Council of Chalcedon

[Jona Lendering]

Is there someone who can explain to me what on earth (or heaven, for that matter) was discussed in 451 at Chalcedon? It's all abracadabra to me, but I want to understand it.

[Salvianus]

According to that cupboard of rumour, Wikipedia, it repudiated the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism, and set forth the Chalcedonian Creed, which describes the "full humanity and full divinity" of Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity. This action thus set aside the findings of the Second Council of Ephesus in 449.
:wink:

O.K., & now in English:
Bishops from various areas, and presumably their congregations, had been in disagreement over how some apparent contradictions, or at least difficulties with understanding, Christ's role as God's son, born of woman, suffering & dying related to his status as God, part of Constantine's trinity.

Monophysitism, & I'm simplifying here, was the idea Christ had one nature, in this case that the human was insignificant amongst the divine, whilst at Chalcedon it was agreed that He had two natures: human and divine "that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation."

This was too close to Nestorianism for some (and presumably seemed like mere word-play to others) and the argument continued. As well as this the status of bishops who had previously been deposed due to the argument was hotly debated & various, (dare I say?) more practical matters resolved upon, including that bishops who bought their office were anathema, prohibiting bishops from engaging in business and forbidding the clergy to serve in the military.

I hope that helps & I'm happy to go into it further.

[Jona Lendering]

This certainly helps, but I still don't get the real point - and somehow I get the impression that the venerable fathers had some difficulty with it as well. Maybe you can explain the difference with nestorianism, or point me to some literature. I tried to make sense of an article in an encyclopedia but expressions like "hypostatic union" do little to enlighten me...

Perhaps I make things easier for you if I directly point at this page; if the text over there becomes more or less OK, the problem is solved.

[Robert Vermaat]

I think it boiled down to the question if Christ was a man, or God, or both?

If a man, then how the son of god?

If God, then what was all that stuff on the cross all about?

You see the dilemma?

[Jona Lendering]

I think it boiled down to the question if Christ was a man, or God, or both?

If a man, then how the son of god?

If God, then what was all that stuff on the cross all about?

You see the dilemma?

The trouble is, if I understand it correctly, how the two natures ought to be combined. The Armenian Church, today (I was told), believes that the human nature has become integrated in the divine one; the Greek Orthodox and western churches believe both natures coexisted.

Trying to make sense of it all, I slowly discover that I may have been wrong about several things I believed I understood. Which means (a) that I have explained it incorrectly on several occasions and (b) that I have incorrect info on my website.

[Carlton Bach]

This certainly helps, but I still don't get the real point - and somehow I get the impression that the venerable fathers had some difficulty with it as well. Maybe you can explain the difference with nestorianism, or point me to some literature. I tried to make sense of an article in an encyclopedia but expressions like "hypostatic union" do little to enlighten me...

An exhaustive, if rather Catholic, take on the matter is found in Vol. I/2 of the Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte. I just started on it and it's rather overwhelming, but works with the occasional help of the Britannica.

HOwever, the more I look at the theological debates of the time, the more I become convinced that the details of Christology and the question of how hypostasis ('substance', of which there are several combined) and ousis ('nature', of which there is one) relate to each other are not all that important 'on the ground'. In fact, I suspect that the CHalcedonian formula (English as per Cathpedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03555a.htm )

We teach . . . one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.

if anything discourages philosophical nitpicking. At the risk of seeming blasphemous, it's saying "It's a f***icg miracle, quit overanalysing it!". At issue, as far as I understand it, are rather persons and their power struggles underlying these principles. Monophysitism being the 'Alexandrian' creed, it was represented by the party of patriarch Dioscuros amd Eutyches from Egypt, the opposition by Pope Leo I from Rome and Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople. I susapect a struggle between a more 'imperial' and a more popular church at work here. At any rate, the preceding council at Ephesus 449 had gone the other way without an emperor in attendance while imperial representatives seem to have played a major role in the running of Chalcedon (even the Catholic Encyclopaedia admits their role, and the Catholic reading of Chalcedon is a unanimous acceptance of Leo I's dogmatic decree by acclamation).

Another aspect that should not be overlooked is that Chalcedon did not only lay down the law as regards Christ's nature. Among the other decisions made (or realities accepted) there were the subjection of monastic communities and secular clergy to the episcopate (no monasteries built without their approval, all monastic clergy subject to episcopal supervision, all charitable foundations ditto, clerics to be bound to stabilitas loci, travel only with the consent of bishops, clerics only to be allowed lawsuits in ecclesiastical courts), a cementing of episcopal authority in the countryside, the outlawing of secret organisations inside the church, no clerics or monky to go to Constantinople without the consent of their bishop, and equal honour to be granted to the patriarch of Constantinople and Rome (the Catholic encyclopaedia has 'second rank', the orthodox reading favours 'isa presbeia' as equality). The last smacks of a deal, the rest to me suggests that the Council addressed issues of discipline inside the church and top-down control. Without that context, the Christology alone does not really make sense IMHO.

