From Chalcedon Back to the Gospels: on the Prosopon of the Hypostasis of Christ
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Durham E-Theses
Durham E-Theses The Christology of nestorius and the chalcedonian settlement Fletcher, Stanley P. How to cite: Fletcher, Stanley P. (1972) The Christology of nestorius and the chalcedonian settlement, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9976/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk THE REVEREND STANLEY P. FLETCHER, B.A. THE CHRISTOLOGY OP NESTORIUS AND THE CHALCEDONIAN SETTLEMENT A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. THE GHRISTOLOGY OF NESTORIUS AND THE CHALCEDONIAN SETTLEMENT - ABSTRACT The assessment of Nestorius1 Christology begins with a consideration of his indebtedness to Paul of Samosata, Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia. -
Joseph Ratzinger. Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology
assumed in Christ and in the new law (on the basis of the Retrieving the Tradition resolution of the eternal law into the Christic predestination), and that which is assumed is not abolished: quod est assumpturn est senmtum. To one who does not believe, it is always possible to demonstrate the intrinsic reasonableness of a norm which is Concerning the notion of person knowable even naturally, without failing from the beginning to present it as an ingredient of a whole which receives its full in theology foundation only jn the Chdstic perspective. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Relativity toward the other constitutes the human person. The human person is the event or being of relativity. The concept of person, as well as the idea that stands behind this concept, is a product of Christian theology. In other words, it grew in the first place out of the interplay between human thought and the data of Christian faith and so entered intellec- tual history. The concept of the person is thus, to speak with Gilson, one of the contributions to human thought made pos- sible and provided by Christian faith. It did not simply grow out of mere human philosophizing, but out of the interplay between philosophy and the antecedent given of faith, espe- cially Scripture. More specifically, the concept of person arose from two questions that have from the very beginning urged themselves upon Christian thought as central: namely, the question, 'What is God?" (i.e., the God whom we encounter in Scripture); and, "Who is Christ?" In order to answer these fundamental questions that arose as soon as faith began to re- flect, Christian thought made use of the philosophically insig- nificant or entirely unused concept "prosopon" = "persona." It thereby gave to this word a new meaning and opened up a new dimension of human thought. -
Leontius of Byzantium – Interpreter of Chalcedon Emanuel Gafiţa, Fr
Leontius of Byzantium – Interpreter of Chalcedon Emanuel Gafiţa, Fr. PhD stud1 Abstract: Leontius of Byzantium, whose identity remains a subject of debate, is the central theological figure of the sixth century. He introduces the concept of enhypostasis, thereby giving a deeper understanding to the Christological doctrine and clarifying the question of the two natures or physis in the person of the Savior Jesus Christ. Leontius points out as no one else, the act of assuming, taking over, of the human nature in the hypostasis of the divine Logos.. Keywords: Leontius, Chalcedon, enhypostasis, nature, person. I.1. Life of Leontius The Byzantine tradition does not contain much biographical data with reference to Leontius of Byzantium2, called by some also Leontius of Jerusalem3. It can be inferred from his own works that he was a monk attracted by the culture of his times and that for some time in his life he was close to the Nestorians4. It should be pointed out that the gaps in his life also derive from the fact that he was often called "recluse" or "hermit" and that usually such people did not ordinarily leave behind writings 1 Fr. Emanuel Gafiţa, PhD student at Ortodox Teological Faculty St. „Andrei Şaguna”, University „Lucian Blaga” Sibiu. [email protected] 2 Archd. Prof. PhD. Constantin Voicu, Patrologie (Patrology), Vol. III, Basilica Publishing of the Romanian Patriarchate, Bucharest, 2009, p. 29. 3 Ioan G. Coman, Hristologia Post Calcedoniană: Sever de Antiohia și Leonțiu de Bizanț (Post-Chalcedonian Christology: Severus of Antioch and Leontius of Byzantium), in volume Și Cuvântul trup S-a făcut, Hristologie și mariologie patristică (And the Word Was Made Flesh, Patristic Christology and Mariology), Banat Metropolitan Publishing, Timișoara, 1993, p. -
The Human Person As an Icon of the Trinity*
