The Christological Problem And T


The Arian controversy in bringing about the affirmation of the true deity

of the Son, or Logos, left the Church with the problem of the unity of the

divine and human natures in the personality of Jesus. It seemed to not a

few that to combine perfect deity with perfect humanity would result in

two personalities. Holding fast, therefore, to the reality of the human

nature, a solution was attempted by Apollinarius, or Apollinaris, by<
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making the divine Logos take the place of the human logos or reason.

Mankind consisted of three parts: a body, an animal soul, and a rational

spirit. The Logos was thus united to humanity by substituting the divine

for the human logos. But this did violence to the integrity of the human

nature of Christ. This attempt on the part of Apollinaris was rejected at

Constantinople, but also by the Church generally. The human natures must

be complete if human nature was deified by the assumption of man in the

incarnation. On this basis two tendencies showed themselves quite early:

the human nature might be lost in the divinity, or the human and the

divine natures might be kept distinct and parallel or in such a way that

certain acts might be assigned to the divine and certain to the human

nature. The former line of thought, adopted by the Cappadocians, tended

toward the position assumed by Cyril of Alexandria and in a more extreme

form by the Monophysites. The latter line of thought tended toward what

was regarded as the position of Nestorius. In this position there was such

a sharp cleavage between the divine and the human natures as apparently to

create a double personality in the incarnate Son. This divergence of

theological statement gave rise to the christological controversies which

continued in various forms through several centuries in the East, and have

reappeared in various disguises in the course of the Church's theological

development.





Additional source material: There are several exegetical works of

Cyril of Alexandria available in English, see Bardenhewer, § 77,

also a German translation of three treatises bearing on

christology in the Kempten Bibliothek der Kirchenvaeter, 1879.

For the general point of view of the Cappadocians and the relation

of the incarnation to redemption, see Gregory of Nyssa, The Great

Catechism (PNF, ser. II, vol. V), v. infra, § 89 and references

in Seeberg, § 23.





(a) Apollinaris, Fragments. Ed. H. Lietzmann.





His Christology.





The following fragments of the teaching of Apollinaris are from H.

Lietzmann, Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule. Texte und

Untersuchungen, 1904. Many fragments are to be found in the

Dialogues which Theodoret wrote against Eutychianism, which he

traced to the teaching of Apollinaris. The first condemnation of

Apollinaris was at Rome, 377, see Hefele, § 91; Theodoret, Hist.

Ec., V, 10, gives the letter of Damasus issued in the name of the

synod.





P. 224 [81]. If God had been joined with a man, one complete being with

another complete being, there would be two sons of God, one Son of God by

nature, another through adoption.



P. 247 [150]. They who assume a twofold spirit in Christ pull a stone out

with their finger. For if each is independent and impelled by its own

natural will, it is impossible that in one and the same subject the two

can be together, who will what is opposed to each other; for each works

what is willed by it according to its own proper and personal motives.



P. 248 [152]. They who speak of one Christ, and assert that there are two

independent spiritual natures in Him, do not know Him as the Logos made

flesh, who has remained in His natural unity, for they represent Him as

divided into two unlike natures and modes of operation.



P. 239 [129]. If a man has soul and body, and both remain distinguished in

unity, how much more has Christ, who joins His divine being with a body,

both as a permanent possession without any commingling one with the other?



P. 209 [21, 22]. The Logos became flesh, but the flesh was not without a

soul, for it is said that it strives against the spirit and opposes the

law of the understanding. [In this Apollinaris takes up the trichotomy of

human nature, a view which he did not apparently hold at the beginning of

his teaching.]



P. 240 [137]. John [John 2:19] spoke of the destroyed temple, that is, of

the body of Him who would raise it up again. The body is altogether one

with Him. But if the body of the Lord has become one with the Lord, then

the characteristics of the body are proved to be characteristics of Him on

account of the body.





(b) Apollinaris, Letter to the Emperor Jovian. Lietzmann, 250 ff.