[Jona Lendering]

At issue, as far as I understand it, are rather persons and their power struggles underlying these principles.

That's what I think as well, but I want the information on my website to be OK... And besides, now that I have been in Nisibis (I am not writing this to make any one of you jealous), I owe it to the good people over there to represent their beliefs correctly.

[Salvianus]

somehow I get the impression that the venerable fathers had some difficulty with it as well. Maybe you can explain the difference with nestorianism

There was considerable confusion at the time, hence the difficulty of unpicking the nuances today. Some believe that much of the dispute arose from linguistic confusion added to (effectively) political or nationalistic emotions, rather than truly theological differences. Incredibly, to me, these grave disagreements weren't as material as unitarianism vs trinitarianism, but were more a matter of emphasis within trinitarianism (although some of the arguments are common).

It reminds me of my student politics days where socialists and Labourites would tie up whole meetings passionately splitting what seemed, to outsiders, hairs, whilst their common substantive opponents merely chortled into their Gin & Tonics. See also The Life of Brian's 'splitters'.

Specifically, for example Nestor denied the epithet 'Mother of God' for Mary whilst allowing 'Mother of Christ', which I must say seems more accurate, but it annoyed certain believers of the day who traditionally used the term just as much as it would now.

More seriously, some of his beliefs challenged the wording inherent in trinitarian formula: if God cannot suffer & only Christ's human self suffered on the cross then God did not suffer for us, only the human Jesus.

Ah, must sleep now...

[M.H. White]

Ah, if only you had posted this topic last semester, when I was up to my eyeballs in correspondence amongst the various church leaders of the entire fourth century. I was writing a paper concerning the rise of the authority of the bishop of Rome, and the Council of Chalcedon was an important one.

This is also the council when Leo's Tome was read, and, in my experience, is used by Catholic scholars as a strong source of evidence for the recognition of the special place occupied by the Roman bishop by the Greek east. If I remember aright, this was when Leo's christology set forth in his writings and sermons was said to be pretty much the same as Cyril of Alexandria's, which was adopted in the 431 Council of Ephesus. As someone above said, the squabbling among various church leaders seems to be mainly the product of emphasis on some aspect of the trinity or other.

Its also worthwhile to keep in mind that 451 Chalcedon took place on the heels of 449 Ephesus, the "robber council," and was at least in part called to annul the proceedings of 449 Ephesus. Here's an excerpt from the second draft(all I could find!) about 449 Ephesus, which I had to include as context for 451 Chalcedon, so its very concise. Actually, the whole paper is concise; it was only 10 pages.

"In the 440s an monk in Constantinople named Eutyches began to teach a doctrine like Docetism, in which the divinity of Christ is stressed so much as to deny his human nature. Eutyches’s error was, it seems, due to misinterpretation rather than true heretical belief, and after being denounced and corrected, he repented. A local synod, however, had already condemned Eutyches as a heretic. Theodosius II and Discorous, the Patriarch of Alexandria, disagreed with the decision, because of Eutyches’s repentance. A council was called by the emperor, and Pope Leo sent four legates to represent him, as per custom. Leo sent with his legates a letter to Archbishop Flavian, called the Tome, which stated his ideas of Christology: namely that Christ was one person with a fully divine and fully human nature. Discorous, chosen by the emperor to preside, deliberately refused to allow the letter to be read. The council deposed several bishops under dubious proceedings, including Flavian, the Archbishop of Constantinople. Flavius appealed to Leo for help, and Leo held a synod in which the actions of the Council of Ephesus were denounced as those of a latrocinium, or a “synod of robbers.â€

[Jona Lendering]

So, there's the "what on earth" side of what went on, or at least part of it.

Thanks!

[Hugh Fuller]

Rather than Wikipedia, you might wish to try the Catholic Encyclopedia on the subject:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03555a.htm
I have found them to be remarkably open and honest in their discussions of all sides in these old debates. I would note here that Chalcedon and Ephesus were merely points on a continuum that began with Nicaea in 325 CE and the issue of Arianism:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11044a.htm

[Jona Lendering]

I have found them to be remarkably open and honest in their discussions of all sides in these old debates.

Yep; the Catholic Encyclopaedia is not bad. The Dutch version from the 1960's is considered by Protestants to be the most objective source on the various Protestant churches over here!

The same can be said about the Encyclopaedia Judaica from the 1970's: an open and honest set of articles that are in the first place a work of fair scholarship.