The human person as an icon Of the Trinity* KALLISTOS OF DIOKLEIA (Sobornost Vol. 8 no. 2, 1986) Batter my heart, three person‟d God John Donne ‘One-in-Three’: does it make any difference? Some twenty years ago a slim publication appeared with the title The Good Cuppa Guide. It described places, varying from the Ritz to stalls in the East End, where a satisfying cup of tea might be procured. Among other establishments the author, Jonathan Routh, visited the Surrey Room Restaurant at Waterloo Station, where at that time – now, alas, all has changed – it was possible to have tea served by a uniformed waitress at a table with a linen cloth and a linen napkin. „I was met as I entered it‟, records the author, „by a lady who asked “Are you one person?” which I found difficult to deny, so she escorted me to a table for one‟. In due course he was brought tea, toast, bread-and-butter, jam and „some slightly Fruit Cake‟. „I consumed all this while deliberating upon her original question […]. Was she in the habit of receiving visitations from persons who suddenly proclaimed that they were „Three-in-One and One-in-Three‟ and demanded bigger tables?‟1 What are we to make of Jonathan Routh‟s reflection in the Surrey Room Restaurant? „Three-in-One and One-in-Three‟: is this no more than a conundrum, a theological riddle, or does it radically affect our entire religious experience? What difference does it actually make to us as Christians that, unlike Jews and Muslims, we are not simply monotheists, nor yet are we polytheists, but we see in God both complete unity and genuine personal diversity? Commenting on the current neglect of the Trinity in the West, Karl Rahner is scarcely exaggerating when he observes: Christians, for all their orthodox profession of faith in the Trinity, are almost just „monotheist‟ in their actual religious experience. -
How Severus of Antioch's Writings Survived in Greek
Saving Severus: How Severus of Antioch’s Writings Survived in Greek Yonatan Moss N THE SUMMER of 536, following a failed attempt to reach a compromise between the advocates and opponents of the I Council of Chalcedon, Emperor Justinian came down reso- lutely on the Chalcedonian side. He issued a novella ordering all extant writings of Severus, exiled patriarch of Antioch and leading spokesman of the anti-Chalcedonian cause, to be burned.1 Possessors of Severus’ works faced harsh punishment and the hands of scribes found copying them were to be am- putated.2 The novella was to be distributed to all metropolitan bishops, who, in turn, were tasked with making sure it was pub- licly posted in each and every church throughout the Empire.3 1 The literature on Severus is large. Some recent major studies are: Pauline Allen and C. T. R. Hayward, Severus of Antioch (London/New York 2004); Frédéric Alpi, La route royale: Sévère d’Antioche I–II (Beirut 2009); Yonatan Moss, Incorruptible Bodies: Christology, Society and Authority in Late Antiquity (Berkeley/Los Angeles 2016); John D’Alton and Youhanna Youssef (eds.), Severus of Antioch: His Life and Times (Leiden 2016). 2 For the relevant part of Nov. 42, Constitutio sacra contra Anthimum, Severum, Petrum et Zoaram, dated 6 August 536, see R. Schoell and G. Kroll, Corpus Juris Civilis III (Berlin 1928) 263–269, at 266. Nov. 42 came in the wake of a home synod led by Menas of Constantinople in the spring of 536, which anathematized Severus’ writings as “feeding off the venom of the serpent, the originator of evil (δράκων ἀρχέκακος)”: Mansi VIII 1142D. -
The Meaning of the Logos in John 1:1-18
LIBERTY UNIVERSITY LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY THE MEANING OF THE LOGOS IN JOHN 1:1-18 A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF THEOLOGY BY SEOK-IL YOON LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA JULY 2008 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iii INTRODUCTION --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Chapter 1. THE BACKGROUND OF ΛΟΓΟΣ --------------------------------------------------- 3 The etymology of Logos The concept of Logos in the Greek Heraclitus’concept of Logos 2. Sophists’concept of Logos Plato’s concept of Logos Aristotle’s concept of Logos The concept of Logos in Hellenism Stoicism’s concept of Logos Neo-Platonism’s concept of Logos Hermeticism’s concept of Logos Philo’s concept of Logos in Hellenistic Judaism The concept of Logos in Hebrew Thought The terms for “word” in Hebrew The Word of God: “Dabar” The word of God as the word of the creator The word of God as the revelator i 3. BACKGROUND OF JOHN’S GOSPEL --------------------------------------------- 24 Authorship Date 4. EXEGESIS OF JOHN 1:1-18 ---------------------------------------------------------- 51 5. CHRISTOLOGY AND ΛΟΓΟΣ ------------------------------------------------------- 76 Christological Controversies and λογος Modern Christology issues and λογος 6. CONCLUSION --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 92 BIBLIOGRAPHY --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -
Christ: the Mystery of God Truly Made Manifest? Leontius of Byzantium and the Univocity of Being
Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2016 Christ: The Mystery of God Truly Made Manifest? Leontius of Byzantium and the Univocity of Being Bieler, Jonathan Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-133809 Conference or Workshop Item Originally published at: Bieler, Jonathan (2016). Christ: The Mystery of God Truly Made Manifest? Leontius of Byzantium and the Univocity of Being. In: North American Patristics Society Annual Meeting, Chicago, 26 May 2016 - 28 May 2016. Jonathan Bieler, University of Zurich NAPS Conference 2016 Christ: The Mystery of God Truly Made Manifest? Leontius of Byzantium and the Univocity of Being Introduction The goal of this paper is to come to an understanding Leontius’ of Byzantium’s programmatic attempt to harmonize Trinitarian and Christological terminology. Helpful for this endeavor will be the passage in Leontius’ work on your handout, where he gives an argument for the consistency of the terms of ousia and hypostasis in Christological and Trinitarian thought (oikonomia and theologia; PG 86/2, 1921B-1924B). The questions this paper would like to address are: Does Leontius have some sort of ontology that underlies his use of the term ousia and what would it look like according to the passage we will investigate? Answering these questions will allow us to catch a glimpse of how human and divine natures relate, how Christ manifests God in Leontius’ theology and what his ontology implies for the transcendence of God. -
When Christology Intersects with Embryology 855
DOI 10.1515/bz-2020-0037 BZ 2020; 113(3): 853–878 Dirk Krausmüller When Christologyintersects with embryology: the viewpointsofNestorian, Monophysite and Chalcedonian authorsofthe sixth to tenth centuries Abstract: The notion that the soul comes into existencesimultaneouslywith the bodyatthe moment of conception was originallyintroduced into the Patristic discourse as an alternative to the Origenist notion of apre-existing soul. Yet from the sixth century onwards it was itself regarded as an Origenisttenet. Now it was claimedthat onlythosewho believed the soul to be created after the bodyweretrulyorthodox. The present article examines the links between this development and the Christologicalconversies. Adresse: Dr.Dirk Krausmüller,Gratian-Marx-Str.8/25, 1110 Wien, Österreich; [email protected] In Patristic literature the ensoulment of the embryoisexplainedinthree differ- ent ways:the soul either pre-exists the bodyand enters it at the moment of con- ception (prohyparxis), or comes into being at the moment of conception (synhy- parxis), or appears after the bodyhas been formed (methyparxis). From the late fourth century onwardsthe first option, which had once been proposed by Ori- gen, met with increasingresistence since manyconsidered it to be irreconcilable with the Christian faith. By contrast, the second and third options werewidely regarded as equallyorthodox. Their proponents disagreed but did so without rancour as nothing much was at stake. This situation, however,changed in the middle of the sixth century when two developments took place. On the one hand, not only prohyparxis but also synhyparxis was now widelysuspected This article is partofthe project “Reassessing ninth century philosophy.Asynchronic approach to the logical traditions” (SALT)that hasreceivedfunding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the EuropeanUnion’sHorizon research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. -
Christology of the Later Fathers General Editors
Christology of the Later Fathers General Editors John Baillie (1886-1960) served as President of the World Council of Churches, a member of the British Council of Churches, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and Dean of the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. John T. McNeill (1885-1975) was Professor of the History of European Christianity at the University of Chicago and then Auburn Professor of Church History at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Henry P. Van Dusen (1897-1975) was an early and influen- tial member of the World Council of Churches and served at Union Theological Seminary in New York as Roosevelt Professor of Systematic Theology and later as President. THE LIBRARY OF CHRISTIAN CLASSICS Christology of the Later Fathers Edited by EDWARD R. HARDY PhD In collaboration with CYRIL C. RICHARDSON ThD, DD © 1954 The Westminster Press Paperback reissued 2006 by Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmit- ted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For infor- mation, address Westminster John Knox Press, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202-1396. Cover design by designpointinc.com Published by Westminster John Knox Press Louisville, Kentucky This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39.48 standard.© PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. -
A NEW STUDY of THEODORE of MOPSUESTIA M. Robert
