering) by a sympathetic
emperor of the patriarch’s controversial accession six months or so after
the event.27 With regard to the donation of robes, we have slightly later
parallels with Justinian’s gifts to the church of Antioch of garments
which apparently were held to have had healing (or perhaps apotropaic)
qualities.28 At no stage in this homily are the members of the
congregation invited to consider the (only) scriptural text relating the
ascension before the apostles’ eyes in Acts 1:9-10: … as they were
looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And
while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by
them in white robes … Judging from the frequency with which they are
cited, the readings of the day may have included Baruch 3:38, Ephesians
2:6-8, and Luke 24:39-43.
Homily 47, deriving from Severus’ second year as patriarch, was
delivered on 8 May 514. It opens with a citation of Ephesians 4:9-10: The
one who descended into the lower parts of the earth ascended above all
the heavens, thereby following the theme in Homily 24 of the double
habitation of the bodily Christ on earth and in heaven. The Ephesians text
recurs on two other occasions in Homily 47 and may have been part of
the readings for the feast as it seems to have been in Homily 24. Both the
descent and the ascent of Christ, says Severus, are incomprehensible.29 In
human form Christ came to earth as the first-born among many brethren
(Romans 8:29), while at the same time he was above all the heavens.30
Colossians 2:9 (in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily) is
particularly useful for the argument that follows, to the effect that

 
25. On the reign of Anastasius see Fiona K. Haarer, Anastasius I: Politics and Empire
in the Late Roman World (Cambridge: Francis Cairns, 2006); Mischa Meier, Anastasios
I: Die Entstehung des Byzantinischen Reiches (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2009).
26. PO 37/1, 143.
27. On the ejection of the Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch, Flavian, and the
successsion of Severus in 512 see Pauline Allen, “Episcopal Elections in Antioch in the
Sixth Century,” in Episcopal Elections in Late Antiquity, ed. Johan Leemans, Peter Van
Nuffelen, Shawn W.J. Keough, and Carla Nicolaye, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte, 119
(Berlin/ Boston, MA: de Gruyter, 2011) 23-38 at 26-27 (with lit.).
28. See Glanville Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab
Conquest (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961) 531, and Mayer and Allen,
The Churches of Syrian Antioch, 155.
29. PO 35/3, 305.
30. PO 35/3, 305.
 Severus of Antioch on the Feast of the Ascension 367

Christ’s presence on earth was not a partial operation of the divinity, as it

was, for example, in the case of the prophets, but a true incorporation or
incarnation of the divinity with humanity. Taking pains as usual to
underline the complete unity in the incarnate Christ, the preacher points
out that Scripture often has recourse to the literary device of metonomy,
such that Paul speaks of the soul as the ‘interior person’ and the body as
the ‘exterior person’. In no way, however, does this denote two separate
entities, and similarly in Christ we have to understand a single person, a
single hypostasis, from two natures.31
Severus next gives an abbreviated earthly curriculum vitae of the
incarnate one, beginning with the seed of Abraham and including the
virginal birth, childhood, maturity, crucifixion, burial, and decent into
hell, before his triumphant ascension to the throne which he shares with
the Father.32 The image and symbolism of the earthly throne now become
dominant themes in the homily, beginning with the citation of Psalm
109:1, The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit on my right’, a verse which
Severus declares both puts heresies to flight and demonstrates truth
clearly. None of the miraculous happenings in Christ’s earthly life – from
the star that announced his birth to the Magi, to cures, the calming of the
sea, the feeding of the multitude, raising of the dead, the natural
phenomena that accompanied the crucifixion, the empty tomb –
proclaims Christ’s divinity more that the fact that he is seated on the
Father’s right. While these miraculous events are downplayed in favour
of the evidence concerning the heavenly throne, they are clearly meant as
a counterfoil to the previous catalogue of events in Christ’s life, thus
emphasizing again for his congregation’s benefit the unity in the two
natures. Severus throws out the challenge that Christ’s privileged seating
should put an end to those who are trying to change the orthodox faith.33
The way is now clear for an attack on heretics. The first group
consists of the Arians, who, according to the patriarch, say that the Word
of God is a creature. If Christ is seated on the Father’s right, this
statement of the Arians is madness because obviously the heavenly
throne would not receive a mere creature, but only one who was of the
same essence and royalty as the Father. Here Psalm 109:1 is cited again.34
Equally wrong in this regard, says Severus, are the opinions of the
Chalcedonians, who by confessing two natures after the union are
introducing a fourth person into the Trinity – the same argument used in
Homily 24. The heavenly throne would not accept an inhabitant of this

