What does 'prosopon' mean?

[M. Partyka]

I'm reading the writings of Nestorius, whose Christology was condemned by the 3rd Ecumenical Council at Ephesus. Nestorius speaks of the two natures of Christ being united in one "prosôpon" rather than in one "hypostasis" (as maintained by Cyril of Alexandria, Nestorius' leading opponent). I understand that "hypostasis" means person, but what does "prosôpon" mean, and how is it different from "hypostasis"?

(All I've been able to gather so far is that Nestorius' main concern was preventing the divine nature from suffering those things which Christ suffered in his human nature -- i.e., maintaining the impassibility of the divine nature. However, this led him to go a step too far and say that God the Word did not suffer what Christ suffered, but that rather Christ the man suffered in his humanity being linked to God the Word through the "prosôpon", whatever that is. Thus, it was appropriate in Nestorius' eyes to say that Mary was the "Mother of Christ" but not the "Mother of God", and that "Christ was born and suffered and died" but not that "God was born and suffered and died". The Fathers at Ephesus argued that this was tantamount to splitting Christ into two persons -- one human, who suffered, and one divine, who did not -- who were somehow considered united under the name "Christ", and they instead declared that it was in the singular person of God the Word that the two natures were perfectly joined -- i.e., that Jesus Christ is the selfsame person as God the Word, not a person other than God the Word who was merely linked to God the Word.)

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Mr Partyka,

Christos voskrese!

You ask a good, and extremely complicated, question. Its complication comes in part from the fact that Nestorius himself uses prosopon in multiple ways, and in part from the fact that there was little consistency among anyone else in the period as to how (or if) the term was to be used. You note that 'hypostasis means person'; in actuality, this equation of hypostasis = prosopon is a distinctly Chalcedonian clarification. Prior to the definition of the council, which set the two terms essentially as synonyms, they were in fact used quite differently by many. Part of the council's project was to ease this terminological confusion by giving the two terms common meaning.


To begin with a brief summary of the basic terms:

Hypostasis, Greek, literally means 'sub-sistence', and its literal translation into Latin is substantia. At Nicaea I it was equated to ousia, and therefore a cause for anathema if anyone suggested that the Father and Son were 'of different ousiai or hypostases'. It was therefore not a word applied directly to the Son in distinction for some time; and only with the post-Athanasius period, and the council of Constantinople which removed the anathema from the end of Nicaea's creed, did talk of distinct hypostases of Father, Son and Spirit become widespread in the Church. At literal translation of hypostasis indicates the subsisting, concrete reality of a being or nature.
Prosopon, Greek, is an ancient theatre term meaning 'face' or 'mask'. In the early inter-lingual discussions in the Church, it was often used to translate the Latin persona, or 'person'. This created some confusion when Latin conversations were translated into Greek, and talk of the persona of the Son became prosopon of the Son, which tended to sound somewhat modalistic (as if the Son were just a 'face' of God); though not as much confusion as when Greek was translated into Latin, and the hypostasis of the Son became the substantia of the Son, which sounds bitheistic (as if the Son and Father are different substances / natures).
As to your specific query about Nestorius' usage: Nestorius was driven by Theodore of Mopsuestia's basic conviction, that any ousia (essence) or physis (nature), in order to be real and actually exist, must be 'prosopic'; i.e., it must 'have a face' and actually subsist. To give perhaps a familiar example: 'tree nature' is only a concept, it is real only in an actual tree -- the prosopon or 'face' of that nature. In Theodore's usage, which Nestorius attempted to take on, this was not to speak modalistically, but essentially use prosopon like some others would use hypostasis: to indicate actual, subsisting reality.

Nestorius applied this to his own firm conviction that Christ must be wholly the divine Son, and wholly man. To his logic, this meant that if each of those natures were to be real, rather than just conceptual in Christ (and bear in mind, Nestorius is on the tail end of long disputes over docetism, Apollinarianism, etc.), each must actually subsist prosopically. Thus there must be a prosopon of the divine nature, and a prosopon of the human nature. The question then became, if there are two complete prosopa, in what sense is Christ one? For Nestorius, this was answered be describing what he called a 'prosopon of union': that is, the 'common prosopon' of the human and divine prosopa each fully existing in Christ -- and indeed, it was, for Nestorius, this prosopon of union what was 'the Christ' in a unitive, singular sense. This was why he rejected the title Theotokos for the Mother of God (since he believed no one gave birth to the eternal nature of the Son), but also disliked the title anthropotokos (man-bearer), since what Mary bore was not just a human prosopon, but the 'prosopon of union' that he understood as Christ. Thus his preferred title, Christotokos, 'Christ-bearer', which implied that she bore the union of the two prosopic natures.

