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Home , Homoousion, Hypostatic union, Modalistic monarchianism, Monarchianism, Monophysitism

for Amateurs An introduction to Christology from the apostles to (451) This article arose from a Guided Reading Course that I teach at Emmanuel Evangelical in London, where I serve as Minister. This two-year course is designed to give students an overview of historic Christian by exposing them to some of the best theology from previous centuries as well as some leading contemporary theological writing. The students do four hours of set reading each week, assisted by questions to help them focus on the key points, and then we get together for each week for a two-hour tutorial. By the end of the course, students will have a reasonable grasp of the main topics in Reformed . When we came to the doctrine of the , I encountered a problem. The best book I had come across was Thomas Weinandy’s Does Change? – an outstanding work of that covers the development of the doctrine of the incarnation from the post-apostolic era to the 20 th century. Unfortunately, even the introduction and first two chapters (up to the , AD 451) proved too complex and long to be covered in four hours of reading. Yet at the same time, I didn’t want to dumb down such an important topic. I therefore decided to try an experiment, and this article is the result. It is intended as a heavy abridgement of the preface, introduction and first two chapters of Weinandy’s book, from the apostles to the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Of course, there were some significant Christological developments and controversies after that point – the monothelite controversy, for example, and the rise of kenotic theology. But Christological reflection reached a degree of maturity with the Council of Chalcedon. As Weinandy points out, the developments that took place during the next eight hundred years “were primarily the unfolding of the Council of Chalcedon and the maturing of its doctrine” (67). This article is not an attempt to replace, much less improve upon, Dr Weinandy’s book. Rather, it is a mark of appreciation, and an attempt to make a complicated book accessible to a wider audience. At times I have followed Weinandy’s logic quite closely, at other points I’ve re-ordered material slightly. In some places I’ve expanded his discussion; elsewhere I’ve skipped over large sections. Page numbers are given in brackets, and questions are provided along the way to assist with study and reflection. Where anything is wrong or unclear, the fault is mine and not his; if anything is useful, thank him and not me. Better still, thank God for the One who made it all possible. After all, when it comes to Christology, all of us except One are amateurs.

1 Outline Preface Introduction A. Biblical Basis B. Early patristic development 1. . 2. . 3. and . 4. The Trinitarian and Christological Questions . I. Nicea’s : Defining God’s Begetting and Becoming A. The Trinitarian Question 1. . 2. Nicea and Athanasius . B. The Christological Question 1. Arius . 2. Athanasius . 3. Apollinarius . 4. The Inadequacy of the /Sarx Framework . II. Chalcedonian Christology: “Become” as Personal/Existential A. Antioch and Alexandria B. The School of Antioch: D. Ephesus and the aftermath E. The Council of Chalcedon

2 Preface “This book basically treats two concerns. The first concern is the relationship between the of God and the Incarnation” (xvi). The teaches that God is immutable; that is, he does not change. But this seems hard to square with the fact that in the incarnation God became man, for “becoming” would seem to imply change. This raises the first question: how can God become man while remaining immutable? “The second concern is the passibility of God as man” (xvii). The Bible teaches that God is impassible; that is, “he does not experience suffering, pain, and sorrow,” or indeed “changing intellectual, psychological, and emotional states as men do” (xviii). Yet the Bible also seems to teach that God incarnate experienced all these passions and more besides. This raises the second question: how can God be born, suffer, die and love as man while remaining impassible? 1. What two issues does Weinandy’s book address? Can you explain why these issues are so puzzling?

Introduction A. Biblical Basis The issues addressed in this study cannot easily be answered directly from the pages of Scripture. “The difficulty is not so much that there is no biblical foundation for this study, but rather that the Bible, as such, does not explicitly raise or treat the problem treated here” (xix). The Bible does, however, provide plenty of implicit data. “The biblical basis for this study ... arises out of the ’s dual conception of God” (xix). First, “the Old Testament sees God as a ‘living God’ ... who is actively and personally present to his people” (xix). 1 Second, the Old Testament depicts God as “wholly other” than the creation (xx). “He is above time and history”; he is “unlike man”; he transcends creation. 2 These two paradoxical perspectives can be summarised in this way: “God reveals himself in time any history as the one who transcends time and history. He is present as the wholly other ” (xx, italics original). This conception of God is revealed most “radically” (xx) in the incarnation. In God is present as never before – not merely through “judges, kings, and prophets” (xx), but in person. And yet he is simultaneously more wholly other than ever before – it is “the divine Logos himself” (xx) who is revealed in Christ (cf. Jn 1:1–14).