NOTES A NEW STUDY OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA M. Robert Devreesse has devoted himself for many years to the study of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and his devotion has borne fruit in a number of published texts and periodical articles. The bishop of Mopsuestia is a mys terious and intriguing figure. Highly esteemed by his contemporaries, he was condemned as a heretic 125 years after his death. His works, as those of a heretic, have mostly perished; and he has borne the reputation, for 1400 years, of the father of Nestorianism, the patron of Pelagianism, and the first rationalist interpreter of the Bible. Must we conclude, Devreesse asks, that his contemporaries had lost all Christian sense? To solve the problem, there has been nothing but fragments of his works, the Acts of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, and the judgments, intensely partisan one way or the other, of his defenders and attackers. Devreesse does not offer the present work as a definitive study,1 but rather as a recapitulation of the work done by himself and others in recent years. The question he asks here is: Did Theodore sustain the errors at tributed to him? And how did the balance of opinion finally turn and remain fixed against him? Recent discoveries of the works of Theodore, in the study of which Devreesse has been prominent, have cast new light on the problem; of special importance are Theodore's commentary on the Gospel of St. John, his catechetical homilies, and extensive fragments of his commentaries on the Psalms and on Genesis. This book was preceded in 1946 by the article of E. -
Divine Violence and the Christus Victor Atonement Model
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Middlesex University Research Repository DIVINE VIOLENCE AND THE CHRISTUS VICTOR ATONEMENT MODEL. A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Martyn John Smith Middlesex University Supervised at London School of Theology May 2015 i Abstract Martyn John Smith Divine Violence and the Christus Victor Atonement Model Doctor of Philosophy Middlesex University/London School of Theology 2015 More recently, there has been in some quarters a theological move away from the Penal Substitution model of atonement primarily due to the concerns it raises about God’s character. This is paralleled by a desire to replace it with a less violent approach to soteriology, with the concomitant representation of a less coercive God. This thesis addresses the biblical manifestations of divine violence across both Testaments in order to present God as one for whom violence is an extrinsic, accommodated function. Divine violence is particularly manifested soteriologically, finding its fullest expression, therefore, in the atonement. The Christus Victor Model is offered as the one best able to explicate and accommodate this divine violence. The main atonement models are assessed, revealing how each has sought to engage with, or deny, divine violence. Firstly, God and violence are explored in order to provide an ideological, linguistic and epistemological foundation for understanding what violence is. Biblical examples of violence are then examined including both Testaments along with consideration of the Satan and the demonic realm; showing how God utilises violence in order to overcome these ontological enemies. -
The Trinity Defined and Refuted (5) Hypostatic Union by Sean Finnegan
The Trinity Defined and Refuted (5) Hypostatic Union By Sean Finnegan One of the major supporting structures of the doctrine of the Trinity is the notion that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human. This is technically called the hypostatic union : “A theological term used with reference to the Incarnation [when God became Man] to express the revealed truth that in Christ one person subsists in two natures, the Divine and the human. Hypostasis means, literally, that which lies beneath as basis or foundation. Hence it came to be used by the Greek philosophers to denote reality as distinguished from appearances (Aristotle, "Mund.", IV, 21). It occurs also in St. Paul's Epistles (2 Corinthians 9:4; 11:17; Hebrews 1:3-3:14), but not in the sense of person. Previous to the Council of Nicæa (325) hypostasis was synonymous with ousia , and even St. Augustine (De Trin., V, 8) avers that he sees no difference between them. The distinction in fact was brought about gradually in the course of the controversies to which the Christological heresies gave rise, and was definitively established by the Council of Chalcedon (451), which declared that in Christ the two natures, each retaining its own properties, are united in one subsistence and one person (eis en prosopon kai mian hpostasin ) (Denzinger, ed. Bannwart, 148). They are not joined in a moral or accidental union (Nestorius), nor commingled (Eutyches), and nevertheless they are substantially united.” Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07610b.htm) According to the creed at Chalcedon (AD 451), the union of the divine and the human occurred as follows: Following, then, the holy fathers, we unite in teaching all men to confess the one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.