Viewpoints
of the: |
Arians
|
Nestorians
|
Eutychians
|
| Proponents
|
Arius,
Presbyter of Alexandria |
Represented
by Nestorius, 5th-c. bishop of Constantinople
|
Represented
by Eutychius
Theodosius
II
|
| Time
|
4th
century |
5th
century |
5th
century |
| Denial
|
Genuine
deity |
Unity
of the Person of Christ (denied the organic union of natures)
|
Distinction
of the Natures of Christ (denied distinction of natures)
|
| Expanation
|
Christ
was the first and highest created being, homoiousia, not homoousia.
|
Union
was moral, not organic- thus two persons. The human was completely
controlled by the divine |
Monophysitist;
the human nature was swallowed by the divine to create a new
third nature- a tertium quid |
| Condemned
|
Council
of Nicea (325) |
Synod
of Ephesus (431) |
Council
of Chalcedon (451) |
| Associated
with |
Generation=
creation |
"Word-flesh"
not "word-man" Christology; opposed to using theotokos
of Mary |
Concern
for the unity and divinity of Christ (minimized humanity)
|
| Argument
for |
They
teach that Christ is subordinate to the Father |
Distinguished
human Jesus, who died, from Divine Son, who cannot die
|
Maintained
the unity of Christ's person |
| Argument
against |
Only
a divine Christ is worthy of worship; this view tends toward
polytheism. Only a divine Christ can save (Phil. 2:6; Rev. 1:8)
|
If
the death of Jesus was the act of a human person, not of God,
it could not be efficacious (Rev. 1:12-18) |
If
Christ were neither a man nor God, he could not redeem as man
or as God (Phil. 2:6) |
| Major
Opponents |
Athanasius
|
Cyril
of Alexandria |
Flavian
of Constantinople
Pope
Leo
Theodoret
|
The Nestorian
Controversy
Nestorius
was originally a monk, then presbyter in Antioch, and after 428
patriarch of Constantinople. He was considered an honest man,
of great eloquence, monastic piety, and the spirit of a zealot
for orthodoxy. In his inaugural sermon he said: "Give me,
O emperor (addressing Theodosius II), the earth purified of heretics,
and I will give thee heaven for it; help me to fight the heretics,
and I will help thee to fight the Persians." As patriarch,
he incited the emperor to enact stringent laws against heretics.
He was opposed to the expression QeotokoV or "mother of God",
which had been applied to the virgin Mary by Origen, Alexander
of Alexandria, Athanasius and others which passed into the devotional
language of the people.
Nestorius
said that he could call Mary CristotokoV or "the bearer of
Christ," but not the "mother of God." He said in
his sermon, "You ask whether Mary may be called mother of
God. Has God then a mother? If so, heathenism itself is excusable
in assigning mothers to its gods; but then Paul is a liar, for
he said of the deity of Christ that it was without Father, without
mother, and without descent" (Heb. 7:3). He went on to write:
"Christ was formed in the womb of Mary, was not himself God,
but God assumed him (after his baptism), and on account of Him
who assumed, he who was assumed is also called God." Nestorius
asserted rightly the duality of the natures, and the continued
distinction between them; he denied that God, as such, could either
be born, or suffer and die; but he pressed the distinction of
the two natures to a double personality. Instead of theanthropos,
or a God-Man, he makes Christ merely a God-bearing man. The teachings
of Nestorius were condemned by the Council of Ephesus (431).
The confessions
of the Council of Ephesus, composed by Theodoret says:
"Our
Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is perfect
God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and body subsisting;
as to his manhood, born of the Virgin Mary…of the same
essence with the Father as to his Godhead, and of the same substance
with us as to his manhood; for two natures are united with one
another. Therefore we confess ONE Christ, ONE Lord, and ONE
Son. By reason of this union, which yet is without confusion,
we also confess that the holy Virgin is mother of God, because
God the Logos was made flesh and man, and united with himself
the temple [humanity] even from the conception; which temple
he took from the Virgin."
The Eutychian
Controversy/ The Council of Robbers (449)
The error
of Eutychianism or Monophysitism (mono= one; fusiV/ phusis=nature),
urged the personal unity of Christ at the expense of the distinction
of natures, and made the divine Logos absorb the human nature.
The problem was that if Christ is not true man, he cannot be our
example, and his passion and death dissolve at last into mere
figurative representations or docetistic show (docetism: dokein-
to appear). Eutyches (the fortunate. His opponents said
he should have been Atyches (the unfortunate), was presbyter
and head of a cloister of three hundred monks in Constantinople.
He had recently appeared at the Council of Ephesus to argue against
the teachings of Nestorius in 431.
He taught
that the impersonal human nature is assimilated and, as it were,
deified by the personal Logos, so that his body is by no means
of the same substance (homoousion) with ours, but a divine body.
All human attributes are transferred to the one subject, the humanized
Logos. So it can be said: God is born, God suffered, God was crucified
and died. The synod of Ephesus met in 449, and consisted of 135
bishops. It was called by the Emperor Theodosius II because of
a patriarch of Alexandria named Dioscurus. It has been called
the "Council of Robbers" because the council affirmed
the orthodoxy and sanctity of Eutyches and condemned dyophysitism
(dyo=two; phusis=natures/ dual natures of Christ) as a heresy
(this was the orthodox teaching of the West since the time of
Tertullian), and deposed and excommunicated Theodoret, Flavian
(who died shortly thereafter because of violence at the council)
and Leo.
The ancient
alliance between Rome and Alexandria was ripped apart because
of this, and Leo denounced the council as a "synod of robbers."
Theodosius supported Dioscurus but died the following year. The
new emperor had good relations with Leo in the West and the Pope
called a new council to meet in the following year. The place
was to be at Chalcedon, opposite Constantinople, and there 600
bishops assembled at the Fourth Ecumenical Council. The so-called
Council of Ephesus 449, was rejected. Dioscurus was deposed and
sent into exile by the emperor.
The Creed
of Chalcedon: October 22, 451
"We
then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach
men to coness on and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the
same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God
and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial
(homoousion) with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial
with us according to the manhood; in all things like unto us,
without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according
to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our
salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God (theotokos),
according to the manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord,
Only-begotten, in two natures, without confusion, without change,
without division, without separation, the distinction of natures
being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property
of each nature preserved, and concurring in one person (prosopon)
and one subsistence (hypostasis), not parted or divided into
two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten, God
the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning
have declared concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
has taught us, and the creed of the holy Fathers has handed
down to us."
The Aftermath
of the Council of Chalcedon
The creed
produced has been regarded by the Greek, Latin and most Protestant
churches as the "orthodox" solution of the Christological
problem.
The creed
established a norm of doctrine in a field in which there had been
great confusion. It was true to the fundamental conviction of
the church that in Christ a complete revelation of God is made
in terms of a genuine human life.
It secured
a great dogmatic victory for Rome, the imperial authority was
determined that the victory should not be one of Roman jurisdiction.
Alexandria was crippled permanently.
Jerusalem,
Constantinople, and Antioch received the level of Rome as head
of the Christian Church.
The Creed
of Chalcedon was now the official standard of the empire.
As the Nicene
doctrine of the Trinity stands midway between Tritheism and Sabellianism,
so the Chalcedonian formula strikes the true mean between Nestorianism
and Eutychianism.
