Dogmatic Theology — Topic 11
Docetism. Apollinarism.
Contrary
to the clear testimony of Scripture about the reality of the Savior’s humanity
since the first centuries of Christianity, under the influence of the ideas of
Greek philosophy and Near Eastern mysticism, false teachers of various
persuasions have risen up against this truth. They are known by the common
name of docetists (δοκέω - to seem), and their doctrines, by which deny the
real consubstantiality of the human nature of Christ with the human race, are
called Docetism. Docetism is not a particular religious system, but a line
of thought peculiar to Gnosticism. Even the apostles had already been
confronted with docetic ideas, which is why in the New Testament Scriptures
there are statements strongly rejecting docetism: And every spirit that
confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this
is that spirit of antichrist (1 John 4:3). It should be noted that docetic
ideas did not disappear with Gnosticism, they passed into Manichaeism and were
present in a modified form in Apollinarius (4th century), in Eutyches (5th
century), in Monophysitism (especially in the teaching of the
Aphthartodocetes) (6th century). Docetic ideas are present in some Protestant
doctrines.
The Holy Fathers insisted that a doctrine of the flesh of Christ as illusionary was inadmissible because, as St. Cyril of Jerusalem wrote, “If His transubstantiation is an illusion, so is our salvation a dream” (Catechetical and mystagogical Homilies. Homily 4:9). The Church-wide testimony against Docetism was important, but by the fourth century Docetist ideas had reappeared in a different form. While in the first three centuries of Christian history Docetism was reduced to a denial of the consubstantiality of Christ in the flesh with us, in the fourth century Docetism maintained that the Lord possessed a defective, incomplete human nature. The heresiarch was another (after St. Athanasius) excellent and unmoving polemicist against Arianism, Apollinarius of Laodicea (d. c. 392).
He was the first to try to give a theological answer to the question: How is the coexistence of Deity and humanity in the one Christ possible? In answering this question Apollinarius based himself on one of the postulates of Aristotle’s philosophy, which asserted that it is impossible “for an essence to consist of essences which are in it in [a state] of full realization: that which in this state of realization forms two things can never be one thing in the same state” (Metaphysics 1039.a.9-10). Arius and his disciples reasoned similarly, denying the fullness of humanity in Christ. In the era of the Christological controversy this position would be formulated by theologians as “there is no non-hypostatic nature.
Apollinarius also proceeded from the assumptions common to Alexandrian theology, namely the Word-flesh paradigm (understanding the word flesh in John literally) and the postulate expressed by Athanasius: the Word “became man, it did not enter into man.”
Thus, for Apollinarius, the fullness of God in Christ (which he insisted on in his polemic with Arianism) could not coexist with the fullness of man. If this were so, he reasoned, then Christ would have to be two different beings, which is totally unacceptable. Apollinarius therefore concluded that humanity in Christ existed only partially. In doing so, he proceeded from the Platonic anthropological scheme, according to which man is composed of body, soul, and spirit. So Apollinarius presented the incarnation as the union of the Logos and the flesh, animated by an irrational soul, i.e. devoid of its own mind- spirit (νοῦς-πνεῦμα), whose place was taken by the Logos, thus for Apollinarius the unity and wholeness of Christ were preserved.
According to Apollinarius, the Flesh and the Logos constituted the one nature of Christ, which the Laodicean defined as “the one incarnate nature of God the Word” (μία φύσις τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωμένη). This formula would later, under St. Cyril of Alexandria, become the key formula in the Church’s teaching on Christ. The constituent parts of the one nature - the flesh and the Logos - are not equivalent. The divine part reigns over the human part and is the source of life and movement in Christ.
It is a mistake to say that Apollinarius, as well as the Monophysites, confess only a divine nature in Christ. The one nature of Christ, according to Apollinarius, is composite, consisting of a full Deity and an incomplete humanity (without mind, without spirit).
The unity of Christ, which was so important to Apollinarius, was manifested not only in the fact that He had one nature, but also one person, hypostasis, and will: “The One and the Same has one nature, one hypostasis, one will, one person.” The unity of Christ was thus not static, but dynamic. Apollinarius characterized it as a “vital unity.” Christ is one because he has one life and one power, originating in the Godhead and filling humanity with himself.
Apollinarius was refuted by the Cappadocian saints, who had previously venerated him as a fighter against Arianism and corresponded with him. St. Gregory the Theologian was the most systematic and balanced in his formulations.