1 Weinandy cites Gen 12; Ex 2:23-25; 3:6; 13:17 ; 17:6; Dt 10:14-18; 28:1-5; 2 Sam 3:18; Jdg 8:19; 1 Ki 17:1; Amos 3 :2 in support of his claim that “to the Hebrew people God revealed himself as an active personal being in their midst” (xx). 2 Weinandy cites Gen 1:1;Ex 20:4; Dt 4:32–30; 5:8; Ps 47:2, 3; 97:5; 102:27; 135; Is 6:5; 40:18, 25; 41:4; 43:10-11; 44:6; Hos 11:2; Amos 4:2; Mic 4:13 here. (He also cites the apocryphal text Judith 9:17, which does not in fact exist. Perhaps he intended to cite Judith 9:12, which reads, “Hear, O hear me, God of my father, God of the inheritance of Israel, Lord of and earth, Creator of the waters, King of all thy creation, hear my prayer!” [RSV].)

3 2. Why, according to Weinandy, is it hard to answer his questions directly from the pages of Scripture? Do you agree? 3. What “implicit data” does Weinandy use to approach his questions? What biblical evidence does he cite? Do you agree with the conclusions he draws from these biblical texts? 4. How does Weinandy summarise his “dual conception” of God? 5. How is this conception of God related to the incarnation? B. Early patristic development The early patristic theologians never questioned God’s immutability or . This picture of God was regarded as a “self-evident axiom, accepted by all” (xxi, quoting J. Pelikan). They were therefore concerned not with defending it, but rather with the question of how to reconcile it with “the new reality of Christ” (xxi). The theological developments that arose from the attempts to address this issue centred around three questions, each of which flows from one of the words in John’s declaration, “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). The first question might be called “the Trinitarian question” (xxi), and flows from the word “Word”. “If the Word is divine, how can he be from the Father without destroying the oneness of God and thus the immutable nature?” (xxi). The second question is an incarnational question, and flows from the word “became”. “If the Word is God, does he change in becoming man?” (xxi). The third question is about “the manhood of the Son” (xxi), and flows from the word “flesh”. “If the divine word is man, do his experiences as man effect a change in his ?” (xxi). The second and third questions can together be described as Christological. These questions were discussed over several centuries during a series of theological controversies. Let’s work through them chronologically. 6. Can you explain the three questions that formed the focus of Christological discussion in the early patristic period? 1. Docetism . The word “Docetism” comes from the Greek verb dokeo , which means “I seem”. The Docetists believed that was not really a man; he only seemed to be a man. His humanity was merely an illusion; it wasn’t real. The logic of Docetism worked like this: The Docetists were absolutely convinced of God’s immutability and impassibility, and sought to hold onto it at all costs. They thought that if God were really united to flesh his immutability and impassibility would be compromised. So they “denied the physical and real humanity” of Christ, arguing instead that “God only appeared to be a man” (xxii). Underlying the docetist position lay two further considerations. First, they regarded matter as somehow inherently evil. Clearly, therefore, a real union between God and matter would be unthinkable. Second, they derived their notion of divine from the idea, prominent among some Greek philosophers, that for God to be transcendent meant that he was completely unable to have any direct

4 relationship with man. Such God-man relationships were possible only through intermediaries; any direct contact between God and creation was unthinkable. The Docetists were opposed strongly by , who died in the early years of the second century AD. Ignatius insisted firmly that Jesus was both God and man – “uncreated, and yet born ... at once impassible and torn by pain and suffering” (xxiii, quoting Ignatius of Antioch). This strong and explicit expression of the full humanity and full divinity of Christ is impressive at such an early stage in church history. The problem with Ignatius’ position was his “lack of theological argumentation” (xxiii). He says Docetism is wrong, but doesn’t really explain why. Moreover, he doesn’t really address the philosophical and theological questions his view raises: “ How can God become man and undergo real human experiences while remaining immutable and impassible in his divinity?” (xxiii, italics added). But it would be wrong to criticise him too sharply; a full answer to these questions would not emerge for hundreds of years. 7. What did the Docetists believe? 8. What theological and philosophical considerations drove the Docetists to their conclusions? 9. How did Ignatius of Antioch respond to the docetists? What was good about his response? Where was it lacking? 2. Monarchianism . As time passed and docetism became less influential, “the early Church turned its attention to the divinity of the Logos and his relation to the Father” (xxiii). Their major concern related to the doctrine of God – they wanted “to preserve the oneness of God” (xxiii) – but their issues also had implications for Christology. In the process, several prominent theologians developed a position that became know as Monarchianism . Two forms of Monarchianism can be identified: Dynamic Monarchianism (also called ) and (also called Modalism or ). Dynamic Monarchianism attempted to preserve the oneness of God by denying that the was a divine person by nature, in his own right. According to , a prominent Monarchianist, this “would demand that the Logos would be homoousion [of one substance] with the Father,” which in turn would require that “there must be a third, antecedent and common [substance] underlying both the Father and the Son” (xxiv, italics original). This would be unacceptable, because it would mean that “the divine substance was divisible, material, and thus changeable and corruptible” (xxiv). Paul therefore argued that the Logos was “not ... a subsistent divine person, but rather as that power and enlightenment given to Christ by which he became the adopted Son of God” (xxiv). “The Logos was God’s impersonal power or grace given to the man Christ by which he is adopted as Son” (xxiv). The Logos was a divine power distinct from , which came upon the human Christ such that Christ became the Son of God by (hence “Adoptionism”). 10. What concerns drove Paul of Samosata to his Monarchianist convictions? 11. What is wrong with Dynamic Monarchianism?

