The Patristic Debate Over the Person of Christ
The Patristic Debate Over the Person of Christ
The patristic period saw considerable attention being paid to the doctrine of the person of Christ, which became the defining issue for early Christianity, affecting – to mention only three issues – the way in which Christians related to the Roman imperial state, the way they worshiped, and their hope for the future. The debate about the identity of Christ was conducted primarily within the eastern church; interestingly, Augustine of Hippo never wrote anything of great consequence on Christology, presumably finding his time to be more than adequately occupied by debates over grace, the church, and the Trinity.
The task confronting the patristic writers was basically the development of a unified Christological scheme which would bring together and integrate the various Christological hints and statements, and images and models, found within the New Testament, some of which have been considered briefly above. That task proved complex. In view of its enormous importance for Christian theology, we shall consider its main stages of development in what follows.
Early Explorations: Ebionitism and Docetism
The theologians of the early church realized the importance of articulating the importance of Jesus Christ for the human mind, imagination, emotions, and behavior. In the course of its development in its first four centuries, the church had to deal with a number of interpretations of the identity of Jesus Christ which it regarded as failing to do justice to his significance. An improper location of Jesus Christ on a conceptual map could be fatal to Christian evangelism and discipleship. The first period of the development of Christology tended to center on the question of the divinity of Christ. Most early patristic writers were convinced that the New Testament spoke of Jesus Christ as a genuine human being. What required exploration and explanation was the way in which Jesus Christ differed from other human beings. Did he possess additional characteristics? Or did he lack some other normal human characteristics – such as being sinful?
This process of identifying the best conceptual framework within which to locate Jesus Christ proceeded cautiously. It was seen as important to explore and evaluate every conceivable possibility. One early approach was to take existing categories, inherited from the social matrices to which early Christians belonged, and treat these as appropriate to the task of conceptualizing the significance of Jesus Christ. The origins of such a trend can be seen inside the New Testament itself, in that the gospels record attempts to make sense of Jesus which are drawn from contemporary Judaism – such as interpreting Jesus of Nazareth as a second Elijah, a new Jewish prophet, or a High Priest of Israel.
Two early viewpoints were quickly rejected as heretical. “Ebionitism,” a primarily Jewish sect which flourished in the early centuries of the Christian era, regarded Jesus as an ordinary human being, the human son of Mary and Joseph. Most scholars consider that early second-century Ebionitism was characterized by a “low Christology” – that is, an understanding of Jesus of Nazareth which interprets him as spiritually superior to ordinary human beings. Jesus of Nazareth was seen as a human being who was singled out for divine favor by being possessed by the Holy Spirit, in a manner similar to, yet more intensive than, the calling of a Hebrew prophet. This approach assimilated Jesus to existing Jewish categories of divine presence and activity, especially that of the prophet.
Figure 10.1 John Everett Millais's representation of Jesus of Nazareth in his parents' house (1849–50).
Source: The Art Archive / National Gallery, London / Eileen Tweedy.
Ebionitism is widely regarded as inadequate. The Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth argued against any Ebionite account of the identity of Jesus which treats him essentially as a heroic human being, or as a human being who was “adopted” by God. Barth interprets Ebionitism as an approach to Jesus of Nazareth characterized by a refusal to concede his intrinsic divinity, affirming only his humanity. While this is partly true, it does not really do justice to Ebionitism as an historical movement emerging from Judaism. Furthermore, Barth's approach makes it difficult to distinguish Ebionitism from Arianism (pp. 217–18), which can also be characterized as a denial of Christ's divinity.