Among his writings, the letters to Clydonius against Apollinarism should be
singled out. Here, first, it is clearly stated that Christ’s humanity consists
of soul and body and constitutes a separate nature along with the Divine
nature: In Christ “two natures: God and man, just
St. Gregory condemns those who “introduce two Sons, one from God the Father
and the other from the Mother. To illustrate the oneness of the Son, he finds
a formula which has become one of the foundations of the distinction between
natures and hypostases in Christ: “That of which the Savior
St. Gregory offers another formula which is to play an important role in the history of the formation of the doctrine of Christology. It emerged as an argument against Apollinarius’ denial of the human mind in Christ: “If anyone places his trust in a man without a mind (that is, in Christ, devoid of his human mind), he is truly insane and totally unworthy of salvation. For that which is not perceived is not cured; that which is saved is that which is united to God.” Adam fell wholly, and so did the mind, so God perceives the wholeness of the human being for man’s salvation. The phrase “what is not perceived is not healed” has become the key in all matters pertaining to the wholeness of Christ’s perceived humanity.
Apollinarius
and his heresy were condemned at the Second Ecumenical Council. The word
“incarnate” was added to the Creed against the teaching of Apollinarius. And
the Fathers of the IV Œcumenical Council, in their statement of faith, teach
that in Christ one must confess “truly God and truly man, the same of soul and
body,” Christ is called “perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity,” that
is, in the fullness of God and man.
- Docetism. Apollinarism.
- Nestorianism
- Monophysitism
- The Chalcedonian Ηοros
- Monothelitism
Monophysitism
Some of St. Cyril’s followers, blindly and literally following his imperfect terminology and not feeling the spirit of his theology, were led to the heresy of monophysitism, that is, one-nature-ism. One of the progenitors of this doctrine was the Constantinopolitan Archimandrite Eutyches (sometimes, Eutychius, 378-454).
Eutyches
sowed confusion among the Constantinople monks, accusing the ruling bishop of
Constantinople, the Patriarch St. Flavian († 449/450) of Nestorianism. In
turn, Eutyches’ own views were very similar to Apollinarianism. To clarify the
matter, Eutyches was summoned to the Local Council in Constantinople in 448.
Although Eutyches recognized the fullness of humanity in Christ, that is, that He had a rational soul, and in this sense could not be considered an Apollinarian, he denied the oneness and likeness of Christ as human to us. Christ’s humanity for Eutyches was qualitatively different from ours and could not be a complete nature. While for Cyril the formula “one nature” did not exclude that humanity, having its own active beginning, could be considered a nature, for Eutyches this was impossible.
Under pressure from the bishops, Eutyches agreed to speak of two natures, but with a significant reservation: we can speak of the two natures of Christ only before the Incarnation, but after the Incarnation we can speak of only one nature. For Eutychus, the image that revealed the way in which the Godhead and humanity were united in Christ was that of a drop of vinegar dissolved in the sea. Just as a drop of vinegar does not change the properties of seawater, but is itself absorbed into the abyss of seawater, so human nature is dissolved into the abyss of divine nature.
The Council of 448 condemned Eutyches of Apollinarianism and defrocked him.
At the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 (the so called “Robber Council”) under the presidency of Archbishop Dioscorus of Alexandria (nephew of St. Cyril) Eutyches was restored to his rank, and Flavian was condemned for breaking the 7th rule of the III Ecumenical Council on the prohibition to make a new Creed except the Nicene Creed.
Note that afterwards Eutyches was still condemned by the Monophysites as well. Most of the monophysite currents spoke of the oneness of Christ to us in humanity, insisting on the formula “one nature after the union” and that Christ’s humanity could in no way be recognized as a nature.
Monothelitism
The doctrine of the two wills and actions in Christ was developed in Orthodox theology in the seventh century in the context of the struggle against the Monothelite heresy (μόνος - one and θέλημα - will). Unlike previous heresies, such as Nestorianism or Monophysitism, Monothelitism, which was essentially a variant of Monophysitism, was not so much the result of sincere error as of an artificial heresy constructed for political purposes.
The Emperor Heraclius, who ascended the throne in the early seventh century, needed to resist the Persian and then Arab onslaught. He needed to consolidate the empire, which was riven by internal contradictions: there was a struggle between Orthodoxy and Monophysitism, which had by then become the national religion of the peoples inhabiting the outskirts of the empire - the Copts in Egypt, the Syrians and Armenians in the East. It was necessary to seek a compromise that would allow these two religious parties to come to an agreement.
The Chalcedonian Horos emphasizes the activity, the self-movement of human nature in Christ. To the Monophysites this seemed ungodly and aroused suspicion of Nestorianism. As a compromise, Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople proposed the doctrine that in Christ there are two really different natures, but one action and one will. The letter of the Chalcedonian Horos is preserved, no changes need be made to it, and the authority of the Council is preserved. This is, so to speak, the orthodox part of the artificial theological construction. For the Monophysite side, however, the doctrine of the one will and one action of Christ emphasizes the unity of the subject in Christ and eliminates the suspicion of Nestorianism. Pope Honorius and Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria, became proponents of this heresy.