5 Modalistic Monarchianism, like Dynamic Monarchianism, is concerned to preserve the oneness of God. However, it also seeks to preserve the full of Christ, which is obviously compromised by Dynamic Monarchianism. According to Modalistic Monarchianism, “the Godhead is one,” but “it expressed itself as Father, Son, and . The Son and the Spirit are not distinct from the Father, but modes of expressions of the one Godhead of the Father” (xxiv-xxv). It is possible, therefore, to speak about “the Father” as distinct from “the Son” or “the Spirit,” but in fact one was merely speaking in different ways about the same underlying reality. There are several fairly obvious problems with Modalistic Monarchianism. First, as both Hippolytus and Tertullian pointed out, it contradicts both Scripture and tradition. Second, it compromises not only divine immutability and simplicity, but also (ironically) the very oneness it seeks to defend. It undermines divine immutability by implying that God changes with “each new mode of expression” (xxv). It undermines by suggesting that God is composed of “parts” – a “Father” part, a “Son” part and a “Spirit” part, each of which can be manifested in turn. Finally, it implicitly undermines the oneness of God, since the one God recedes into the background and is in effect replaced by three different – a Father-god, a Son- god and a Spirit-god – manifesting themselves at different times. Third, Modalistic Monarchianism implies , the doctrine that the Father suffers. Since the Father, Son and Spirit are simply three names for the same underlying reality, to say “the Son suffered” necessarily implies that the Father suffered too. Some modalists (such as Noetus and Praxeas) affirmed this explicitly, while others (such as ) apparently didn’t want to go that far. But this implication of modalism is inescapable. Hippolytus and Tertullian (both opponents of modalism) rejected this view strongly, insisting that the Father did not suffer, but only “the Son of God as incarnated in Christ” (xxvi). Unfortunately, they were unable to explain exactly how this could be the case. For an answer to that question, we have to wait for Athanasius. 12. What is Modalistic Monarchianism? 13. What is wrong with Modalistic Monarchianism? 3. Tertullian and Origen . Tertullian believed that “ is the one undivided and unoriginated Godhead” (xxvi), and that the Son and the Spirit emanate from him. In this way, Tertullian sought to uphold the full divinity of the Son and the Spirit (since they share in the one divine substance of the Father) while maintaining both divine unity (there is only one divine substance) and personal distinction (the Son and Spirit are distinct from the Father). Unfortunately, there are several problems with this view. The full divinity of the Son and the Spirit is undermined since they are only “divine by derivation” (xxvii) – the Father is first in the hierarchy, while the Son and the Spirit are essentially subordinate to him. Divine unity is lost because the oneness of God is located not in the of persons, but only in the Father, and it becomes impossible to avoid thinking of the Son and the Spirit as “additions” to the Father’s unity. Divine

