Apostles is that Christ the Messiah was truly God and truly man. The Christian Church of that apostolic and subapostolic age was a preaching, proselyting, and expanding missionary ecclesia.
Enact theological definition and .dogmatic declaration were alike alien to its primitive principles and antagonistic to that first freedom in the faith. But the speculative tendencies of those transitional times soon showed that two opposite opinions concerning the person of the Messiah Christ were already active. The one was that of the Jewish Ebionites (q.v.), who, tenacious of the inherited tradition of those first followers, permitted the historic presence of his visible humanity to obscure or occlude his invisible divinity. This erroneous overemphasis of the humanity of the Messiah, which was evoked by a defective perception of bin dual nature as true God and true man, was not as evident during the apostolic age as it afterward became, when it persisted in more or less definite denials of his true divinity. The other opinion was that of the Jewish and Gentile Gnostics (see Gnosticism), who, seeking to combine the Christian revelation with various Oriental and Greek systems of speculative cosmology, and equally tenacious of acquired dualistic tendencies, permitted their differing theories of the divine Logos to obscure or occlude his visible humanity; and this equally erroneous exaltation of the Logos Christ above the material world in which he had been incarnated led logically to that overemphasis of his invisible divinity, which was likewise evoked by.a defective perception of his dual nature as true man and true God, which had been more or less evident from the first in the doubt, or in the docetic denial, of his true humanity (see Docetism).
The insidious, persistent influences of these two speculative schools of opposite opinions, neither per-, ceiving the dual aspect of the traditional apostolic teaching that in Christ the Messiah and the incarnate Logos both divinity and humanity must be united in the one person of the Redeemer of man, was to become more and more evident in the Chris-
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tological controversies of the succeeding centuries. Convincing evidence of the pervading presence, in
the subconscious theological thought a. Con- of the Christian Church, of these differ-
ttoversies ing speculative tendencies concerning between the person of the Messiah and Logos Jndaizing became manifest toward the end of the and Pla- second century, during the controversy tonizing caused by the first definite coordination Schools. of Christ as God with the indefinite
Mosaic monotheism of ~ Old-Testament tradition. The Judaizing school of Christians seemingly taught more or leas publicly that the Messiah was a man in whom divinity, or the Spirit of God, had dwelt during his earthly existence. Defending their doctrine from texts of the synoptic Gospels, they tended in their teaching toward the error of Ebionitism during their constant Christological controversy with the opposing Platonizing school of Christians. These latter taught, on the contrary, the preexistence and the eternity of the incarnate Logos. Defending their doctrine from texts of the Johannine Gospel, they tended, in their ditheiamas their Judaizing opponents declared-toward the error of Gnosticism and the docetic denial of the real humanity of Christ. Yet the Messianic teaching of the Judaizera themselves, although apparently truly accepting Christ as the Redeemer of men, continued to cling to that indefinite Mosaic monotheism from whose persistent presence throughout Asia Minor was developed later not only the definite heresy of dynamic Monarchianism (q.v.), which denied the essential divinity of Christ, or asserted it to be a power imparted to his humanity, but also the opposite, though related, heresy of modalistic Monarchianism, known also as that of Sabellius, and of the Patripasaians, who admitted the divinity, but denied the personality, of Christ.
During the continuance of these first Christological controversies in the ante-conciliar Church, there were slowly and silently established two ecclesiastical schools of Scripture-study and theological teaching, Antioch and Alexandria (see Antioch, School of; Alexandria, School of). The school of Antioch, influenced by the Jewish traditions of Syria, was literal, grammatical, and historic in its exegesis; yet this very literalistic interpretation,
applied to the synoptic Gospels, tended 3. Struggle constantly toward that characteristic between overemphasis of the humanity of Christ Antiochene which exposed its Christological teach-
and Alex- ing to the insidious Ebionitic influence andrine persisting in the doctrines of the dy-
Theology. namic and the modaliatic Monarchisnists. The school of Alexandria, influenced by the Greek traditions of that famous center of philosophical speculation, was free, allegorical, and mystical in its exegesis. Thus its freer interpretation, the opposite in method of the rival school of Antioch, of the Johannine Gospel tended continually toward that characteristic overemphasis of the divinity of the incarnate Logos which exposed its Christological teaching to the influence of Gnostic docetiam that denied or ignored the real humanity of Christ. Soon alter the middle of the third cen tury, the traditionally opposite tendencies of these two ecclesiastical schools came into conflict during the doctrinal dissensions caused by the teaching of Paul of Samosata (see Monarchianism, IV., §§ 2-3). 13e, while bishop of Antioch, was impelled to assert again the characteristic Antiochene overemphasis of the human nature of Christ in terms of a modified dynamic Monarchianism, in opposition to the traditional Alexandrine tendency of overemphasizing the divinity of the Logos, already developing in the words of the later Trinitarian teaching of the councils of the Church. The teaching of Paul was condemned as heretical by several successive synods assembled at Antioch to compare his doctrine with that deduced from the traditional orthodox teaching of the several apostolic sees. What this traditional apostolic teaching of the Christian Church was during this ante-conciliar age is shown by the following "Confession of Faith" of the synod convened at Antioch in 251, the heads of which were Dionysius of Rome and Dionysius of Alexandria (qq.v.), while Gregory Thaumaturgus (q.v.) was also an important figure:
" we believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, who was of God and the Father, who was begotten before the worlds of the Spirit, but in the end of days was born of a virgin in the flesh, is one compound person of heavenly deity and human flesh; and also in this, that he is man, wholly God and wholly man; wholly God and with a body, but not in this, that the flesh is God; and wholly man and with man, and with deity, but not in this, that the Deity is man. So also he is wholly to be worshiped and with the body, but not in this, that the body is to be worshiped; wholly to be worshiped and with the Deity, but not in this, that the Deity is to be worshiped (apart from the body?); wholly increate and with a body, but not in this, that the body is increate; wholly made and with the Deity; but not is this, that the Deity is made; wholly coeesential with God, and with the body, but not in this, that the body is coessential with God; se not in this, that God is coeasential with man; though with Deity in the flesh, he is caessential with us. For also when we say that he, being in the Spirit, is a partaker of the nature of God; we say not that he in the Spirit is a partaker of the nature of man. And again, when we declare him in the flesh a partaker of the nature of man, we declare him not in the flesh a partaker of the nature of God. For se in the Spirit, he is not connatural with us, because he is herein coessential with God; so in the flesh he is not connatural with God, because he is s partaker of our nature. Now these things we correct and approve, not the dividing of one person indivisible, but the unconfused peculiar confession of the flesh and of the Deity." (B. H. Cowper, Syriac Miscellanies, pp. 40-41, London, 1861.)