We confess the Son of God who was begotten eternally before all times, but

in the last times was for our salvation born of Mary according to the

flesh; and we confess that the same is the Son of God and God according

to the spirit, Son of man according to the flesh; we do not speak of two

natures in the one Son, of which one is to be worshipped and one is not to

be worshipped, but of only one nature of the Logos of God, which has

become flesh and with His flesh is worshipped with one worship; and we

confess not two sons, one who is truly God's Son to be worshipped and

another the man--who is of Mary and is not to be worshipped, who by the

power of grace had become the Son of God, as is also the case with men,

but one Son of God who at the same time was born of Mary according to the

flesh in the last days, as the angel answered the Theotokos Mary who

asked, "How shall this be?"--"The Holy Ghost will come upon thee." He,

accordingly, who was born of the Virgin Mary was Son of God by nature and

truly God only according to the flesh from Mary was He man, but at the

same time, according to the spirit, Son of God; and God has in His own

flesh suffered our sorrows.





(c) Gregory of Nazianzus, Ep. I ad Cledonium. (MSG, 37:181.)





In this epistle Gregory attacks Apollinaris, basing his argument

on the notion of salvation by incarnation, which formed the

foundation of the most characteristic piety of the East, had been

used as a major premise by Athanasius in opposition to Arianism,

and runs back to Irenaeus and the Asia Minor school; see above, §

33.





If any one trusted in a man without a human mind, he is himself really

bereft of mind and quite unworthy of salvation. For what has not been

assumed has not been healed; but what has been united to God is saved. If

only half of Adam fell, then that which is assumed and saved may be half

also; but if the whole, it must be united to the whole of Him that was

begotten and be saved as a whole. Let them not, then, begrudge us our

complete salvation, or clothe the Saviour only with bones and nerves and

the semblance of humanity. For if His manhood is without soul,

even the Arians admit this, that they may attribute His passion to the

godhead, as that which gives motion to the body is also that which

suffers. But if He had a soul and yet is without a mind, how is He a man,

for man is not a mindless animal? And this would necessarily

involve that His form was human, and also His tabernacle, but His soul was

that of a horse, or an ox, or some other creature without mind. This,

then, would be what is saved, and I have been deceived in the Truth, and

have been boasting an honor when it was another who was honored. But if

His manhood is intellectual and not without mind, let them cease to be

thus really mindless.



But, says some one, the godhead was sufficient in place of the human

intellect. What, then, is this to me? For godhead with flesh alone is not

man, nor with soul alone, nor with both apart from mind, which is the most

essential part of man. Keep, then, the whole man, and mingle godhead

therewith, that you may benefit me in my completeness. But, as he asserts

[i.e., Apollinaris], He could not contain two perfect natures. Not if

you only regard Him in a bodily fashion. For a bushel measure will not

hold two bushels, nor will the space of one body hold two or more bodies.

But if you will look at what is mental and incorporeal, remember that I

myself can contain soul and reason and mind and the Holy Spirit; and

before me this world, by which I mean the system of things visible and

invisible, contained Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For such is the nature

of intellectual existences that they can mingle with one another and with

bodies, incorporeally and invisibly.



Further, let us see what is their account of the assumption of the

manhood, or the assumption of the flesh, as they call it. If it was in

order that God, otherwise incomprehensible, might be comprehended, and

might converse with men through His flesh as through a veil, their mask is

a pretty one, a hypocritical fable; for it was open to Him to converse

with us in many other ways, as in the burning bush [Ex. 3:2] and in the

appearance of a man [Gen. 18:5]. But if it was that He might destroy the

condemnation of sin by sanctifying like by like, then as He needed flesh

for the sake of the condemned flesh and soul for the sake of the soul, so

also He needed mind for the sake of mind, which not only fell in Adam but

was first to be affected, as physicians say, of the illness. For that

which received the commandment was that which failed to observe the

commandment, and that which failed to observe the commandment was that

also which dared to transgress, and that which transgressed was that which

stood most in need of salvation, and that which needed salvation was that

which also was assumed. Therefore mind was taken upon Him.





(d) Council of Constantinople, A. D. 382, Epistula Synodica. Hefele, §

98.





Condemnation of Apollinarianism.





At the Council of Constantinople held the year after that which is

known as the Second General Council, and attended by nearly the

same bishops, there was an express condemnation of Apollinaris and

his doctrine, for though Apollinaris had been condemned in 381,

the point of doctrine was not stated. The synodical letter of the

council of 382 is preserved only in part in Theodoret, Hist.

Ec., V, 9, who concludes his account with these words:





Similarly they openly condemn the innovation of Apollinarius [so Theodoret

writes the name] in the phrase, "And we preserve the doctrine of the

incarnation of the Lord, holding the tradition that the dispensation of

the flesh is neither soulless, nor mindless, nor imperfect."