 
31. PO 35/3, 307.
32. PO 35/3, 309.
33. PO 35/3, 309-311.
34. PO 35/3, 311.
368 Pauline Allen

kind who is foreign to it and, moreover, surplus to requirements. The idea

of a human being who has been made God living in heaven is like that of
the pagans, who make gods at whim.35
As in Homily 24, so too here Severus enunciates the anti-
Chalcedonian position that Christ became human, through the agency of
the Spirit and Mary, without change, being united hypostatically to a
body that is consubstantial with ours (except for sin), and endowed with a
rational soul, one from two, namely the divinity and the humanity, and a
single person, a single hypostasis.36 Severus returns to the opening theme
of the homily with its citation of Ephesians 4:10 to prove that the one
who came down to earth and the one who ascended to heaven are one and
the same. If one confesses Christ ‘in two natures’ as the Chalcedonians
do, then it is someone else whom the Word caused to ascend at the same
time.37 Since the Word is one, the eternal throne received him alone as it
had always done. Severus cites Psalm 44:6 (Your throne, God, endures
forever), before concentrating on the fact that Christ was acknowledged
by the heavenly host as the king of glory (Ps 23:8, 10).38 However, for the
soteriological implications of the fact that Christ became human with a
body consubstantial with ours, the patriarch turns to Ephesians 2:6 (He
raised us up with him and made us sit at the same time), as he does also
in Homily 24: if Christ had not been united to a body like ours, Paul
would not have made this statement. Because we have ascended to
heaven and to the throne above heaven with him, the first-fruits of our
race, we have our cultivated land in heaven and should concentrate on
that rather than on ephemeral affairs on earth.39 In concluding the homily
by quoting Colossians 1–3 (If you have been raised with Christ, seek the
things that are above), Severus situates Ascension firmly in the post-
paschal liturgical tradition. As in Homily 24, there is no reference at all to
the scriptural text (Acts 1:9-10) relating Christ’s ascension into heaven.
Homily 71, delivered on Thursday, 28 May 515, is a more confident
and extensive treatment of the Ascension feast than found in Severus’
two earlier homilies on the celebration, exhibiting a magisterial command
and disposition of scriptural texts that are brought to bear on the
occasion. It seems that here, two-and-a-half years after his consecration,
the monk-patriarch was really into his homiletical stride and in a position
to engage his congregation in combating the Council of Chalcedon. The
opening of the piece appeals to an ancient custom of ascending a

 
35. PO 35/3, 311-313.
36. PO 35/3, 313.
37. PO 35/3, 313.
38. PO 35/3, 313.
39. PO 35/3, 315.
 Severus of Antioch on the Feast of the Ascension 369

