TorranceAC SCH Mark the Monk

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REPENTANCE AS THE CONTEXT OF SAINTHOOD IN THE ASCETICAL THEOLOGY OF MARK THE

MONK

by ALEXIS TORRANCE

It seems fitting to begin with a tribute to the late Henry Chad-wick, whose thorough, even-handed, and ever readable work contributed much to our understanding of the theme of sanc-

tity in the early Church. In particular, his address at a conference on ‘The Byzantine Saint’ held in Birmingham in 1980 exempli-fied his capacity to identify and constructively pursue the broad issues at stake. In speaking of the early saints and the content of their lives, Chadwick explains, ‘we are tempted either to tell the stories of their mortifications and then, as was said of Lytton Stra-chey, ostentatiously refrain from laughing, or we go in search of trendy non-religious explanations of the social needs that created them’.1 He goes on to acknowledge, as most would, the impor-tance of sociological interpretations and their potential for the study of sanctity, but warns that ‘a stripping away of their religious motivation will leave the historian with a distorted picture’.2 It is along this route of keeping the religious or theological motiva-tions and presuppositions of sanctity in mind, that the present essay will proceed. It focuses on the neglected concept of μετάνοια or ‘repentance’ (lit. a ‘change of mind’) which dominates much of the ascetic theology of the early Christian East, particularly as expounded by the influential fifth-century theologian Mark the Monk (or ‘the Hermit’ / ‘the Ascetic’).

What makes the concept of repentance worthy of closer scru-tiny in the context of views about sanctity in the early Church is the way in which it is used, particularly in Mark, as a term and an idea which sums up the path not simply of the ordinary Christian, but also of the near-perfect or perfected Christian. Repentance is, to be sure, the gateway to the holy in early Christian thought, but

1 H. Chadwick, ‘Pachomios and the Idea of Sanctity’, in S. Hackel, ed., The Byzantine Saint (London, 1981), 11–24, at 12.

2 Ibid.

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it is also, as elaborated by Mark and others, conceivable in terms of the content of the holy, expressed through a loving – one might say Christ-like – repentance for one’s fallen neighbour and for the fallen world at large.

Mark the Monk

Comparatively little scholarly consideration has been given to the ascetical theology of Mark the Monk. His identity and date have perplexed several scholars, though placing him in the early fifth century, and linking him to Egypt and/or Syria, seems the most plausible approximation.3 Despite the limited knowledge we have about the person of Mark, we know of his popularity in the Eastern Christian ascetic tradition. A simple attestation to this is the maxim that had apparently become commonplace amongst Eastern Orthodox monastics, and is mentioned in several Markan manuscripts: ‘sell all and buy Mark’.4 Mark’s circle of influence spans such dignitaries of Eastern Christian monasticism and spirituality as Dorotheus of Gaza, John Climacus, Isaac the Syrian, Theodore the Studite, Symeon the New Theologian, Peter of Damascus, Gregory of Sinai, Gregory Palamas and Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain.5 He figures widely and substantially in patristic flori-legia, about six per cent of the Synagoge of Paul of Evergetis being made up of Markan quotations.6 As such, he can safely be regarded as a mouthpiece for much Eastern Christian ascetic thought, and so deserving of the church historian’s attention.

3 Studies of Mark include: K. T. Ware, ‘The Ascetic Writings of Mark the Hermit’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1965); H. Chadwick, ‘The Identity and Date of Mark the Monk’, Eastern Churches Review 4 (1982), 125–30; O. Hesse, ‘Was Mark the Monk a Sixth-Century Higumen near Tarsus?’, Eastern Churches Review 8 (1976), 174–8; A. Grillmeier, ‘Marco eremita e l’origenismo: Saggio di reinterpre-tazione di Op. XI’, Cristianesimo nella storia 1 (1980), 9–58; M. Plested, The Macarian Legacy: The Place of Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Oxford, 2004), 75–132; C. Carlton, ‘Kyriakos Anthropos in Mark the Monk’, JECS 15 (2007), 381–405; and the introduction to the SC edition of Mark’s works by G.-M. de Durand (Traités I, SC 445, 13–35).

4 On which see K. T. Ware, Introduction to Marc le Moine: Traités spirituels et théologiques, trans. C.-A. Zirnheld (Begrolles-en-Mauge, 1985), ix–li, at ix.