6 immutability is compromised, because the principle of emanation inevitably implies some change in the Father’s deity. The problem lies with the Platonic notion of emanation that lies at the heart of the system. Origen operated with the same principle of emanation, and fell into the same trap. He found himself caught between two stools: the more he emphasized the divinity of the Son, the more he implied belief in two Gods; but the more he emphasized the unity of God (which resides in the unique Godhead of the Father) the more he weakened “the true divinity of the Son” (xxvii). The unity of God and the divinity of the Son seem, for Origen, to be pulling in two different directions. 14. How did Tertullian and Origen attempt to explain the relationship between the Father and the Son? 15. What problems did this system create? 4. The Trinitarian and Christological Questions . Let’s summarise what we have learned so far, in relation to the three questions identified at the start of this section – i.e. the Trinitarian question and the two Christological questions. Here’s a brief reminder: The Trinitarian question: “If the Word is divine, how can he be from the Father without destroying the oneness of God and thus the immutable nature?” The Christological questions: “If the Word is God, does he change in becoming man?” and “If the divine word is man, do his experiences as man effect a change in his divinity?” Concerning the Trinitarian question, we affirm “the true divinity of the Logos against the adoptionists and Paul of Samosata” (xxxi). We also affirm “that the Logos is really distinct from the Father against the Modalists” (xxxi). Tertullian and Origen attempted to address the question using the principle of emanation: the Father alone is God in the sense, while the Son and the Spirit emanate from him. This endeavour is doomed, however, because the unity of God is located in the Father alone. Consequently, the more the divinity of the Son is stressed, the more the unity of God is compromised, and vice versa. The platonic principle of emanation could never do justice to the incarnation. The solution could only be uncovered once theologians realized that the unity of the Godhead is not located in the Father alone, but in the Trinity of related persons. Concerning the two Christological questions, we affirm the ontological reality of the incarnation against the docetists – the Son of God really became man, he did not merely appear to be man. Yet no one has yet been able to explain “ how the Logos could truly become and be man without change” (xxxii, italics added).

7 I. Nicea’s Homoousion: Defining God’s Begetting and Becoming This chapter is divided into two parts, corresponding to Trinitarian and Christological questions identified in the previous chapter. Combining the two Christological questions into one, we now have two questions, as follows: (1) The Trinitarian question: How can the Logos be truly God without compromising divine oneness and immutability? (2) The Christological question: How can the Logos become man and suffer as man without compromising divine immutability and impassibility? A. The Trinitarian Question 1. Arius . Arius’s approach was driven by two key presuppositions. First, there is one God, who alone is utterly transcendent, immutable, unbegotten and undivided. Second, in the incarnation the Logos took the place of the human and was united to a human body (more on this in section B, below). Taken together, these presuppositions implied that the Logos is not God, but a creature, for “if the Logos was God, he would destroy both the oneness of God in himself and his transcendence and immutability in becoming man” (5). Underlying Arius’s view was his understanding of God, which can best be summarised with three adjectives: “God is transcendent, unoriginated, and One” (5). Arius/s problem was that he misunderstood each of these three divine attributes. Let’s look at each of them in turn. Arius’s notion of divine transcendence was derived from Greek philosophy. “God, to remain God, is allowed no contact with man or creation, but stands apart, aloof and solitary in his transcendence” (5). For Arius, transcendence meant not that God is completely other than man (as the Bible teaches), but completely apart from man and separated from him. Consequently, “the status of God’s immutability is in direct proportion to his unrelatedness to creation” (6). It follows from this that God couldn’t create the world himself, for this would entail “contact” between God and the creation. Arius therefore believed that the Logos acted as a “buffer,” or mediator, between God and the creation. God was allowed no direct contact with the creation, so he created the Logos, and the Logos did the messy business of creating everything else. Underlying this picture of divine transcendence was Arius’s understanding of what it meant for belief that God to be unoriginated , or unbegotten . Arius believed that God, and only God, is unoriginated. God doesn’t come “from” anything. Moreover, Arius also believed that the only way in which something could come “from” anything else is by creation. Arius thus rejected any distinction between begetting and creating: “To be begotten is to be created” (7). From this it follows inevitably that the Logos (who is “from” the Father) must be created. The Logos, unlike the Father, was not eternal. As Arius famously declared, “there was a then (time) when he was not” (7, quoting Arius). The reason Arius understood all begetting to be creation lay in his understanding of divine oneness. Arius thought that any form of generation apart from creation would