Linguistically, that's all rather complex. Yet it betrays an essentially quite simple conception of the incarnational union in Nestorius' mind. Since two natures are required in Christ, and since each nature must be whole and unchanged (so as not to fall into the heresy of Apollinarius), the only way to conceive of their union is, in a sense, to set them side-by-side and have that conjunction (his favoured term was synapheia, 'conjunction) perceived as a singular prosopon.

In this light, it is not difficult to see why his conception was rejected. The questions asked of him in his own day were, 'In what sense is "Christ" really one at all?' 'In what sense did the Word really become flesh in the incarnation?'

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[M. Partyka]

Dcn Matthew,

Thank you for that detailed explanation of "hypostasis" and "prosopon". I learned a lot from it.

It seems that one of the things that constantly shifts around in theology is the meaning of words. Sometimes we use two different terms for what by all appearances seems to be the same action (e.g., "latria" vs. "dulia"), and sometimes we use the same word to represent two different things (e.g., "hypostatic union" per the union of soul and body vs. "hypostatic union" per the union of the divine nature with the human nature).

The major misunderstanding that I would attribute to Nestorius is his equating the divine/human hypostatic union with the soul/body hypostatic union. With regard to soul and body, Nestorius argued that the soul participates in the sufferings of the body (i.e., the soul naturally and unwillingly feels the pain that the body feels). Therefore, if the union between the divine and human natures of Christ is hypostatic and not prosopic, this means that the divine nature must then naturally and unwillingly experience the suffering experienced by the human nature (just as the soul experiences the pain of the body), and this is unacceptable because it negates the impassibility of the divine nature.

Thus, Nestorius argued that God the Word was one hypostasis (of divine nature) while Jesus the Man was another hypostasis (of human nature -- i.e., a soul and body), and that these two distinct hypostases were united under the common prosopon of "Christ". (Or, as you've explained, each hypostasis had its own prosopon, with each one's prosopon being equally regard as belonging to the other.)

Am I understanding all this correctly?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Mr Partyka,

Thank you for your most recent post. I think there is perhaps some confusion of terms; and in particular, of the nuances of Nestorius' thought. I have a suspicion that you're somewhat confusing the complexities of Apollinarius and Nestorius, as it was Apollinarius, if anyone, who took a soul-body model for the incarnation and ran it to its extremes.

You write:


The major misunderstanding that I would attribute to Nestorius is his equating the divine/human hypostatic union with the soul/body hypostatic union. With regard to soul and body, Nestorius argued that the soul participates in the sufferings of the body (i.e., the soul naturally and unwillingly feels the pain that the body feels). Therefore, if the union between the divine and human natures of Christ is hypostatic and not prosopic, this means that the divine nature must then naturally and unwillingly experience the suffering experienced by the human nature (just as the soul experiences the pain of the body), and this is unacceptable because it negates the impassibility of the divine nature.

The distinction between 'hypostatic and prosopic' is largely foreign to Nestorius, for whom the two would have been largely synonymous, though he preferred prosopon (as inherited from Theodore). Hypostasis to him retained some of the bad flavour of its earlier history in the Church, and in any case seemed rather abstract. Prosopon had, for Nestorius, the advantage of indicating concrete reality; hence its association with the reality of a nature, rather than the idea of a nature. Hypostasis, as 'subsistence', seemed to him less concrete, less 'real', in some sense mirroring essense -- and indeed this became more pronounced in his dispute with St Cyril of Alexandria, whose own usage of hypostasis sometimes as an equivalent to physis, would have directly directly backed up this suspicion.