5 For more on the ‘afterlife’ of Mark, see Ware, ‘Ascetic Writings’, 457–69.6 See J. Wortley, ‘The Genre and Sources of the Synagoge’, in M. Mullett and

A. Kirby, eds, The Theotokos Evergetis and Eleventh-Century Monasticism (Belfast, 1994), 306–24, at 320.


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The basis for Mark’s preoccupation with μετάνοια and its rela-tionship to sanctity is, as with countless Christian ascetics and teachers, the gospel word. The need to bear in mind that Christ’s public ministry begins, in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, with the present imperative μετανοεῖτε (‘repent ye’ / ‘keep repenting’), as well as that the term is key in many New Testament texts, cannot be overestimated when examining how the early ascetics approached the concept, particularly Mark. He opens his treatise Περὶ μετανοίας (‘On Repentance’) with an incisive exegesis of Christ’s initial command as found in Matthew 4: 17 (‘repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’), one which serves as a fitting keynote to his whole vision of repentance. He writes:

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the power and wisdom of God, foreseeing for the salvation of all what he knew was worthy of God, decreed the law of liberty by means of various teachings, and to all set a single goal, saying: ‘Repent’, so that we might understand by this that all the diversity of the commandments is summed up by one word: repentance.7

That repentance ought to be the foundation of Christian life, and that it should accompany the ascetic throughout the struggle for Christian sanctity, are not particularly striking ideas for anyone familiar with early ascetic literature. The need for an open and more nuanced idea of the early Christian understanding of repentance, one which includes not simply self-mortifications and desperate weeping, but also thanksgiving, forgiveness, faith, joy, hope and humble love (in short, all the Christian virtues), has been raised a number of times in different ways.8 However, that repentance should not only be the means to, but in some sense the actual goal

7 De Paenitentia [hereafter Paen.] 1.1–7 (SC 445, 214).8 See K. T. Ware, ‘The Orthodox Experience of Repentance’, Sobornost 2.1 (1980),

18–28; J. Chryssavgis, Repentance and Confession (Boston, MA, 1990); C. Rapp, ‘For Next to God You are my Salvation: Reflections on the Rise of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’, in J. Howard-Johnston and P. A. Hayward, eds, The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford, 1999), 63–81; C. B. Horn, ‘Penitence in Early Christianity in its Historical and Theological Setting: Trajectories from Eastern and Western Sources’, in M. Boda and G. T. Smith, eds, Repentance in Christian Theology (Collegeville, MN, 2006), 153–87; C. Trevett, ‘ “I have heard from some Teachers”: The Second-Century Struggle for Forgiveness and Reconciliation’, in K. Cooper and J. Gregory, eds, Retribution, Repentance and Reconcilia-



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and content of sanctity (εἷς σκόπος)9 has yet to be underlined and discussed. In order to understand how this works itself out in Mark and (by extension) in much Eastern Christian ascetical theology, his reasoning underlying the need for a continuing repentance should be unpacked.

Mark the Monk’s theology has been noted chiefly for two of its emphases. The first is his dissection of the process of tempta-tion and sin, which was to be taken up virtually in toto by John Climacus in his Ladder of Divine Ascent. The other is his detailed theology of baptism, something he developed in response to the threat of Messalianism, which emphasized the efficacy of ascetic effort over against that of the sacraments. More than perhaps any other ascetic writer, Mark depicts baptism as the one and only all-encompassing renewal for the human being.10 Baptism does not simply launch Christian life for Mark, but contains within itself (μυστικός, ‘secretly’) the fullness of sanctity, which must be lived out ἐνεργός, ‘actively’, by the Christian through the keeping of Christ’s commandments. It is within this framework of baptism, as containing in itself all the gifts of grace, that Mark’s vision of repentance emerges. Mark claims that ‘in all our activity, there is but one foundation of repentance – and that is the one baptism in Christ’.11 This statement arises through Mark’s interpretation of Hebrews 6: 1–6 and 10: 26, on the impossibility of restoring or renewing the apostate to repentance.12 The purpose of these passages is by no means (μὴ γένοιτο), Mark insists, to question the validity or possible frequency of post-baptismal repentance. The ‘renewal’, ‘enlightenment’ and ‘sacrifice’ mentioned in these verses is not repentance but baptism: not, then, ‘there is no second

tion, SCH 40 (Woodbridge, 2004), 5–28; R. Price, ‘Informal Penance in Early Medieval Christendom’, in ibid. 29–38.