More significant was the diametrically opposed view, which came to be known as “Docetism,” from the Greek verb dokeo, “to seem or appear.” The first explicit references to what is recognizable as a form of Docetism are found in some of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (c.35–c.110), bishop of
Antioch in Syria, who was martyred at Rome. Ignatius is remembered mainly on account of seven letters which both exercised considerable influence in the early church and bear important witness to some of its controversies. These letters show him to be concerned about the teachings of two groups, each of which clearly had influence within some Christian churches: the Judaizers, who wished Christianity to remain within the orbit of Judaism, and the Docetists, who argued that the suffering of Jesus was illusory. Ignatius's letters to the churches at Trallia and Smyrna clearly indicate that some were arguing that Christ merely appeared to suffer. Christ “really and truly did suffer, just as he really and truly rose again. His passion was no imaginary illusion.”
Docetism – which is probably best regarded as a tendency within theology rather than a definite theological position – is perhaps best understood as the tendency to conceive Jesus Christ as totallydivine, so that his humanity was merely an appearance. The sufferings of Christ are thus treated as apparent rather than real.
Docetism held a particular attraction for the Gnostic writers of the second century, during which period it reached its zenith. A good example of a Gnostic Christology is found in Valentinianism. This second-century heresy is usually attributed to Valentinus, who was born in Egypt and arrived in Rome around the year 135. Valentinus taught that Christ was a redeemer figure, who awakened the divine spark within humanity, enabling it to find its way back to its true home. In order to save those who were held captive by the body, the Savior “let himself be conceived and he let himself be born as an infant with body and soul.”
Yet we need to be careful here, as early Christian sources indicate that, while some groups held that Jesus had only appeared to suffer, these are rarely described as “Docetists.” Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130–c.202), for example, cites a number of unorthodox writers as claiming that Jesus of Nazareth “was a man merely in appearance”; he does not, however, refer to this as “Docetism.”
Justin Martyr (c.100–c.165): the Logos Christology
By the end of the second century, however, other viewpoints were in the process of emerging, which would eventually eclipse this Docetic tendency. Justin Martyr, one of the most important second-century apologists, represents one such viewpoint. Justin's approach to Christology used the notion of the logos – a Greek term, extensively used in contemporary philosophy, which is often translated simply as “word” yet has far richer associations than this simple translation might suggest. Middle Platonism saw the logos as a mediating principle between the ideal and real worlds, allowing Christian theologians to explore the role of Jesus of Nazareth as mediator between God and humanity.
Justin was especially concerned to demonstrate that the Christian faith brought to fruition the insights of both classical Greek philosophy and Judaism. Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) famously commented that Justin held that “Christ is the Logos and Nomos.” In other words, Christ brings to perfection both the Jewish Law or Torah (Greek: nomos) and Greek philosophy, with its emphasis on the idea of the “word” (Greek: logos). Of particular interest is the Logos Christology which Justin developed, in which he exploits the apologetic potential of the idea of the logos, current in both Stoicism and the Middle Platonism of the period.
Justin appeals to the contemporary philosophical use of the term logos, generally regarded as the ultimate source of all human knowledge. He argues that the one and the same logos is known by both Christian believers and pagan philosophers; the latter, however, have only partial access to it through the mind, whereas Christians have full access to it, through the mind and in history, on account of its manifestation in Christ. The statement in the fourth gospel that the “word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1: 14) plays a critically important role in Justin's thought. Justin allows that pre-Christian secular philosophers, such as Heraclitus and Socrates, thus had partial access to the truth, because of the manner in which the logos is present in the world.
An idea of especial importance in this context is that of the logos spermatikos (Greek: “seed-bearing logos”), which appears to derive from Middle Platonism. According to this idea, the divine Logos (Jesus) sowed seeds throughout human history. It is therefore to be expected that this “seed-bearing logos” can be known, even if only in part, by non-Christians. Justin is therefore able to argue that Christianity builds upon and fulfills the hints and anticipations of God's revelation which are to be had through pagan philosophy. The logos was known temporarily through the theophanies (that is, appearances or manifestations of God) in the Old Testament; Christ brings the logos to its fullest revelation. Justin states this point clearly in his Second Apology:
Our religion is clearly more sublime than any human teaching in this respect: the Christ who has appeared for us human beings represents the Logos principle in all its fullness. [...] Whatever either lawyers or philosophers have said well, was articulated by finding and reflecting upon some aspect of the Logos. However, since they did not know the Logos – which is Christ – in its entirety, they often contradicted themselves.
