RCF Academy The Person of Christ Lesson 11: The Second Council of Constantinople

Introduction • Monophysites held to the Cyrillian formula of one incarnate nature (physis) of the divine Word. • For the Monophysites nature was almost synonymous with person so to say Christ had two natures was the same thing as saying Christ was two persons. • The Monophysites focused on the unity of Christ at the expense of his diversity.

Henotikon • A decree of union, called the Henotikon, was drawn up and sent to Egypt and Libya. The document proclaimed that the only true faith was that of Nicaea as confirmed by the First Council of Constantinople and the Council of Ephesus. • The main part of the Henotikon says:

We confess that the only-begotten Son of God, himself God, who truly became man, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, homoousios with the Father according to Godhead and the Same homoousios with us according to manhood, came down and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of Mary the Virgin and ‘Theotokos,’ is one and not two; for we affirm that both the miracles and the sufferings which he voluntarily endured in the flesh are those of one Person. We altogether reject those who divide or confuse or introduce a phantom, since this true incarnation which was without sin of the ‘Theotokos’ did not bring about an addition of a Son; for the Trinity remained a Trinity even when One of the Trinity, the divine Logos, became incarnate.

Philoxenus • Philoxenus preached throughout the Orient. • In Philoxenus we see the Word-flesh of Alexandria. God became flesh without changing his deity in any way. • What Philoxenus meant was Jesus could not have had two natures because that would mean two persons. Philoxenus could not be accused of being Eutychian (Jesus’ one nature what a hybrid of divine and human) or Apollinarian (the higher soul of Jesus was replaced with the divine).

• The Henotikon remained the official doctrine of the East but adherents of Chalcedon were beginning to appear. • The Monophysites said nature and person go together, they cannot be distinguished. • The Chalcedonians distinguished between nature and person.

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RCF Academy The Person of Christ Lesson 11: The Second Council of Constantinople

Justin I • The new emperor was the elderly . Alongside of Justin was his nephew Justinian. Both were orthodox Chalcedonians. • Justin ordered all bishops to accept Chalcedon and barred all heretics from the army and from civil service. The sent five representatives to Constantinople with requirements for reconciliation. • The papal representatives, the patriarch of Constantinople, and all the bishops in Constantinople signed the formula of reunion. • Ephesus repudiated the . Thessalonica attacked the papal representative who wanted the bishop’s signature on the formula. Antioch required armed force to install Chalcedonian bishops. • Resistance in Egypt was strong. Most of the Monophysite bishops had fled to Egypt. • Aphthartodocetists comes from a combination of the Greek word aphthartos, which means incorruptible, and dokisis, which means appearance. This was a form of Docetism, which held that Christ just seemed to be a man. • Agnoetes said Christ’s body was by nature passible and corruptible, thus he was not all knowing.

Justinian • Justinian was very pious, an orthodox Chalcedonian, and he deferred to Rome as the highest ecclesiastical authority. • He tolerated the Jews but forbade them to testify against Christians or to buy the lands or goods of Christian churches. • He was merciless towards the rebellious Samaritans and severe to all heretics, except for the Monophysites. Theopaschite Formula – One of the Trinity suffered for us. • The policy of Justinian became fully Chalcedonian and anti-Monophysite. Leontius of Jerusalem Leontius rejected any thought of the pre-existence of Christ’s manhood. Christ was one person with a divine nature and a human nature. He accepted the Theopaschite Forumla – One of the Trinity suffered for us – and by doing that established the distinction between hypostasis and nature. Leontius clarified the Definition of Chalcedon, which said there was a union of two natures in one person, by saying that the hypostasis (or person) was the pre-existent hypostasis (or person) of the Divine Word. Leontius of Byzantium • Leontius described Christ’s humanity as an enhypostaton. • A hypostasis always has a nature, but a nature does not always have a hypostasis. • Things can be united in three ways. o The first is the Nestorian solution of two natures and two hypostases in Christ. o Second, the natures can be merged resulting in a third nature, as argued by . o Third, the two natures can subsist in one hypostasis. 2 | Page

