Two schools: Antioch and Alexandria

Program / Course 9: Christology and Pneumatology / Lesson 2.3

What you will learn

• Describe the main concerns of the Alexandrian and Antiochene approaches to Christ.
• Explain how each approach connected to a way of reading Scripture.
• Name leading figures of each and the typical risk of each approach.
• Explain why the schools should be treated as tendencies and not as rigid parties.

The big idea

After Nicaea, Christians agreed that the Son is God and that Christ is truly human. The harder question was how they are joined. Two great centers of learning gave two tendencies. Alexandria, in Egypt, stressed the unity of Christ: the one Word who became flesh. Antioch, in Syria, stressed the completeness of both natures: a real human being, not swallowed up by God. Each concern was right. Each, pressed too far, risked a mistake, and the clash of the two shaped the fifth-century councils.

Key terms

Alexandrian school

A tradition of teaching in Alexandria, Egypt, associated with allegorical reading of Scripture and with emphasis on the unity of Christ. Athanasius and Cyril are its best known voices.

Antiochene school

A tradition of teaching in and around Antioch in Syria, associated with attention to the literal and historical meaning of Scripture and with emphasis on the distinctness of Christ’s two natures.

Allegorical reading

Reading a text for a deeper or symbolic meaning beyond its plain sense.

Physis

A Greek word often translated nature. In this period it was also sometimes used in a sense close to a concrete individual.

Hypostasis

A Greek word for an individual existing thing, later used for a person of the Trinity and for the one person of Christ.

Prosopon

A Greek word meaning face, role or person. The Greek form of the word later translated as person.

Logos-sarx and Logos-anthropos

Labels modern scholars use for two patterns of thought: the Word taking flesh, and the Word taking a man. They are generalizations, not names the ancient writers used.

Background

The Council of Nicaea left a question open. If the Son is fully God and Jesus is fully human, how can they be the same one? Teachers in the next century answered in different ways, and the answers tended to cluster around two cities. Alexandria was the great intellectual center of Egypt. Antioch, where followers of Jesus were first called Christians (Acts 11:26), was a great center in Syria.

Modern historians warn against exaggerating the contrast. Both schools affirmed Nicaea, both used Scripture, and many figures do not fit neatly. Still, the two tendencies explain much about how the fifth-century conflict began and why it was so hard to resolve.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The Alexandrian concern, unity

Alexandrian teachers began from John 1:14, “the Word was made flesh.” The subject throughout is the one eternal Word. He is born, hungers, suffers and dies, and it is he who does so. Athanasius insisted that salvation requires God himself to enter human life, so that the Word’s acts and the man’s acts belong to one subject.

This went with a habit of reading Scripture for its deeper, spiritual sense, learned from Origen and Philo before him. The advantage was a strong sense of the Word’s presence in every part of Christ’s life. The risk was that the humanity could seem to disappear into the divine, as Apollinarius had proposed.

Step 2: The Antiochene concern, completeness

Antiochene teachers were more cautious about allegory and read the Gospels with close attention to history and language. Diodore of Tarsus and his pupil Theodore of Mopsuestia taught that Christ has a complete human nature, with a mind and will, and that texts about weakness, ignorance and obedience should be assigned to the man and texts about power to the divine Word.

This protected the reality of Christ’s humanity against Apollinarius and allowed his obedience and temptation to be real. The risk was that the two natures might seem to be so distinct that Christ becomes two subjects, the Word and the man, joined by a loose bond. Theodore’s own wording, such as “the man assumed,” made critics uneasy.

Step 3: Vocabulary that was still unsettled

A great deal of the later conflict came from words. The Greek terms physis, hypostasis and prosopon did not yet have fixed senses. For many Alexandrians physis could mean a concrete individual, so “two natures” could sound like two individuals. For many Antiochenes, “one nature” sounded like a single thing in which the human was absorbed.

Cyril of Alexandria used a phrase he believed came from Athanasius, “one nature of the Word incarnate.” It was in fact from a work wrongly attributed to Athanasius, and in Cyril’s hands it meant one incarnate subject, not a fusion. This ambiguity helps explain why parties could condemn each other while agreeing in substance.

Step 4: Notable figures and cautions

John Chrysostom is often placed among the Antiochenes because of his training and his literal exegesis, but he was a pastor and preacher who spoke of Christ with great unity. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, an Antiochene bishop, later played a major role at Chalcedon. Cyril himself drew on Alexandrian and wider traditions, including the Cappadocians.

These examples show that the schools were centers of teaching and habits of thought. Many persons crossed the lines. Calling a theologian Alexandrian or Antiochene is a shorthand and should not be used to decide in advance what he taught.

Step 5: Why the tension mattered

Each school was defending something the church could not lose. Without unity, the incarnation is only a partnership between God and a man. Without completeness, the human nature is not fully ours and cannot be fully saved. Chalcedon would later try to hold both at once.

A useful way to read the next two lessons is as a test: Nestorius is read by his critics as pushing Antioch to its limit, and Eutyches as pushing Alexandria to its limit. Both readings are partly fair and partly contested, and each man has defenders.

1. What does each school most want to protect?
2. Why might close attention to the literal sense of Scripture help the Antiochene concern?
3. Why might allegory help the Alexandrian concern?
4. How can the same Greek word seem to mean different things to different parties?
5. Why is it unfair to treat the schools as opposed camps?
6. Which risk seems more serious to you, losing unity or losing completeness?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic theology treats both tendencies as having contributed to Chalcedon. The Council’s language is understood as keeping Antioch’s distinction of natures and Alexandria’s unity of person.

Orthodox

Eastern Orthodox churches honor Cyril as a central teacher and also honor Chrysostom and Theodoret in different ways. Theodore of Mopsuestia was later condemned at the Fifth Council, in the sixth century, a judgment Orthodox and Catholic churches accept.

Oriental Orthodox

The Oriental Orthodox churches see themselves as faithful heirs of Cyril’s emphasis on one incarnate nature of the Word, and treat the Antiochene tendency with caution.

Church of the East

The Church of the East, which looks back to Theodore and Antiochene teaching, honors his name and holds that it teaches two natures in one person. Its history is told in a later lesson.

Protestant and historians

Protestant churches generally accept Chalcedon and have mixed attitudes to the schools. Many modern historians treat the contrast as useful but stress that it is a modern construction that can be pressed too far.

Why it matters

Without the contrast between unity and completeness, the debates in the next lessons look like quarrels over words. With it, they look like attempts to protect two goods that both matter. Knowing the schools also helps a student avoid caricatures of the people who were condemned.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. Which habit of reading Scripture seems more helpful to you, literal or allegorical, and what are its limits?
2. How can two groups who agree on the facts end up condemning each other?
3. What image would you use to describe the union of the divine and human in Christ?
4. What does this lesson suggest about reading the opponents of any council fairly?

Independent assignment

A short comparison

In your own notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Describe the Alexandrian and Antiochene approaches in a paragraph each, including one scriptural text each would stress. Then write a paragraph proposing what a statement would have to say to keep both goods. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study

• J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines Read the chapters on the fifth-century Christological schools.
• Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity Use it for the setting of Alexandria and Antioch.
• Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word A key Alexandrian text on the unity of the incarnate Word.
• John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith Read how a later writer balanced both emphases.
• John 1:14 The Word became flesh.
• Acts 11:26 The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.
• Luke 2:52 Jesus increased in wisdom, a text Antiochenes stressed.