The world of Greek philosophy is thus set firmly in the context of Christianity: it is a prelude to the coming of Christ, who brings to fulfillment what philosophy had hitherto known only in part.
It is in the writings of Origen (c.185–c.254) that Logos Christology appears to find its fullest development. It must be made clear that Origen's Christology is complex, and that its interpretation at points is highly problematical. What follows is a simplification of his approach. In the incarnation, the human soul of Christ is united with the logos. On account of the closeness of this union, Christ's human soul comes to share in the properties of the logos. Nevertheless, Origen insists that, although both the Logos and Father are coeternal, the Logos is subordinate to the Father.
We noted above that Justin Martyr argued that the logos was accessible to all, even if only in a fragmentary manner, but that its full disclosure only came in Christ. Related ideas can be found in other writers to adopt Logos Christology, including Origen. Origen compares God's act of revelation to being enlightened by the “rays of God,” which are caused by “the light which is the divine Logos.” A knowledge of God is thus possible outside the Christian faith, even though this may take a fragmentary form.
Arius (c.260–336): Jesus Christ as “Supreme Among the Creatures”
This process of exploration of religious and philosophical categories suitable for expressing the significance of Jesus of Nazareth reached a watershed in the fourth century. The controversy which forced the issue was precipitated by Arius, a priest in one of the larger churches in the great Egyptian city of Alexandria. Arius set out his views in a work known as the Thalia (“banquet”), which has not survived in its entirety. As a result, we know Arius's ideas through quotes found in the writings of his opponents. This means that these extracts from his works are presented in isolation, so that we do not fully understand the context in which Arius developed his ideas.
The fundamental themes of Arius's teachings can be summarized in terms of four basic statements, each of which needs a considerable amount of conceptual unpacking.
One of the outcomes of the Arian controversy was the recognition of the futility, even theological illegitimacy, of biblical “proof-texting” – the simplistic practice of believing that a theological debate can be settled by quoting a few passages from the Bible. Arius's theological position was clearly grounded on biblical texts. For example, Proverbs 8: 22 speaks of God possessing wisdom at the beginning of creation. Christ is also described by Paul as the “first born” of the redeemed (Romans 8: 29). The point is that Arius chose to interpret these texts in a different manner from his orthodox opponents. Both sides of the Arian controversy were able to amass biblical texts which seemed to support their cases. The real question concerned the overall picture disclosed by the New Testament. Indeed, the Arian controversy can be argued to be about how an ensemble of relevant biblical texts is to be integrated, in that each side had nodifficulty in identifying individual texts which supported their position. Identifying the overall pattern disclosed by those texts proved to be the decisive issue.
The most fundamental Arian belief was that Jesus Christ was not divine in any meaningful sense of the term. He was “first among the creatures” – that is, preeminent in rank, yet unquestionably a creature rather than divine. Christ, as Logos, was indeed the agent of the creation of the world, as stated in the Prologue to John's gospel. Yet the Logos was itself created by God for this purpose. The Father is thus to be regarded as existing before the Son. “There was a time when he was not.” This statement places Father and Son on different levels, and is consistent with Arius's rigorous insistence that the Son is a creature. Only the Father is “unbegotten”; the Son, like all other creatures, derives from this one source of being.
Arius was careful to emphasize that the Son is not like every other creature. There is a distinction of rank between the Son and other creatures, including human beings. Arius has some difficulty in identifying the precise nature of this distinction. The Son, he argued, is “a perfect creature, yet not as one among other creatures; a begotten being, yet not as one among other begotten beings.” The implication seems to be that the Son outranks other creatures while sharing their essentially created and begotten nature.