Thus, Nestorius argued that God the Word was one hypostasis (of divine nature) while Jesus the Man was another hypostasis (of human nature -- i.e., a soul and body), and that these two distinct hypostases were united under the common prosopon of "Christ". (Or, as you've explained, each hypostasis had its own prosopon, with each one's prosopon being equally regard as belonging to the other.)What Nestorius actually argued was not that each hypostasis had its own prosopon (this would introduce a third category into his conception of how natures are realised), but that each physis had its own prosopon. In other words, each nature had concrete, real existence -- else it would have been only nominal: an idea only (this he saw as the error of Apollinarius: since Apollinarius saw the union of Word and flesh as analogous to soul and body, and since the Word cannot change, so the flesh is altered in the union - which Nestorius understood (rightly) as giving only an 'unreal' existence to a true human nature in Christ). Further, for Nestorius, since both concrete/real natures (that is, natures existing prosopically) are not permissive of alteration (else God would become less than God [flawed kenoticism], or man less than man [Apollinarianism]), so their 'union' can really only be a conjunction -- and the conjoined realities together are 'the Christ'.

In one sense, Nestorius was merely trying to be faithful to the Cappadocian response to Apollinarius. St Gregory the Theologian had proclaimed that 'what is unassumed is unhealed', which demanded that Christ must not only be truly and completely the Son of the Father (as Nicaea had asserted against Arius), but also truly and completely human (against Apollinarius). Nestorius' Christology was an attempt to be absolute in preserving what St Gregory demanded. The basic flaw in his conception (rightly seen by St Cyril) was in seeing the two natures as somehow separately existing as concrete principles and realities. If this be so, then Nestorius is quite right that there is no way to speak of their 'merging' or 'uniting' without changing (and thus destroying) one, the other, or both. But the fathers quick response to such a concept was to show that it 'divides the Christ'.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[M. Partyka]

The basic flaw in his conception (rightly seen by St Cyril) was in seeing the two natures as somehow separately existing as concrete principles and realities. If this be so, then Nestorius is quite right that there is no way to speak of their 'merging' or 'uniting' without changing (and thus destroying) one, the other, or both. But the fathers quick response to such a concept was to show that it 'divides the Christ'.I'm not sure I understand you fully here.

From what I've read, Nestorius acknowledged the divine nature and put everything pertaining to the divine nature under the personage of God the Word. In other words, God the Word is a divine person -- i.e., a divine hypostasis having a divine nature.

Likewise, Nestorius acknowledged the human nature and put everything pertaining to the human nature not under the personage of God the Word but under a separate, exclusively human personage which he fails to ever name (aside from calling it "the man"). This human personage, to me, is what I would normally think of as a hypostasis -- in this case, a human hypostasis having a human nature.

I tend to think of "hypostasis", then, as being analogous to identity, whereas "nature" is more analogous to a substance possessing properties. In layman's terms, it may be acceptable to say that "nature" means "what" while "hypostasis" means "who". Thus, according to St. Cyril, Christ is one "who" made up of two "whats".

Nestorius' problem with St. Cyril's construction was that it forced him to attribute mutually exclusive properties to a single person -- God the Word is impassible and passible, uncreated and created, immortal and mortal -- and he couldn't reconcile this after the Orthodox fashion. Instead, he insisted that under such a construction one nature or the other must be fraudulent and phantasmal, and that would make our salvation null and void.

As an alternative, he proposed that the human nature of Christ possessed an identity of its own ("the man") separate from the identity of God the Word. God the Word created the universe; "the man" did not. "The man" died and was resurrected; God the Word did not and was not. These two persons were linked only insofar as they shared the same "prosopon", and the best estimate of this word's meaning I've been able to gather from Nestorius' writings is akin to "garment", "clothing", "outward appearance", etc. God the Word is effectively "wearing" "the man" in all that pertains to humanity, and "the man" is "wearing" God the Word in all that pertains to divinity. However, Nestorius argues that because the prosopons of each person are equally possessed by the other, there is effectively only one prosopon ("Christ"), and it is appropriate to attribute to this prosopon the properties of either nature. (One might almost think of prosopon as a "shell" of identity encompassing both persons, or perhaps, in database terms, a "view" joining two "tables" -- you can see all the fields in both tables through a single view.)

However one chooses to see it, the crucial question that needed to be answered by the Council of Ephesus was, "Who was that hanging upon the cross -- God the Word or somebody else?" Though Nestorius would harp on a few choice quotes from St. Ambrose and St. Gregory Nazianzas in supporting his responding, "Somebody else," the true consensus of the Fathers is clearly that God the Word was indeed the "who" (i.e., the hypostasis, or person) hanging upon the cross, and nobody else.

