The Mariology of Eustathius of Antioch

Eustathius of Antioch (d. 343)

A native of Side (Pamphylia), he was first bishop of Beroea (Aleppo) and then of Antioch (324). An opponent of the Arians, he played a leading role at the Council of Nicaea (325). Later, he disputed with Eusebius of Caesarea. In the context of the anti-Nicene reaction that began soon after the council, he was accused by an Arian conciliar assembly at Antioch in 327 under the presidency of Eusebius, condemned and deposed for reasons not of a doctrinal nature, but presumably disciplinary ones (immorality, abuse of power?).
After his exile to Trajanopolis (Thrace), we have no further news of him, so that it is believed that he disappeared in his exile before the death of Constantine (337).
Only a few fragments have survived of various anti-Arian treatises named by Jerome: Against the Arians, On the Soul.
Of a monarchian but moderate cast, he distinguishes in the one divine nature the prosopas of the Father and of the Son, but considers the prosopon only as a way in which the divinity presents itself, and insists strongly on the perfect unity of the Father and of the Son, Logos and wisdom of the Father. He was the only one, in this initial phase of the Arian controversy, who disputed with the logos-arx of his adversaries, of Alexandrian derivation, in the name of a Logos-anthropos conception, which preserved the integrity of the humanity assumed by the divine Logos.
Logos-anthropos: this is the name given to a Christology from below, characteristic of the School of Antioch, interested in defending the full humanity of Jesus Christ. Since the Antiochenes started from the duality of the natures (the full human nature of Christ and His divine nature), they had to face the question: how are the divinity and the humanity of Christ united in the one acting subject? Their Christology could go astray, abandoning the real unity of Christ and ending up admitting two subjects: the Word who assumes and the man Jesus who is assumed.
Logos-arx: A Christology “from above” characteristic of Origen (d. 254), centered on the Logos who, preexistent from all eternity, descended into the world. The Alexandrian school generally managed to preserve the genuine divinity and the true unity of Christ as the one acting subject. For some Alexandrians, the most serious point lay in showing His true humanity and in addressing the question: how could the eternal Word of God assume a genuine and fully human way of acting?
In the emphasis given to the Logos-anthropos, Eustathius shows the Asian setting and, in fact, his Christological terminology presents notable points of contact with that of Paul of Samosata, although he does not share the excesses of adoptionism that led to his condemnation.
Adoptionism: a heresy according to which Christ, as God, was true Son of God by nature, but as man, He was only an adoptive son of God
The only surviving writing of Eustathius is On the Witch of Endor (1 Sam 28), strongly polemical with regard to Origen, whom Eustathius affirms to have allegorized the whole of Scripture.
From what we know of him, he seems to be one of the last representatives of the Asian tradition, whose tendencies would have been continued by the school of Antioch: in this sense, his opposition to Arianism fits into the broader context of Asian culture, a reaction to the spread of Alexandrian culture in the Syrian area.
In the context of the Marian question, he was among those who preferred the title of Theotokos (Mother of God) as the name of the Holy Virgin.

The Incarnation of the Word

If, therefore, the Word received the beginning of generation, from which He drew the corresponding bodily features by passing through the maternal womb, it is clear that He was made of a woman. Now, if the Word and God were originally with the Father, and we say that all things were made through Him, then He who already exists and is the principle causing the existence of all creatures could not become man of a woman. Now, therefore, He is God self-sufficient, infinite, and unintelligible according to nature. Instead, He became a man of a woman, He who was placed in the virginal womb by the work of the Holy Spirit.
(Fragment 18)

Christ redeems from the servitude of the law

But, just as it is said that the man begotten by the Virgin was made of a woman, so also it is written that He was made under the Law, and it was when He proceeded according to the prescriptions of the Law. It refers in particular to the moment in which the parents hastened with loving solicitude to circumcise the child of eight days, as the evangelist Luke relates. Fulfilling the offering of His purification, they then brought Him to the temple to present Him to the Lord and to offer in sacrifice, as the Law of the Lord says, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons (cf. Lk 2:21-24). Well then, even though He bore the humanity assumed by the Virgin, even though it was made under the Law and purified according to the rite of the firstborn, He submitted Himself to that therapy of worship, not because He personally needed that remedy, but in order to redeem from servitude those who had been sold under the condemnation of the curse.
(Fragment 23)

His entrance into the womb of the Virgin did not diminish His power, for the Spirit did not remain contaminated even though His body had been affixed to the wood of the cross.
(Fragment 30)

Christ and Melchizedek

Melchizedek is represented to us as an orphan: although in truth he was considered similar to God and to the Word and, to say it in a word, although he seemed to have His image and to keep His impression. Nevertheless, He is not without a mother, He is not without a father: Christ, in fact, has both the mother, Mary, and the royal lineage of David (…) in His genealogy.
(Fragment 66)

Mary at the wedding of Cana

The mother according to the body, the wine having run out for those who were drinking with Him, informed Him of it, saying to Him immediately: They have no wine (Jn 2:3). And He in reply said: What is there between you and me, woman, adding: My hour has not yet come (Jn 2:4). Then, through the form of reproof at which He labored, He showed, as God, that He knows everything and that He is within the divine foreknowledge, in no way needing to learn from others what happens, above all because by His nature He is in no way inactive.
(Fragment 69)

To deepen the study of patristic Mariology, consult the encyclical Redemptoris Mater of John Paul II, which illuminates the role of Mary in the history of salvation and in the tradition of the Fathers of the Church.

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