(e) Theodore of Mopsuestia, Creed. Hahn, § 215.





The position of the Nestorians.





The following extracts are from the creed which was presented at

the Council of Ephesus, 431, and was written by Theodore of

Mopsuestia, the greatest theologian of the party which stood with

Nestorius. Although it does not state the whole doctrine of

Theodore, yet its historical position is so important that its

characteristic passages belong in the present connection.

Bibliographical and critical notes in Hahn, loc. cit.





Concerning the dispensation which the Lord God accomplished for our

salvation in the dispensation according to the Lord Christ, it is

necessary for us to know that the Lord God the Logos assumed a complete

man, who was of the seed of Abraham and David, according to the statement

of the divine Scriptures, and was according to nature whatsoever they were

of whose seed He was, a perfect man according to nature, consisting of

reasonable soul and human flesh, and the man who was as to nature as we

are, formed by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin,

born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem us all from the

bondage of the law [Gal. 4:4] who receive the adoption of sonship which

was long before ordained, that man He joined to himself in an ineffable

manner.



And we do not say that there are two Sons or two Lords, because there is

one God [Son?] according to substance, God the Word, the only begotten Son

of the Father, and He who has been joined with Him is a participator in

His deity and shares in the name and honor of the Son; and the Lord

according to essence is God the Word, with whom that which is joined

shares in honor. And therefore we say neither two Sons nor two Lords,

because one is He who has an inseparable conjunction with Himself of Him

who according to essence is Lord and Son, who, having been assumed for our

salvation, is with Him received as well in the name as in the honor of

both Son and Lord, not as each one of us individually is a son of God

(wherefore also we are called many sons of God, according to the blessed

Paul), but He alone in an unique manner having this, namely, in that He

was joined to God the Word, participating in the Sonship and dignity,

takes away every thought of two Sons or two Lords, and offers indeed to us

in conjunction with the God the Word, to have all faith in Him and all

understanding and contemplation, on account of which things also He

receives from every creature the worship and sacrifice of God. Therefore

we say that there is one Lord, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom all

things were made, understanding principally God the Word, who according to

substance is Son of God and Lord, equally regarding that which was

assumed, Jesus of Nazareth, who God anointed with the Spirit and power, as

in conjunction with God the Lord, and participating in sonship and

dignity, who also is called the second Adam, according to the blessed

Apostle Paul, as being of the same nature as Adam.





(f) Theodore of Mopsuestia, Fragments. Swete, Theodori epis. Mops. in

epistulas b. Pauli commentarii, Cambridge, 1880, 1882.





In the appendix to the second volume of this work by Theodore

there are many fragments of Theodore's principal dogmatic work,

On the Incarnation, directed against Eunomius. The work as a

whole has not been preserved. In the same appendix there are also

other important fragments. The references are to this edition.





P. 299. If we distinguish the two natures, we speak of one complete nature

of God the Word and a complete person. But we name complete

also the nature of the man and also the person. If we think on the

conjunction then we speak of one person.



P. 312. In the moment in which He [Jesus] was formed [in the womb of the

Virgin] He received the destination of being a temple of God. For we

should not believe that God was born of the Virgin unless we are willing

to assume that one and the same is that which is born and what is in that

which is born, the temple, and God the Logos in the temple. If God had

become flesh, how could He who was born be named God from God [cf.

Nicene Creed], and of one being with the Father? for the flesh does not

admit of such a designation.



P. 314. The Logos was always in Jesus, also by His birth and when He was

in the womb, at the first moment of his beginning; to His development He

gave the rule and measure, and led Him from step to step to perfection.



P. 310. If it is asked, did Mary bear a man, or is she the bearer of God

[Theotokos], we can say that both statements are true. One is true

according to the nature of the case; the other only relatively. She bore a

man according to nature, for He was a man who was in the womb of Mary.

She is Theotokos, since God was in the man who was born; not enclosed in

Him according to nature, but was in Him according to the relation of His

will.





(g) Nestorius, Fragments. Loofs, Nestoriana.





The fragments of Nestorius have been collected by Loofs,

Nestoriana, Halle, 1905; to this work the references are made.

It now appears that what was condemned as Nestorianism was a

perversion of his teaching and that Nestorius was himself in

harmony with the definition which was put forth at Chalcedon, a

council which he survived and regarded as a vindication of his

position after the wrong done him at Ephesus by Cyril; cf.

Bethune-Baker, Nestorius and His Teaching, Cambridge, 1908.





