§ 14. The Confession of Metrophanes Critopulus, A.D. 1625.
Kimmel, Vol. II. pp. 1-213.
Dietelmaier: De Metrophane Critopulo, etc., Altdorf, 1769.
Fabricius: Biblioth. Græca, ed. Harless, Vol. XI. pp. 597-599.
Gass: Art. M. K. in Herzog's Encylop. Vol. 2d ed. Vol. IX pp. 726-729.
Next in chronological order comes the Confession of Metrophanes Critopulus, once Patriarch of Alexandria, which was written in 1625, though not published till 1661.
Metrophanes Critopulus was a native of Beroea, in Macedonia, and educated at Mount Athos. Cyril Lucar, then Patriarch of Alexandria, sent him to England, Germany, and Switzerland (1616), with a recommendation to the Archbishop of Canterbury (George Abbot), that he might be thoroughly educated to counteract, in behalf of the Greek Church, the intrigues of the Jesuits. [110] The Archbishop kindly received him, and, with the consent of King James I., secured him a place in one of the colleges of Oxford. In 1620 Metrophanes visited the Universities of Wittenberg, Tübingen, Altdorf, Strasburg, and Helmstädt. He acquired good testimonials for his learning and character. He entered into close relations with Calixtus and a few like-minded Lutheran divines, who dissented from the exclusive confessionalism and scholastic dogmatism of the seventeenth century, and labored for Catholic union on the basis of the primitive creeds. At their request Metrophanes prepared a work on the faith and worship of the orthodox Greek Church. He also wrote a number of philological essays. After spending some time in Venice as teacher of the Greek language, he returned to the East, and became successor of Cyril Lucar in Alexandria. But he disappointed the hopes of his patron, and, as a member of the Synod of Constantinople, 1638, he even took part in his condemnation. The year of his death is unknown.
The Confession of Metrophanes [111] discusses, in twenty-three chapters, all the leading doctrines and usages of the Eastern Church. It is a lengthy theological treatise rather than a Confession of faith. It has never received ecclesiastical sanction, and is ignored by the Synod of Jerusalem; hence it ought not to be quoted as an authority, as is done by Winer and other writers on Symbolics. Nevertheless, as a private exposition of the Greek faith, it is of considerable interest.
Although orthodox in the main, it yet presents the more liberal and progressive aspect of Eastern theology. It was intended to give a truthful account of the Greek faith, but betrays the influence of the Protestant atmosphere in which it was composed. It is strongly opposed to Romanism, but abstains from all direct opposition to Protestantism, and is even respectfully dedicated to the Lutheran theological faculty of Helmstädt, where it was written. [112] In this respect it is the counterpart or complement of the Confession of Dositheus, which, in its zeal against Protestantism, almost ignores the difference from Romanism. [113] Thus Metrophanes excludes the Apocrypha from the canon, denies in name (though maintaining in substance) the doctrine of purgatory, and makes a distinction between sacraments proper, viz., baptism, eucharist, and penance, and a secondary category of sacramental or mystical rites, viz., confirmation (or chrisma), ordination, marriage, and unction.
[110] See the letter in Kimmel, Preface to Vol. II. p. vii., and in Colomesii, Opera, quoted there. On Cyril Lucar, see the next section.
[111] Homologia tes anatolikes ekklesias tes katholikes kai apostolikes, sungrapheisa en epitome dia Metrophanous Hieromonachou Patriarchikou te Protosungellou tou Kritopoulou. Confessio catholicæ et apostolicæ in Orienti ecclesiæ, conscripta compendiose per Metrophanem Critopulum, Hieromonachum et Patriarchalem Protosyngellum. It was first published in Greek, with a Latin translation, by J. Hornejus, at Helmstädt. 1661. Kimmel compared with this ed. the MS. which is preserved in the library at Wolfenbüttel, but he died before his edition appeared, with a preface of Weissenborn (1850).
[112] Nicolaus Comnenus called Metrophanes a Græco-Lutheranus, but without good reason.
[113] See below, § 17.
§ 15. The Confession of Cyril Lucar, A.D. 1631.
Literature.
