Theology of Gerasim, a 13th Century Melkite Apologist

This article examines the dogmatic teaching (Trinitarian doctrine and Christology) contained in the main work of Gerasimus, abbot of the monastery of St. Simeon the Stylite located about twenty kilometers from Antioch, The Complete Book of Healing Meaning (Apology). The theology of Gerasimus (13th century) is of interest because he was essentially the last significant medieval Orthodox author in Arabic, and thus his work can be seen as a kind of summary of five hundred years of Melkite theological and apologetic thought. Although the Apology presents dogmatic teaching rather fragmentarily, it allows for a general assessment of Gerasimus’s theology. In both Trinitarian doctrine and Christology, Gerasimus emerges as a typical representative of the Melkite tradition. His terminology is characterized by clarity and a limited use of theological terms, which distinguishes Gerasimus from many Melkite authors. In his Trinitarian teaching, he continues the tradition of Trinitarian theology, derived from the Cappadocian fathers, based on the premise of the complete actualization of the general in the particular. He is completely alien to both the concept of particular substances and the attributive Trinitarian doctrine that became widespread among Melkite theologians in the 10th–13th centuries. Gerasimus’s diphysite Christology, like that of many Melkites, is characterized by an emphasis on the hypostatic identity of Christ and the Son of God before the Incarnation. Gerasimus’s primary patristic source, both in his anti-Muslim apologetics and in his dogmatic teaching, is the writings of Theodore Abu Qurrah, the founder of the Melkite theological tradition. This does not preclude the author of the Apology from being familiar with the works of at least some Greek-speaking Church Fathers. The Complete Book of Healing Meaning provides grounds for considering Gerasimus one of the most significant Melkite apologists and theologians.

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