Study Notes – Conciliar Christology

 
To be read in conjunction with:
 
Loewe, William P. "Classical Dogma," in Edilberto C. Jimenez (ed.)., Introduction to Doing Catholic
Theology (Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Office of Research and Publications,
2006), 233-248.
 

 Christology

o been talking about Christ all this time

o who is Christ?
o study of the nature and being of Christ

 not his life

 not his works

 Christology studies Christ’s NATURE and BEING

 
The great councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon.
And the Word was made flesh…

 introduction of the priest Arius

o from whom springs the Arian heresy

 Cultural concerns at the close of the NT period

1. Jewish conviction of monotheism

2. Vs. Christian tradition of praising or honoring Jesus as divine

 How can these two be reconciled?

 How can Jesus be divine and yet there should be only one God right?

-- after all the fighting...

 
Various ways of approaching the problem.
 

 Adoptionism (heresy)

o The Father “adopted” Jesus when the latter was baptized by John the Baptist in the River
Jordan
o Implication: before that period in time, Jesus was not the Son of God

1. was not divine while in the manger in Bethlehem

2. Magi and shepherds were worshipping a mere human?
  Monarchians / modalism (heresy)

3. The three Persons of the Trinity are just three modes of being

1. God was the Father in the OT

2. Becomes the Son in the NT
3. And is now the Holy Spirit in the time of the Church (today)

4. heretical because it removes the relationality of the Trinity

 in this paradigm, there really are no three distinct Persons

 just one entity wearing different masks, so to speak

 note that I used entity rather than Person in the bullet point above this
 would like to emphasize that a Person can only exist in relation to other
persons

o you are a person in relation to other persons (i.e. you are your
parents’ daughter/son, a friend’s friend, etc.)
o if you’re alone in a room with a bunch of dogs, you’re just
another mammal to them, not a person

 you are simply the owner of said animals; though you

may see them as family, such a relationality cannot
actualize in the real world
 you may develop a love for them, but there is no
possibility for them to reciprocate said love coz they lack
reason and will

The Word of God        

 Greek: Logos (reason)

 for the Jews, this concept was embodied in the term Word

1. God creates through speaking (“let there be light”)

 if you think about it, only an intelligence (meaning something with will)

can speak (“speak your mind”)

 parrots only imitate

 The word of God (his will) is sent to the prophets

o and they speak in his name

o Moses, Elijah, etc.

 and then eventually the will of God is sent through a human person
  Subordinationism (heresy)

o The Word or Logos is not equal to the Father; it is subordinate

1. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen

o Justin Martyr (one of the early Church fathers)

1. his teachings somewhat leaned in this direction

2. Born circa AD 100
3. Conversion to Christianity circa AD 130
4. Martyrdom circa AD 165

 Tertullian

o First major Christian thinker to write in Latin

o concept --> Spiritus (divine stuff)

 Extruding the Logos (e.g. the Logos squeezed out from the Father like toothpaste
from a tube)
 The Logos is made of divine “stuff” that issued from the Father
 What is the problem here?

 The Son is divine to a degree

 as if the Father and Son “share” divine “stuff”

 Origen

o Belongs to the East (Greeks)

o The Son participates in the divinity
o the Son is not by essence divine

1. in a sense the Father just shares his divinity with the Son

4. How do the Greeks see reality?

 Everything on a ladder
 God at the top
 Everything below God participating in the perfection that is God

 Problem? Transcendence disappears.

o In the Christian worldview, God is not at the top of the ladder

o God is separate from the ladder itself

 Arius
 o Exposed to Origen’s thought
o He merely brought the problem out in the open
o Said that there cannot be “degrees” in divinity

 If Jesus was not fully divine, then he was NOT DIVINE AT ALL
 Moreover, not fully human as well

 The Logos functioned in him in place of the human soul

4. Arianism -- Jesus is not divine

3. some sort of demigod or super hybrid

 Homoousios

o Homo – common/one
o Ousia – being

 common/one being

 Athanasius (Church Father)

o What is proper only to the Person

 the Son is everything that the Father is except that He is not the Father
 have the recognition that Jesus is indeed divine

 
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed
We believe (I believe) in one God, the Father Almighty, maker ofheaven and earth, and of all things
visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and born of the Father
before all ages. (God of God) light of light, true God of true God. Begotten not made, consubstantial to
the Father, by whom all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down
fromheaven. And was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Maryand was made man; was
crucified also for us underPontius Pilate, suffered and was buried; and the third day rose
again according to the Scriptures. And ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and
shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose Kingdom there shall be no end.
And (I believe) in theHoly Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father (and the
Son), who together with the Father and the Son is to beadored and glorified, who spoke by the Prophets.
And one holy,catholic, and apostolic Church. We confess (I confess) one baptism for the remission
of sins. And we look for (I look for) the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to
come. Amen."
 
Council of Chalcedon

 Alexandria vs. Antioch (two schools of thought fighting it out)

o Alexandria
  Stressed divinity of Jesus
 Extreme version: logos replaced the human soul of Jesus

2. Antioch

 Stressed the humanity of Jesus

 Difficulty of Jesus’ unity as one person
 What was not assumed is not saved.

 Jesus assumed everything about us except sin

 What was assumed by Jesus was taken up into heaven when he ascended,
and was thus saved
 If part of us was not assumed, then that part, whatever it is, is not saved

 Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople

1. advocated the concept of the Christotokos (heresy)

1. doctrine which states that Mary gave birth only to the human nature of Christ
2. Cyril of Alexandria’s accusation: Christotokos divides Christ into two natures

 Human Christ
 Divine Son of God

 Council of Ephesus

o Dogma of the Theotokos

o Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners …

 mother of both human and divine nature of Jesus, not just the human nature
 you cannot separate  the human and divine nature of Jesus

 she had to be mother to BOTH

 
After all is said and done…

 Perfection in humanity and divinity.

o What was not assumed is not saved.

o Even the soul of Jesus is human (not replaced by the logos)

 if Jesus had no human soul, would our human souls be saved?

 The Two Natures of Christ

o Without confusion, without change (human and divine)
o Without division, without separation (one being)

1. Hypostasis (Person)
2. leading to the dogma of the hypostatic union

 One person
 One subsistence
 100% human, 100% divine
 Not part human, part divine; 50/50
 Do not reduce it to a mathematical formula

 Just conceive that in the ONE PERSON of Jesus Christ, there are TWO
NATURES – human and divine

 We are only fully human (we only have one nature - human)
 JC is fully human, fully divine at the same time
 Implications?