Cyrilli Lucaris Confessio Christianæ fidei, Latin, 1629; c. additam. Cyrilli, Gr. et Lat., Genev. 1633; (? Amst.) 1645, and often; also in Kimmel's Monumenta fidei Ecclesiæ Orient. P. I. pp. 24-44. Compare Proleg. pp. xxi.-l. (de vita Cyrilli).
Thom. Smith: Collectanea de Cyrillo Lucari, London, 1707. Comp. also, in Th. Smith's Miscellanea (Hal. 1724), his Narratio de vita, studiis, gestis et martyrio C. Lucaris.
Leo Allatius (d. at Rome, 1669): De Ecclesiæ Occidentalis atque Orientalis perpetua consensione, libri tres (III. 11), Gr. et Lat. Colon. 1648. Bitter and slanderous against Cyril.
J. H. Hottinger: Analecta hist. theol. Dissert. VIII., Appendix, Tigur. 1653 (al. 1652). Against him, L. Allatius: J. H. Hottingerus, fraudis et imposturæ manifestæ convictus, Rom. 1661.
J. Aymon: Lettres anecdotes de Cyrille Lucaris, Amsterd. 1718.
Bohnstedt: De Cyrillo Lucari, Halle, 1724.
Mohnike: On Cyril, in the Studien und Kritiken, 1832, p. 560.
Several articles on Cyril Lucar, in the British Magazine for Sept. 1842, Dec. 1843, Jan. and June, 1844.
Twesten: On Cyril, in the Deutsche Zeitechr. f. christl. Wissensch. u. chr. Leben, Berl. 1850, No. 39, p. 305.
W. Gass: Article 'Lukaris,' in Herzog's Encyklop. 2d ed. Vol. IX. pp. 5 sqq.; and Symbolik, pp. 50 sqq.
Aloysius Pichler (Rom. Cath.): Der Patriarch Cyrillus Lucaris und seine Zeit, München, 1862, 8vo. (The author has since joined the Greek Church.)
The Confession of Cyril Lucar was never adopted by any branch or party of the Eastern Church, and even repeatedly condemned as heretical; but as it gave rise to the later authentic definitions of the 'Orthodox Faith,' in opposition to the distinctive doctrines of Romanism and Protestantism, it must be noticed here.
Cyrillus Lucaris (Kyrillos Loukaris [114] ), a martyr of Protestantism within the orthodox Greek Church, occupies a remarkable position in the conflict of the three great Confessions to which the Reformation gave rise. He is the counterpart of his more learned and successful, but less noble, antagonist, Leo Allatius (1586-1669), who openly apostatized from the Greek Church to the Roman, and became librarian of the Vatican. His work is a mere episode, and passed away apparently without permanent effect, but (like the attempted reformations of Wyclif, Huss, and Savonarola) it may have a prophetic meaning for the future, and be resumed by Providence in a better form.
Cyril Lucar was born in 1568 or 1572 in Candia (Crete), then under the sovereignty of Venice, and the only remaining seat of Greek learning. He studied and traveled extensively in Europe, and was for a while rector and Greek teacher in the Russian Seminary at Ostrog, in Volhynia. In French Switzerland he became acquainted with the Reformed Church, and embraced its faith. Subsequently he openly professed it in a letter to the Professors of Geneva (1636), through Leger, a minister from Geneva, who had been sent to Constantinople. He conceived the bold plan of ingrafting Protestant doctrines on the old oecumenical creeds of the Eastern Church, and thereby reforming the same. He was unanimously elected Patriarch of Alexandria in 1602 (?), and of Constantinople in 1621. While occupying these high positions he carried on an extensive correspondence with Protestant divines in Switzerland, Holland, and England, sent promising youths to Protestant universities, and imported a press from England (1629) to print his Confession and several Catechisms. But he stood on dangerous ground, between vacillating or ill-informed friends and determined foes. The Jesuits, with the aid of the French embassador at the Sublime Porte, spared no intrigues to counteract and checkmate his Protestant schemes, and to bring about instead a union of the Greek hierarchy with Rome. At their instigation his printing-press was destroyed by the Turkish government. He himself--in this respect another Athanasius 'versus mundum,' though not to be compared in intellectual power to the 'father of orthodoxy'--was five times deposed, and five times reinstated. At last, however--unlike Athanasius, who died in peaceful possession of his patriarchal dignity--he was strangled to death in 1638, having been condemned by the Sultan for alleged high-treason, and his body was thrown into the Bosphorus. His friends surrounded the palace of his successor, Cyril of Beroea, crying, 'Pilate, give us the dead, that we may bury him.' [115] The corpse was washed ashore, but it was only obtained by Cyril's adherents after having been once more cast out and returned by the tide. The next Patriarch, Parthenius, granted him finally an honorable burial.