Arius thus draws an absolute distinction between God and the created order. There are no intermediate or hybrid species. For Arius, God was totally transcendent and immutable. So how could such a God enter into history and become incarnate? As a creature, the Son was changeable (Greek: treptos). For Arius, this was inconsistent with the notion of an immutable God. Furthermore, the notion that God the Son was divine seemed to compromise the fundamental themes of monotheism and the unity of God – themes which, of course, would re-emerge as central in early Islam.
The utter transcendence and inaccessibility of God meant that God cannot be known by any other creature. Since Arius holds that the Son is to be regarded as a creature, however elevated above
all other creatures, it therefore follows that the Son cannot know the Father. “The one who has a beginning is in no position to comprehend or lay hold of the one who has no beginning.” In common with all other creatures, the Son is dependent upon the grace of God to perform whatever function has been ascribed to him.
Arius thus affirmed the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, declaring that he was supreme among the creatures. Like Ebionitism, Arius declined to accept that Jesus could be said to be divine in any meaningful sense of the term. Yet Ebionitism set out to interpret the significance of Jesus within the framework of existing Jewish models of divine presence within humanity, particularly the notion of a prophet or spirit-filled individual. Arius, in contrast, sought to accommodate Jesus of Nazareth within the frameworks made available by the strict Greek philosophical monotheisms of his age, which precluded any notion of the incarnation as inconsistent with the changelessness and transcendence of God. Ebionitism and Arianism may appear to say similar things, but they begin from very different starting points and are guided by significantly different assumptions.
It is sometimes suggested that Arius developed his position on the identity of Jesus of Nazareth on the basis of a preconceived philosophical position which declared that, as a matter of principle, God could not become incarnate. There is some truth in this point, but not quite the whole truth. Arius's concerns were partly apologetic, in that he clearly believed that many were being alienated from Christianity on account of its increasing emphasis upon an idea – the incarnation – which educated Greeks were unable to accept. Arius saw his approach to Christianity, in contrast, as representing a measured and judicious amalgam of philosophical sophistication and responsible biblical exegesis.
Athanasius (c.293–373): Jesus Christ as God Incarnate
So why did this strongly rational approach to the identity of Jesus of Nazareth attract such vigorous criticism? Arius's most indefatigable critic was
Athanasius of Alexandria. For Athanasius, Arius had destroyed the internal coherence of the Christian faith, rupturing the close connection between Christian belief and worship. There are two points of particular importance that underlie Athanasius's critique of Arius.
First, Athanasius argues that it is only God who can save. God, and God alone, can break the power of sin, and bring humanity to eternal life. The fundamental characteristic of human nature is that it requires to be redeemed. No creature can save another creature. Only the creator can redeem the creation. If Christ is not God, he is part of the problem, not its solution.
Having emphasized that it is God alone who can save, Athanasius then makes the logical move which the Arians found difficult to counter. The New Testament and the Christian liturgical tradition alike regard Jesus Christ as Savior. Yet, as Athanasius emphasized, only God can save. So how are we to make sense of this? The only possible solution, Athanasius argues, is to accept that Jesus is God incarnate.
Arius was firmly committed to the idea that Christ was the savior of humanity; Athanasius did not suggest that Arius denied this idea, but that he rendered it incoherent. If Christ was merely “supreme among the creatures,” he was unable to be the savior of humanity. If Christ were only a human being, no matter how distinguished, he would be part of the problem, not its solution. Salvation, for Athanasius, involves divine intervention. Athanasius thus draws out the meaning of John 1: 14 by arguing that the “Word became flesh”: in other words, God entered into our human situation, in order to change it. This idea is developed in Athanasius's classic work “On the Incarnation,” in which he declares that “the human race would have perished completely had not the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, come among us to putan end to death.” For Athanasius, God became a human being in the incarnation, in order that human beings might become divine.
