A Source Book for Ancient Church History Part 57

(_g_) Socrates, _Hist. Ec._, VI, 15. (MSG, 67:708.)

The fall of Chrysostom.

Epiphanius had gone to Constantinople on the suggestion of Theophilus, and there, in his zeal, had violated the canons of ordination as generally received. In this case he had ordained priests in the diocese of Chrysostom and without his permission.

Other troubles had arisen. On being called to account for his conduct by Chrysostom, Epiphanius hastily left the city, and died on the voyage back to his diocese, Salamis, in Cyprus.

When Epiphanius had gone John was informed by some person that the Empress Eudoxia had set Epiphanius against him. Being of a fiery temperament and of ready utterance, he soon after p.r.o.nounced to the public an invective against women in general. The people readily took this as uttered indirectly against the Empress, and so the speech, laid hold of by evil-disposed persons, was brought to the knowledge of those in authority.

At length the Empress, having been informed of it, immediately complained to her husband of the insult offered her, saying that the insult offered her was an insult to him. He therefore gave orders that Theophilus should speedily convoke a synod against John; Severia.n.u.s also co-operated in promoting this, for he still retained his grudge [_i.e._, against Chrysostom. See DCB, art. Severia.n.u.s, bishop of Gabala.]. No great length of time, accordingly, intervened before Theophilus arrived, having stirred up many bishops from different cities; but this, also, the summons of the Emperor had commanded. Especially did they a.s.semble who had one cause or another of complaint against John, and there were present besides those whom John had deposed, for John had deposed many bishops in Asia when he went to Ephesus for the ordination of Heraclides. Accordingly they all, by previous agreement, a.s.sembled at Chalcedon in Bithynia. Now none of the clergy [_i.e._, of Constantinople] would go forth to meet Theophilus or pay him the customary honors because he was openly known as Johns enemy. But the Alexandrian sailorsfor it happened that at that time the grain-transport s.h.i.+ps were thereon meeting him, greeted him with joyful acclamations. He excused himself from entering the church, and took up his abode at one of the imperial mansions called The Placidian. Then, in consequence of this, many accusations began to be poured forth against John, and no longer was there any mention of the books of Origen, but all were intent on pressing a variety of absurd accusations. When these preliminary matters were settled the bishops were convened in one of the suburbs of Chalcedon, which is called The Oak, and immediately cited John to answer charges which were brought against him. And since John, taking exception to those who cited him, on the ground that they were his enemies, demanded a general council, without delay they repeated their citation four times; and as he persisted in his refusal to answer, always giving the same reply, they condemned him, and deposed him without giving any other cause for his deposition than that he refused to obey when summoned. This, being announced toward evening, incited the people to a very great sedition, insomuch that they kept watch all night and would by no means suffer him to be removed from the church, but cried out that the charges against him ought to be determined by a larger a.s.sembly. A decree of the Emperor, however, commanded that he should be immediately expelled and sent into exile. When John knew this he voluntarily surrendered himself about noon, unknown to the populace, on the third day after his condemnation; for he dreaded any insurrectionary movement on his account, and he was accordingly led away.

(_h_) Theophilus of Alexandria, _Ep. ad Hieronymum_, in Jerome, _Ep._ 113.

(MSL, 22:932.)

Theophilus on the fall of Chrysostom.

To the well-beloved and most loving brother Jerome, Theophilus sends greeting in the Lord.

At the outset the verdict of truth satisfies but few; but the Lord, speaking by the prophet, says, My judgment goeth forth as the light, and they who are surrounded with a horror of darkness do not with clear mind perceive the nature of things, and they are covered with eternal shame and know by their outcome that their efforts have been in vain. Wherefore we also have always desired that John [Chrysostom], who for a time ruled the church of Constantinople, might please G.o.d, and we have been unwilling to accept as facts the cause of his ruin in which he behaved himself rashly.

But not to speak of his other misdeed, he has by taking the Origenists into his confidences,(184) by advancing many of them to the priesthood, and by this crime saddening with no slight grief that man of G.o.d, Epiphanius, of blessed memory, who has shone throughout all the world a bright star among bishops, deserved to hear the words, Babylon is fallen, is fallen.

88. The Christological Problem and the Theological Tendencies

The Arian controversy in bringing about the affirmation of the true deity of the Son, or Logos, left the Church with the problem of the unity of the divine and human natures in the personality of Jesus. It seemed to not a few that to combine perfect deity with perfect humanity would result in two personalities. Holding fast, therefore, to the reality of the human nature, a solution was attempted by Apollinarius, or Apollinaris, by making the divine Logos take the place of the human logos or reason.