This ante-conciliar Christological confession of faith evidently contains within itself the complete cause of the subsequent Chalcedonian controversy which resulted historically in the century-long charge against the primitive national churches of the East that they teach the Eutychian error, are Monophysitea (see Eutychianism; MONOPHYSITE6), and, therefore, are heretical in their Christology.
That same insidious Ebionitic influence, whose persistent presence in the differing doctrines of Monarchianiem had caused the condemnation of Paul of Samosata, appeared again in the erroneous teaching of Arius (see AluaNisrf), denying the eternal divinity of the Logos, which was condemned as heretical by the first ecumenical council of the Church, convened in 325 at Nicaea. Later in the same century, the Alexandrine Apollinaris of Laodicea (q.v.), one of the chief defenders of the Athanasian Logos doctrine accepted by the Council of Nicaea, began to teach
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4. Contro- animal soul, the Logos existing in the versies of place of its missing spirit. This novel the Fourth teaching was a proof of the tenacious Century. presence, in Alexandrine Christological thought, of that insidious docetic influence from whence had come this definite denial of the real humanity of the Logos, condemned as heretical by the second ecumenical council, convened in 381 at Constantinople. During the controversy caused by the Alexandrine Apollinaris, who overemphasized the divinity of the Logos, the Antiochene Diodorus (q.v.), likewise one of the chief defenders of the conciliar Christology of Nicaea against the Arian schismatics, while opposing, as bishop of Tarsus, Apollinaris' docetic denial of the complete humanity of Christ, and though remaining faithful to the traditional teaching of his own synoptic school, developed a theory of the relation of the seemingly separate coexistence of the divine and the human natures in the one person of Christ which, through the teaching of his pupil, Theodore of Mopsuestia (q.v.), was to reappear in the doctrinal dissensions caused by Nestorius (q.v.) in the succeeding century.
A conflict between the traditional Christological teachings of the two rival schools was inevitable when the Antiochene Nestorius, soon after his elevation to the patriarchate at Constantinople, defended his Antiochene presbyter Anastasius in public protests against the use of the Alexandrine term Theotokos (" Mother of God ") as applied to the incarnation of the Logos in the Virgin Mary. This newer imperial see of Constantinople, established by Constantine the Great, was the object of persistent ecclesiastical plotting by the partizans of the 'apostolic see of Alexandria, the aggressive
5. Conflict opponent of the equally apostolic see between of Antioch, and each of these two rival
Nestorius schools of doctrine contested the the and Cyril of ological terms used by the other. Thus Alexandria. it was that the bishop of Alexandria entered so eagerly into the strife caused by this Antiochene attack on the use of TheoEokos. The fanatical Cyril (see Cyril of Alexandria) was very willing to become the accuser of the equally fanatical Nestorius, and each charged the other with defending that evident Christological error which the traditional teaching of his own school was suspected of propagating. It is doubtful whether or not Nestorius had really asserted a double personality in Christ, as the doctrine of his preceptor, Theodore of Mopsuestia (also ascribed to his predecessor, Diodorus of Tarsus [see Dionoxusj), seemed to teach, when he declared that the Logos was not inseparably incarnated in Christ, but had united his divinity with the man Jesus, " the Son of God dwelling in the Son of David "; and that, there fore, the Logos only cooperated with the human Jesus, two persons, a divine and a human, becoming one in will and act. The Antiochenea were consist ently compelled to emphasize the humanity of Christ, in opposition to the Alexandrine overempha sis of the divinity of the Logos, evident in the do-cetiam of the Apollinarian heresy. Cyril, after formulating twelve anathematizing statements of the alleged errors of Nestorius, including "that Immanuel is not really God, and the Virgin not Theotokos; that there was a connection (synapheia) of two persons; that Christ is a God-bearing man (theophoros); that he was a separate individual acted on by the Logos, and called ` God with him'; that his flesh was not truly that of the Logos; and .that the Logos did not suffer death in the flesh," sought to compel his subscription to them. The answer of Nestorius was a counter-statement of twelve anathematizing articles of the alleged errors of Cyril. Alexandria, with its traditional emphasis on the divinity of the Logos, denied defiantly the orthodoxy, of- Antioch, with its traditional emphasis on the humanity of Christ.