The second point that Athanasius makes is that Christians worship and pray to Jesus Christ. This pattern can be traced back to the New Testament itself, and is of considerable importance in clarifying early Christian understandings of the significance of Jesus of Nazareth. By the fourth century, prayer to and adoration of Christ were standard features of Christian public worship. Athanasius argues that, if Jesus Christ was a creature, Christians were guilty of worshiping a creature instead of God – in other words, they had lapsed into idolatry. Did not the Old Testament law explicitly prohibit the worship of anyone or anything other than God? Arius was not in disagreement with the practice of worshiping Jesus; he refused, however, to draw the same conclusions as Athanasius.
The point at issue here is the relationship between Christian worship and Christian belief. Orthodoxy maintains a view of the identity of Jesus Christ which is completely consistent with the worship patterns of the church. Christians, Athanasius argued, were right to worship and adore Jesus Christ, because by doing so they were recognizing him for what he really was – God incarnate. If Christ were not God, it would be totally improper to worship him. If Arius was right, existing patterns of Christian worship would have to be drastically altered, breaking the link with the earliest forms of Christian prayer and adoration. Arius seemed to be guilty of making the traditional way in which Christians prayed and worshiped incoherent. Though affirming the tradition of worshiping Jesus, Arius had undermined its integrity. If Arius was correct, Christians ought not to adore or pray to Christ in this way. Christ could be honored as “first among the creatures”; he should not, however, be worshiped.
We see here the fundamental characteristic of heresy: the maintenance of the outward appearance of faith coupled with the subversion of its inward identity. To focus only on the two points we have considered, Arius affirmed that Christ wasthe savior of humanity and that the church should worship him, yet interpreted his identity in such a manner that neither salvation nor adoration were proper. Such a clear tension between theology and practice could not be sustained for long without causing their rupture.
The Arian controversy had to be settled somehow, if peace was to be established within the church. Debate came to center upon two terms as possible descriptions of the relation of the Father to the Son. The Greek term homoiousios, “of similar substance” or “of like being,” was seen by some as representing a judicious compromise, allowing the proximity between Father and Son to be asserted without requiring any further speculation on the precise nature of their relationship. However, the rival term homoousios, “of the same substance” or “of the same being,” eventually gained the upper hand. Though differing by only one letter from the alternative term, it embodied a very different understanding of the relationship between Father and Son. The fury of the debate prompted Edmund Gibbon (1737–94) to comment in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88) that never had so much energy been spent over a single vowel. The Nicene Creed – or, more accurately, the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed – of 381 declared that Christ was “of the same substance” with the Father. This affirmation has since come to be widely regarded as a benchmark of Christological orthodoxy within all the mainstream Christian churches, whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox.
In turning to deal with Athanasius's response to Arius, we have begun to touch upon some of the features of the Alexandrian school of Christology. It is therefore appropriate now to explore these in more detail, and compare them with the views of the rival school of Antioch.
The Alexandrian School: Apollinarianism and its Critics
The outlook of the Alexandrian school, of which Athanasius was a leading representative, focuses sharply on the significance of Christ as savior (Greek: soter) of humanity. Jesus Christ redeems humanity by taking human beings up into the life of God, or making them divine, traditionally expressed in terms of “deification.” Christology gives expression to what this soteriological insight implies. Or, to put this another way, the identity of Jesus of Nazareth is disclosed through the saving actions of Jesus of Nazareth.
We could summarize the trajectory of Alexandrian Christology along the following lines: if human nature is to be deified, it must be united with the divine nature. God must become united with human nature in such a manner that the latter is enabled to share in the life of God. This, the Alexandrians argued, was precisely what had happened in and through the incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ. The second person of the Trinity assumed human nature, and by doing so ensured its divinization. God became human in order that humanity might become divine.
Alexandrian writers thus placed considerable emphasis upon the idea of the Logos assuming human nature. The term “assuming” is important; a distinction is drawn between the Logos “dwelling within humanity” (as in the case of the Old Testament prophets) and the Logos taking human nature upon itself (as in the incarnation of the Son of God). Particular emphasis came to be placed upon John 1: 14 (“the Word became flesh”), which came to embody the fundamental insights of the school, and the liturgical celebration of Christmas. To celebrate the birth of Christ was to celebrate the coming of the Logos to the world and its taking human nature upon itself in order to redeem it.
