The following excerpts from Geometres “Life of the Virgin” (c. 969/970) comes from:
John
Geometres, Life of the Virgin (trans. Maximos Constas and Christos Simelidis;
Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2023)
Prologue:
[Mary] transcends the ranks of angels,
just as she transcends the occasion of our feast [Dormition of Mary]—though I
am nevertheless convinced that at some point of the earthly and the heavenly
will indeed gather together, and then, just as in the case of her son, every
knee shall bend and every earthly and heavenly tongue will praise and confess her
too. (p. 5)—note how
Phil 2:6-11 is applied to Mary in a secondary sense
Chapter
13:
These things, just as the things
before them, had long been foreseen by the divine David, just as they had
likewise been foreseen by his son Solomon and the other prophets, namely,
beauty inviolate, beauty ineffable, a garden inaccessible, an
ever-flowing spring produced without digging, not merely unique in itself but
worthy of its creator; a sealed book, to which all books point, and
which contains the eternal and unwritten Word; . . . (p. 45)—the “sealed book” of Isa 29 is said to be fulfilled with
Mary.
Chapter
20:
The words of the archangel were like
seeds containing extraordinarily great meanings contrasting the things of the
present with those of the past, namely, “Rejoice,” and, “O favored
one.” The first was said regarding the pain long associated with childbirth
and the removal of the condemnation against us, but also on account of the
honor and the grace of the promise. The second was in regard to the Virgin’s wealth
of virtues and the gifts of the Spirit. The former was like a dowry and engagement
provided by the bridegroom, the latter was the wealth of the bride; the angel
referred to both, promising the one and bearing witness to the other. The angel’s
subsequent words, “the Lord is with you,” comprise the entire wealth of
the bridegroom, the very fulfillment of the promise. It was through this word,
and with this word, and in a manner beyond words, that the same bridegroom, as the
Word, reasonably brought about the union, so that one and the same Word became
at once bridegroom, father, and son. (p. 59)
Chapter
24:
But the Virgin hid all these things in
her heart, and thus became even wiser, for she was already the mother of
Wisdom, which is how some of the ancients interpreted the phrase, Jospeh did
not know her until she gave birth to her firstborn son. (p. 73)
The
Greek, based on Matt 1:25, reads εως
ου, not the bare term εως:
ουκ εγινωσκεν αυτην ‘Ιωσεφ εως ου ετεκε τον θιον αυτηε τον
πρωτοτοκον εηρμηνευκασιν. (p. 72)
Chapter 30:
For that which is born of her, that is, that which
has been conceived in her, sown in her, whose better is the Father—was not, as some
people think, fully formed from the beginning as if it was already born—is of
the Holy Spirit. It is not simply the case, he says, that the Virgin is
free of every kind of illicit sowing and coupling, but she has partaken of a
wholly divine communion and union, and that which from the beginning has been
planted in her like a seed, by which I mean the Word, has taken the place of
human seed. Or, rather, that which has taken the solid form of flesh within her
is the offspring through and from the Holy Spirit, or to state it in more
common terms, it is the result o the work of the divine nature, because the
Spirit, according to Scripture, is God . . . (p. 85; cf. “Notes to
the Translation,” p. 420: the Spirit . . . is God: John 4:24)—Geometres affirms that it is the Father, not the Holy
Spirit, who is the “father” is the humanity of Jesus.
Chapter 68:
Yet the Lord rebuffed her generosity, and cut off and corrected her
boldness of speech, through this is a prerogative of other mothers. He thus addressed
her not as “mother” but simply as “women,” but he nevertheless obeyed her,
honoring her as his mother, or accepting her wish, and at the same time rewarding
the one who prompted her eagerness. And she, as the herald of her son’s
authority, also became the teacher of the stewards and told them what to do: “Whatever
he tells you to do, do it.” And the transformation of the wine also brought
about the transformation of the host, for the bridegroom abandoned the wedding
and his home and became a disciple of Christ, who is the friend, miracle
worker, bridegroom, and bridal escort of pure souls. The bride, on the other
hand, followed Christ’s mother, so that not only would the water be transformed
into wine, but that the marriage might also be seen to have been transformed into what is superior, namely, virginity. (pp. 181, 183)
In
“Notes to the Translation,” p. 435, we read that:
According to Byzantine tradition, the
bridegroom was Simon the Zealot, also called the “Canaanite,” who became one of
the Twelve Apostles; see pseudo-Anastasios of Sinai, Disputation with the Jews
(PG 89:1248B). Epiphanios, Life of Theotokos, ed. Dressel, Epiphanii,
31-32, seems to be the earliest writer who states that the wedding at Cana
ended with the bridegroom parting from his wife and following Christ . . .
Geometres takes the idea further and adds that the bride became a disciple of
the Virgin.
Chapter
75:
After that, his dinner companion—oh,
the ingratitude!—became a traitor, the disciple robbed his teacher, and the one
whose feet were washed, and who ate his body and drank his blood (τρωγων αυτου
το σωμα
και πινων
το αιμα), ran away
off with those same feet and hastened to betray him, . . . (pp. 201, 203)—Geometres uses the verb τρωγω (cf. John
6:54f) when speaking of Judas’ “eating” the body of Jesus.
Chapter
83:
When those who crucified him fulfilled
everything they had thought of, the one they crucified showed them that there
was one more outrage and torment they could inflict on him, and they would not
let this pass unnoticed; and thus he said: “I thirst.” And
immediately, as if they were themselves thirsting to contrive such madness
against him, they rushed, alas, to give vinegar and gall to he who is the
sweetness of life and the fountain of immortality, thereby producing an image
of their own evil, mixing together the most bitter with the most acrid, so that
none of the things prophesied about him would be left out. But this did not
take place because it was prophesied, but rather it was prophesied because it
took place, for the prophecy was not the cause of their audacity, but rather
their audacity was the cause of the prophecy. (pp. 231, 233)
Chapter
124:
We thank you, Master and steward of
all these mysteries, for above all you have chosen the Virgin as the minister
of your mysteries.