The third ecumenical council was convened in 431 at Ephesus to declare and define the true teaching of the Church on this contested question of the relation of the divine and the human natures in the incarnate Logos Christ. Neither Christological school seemingly perceived that its doctrine was dogmatically defective in emphasizing a single aspect of the duality of the person of 6. Condem- Christ, nor that their differing charao-
nation of teristic definitions could be combined Nestorius. in one orthodox statement. To the deliberate defiance of this truth by Cyril of Alexandria, who with his partizans con trolled the proceedings of this council of Ephesus, can be confidently ascribed all those succeeding schisms and destructive divisions which were later to divide the Christian Church of the East into two antagonistic communions of confederated national churches, unreconciled to this day. The school of Antioch was at this time surprisingly conservative, for the teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia, devel oped from that of his predecessor, ITiodorua of Tar sus, and defended apparently by his own pupil, Neatorius, had not affected adversely its general orthodoxy, even in the opinion of its opponents. It depended on Alexandria, whether or not their truly complementing teachings were to be combined in a fuller form of the common Christological creed. But Cyril, defiant in his defense of the. twelve an athematizing articles rejected by the Antioehene Nestorius, and assured that his partizane predom inated in the assembled council, continued in his predetermined course of condemning the errors ascribed to Nestorius and of deposing him from his episcopate, without awaiting the delayed arrival of John of Antioch and his Syrian auffragans, who, therefore, justly rejected, as contrary to the canons, all completed acts of the council. The third council of Ephesus having approved and adopted as its own declaration of dogma the twelve anathematizing articles of Cyril, every attempt thereafter on the part of the Antiochenea to emphasize the humanity of Christ against the Alexandrines was condemned by them as Nestorianism; and, on the contrary, every attempt on the part of the Alexandrines to emphasize the divinity of the Logos against the Antiochenes was denounced by them as Apollina rianism. Since the Antiochene bishops persisted in their|
563 |
(homoousion) with the Father as to divinity, and of one essence with man as to humanity, for there was effected, say the Antiochene bishops, " a union of two natures; whereupon we confess
Antioch the Son was incarnate and made man,
and Alex- and from his very conception united andria. to himself the temple assumed from her " (Hefele, Conciliengesc3cichte, ii.
228). If this concise Christological creed of 431 be compared with the earlier Antiochene confession of
251, it is evident that, excepting the Athanasian term homoousion and the later Alexandrian Tkeoto
kos, the traditional teaching of the former common faith appears unchanged in the latter. In the first formula, the characteristic Christological confes sion of the incarnation of Christ the Logos is " one compound person of heavenly deity and human flesh "; in the second is seen" a union of two na tures . . . without confusion," etc. The conclu ding declaration of the first formula, " Now these things we correct and approve, not the dividing of one person indivisible, but the unconfused peculiar confession of the flesh, and of the Deity," has no counterpart in the second, shorter symbol, al though its causal connection with the attitude of the Syrians and, through them, of the Armenians, toward the Council of Chalcedon, which was soon to follow, will be shown below. This definite dog matic declaration of the divine and the human na tures in Christ the Logos was what the Antiochene bishops required of the Alexandrine Cyril as a text of his orthodoxy. But the compromise confession accepted by both parties neither conciliated nor satisfied the extremists of those two opposite Chris tological schools. Cyril had, after defining the nat ural distinction and necessary difference between the nature of God and the nature of man which before the incarnation are manifestly two natures and are combined in Christ, asserted that they are two only before the incarnation; in their union in the Incarnate Logos they cease to be two and become one. Thus Cyril, in deliberate defiance of the statement subscribed by himself, seemingly taught, as before, the indefinite earlier doctrine of the " one nature of the Word made flesh " of Athanasius
(q:v.). According to this traditional Alexandrine teaching, the two natures, distinct before, became one after their union in Christ. The one divine person acted in and through both, but it was a single and, therefore, the divine activity, that of the Logos.
This was condemned by the Antiochene school as undeniably docetic in its tendency. The Alexan drine school, in answer to this accusation, charged that the Antiochenes taught the Neatorianism con demned by the Council of Ephesus. This ceaseless
Christological controversy could got fail to force another conciliar conflict between the two rival schools.
In that same imperial city in which the Antiochene presbyter Anastasius, by denouncing, in 428, the Alexandrine term Theotokos, had caused the convening of the third ecumenical council in the city of Ephesus, the Alexandrine partizan Eutyches, archimandrite of a monastery near the city, by denouncing, in 448, the alleged Antiochene teaching of Neatorlan;a,n, was likewise to become the cause of the convening of the fourth and final council of the united Christian Church in the East. But without warning Eutyches himself was accused of heresy concerning the incarnation of Christ. Cited before the assembled synod of Con-
8. The stantinople, he was compelled to con-Eutychian fees teaching that the person of Christ Contro- was of, or out of, two natures, though versy. not in two natures; that the two na tures, distinct before the incarnation, after their union became one; that the human nature of the incarnate Son was changed, since the body of Christ, by union with divinity, became thereby different from that of other men. This do cetic denial of the true humanity of Christ, evidently developed directly from the Alexandrine overem phasis of the divinity of the incarnate Logos, was condemned as heretical by this same synod, and its author was deposed from his dignities. Then Eutyches, who had already accused the Antioehenea to Leo (q.v.), bishop of Rome, of teaching tenacious ly the Nestorianism condemned by the Council of Ephesus, sought his support, assuming that Leo, like himself, was a partizan of the deceased Cyril of Alexandria. Fla,vian, bishop of Constantinople (see Flavian of Constantinople), however, hoping to avert the threatened conciliar conflict, was the one who really secured the support of Leo, who had al ready sent him his "Tome" concerning the Chris tological controversy between the two opposite schools of doctrine. Now Dioscurus, the even more fanatical anti-Nestorian successor of Cyril of Alex andria, allying himself with the powerful political and the numerous monastic defenders of Eutyches against Flavian, and defeated in his attacks on the regularity and canonical course of the synod which had both denounced and degraded that aggressive partizan of his predecessor, secured from the em peror the summoning of a pseudo-council, which, assembling in 449 at Ephesus, was dominated by himself. The acts of the synod of Constantinople having been annulled and the teaching of Eutyches pronounced orthodox by the assembled partizans of Dioscurus, the accused archimandrite, Eutyches was restored to his monastery. The predominating power of the Alexandrine party seemed secure until the unexpected death of their imperial protector, Theodosius II., occurred. Then the succeeding rulers confirmed anew the original deposition of Eutyches by the first synod of Constantinople, and later, hoping to harmonize all dissent within the Church, convened, in 451, the fourth ecumenical council at Chalcedon.
