The Cult of the Saints and its Christological Foundations in Eustratios of Constantinople's De statu animarum post mortem

Abstract

In this study, I propose that the cult of the saints in Eustratios of Constantinople's De statu animarum post mortem has a Christological foundation. I examine this thesis from cultural, historical, and theological contexts. The first chapter serves as an introduction, focusing on the theological and political processes that lead to the Christological definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451), which declared that Christ has two natures, divine and human, united in one hypostasis or person. Chapter two examines Eustratios' motivation for writing his work, a defense against the claims proposed by some, unnamed by Eustratios, that the souls of the departed are in a state of sleep and have no power to intervene in human affairs after death. The third chapter argues that Eustratios wrote his work between 582 and 593. The evidence for this is a careful comparison and analysis of Eustratios' De statu animarum and Gregory the Great of Rome's fourth book of Dialogues, revealing that Eustratios wrote his work first. The final chapter demonstrates how the saints and their activities as described by Eustratios have a Christological basis. Drawing upon a Christological model of imitation of the life Christ and the Christological neologisms of the sixth century, the souls of the saints, in carrying out God's work, participate in his virtues in their enhypostasized realities. Closely aligned with this foundation in Eustratios' work is the theme of theosis, deification, with the souls of departed saints described as having been perfected God-like and which participate in an immortal life with God in heaven through salvation in Jesus Christ. In his text, translated in an appendix, Eustratios argues that human souls are intelligible, incorporeal, and active after death, since they have transcended the time and space limitations of the human body. The activity of the saints after death can only be achieved by holy and gentle souls in cooperation with God's power, whose aim is human salvation. The text concludes with an argument that the souls of the departed are benefited by the prayers of the living.