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Course 12 · Lesson 3.4

Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451): one Christ, two natures

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 12 outline

Module 1: The Apostolic Fathers and the Early Apologists

  1. Who the Apostolic Fathers were: Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and the Didache
  2. Church order, worship and martyrdom in the second century
  3. Why Christians wrote apologies: charges, persecution and public defense
  4. Justin Martyr, philosophy and the Logos

Module 2: Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen

  1. Irenaeus against the Gnostics: the rule of faith and apostolic succession
  2. Tertullian and the beginnings of Latin theology
  3. Origen: biblical scholarship, allegory and speculation
  4. Heresy and orthodoxy: the scholarly debate about early diversity

Module 3: Creeds and Councils: Nicaea to Chalcedon

  1. From baptismal confession to creed
  2. Arius, the Council of Nicaea (325) and Athanasius
  3. The Cappadocian Fathers and the Council of Constantinople (381)
  4. Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451): one Christ, two natures
  5. The seven councils and how the churches receive them

Module 4: Augustine, Chrysostom and the Desert

  1. Augustine: life, conversion and the Confessions
  2. Augustine on grace, the Pelagian controversy and the City of God
  3. John Chrysostom: preacher, pastor and critic of wealth
  4. The Desert Fathers and Mothers: Anthony, Macarius and Amma Syncletica

Module 5: The Medieval Church and Scholasticism

  1. The medieval setting: monasteries, cathedral schools and universities
  2. Anselm and the method of scholasticism
  3. Thomas Aquinas: life and the structure of the Summa Theologiae
  4. Aquinas on faith, reason, nature and grace
  5. East and West: the growing divide and the schism of 1054

Module 6: The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation

  1. Luther and the question of justification
  2. Zwingli, Calvin and the Reformed tradition
  3. The Radical Reformation and the English Reformation
  4. The Council of Trent and Catholic reform
  5. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readings of the Reformation

Module 7: Modern Theology and Tracing a Doctrine

  1. The Enlightenment and its challenges to inherited doctrine
  2. Schleiermacher, liberal theology and Karl Barth
  3. Vatican II, Orthodox renewal and the evangelical and Pentecostal movements
  4. How to trace a doctrine: development, change and corruption

All courses

Program / Course 12: Patristics and Historical Theology / Lesson 3.4

What you will learn

  • Explain the dispute between Nestorius and Cyril and the decision of the Council of Ephesus.
  • State the definition of Chalcedon and what each of its four negative terms excludes.
  • Describe why some churches rejected Chalcedon and what they teach instead.
  • Summarize how modern dialogues have changed the discussion, and where scholars still disagree.

The big idea

Once the church had said that Christ is fully God, it had to ask how he can also be fully human and yet one person. In 431 the Council of Ephesus affirmed that Mary is rightly called Theotokos, bearer of God, because the child she bore is God the Word. In 451 the Council of Chalcedon confessed one Christ in two natures, without confusion, change, division or separation. Some Eastern churches did not accept Chalcedon, and the divisions continue, though modern dialogue has narrowed the gap.

Key terms

Theotokos
Greek for God-bearer, a title of Mary. It was used to say that the one she bore is God the Son, not to say that she is the source of God’s being.
Nature (physis)
In this debate, what a thing is: divine nature, human nature. The councils said Christ has both.
Person (prosopon, hypostasis)
Who someone is. The councils said Christ is one person, the divine Son, who has two natures.
Nestorianism
The charge, made against Nestorius, that he divided Christ into two persons. Nestorius denied it, and many scholars doubt he taught it.
Monophysite
From Greek words for one nature. The name given by opponents to those who taught that Christ has only one nature after the incarnation.
Miaphysite
A word for those who say Christ has one united nature of the incarnate Word. The Oriental Orthodox churches use this term for themselves.
Tome of Leo
A letter from Pope Leo I to the patriarch of Constantinople in 449, setting out the Western teaching about Christ’s two natures.
Hypostatic union
The teaching that the divine and human natures are united in the one person (hypostasis) of the Son.

Background

After Nicaea and Constantinople, the church confessed that the Son is God and that he became man. How the two fit together was not yet defined. Two theological schools approached the question differently. Alexandria stressed the unity of the Word with the flesh he took, and Antioch stressed that Christ’s humanity is complete and distinct. Both could be orthodox, and both could go astray.