RCF Academy The Person of Christ Lesson 11: The Second Council of Constantinople

• This means human nature in Christ is an enhypostaton, that which subsists in the hypostasis of another nature. Monophysitism vs Chalcedonianism • In Constantinople Justinian continued efforts to reconcile Monophysitism with Chalcedonianism. • A document was drawn up that became known as the Three Chapters. • Much of the East agreed with the condemnations included in the Three Chapters, but the West did not. • Many in the East retracted their support of the Three Chapters. • The pope issued the Judicatum, which condemned the Three Chapters and reaffirmed the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. • Justinian allowed Pope Vigilius to retract the Judicatum and call for a council to examine the subject. • Justinian published an edict which insisted on the Theopaschite Formula but not at the expense of the Definition of Chalcedon. • The humanity of Christ came into being in the womb of Mary. The two natures were not created simultaneously since the uncreated divinity pre-existed the human nature.

Second Council of Constantinople • The Second Council of Constantinople convened on May 5, 553. • In the final session the bishops approved the Sentence, which was the findings of the Council concerning the Three Chapters. • Appended to the Sentence were fourteen anathemas. The first six anathemas deal with the unity of the person of Christ, and anathemas seven through ten deal with the duality of natures. These anathemas were 1. Condemnation for everyone who refuses to confess a consubstantial Trinity, one Godhead to be worshipped in three persons. 2. Condemnation for anyone who does not say the Word of God had two births. The first birth was from all eternity of the Father, and the second birth occurred in these last days by Mary, Mother of God and always a virgin. 3. Condemnation for those who do not confess that one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate and one person, worked miracles and endured suffering in His flesh. 4. Condemned all who held to an understanding of the union of the divine and human in ways proposed by Apollinaris or Eutyches, both of which mixed the natures, and the teaching of Theodore and . Positively this anathema said, “In the mystery of Christ the synthetical union not only preserves unconfusedly the natures which are united, but allows no separation.” 5. Condemned all who “will not recognize…that the Word of God is united with the flesh hypostatically, and that therefore there is but one hypostasis or only one person, and that the holy Council of Chalcedon has professed in this sense the one Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” 6. Condemned those who will not confess that Mary “is exactly and truly the Mother of God, because that God the Word who before all ages was begotten of the Father was in these last days made flesh and born of her.” This is the sense in which Chalcedon called Mary the Mother of God.

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RCF Academy The Person of Christ Lesson 11: The Second Council of Constantinople

7. Condemned those who divide the natures making them two persons. Through intellectual analysis a difference of the natures is recognized because the natures are united without confusion in a . 8. Warned that Cyril’s expression “One Incarnate Nature of the Divine Word,” should not be used to proclaim one nature by mixing the deity and humanity of Christ. The Council said, “for in teaching that the only-begotten Word was united hypostatically to humanity we do not mean to say that there was made a mutual confusion of natures but rather each nature remaining what it was, we understand that the Word was united to flesh. Wherefore, there is one Christ, both God and man, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood.” 9. Prescribed worship of Christ by one adoration, God the Word made man together with his flesh. 10. Approved the saying that “Jesus Christ who was crucified in the flesh is true God and the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy Trinity.” 11. Condemned heretics from the last 300 years: Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches, and Origen. 12. Condemned the person and works of . 13. Condemned certain works of Theodoret of Cyrus. 14. Condemned the letter said to be written by Ibas of Edessa.

• In addition to these fourteen anathemas were fifteen anathemas against the doctrine of Origen. • The Council declared that pagan Greek thought and the Gospel do not mix.

Conclusion • Emperor Justinian called an ecumenical council with the hope that Monophysites could be reconciled with Chalcedonians by together condemning . • Nestorianism was represented by the Three Chapters. • The Council created a compromise that they thought upheld the two natures of Chalcedon while at the same time appeasing the Monophysite concern that Cyril’s theology of one nature was undermined by Chalcedon. • The Council specifically mentioned that Christ is a single person and not two persons, as proclaimed by Nestorius. • The Council condemned those who understand two natures as two persons either in the way they talk about Christ or in the way that they worship Christ. • The writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the forerunner of Nestorius, were condemned. • The attempt at reconciliation failed because the Monophysites were not satisfied.

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