This clearly raised the question of the relationship between the divinity and humanity of Christ. Cyril of Alexandria (c.378–444) is one of many writers within the school to emphasize the reality of their union in the incarnation. The Logos existed “without flesh” before its union with human nature; after that union, there is only one nature, in that the Logos united human nature with itself. This emphasis upon the one nature of Christ distinguishes the Alexandrian from the Antiocheneschool, which was more receptive to the idea of two natures within Christ. Cyril states this point as follows:
In declaring that the Word [Logos] was made to “be incarnate” and “made human,” we do not assert that there was any change in the nature of the Word when it became flesh, or that it was transformed into an entire human being, consisting of soul and body; but we say that the Word, in an indescribable and inconceivable manner, united personally to himself flesh endowed with a rational soul, and thus became a human being and was called the Son of man. And this was not by a mere act of will or favor, nor simply adopting a role or taking to himself a person.
This raised the question of what kind of human nature had been assumed by the Logos. Apollinarius of Laodicea (c.310–c.390) had anxieties about the increasingly widespread belief that the Logos had assumed human nature in its entirety. It seemed to him that this implied that the Logos was contaminated by the weaknesses of human nature. How could the Son of God be allowed to be tainted by purely human directive principles? The sinlessness of Christ would be compromised, in Apollinarius's view, if he were to possess a purely human mind; was not the human mind the source of sin and rebellion against God? Only if the human mind were to be replaced by a purely divine motivating and directing force could the sinlessness of Christ be maintained. For this reason, Apollinarius argued that, in Christ, a purely human mind and soul were replaced by a divine mind and soul. “The divine energy fulfills the role of the animating soul and of the human mind” in Christ. The human nature of Christ is thus incomplete.
This idea appalled many of Apollinarius's colleagues. The Apollinarian view of Christ may have had its attractions for some; others, however, were shocked by its soteriological implications. How could human nature be redeemed, it was asked, if only part of human nature had been assumed by the Logos? Perhaps the most famous statement of this position was made by Gregory of Nazianzus
(329–89), who stressed the redemptive importance of the assumption of human nature in its totality at the incarnation:
If anyone has put their trust in him as a human being lacking a human mind, they are themselves mindless and not worthy of salvation. For what has not been assumed has not been healed; it is what is united to his divinity that is saved. [...] Let them not grudge us our total salvation, or endue the Savior only with the bones and nerves and mere appearance of humanity.
The Antiochene School: Theodore of Mopsuestia (c.350–428)
The school of Christology that arose in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) differed considerably from its Egyptian rival at Alexandria. One of the most significant points of difference relates to the context in which Christological speculation was set. The Alexandrian writers were motivated primarily by soteriological considerations. Concerned that deficient understandings of the person of Christ were linked with inadequate conceptions of salvation, they used ideas derived from secular Greek philosophy to ensure a picture of Christ that was consistent with the full redemption of humanity. As we have seen, the idea of the Logos was of particular importance, especially when linked with the notion of incarnation.
The Antiochene writers took a very different perspective at this point. Their concerns were primarily moral rather than purely soteriological, and they drew much less significantly on the ideas of Greek philosophy. The basic trajectory of much Antiochene thinking on the identity of Christ can be traced along the following lines. On account of their disobedience, human beings exist in a state of corruption, from which they are unable to extricate themselves. If redemption is to take place, it must be on the basis of a new obedience on the part of humanity. Since humanity is unable to break free from the bonds of sin, God is obliged to intervene. This leads to the coming of the redeemer as one who unites humanity and divinity, and thus to the re-establishment of an obedient people of God.