mountain on the occasion of this feast,40 but it is not clear whether this is
intended metaphorically or whether the faithful of Antioch, as Roux
assumes,41 actually went up a hill or mountain (Mt Silpius?) to celebrate
the occasion. Such a procession, in any case, is not mentioned in the
homilies of John Chrysostom, although in his one surviving authentic
homily on the feast he indicates that the celebration is taking place
outside the city in a church near the Romanesian gate.42
Unlike in his previous two treatments of the feast, in this homily
Severus links the events of the resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost into
a soteriological schema. The risen and ascended Christ, he says, has
carried us back with him to the skies from which we were exiled, and the
homilist will continue to preach on the redemption from sin until the feast
of Pentecost, or the fiftieth day. During this time nobody will genuflect.
On the fortieth day after the resurrection, namely on Ascension Day,
according to Severus, the congregation goes up to the mountain, knowing
that they have been raised, as it were, into celestial beings. As often in
homiletical texts on the Ascension, Severus refers to the first-fruits of our
race (cf. 1 Cor 15:20, 23), mentioned no fewer than six times in this
homily.43 Once more the true humanity of Christ is stressed: he looked
like us, lived with us,44 and was like us in all things but sin (cf. Hebrews
4:15).45 As the second Adam, he healed the sin of the first, by his death
on the cross paving the way to resurrection, and thus to the rich
fulfilment of the divine plan. The name that God gave him, which is
above every name (Phil 2:9), indicates not that Christ is in two natures, as
the ‘Nestorians’ intend, and that the name was given by grace to a human
being already in existence.46 This would lead to supposing a quaternity in
the Trinity, whereas if the incarnate Word is one, the threeness of the
Trinity is kept intact.47 As in his previous two homilies Severus makes
the point that the one who descended from heaven is the same as the one
who ascended – how, then, could one believe that he is two and not one?
John 3:13 (No one who has ascended into heaven but he who has
descended from heaven) is cited to affirm this.48

 
40. PO 12/1, 52.
41. L’exégèse biblique, 209.
42. CPG 4342; PG 50, 441-452 at 441. New edition by Nathalie Rambault
forthcoming in Sources chrétiennes. On the church see Mayer and Allen, The Churches of
Syrian Antioch, 94-95.
43. PO 12/1, 53-54.
44. Cf. Baruch 3:38; Phil 2:6-7.
45. PO 12/1, 54-55.
46. PO 12/1, 56-58.
47. PO 12/1, 58-59.
48. PO 12/1, 60.
370 Pauline Allen

The patriarch’s attention is now directed successively to Jews,

Nestorians (allegedly partisans of the Jews’ sister-heresy),49 Arius, Euno-
mius, and Eutyches. The Jews and Nestorians contest the indivisibility of
the Word, as, for example, when the Jews said: Is not this Jesus, the son
of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, “I
have come down from heaven?” (John 6:42). In fact, Christ has ascended
with a body to the place where he previously was without a body, and in
Paul’s words, He ascended above all the heavens, so that he might fill all
things (Eph 4:6). The heavenly powers recognized the fact that he filled
all things by their hymn to God at his birth (cf. Luke 2:14), a fact, says
Severus, that Paul reported with the words: Through the church the
manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities
and powers in the heavenly places (Eph 3:10). The expression ‘every
knee should bow, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth’ demonstrates
that his domination was acknowledged, because we cannot imagine
incorporeal beings genuflecting. And the glory of the Son, adds Severus,
is also the glory of the Father.50 This leads the patriarch and his
congregation on to a refutation of the ‘madness’ of Arius and Eunomius,
who say that the Son of God is a creature and unlike the Father. In this
case, Christ would not have been given the name which is above every
name (Phil 2:9), a distinction that sets him apart from other creatures and
shows that he has been highly exalted (Phil 2:9) because he is God by
nature.51
Severus turns next to the typology of Moses’ forty-day sojourn on Mt
Sinai, pointing out that after descending from the heights to earth and its
nether regions Christ picked us up from there and made us ascend with
him, but only he had remained on earth for forty days, during which time
he ate and drank with human beings to confirm the divine plan.52 This
theme then directs the argument against Eutyches, who is supposed to
have denied the true humanity of Christ, with the result, argues Severus,
that our future hope would also be denied and voided, so that we would
become like those cheated by usurers. Rejecting such ideas, the patriarch
quotes 1 Corinthians 20:21-22 in his support: For as by a man came
death, by a man also has come the resurrection of the dead. For as in
Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive,53 in order to link
the resurrection with the text of Acts 1:11 which reports the ascension
event. The words of the angels on that occasion, maintains Severus, were
not directed solely to the people of Galilee who stood looking at the sky,
 
