Zagadnienie Kościoła w kontekście ascetycznym u Marka Eremity

Abstract

Mark the Ascetic (called also in English Mark the Heremit) representsthe monastic milieu of the fifth century. He wrote about the Church whilediscussing other questions. He clearly distinguished heterodox groups andthe Catholic Church. He refuted the theories of the Melchizedekians, Adoptionists, Messalians, Arians and Apollinarians, but especially Nestorians.Mark considered heretics as people in error and as those who have brokenfidelity to their baptism. He underlined that his own teaching was conformedto the Christian tradition. In his works, similar points with the teachingof earlier Christian writers, such as Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom,Evagrius Ponticus, Cyril of Alexandria and Gregory of Nazianzus, shouldbe noticed. Mark presented the Church as a place of sanctification for laypeople and monks. He proclaimed Christ as God’s Son and as the true Man,not only a creature having a human body. He highlighted the importanceof the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. In Mark’s works, we seeSaint Peter and Saint Paul as good teachers of the divine truth, who gave anexample of the Christian virtues, but there are no references to the positionof the Church of Rome in Christianity. The works of Mark the Ascetic werepopular in late antiquity, especially in the East; they were translated intoseveral languages. In the West, they were used especially in the time ofcontroversies between the Catholics and the Protestants.