Mankind consisted of three parts: a body, an animal soul, and a rational spirit. The Logos was thus united to humanity by subst.i.tuting the divine for the human logos. But this did violence to the integrity of the human nature of Christ. This attempt on the part of Apollinaris was rejected at Constantinople, but also by the Church generally. The human natures must be complete if human nature was deified by the a.s.sumption of man in the incarnation. On this basis two tendencies showed themselves quite early: the human nature might be lost in the divinity, or the human and the divine natures might be kept distinct and parallel or in such a way that certain acts might be a.s.signed to the divine and certain to the human nature. The former line of thought, adopted by the Cappadocians, tended toward the position a.s.sumed by Cyril of Alexandria and in a more extreme form by the Monophysites. The latter line of thought tended toward what was regarded as the position of Nestorius. In this position there was such a sharp cleavage between the divine and the human natures as apparently to create a double personality in the incarnate Son. This divergence of theological statement gave rise to the christological controversies which continued in various forms through several centuries in the East, and have reappeared in various disguises in the course of the Churchs theological development.

Additional source material: There are several exegetical works of Cyril of Alexandria available in English, see Bardenhewer, 77, also a German translation of three treatises bearing on christology in the Kempten _Bibliothek der Kirchenvter_, 1879.

For the general point of view of the Cappadocians and the relation of the incarnation to redemption, see Gregory of Nyssa, _The Great Catechism_ (PNF, ser. II, vol. V), _v. infra_, 89 and references in Seeberg, 23.

(_a_) Apollinaris, _Fragments_. Ed. H. Lietzmann.

His Christology.

The following fragments of the teaching of Apollinaris are from H.

Lietzmann, _Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule. Texte und Untersuchungen_, 1904. Many fragments are to be found in the _Dialogues_ which Theodoret wrote against Eutychianism, which he traced to the teaching of Apollinaris. The first condemnation of Apollinaris was at Rome, 377, see Hefele, 91; Theodoret, _Hist.

Ec._, V, 10, gives the letter of Damasus issued in the name of the synod.

P. 224 [81]. If G.o.d had been joined with a man, one complete being with another complete being, there would be two sons of G.o.d, one Son of G.o.d by nature, another through adoption.

P. 247 [150]. They who a.s.sume a twofold spirit in Christ pull a stone out with their finger. For if each is independent and impelled by its own natural will, it is impossible that in one and the same subject the two can be together, who will what is opposed to each other; for each works what is willed by it according to its own proper and personal motives.

P. 248 [152]. They who speak of one Christ, and a.s.sert that there are two independent spiritual natures in Him, do not know Him as the Logos made flesh, who has remained in His natural unity, for they represent Him as divided into two unlike natures and modes of operation.

P. 239 [129]. If a man has soul and body, and both remain distinguished in unity, how much more has Christ, who joins His divine being with a body, both as a permanent possession without any commingling one with the other?

P. 209 [21, 22]. The Logos became flesh, but the flesh was not without a soul, for it is said that it strives against the spirit and opposes the law of the understanding. [In this Apollinaris takes up the trichotomy of human nature, a view which he did not apparently hold at the beginning of his teaching.]

P. 240 [137]. John [John 2:19] spoke of the destroyed temple, that is, of the body of Him who would raise it up again. The body is altogether one with Him. But if the body of the Lord has become one with the Lord, then the characteristics of the body are proved to be characteristics of Him on account of the body.

(_b_) Apollinaris, _Letter to the Emperor Jovian_. Lietzmann, 250 _ff._

We confess the Son of G.o.d who was begotten eternally before all times, but in the last times was for our salvation born of Mary according to the flesh; and we confess that the same is the Son of G.o.d and G.o.d according to the spirit, Son of man according to the flesh; we do not speak of two natures in the one Son, of which one is to be wors.h.i.+pped and one is not to be wors.h.i.+pped, but of only one nature of the Logos of G.o.d, which has become flesh and with His flesh is wors.h.i.+pped with one wors.h.i.+p; and we confess not two sons, one who is truly G.o.ds Son to be wors.h.i.+pped and another the manwho is of Mary and is not to be wors.h.i.+pped, who by the power of grace had become the Son of G.o.d, as is also the case with men, but one Son of G.o.d who at the same time was born of Mary according to the flesh in the last days, as the angel answered the Theotokos Mary who asked, How shall this be?The Holy Ghost will come upon thee. He, accordingly, who was born of the Virgin Mary was Son of G.o.d by nature and truly G.o.d only according to the flesh from Mary was He man, but at the same time, according to the spirit, Son of G.o.d; and G.o.d has in His own flesh suffered our sorrows.