49. By which, of course, the Chalcedonians could also be understood.
50. PO 12/1, 61-63.
51. PO 12/1, 63-65.
52. PO 12/1, 65-66.
53. PO 12/1, 66-67.
 Severus of Antioch on the Feast of the Ascension 371

but also to us, so that we should be aware of being seated by virtue of the
first-fruits of Christ above every principality and power.54 It is
noteworthy that this is the sole place in Severus’ three surviving homilies
on the Ascension that the text of Acts relating to the ascension event is
cited or referred to.
In conflict with their privileged seating arrangements in heaven, their
great gift of divine adoption and participation in a second creation and in
the first-fruits which have ascended to heaven, Severus’ listeners go to
the stadium to see fellow-human beings torn to shreds by wild beasts.55
The sinfulness of the congregation brings tears to his eyes: whereas
human beings were given authority over all the animals on earth, thanks
to their familiarity with Adam in Eden, now they treat animals like
savage beasts, who escape from them to deserted places.56 Those
Christians in Antioch who attend the spectacles are contrasted
unfavourably with Daniel and Thecla and other martyrs, who were either
in command of wild beasts or used them for their salvation.57
Although the homilist has much more to say after this already long
homily, he will stop there out of respect for the significance of the feast –
and presumably so that the congregation can proceed to their celebratory
meal without too much complaint.58
Given the paucity of liturgical material on the Feast of the Ascension
in the sixth century, in addition to his three extant homilies it will be
helpful here to consider Severus’ hymns on the occasion, of which we
have five.59 Compared to Severus’ two homilies, what is striking in four

 
54. PO 12/1, 67.
55. PO 12/1, 67-68.
56. PO 12/1, 68-69.
57. PO 12/1, 69-70. For Severus’ indictment of animal abuse see also Homily 26 (PO
36/4, 548); Homily 54 (PO 4/1, 49). On early Christian attitudes to animals see Richard
Sorabji, Animal Minds & Human Morals: The Origins of the Western Debate (London:
Duckworth, 1993) 195-205.
58. PO 12/1, 70. Cf. Homily 49 (PO 35/3, 336) for complaints from the congregation
about the length of the synaxis.
59. For references to the texts of these five hymns see n. 5 above. On Severus and his
hymns see John of Beith Aphthonia, Vie de Sévère, ed. and trans. Marc-Antoine Kugener,
PO 2/3 (Paris: Firmin-Didot 1907) 244-255; Severus of Antioch, Hymns (CPG 7072),
Ernest W. Brooks (ed. and trans.), The Hymns of Severus and Others in the Syriac
Version of Paul of Edessa as Revised by James of Edessa, PO 6/1 (Paris: Firmin-Didot
1909) 1-179, and 7/5 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1911; Turnhout: Brepols, 21981) 593-802. See
further Allen and Hayward, Severus of Antioch, 54-55; Alpi, La route royale, vol. 1, 160-
161. The composition of the collection in which Severus’ hymns survive is problematical.
See Catherine Burris and Lucas Van Rompay, “Some Further Notes on Thecla in Syriac
Christianity,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 6/2, July 2003: http://syrcom.cua.edu/
Hugoye/Vol6No2/HV6NZBurrisVan Rompay.html (accessed 1 June, 2009). On the genre
of the hymn see Michael Lattke, Hymnus: Materialien zu einer Geschichte der antiken
372 Pauline Allen

of these five short pieces is the prominent role assigned to the heavenly
hosts, who are variously designated as bodiless, sublime, and
immaterial.60 At one point the congregation sings that the hosts ‘shook
with amazement, and trembling seized the lines and ranks of the bodiless
armies of angels’ when they saw that Christ had ascended.61 Also to the
fore in all five hymns is the ascent of human beings with Christ and their
sitting with him in heaven, a concept inspired by Ephesians 2:6 and
found, as we have seen, in the three homilies. Christ’s title of ‘King of
glory’, taken from Psalm 23:7-10, is a constant theme in three of the five
hymns,62 and the denial of the quaternity in the Trinity occurs once.63
However, it is a sixth hymn on the combined Feasts of the Ascension and
Pentecost that best sums up the post-paschal significance of the two
events for the patriarch:

The Word descended above and the Holy Spirit who spoke in the
prophets came down; though the Son did not in any way leave and
remove from earth, nor yet did the Spirit depart from heaven. The two are
continually with the Father; whom also we worship, one God of all,
praise to you!64

Concluding Observations

As I indicated at the beginning of this paper, there is precious little

homiletical material on the Feast of the Ascension from the Greek-
speaking world from the sixth to the eighth centuries. Hence it is valuable
to have hymns as a reality check. Apart from one kontakion by Romanos
the Melode on the Ascension, Severus is our only sixth-century source
for this liturgical celebration. As background to a useful introduction to
his edition and translation of Romanos’ kontakion, Grosdidier de Matons
studied fourth- and fifth-century homilies on the Ascension, as well as a
number of pseudonymous pieces, to establish common themes.65 I give
here an abbreviated catalogue of these.
 
Hymnologie, Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus, 19 (Freiburg/Göttingen:
Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991) 358-359 on Severus.
60. See Hymn 103-i-IV (PO 6/1, 141); Hymn 204-ii-III (PO 6/1, 143); Hymn 106-iv-
IV (PO 6/1, 144); Hymn 107-v-VII (PO 6/1, 145-146).
61. Hymn 107-v-VII (PO 6/1, 145), Brooks’ trans.
62. See Hymn 103-i-IV (PO 6/1, 141); Hymn 104-ii-III (PO 6/1, 143); Hymn 106-iv-
IV (PO 6/1, 144).
63. Hymn 103-i-IV (PO 6/1, 141).
64. Hymn 215-v, trans. Brooks, PO 7/5, 676 (slightly amended).
65. José Grosdidier de Matons, Romanos le Mélode. Hymnes, Sources chrétiennes,
283 (Paris: Cerf, 1981) 126-128. The Kontakion in question is no. 48, text and translation
on 138-171.
 Severus of Antioch on the Feast of the Ascension 373

1. The exaltation of the human race in the person of Christ.

2. The defeat of the demon.
3. Angelic joy at the rehabilitation of the human race.
4. Human witnesses of the ascension change from being stunned
and afraid to being joyful.
5. Neither in the incarnation did Christ leave the Father nor in the
ascension did he leave human beings.
6. The ascension of Christ is unprecedented and has nothing in
common with the departures of Enoch and Elijah.
7. The Feast of the Ascension is not a stand-alone celebration but is
the prelude to Pentecost.

De Matons observes that the first two themes are not used by
Romanos, while themes 5 and 7 are treated quite briefly. On the other
hand, a whole strophe is devoted to the departures of Enoch and Elijah,
while another theme which is not found in the surviving homiletic
tradition, namely the contrast between the joy of the angels and the
sadness of the bereft apostles after the ascension, forms the essence of the
kontakion.
If we return to Severus’ homilies and hymns, we find a different
emphasis again. The first theme, the exaltation of the human race through
Christ’s ascension, and the fifth, Christ’s continued presence with both
the Father and human beings, are central, as befits a preacher whose
passion is Christology and soteriology. In Severus’ work there is barely a
mention of the demon’s defeat (theme 2),66 and the angelic hosts are not
so much joyful at the rehabilitation of the human race (theme 3) as in awe
of the ascended Christ.67 There is only one reference to the ascension
account in Acts and its human witnesses (Homily 71). Furthermore, there
is no mention of Enoch and Elijah (theme 6), a topic that we might have
imagined would have captivated his congregations, and apart from the
joint hymn on the Feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost and a passage in
Homily 71, there is little to suggest that the Ascension is a prelude to
Pentecost (theme 7).
While taking into consideration the difficulty of working with a Syriac
translation of the Greek original, which does not enable us properly to
assess the rhetoric of the preacher or hymnographer except insofar as the
sequence of arguments and the use of scriptural texts are concerned, we
must at the same time consider what group identity Severus was trying to
reinforce in his preaching and hymn-writing and how he conceived of the
relevance of the festal celebration. In terms of cosmology, which is a
 
