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Chapter Four chapter four THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST AS A MODEL FOR COMPASSION 1. Assembling a christology That human beings should feel altruism for each other merely because they are human beings and that poverty should be addressed in the context of compassion for human suffering were the humanitarian ideals that shaped Leo’s christology. Its most famous articulation was the Tome to Flavian of Constantino- ple (449), a measured response to the contrasting errors of Nestorius, the former bishop of Constantinople, and of Eutyches, the archiman- drite in Constantinople. Nestorius taught that Christ consisted in a human and divine nature, but had failed to convince his detractors that a single person was the subject of both natures. Christ, therefore, had not only two natures, as Leo and the catholics believed, but also two distinct persons.1 Eutyches, in contrast, proposed that Christ had one nature, the divine, being unwilling to acknowledge that God could have ever appeared in a fully human form.2 To demonstrate that both natures were vivid and real, Leo said that Christ was fully human and fully divine, the two natures, substances, and forms connected ontologically as a single person (‘persona’): 1 Note that Leo spoke not only of two natures, but also of two substances and forms. See J.M. Armitage, A Twofold Solidarity. Leo the Great’s Theology of Redemption (Strathfield, 2005), p. 88. On Nestorius’ christology, see e.g., H.E.W. Turner, “Nestorius Reconsidered,” SP 13 (1975), pp. 306–321, who concludes that Nestorius’ theory of prosopic union was inadequate to establish an ontological basis for the union. Others disagree. See e.g., M.V. Anastos, “Nestorius was Orthodox,” DOP 16 (1962), pp. 119– 140; R.C. Chesnut, “The Two Prosopa in Nestorius’ ‘Bazaar of Heracleides,’” JTS 29 (1978), pp. 392–409. 2 Even when the bishops at Chalcedon pressured Eutyches to change his views, he continued to assert that Christ was “from two natures before the Incarnation” but one nature after it. For the transcript of his testimony, see Chalced. (451) Gesta. Actio I (d. 8 m. Oct. a. 451) (de Dioscoro). ACO II, I, 1,p.139, ll. 13–25;p.143, ll. 10–11. Leo mentioned his testimony at Ephesus II in Ep. 35.3, 13 June 449, Licet per nostros,Jaffé 429. 210 chapter four [The Word] is indeed one and the same, (which should be said often), truly Son of God and truly Son of man … The nativity of the flesh is a manifestation of human nature; the giving birth of a Virgin is the proof of divine power. The infancy of a little child is shown in the humility of the cradle; the greatness of the Almighty is proclaimed by the voices of angels. He whom Herod impiously plotted to kill is similar to human beings in helpless infancy; but he whom the Magi joyously worshipped on their knees is the Lord of all.3 By the antitheses of divine glory and human weakness,4 Leo formu- lated a christology that not only opposed the errors of Nestorius and Eutyches but, more significantly, developed the contours of a fully human Christ who had suffered as an emotional human being. While Grillmeier has argued that the complete experience of human suffering and compassion was merely an unrealized possibility in Leo,5 I suggest that the ideal of a compassionate humanity, whose salvation unfolds in the vicissitudes of history, has been fully realized when christology is placed in the context of a theology of poverty, justice, and history. Leo’s development of the human nature of Christ was, as I shall argue here, the foundation for integrating human compassion and altruism into a broader theological plan. Although his distinctive contribution was to articulate the full hu- manity of Christ, the Tome, famous for having been incorporated into the doctrinal definitions of the Council of Chalcedon (451), was not entirely original. So many of its passages are similar to his earlier work that it is plausible to conclude that his notary Prosper of Aquitaine gathered excerpts from sermons and letters and wove them together to produce a composite christological statement.6 Even by the late-fifth century, Gennadius of Marseille, the semi-Pelagian presbyter of Mas- silia whose works included treatises against Nestorius, Eutyches, and the Pelagians, suggested in his De Viris Illustribus (a continuation c. 467– 3 Similar ideas are found in Gaudentius, Serm. 19,PL20, 983–986.Leo,Ep. 28.4, 13 June 449, Lectis dilectionis tuae,Jaffé 423.Onthispassage,Armitagenotesthatinwhat- ever Christ does there is a manifestation of divine glory and of human degradation. He is not at one time God and another time man. Armitage, A Twofold Solidarity,p.87.The union of the two natures consists in the communion between them. Ibid. 4 On Leo’s “predilection for antitheses and rhythmic parallelism” see A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition (London, Oxford, 1975), vol. 1,pp.531, 533. 5 Ibid., p. 535. 6 For a discussion of the relationship between them, see N.W. James, “Leo the Great and Prosper of Aquitaine: A Fifth Century Pope and His Adviser,” JTS 44 (1993), pp. 554–584..
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