[Daniel Smith]

Here is the definitive Christology of the Assyrian Church of the east as formulated by Mar Babai the Great whol they consider to be a saint and the real systematizer of their actual Christology:

In the sixth century AD, Mar Babai wrote the Teshbokhta or (Hymn of Praise) explaining the theology of the Assyrian Church (http://www.monachos.net/wiki/Assyrian_Church). He Writes:
"One is Christ the Son of God, Worshiped by all in two natures; In His Godhead begotten of the Father, Without beginning before all time; In His humanity born of Mary, In the fullness of time, in a body united; Neither His Godhead is of the nature of the mother, Nor His humanity of the nature of the Father; The natures are preserved in their Qnumas (substance), In one person of one Sonship. And as the Godhead is three substances in one nature, Likewise the Sonship of the Son is in two natures, one person. So the Holy Church has taught."

The only difference (which may make all the difference) is that:

"Clearly, to Babai, Christ is both God and man. But he could not tolerate any form of Theopaschism (http://www.monachos.net/wiki/Theopaschism) (the belief that God suffered), be it the divinity itself, the Trinity (http://www.monachos.net/wiki/Trinity), or one of the hypostases of the Trinity. According to Babai Cyril of Alexandria (http://www.monachos.net/wiki/Cyril_of_Alexandria) stood at the root of simple Theopaschism as professed by the Monophysites, and the Emperor Justinian I (http://www.monachos.net/wiki/Justinian_I) at the root of composite Theopaschism. The Nestorian church could accept expressions like 'Christ died', 'the Son died', but not 'the Word died', even not 'the Word died in the flesh'."

He would not allow the communication of idioms that the person dying is the person of the word and that person is divine, therefore, God the Word died.

BUt it really SOUNDS very chalcedonian. It's no wonder the nestorians counted chalcedon a victory for themselves.

WHICH RAISES A POINT! IF the anathemas against nestorius at Ephesus are straw men anathemas , and if the Anathemas against DIoscorus and Eutyches at Chalcedon are straw men anathemas (Mia physis being orthodox terminology) then is the incurred schism merely formal or truly spiritual? I.E. Can the Orthodox church WRONGLY separate its members from itself?

[Kosta]

Just like many councils, Ephesus 431 had political intrigue behind it. Alexandria didnt like the growing influence of Constantinople whose bishops tended to be elected from the Antiochans.

The theological differences were those that set the Alexandrian school apart from the Antiochan school. In Ephesus the council started before the Antiochan party can arrive. When they did the Antiochan headed by Patriarch John were really ticked off. The Antiochans set up a rival council in Ephesus which exhonerated their fellow coutryman and condemned St Cyril (and i cant really blame them).

In 433 a.d. the Alexandrian party headed by St Cyril reconciled with the Antiochans. St Cyril in his epistle to John of Antioch acknowledged the Antiochan tradition, "For we know that some theologians make some things as pertaining to the One person. And other flyings they divide as to the two natures, and attribute the worthy ones to God on account of the divinity of Christ, and the lowly ones on account of his humanity."

John of Antioch for his part acknowledged the title "Theotokos" for Mary, something Nestorius did not do. Thus the council of Ephesus became ecumenical.

The formula of union epistle was recieved at the council of Chalcedon. The Chalcedonian definition was friendly to the Antiochan school. It probably would have been acceptable to Nestorius except for the reference to the Theotokos.

The third and fourth councils teaches the tradition of the church catholic and keeps a balance between the 2 theologies.

Now as far as the Orthodox church in their dealings with the assyrians and orientals, (as a possible strawman argument) this is looking at the problem from the wrong angle. To understand the differences of theology one must pit the assyrians against the copts. They both emphasize different points and are unwilling to accept the subtle differences. If they did so, they Assyrians would accept the 3rd council and the Orientals the 4th council and problem would be solved.

The best way to understand these differences is too look up online the agreed upon statements made by the Assyrians and the Copts with the Roman Catholics. Both these statements look orthodox and the roman catholic church accepts them as such. Yet the Orientals and the Assyrians would reject the others "agreed upon" statement. Both statements on the surface are not heretical and acceptable, but they are not acceptable for each other.