As a
result of the union, the monophysites, even though they gave lip-service to
the existence of two natures in Christ, in reality, they didn’t give up their
heresy at all. Thus, St. Anastasius of Sinai testifies: “The Jacobites in
Syria and the Theodosians in Alexandria, boasting [of their victory], said:
“Not we with Chalcedon, but Chalcedon entered into communion with us,
confessing one nature of Christ through [His] one action” (Three sermons on
the arrangement of man in the image and likeness of God. Sermon three).”
The Sixth Ecumenical Council formulated the doctrine of the two wills and actions in Christ as follows: “We likewise declare that in him are two natural wills and two natural operations indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly,48 according to the teaching of the holy Fathers. And these two natural wills are not contrary the one to the other (God forbid!) as the impious heretics assert, but his human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his divine and omnipotent will.”
Nestorianism
A serious stage in the development of Christology was the Nestorian controversy, which began in the winter of 428-429. At a sermon in Constantinople, Presbyter Anastasius spoke against the term Mother of God (Θεοτόκος) saying that the Virgin Mary did not give birth to God, but to man, calling for the Virgin Mary to be called the Mother of Man (ἀνθρωποτόκος). This aroused the indignation of the people. Nestorius in his sermons repeated the view expressed by Anastasius. According to Nestorius, such names of our Savior as “Christ,” “Son,” and “Lord” signify both His natures. The names “God,” “Word,” and “Son of God” signify only His divine nature, while the names “man,” “child,” “Son of Man,” and “Son of Mary” signify only His human nature. The first names refer to all the facts of Christ’s life, while the second and third names refer to only one part (to each word its own part) of the facts and names. Therefore we can say that Christ is eternal, that Christ died, but we cannot say, “the eternal child,” “God crucified.” The term “Theotokos” (Θεοτόκος) was just as theologically unacceptable from Nestorius’ point of view, since “Mary did not give birth to the Godhead.” The term “mother of man” (ἀνθροποτόκος) proposed by Presbyter Anastasius was certainly accurate in Nestorius’ view, but he proposed the terms “Khristotokos” (Χριστοτόκος) and “Receiver of God” (Θεοδόχος).
Nestorius
was a representative of the Antiochian theological school, whose Christology
was largely developed as the antithesis of Apollinarianism. This school was
always interested in concrete historical reality and paid special attention to
the historical image of Christ, as He appears in the Gospel. A special
emphasis in Christology was placed on the fullness of human nature in Christ,
and the perfection of the Savior’s human nature was emphasized with such force
that humanity was often seen as a kind of independent, separate person,
similar to us in everything, who is only united to the Godhead by some
external divine link. These ideas are especially evident in Diodorus of Tarsus
(305-310 to 394) and Theodore of Mopsuestia (360-428). Nestorius was a
disciple of Theodore and preached his theology.
By endowing Christ’s humanity with its own energy, life, and private being, Theodore significantly increased the distance between him and the Godhead in comparison with the Alexandrian “Word-Flesh” paradigm. This distance was also increased by his polemic with the Arians, which emphasized the transcendence of the Deity in Christ and his ontological distance from created humanity.
Both of these factors, the fullness of humanity and the transcendence of the Godhead, posed to Theodore the difficult question of how humanity and the Godhead are united and how Christ remains a single being. Theodore found a solution to this question in the concept of the relative union (ἔνωσις σχετική) of Deity and humanity by grace (ἔνωσις κατ’ εὐδοκίαν). Having united by divine will, the natures of Christ acquired a single common person, action, and will.
The concept of person (πρόσωπον) is decisive in Theodore’s Christology because it allows him to preserve the unity of Christ despite the distance of the two natures from one another. According to Theodore, Christ appears to us in the Gospel as a single person only subjectively, in relation to an external observer He is a single Being, a single Person, but in Himself He comprises two persons - divine and human. The representatives of the Antiochian school used various examples and images, sometimes rather absurd, to explain the image of the union of the two natures in Christ. Theodore of Mopsuestia has an image according to which divinity and humanity in Christ are united like the union of husband and wife into one flesh. In Nestorius the primary image is that of the house or temple, meaning the person in whom God dwells. In either case this unity is external, it is a unity of power, honor, strength, or goodwill.