8 “decimate the immutable oneness of God” (8). God couldn’t share the divine substance with another, since this would imply division, and hence change. There could not exist another “unbegotten One” besides the Father, since this would imply the existence of two Gods. Emanation was ruled out because it, too, would imply change in the divine nature. In summary, Arius simply rejected all attempts to explain the divinity of the Son because (he believed) they necessarily compromised the transcendence, unoriginated-ness, and oneness of God. The only way in which the Logos could come into being was by creation. “For God to remain God the Logos had to be a creature” (9). 16. What two presuppositions lay behind Arius’s understanding of the person of Christ? What conclusion did Arius reach about the person of Christ? 17. What three convictions about God lay behind Arius’s Christology? How would you critique these three convictions? 2. Nicea and Athanasius . The Nicene Fathers were easily able to see that Arius was wrong, since both Scripture and tradition clearly emphasised the divinity of the Son. Their problem, however, was to explain how Arius could be wrong (and therefore how the Son could be divine) without compromising divine oneness. Nicea declared that “the Logos is in himself homoousious with the Father, that in himself he is what the Father is – of the same ousia ” (11, italics original). The Council also maintained a distinction between begetting and creating: the Son is begotten, not created . But these two claims created further challenges for Nicea. If we say that the Father and the Son are homoousious , we run the risk of either (a) dividing the Godhead into two pieces (There’s one chunk of “stuff,” and the Father and the Son share it); or (b) implicitly affirming modalism by denying any ontological distinction between the Father and the Son. Athanasius saw the solution brilliantly. He realised that the problem arose from an implicitly material view of the divine nature. We must not, he said, have “material thoughts about what is immaterial” (13, quoting Athanasius). The divine substance is not a chunk of “stuff” which is either divided into two or shared indistinguishably by two parties. Rather, God in his and substance is the-Father-begetting-the- Son. “The Father/Son relationship is part and parcel of what God is in himself” (14). This was an extremely significant step. It maintains divine unity (there is only one divine substance) while also maintaining the full deity of the Son (he is of the same substance as the Father). At the same time, is also maintains the distinction between the divine persons, thus avoiding modalism. For the very fact that one has said that the Father and the Son are homoousios implies that “there are two who are homoousious with one another” (16). The very insight that establishes divine oneness and the Son’s deity also upholds personal distinction. This doctrine entailed a very different notion of divine transcendence from that which Arius and others had previously espoused. Divine transcendence no longer

9 meant that God was apart from creation, separated from creation. For transcendence has now been located not in the Father alone, but in the Triune God – Father, Son and Spirit – and the same Logos who with the Father and the Spirit is transcendent has also become man! Transcendence implies otherness from creation, but it does not imply separateness from creation. 18. How did the Nicene Fathers respond to Arius? 19. What significant insight did Athanasius bring to the discussion? 20. How does the homoousios doctrine avoid modalism? 21. How should we understand the doctrine of divine transcendence in order to avoid making the same mistake as Arius? B. The Christological Question We turn now to the Christological question: How can the Logos become man and suffer as man without compromising divine immutability and impassibility? 1. Arius . The Christological question presented little difficulty to the Arians. They believed the Logos was a creature, so like all creatures he could change and suffer. Divine immutability and impassibility were preserved, they believed, because Logos served as a “buffer,” or mediator, preventing direct contact between God and the creation. For the Arians, life seemed simple. The Arians held a version of what is now called “Logos/Sarx Christology” (19). They believed that the person of Christ was composed of two parts: human flesh (Greek sarx ), and the Logos, which took the place of the human soul. This view implies that the Logos must change in the incarnation in order to “[perform] the functions of the soul” (19). It also implies that the human attributes and passions of Christ must be attributed directly to the Logos (just as in all men such attributes and passions are attributed to the soul) and thus “affect him as God” (19). The Arians were unperturbed by this, of course, for they did not in any case believe that the Logos was divine. 2. Athanasius . Athanasius answered the Christological question in a different way. He emphasised that the Logos really became man (cf. John 1:14); he did not simply “come into” man as God came to “the prophets and ” (20); neither did he “change into man” (21). Athanasius hoped thereby to defend divine immutability in the incarnation. The Logos did not “become something other than himself by taking on flesh”; rather, “being the same as before, he was robed ” in flesh (21, italics added). The Logos became flesh “not by being changed into flesh, but because he has assumed ... flesh” (21, quoting Athanasius). Though these negative distinctions were helpful in distinguishing Athanasius’s view from the Arians, Athanasius did not make further progress in defining positively what “became flesh” means. Athanasius was forced to “resort to positive descriptive phrases” to explain the meaning of “become” (such as “put on,” “enter into,” or the

