exaggeration, "held in their lifeless hands the riches of the fathers, without inheriting the spirit
which had created and improved that sacred patrimony: they read, they praised, they compiled; but
their languid souls seemed alike incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of ten centuries,
not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a
single idea has been added to the speculative systems of antiquity; and a succession of patient
disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers of the next servile generation. Not a single
composition of history, philosophy or literature has been saved from oblivion by the intrinsic
beauties of style or sentiment, of original fancy, and even of successful imitation .... The leaders
of the Greek church were humbly content to admire and copy the oracles of antiquity, nor did the
schools or pulpit produce any rivals of the fame of Athanasius and Chrysostom."
The theological controversies developed dialectical skill, a love for metaphysical subtleties,
and an over-estimate of theoretical orthodoxy at the expense of practical piety. The Monotheletic
controversy resulted in an addition to the christological creed; the iconoclastic controversy
determined the character of public worship and the relation of religion to art.
The most gifted Eastern divines were Maximus Confessor in the seventh, John of Damascus
in the eighth, and Photius in the ninth century. Maximus, the hero of Monotheletism, was an acute
and profound thinker, and the first to utilize the pseudo-Dyonysian philosophy in support of a
mystic orthodoxy. John of Damascus, the champion of image-worship, systematized the doctrines
of the orthodox fathers, especially the three great Cappadocians, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzum, and
Gregory of Nyssa, and produced a monumental work on theology which enjoys to this day the same
authority in the Greek church as the "Summa" of Thomas Aquinas in the Latin. Photius, the
antagonist of Pope Nicolas, was the greatest scholar of his age, who read and digested with
independent judgment all ancient heathen and Christian books on philology, philosophy, theology,
canon law, history, medicine, and general literature. In extent of information and fertility of pen
he had a successor in Michael Psellus (d. 1106).
Exegesis was cultivated by Oecumenius in the tenth, Theophylact in the eleventh, and
Euthymius Zygabenus in the twelfth century. They compiled the valuable exegetical collections
called "Catenae."^768 Simeon Metaphrastes (about 900) wrote legendary biographies and eulogies
of one hundred and twenty-two saints. Suidas, in the eleventh century, prepared a Lexicon, which
contains much valuable philological and historical information^769 The Byzantine historians,
Theophanes, Syncellus, Cedrenus, Leo Grammaticus, and others, describe the political and
ecclesiastical events of the slowly declining empire. The most eminent scholar of the twelfth century,
was Eustathius, Archbishop of Thessalonica, best known as the commentator of Homer, but deserving
a high place also as a theologian, ecclesiastical ruler, and reformer of monasticism.
(^768) So called from being connected like chains,σειραί, catenae. Other terms are:ἐπιτομαίorσυλλογαὶ ἑρμηνειω̑ν, glossae,
postillae. Among Latin collections of that kind, the Catena Aurea of Thomas Aquinas on the Gospels is the most famous. See
Fabricius, Biblioth. Graeca, vol. VII., and Noesselt, De Catenis patrum Graecorum in N. T. Hal., 1762. What these Catenae
did for patristic exegesis, the Critici Sacri (London, 1660 sqq.; Frankfort, 1695 sqq.; Amsterdam, 1698-1732, with supplements,
13 vols.), and Matthew Poole’s Synopsis (London, 1669 sqq., an abridgment of the former) did for the exegesis of the reformers
and other commentators of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
(^769) Still indispensable to Greek scholars, and important to theologians and historians for the biblical glosses, the
explanations of theological terms, and the biographical and literary notices of ecclesiastical writers. Best editions by Gaisford
(Oxford, 1834), and Bernhardy (Halle, 1853, 4 vols.).