Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria: The Last Pharaoh and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Later Roman Empire by Volker L. Menze (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria: The Last Pharaoh and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Later Roman Empire by Volker L. Menze
• Mark DelCogliano

Volker L. Menze
Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria: The Last Pharaoh and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Later Roman Empire Oxford Early Christian Studies
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023
Pp. 240. $90.00.

Dioscorus of Alexandria was the immediate successor of Cyril, a tough act to follow. He took center stage at the second Council of Ephesus in 449, the so-called Latrocinium (“Robber Synod”), but only two years later he was deposed and exiled at the Council of Chalcedon. While the miaphysite tradition has revered him as a saint from the immediate aftermath of the council to the present day, Chalcedonians have vilified him as a heretic (along with Eutyches), even though, as Menze points out repeatedly, Chalcedon did not condemn him as such. Menze’s book, the first English-language monograph on Dioscorus, attempts to reconstruct the historical Dioscorus and rescue him from caricatures on both sides. Why did Dioscorus fail so miserably when Cyril succeeded so spectacularly? Menze [End Page 479] holds that politics rather than theology is the key to understanding Dioscorus and his times. He does not see Chalcedon as inevitable because of some sort of unfinished christological business; rather, it was only made possible by the accession of Emperor Marcian, for whom reconciliation with Rome was a top priority. Menze argues that Dioscorus was not a savvy politician like Cyril and was sucked into the christological quarrels of his era reluctantly, more a pawn of Theodosius than an instigator. Dioscorus, furthermore, was no mere epigone of Cyril, but a prelate with his own concerns, an able administrator, and an ecclesiastical reformer: a Cyrillian theologically, but anti-Cyrillian politically. Menze also contends that there is no indication that Marcian ever wanted Dioscorus deposed; this is due solely to the bishop’s own political blunders.

Menze begins with the Cyrillian legacy that Dioscorus inherited. He spends the bulk of the first chapter investigating the bribes that Cyril is known to have paid in Constantinople, arguing that these were paid in 432 (not earlier as is often held) because he remained theologically exposed by his Twelve Chapters. His goal was to get officials to cease making further demands on him and the Easterners regarding this issue. In this way, Cyril outmaneuvered John of Antioch and avoided retracting the Twelve Chapters. Menze calculated that the amount of gold Cyril paid would have exceeded the annual income of the Alexandrian church for several years, and so Cyril must have spent the accumulated savings of the church. In other words, Dioscorus inherited a massive debt upon becoming archbishop in 444. The Alexandrian clergy were impoverished, unhappy, and sought a change of direction.

Accordingly, Menze next turns to Dioscorus’s election and early tenure as bishop, suggesting that Dioscorus was a senior deacon of good standing, widely respected and trusted by most clergy, who as archdeacon defended their interests and probably took charge of the see when Cyril was ill toward the end of his reign. As new bishop, he took action against members of Cyril’s family to whom the late archbishop appears to have diverted illegally church property and wealth. Menze thus sees the election of Dioscorus as a rebuke, with the clergy seeking someone to restore sound administration and financial health to the see after Cyril’s abuses. So, in the early years of his episcopacy, Dioscorus legitimately prosecuted Cyril’s family members for misappropriating church property, purged the clergy of Cyril’s family, and attempted administrative and financial reforms: all this is what Menze means when he describes Dioscorus as anti-Cyrillian politically.

The third chapter examines Dioscorus’s role in the Eutychian affair, its aftermath, Ephesus II, and the lead-up to Chalcedon. Menze portrays Theodosius II as responsible for the renewed ecclesiastical quarrels of the late 440s and the Alexandrian bishop as his acquiescent “henchman.” Menze’s reconstruction of the Eutychian affair views Flavian of Constantinople as instigating Eusebius of Dorylaeum against Eutyches because the archimandrite was a political threat to him and his dyophysite allies who regarded the Reunion of 433 as the...