Cyril left no followers able or willing to carry on his work, but the agitation he had produced continued for several years, and called forth defensive measures. His doctrines were anathematized by Patriarch Cyril of Beroea and a Synod of Constantinople (Sept., 1638), [116] then again by the Synods of Jassy, in Moldavia, 1643, and of Jerusalem, 1672; but on the last two occasions the honor of his name and the patriarchal dignity were saved by boldly denying the authenticity of his Confession, and contradicting it by written documents from his pen. [117]
This Cyril was the same who seat the famous uncial Codex Alexandrinus of the Bible (A) to King Charles I. of England, [118] and who translated the New Testament into the modern Greek language. [119]
The Confession of Cyril was first written by him in Latin, 1629, and then in Greek, with an addition of four questions and answers, 1631, and published in both languages at Geneva, 1633. [120] It expresses his own individual faith, which he vainly hoped would become the faith of the Greek Church. It is divided into eighteen brief chapters, each fortified with Scripture references; eight chapters contain the common old Catholic doctrine, while the rest bear a distinctly Protestant character.
In Chapter I. the dogma of the Trinity is plainly stated in agreement with the oecumenical creeds, the procession of the Spirit in the conciliatory terms of the Council of Florence. [121] Chapters IV. and V. treat of the doctrines of creation and divine government; Chapter VI., of the fall of man; Chapters VII. and VIII., of the twofold state of Christ, his incarnation and humiliation, and his exaltation and sitting on the right hand of the Father, as the Mediator of mankind and the Ruler of his Church (status exinanitionis and st. exaltationis); Chapter IX., of faith in general; Chapter XVI., of baptismal regeneration.
The remaining ten chapters breathe the Reformed spirit. Chapter II. asserts that 'the authority of the Scriptures is superior to the authority of the Church,' since the Scriptures alone, being divinely inspired, can not err. [122] In the appendix to the second (the Greek) edition, Cyril commends the general circulation of the Scriptures, and maintains their perspicuity in matters of faith, but excludes the Apocrypha, and rejects the worship of images. He believes 'that the Church is sanctified and taught by the Holy Spirit in the way of life,' but denies its infallibility, saying: 'The Church is liable to sin (hamartanein), and to choose the error instead of the truth (anti tes aletheias to pseudos eklegesthai); from such error we can only be delivered by the teaching and the light of the Holy Spirit, and not of any mortal man' (Ch. XII.). The doctrine of justification (Chapter XIII.) is stated as follows:
'We believe that man is justified by faith, not by works. But when we say "by faith," we understand the correlative of faith, viz., the Righteousness of Christ, which faith, fulfilling the office of the hand, apprehends and applies to us for salvation. And this we understand to be fully consistent with, and in no wise to the prejudice of, works; for the truth itself teaches us that works also are not to be neglected, and that they are necessary means and testimonies of our faith, and a confirmation of our calling. But, as human frailty bears witness, they are of themselves by no means sufficient to save man, and able to appear at the judgment-seat of Christ, so as to merit the reward of salvation. The righteousness of Christ, applied to the penitent, alone justifies and saves the believer.'
The freedom of will before regeneration is denied (Ch. XIV.). [123] In the doctrine of decrees, Cyril agrees with the Calvinistic system (Ch. III.), and thereby offended Grotius and the Arminians. He accepts, with the Protestants, only two sacraments as being instituted by Christ, instead of seven, and requires faith as a condition of their application (Ch. XV.). He rejects the dogma of transubstantiation and oral manducation, and teaches the Calvinistic theory of a real but spiritual presence and fruition of the body and blood of Christ by believers only (Ch. XVII.). In the last chapter he rejects the doctrine of purgatory and of the possibility of repentance after death.