The two natures of Christ are vigorously defended. Christ is at one and the same time both God and a real individual human being. Against the Alexandrian criticism that this was to deny the unity of Christ, the Antiochenes responded that they upheld that unity while simultaneously recognizing that the one redeemer possessed both a perfect human and a perfect divine nature. There is a “perfect conjunction” between the human and divine natures in Christ. The complete unity of Christ is thus not inconsistent with his possessing two natures, divine and human. Theodore of Mopsuestia stressed this point, asserting that the glory of Jesus Christ “comes from God the Logos, who assumed him and united him to himself. [...] And because of this exact conjunction which this human being has with God the Son, the whole creation honors and worships him.” The Alexandrians remained suspicious; this seemed to amount to a doctrine of “two sons” – that is, that Jesus Christ was not a single person but two, one human and one divine. Yet this option is explicitly excluded by the leading writers of the school, such as Nestorius (c.386–c.451), archbishop of Constantinople. Christ is, according to Nestorius, “the common name of the two natures”:
Christ is indivisible in that he is Christ, but he is twofold in that he is both God and a human being. He is one in his sonship, but is twofold in that which takes and that which is taken. [...] For we do not acknowledge two Christs or two sons or “only-begottens” or Lords; not one son and another son, not a first “only-begotten” and a new “only-begotten,” not a first and second Christ, but one and the same.
So how did the Antiochene theologians envisage the mode of union of divine and human natures in Christ? We have already seen the “assumption” model which had gained the ascendancy at Alexandria, by which the Logos assumed human flesh. What model was employed at Antioch? The answer could be summarized as follows:
Theodore of Mopsuestia is a good example of an Antiochene theologian who held that the Logos did not assume “human nature” in general but a specific human being. Theodore appears to suggest that, instead of assuming a general or abstract human nature, the Logos assumed a specific concrete human individual. This seems to be the case in his work On the Incarnation: “In coming to indwell, the Logos united the assumed [human being] as a whole to itself and made him to share with it in all the dignity in which the one who indwells, being the Son of God by nature, possesses.”
So how are the human and divine natures related? Antiochene writers were convinced that the Alexandrian position led to the “mingling” or “confusion” of the divine and human natures of Christ. To avoid this error, they devised a manner of conceptualizing the relationship between the two natures which maintained their distinct identities. This “union according to good pleasure” involves the human and divine natures of Christ being understood to be rather like watertight compartments within Christ. They never interact or mingle with one another. They remain distinct, being held together by the good pleasure of God. The “hypostatic union” – that is, the union of the divine and human natures in Christ – rests in the will of God.
This might seem to suggest that Theodore of Mopsuestia regarded the union of the divine and human natures as being a purely moral union, like that of a husband and wife. It also leads to a suspicion that the Logos merely puts on human nature, as one would put on a coat: the action involved is temporary and reversible, and involves no fundamental change to anyone involved. However, the Antiochene writers do not seem to have intended these conclusions to be drawn. Perhaps the mostreliable way of approaching their position is to suggest that their desire to avoid confusing the divine and human natures within Christ led them to stress their distinctiveness – yet, in so doing, to inadvertently weaken their link in the hypostatic union.
The “Communication of Attributes”
An issue of major concern to many patristic writers centered on the question of the “communication of attributes,” a notion often discussed in terms of the Latin phrase communicatio idiomatum. By the end of the fourth century, the following propositions had gained widespread acceptance within the church:
If both these statements are simultaneously true, it was argued, what was true of the humanity of Jesus must also be true of his divinity, and vice versa. An example might be the following:
This kind of argument became increasingly commonplace within the late fourth-century church; indeed, it often served as a means of testing the orthodoxy of a theologian. A failure to agree that Mary was the “mother of God” became seen as tantamount to a refusal to accept the divinity of Christ.
But how far can this principle be pressed? For example, consider the following line of argument:
The first two statements are clearly orthodox and commanded widespread assent within the church. But the third statement represents a conclusion drawn from those orthodox statements that was widely regarded as unacceptable and unorthodox, as we noted in our earlier discussion of the idea of “a suffering God” (pp. 181–5).