9 Paen 1.4 (SC 445, 214).10 Baptism in Mark is discussed by K. T. Ware, ‘The Sacrament of Baptism and the

Ascetic Life in the Teaching of Mark the Monk’, Studia Patristica 10 (1970), 441–52.11 Paen. 7.25–6 (SC 445, 238).12 Paen. 7–8 (SC 445, 234–44). The crucial verses are Heb. 6: 6, ‘If they shall fall

away, to renew them again unto repentance [unlike most modern translators, Mark

took εἰς μετάνοιαν to mean ‘unto / into repentance’, not ‘through repentance’], seeing as they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame’; Heb. 10: 26, ‘For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins’ (citations from the Authorized Version, slightly modified).


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repentance’, but ‘there is no second baptism’. He uses this platform to argue that what is in fact being said is that baptism is the basis of repentance, its enabling. It is thanks to baptism that repentance is possible.13

Far from being a facet of Christian life that can and ought to be avoided, repentance is for Mark inescapable for the Christian, inasmuch as he understands the practice of repentance to be coter-minous with the keeping of the gospel commandments: ‘repent-ance, in my opinion, is neither limited to times or actions, but it is practised in proportion with the commandments of Christ’.14 Just as we eat, drink, listen, and speak, so for the believer repentance is a necessity of nature, and to fix a term on it ‘is to turn backwards and renew the falls of times past’.15 Personal sanctity is necessarily the preserve, for Mark, of the repentant, and to deny repentance is tantamount, he says, to denying Christ, who is the guarantor of repentance.16 Without repentance, the hallowed treasure hidden within through baptism remains buried, and the Christian’s poten-tial is stunted, not to say thwarted. Even the hypothetical absence of sin cannot be used as an excuse not to repent, Mark explains, given the status of repentance for him as the most basic and over-arching commandment of Christ: ‘He who lives in faith lives for the sake of repentance, even if it was not because of our own sin, but because of the sin of the transgression, that we were puri-fied by baptism and once purified, received the commandments’.17 Even the saints then, need repentance. Indeed, if the righteous

13 This interpretation is shared with Ambrose of Milan and John Chrysostom: Ambrose, De Paenitentia 2.2 (PL 16, 497C); John Chrysostom, In epistulam ad Hebraeos 9.5 (PG 63, 78). All three, incidentally, are explicitly reacting to the Novatianist inter-pretation of these verses (this is the only point at which Mark explicitly names a heretical group).

14 Paen. 6.25–7 (SC 445, 232). This sentence, along with others in the same vein, is cited by the late seventh-century Syrian ascetic Dadisho Qatraya: Commentary on Abba Isaiah (CSCO 326–27), Discourse 14.6, cf. 15.43; 3.9.

15 Paen. 12.3–5, 15–17 (SC 445, 252).16 ‘Christ became the guarantor of repentance for us: the one who abandons it

rejects the guarantor’: Paen. 12.19–20 (SC 445, 252).17 Paen. 12.6–9 (SC 445, 252). It is suggested (Ware, ‘Ascetic Writings’, 199–200,

348) that this and two other passages (Paen. 10.15–38 (SC 445, 246–8); On the Spiritual Law [hereafter Leg.] 155 (SC 445, 114)) may imply a person repenting for original as well as actual sin. The point, however, in the passages from Paen. is not that there is a need to repent for original sin, but that original sin necessitates that all, even a perfect person, find salvation in Christ, who commands us to repent (and so repentance is unavoidable). The most natural reading of Leg. 155 is that a person should consider



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neglect repentance, they prove themselves to be like Samson, Saul, Eli and his sons, who may have gained a certain measure of sanc-tity, Mark says, but because of their rejection of repentance they suffered fearful deaths.18

This way of thinking leads Mark to consider the form of repent-ance carried out by the saints, since repentance without sin appears counter-intuitive. To begin with, Mark’s sense of the devastation wrought by sin allows him to see a need for repentance even for those who have reached the measure of the saints. While there may be, he admits, people who live in perfection, they have not always done so. The sins of their past, however apparently slight (and here he cites the Sermon on the Mount and other texts related to this theme: anger towards another is like murder; an impure glance equals adultery; we are accountable for every vain word; and so on), sins such as these make even the apparently perfect ‘in need of repentance until death’.19 On a deeper level, however, the repent-ance of the saints is not so much preoccupied with their own past faults and flaws, but with something which we may call ‘Christ-like repentance’. To this we now turn.

Mark the Monk on Christ-like repentanCe

There is no doubt that Mark, together with the Christian East generally, would have considered the view that Christ needed to atone for his own failings heretical: Christ had no failings.20 Yet when faced with the question of whether the sufferings Christ endured were for a personal debt (since he had argued that all sufferings have this as their source), Mark gives a nuanced answer:

himself responsible for the vain chatter of others because of ‘an old debt’ in his own life, not ‘the ancient debt’ of Adam.

