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Greetings,

I am talking to someone who brought up the Chalcedonian creed in a conversation...

They are under the impression that the usage of "homoousia" in reference to Jesus and Mankind, "consubstantial with us according to the Manhood", "makes me and Jesus the same human being"(his quote)...

Now, I am fairly sure that this is not the case, that his understanding is faulty, but I do not know how it is so...

Could anyone here help me understand better, or point me towards patristic writings on the subject, if they exist?

Thanks

This thread may have pertinent information and discussion: link.

I see I neglected (forgot) to post an additional comment there that I had intended, and I will be doing so soon.

The issue necessitates an adherence to precise theological language that excludes at times colloquial use. Thus, I would say based on Chalcedon, not "makes me and Jesus the same human being" but makes me and Jesus the same AS a human being or as human beings. The general term, human being, must also be understood in terms of the particular, the person. Thus, I am a human being and a human person, but Jesus in a divine person, thereby inherently a divine being, who became Man, and consequently is also, therefore, a human being.

To call the incarnate Logos a "human being" involves the false idea that a human act of existence actualizes the human nature assumed by the Son of God. It is important to remember that the Logos is a divine person and a divine being who has assumed human nature and become man in a general way, but also in a particular sense; and so in the incarnation the Logos has united Himself to all men, while He is also a specific man born of the Holy Theotokos. Ultimately, it is Nestorian to use the term "human being" in connection with the incarnation of the eternal Logos.

Thank you both... I hope you don't mind if I ask for some clarification

So the language is just saying that Jesus is human, it does not bear the same connotations as Jesus and the Father(and the Holy Spirit) being one singular God?

So when the Creed says that Jesus "is consubstantial(homoousion) with us according to mankind", would it be wrong to individualize that as this person does, to say "Jesus is consubstantional(homoousion) with me"

Todd,

Your last sentence is something I've never heard before. Can you elaborate? I suppose I wouldn't consider it heretical to say Jesus Christ was a human being, as well as the Divine Being. He was fully human, but not a human being? He had a human nature, but wasn't a human being? I'd really like it if you could flesh that out a little.

Alexis

There is but one act of being (i.e., one subsistent reality) in the incarnate Christ, and that is the act of being of the eternal Word. Thus, Christ's human nature has no connatural act of human existence, but receives its existence instead from the being of the person of the eternal Logos. Finally, as one of my professors used to say, "Two beings are never perfectly one in act, and so to hold that Christ is a human being and a divine being is ultimately to deny the reality of the incarnation."

In other words, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is a Divine Person who has a Divine and a Human Nature. Es Verdad?

So while Christ is human, He is not a human being? Is that correct to say?

Alexis

Yes, Christ is human, but He is not a human being. The being that concretizes Christ's humanity is that of the eternal Logos.

Forgive me, Todd, but . . . doesn't that way of expressing it sound a tad . . . monophysite?

I understand that Jesus is the Eternal Word; who then in time assumed our humanity. (I.E., His hypostasis as the Second Divine Person is His eternal prosopon; and in time He assumed a human hypostasis too).

But that very assumption of our humanity (the Incarnation) also, therefore, makes Jesus a human being too. For we cannot be saved except by a God who assumes our humanity.

So, I humbly suggest that a better way to express the Mystery of the Incarnation (in English) is to say: Jesus Christ is fully God (the Second Person of the Trinity, the Eternal Word of the Father) who became in time also fully human (a human being in all ways but sin), yet who is one Person. Or, more succintly: Jesus Christ is fully God, and fully human (in all ways but sin), yet one Person.


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Personally, I suspect it is a Mystery that is beyond putting completely into words. Hence the problems since Chalcedon.

But, when recognizing the limits of words, there are hopes for agreements (see http://www.britishorthodox.org/2church.php). [britishorthodox.org] I'm referring to the Abna Bishoy declaration of 1989 between certain Orthodox Churches, both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian, and their follow-up declarations at Chambesy in 1990. The language which most stimulates me to better understanding of what is ultimately an unfathomable Mystery of the Incarnation is the following text:

When we speak of the one composite (synthetos) hypostasis of our Lord Jesus Christ, we do not say that in Him a divine hypostasis and a human hypostasis came together. It is that the one eternal hypostasis of the Second Person of the Trinity has assumed our created human nature in that act uniting it with His own uncreated divine nature, to form an inseparably and unconfusedly united real divine-human being, the natures being distinguished from each other in contemplation (theoria) only.