After the assembled bishops had deposed and degraded Dioscurus for his part in the repudiated proceedings of the Synod of Ephesus, the Christolog-
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Chalcedoa. in the dogmatic definition called the Creed of Chalcedon (see Christology, IV., § 2). The "Tome" of Leo, whose doctrinal declarations had undeniably been deduced directly from the several opposite statements submitted to him, first by Neatorius and Cyril, and later by Eutyches and Flavian, had consistently condemned both the crypto-Ebionitism inferred from the alleged Antiochene teaching of Nestorius, and the docetic heresy evident in the Alexandrine teaching of Eutyches. The Council of Chalcedon, in formulating its own creedal statement, not only thereby reaffirmed the truth of the traditional apostolic teaching contained in the Antiochene formula of 251, the NicaenoConstantinopolitan Creed of 381 (see Constantinopolitan Creed), and, indirectly, the compromise Antiochene confession subscribed by Cyril (431), but it developed these comparatively simple doctrinal statements into a complex dogmatic formula of Christological faith, deduced directly from the "Tome" of Leo, the theological terms of which were clear and comprehensible only to bishops whose language was the Greek of the dominant division of the Church in the East.
B. The Separated Syrian Churches: But there were also the two allied non-Greek divisions, whose participation in the ecumenical councils of the Church was necessarily limited, since their ecclesiastical languages were Syriac and Armenian. The Syrian-speaking bishops throughout the East, because of this diversity of language, were free from the immediate influence of the incessant Christological controversies between the Greek schools of Antioch and of Alexandria. In the dissension evoked by the errors of Eutyches, their history tells freely and fully why the Creed of Chalcedon. was rejected, and indirectly explains how the stigma of defending Eutyches and accepting his heresy was unjustly affixed to them by the Chalcedoniana or Greek partizana of the fourth ecumenical council, whose dogmatic declaration z. Creed of was repeatedly confirmed or ignored,
Chalcedon according as the emperors of the EastRejected were swayed by the political and ecclesy the siastical defenders or oppoaers of its
Syrians: course and of its canon. After reciting how Flavian and Eusebius had " in sisted to the wicked Eutyches that the body of our Lord was a partaker of our nature, he confessed this which before he would not confess. They also urged him to confess that there are two (i.e., sepa rate) natures in Christ. And because he would not eonf era this, they made this deposition. This cause forced Theodosius to assemble the second synod ofEphesus. And when that was read before them which was done in the imperial city, they found that Flavian required Eutyches to confess two (i.e., separate) natures; and they made the deposition of Flavian and Eusebius. Eutyches presented a. document in which was the creed of Nicaea, and the Godclad fathers anathematized all who had accused him, ` by this which deceived them as men, that wicked matter of ungodly heresy which was in his soul'; for it is written that man sees into the eyes, and the Lord sees into the heart " (Cowper, ut sup., pp. 89-91). The ceaseless controversy between the Greek defenders of the Council of Chalcedon and the anti-Chalcedoniana was precisely this question of the two natures in Christ, whether they existed separately after, as Nestorianism seemed to say, or became united in and through his incarnation in the flesh, as taught by all the accepted confessions of
the Church. That the anti-Chalce-2. Reasons donians-the Syrians, Copts, and Arfor this menians-rejected consistently this
Rejection. Eutychian error of an absorption of Christ's humanity into his divinity is conclusively proved by the assertion, already cited, that Eutyches' deceptive confession of faith (like the equivocal creed of Arius) had actually deceived his own defender, Dioscurus, and the entire synod of Ephesus. Only because of this were they misled in declaring him orthodox, not heretical. .The term "Eutychianism"therefore, must be accepted as synonymous with "Monophysitiam," i.e., the docetic denial of the reality of the human nature of Christ. It can have, historically, no other or added meaning; to deny this is to assert that the entire ante-conciliar Church, which had accepted the Antiochene con fession of 251, was then and thereafter also Mono physite, and, therefore, heretical in its traditional Christological teaching. The difference between the anti-Chalcedoniana and the Chalcedonians was, as they state themselves, whether the disputed dog matic declaration of this council, in condemning the evident error of Eutychianism, had not inclined in stead to the alleged opposite teaching ascribed to Nestorius. The traditional Christological term of the first Antiochene formula is " one compound per son of heavenly deity and human flesh "; the defini tion of the second compromise formula. is similar in statement, " a union of two natures, wherefore we confess one Christ." Furthermore, the first for mula asserts, finally, " Now these things we correct and approve, not the dividing of one person indivis ible, but the unconfuaed peculiar confession of the flesh and of the Deity." This, then, was the justifi cation of the anti-Chalcedonians for charging the Chalcedoniana with teaching, in their dogmatic con ciliar declaration, a seeming separation of the two natures, in opposition to the confessions asserting a union of the two natures in Christ.To a Greek bishop, the Greek terms of the Creed of Chalcedon were clear and convincing. To a Syrian bishop speaking Syriac, with its one word for the two Greek terms phys6s (" nature ") and prosopon (" person ") or hyPostasis, there same terms were debatable, unorthodox, and doubtful. Even in orthodox Greek Alexandria, the anti-Chalcedonian partizans of their former patriarch Dios-
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Chalcedonian Leo, who had succeeded 3. Fruitless the Emperor Martian, the Creed of Attempts at Chalcedon was opposed generally by Reconcilia- the monks and their political partizane
tion, throughout the East. After his death, the intruding Basiliscua annulled the imperial approval of his two predecessors in con firming the conciliar acceptance of the "Tome" with the creed, but he was soon displaced by the Chalcedonian Zeno (q.v.) whose unsuccessful efforts to reconcile the opposing ecclesiastical parties re sulted in the promulgation of the compromise Henaticon (q.v.) in 482, condemning both Neato rianism and Eutyches, but not imposing on the Church the creed of the fourth Council of Chalce don in addition to the dogmatic declarations of the three councils preceding. As before, during the ceaseless controversy after the compromise Anti ochene confession had been accepted by the Alex andrine Cyril, the extremists of both the Chalee donian and the anti-Chalcedonian parties refused to be reconciled by this substitute neutral statement.What the Christological teaching of the Syrians was during these troubled times is evident from the doctrine of Philoxenus (q.v.), the anti-Chalcedonian bishop of Hierapolia (c. 500), and from that of the anti-conciliar Severus (q.v.), his contemporary, and