(_c_) Gregory of n.a.z.ianzus, _Ep. I ad Cledonium_. (MSG, 37:181.)

In this epistle Gregory attacks Apollinaris, basing his argument on the notion of salvation by incarnation, which formed the foundation of the most characteristic piety of the East, had been used as a major premise by Athanasius in opposition to Arianism, and runs back to Irenus and the Asia Minor school; see above, 33.

If any one trusted in a man without a human mind, he is himself really bereft of mind and quite unworthy of salvation. For what has not been a.s.sumed has not been healed; but what has been united to G.o.d is saved. If only half of Adam fell, then that which is a.s.sumed and saved may be half also; but if the whole, it must be united to the whole of Him that was begotten and be saved as a whole. Let them not, then, begrudge us our complete salvation, or clothe the Saviour only with bones and nerves and the semblance of humanity. For if His manhood is without soul [??????], even the Arians admit this, that they may attribute His pa.s.sion to the G.o.dhead, as that which gives motion to the body is also that which suffers. But if He had a soul and yet is without a mind, how is He a man, for man is not a mindless [?????] animal? And this would necessarily involve that His form was human, and also His tabernacle, but His soul was that of a horse, or an ox, or some other creature without mind. This, then, would be what is saved, and I have been deceived in the Truth, and have been boasting an honor when it was another who was honored. But if His manhood is intellectual and not without mind, let them cease to be thus really mindless.

But, says some one, the G.o.dhead was sufficient in place of the human intellect. What, then, is this to me? For G.o.dhead with flesh alone is not man, nor with soul alone, nor with both apart from mind, which is the most essential part of man. Keep, then, the whole man, and mingle G.o.dhead therewith, that you may benefit me in my completeness. But, as he a.s.serts [_i.e._, Apollinaris], He could not contain two perfect natures. Not if you only regard Him in a bodily fas.h.i.+on. For a bushel measure will not hold two bushels, nor will the s.p.a.ce of one body hold two or more bodies.

But if you will look at what is mental and incorporeal, remember that I myself can contain soul and reason and mind and the Holy Spirit; and before me this world, by which I mean the system of things visible and invisible, contained Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For such is the nature of intellectual existences that they can mingle with one another and with bodies, incorporeally and invisibly.

Further, let us see what is their account of the a.s.sumption of the manhood, or the a.s.sumption of the flesh, as they call it. If it was in order that G.o.d, otherwise incomprehensible, might be comprehended, and might converse with men through His flesh as through a veil, their mask is a pretty one, a hypocritical fable; for it was open to Him to converse with us in many other ways, as in the burning bush [Ex. 3:2] and in the appearance of a man [Gen. 18:5]. But if it was that He might destroy the condemnation of sin by sanctifying like by like, then as He needed flesh for the sake of the condemned flesh and soul for the sake of the soul, so also He needed mind for the sake of mind, which not only fell in Adam but was first to be affected, as physicians say, of the illness. For that which received the commandment was that which failed to observe the commandment, and that which failed to observe the commandment was that also which dared to transgress, and that which transgressed was that which stood most in need of salvation, and that which needed salvation was that which also was a.s.sumed. Therefore mind was taken upon Him.

(_d_) Council of Constantinople, A. D. 382, _Epistula Synodica_. Hefele, 98.

Condemnation of Apollinarianism.

At the Council of Constantinople held the year after that which is known as the Second General Council, and attended by nearly the same bishops, there was an express condemnation of Apollinaris and his doctrine, for though Apollinaris had been condemned in 381, the point of doctrine was not stated. The synodical letter of the council of 382 is preserved only in part in Theodoret, _Hist.

Ec._, V, 9, who concludes his account with these words:

Similarly they openly condemn the innovation of Apollinarius [so Theodoret writes the name] in the phrase, And we preserve the doctrine of the incarnation of the Lord, holding the tradition that the dispensation of the flesh is neither soulless, nor mindless, nor imperfect.

(_e_) Theodore of Mopsuestia, _Creed_. Hahn, 215.

The position of the Nestorians.