18 Paen. 11.10–13 (SC 445, 248–50).19 Paen. 10.1–14 (SC 445, 246): μετάνοιαν κεχρεώστηκεν ἕως θανάτου. Elsewhere

he makes a comparable and striking point regarding the inability of present virtue to make up for past laxity: ‘the greatest degree of virtue which we have accomplished today is a reproach for our past negligence, not a compensation for it’: On that there is no Justification by Works [hereafter Justif.] 43 (SC 445, 142). Neither of these points mean that Mark considers forgiveness unattainable, only that, according to him, no matter how much we do (and we should always do as much as we can), we are not worthy of forgiveness.

20 Mark twice alludes to Heb. 4: 15, speaking of Christ’s humanity as full, only ‘without sin’: On the Incarnation [hereafter Incarn.] 49.22–3 (SC 455, 310); To Nicholas [hereafter Nic.] 9.6–7 (SC 455, 136).


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‘Tell me, those who fall into debt because of their own borrowing, are they alone debtors or are their guarantors (ἐγγυώμενοι) also?’ The subordinate answered saying: ‘their guarantors also of course.’The old man went on: ‘Know it well that in accepting us Christ constituted (κατέστησε) himself a debtor according to the holy scriptures: “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”, “the one who became a curse for us”, “the one who took upon himself the death of all and died on behalf of all” ’.21

This idea of Christ as ‘guarantor’ of humanity sums up what ‘the repentance of Christ’ (my phrase) in Mark entails. The Incarnation is the occasioning of Christ’s underwriting or ‘guaranteeing’ human life with his own, becoming the focal point of all human failure and sin, and at the same time the focal point of their forgiveness, and of hope. If we are to speak of the repentance of the saints as ‘Christ-like’ in Mark, it must be shown, then, that it is in some way akin to this process of underwriting the life of humanity.

Mark does this at De Paenitentia 11: ‘the saints are obliged to offer repentance for their neighbour, since without an active love it is impossible to be perfected’.22 The end of repentance is not found for Mark in the forgiveness of one’s own failings, but in an imita-tion of Christ’s perfect and redemptive self-giving sacrifice. This reinforces for him the point that repentance is always incomplete in this life and can never be left aside.

The fullest exposition of the Christian imitating Christ in this way is found in Conversation with a Lawyer 18–20. Here Mark elaborates on the idea of suffering for others, involving what he calls ‘the two types of communion’: one of love, the other of evil. ‘Because of this communion, without even knowing it, we stand surety for one another’.23 Mark then briefly explains the communion of evil which begets involuntary sufferings in the one who enters it. The result of such entry is an overall increase

21 Conversation with a Lawyer [hereafter Causid.] 15.12–23 (SC 455, 70), citing John 1: 29; Gal. 3: 3; 2 Cor. 5: 14.

22 Paen. 11.15–17 (SC 445, 250).23 Causid. 18.36–8 (SC 455, 80).



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of evil rather than its lessening.24 This leads to his explanation of the communion of love and how the saints become sponsors (ἀνάδοχοι) for their fellows.25 He begins by declaring that ‘the sponsoring (ἡ ἀναδοχή) that comes from love is that which the Lord Jesus transmitted to us’.26 Having taken on all our sufferings, and death itself, ‘to his own apostles he passed on this law, as to the prophets, fathers, and patriarchs: the latter being taught before by the Holy Spirit, the former being shown the example through his immaculate body’.27

The essence of this teaching and law is encapsulated, says Mark, in the words ‘no one has greater love than the one who lays down his life for his friends’ (John 15: 13).28 This law was perpetuated by the Apostles, who taught that ‘if the Lord laid down his life for us, we also should lay down our lives for the brethren’ (1 John 3: 16) and that we should ‘bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ’ (Galatians 6: 2).29 Entering the communion of love entails suffering in imitation of Christ for our fellow human beings. Elsewhere he writes: ‘Do not say that a dispassionate person (ὁ ἀπαθής) cannot suffer affliction; for even if he does not suffer on his own account, he is under a liability to do so for his neighbour’.30 This, in short, is the meaning of Christ-like repentance in Mark. In the life of the believer it involves a radical enlargement of individual repentance in order to embrace and relieve the pain of his or her neighbour.