10 illustration of “clothing”), because he lacked the philosophical tools to articulate the meaning of “become” in “positive ontological terms” (21-22). Despite this, Athanasius still attempted to avoid the Arian error of affirming that the Logos changed and suffered in the incarnation. Whereas the Arians had affirmed that the human attributes of Christ were predicated directly of the Logos, Athanasius insisted that “the human experiences of the Logos affect him only insofar as he is flesh and not as God” (23). However, although Athanasius resisted the implications of Arian Christology, but was unable entirely to escape them. His problem lay in the fact that was still apparently working with the same underlying Logos/Sarx Christology that characterised . According to J. N. D. Kelly, Athanasius’s “central problem” was “whether he envisaged Christ’s humanity as including a rational human soul, or regarded the Logos as taking the place of one” (24). Athanasius seems ambiguous here. He nowhere explicitly denies that Christ had a human soul, and on at least one occasion he explicitly affirms it, but he “never brings out its theological significance” (24). His illustrations perhaps suggest a Logos/sarx Christology: the Logos was “robed” in flesh; he “took on” flesh rather like “clothing”; he “entered into” flesh. Moreover, he never mentions Christ’s human soul in discussions of Christ’s ignorance, sadness, suffering and so on. This in turn suggests that these passions “must directly reside in the Logos himself” (24-25), thereby undermining divine impassibility. Athanasius would be horrified by this, but given his Christology the implication seems hard to avoid unavoidable. 22. How did Athanasius’s view of the incarnation differ from Arianism? 23. What did Athanasius seem to believe in common with the Arians? What consequences did this have? 3. Apollinarius . Apollinarius shared the same Logos/Sarx framework as the Arians and Athanasius. He worked out this framework with greater explicitness and detail than Athanasius, and thereby revealed more clearly its inherent weaknesses. Apollinarius believed that the Logos is united with Christ’s flesh in the same way as “the soul and the body in man” (25). Thus Christ was a composite being made up of two “parts which in union with one another form a new organic and complete substance” (26). Apollinarius realised that Christ was therefore “not man as other men,” and thought that the gave support for this when it says that the Logos was found “in the likeness of men” and that Christ is a “Heavenly man” (26, quoting 1 Cor 15:47; Phil 2:8). Yet Apollinarius insisted that neither “the Logos nor the flesh radically changed in the union,” insisting that Christ was “fully God and fully man” (27). Unfortunately, and despite his protestations, Apollinarius’s understanding of the incarnation not only compromises the immutability of the Logos but also destroys Christ’s humanity as well. The Logos is not a human soul, and thus Apollinarius’s understanding of the incarnation necessarily implies that the Logos must change to fulfil this function. The humanity of Christ is incomplete, for he lacks a human soul, and indeed even the flesh of Christ is changed in the incarnation by its union with

11 the Logos – it becomes “heavenly” (27). Unsurprisingly, therefore, Apollinarius was condemned for denying Christ’s full humanity. In the end, Apollinarius cannot say “God became man” at all, for the Logos is no longer God and Christ is not a man. 24. Explain Apollinarius’s view of the incarnation. What are its flaws? 4. The Inadequacy of the Logos/Sarx Framework . We began this section with a Christological question: How can the Logos become man and suffer as man without compromising divine immutability and impassibility? The Logos/Sarx framework common to Arius, Athanasius and Apollinarius could never adequately answer this, because “‘become’ in the Logos/Sarx framework always implies change” (31). Put more simply, you can’t say “God became man” if you get rid of the human soul and put the Logos in its place. Arius, Athanasius and Apollinarius had not realised that Nicea’s homoousion doctrine, by establishing the full deity of the Logos, had revealed the inadequacy of the Logos/Sarx framework as a model for the incarnation. II. Chalcedonian Christology: “Become” as Personal/Existential A. Antioch and Alexandria Two main groups were involved as the Christological debates headed towards the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451): the School of Antioch (typified by and Nestorius) and the School of Alexandria ( in particular). B. The School of Antioch: Nestorius Theodore of Mopsuestia was a predecessor of Nestorius in the Antiochene School, and it is helpful to begin with him. Theodore was “concerned to uphold the full humanity of Christ” as well as “the immutability of the Logos as God” (34). He therefore stressed “the distinction and completeness” of Christ’s human and divine natures (34). Christ was really a man; the Logos really was (and remained) God. He thus forestalled the Arian claim that the Logos changed in the incarnation, and avoided the Apollinarian problem of undercutting both Christ’s divinity and humanity. Theodore was “always concerned not to confuse the Godhead with the creature” (34, quoting Grillmeier). But if the divine and human natures of Christ remained distinct and complete in this way, in what sense were they united? Theodore believed that “become” must, if taken in its strictest sense, mean “change into.” Believing this to be impossible for the immutable Logos, he therefore sought to identify a different meaning of the John’s statement that “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14): “When it says, ‘The Word became flesh,” it means ‘The Word came to be in man.’ But ‘became’ is not used as though he were changed, but it was believed so on account of his appearance” (35-36). For Theodore, the two natures appeared to be one. Apart from the incarnation both the human and divine natures of Christ had their own (Greek face ); in the incarnation they were united by virtue of sharing a common prosopon . Theodore did not mean to imply that this “appearance” undermined the reality of the incarnation; it was intended only as “a denial of change in the Logos” (36). Yet at the same time “the common prosopon has no ontological or

