Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (39 page)

Alexandrian theologians, following Origen's line, tended to stress the distinctness of the three persons of the Trinity, so they were reluctant to stress a further distinctness within the person of Christ. Diodore and Theodore, familiar with an Antiochene literal and historical reading of the Gospel lives of Jesus, were ready to emphasize the real humanity of Christ; they also tended to stress the oneness of the whole trinitarian Godhead, so they were much more prepared to talk of two natures in Christ, truly human and truly divine, in a way which Alexandrians were inclined to think blasphemous. As an image to explain these different positions, the Alexandrian view of Christ's humanity and divinity contained in a single Person has been likened (although not by Alexandrians themselves) to a vessel which contains wine and water, perfectly and inextricably mixed, in contrast to the view of Theodore and his associates, where the vessel of Christ's person could be said to contain two natures as it might oil and water, mingling but not mixing.

Diodore and Theodore were particularly galvanized to defend their point of view by their horror at Apollinaris's assertion that Christ was indwelled by the Logos, which replaced a human mind in him. They determinedly affirmed Christ's real human nature alongside his divinity. For Theodore, it was vital to remember that Christ was the Second Adam, who had effected human redemption by offering himself as a true human being - that emphasis lay behind the frenetically self-destructive attitudes of contemporary Syrian monks towards their bodies, determined to get as close as was possible to the self-denial of the human Jesus. God had become a particular man, not humanity in general, Theodore insisted: 'to say that God indwells everything has been agreed to be the height of absurdity, and to circumscribe his essence is out of the question. So it would be naive in the extreme to say that the indwelling [of God in Jesus] was a matter of essence.' It was therefore vital to keep the distinction between the man Jesus, despite his 'outstanding inclination to the good', and the eternal Word, which partook of the essence of the Godhead.
⁸²

The real flashpoint came in 428, when an energetic and tactless priest called Nestorius was chosen as Bishop of Constantinople. Nestorius was a devoted admirer of Theodore, having been his pupil in Antioch. His promotion did not please Bishop Cyril, successor to Athanasius in a line of resourceful and power-conscious politician-bishops of Alexandria, a prelate whom we have already met in connection with the lynching of the philosopher Hypatia (see pp. 220-21). Cyril, though unlikely to have been a pleasant man to know, was more than simply an unscrupulous party boss.
⁸³
When he contemplated his Saviour Jesus, he could see only God, mercifully offering his presence to sinful humanity, especially every time the Church offered Christ's flesh and blood in the bread and wine of the Eucharist; why otherwise had Cyril's much-revered predecessor Athanasius fought so hard for an equality of Persons in the Trinity? Encouraged by a theological work which he thought was by Athanasius but (disastrously) was actually by Apollinaris of Laodicea, Cyril could see no reason to make a distinction between two words which for him both referred to the 'person' and 'nature' of Jesus Christ: these were the term used by the Cappadocian Fathers for 'person',
hypostasis
, and a word for 'nature',
physis
.
⁸⁴
By contrast, and offensively to Cyril's ears, Theodore and those who thought like him spoke of two
physeis
in Jesus Christ, and made a distinction between those two natures and the one person, the theatrical mask,
prosopon
.
⁸⁵

The Bishop of Alexandria was particularly outraged when Nestorius aggressively promoted his Antiochene views by attacking a widely popular title of honour for the Virgin Mary:
Theotokos
, or Bearer of God. Devotion to Mary was now becoming prominent throughout the Roman Empire: enthusiasts for the Nicene settlement of doctrine encouraged it, as a way of safeguarding Christ's divinity against Arianism, since it emphasized the unique favour granted his earthly mother. It was true that such Marian enthusiasm had developed in the Syrian Church precociously quickly (see pp. 182-3), but Nestorius's concern to distinguish the two natures of Christ outweighed this in his desire to be clear about what her role should be and how it should be described. Provoked in his new home of Constantinople by hearing a devotional sermon on Mary which he regarded as fatuous, he snappily responded that talk of
Theotokos
was nonsense: 'The Word of God is the creator of time, he is not created within time'. He was in effect saying that the title could only be used if one simultaneously balanced it by calling Mary
Anthropotokos
, Bearer of a Human, and he insinuated that those who overpraised Mary were reviving the worship of a mother-goddess.
⁸⁶
Even many educated in the Antiochene tradition blanched at his reckless precision. Various victims of Nestorius's sharp tongue and reforming zeal rallied to the cause, and with grim satisfaction Cyril exploited a groundswell of devout indignation against his rival bishop.
⁸⁷