Such merciful repentance is, moreover, not simply a desirable attribute according to Mark, but the basis upon which the world continues to stand: ‘Since … the merciful will be shown mercy, through repentance, in my opinion, the whole world holds together (ὅλος ὁ κόσμος συνέστηκεν), one finding mercy through another according to the divine will’.31 The act of mercifully reaching out to other people is the repentance that holds the world together. Without it, the cosmos itself would lose all coherence, and forfeit

24 Causid. 19 (SC 455, 80–4).25 This is interesting from an ecclesiological perspective, since this became the

common term used for godparents at baptism in the Christian East.26 Causid. 20.5–6 (SC 455, 84).27 Causid. 20.21–4 (SC 455, 84).28 Causid. 20.27–9, 60–3 (SC 455, 84–8).29 Causid. 20.63–7 (SC 455, 88).30 Justif. 123 (SC 445, 166).31 Paen. 11.30–2 (SC 445, 250).


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all meaning. Thus Christ-like repentance is for Mark an idea of profound consequence, and becomes the goal towards which all repentance ought to strive. This is a goal traced and fulfilled for Mark in the life of Christ, a life which needed no repentance, but which nevertheless willingly repented on behalf of all and for all.

Conclusion

What has been briefly presented is an attempt, following the call of Henry Chadwick, to bring out a key aspect of the early Christian ascetic mindset regarding the nature and purpose of holiness. Mark proves a perfect focus for attention given both his unambiguous popularity among posterity, and his ability to take common tropes of the ascetic life and develop them within a theological frame-work more elaborate than those held (if at all) by the common monks of the late antique Christian world. But while others may not have completely shared his tendency to weave such a detailed ascetic theology of repentance, particularly regarding what I have termed ‘Christ-like’ repentance, the ideas and concepts he espoused regarding the concept were indeed a shared heritage and preoccu-pation among many Christian ascetics, both anterior and posterior to Mark. Examples are plentiful, and a representative sample might include: Abba Lot’s carrying of half the burden of a disciple who had sinned grievously;32 Poemen’s compassion which ‘leaves his own dead to weep over the dead of another’;33 Pachomius’s giving himself up to mourning before the Lord for forty days on behalf of ten brothers who were murmuring;34 the grief, described by Antony, which a monk feels for the whole Church;35 Bassian the Solitary’s feverish mourning for ‘the delusion and captivity and destruction of the race of men’;36 Barsanuphius and John’s bearing of the whole of their disciples’ transgression;37 the taking on of the sins of the community by the monks at a monastery near Alex-

32 Apophthegmata Patrum, Lot 2 (PG 65, 256).33 Apophthegmata Patrum, Poemen 6 (PG 65, 320).34 First Greek Life 100, in Pachomian Koinonia: The Lives, Rules, and other Writings of

Saint Pachomius, Volume One, trans. A. Veilleux, Cistercian Studies 45 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1980), 367.

35 Epistle 5, in The Letters of Saint Antony the Great, trans. D. Chitty (Oxford, 1975), 14–16.

36 John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints 41 (PO 18, 652–3).37 Barsanuphius and John, Letter 73 (SC 427, 348–50).



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andria described by John Climacus;38 Isaac the Syrian’s merciful heart which bleeds not only for other people, but for the whole of creation;39 and so on. Mark’s preoccupation with the theme of repenting for others is thus not an isolated one in the history of the ascetical theology of the Christian East, as these examples from the fourth to seventh centuries demonstrate. Rather Mark was giving theological justification to an idea that permeated the experience of the Christian ascetics before as well as after his time.

To the mind of many of these ascetics, embarking on the way of repentance was a journey with the goal not of individual perfection or personal salvation, but of cultivating and enlarging one’s heart to repent for, and bear the falls and pain of, those around, trying, in however faltering or inadequate a way, to mimic and share in the example of Christ. Moreover, because of this grounding of sanctity in the concept of repentance, one also sees how the hope of living a saintly life was not altogether out of reach for the average monk and the average layperson, since every Christian life, to be Christian at all, was bound to the continuum of repentance. While the seasoned ascetics may not have expected that treading the path of repentance would always yield the heights of a Christ-like repentance in the lives of the average monk or layperson, they recognized an organic, even indissoluble link between all forms of repentance, exalted or lowly. Sanctity was attainable by all, in other words, because the path of sanctity intersected completely, from beginning to end, with the path of repentance.

Christ Church, University of Oxford

38 John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 4.23 (PG 88, 685D).39 Homily 71, Ascetical Homilies of St Isaac the Syrian, trans. D. Miller (Boston, MA,

1984), 344–5.


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TorranceAC SCH Mark the Monk