In 428, Nestorius, trained in the Antiochene tradition, became bishop of Constantinople. He objected to calling Mary Theotokos, preferring Christotokos, bearer of Christ, because he feared that the title would suggest that God’s being had a beginning. Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, took alarm. He thought Nestorius separated the Word from the man Jesus, and he pressed for condemnation.

The emperor Theodosius II called a council to meet at Ephesus in 431. Political rivalries between Alexandria and Constantinople complicated the matter, and the council itself was marked by confusion. A rival group of Eastern bishops arrived late and held their own meeting.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Ephesus, 431

The council led by Cyril deposed Nestorius and approved Cyril’s letters, which stress that the Son of God himself was born and suffered in the flesh. It affirmed Theotokos as a way of saying that Mary’s son is the Word of God. The late-arriving Eastern bishops disagreed, and for a time the church was divided. A compromise, the Formula of Union, was agreed in 433.

Whether Nestorius truly taught that Christ was two persons is debated. A work of his, the Book of Heracleides, was found in Syriac in the nineteenth century, and many modern scholars think that he meant something more orthodox than his critics said. In that work he is said to have approved of Leo’s Tome when he heard of it. The Church of the East, which looked to Nestorius’s tradition, does not accept the label Nestorian and is separate from the other churches.

Step 2: A new controversy

Not long after, a monk in Constantinople named Eutyches taught that after the incarnation Christ had only one nature, which was a blend of divine and human, as a drop of honey is lost in the sea. The patriarch Flavian condemned him in 448. In 449 a council at Ephesus, held under Dioscorus of Alexandria and with the emperor’s backing, restored Eutyches and treated Flavian violently. Pope Leo called it a robbers’ council, and the name Latrocinium stuck.

Step 3: The Tome and the council

Leo had sent a letter, called the Tome, setting out that Christ is one person in two natures, each keeping its own properties and working together. After the emperor changed, a new council was called at Chalcedon, near Constantinople, in 451. Several hundred bishops attended, a larger gathering than any previous council, and the Tome was read. The bishops are said to have cried out that Peter had spoken through Leo, though they also tested the letter against Cyril’s writings.

The Definition of Chalcedon confessed one and the same Christ, the Son, the Lord, the only-begotten, made known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation. The difference of the natures is not removed by the union, but the properties of each are kept, and they come together in one person.

Step 4: The four negatives

Without confusion and without change exclude Eutyches’s idea that the natures blend into a third thing. Without division and without separation exclude the idea that Christ is two persons side by side. The definition is therefore a fence on two sides, not a full explanation of how God and man are united.

The council also passed a canon, number 28, giving the see of Constantinople honors second to Rome. Rome’s legates objected, and Leo did not accept it, another seed of later tension between East and West.

Step 5: Churches that did not accept Chalcedon

Many Christians in Egypt, Syria, Armenia and Ethiopia felt that Chalcedon betrayed Cyril’s teaching of one incarnate nature of the Word. They became the Oriental Orthodox churches, including the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and Ethiopian churches. They teach that Christ is fully God and fully man, with divinity and humanity united in one nature without confusion, and reject Eutyches as much as the Chalcedonians do.

In the twentieth century, official dialogues between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox, and between the Catholic Church and several of them, produced joint statements. Many theologians involved concluded that the two sides share the same faith and differed partly in words, but others on both sides are not persuaded, and the churches are not in full communion.

  1. Why did calling Mary Theotokos matter to the doctrine of Christ rather than to the doctrine of Mary?
  2. What are the dangers of stressing the unity of Christ too much? Of stressing the distinction?
  3. How does the Chalcedonian definition work as a fence?
  4. Why might councils be affected by politics and still be considered faithful?
  5. How can two churches say the same thing and still be divided?
  6. What do you make of the claim that Nestorius may have been misunderstood?

Examples

Who was born?

If a mother bears a child, she bears the whole person, not just the body. Cyril argued that Mary bore the whole person of the Word made flesh, and so Theotokos is correct. Nestorius worried the title might suggest she bore the divine nature. The two men were each protecting something true.

A drop in the sea

Eutyches’s picture was of the human nature absorbed in the divine like a drop of honey in the ocean. Chalcedon replied that Christ’s humanity is not lost. He has a real human body, soul and will, like other human beings in everything except sin.