The ensuing row once more plunged the entire Eastern Church into a bewildering welter of intrigue and complication which drew in the Eastern emperor, in sheer self-defence, to stop his empire being ripped apart. After a council at Ephesus in 431 and negotiations over the next two years, Theodosius II forced a compromise on the opposing sides. It vindicated the title
Theotokos
, ruined Nestorius's career for good and left 'Nestorian' theology permanently condemned, but it also left many supporters of Cyril's theology outraged that their own theology had not been fully vindicated with the full triumphalism that they would have wished. The death of Cyril in 444 did nothing to diminish their militancy. Their discontent was given practical expression in further political manoeuvres led by Cyril's aggressive admirer and successor, Bishop Dioscorus, which culminated in a second Council of Ephesus (449), humiliating all opponents of Alexandrian claims and outlawing all talk of two natures in Christ.

Such was the Alexandrians' determination to assert their position that this council ignored a statement of the Western view on the natures of Christ presented by delegates from Leo, the Bishop of Rome (the 'Tome' of Leo). This infuriated and permanently alienated a see which had been Alexandria's long-term ally against other Eastern bishoprics; yet the fault was not entirely on the Alexandrians' side. The Pope had not quite understood Nestorius's position aright, and it was easy for the hypersensitive to see in the 'Tome' an affirmation that there were two agents in Christ. Leo and indeed the later Roman Church always maintained the absolute authority of his statement, a stance which was now becoming a habit in Rome, but the fact that Leo himself later wrote a revised statement on the same subject for an Eastern audience probably indicates that he privately recognized its shortcomings. In the words of one of the latest studies of his thought, the 'Tome' 'contributed to bitter divisions which continued for sixteen centuries'.
⁸⁸

Once more a political revolution intervened and proved the downfall of the Alexandrian party. A palace coup on the death of Theodosius in 450 brought to power his formidable sister, Pulcheria, a bitter enemy of the 'one-nature' theologians who had found political backing in Constantinople. She selected Marcian as a biddable husband for herself to occupy the imperial throne (biddable enough to respect her previous vows of chastity), and in 451 the new regime with Marcian as emperor called a council to a city where the imperial troops could keep an eye on what was going on: Chalcedon, near Constantinople. The main concern at Chalcedon was to persuade as many people as possible to accept a middle-of-the-road settlement. The council accepted as orthodoxy the 'Tome' presented to Ephesus by Pope Leo's envoys two years before, and it constructed a carefully balanced definition of how to view the mystery of Christ: 'the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity . . .' This still remains the standard measure for discussion of the person of Christ, in Churches otherwise as diverse as Greek, Romanian and Slavic Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Anglicans and mainstream Protestants. So, like Nicaea in 325, 451 remains an important moment in the consolidation of Christian doctrine into a single package for much of the Church.
⁸⁹

But by no means all. The Chalcedonian agreement centred on a formula of compromise. Although it talked of the Union of Two Natures, and took care to give explicit mention of
Theotokos
, it largely followed Nestorius's viewpoint about 'two natures', 'the distinction of natures being in no way abolished because of the union'.
⁹⁰
Meanwhile, to satisfy his enemies, the unhappy former Bishop of Constantinople was condemned once more: an ecclesiastical stitch-up, dictated by imperial power. Nestorius was already completely isolated from public affairs, in a remote Egyptian location (which the Egyptian government still uses for a high-security prison); he endured his humiliation at the hands of his enemies with stoicism. He is reputed to have died the day before a message arrived inviting him to participate in the Council of Chalcedon; regardless of this impulse to reconciliation, the Emperor then ordered Nestorius's writings burned, and children bearing his name were rebaptized and renamed. His last and most extensive work, written in prison, a dignified defence of all that he had done, was only rediscovered in a manuscript in 1889, in the library of the East Syrian Patriarch, whose Church's separate status originated in its unhappiness with the results of Chalcedon.
⁹¹