12 metaphysical content” (37). There was indeed “one Son” and “one Lord,” but “this is only the result of the natures being seen as one because of the conjunction” between them (37). Nestorius took the same approach as Theodore. His insistence that the two natures of Christ were not ontologically united is revealed in his denial that Mary should be called “Mother of God” (Greek ). For Nestorius, this was just one of a whole category of statements (such as “God was born,” “God suffered,” “God died,” and so on) which he believed wrongly collapsed the distinction between the human and divine natures of Christ and thereby implied change in the Logos. The divine and human natures must remain distinct, he said; the only allowable union occurred by “the mutual taking and giving of the two prosopa ” to form “the common prosopon – Christ” (43). Nestorius sought to bring the divine and human natures into closer union by affirming “the compenetration and perechoresis [mutual indwelling] of the two prosopa ” (44). Yet the two natures were still not in fact united; “Christ as the common prosopon has no ontological depth” (44). Put simply, Christ was not really (in the strictest ontological sense) one. Nestorius’s view reflected an underlying philosophical stance found within the School of Antioch. The Antiochenes exemplified the Aristotelian tendency to “stress the individual concrete factual nature of empirical reality” (32-33). “Nature,” he believed, was not an “abstract term” or a set of qualities, but rather “an individual specific thing” (46). This view is not normally particularly problematic, because individual objects or people have only one nature. But it presents a problem in Christology, for Christ has two natures. Nestorius thus implicitly conceived of Christ as two distinct, individuated beings – human and divine – each existing (conceptually, in the case of the human nature) prior to the incarnation, and each (prior to the incarnation) possessing its own prosopon . “He began with the natures, distinct and individual, and then tried to put them together” (46-47). Inevitably, he failed. 25. In what sense did the Antiochenes believe that the human and divine natures of Christ were united? What is wrong with this view? 26. Why did Nestorius reject the Theotokos formula? C. Cyril of Alexandria Whereas Nestorius “began with the natures distinct and individual, and then tried to put them together” (46-47), Cyril of Alexandria realised that Christology must rest on the foundation of the one person of Christ. He understood that “Christ is one ontological reality in himself and the distinction of natures must be made within this one reality” (47). “Above all, Cyril wished to maintain that Christ is one; not just in appearance but in reality” (47). Unfortunately, “it is not so obvious exactly what Cyril means by Christ being one” (47). Cyril’s declarations that Christ has “one nature” (Greek mia ) and is “one out of both” (47) drew a charge of Apollinarianism from Nestorius. This charge is understandable, for “if one interprets these two phrases from a Nestorian understanding of ‘nature,’ Cyril is obviously a heretic” (47-48). From Nestorius’s

13 perspective, Cyril’s statements would imply that both the Logos and Christ’s human nature were changed in the incarnation to form a tertium quid , a “third thing,” a new nature which was neither truly human nor truly divine. But in fact Cyril meant something subtly different. Cyril used the phrase “one nature” in two subtly different ways: either to refer to the one person of Christ (where nature “tends to mean person in the Chalcedonian sense,” 49, see below); or to refer to the fact that “ontologically Christ is one being or reality in himself” (50). In neither case does it refer to “one nature” in the Apollinarian sense. Similarly, when Cyril speaks of “one out of both,” it is simply in order to emphasise (unlike Nestorius) that in the incarnation “ one being or reality comes to be” (50, italics added). Cyril uses the analogy of the body and soul in man here – not in order to imply a Logos/Sarx Christology, “but rather to show that as the body and soul form, the one reality of man, so the divine and human natures form the one reality of Christ” (50). 27. Why did Nestorius accuse Cyril of Apollinarianism? 28. What did Cyril mean when he said Christ has “one nature”? 29. Why does Cyril’s body/soul analogy not imply a Logos-Sarx Christology? Three convictions lay at the heart of Cyril’s Christology, which may be appreciated by emphasising in turn each of the three words: God is man . First, the Logos must not be changed in the incarnation – it must be God who becomes man. Second, Christ’s humanity must remain genuinely human in the incarnation – God must become man . Third, we must be able to say that the one being of Christ is both God and man – that God is man. Cyril made considerable progress towards articulating an understanding of “becoming” that makes sense of these three convictions. He explained that the incarnation “did not bring into existence a new person” (54), nor did it involve a change in the nature of the Logos. Rather, “the incarnation is the same person [the Logos] existing in a new way” (54). The “becoming” does not involve a change of natures. Rather, “become” means that “the Logos takes on a new mode of existence” (54). It is a “personal/existential becoming,” in which “one and the same person [the Logos] comes to be, comes to exist in a new manner or mode” (54). This is “a real Christological breakthrough” (55). It allows Cyril “to maintain both the proper oneness and duality in Christ. Christ is one and the same person of the Logos existing in two different modes: as God and as man” (55). “For Cyril Christ is one person in two natures” (55). The divine and human natures of Christ are united in what later theologians call a “” – that is, a union that exists in and by virtue of the one person (hypostasis ) of Christ (57) Unlike Nestorius, therefore, Cyril affirmed that Mary was theotokos , Mother of God. He didn’t mean that Mary gave birth to God as God , but that she gave birth to the one person of Christ, who is the Logos existing as man . For the same reason, Cyril affirms that “human attributes such as suffering and death” (57), though not attributable to the divine nature as such, may (indeed, must) be predicated of “the person of the Logos” (57). Thus he is able to make such apparently paradoxical statements as “God suffers”; the Logos “suffered impassibly”; the Logos “suffered