anti-Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch 4. Syrian in 513. " Disturbances being caused in Christology Palestine (in 508) by a certain Nephaat this lius, who, from being one of the extreme
Period. Monophysite party, had turned Chalce-donian, and, with the assistance of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, was expelling many monks from their monasteries, Severus, seeking to counteract the movement,, went to Constantinople, where he wrote a treatise against the charge of Eutychianism, the Philalethes, against those who found the Chalcedonian doctrine in Cyril. Here he remained three years until after the ordination of Timothy to the see of Constantinople (511); after which he returned to Majuma and immediately set himself to abolish the Henoticon compromise, whereby all mention of the Council of Chalcedon had been expunged, and to procure the deposition of the patriarchs Flavian of Antioch and Elijah of Jerusalem " (Sixth Book of the Select Letters of Severuc, ed. E. W. Brooke, Introduction, 2 vols., London, 1902--04). " And at the same time Severus of Antioch becamQ known who wrote several books concerning the ques tion of the one nature of the divine and the human, without mixture and without confusion or corruption;
so that they continue each in its own place, as the nature of man consists of a spiritual nature and of the body, and the nature of the body consists of two natures, the one material and the other of form, without the soul being changed into the body, or the material parts into the form, or the contrary " (E. F. K. Forteseue, The Armenian Church, p. 281, London, 1872). Herein is again asserted the traditional Antiochene teaching of "one compound person" of the first formula, with the added dogmatic declaration against the error of Eutyches, "without mixture, confusion, or corruption," the last word against the "aphthartodocetics" (see Jurxarr of HnricnR.rrnssus). The use throughout of the term "nature," where the Greeks would alternate their two corresponding terms physis (" nature ") and prosoPan (" person ") or hyPostasis, proves that the Creed of Chalcedon is untranslatable into Syriac, as it also is into Armenian and into Coptic.
This Christological creed is found developed more fully in the doctrinal declaration of Philoxenua who, in his treatise on the incarnation, asserts that the nature (i.e., the person) of Christ is composed of divinity and of humanity, without conversion, confusion, or commixture. He teaches that the Son, one of the Trinity, united himself with a human body and a rational soul in the womb of the Virgin. His body had no being before this union. In it he was born, in it he was nourished, in it he suffered and died. Yet the divine nature of the Son did not
suffer or die, nor was his human nature g. Chris- or his agency or death merely visionary,
tology of as the docetic Gnostics asserted, but Philoxenus. actual and real. Furthermore, the
divine nature was not changed or transformed into the human, or confused or commixed with it; neither was the human nature changed or transmuted into the divine, or commixed or confused with it; but a peculiar cooperation (i.e., Communicatio idiomatum [q.v.]) of the two natures was effected, similar to that by means of whose union the body and soul become one human being. For as the soul and body are united in. one human nature, so from the union of the divinity and the humanity of Jesus Christ has proceeded a nature (i.e., person) peculiar to himself, not simple but compound; the "one compound person" of the first Antiochene formula., also ascribed to Athanasius in his term "The one nature of the Word made flesh," and continually used by his Alexandrine successor Cyril. The Eutychians or Monophysites were, however, notorious, even before the Council of Chalcedon, for asserting, in addition to their original heresy of the absorption of the hamanity of Christ by his divinity, the error that the human nature of Christ existed before his incarnation in the womb of the Virgin.
During the centuries following the final separation of the anti-Chalcedonian Syrians from the Greeks of the Byzantine patriarchates, their traditional teaching concerning the several sections of the fundamental apostolic faith of the Christian Church was like that of the Greeks, formulated in an authori tative and accepted system of dogma. Therefore, when the patriarch of the Syrian Jacobite Church,
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Peter Ignatius III., in the interest of the Syrians of South India under the secular authority of the English government, presented himself in
6. Modern 1874 to the archbishop of Canterbury Syrian and the bishops of the Anglican Confession Church, the traditional imputation to of Faith. the Syrians of the heresy of Eutyches, or Monophyaitiam, could not fail to become prominent. This century-long charge was fully controverted by the following sections of the " Creed of our Holy Fathers, the Pillars of our Eastern Syrian Church, St. James of Niaibis, St. Ephraem, St. James the Divine, and others, recognized by all (churches), and also of my unworthy self (the patriarch), as taken from our Lords the Holy Apostles, and divided into twenty-five chapters or articles ":
I. Whosoever shall say that the Son of God is not very God, even as the Father is very God, and that he is not coequal with the Father in essence, sovereignty, and eternity, let him be anathema.
II. Whosoever shall say, that the Son is not begotten of the Father, essentially and eternally, let him be anathema.
III. Whosoever shall say that the Son of God, when he sojourned on earth in the flesh, was not in heaven with the Father, let him be anathema.
IV. Whosoever shall say that in that humanity, he did not nit at the right hand of the Father, and that he shall not come again as be is, to judge both the living and the dead, let him be anathema
V. Whosoever shall say that Christ underwent change and alteration, and does not confess that his soul underwent no change, and that his body did not see corruption as it is written, let him be anathema.
VI. Whosoever shall say that Christ became perfect man by separation (from the divine essence?), and does not confess of our Lord Jesus Christ that he is one as it is written, let him be anathema.
VII. Whosoever shall say that one (nature) suffered, and that the other (nature) was absent at the time of the Passion, and does not believe that God, the impassible, suffered in the flesh as it is written, let him be anathema.
VIII. Whosoever shall say that Christ was human like all other men, and does not believe of him that he was incarnate and became man by the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, a daughter of David, as it is written, let him be anathema.
IX. Whosoever shall say that the holy Virgin Mary is the mother of Christ, and does not confess that she brought forth the Word of God, who was incarnate, and became man, let him be anathema.
X. Whosoever shall say that the body of Christ is an offspring of the divine essence, and does not confess that he was God before the foundation of the world, who humbled himself and took upon him the form of a servant, as it is written, let him be anathema.