We give thanks to you for your
ineffable wisdom, power, and love for mankind, for you not only joined our
nature to yourself, glorified it with honor equal to your own, and deified it,
making it like God, but you also did not deem it unworthy for your mother to be
chosen from among us, and you have established her as the queen of all things
on heaven and earth.
We give thanks to you, our common
Father, for you made your own mother our mother, so that none of us would lack
parents, and through both you have made us worthy not only of adoption but to
receive the name and relationship of brothers.
We give thanks to you who suffered so
much for our sake, and who prepared your own mother to suffer many things for
you and for us, so that not only would her equal share of honor from the
sufferings bring about our communion with your glory but would also always
transact the business of our salvation, remembering her pain when she was with
us, and that the love you have for us is due not only to human nature but also
the recollection of all that she strove to do for us throughout her life.
We give thanks to you who gave yourself
as a ransom for us (λυτρον
υπερ ημων), and who subsequently
gives us every day your own mother as a deliverance (λυτηριον), so that, whereas you ourself died once and
for all for us, she dies time and again voluntarily, her inner being consumed
with fire as it also was for you, and for those for whom, like the father, she
also gave her son, or even saw him being given over to death. (pp. 361, 363)
In
their introduction to the translation, Maximos Constas and Christos Simelidis
wrote that:
For Geometres, Mary is not simply the
mother of the redeemer but contributes personally to the work of redemption.
Like God the Father, she too gives her son over to death. Her suffering adds
something to the sufferings of Christ or at the very least extends them. That
Mary “co-suffers” with Christ has led some Roman Catholic theologians to argue
that Geometres “forcefully affirms” the notion that Mary is a “co-redeemer”
with Christ. However, such a reading ignores the fact that Geometres disassociates
(through an associative wordplay) Christ from the Virgin (λυτρον, “ransom,” vs. λυτηριον, “deliverance”) and that the assistance
offered by her is wholly dependent on salvation in Christ, while the latter in
no way depends on the suffering of his mother.
Though space does not allow for a full
treatment of the question, Geometres is perhaps building on the logic of participation
in the sufferings of Christ adumbrated by Paul in the New Testament: “I rejoice in my
sufferings for your sake, and complete in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”
(Colossians 1:24; compare 2 Corinthians 4:10; 1 Peter 4:13). Not unlike
Geometres, John Chrysostom understood this passage to mean that the apostles
suffered more than Christ, who promised them that they “will also do the works
that I am doing, and even greater than these” (John 14:12) (Homily 4, on
Colossians [PG 62:326], and Homily 1, on 2 Corinthians [PG 61:387]) The
participation of the saints in the sufferings of Christ constitutes the form
and measure of their assimilation to God, and thus the Mother of God’s
imitation of Christ may simply be a difference of degree and not of kind. (See
Maximos the Confessor, Ambigua, 21.14-15) However, that Geometres felt obligated
to carefully qualify these claims indicates that they were potentially
controversial or at the very least without established precedent, but here we
must let the matter rest. (pp.
xvii-xviii)
In
the “Notes to the Translation,” p. 457, on the topic of reading into chapter
124 Mary as co-redemptrix and co-mediatrix, such an interpretation, we are told
misses the way in which Geometres
differentiates and disassociates the two (λυτρον v. λυτηροιν), since the
assistance offered by the Virgin is wholly dependent on salvation in Christ,
while the latter in no way depends on the personal sacrifice of the Virgin; . .
.
Chapter
126:
. . . for having chosen her in his
compassion, and wanting the compassionate Virgin to be not simply his mother
but a mediator (μεσιτιν) with himself and reconciler (διαλλακτην), so that the Intercessor to the Father,
being supplicated on both sides, might be lovingly disposed toward us in a way
that is inescapable and irrevocable, and find her to be another intercessor (αλλον ευτου
παρακλητον), who in every hour could overturn his just wrath,
conveying mercies and lavishly bestowing munificence on all. (ανατρεποντα μεν
καθεκαστην τους δικαιου αυτου θυμους, διαπορθμευοντα δε πασι τους οικτρμους και
τας φιλοτιμιας επιδαψιλευομενον) (pp. 365, 367)
On Mary being “another intercessor,” in “Notes to the
Translation,” p. 458, we read:
It is striking that Geometres applies an attribute of the Holy Spirit to
the Virgin as intercessor. Euthymios, Life of the Virgin, 130, seems to
have been troubled by Geometres’s bold comparison and is at pains to clarify
the meaning of the phrase to avoid ambiguity . . .The term was, however,
already used as a Marian attribute in the second century by Irenaeus; see, for
example, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, 1.3.33 . . . “It was
necessary for Adam to be recapitulated in Christ . . . and Eve in Mary, so that
a Virgin might become an advocate for a virgin (ut Virgo virginis advocata).”
Chapter
127:
Though we have lost Eden, we have
acquired heaven or rather we have kept both and indeed have become sovereigns
wholly of both. Though we transgressed the commandment, we have been rewarded
with virtue. Though we were deprived of the Tree of Life, we have won through
sacrifice the creator of the Tree, or rather we are now filled with him. And
though we were stripped naked of our divine covering, we have been clothed in
God himself, or rather have clothed ourselves in God, or more truly, we have
been mingled with God and have become wholly Gods (Θεοι γεγοναμεν). (p. 367)