It was axiomatic to most patristic writers that God could not suffer. The patristic period witnessed much agonizing over the limits that could be set to this approach. Thus, Gregory of Nazianzus insisted that God must be considered to suffer; otherwise the reality of the incarnation of the Son of God was called into question. However, it was the Nestorian controversy that highlighted the importance of the issues.
By the time of Nestorius, the title theotokos (literally, “bearer of God”) had become widely accepted within both popular piety and academic theology. Nestorius was, however, alarmed at its implications. It seemed to deny the humanity of Christ. Why not call Mary anthropotokos (“bearer of humanity”) or even Christotokos (“bearer of the Christ”)? His suggestions were met with outrage and indignation, on account of the enormous theological investment on the part of Alexandrian theologians in the term theotokos.
Modern scholarship has called into question whether Nestorianism really was heretical, as some Alexandrian writers suggested, pointing out the highly politicized nature of the debate. Nestorius is increasingly regarded as making an entirely legitimate point, thus opening up an important theological discussion. The Antiochene defense of the humanity of Jesus Christ did not entail the rejection of his divinity. When Nestorius and others within this tradition emphasized that Jesus of Nazareth had to develop in moral goodness, and had to achieve his victory over sin as a human being, this was to be seen as a supplementation and enrichment of the accompanying belief that he was also divine. The scholarly review of the theological status of “Nestorianism” calls into question many judgments made by writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and readers should be aware of this significant change in attitudes if they are consulting older accounts of this debate.
The Council of Chalcedon (451)
We conclude our analysis of the formative patristic development of Christology by looking at the definition of the Council of Chalcedon, widely regarded as a landmark in early Christian theology.
We all with one voice confess our Lord Jesus Christ to be one and the same Son, perfect in divinity and humanity, truly God and truly human, consisting of a rational soul and a body, being of one substance with the Father in relation to his divinity, and being of one substance with us in relation to his humanity, and is like us in all things apart from sin. (Hebrews 4: 15)
This statement affirms the core themes of the doctrine of the incarnation. Jesus Christ is “truly God and truly human,” being of “one substance” with God in relation to his divinity, and of “one substance” with us in relation to his humanity. This can be interpreted in terms of both the Alexandrian and Antiochene approaches, noted earlier (pp. 220–3). Chalcedon was clearly interested in laying down what really mattered while allowing a degree of latitude over how the core themes of orthodoxy were to be interpreted.
As Karl Rahner (1904–84) pointed out in a landmark essay of 1951, marking the 1,500th anniversary of the Council of Chalcedon, the definitions of the Council were to be seen not only as an end but also as a beginning. In “Chalcedon: End or Beginning?,” Rahner noted that Chalcedon brought the patristic Christological debates to a conclusion, resolving some of the impasses that had arisen. Yet it also marked a beginning, in that Chalcedon did not lay down a timeless archetype to which all future theology must conform but rather provided a prototype which could serve as the basis for future discussion and interpretation. Rahner's point is important to those who find Chalcedon's use of Greek metaphysical categories – such as “substance” – unhelpful, as he stresses to later generations the need for a continuing process of interpretation of these ideas.
An important minority viewpoint must, however, be noted. Chalcedon did not succeed in establishing a consensus throughout the entire Christian world. A dissenting position became established during the sixth century, and is now generally known as “miaphysitism” – literally, the view that there is “only one nature” (Greek: mia, “only one,” and physis, “nature”) in Christ. (The term “monophysitism” is also encountered but refers primarily to the views of Eutyches of Constantinople, c.380–c.456.) The “one nature” in question is understood to be divine, rather than human. The intricacies of this viewpoint lie beyond the scope of this volume; the reader should note that it remains normative within most Christian churches of the eastern Mediterranean world, including the Abyssinian, Armenian, Coptic, and Syrian churches. (The rival Chalcedonian position, which recognized two natures in Christ, one human and the other divine, is occasionally referred to as “dyophysitism,” from the Greek terms for “two” and “natures.”)
We now move away from the patristic Christological debates and consider some developments during the Middle Ages.