XI. Whosoever shall. say that the body of Christ was a phantom or mere image, and does not confess that his was s real body like ours, and that the Virgin Mary brought forth the incarnate Word in a real body, let him be anathema.
XII. Whosoever shall say that when God the Word became united to the body, the divine nature was commingled with the human nature, or that the two natures became commixed and changed so as to give rise to a third nature, and does not confess that the two natures became united in indissoluble union without confusion, mixture, or transmutation, and that they remained two natures in an unalterable unity, let him be anathema.
XIII. Whosoever shall any that the Word of God is created, and not Creator, and does not confess that he is Creator even as is the Father, and that he is coequal with the Father and the Holy Spirit in essence, power, the creation of created things, sovereignty, and eternity, let him be anathema.
XIV. Whosoever shall say that the Holy Spirit is created and not Creator, and that he is of time and not eternal, and does not confess that he is Creator even se is the Father, and as is the Son, and that he is coequal with the Father and the Son in essence, eternity, dominion, power, creation,
majesty, and sovereignty, and that he proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son, and that he is with the Father and the Son, eternal and everlasting, let him be anathema.
XV. Whosoever shall say that the Holy Spirit is not of the essence of the Father, as the Son is of the essence of his Father, and God of God, let him be anathema.
XVI. Whosoever shall say that the Holy Spirit is not omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, as is the Father, and as is the Son, let him be anathema.
XVII. Whosoever shall say that the visible and invisible things of creation were not created by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let him be anathema.
XVIII. Whosoever shall say that the Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not all of one, and does not confess that the three blessed persons are verily and indeed one in eternity, dominion, sovereignty, and will, let him be anathema.
XIX. Whosoever shall say that the persona of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not verily and indeed coequal in all things, ever-living, having dominion over all things visible and invisible, all-judging, all-recompensing, and giving life to all, let him be anathema.
XX. Whosoever shall say that the Holy Spirit is not to be adored and worshiped by all creatures, equally with the Father and the Son, let him be anathema.
XXI. Whosoever shall say that God the Father is alone God, to the exclusion of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and shall teach or believe that worship belongs to the Father alone, excepting them, and does not believe of the three blessed persona, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that they are one God, one (object of) adoration, one judge, as the holy catholic and apostolic Church believes, let him be anathema.
XXII. Whosoever shall say that the Trieagion which is said in the liturgy is (addressed) to the three blessed persons, and shall truly so believe, and shall then improperly add to the Trisagion, "Who wart crucified for us," and shall not believe what our Syrian Jacobite Church believes with a firm faith undoubtingly, and which ascribes the Trisagion to the only begotten Son, the Word, who was pleased to be born of the holy Virgin Mary, and become flesh, as it is written, and of his own will and pleasure was crucified out of his great love for us, in token of his overflowing bounty and beneficence to us, let him be anathema (Church Times, September, London, 1874.)
III. The Separated Armenian Churches: Since the Armenian Church existed, for the greater part, in the borderland between the Byzantine and the
Persian empires, and was actually under the rule of the latter, it was, both for this reason and because of its differing ecclesiastical language, unable to parti cipate freely and fully in the successive ecumenical councils of the Christian Church convened in the
East. Although unrepresented at the third council, that of Ephesus (431), Cyril of Alexandria addressed to the patriarch of the Armenians a statement of the doctrines discussed and the decision of the council condemning as heretical the alleged errors of Nea
torius. This letter was entrusted to certain pupils
of Mesrob (q.v.), whom he had sent
1. Reasons to Constantinople to translate into
for Non- Armenian the several books written by
represents- the fathers of the Greek Church, and
tion at was soon after delivered by them to
Ecumenical their preceptor. Thereupon Mearob~
Councils. convened a synod of the Armenian
bishops, doctors, and confessors, to
whom this letter of Cyril's, containing the acts and the decision of the council, was read. After they had discussed and approved its several statements, they condemned and anathematized anew the heresy ascribed to Nestorius. During the early part of 451,
while the fourth council was assembling at Chalce
don, the Armenians were being persecuted persist-
|
567 |
ently by their anti-Christian rulers, who sought to compel them to abandon their traditional faith and teaching, and accept the Zoroastrianism of their Persian oppressors. For this reason it was impossible for the Armenians to send representatives to the council, of whose deliberations and decisions, unlike that of the previous council of Ephesus, they were left in ignorance by the assembled Greek bishops.
But soon after this, the many monastic and other opponents of the council of Chalcedon began to spread themselves farther and farther over Asia, asserting continually that the Greeks had accepted the errors of Nestorius which had been rejec~ed by the preceding council of Ephesus. Later the followers and partizans of Eutyches came to Armenia, seeking to secure Armenian sympathy by defending his teachings and denouncing the Creed of Chalcedon, while, at the same time, the supporters of Neatorius, seeking also to influence the Armenians in his favor, asserted that this council was compelled to accept his teaching even though the Council of Ephesus had condemned him, since only thus
a. Hesita- could they controvert the heresy of tics to Eutyches. During this time, when Accept the these opponents of the Greeks were Creed of seeking to secure the support of theChalcedon. Armenians, a very defective translation of the letter of Leo to Flavian, concerning the errors of Eutyches, was brought to their attention. The bishops, in examining its teaching concerning the two natures of Christ, one of which was divine and the other human, could not fail. to perceive that the phrase "the one and the other" had been translated by a term used only of persons but not of attributes. Thus it was that, although Leo spoke of two natures, the Armenian translation referred instead to two persons. And although the Greek defenders of the Creed of Chalcedon asserted its undoubted orthodoxy, the counter-claims of the defenders of Nestorius and his teaching seemed to be supported by the dubious doctrine of Leo's letter, which had been used in the formulation of this disputed conciliar declaration of the faith. While the Armenian bishops were deliberating year after year whether to reject or to accept this decision of the Council of Chalcedon, a copy of the proclamation of the Greek Emperor Zeno, imposing the acceptance of his Henoticon, which had already been signed by many Byzantine bishops, was brought to their attention. Babken, the patriarch of the Armenians, having examined the Henoticon with its many subscriptions, which, although condemning both the asserted errors of Neatorius and the evident heresy of Eutyches, had passed over without notice the disputed dogmatic declaration of the Council of Chalcedon, approved and accepted it as orthodox, since it undeniably agreed with the teaching of the three first councils of the Church. Then, after these dissensions over this disputed council had continued year after year, the patriarch convened, in 491, a synod of all the Armenian bishops, including the primates and suffragans of the Albanians and the Georgians, to determine finally whether to reject or accept as ecumenical the Council of Chalcedon. After they had again anathematized the errors of
Nestorius and Eutyches, the Henoticon was read, approved, and accepted as orthodox throughout; and since it was known to all that the Greeks themselves were divided on the question of recognizing their own council, they also refused to consider it as an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church (see AxaEmn, III., § 3). Then, when later in that same year the successor of Zeno, the Emperor Anastasius, issued a decree forbidding all further discussion concerning the Council of Chalcedon and its creed, the Armenian bishops were confirmed in their decision to refuse it recognition. And, although doubting the entire orthodoxy of the dogmatic conciliar declaration, in view of the apparent heterodoxy perceived in the translation of the Letter of Leo which they had already examined, they admitted and accepted the teaching of the Creed of Chalcedon in so far as it had reasserted the traditional apostolic teaching of the three first, and undisputed, councils of the Church.
