Mark The Hermit

Mark The Hermit (died after 430) was a theological polemicist and author of works on Christian asceticism notable for their psychological insight and for their influence on later monastic history and literature. To some scholars, elements of his doctrine suggest aspects of 16th-century Reformation theology.

Probably an abbot of a monastery in Ancyra (modern Ankara, Tur.), Mark later undertook the solitary life in the Syrian and Palestinian wilderness. Except for references to his scholarly and spiritual acumen by theological writers of the 7th and 8th centuries, nothing else is known of his life. With the publication in 1891 of a Jerusalem manuscript of his theological polemic Contra Nestorianos (“Against the Nestorians”), written about 430, Mark’s importance in 5th-century doctrinal controversies and his specific authorship of other writings were finally recognized. Resembling the Christological doctrine of St. Cyril of Alexandria, spokesman for 5th-century orthodoxy, Contra Nestorianos refutes the heretical Nestorian doctrine holding that Jesus was human and the Christ divine but denying that both natures were united in the one Person of Jesus Christ. Arguing principally from the Scriptures and from the primitive Christian baptismal creed, Mark declares that only if Christ’s humanity were indivisibly united, although not combined, with the divine Logos (Greek: “Word”) could the salvation of humanity have been effected, because the atoning deeds of a mere mortal could not have achieved this end.

The richest source for Mark’s ascetical and doctrinal theology consists of his treatise De Baptismo (“On Baptism”). Rejecting other traditional explanations for personal sin, Mark asserts that following baptism every sin is the result of human choice. Christ’s atonement, by virtue of its reconciliation of alienated man to God, restores perfect freedom of the will to the baptized. Good works, however, are attributable to God’s grace and not to human effort. Moreover, human mortality, Mark observes, derives from Adam’s sin and consequent condemnation to death. The Christian has to die, however, in order to be fulfilled, because a mortal nature is not capable of achieving unchanging perfection.

In several tracts, including De Baptismo, Mark disputes against the Messalians, an unorthodox mystical sect advocating ceaseless prayer to expel the demon present in all. He repudiates their equation of ascetic contemplation with salvation, arguing that one cannot be the author of his own redemption. The treatise De lege spirituali (“On the Spiritual Law”), delineating a monastic program, describes Christian perfection as knowledge of the Divine Presence and Providence, which begins with man knowing his limited self. Asceticism, the purpose of which is simply to dispose one to this state of awareness, negates itself if egocentrism persists. The essence of sin is to forget God.

Mark’s general theological position is consonant with the doctrine of St. John Chrysostom, the 4th-century Byzantine patriarch and bulwark of orthodoxy. More oriented toward the practical rather than the speculative, Mark felt it was more important to keep the commandments of Christ than to intellectualize the mysteries of God. Mark’s works are contained in Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne (1857–66).