P. 252. Is Paul a liar when he speaks of the godhead of Christ and says:

"Without father, without mother, without genealogy"? My good friend, Mary

has not born the godhead, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh. A

creature has not born the Creator, but she bore a man, the organ of

divinity; the Holy Ghost did not create God the Word, but with that which

was born of the Virgin He prepared for God the Word, a temple, in which He

should dwell.



P. 177. Whenever the Holy Scriptures make mention of the works of

salvation prepared by the Lord, they speak of the birth and suffering, not

of the divinity but of the humanity of Christ; therefore, according to a

more exact expression the holy Virgin is named the bearer of Christ

[Christotokos].



P. 167. If any one will bring forward the designation, "Theotokos,"

because the humanity that was born was conjoined with the Word, not

because of her who bore, so we say that, although the name is not

appropriate to her who bore, for the actual mother must be of the same

substance as her child, yet it can be endured in consideration of the fact

that the temple, which is inseparably united with God the Word, comes of

her.



P. 196. Each nature must retain its peculiar attributes, and so we must,

in regard to the union, wonderful and exalted far above all understanding,

think of one honor and confess one Son. With the one name Christ we

designate at the same time two natures. The essential characteristics in

the nature of the divinity and in the humanity are from all eternity

distinguished.



P. 275. God the Word is also named Christ because He has always

conjunction with Christ. And it is impossible for God the Word to do

anything without the humanity, for all is planned upon an intimate

conjunction, not on the deification of the humanity.





(h) Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, V, 5. (MSG, 45:705.)





The Christology of the Cappadocians.





The Cappadocians use language which was afterward condemned when

given its extreme Alexandrian interpretation. Hefele, § 127, may

be consulted with profit.





The flesh is not identical with the godhead before this is transformed

into the godhead, so that necessarily some things are appropriate to God

the Word, other things to the form of a servant. If, then, he [Eunomius]

does not reproach himself with a duality of Words, on account of such

confusion, why are we slanderously charged with dividing the faith into

two Christs, we who say that He who was highly exalted after His passion,

was made Lord and Christ by His union with Him who is verily Lord and

Christ, knowing by what we have learned that the divine nature is always

one and the same mode of existence, while the flesh in itself is that

which reason and sense apprehend concerning it, but when mixed with the

divine it no longer remains in its own limitations and properties, but is

taken up to that which is overwhelming and transcendent. Our

contemplation, however, of the respective properties of the flesh and of

the godhead remains free from confusion, so long as each of these is

considered in itself, as, for example, "The Word was before the ages, but

flesh came into being in the last times." It is not the human nature that

raises up Lazarus, nor is it the power that cannot suffer that weeps for

him when he lies in the grave; the tear proceeds from the man, the life

from the true Life. So much as this is clear that the blows belong to

the servant in whom the Lord was, the honors to the Lord, whom the servant

compassed about, so that by reason of contact and the union of natures the

proper attributes of each belong to both, as the Lord receives the stripes

of the servant, while the servant is glorified with the honor of the Lord.



The godhead "empties" itself that it may come within the capacity of the

human nature, and the human nature is renewed by becoming divine through

its commixture with the divine. As fire that lies in wood, hidden often

below the surface, and is unobserved by the senses of those who see or

even touch it, is manifest, however, when it blazes up, so too, at His

death (which He brought about at His will, who separated His soul from His

body, who said to His own Father "Into Thy hands I commend My spirit"

[Luke 23:46], "who," as He says, "had power to lay it down and had power

to take it again"), He who, because He is the Lord of glory, despised that

which is shame among men, having concealed, as it were, the flame of His

life in His bodily nature, by the dispensation of His death, kindled and

inflamed it once more by the power of His own godhead, warming into life

that which had been made dead, having infused with the infinity of His

divine power those humble first-fruits of our nature; made it also to be

that which He himself was, the servile form to be the Lord, and the man

born of Mary to be Christ, and Him, who was crucified through weakness, to

be life and power, and making all such things as are piously conceived to

be in God the Word to be also in that which the Word assumed; so that

these attributes no longer seem to be in either nature, being, by

commixture with the divine, made anew in conformity with the nature that

overwhelms it; participates in the power of the godhead, as if one were to

say that a mixture makes a drop of vinegar mingled in the deep to be sea,

for the reason that the natural quality of this liquid does not continue

in the infinity of that which overwhelms it.



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