Understanding the terminologies of Chalcedon [Archive]

M.C. Steenberg

10-12-2008, 12:30 PM

Dear Cyril,

Thank you for your post and the new thread, which addresses some very interesting and important questions on the language of the fifth-century councils. As language, and precision of language, was precisely one of the key issues in the debates of that period, understanding the nuances of the language is important in understanding the work of those councils as a whole in articulating the faith of the Church.

Looking specifically at the language you mentioned, you wrote:

1. "Christ is two natures after the union"- These phrase seems to have been confessed by Flavian of Constantinople at the synod of 448, by Maximus the Confessor, and various other Chalcedonian writers. What does this mean?

2. "Christ is in two natures after the union"- This was found in the Tome of Leo and also the Chalcedonian Creed in the phrase "we recognize Christ in two natures". What does this saying mean?

I thought it best to take these two together, since both phrases address similar concerns. Specifically, both focus on the question of the abiding realities of the full divinity and full humanity in the incarnate Son, in the face of what were understood to be confessions of the incarnation that reduced these full, natural realities to something lesser in their union.

Perhaps it is helpful to see St Leo's comments, from the Tome to Flavian (http://www.monachos.net/content/patristics/patristictexts/177-leo-tome), in slightly fuller context. Speaking about the fact that Eutyches has not (yet) received firmer censure by eastern Church authorities, he writes:

"[...] the Catholic Church lives and advances by this faith: that in Christ Jesus we should believe neither manhood to exist without true Godhead, nor Godhead without true manhood. But when Eutyches, on being questioned in your examination of him, answered, 'I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union, but after the union I confess one nature', I am astonished that so absurd and perverse a profession as this of his was not rebuked by a censure on the part of any of his judges, and that an utterance extremely foolish and extremely blasphemous was passed over, just as if nothing had been heard which could give offence."
What St Leo insists is inappropriate, is the confession of the incarnation as -- whatever else may be implied in the 'before' of Eutyches' confession -- yielding a Christ that 'after the union' represents only a single natural reality. For Leo, this means that the authenticity of the true divinity, just as much as also the authenticity of the true humanity, is debased. One encounters, in this confession of the incarnation, a Christ who is neither 'true Godhead', nor 'true manhood'.

He expands on this:

"[...] seeing that it is as impious to say that the Only-begotten Son of God was of two natures before the Incarnation as it is shocking to affirm that, since the Word became flesh, there has been in him one nature only [...]."
Here he has gone slightly further. St Leo clearly wishes to stress that confession of a Christ 'of two natures' before the union of the incarnation is one that, in his own words, blasphemously and impiously asserts a kind of eternity to the incarnation -- suggesting that Christ was always, eternally, human as well as divine; rather than confessing the unique self-offering of the saving 'becoming human'. Before the union, Christ was, as he always is, eternal and unchanging divine Son. In the union, he has taken the fulness of 'manhood' -- of the authentic and indivisible human nature -- upon himself. For Leo, this means that a confession of Christ as 'of one nature' in the incarnation (that 'there has been in him one nature only since the Word became flesh...') either denies that he is truly human; denies that he remains truly God; and/or affirms that he is now something different altogether - neither human nor divine in the fulness of either nature, but a 'tertium quid'.

It is precisely this language that the council of Chalcedon affirms as problematic. Canonically accepting St Leo's Tome, among other writings, the council, in its own words (http://www.monachos.net/content/patristics/patristictexts/121-council-of-chalcedon-451-the-definition-of-faith-of-chalcedon),

"anathematizes those who foolishly talk of two natures of our Lord before the union, conceiving that after the union there was only one."
It gives various reasons for this, which include the fact that such articulation brings in 'a confusion and mixture' of natural realities; that in such a vision 'the nature of the flesh and of the Godhead is all one'; that a consequence of this line of speech is that 'the divine Nature of the Only Begotten is, by mixture, capable of suffering'; etc. And to guard against such problematic conclusions being drawn from loose language, it phrases its definition in different terms. Confessing the eternity of the divine Son who created the cosmos as well as all humanity, the council states:

"This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and being united in one Person and subsistence, not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old time have spoken concerning him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath delivered to us."
Here the intention is very clear. The language of the one person abiding in two natures, is intended to assert that the union of the incarnation is one that is effected 'without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union'. The full reality of divinity is truly maintained; the whole reality of humanity is entirely confirmed. And yet, the council equally wishes to re-assert what it feels has already been fully affirmed at Ephesus some twenty years before: namely, that the abiding natural realities of divine and human must be understood in such a manner that Christ is 'not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ'. The phrase 'one and the same Son' has become common parlance in the writings of the age, as a key affirmation of the single subject of the incarnate Christ. The council, by firmly assigning 'person' as equivalent to 'hypostasis' (the two had been used differently in past discussions; this is one of the areas of loose vocabulary that Chalcedon tightens up), stresses the abidingly singular 'who' of the Son, who nonetheless in the incarnation is one 'who' in the fulness of two unconfused, immutable, indivisible, inseparably united natures.

These assertions lie behind the phrases you've picked out. Whether one encounters statements that 'Christ is two natures' or Christ 'is in two natures', the focus of such statements is the preservation of the true, full, complete natural realities in Christ 'after the union' -- i.e., in his incarnate life. On their own, such statements could be interpreted in a Nestorian fashion, absolutely; but Chalcedon, in defining 'person' and 'hypostasis' in the way that it did, established the impossibility of them being read this way in the larger confession of the Church. Christ as being/being in two natures can only be confessed in the Church in the framework of a single hypostasis/person; this rules out a Nestorian reading of that language, precisely because Nestorius' reading only worked on the premise that being 'in' two natures manifested two prosopa, two hypostases.

In the end: single phrases can be read in all sorts of ways. 'In two natures' can, of course, be read as a Nestorian confession if taken in exclusion. But Chalcedon itself cannot, based on its other confessions and the aims clearly expressed in its preamble.

3. "[I]Each nature performs what is proper to it"- This is also found in the Tome of Leo. I think it's also in Maximus the Confessor and maybe in the Sixth Council. I'm wondering what this means to people? Are there two centers of activity in the Lord Jesus? If so, then how is that not setting up two hypostases in the supposedly united Christ?

Here is the way St Leo, in the Tome, uses the phrasing of natures working according to their proper character:

"Accordingly, the same who, remaining in the form of God, made man, was made man in the form of a servant. For each of the natures retains its proper character without defect; and as the form of God does not take away the form of a servant, so the form of a servant does not impair the form of God."
Again, what he is stressing is that the natures do not become 'other' in the incarnation. If, in the incarnation, the human nature somehow become other than fully human, it would not be truly human. One would have a Christ of whom it could not be said that he was truly man; he would be a quasi-man, a pseudo-man. Similarly, if in the incarnation the divine nature became less than its true, eternal divinity, the man Jesus could not be confessed as truly and true God. He would quasi-divine; pseudo-Son. So, St Leo stresses that each nature retains 'its proper character without defect' -- something that would be much considered in later periods (e.g. the monothelete controversies of the following centuries, of which St Maximus was a part).

What is central in this, is that the one in whom 'each of the natures retains its proper character without defect', is one and the same Son, to use Leo's words. He is well aware, as were others, that the language on its own might very easily imply two 'whos', two subjects, two centres of activity. The incarnation is, after all, an incomparable mystery, and in any other context in the natural world, speaking of two natures would mean speaking of two hypostases. But this is precisely the mystery of the incarnation. The one and the same Son is now fully human. In St Leo's words: 'Accordingly, the same who, remaining in the form of God, made man, was made man in the form of a servant.'

That's probably enough for now. Just one note here at the end: While Chalcedon affirms language of Christ 'in two natures', language of Christ 'of two natures' is also affirmed by the Church in later councils. The popular assertion that 'Chalcedonian Orthodoxy' went for 'in', and non-Chalcedonian churches for 'of', is simply incorrect. For its part, Chalcedon itself does not use language of 'of two natures', largely because it was called primarily to refute the teachings of an individual who was making a great deal (of error) out of this phrasing); but both phrasings are affirmed in later councils.

INXC, Deacon Matthew