14 without suffering.” What he means is that “God the Logos as man actually suffers” (58, italics original). 30. Reflect on the phrase, God is man . How were the different parts of this critical formula compromised by Arius, Athanasius, Apollinarius and Nestorius? 31. Can you explain Cyril’s “Christological breakthrough”? How does it enable him to say “God suffers”? D. Ephesus and the aftermath The First (431) judged in favour of Cyril, rejecting Nestorius’s denial that Mary was theotokos and his “implication that God did not really become man” (58). The Council “sanctioned Cyril’s metaphysical conviction that Christ is one ontological being” (59) and also Cyril’s distinction between who Christ is (God, the Logos) and the manner of his existence (both human and divine). Unfortunately, the Council of Ephesus brought little clarity or unanimity, because it “did not go far enough in clarifying Christological concepts and terminology” (59). It was criticised by of Cyprus, for example, who felt that the hypostatic union necessarily implied a mixture and confusion of the two natures. The Formula Unionis of 433 brought a little more clarity, for Cyril recognised “the true and clear distinction of natures without confusion or mixture” (60), and was willing to abandon his confusing and ambiguous mia physis (one nature) formula. took a very different stance: “I confess that before the union our Lord had two natures, but after the union I confess one single nature” (61). The second of Ephesus (444), “notoriously known as the Robber Synod because the Alexandrians stacked the synod in Eutyches’ favour” (61), agreed. Eutyches’ view is also known as ( mono meaning “one”; physis meaning “nature”). Like Nestorius, Eutyches conceived both the human and divine natures as existing (at least conceptually) prior to the incarnation. Unlike Nestorius, however, he believed that the incarnation fused them. This notion of two distinct natures existing prior to the incarnation is the underlying problem with monophysitism. Eutyches failed to grasp Cyril’s insight that the incarnation is not the coming-together of two pre-existing realities (Christ’s human and divine natures), but the coming-into-being of a new mode of existence for the Logos (existence as man). Eutyches was opposed by Pope Leo, who shared Cyril’s understanding of the hypostatic union. 32. What is monophysitism? 33. What is “the underlying problem with monophysitism”? E. The Council of Chalcedon The Council of Chalcedon “reaffirmed the of Nicea,” and agreed with Cyril and Leo, before setting out to express as comprehensibly as possible the unity and diversity of the person of Christ. The key Christological phrase was as follows: “One and the same Christ ... [is] made known in two natures [which exist] without confusion, without change, without division, without separation ... concurring into one prosopon and one hypostasis ” (64).

15 According to Chalcedon, in the incarnation the person of the Logos (who exists eternally as God ) came to exist in a new way: as man . A “person” is the subject of existence (the thing that exists), while a “nature” is the manner or mode in which a person exists. The two natures are not “building blocks,” both pre-existing the incarnation and then assembled to make the one person of Christ. “Christ is not made ‘out of’ a union of two previously separate things, one called a divine nature and the other called a human nature, as if ‘a nature’ was some sort of thing in itself ” (65). Like Cyril, Chalcedon understand “become” to mean that “the Logos has taken on a new mode of existence” (65). “Become” is thus a personal, existential concept. It signifies that the Logos, who exists eternally as God, has now come to exist as man too. This is reflected in Chalcedon’s choice of the phrase “in two natures” in preference to Cyril’s formula “out of two natures.” The latter phrase could easily me taken to imply that the two natures are “ingredients” which are in some way “added together” to “become” Christ. The former phrase, by contrast, signifies the manner in which the person of the Logos now exists. He once existed in only one nature; now he exists in two natures. This insight also elucidates the famous Chalcedonian formula, “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” (65). The natures are not “things” which could even in principle be confused, changed, divided or separated. They are modes of existence of a person – distinct and yet united in the person.

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