The
sermons of Nestorius and his followers provoked sharp opposition to him,
primarily from St. Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria († 444). In this doctrine
he saw the real danger of splitting one Christ into two sons. St Cyril
formulated his Christological views mainly in his polemics with Nestorius and
the theology that the latter embodied. St. Cyril’s theological interest is
focused primarily on the unity of Christ as Son (he says: Christ “remained one
Son;” “humanity became the Word’s own
In his time, Apollinarius of Laodicea tried to defend the unity of Christ, albeit unsuccessfully. St. Cyril is compelled to return to his writings and language, purifying them from errors and reinterpreting some of his formulas. The disciples of Apollinarius, wishing to save these books from destruction, inscribed them with the names of respected Church Fathers, especially St. Athanasius the Great. The most important of these formulas was “the one incarnate nature of God the Word” (μία φύσις τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωμένη). St. Cyril also often uses its abbreviated version: “one nature of Christ.” At the same time he avoids speaking of the two natures in Christ, even when he is actively urged to do so (Succensus).
Nevertheless, he uses the formulas of one nature in a different sense than Apollinarius does. The difference lies, first of all, in the fact that Christ’s humanity, which constitutes with the Godhead this “one nature,” includes not only the flesh but also the intelligent soul: “The body united to the Word was animated with the intelligent soul.” Christ’s soul is capable of suffering along with the body: “But when the inspired Scripture says that he suffered in the flesh, we must also speak in the same way, that is, in human nature” (To Succensus). To summarize this thought, we can say that while for Apollinarius Christ’s humanity was passive and devoid of its own life and energy, for St. Cyril it is active and has a life of its own. It is this dynamic factor of humanity, the presence in it of its own energy, which allows us to believe that St. Cyril considered humanity as a full-fledged nature, in the later Chalcedonian sense.
So, St. Cyril of Alexandria says in his Epistle to Succensus, the whole doctrine of Œconomia is embedded in the word “incarnate:” both the fullness of human nature (the Word took on flesh animated by an intelligent soul), the perfection of Christ not only in Deity but also in humanity, his double consubstantiality (to the Father in His Divinity and to us in His humanity), the existence of impeccable passions, the denial of theopaschism (the Son suffers not in his divine nature but in flesh, that is, in human nature), and that humanity became intrinsic to the Word.
The Chalcedonian Horos
Based on the theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria as interpreted by the patriarchs Proclus and Flavian and the Council of Constantinople in 448, as well as the Tomos of Pope Leo to Patriarch Flavian, new formulations were developed at the IV Ecumenical Council (October 451) to better clarify the mystery of the Incarnation.
- Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; like us in all things, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood;
- One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως γνωριζόμενον); the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis;, so that by union the difference of the natures is in no way abolished, but rather the property (ἰδιώτης) of each nature is preserved, and they are united into one person and one hypostasis;
- not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ; even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us.
The Chalcedonian Horos
Christology
Christological Heresies and Their Refutation
Related Concepts
- adoptionism
- alexandrian-school
- antiochian-christology
- antiochian-school
- aphthartodocetes
- apollinarism
- apollinarius
- cappadocian-theology
- chalcedon
- chalcedonian-adverbs
- chalcedonian-christology
- chalcedonian-definition
- chalcedonian-horos
- complete-humanity
- composite-nature
- confessorshipmartyrdom
- corruption-and-sin
- council-of-chalcedon
- council-of-ephesus
- cyril-of-alexandria
- dioscorus
- dioscorus-of-alexandria
- docetism
- dyothelitism
- dyothelitism-two-wills
- energiesoperations
- essence
- eutyches
- external-unity
- fourth-ecumenical-council
- gnosticism
- gregory-the-theologian
- honorius
- ibas-of-edessa
- idiomata-of-the-natures
- impassibility
- iv-ecumenical-council
- lateran-council-649
- lateran-council-of-649
- leos-tomos
- maximus-the-confessor
- monothelitism
- nestorianism
- new-adam
- nicaea
- nicene-creed
- one-hypostasis
- one-nature-after-the-union
- platonic-tripartite-anthropology
- pope-honorius
- prosopon
- reality-of-the-incarnation
- relative-union
- robber-council
- robbers-council
- sergius-of-constantinople
- single-god-man-action
- single-will
- sixth-ecumenical-council
- st-maximus-the-confessor
- st-sophronius
- st-sophronius-of-jerusalem
- theodore-of-mopsuestia
- theodoret-of-cyrus
- theopaschite-controversy
- to-succensus
- two-wills-and-operations
- two-wills-in-christ
- two-wills-of-christ
- what-is-not-perceived-is-not-healed
- word-flesh-paradigm
- concepts/μία-φύσις-formula
- concepts/ἐνέργεια