Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- All Categories 13.8K
- General Category 10.9K
- General Announcements 184
- Faith Issues 3.4K
- Coptic Orthodox Church 2.5K
- Personal Issues 1.4K
- Prayer Requests 426
- Random Issues 1.8K
- Introductions 295
- Non-Orthodox Inquiries 232
- Youth Corner 607
- Hymns 2.6K
- Hymns Discussion 2.6K
- Technicial Difficulties 369
- Technical Topics 369
Comments
They also said the following: ‘If there is one incarnate nature of the Word then it absolutely follows that there must have been a mixture and confusion, with the human nature in him being diminished or ‘stolen away’ as it were.'
Once again those who twist the truth are unaware that in fact there is but one incarnate nature of the Word. The Word was ineffably bom from God the Father and then came forth as man from a woman after having assumed flesh, not soulless but rationally animated flesh; and if it is the case that he is in nature and in truth one single Son, then he cannot be divided into two personas or two sons, but has remained one, though he is no longer fleshless or outside the body but now possesses his very own body in an indissoluble union. How could saying this possibly imply that there was any consequent necessity of mixture or confusion or anything else like this? For if we say that the Only Begotten Son of God, who was incarnate and became man, is One, then this does not mean as they would suppose that he has been ‘mixed’ or that the nature of the Word has been transformed into the nature of flesh, or that of the flesh into the Word’s. No, each nature is understood to remain in all its natural characteristics for the reasons we have just given, though they are ineffably and inexpressibly united, and this is how he demonstrated to us the one nature of the Son; though of course, as I have said, it is the ‘incarnate nature’ I mean. The term ‘one’ can be properly applied not just to those things which are naturally simple, but also to things which are compounded in a synthesis. Such is the case with a human being who comprises soul and body. These are quite different things and they are not consubstantial with each other, yet when they are united they constitute the single nature of man, even though the difference in nature of the things that are brought into unity is still present within the system of the composition. So, those who say that if there is one incarnate nature of God the Word, then it necessarily follows that there must have been a mixture or confusion with the human nature being diminished or ‘stolen away’, are talking rubbish. It has neither been reduced nor stolen away, as they say. To say that he is incarnate is sufficient for a perfectly clear indication of the fact that he became man. And if we had kept silent on this point there might have been some ground for their calumny, but since we add of necessity the fact that he has been incarnated then how can there be any form of ‘diminution’ or ‘stealing away’?
https://orthodoxjointcommission.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/second-letter-of-cyril-to-succensus/
Also check out the first letter to Succensus:
https://orthodoxjointcommission.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/first-letter-of-cyril-to-succensus/
And his letter to Acacius of Melitene and his letter to Eulogius also repeats the same analogy of the composite human nature. This can all be found in Letters 1-50 translated by McEnerney.
At other times he has said: "The problem with the Copts is that they firstly will admit Christ had a human will, but that it was passive, and that his humanity was a tool used by his divinity."
I just don't get where he is getting this stuff. He is very monastic oriented, backs Athos and is a supporter of Elder Ephraim in America.
So Christs Humanity: in the union is it passive or active?
May I intrude and ask a beginners question? I have always understood it as you say, but if we can't distinctively call them two, how come then we say "He died in the flesh". My understanding has been that since He is in hypostatic union, and in one nature, the we cannot say He walked on water due to His divine nature, and ate only in His human nature. We can only accurately say: Christ ate. Christ walked on water. Christ died and rose. The Logos though never died. I hope I have clearly explained my confusion.
Thank you very much for your efforts in this discussion. It has been a very interesting dialogue. Please don't stop ;)
how then is this not Nestorianism?
Rather, he exists in one single reality, one single dynamic, one single Hypostasis which is composed OF two and in which the full reality and dynamic of each nature is contained, but without change or confusion or division.
So is he fully man? Yes. Is he fully God? Yes. Are both of these complete and real in one hypostasis? Yep. But the lynchpin is that the real life dynamic of the Incarnate Logos is a single dynamic of union, a single dynamic of composition. One Incarnate nature of the Logos.