A dialogue in modern times

In 1994, Pope John Paul II and the head of the Assyrian Church of the East signed a Common Christological Declaration affirming shared faith in Christ while leaving some issues, such as titles for Mary, to be handled by each church.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catholic Church holds Ephesus and Chalcedon as ecumenical councils, and treats the Tome of Leo as an expression of the faith. The Catechism repeats the definition that Christ is one person in two natures, and the Church honors Mary as Mother of God.

Eastern Orthodox

The Eastern Orthodox accept both councils, along with the Cyrillian emphasis on the unity of the person. They honor Cyril and Leo and insist that Chalcedon must be read in harmony with Cyril, an idea often called neo-Chalcedonian.

Oriental Orthodox

The Oriental Orthodox churches accept Nicaea, Constantinople and Ephesus but not Chalcedon. They teach the one incarnate nature of the Word, with humanity and divinity united without confusion, and say they are not Monophysites in the sense of Eutyches.

Protestant

Most Protestant churches accept Chalcedon as a faithful statement of what Scripture teaches about Christ. Reformed and Lutheran confessions repeat it, although they differ about how the natures share their properties, a question in their debates about the Lord’s Supper.

Scholarly views

Many historians hold that the dispute involved verbal misunderstandings, political rivalry between great sees, and real differences of emphasis. They disagree about how much was verbal and how much substantive, and about how to judge Nestorius.

Why it matters

The definition of Chalcedon protects the claim that Jesus is truly God and truly human, which is needed for the Gospel to make sense: only God can save, and only one who is truly human can stand in the place of humanity. The story also shows how real Christian divisions began, and why modern efforts at reunion often start with old words.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Chalcedon explained how God and man are united.

Correction: It marked limits. It said what must not be said, and left the mystery. Later theologians have continued to ask how to understand it.

Misunderstanding: The Oriental Orthodox deny Christ’s humanity.

Correction: They affirm that Christ is perfect in divinity and in humanity, and reject Eutyches. Their objection is to the language of two natures.

Misunderstanding: Nestorius was certainly a heretic who taught two Christs.

Correction: He was condemned at Ephesus, but many modern scholars think that his real views were closer to orthodoxy than his opponents claimed. The question is debated.

Misunderstanding: Giving Mary the title Theotokos exalts Mary above Christ.

Correction: In origin, the title is a statement about Christ: the child is God the Son. Churches differ on how far to go in honoring Mary, but the title itself comes from the Christological debate.

Knowledge check

What was the dispute between Nestorius and Cyril about?

Nestorius objected to calling Mary Theotokos, bearer of God, preferring Christotokos, because he feared that it blurred the distinction of natures. Cyril argued that Mary bore the whole person of the Word made flesh, and that separating the man from the Word divided Christ. Ephesus in 431 sided with Cyril.

What does the Definition of Chalcedon say?

It confesses one and the same Christ, perfect in divinity and in humanity, made known in two natures without confusion, without change, without division and without separation. The properties of each nature are kept, and both come together in one person.

Why did some churches reject Chalcedon?

Many Christians in Egypt, Syria, Armenia and Ethiopia thought that the language of two natures departed from Cyril’s teaching of one incarnate nature of the Word, and seemed to divide Christ. They became the Oriental Orthodox churches, which affirm Christ’s full divinity and humanity and reject Eutyches.

What has modern dialogue concluded?

Official dialogues in the twentieth century produced joint statements saying that the sides share the same faith in Christ. Many participants judged the dispute to be partly verbal, though some theologians on both sides disagree. The churches remain in separate communions.

Think it through

  1. Why might a definition made as a fence be more useful than a full explanation?
  2. How would you describe the unity of Christ to a friend without using technical words?
  3. What does it mean for the church that great councils involved rivalry and politics?
  4. How should Christians treat a person long condemned who may have been misunderstood?

Independent assignment

Reading the Definition slowly

Copy the Definition of Chalcedon from the seven councils text into your notebook. Mark each phrase that affirms something and each that rules something out. Then write a paragraph of 200 words in your own words explaining the definition to a friend who has not studied theology, and a second paragraph on what you think the biggest difficulty in the definition is. Aim for 450 to 600 words.

Further study