The Chalcedonian Definition certainly proved to have staying power, unlike the Homoean compromise solution to the Arian dispute at Ariminum in 359, but it still won much less acceptance than the credal formula of Constantinople from 381. In the manner of many politically inspired middle-of-the-road settlements, it left bitter discontents on either side in the Eastern Churches. On the one hand were those who adhered to a more robust affirmation of two natures in Christ and who felt that Nestorius had been treated with outrageous injustice. These protestors were labelled Nestorians by their opponents, and the Churches which they eventually formed have habitually been so styled by outsiders ever since. It would be truer to their origins, and more considerate to their self-esteem, to call them Theodoreans, since Theodore of Mopsuestia was the prime source of their theological stance and Nestorius hardly figured in their minds as a founding father. In view of their insistence on two (
dyo
) natures in Christ, they could with justice be called 'Dyophysites', and we will trace their subsequent history primarily as 'the Church of the East' using this label.

By contrast, on the other side the history of the winners has likewise given those who treasure the memory of Cyril and his campaign against Nestorius a label which they still resent: 'Monophysites' (
monos
and
physis
= single nature). This latter group of Churches has always been insistent on claiming that title prized among Eastern Churches: 'Orthodox'. In an age where both Churches of the Greek, Romanian and Slavic Orthodox traditions and the various Catholic and Protestant heirs of the Western Latin Church have increasingly sought to end ancient bitterness, these sensitivities have been respected, and the label 'Monophysite' has widely been replaced by 'Miaphysite'. That derives from a phrase for 'one nature' (
mia physis
) which Bishop Cyril habitually and undeniably used, in writings which retained a wide esteem in both Greek East and Latin West. I will respect that change of usage, although Miaphysites themselves might brush it aside as an unnecessary vindication of their obvious claim to Orthodoxy.
⁹²
Nevertheless, to use the 'Miaphysite' label is to point to the fact that Cyril was not crudely talking about 'one nature' in Christ; he would have said that Christ's nature might be single, but it was also composite. The difference between two Greek words for 'one' may seem small, but in a millennium and a half of brooding on ancient insults, it can mean a great deal. In the next chapters, we will follow the adventures of those Churches whose rejection of the Chalcedonian formula from either point of view led them into extraordinary histories of Christian mission, endurance and suffering. There is a common assumption among those Christians who are heirs of either Eastern or Western European theology that Chalcedon settled everything, at least for a thousand years. The stories which we are about to follow show how mistaken this is.

PART III

Vanishing Futures
:
East and South (451-1500)

7

Defying Chalcedon: Asia and Africa (451-622)

MIAPHYSITE CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MISSIONS

Modern globalization has produced a dialogue between world religious faiths which in the last century or so has become something of an international industry. But this is a rediscovery for Christians and not a novelty: there were once Christianities which had little choice but to talk to believers in other world religions, because they were surrounded on all sides by them and often at their mercy. These Christians nevertheless travelled thousands of miles east of Jerusalem and brought a Christian message at least as far as the China Sea and the Indian Ocean. One of those encounters produced a tale which went on to unite Christians everywhere in enjoyment of it for something like a millennium, though now it has almost been forgotten in the form which those Christians knew. It is nothing less than the story of Gautama Buddha, turned into a Christian novel about a hermit and a young prince, Barlaam and Josaphat. Barlaam converts the prince to the true faith, but that true faith is no longer Buddha's revelation, but Christianity - while the Buddha has become a Christian hermit in the desert of Sinai, though his prince is still from a royal house of India.
¹