Rem, is there a difference between composite nature and composite Hypostasis? This is perhaps one of the last things I myself am not clear on: are we speaking of synonyms or different things when we speak of composite nature and composite Hypostasis? Or is it that a composite Hypostasis necessitates a composite nature?
What does "passive/active" mean?
I hesitate to answer this, not because I fear to reveal the truth, but because I fear I have heard from Chalcedonians themselves different ways of defining "active". As you mentioned, there is something dynamic in the union. Why? Because Christ had a human nature, and human nature changes and grows, and Christ actively emptied Himself and underwent voluntarily these naturally human experiences, not for His own curiosity, but to redeem them. This includes human will, energy, etc, that is all properties which come from human nature.
Now, if "active" means that the human nature has to make a decision independent from the divine nature, but in submission to it, then forgive me, but this is the epitome of Nestorianism, and for Chalcedonians to stoop so low in order to contradict us in all things to get to this point means they know nothing of their own theology, and continue to desperately separate us from everything, including proper Orthodox Christology which they also should confess. When Fr. Peter Farrington quoted them one paragraph of their so-called sixth ecumenical council, some Chalcedonians accused Fr. Peter's quote of confessing a "passive union", and they didn't even know they were condemning their own council, not Miaphysite Christology which we so happen to have found essential agreement with.
It just so happens there isn't even agreement between Chalcedonians among key Christological beliefs. Fr. Patrick Reardon sadly believes Christ had to discover his own identity as "Logos" when He was "growing in wisdom and stature"! You have to be kidding me! If this is "Chalcedonian Christology", I'm not part of it.
They know nothing of their own Christology. They just keep fishing for differences, and the more they fish, the more they fall by the wayside into their own heresies not seeing true Orthodoxy when it stares them in the face.
Thank God these Chalcedonians with their influence seem to only exist in the internet, and not in real life.
I recommend this article by Fr. Peter Farrington:
https://www.academia.edu/6776618/A_Preliminary_Conversation_on_the_Will_of_Christ_with_an_Eastern_Orthodox_Monk
Let me address this for one second because I think this is important, and it has been leveled against Miaphysites. One has to ask once again, just as the word "active" needs to be defined, what does it mean that Christ's human nature be "not a puppet".
I have not found anything from Maximus the confessor remotely close to this phrase as a criticism of what he perceived as Monophysitism or Monotheletism. I never read from him that the heretics believe Christ's humanity is the puppet of the Logos. What I did read is he believed that in order for Christ to redeem human nature, every single aspect of human nature must be assumed including His very own human free will. However, Christ is not a second person in relationship with the Logos, but He is the Logos incarnate who engaged and actively used His own human free will, but in a completely different MODE ("tropos") than regular human beings do. That means that Christ fully controls all aspects of His humanity and engages them actively as He pleases through His own volition. So when Christ grows and makes human decisions, His divine person actively empties Himself fully immersing Himself in human experiences, including fear of death and choosing good and rejecting evil. But He does not do this in the same manner as regular humans do, but as God the Logos does, without the ignorance of what Maximus coins as the "gnomic" will, the tropos that fallen humanity is inclined towards. It is why Maximus teaches that as Isaiah taught, before he "knew" good from evil, he rejected the evil and chose the good, a mystery that shows Christ even as a child, His human will is divine or deified, bent God-ward even as He is growing in wisdom and stature humanly.
All of this is the teaching of Maximus the Confessor, one of the biggest Chalcedonian theologians who inspired the sixth ecumenical council. I'm not pulling this out of my behind. I have read his disputation with Pyrrhus and a lot of scholarly work on his theology out of interest to see how similar he is to St. Severus of Antioch. Despite his unfair criticism of Severus, I find him to be quite agreeable essentially with Severus.