The hypostasis of the Logos before the incarnation, even with His divine nature, is of course not composite. The same hypostasis, as distinct from nature, of the Incarnate Logos, is not composite either. The unique theandric person (prosopon) of Jesus Christ is one eternal hypostasis Who has assumed human nature by the Incarnation. So we call that hypostasis composite, on account of the natures which are united to form one composite unity. It is not the case that our Fathers used physis and hypostasis always interchangeably and confused the one with the other. The term hypostasis can be used to denote both the person as distinct from nature, and also the person with the nature, for a hypostasis never in fact exists without a nature.

It is the same hypostasis of the Second Person of the Trinity, eternally begotten from the Father Who in these last days became a human being and was born of the Blessed Virgin. This is the mystery of the hypostatic union we confess in humble adoration - the real union of the divine with the human, with all the properties and functions of the uncreated divine nature, including natural will and natural energy, inseparably and unconfusedly united with the created human nature with all its properties and functions, including natural will and natural energy. It is the Logos Incarnate Who is the subject of all the willing and acting of Jesus Christ.

We agree in condemning the Nestorian and the Eutychian heresies. We neither separate nor divide the human nature in Christ from His divine nature, nor do we think that the former was absorbed in the latter and thus ceased to exist.

The four adverbs used to qualify the mystery of the hypostatic union belong to our common tradition - without commingling (or confusion) (asyngchytos), without change (atreptos), without separation (achoristos) and without division (adiairetos). Those among us who speak of two natures in Christ, do not thereby deny their inseparable, indivisible union; those among us who speak of one united divine-human nature in Christ do not thereby deny the continuing dynamic presence in Christ of the divine and the human, without change, without confusion.

-- John

It can. There is an ambiguity in the English, human being. It is best to look at the wording of the Symbol of Chalcedon in full, link [ccel.org]. Striking, in particular, is the parallel phrasing using homoousios (but see the interpretation in the note which, however, is not part of the text of the Symbol itself):

The Son assumed in time a human nature (physis), He became Man. He did not assume a human hypostasis=person.

It is the use of word "being" that I object to, because the term "human being" means human person (the word "being" in this case indicates concrete existence); and so the use of this term in Christology is ultimately Nestorian.

Finally, my comments are in no way Monophysite, because they coordinate perfectly with the teaching of both Chalcedon and Constantinople II, which clarified the Chalcedonian decree in A.D. 553 (cf. the Anathemas Against the Three Chapters, no. 7). Thus, the Logos became fully human (i.e., He became man, both in a general sense and in a concrete manner) by taking flesh (i.e., a human body and soul) from the Holy Theotokos, but the concretization of His humanity takes place in the eternal and uncreated hypostasis of the Logos, which gives being to His assumed human nature. Now as far as the two natures are concerned, they cannot be blended or separated in reality after their union in the person of the Word, but they can be held to be distinct in the onlooker's mind, that is, they can be held to be distinct in contemplation only (τῇ θεωρίᾳ μόνῃ), but not in reality.

Fair enough, my mistake: He is one (Divine) hypostasis and He assumed in time a human physis.

But do you see the problem rendering this into English? Translated literally, how can Jesus have human nature but not be a human person ? I'm not trying to argue like Nestorios. I understand that He is one Person in two natures, etc. But, how the heck to render that well in English ?

My statement is in the context of the dogmatic expressions that Jesus the incarnate Son, true God, is a divine person who assumed a human nature and in that is true Man. The perfection of one God in three Persons of the Trinity is unique; the oneness of Mankind, seen in the first man, Adam, and the "new creation" the second Adam, Christ, reflects the perfection of the Trinity within the order of creation.

The isolated term "human being" especially understood in its colloquial sense, is ambiguous. I do not favor it as such, but I am struck by the parallel construction using homoousios -- a loaded term, no doubt used knowingly -- in the Symbol of Chalcedon. What is the meaning in Jesus being homoousios with/to us according to Manhood/Mankind in that He is homoousios with/to the Father, uninterrupted and unchanged by the Incarmation?

Can human nature be truly actualized without human - flesh and blood - existence? Could the Son assume a human nature without being born of woman? If so, would He then also be said to be "true Man"?

This is very well argued and convincing but I am still concerned given the parallel homoousion usage by Chalcedon. Why of all things use that terminology and do so in the explicit context of the Creed of Nicaea-Constantinople?

I do see the problem. Just a clarification: That He is not a human person but a divine person is, I believe, generally accepted as the correct use and understanding of the term person/hypostasis/prosopon; perhaps human being was intended. Saying human being, however, is confusing in English, but allowing that it does not mean here just or only a human being and not divine, is that what is being said by Chalcedon's homoousion ton auton hēmin? Is it correct to say, in the context of homoousios=same-being that Jesus in a divine being and a human being in one divine person/hypostasis/prosopon/persona?