66. Only in Homily 24 (PO 37/1, 137. 7); Hymn 106-iv-IV (PO 6/1, 144).
67. See e.g. Homily 47 (PO 35/3, 313.23-29); Hymn 107-v-VII (PO 6/1, 145).
374 Pauline Allen

frequent theme in homiletic literature on the Ascension and one which we

might have imagined was expected by a congregation, there is nothing to
be found in either of Severus’ homilies. In only one of his hymns is there
detailed mention of the celestial realms, where Christ had ‘been lifted
into the heights and exalted and had passed through all the heavens, and
in him with him lifted us all to the exalted heights’.68 Apart from a
treatment of post-resurrection appearances in Homily 24 and 71, there is
little hint that the patriarch intended to educate his listeners about a
differentiated unity of the Feasts of Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, not
to mention Mid-Pentecost. In terms of urging his listeners onto a more
spiritual plane, Severus restricts himself to admonitions that they should
keep their eyes trained on heaven, suggesting in Homily 47 that it would
be more logical and salutary if they looked after their ‘agricultural land’
in heaven as they do their land-holdings on earth.69 This common touch
goes some way towards sweetening the christological pill contained in
the remainder of the homilies, as does the use of fanciful exegesis in
Homily 24 to engage the audience with post-resurrection appearances.
As we saw in the case of Homily 24, Severus is more concerned with
articulating the group mantra of anti-Chalcedonian Christology than with
the festal character of the liturgies at which he is preaching. This is why
he is keen to associate the imperial couple Anastasius and Ariadne,
supporters of the anti-Chalcedonian position, with his Homily 24. As in
his letters and other works, in his homilies on the Ascension feast he
loses no opportunity to emphasise the hypostatic unity in Christ, a
concept to which the Ascension with its notion of the double habitation
of the incarnate one is admirably suited. While this hammering home of
anti-Chalcedonian Christology has been found offensive by some modern
scholars,70 others have recognized the rare talents of the patriarch of
Antioch71 and his superb oratory.72 However, in the end, Severus’
homilies on the Ascension and his single surviving homily on Mid-
Pentecost are not so much liturgical pieces delivered for the edification
and spiritual direction of the faithful of Antioch on festal occasions, as
 
68. Hymn 107-v-VII (PO 6/1, 145), trans. Brooks.
69. PO 35/3. 315.
70. E.g. by Louis Duchesne, L’Église au VIème siècle (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1915)
199: “Il (sc. Severus) entretint un lamentable schisme qu’il lui eût été aisé de réduire, s’il
l’eût voulu;” Manlio Simonetti, art. “Severus of Antioch,” Encyclopedia of the Early
Church, ed. Angelo Di Berardino, trans. from the Italian by Adrian Walford, vol. 2
(Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1992) 773: “S. was a prolix writer who never tired of
repeating ad satietatem the fundamental principles of his creed.”
71. E.g. Ernest Honigmann, Évêques et évêchés monophysites d’Asie antérieure au
VIe siècle, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 127; Subsidia, 2 (Louvain:
Secrétariat du CSCO, 1951) 18-19.
72. Olivar, “Sever d’Antioquia,” 403.
 Severus of Antioch on the Feast of the Ascension 375

consummate theological compositions designed both to stamp his creed

on a patriarchate new, and not wholly sympathetic, to him, and to curb
the threat posed by adherents of the Council of Chalcedon to his
congregations in Antioch and to other Christians in the empire.

Centre for Early Christian Studies Pauline ALLEN

Australian Catholic University
PO Box 456
Virginia 4010
Brisbane
Pauline.Allen@acu.edu.au