Remember, Christ's human free will, since it is a facet of human nature, is hypostatically united to His divine will and nature! You cannot say that about any other human nature in this world. Neither you, nor I, nor even the Theotokos is hypostatically united to the divine nature. We are united, but not naturally or hypostatically, but by grace, by our mingling into the body of Christ. Therefore, it is impossible that Christ's human will be independent of His divine will, but it is completely and fully deified and subject to the divine will. Whatever the human will decides, it already is decided by the divine will and the human will becomes the will of God for us, because it is the will of God incarnate, so that our weak wills may be in the process of being deified.
So now, is that a puppet? If so, then Maximus is accused of puppetry heresy, whatever that means. It being a non-puppet means that the person who uses the human will uses it separately from the divine will as if turning off His divine will to turn on His human will, neither did Maximus believe this, nor did Severus, nor do I, and that definition of "non-puppetry" is heretical, not Orthodox at all. Christ is theandric, and as such His will is also theandric, and Christ never does anything separately from His divinity. He emptied Himself and humbled Himsef to fully engage in human nature with all its properties, including free will, but He still did so with a deified human nature which is hypostatically united to divinity, and which still is so much so united to divinity that anything human He does is placed in eternal glory for the sake of man, in the Holy of Holies made without hands, as St. Paul teaches to the Hebrews.
If on the other hand, being a puppet means that Christ has human free will but never uses it, then I agree that this definition of "puppetry" is heresy, because even St. Severus believed Christ used human free will, because to "choose" means Christ had a full human nature with rational faculties so that our will that is originally bent towards sin may be shone to bend towards the Father in Christ, as St. Severus taught:
These words ‘he spurned’ and ‘he did not listen’, and on the other ‘he chose’ show us the Logos of God has united to himself not only to the flesh but also to the soul, which is endowed with will and understanding, in order to allow our souls, which are inclined towards evil, to lean towards choosing good and turning away from evil. For God as God does not need to choose good; but because for our sakes he assumed flesh and spiritual soul, he took for us this redress. (Homily 83)
As for the Monotheletism issue, I'm still doing more research in this area, but overall, yes this is for the MOST part a Chalcedonian issue, but it was partially a way to lure anti-Chalcedonians into unity. Unfortunately, they resorted to persecution instead of dialogue, persecuting both anti-Chalcedonians (famous story was that Monotheletes persecuted the Coptic PopeSt. Benjamin's brother at the time Bishop Abba Minas, torturing him to death) and ditheletes like Maximus. It was just a bloody mess, literally and figuratively. It might even be that "Monotheletism" as understood as a "heresy" might not have even existed, but seemed to be a political obfuscation involving theology. Fr. Richard Price, the Catholic scholar who provided for us the full translation of the minutes of Chalcedon and Constantinople 553 seems to be of the opinion that Chalcedonian Monotheletes and Ditheletes seem to have no theological differences mostly!
https://www.academia.edu/20541739/Monotheletism_A_Heresy_or_a_Form_of_Words
the Chalcedonian is internally consistent, but it seems also very ad hoc. Meaning, it can be accurately described from within its own system, but with added exceptions, notes, theoretical constructs, and extensive philosophical definitions.
"There is to be no multiplication of essences without cause."
The simplest explanation is best which requires the least amount of correction and neologism.
may God lead us all into all truth :)
If we had more OOs giving answers this adequate we would not have the same amount of misrepresentations of our Church from both inside and outside.
Saying that, I think it is accurate to say Saint Severus' christology is thoroughly Cappadocian properly applying their idea of general and particular without the "paraconsistent logic" of the neo-chalcedonians. Good references are the works already mentioned such as his letters to Sergius the monophysite, John the grammarian, nephalius and others of which some translations can be found on tertullian.org, severus of antioch by pauline allen and christology after chalcedon by laine torrence.
Here is a good modern paper that touches on what I am referring to: https://www.academia.edu/25704705/Personhood_in_Miaphysitism_Severus_of_Antioch_and_John_Philoponus
God bless you all and happy nativity.
"Just as the sun when it shines in a gloomy and dark house, as soon as it puts forth its ray, dispels the darkness, since it itself is not affected by darkness, in the same way also the Only God the Word, the Sun of righteousness, as soon as he approached our nature, also dispelled the curse." Saint Severus Letter 65