But the expression used in Leo's letter, "the two natures in Christ," continued to confuse the Armenians, since the Syrians, who were also active anti-Chalcedonians, asserted that it had inclined to the error ascribed to Nestorius, and by the term "two natures" it seemingly taught a separation of the two natures in the one Christ. The Armenians, therefore, to contradict the asserted error of the Chalcedonians, adopted as their own the expression
of Cyril of Alexandria against Nesto3. Armenian rius, " the one nature of the Word Doubts on made flesh "; and in using this term
Leo's "one nature in Christ," they taught Letter to and believed it to be equivalent to Flavian.. one personality (Armenian, like Byr-iac, must use its one terms where the Greek can alternate pkysis with hypostasis or prosopon) resulting from the indivisible union of the two natures. This expression later became the cause of many controversies which continued for centuries between the Armenians and the Greeks, the latter seeking, through the secular authority of the emperors of the East, to secure Armenian acceptance of the disputed Creed of Chalcedon, thus compelling their theologians to write defenses of their orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ to counteract the claims of their Greek opponents that they taught the Monophysite heresy of Eutyches. In these declarations, they state definitely that the formula "two natures in Christ" signifies that "Christ is one," true God and true man, possessing perfectly both the divine and the human natures united in him without confusion and without division; having suffered the passion and death in his humanity, but impassible and immortal in his divinity.
The Armenian Church, as a result of its contact with the Latins during these centuries before and after the final separation, in 1054, of the Greek and Latin churches, unlike the other divisions of the Chris tian Church in the East, accepts the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed (i.e., without the 1'ilioque) in addition to the Nicaeno-Conatantinopolitaa; t4hich is imposed on all divisions of the Catholic Church , throughout the entire East. and the entire West. The teaching of the Armenians on those disputed|
568 |
doctrines connected with the Creed of Chalcedon is seen in the following commentaries on the confession of the Catholic faith found in alt copies of their prayer-books used by the clergy and laity:
Wherefore, since we, in common with all other Orthodox Christians, confess the same God and the same Christ, it is moat necessary to show what the Armenian Church teaches concerning the chief articles of the 4. Armenian Christian faith, namely, of God, one in three
Confession persons, of the incarnation person, office, and merits of Christ, with all other doctrines con- of Faith. netted with these. For from this may be seen whether or not the Armenians teach, as they have been charged continually by their opponents, the here sies of the Monophysites and of the Monothelites, who assert that in Christ there is only one nature and only one will.I. We confess, and with our whole (most perfect) heart believe in, the Father, God (who is) not created, not begotten, but without beginning (who) also is begetter of the Son, and breather forth of the Holy Spirit.
II. We believe in the word (of) God, (who is) not created, (but) begotten, and (who has his) beginning from the Father, before the worlds. Who is neither posterior nor less, but as the Father is Father, so also is the Son (truly) Son.
III. We believe in the Holy Spirit, (who is) not created (and) not of time; not begotten, but breathed forth from the Father, of the same essence with the Father, and of the same glory with the Son.
IV. We believe in the Holy Trinity, one nature, one Godhead-not three Gods but one God-one will, one kingdom, one sovereignty, maker of things visible and invisible.
V. We believe in a holy Church, a remission of sine, and a communion of saints.
VI. We believe (that) one of the three persona, the Word (of) God, begotten of the Father before the worlds, in time came into the Virgin Mary, the mother of God (Theotokos), took of her blood, and united it with his Godhead (divinity), dwelt patiently nine months in the womb of that pure Virgin, and was made (or became) perfect man, in spirit (or soul), and mind, and body; one person, one figure (or appearance), and united in one nature. God was made (or became) man, without change, without alteration; conception without seed, and generation without corruption. And as there is no beginning to his Godhead (divinity), so also is there no end to his humanity; for Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, and to-day, and even forever.
VII. We believe (that) our Lord Jesus Christ, having gone about on the earth, after thirty years, came to baptism; (that) the Father bare witness, "This is my beloved Son," and the Holy Spirit, in the likeness of a dove, came down (above him). (That) he was tempted of Satan and overcame him; preached the salvation of men, labored in the body, hungered and thirsted; and after that, of his own free will, came into (his) passion, was crucified, dead in the body, but alive in his Godhead (divinity). His body was laid in the grave, united with his Godhead (divinity), and in spirit he went down into Hades in his undivided Godhead (divinity), preached to the spirits, spoiled Hell (i.e., Hades) and set free the spirits. After three days, he arose from the dead, and appeared to the disciples.
VIII. We believe (that) our Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven in that same body, and eat at the right hand of God (the Father), and that he is to come (again) in the same body, and with the glory of the Father, to judge the living and the dead; that is also the resurrection of all men.
IX. We believe also in the retribution for works (done in the body); to the righteous, life everlasting, and to sinners, everlasting torments.
The Armenian Church teaches constantly that Christ the Savior is God-Man, "perfect God and perfect man." But when, as a consequence of the error of Eutyches, unceasing controversies were evoked throughout the entire East, the Armenian Church introduced into its confession, to controvert his heresy, "in spirit (or soul), and mind, and body," thereby declaring that the human nature of Christ consists of all the essential parts that constitute man, truly and really, and not in appearance only. Furthermore se (the words) "spirit and mind (or intellect)" are understood (by all) to be synonymous in meaning, they therefore explain each other. The word "spirit" (in Armenian) is used for the untreated spirit, and for the created spirit or soul, while the word "mind" is used for the intellect or conscience,
the whole of which, taken together, constitutes a complete, perfect, and true man. For as Gregory of Nsrek says,* "since our human nature was not corrupted by sin in part alone, but wholly, in spirit (or soul), mind, and body, so also did the word assume it wholly and unite it with himself" (with his divinity). This, therefore, was taught by the Armenian Church in opposition to the monothelite Apollinaris, as is later asserted by Nerses IV. (q.v.). Neither is the body without mind, as Apollinaris said, that God the Word dwelt is the body as s statue without spirit (Fortescue, ut sup., pp. 256-258). And the same patriarch, in his formula of faith, submitted to the Emperor Emmanuel Comnenus, declares also that the words "one person, one figure (or aspect)" were added against the error of Nestorianism. Wherefore, says he (Fortescue, ut sup., p. 274), "do we not sever, like Nestorius, the one Christ into two natures and two parts," quoting the words of Gregory Nazianzen, "he is not one, and another, but one by that mixture (union) "; adding also the declaration of that same orthodox father, "that it is clear that Christ is double in nature but not in personality" (cf. NPNF, 2 aer., vii. 209, 312).
Thus do the Armenians teach the two generations or births, the one from the Father before the worlds, and the other from the holy Virgin in the fulness of time, but they also confess the two natures (as inseparable, i.e., the Communiratio idiomatum) when mention is made either of the one or the other abstractedly; for they confess that the divine nature of Christ, which is of the essence of the Father, is united in the Word with human nature. Therefore Nerses IV. says, "thou who, when suing proof of thy human nature during that night, west greatly troubled with fear." And again, when mention is made of the person of the Son of God g. Armenian and of man, in a concrete sense alone,
Teaching Armenian fathers declare fearlessly on the Two that he has one nature (i.e., person-
Natures. ality) by reason of the intimate union (of the two natures within himself); wherefore to the confession of faith were added the words, "he is united in one nature." All the ceaseless controversies, during the centuries after the rejection of, the Council of Chalcedon by the Armenians, between them and their oppo nents, the Greek defenders of its dogmatic con ciliar declaration, were evoked by the use of thin term to define the incarnation of the Word. These words, added to the confession of faith after Cyril of Alexandria had used them in his controversy with Nestorius (i.e., the Alexandrine phrase of Atha nasius, " the one nature of the Word made flesh "), as adopted by an orthodox father, were thenceforth defended by the Armenians, even though ,their adversaries, by citing the words against them, seemingly proved that the Armenian teaching on the incarnation and the person of Christ was heterodox, and Eutychian or Monophysitic. But during this same period when the Armenians began to use this term against the assumed Nestorianizing teaching of the Creed of Chalcedon, Severus, later the anti Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch, was likewise using it against those who sought to support the doctrine of Chalcedon by citations from the writings of Cyril. Athanasius declares (De incarnations, vol. ii.): " We confess the Son of God to be God according to the Spirit, and man according to the flesh; not two natures in the one, and only one nature to be worshipped and another not (cf. the * Forteacue, ut sup. p. 273.|
569 |
6. Armenian two natures in one personality and
Rejection Godhead (in one divine person)."
of Eutych- This same statement was reaffirmed by ianism. him at the Synod of Tarsus, when, as a result of the antagonism between the Greeks and the Armenians arising from their refusal to accept the Creed of Chalcedon, they had been denounced to the Latins of the West as Eutych ians. Neraes IV., in his declaration of doctrine delivered to the Greek emperor of the East, states solemnly (Fortescue, ut sup., p. 277): " Neither do we, like Eutyches and his followers, gather two (natures) into one by confusion and alteration "; and later he affirms thin again by saying: " Thus have they refuted and disproved the mode of con fusion held by Eutyches and his followers, and all those who, before and after him, said erroneously that in Christ is only one nature, by declaring that each nature, the divine and the human, continues un
changed, undestroyed in the union of the two."
And, finally, he concludes his dissertation on the doc
trines taught by the Armenian Church by declaring
(Fortescue, ut sup. p. 277): " Wherefore, in accord ance with what has been delivered unto us by the orthodox fathers, we do anathematize all those who say that the nature of the Word made flesh is one, by means of confusion and alteration; and that he did not take his human nature and unite it with his Godhead, but that he created for himself a body in the womb of the Virgin; or that he brought it from heaven; or that he appeared man only to
the eye and not really (or in truth); and all others
who may hold one nature in any such sense." The
true teaching concerning the person of Christ as
expressed in the phrase " the union of Christ in one
nature," according to these doctrinal declarations of the Armenians, is summarized clearly and con vincingly by the Patriarch Nersea IV. (Fortescue, ut
sup. p. 278) : " We believe thus, that God the Word,
who wen begotten of the Father before all worlds,
who is invisible and impassible, took our nature perfectly from the Virgin and united it with his divine nature, without confusion in an indivisible union; and he continued invisible in his divinity, but visible through his humanity; impalpable and palpable." (See, further, Christology, Monophysites.)
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