Abstract

Abstract At the Fifth Ecumenical Council the concept of a ‘composite hypostasis’ was enshrined in dogma. This implied that after the incarnation the divine and human natures had the status of parts that constituted a single whole. In order to make this concept intelligible a comparison was drawn with the human compound where two different natures, the soul and the body, formed one being. In the seventh century Maximus, the foremost Chalcedonian theologian of the time, came to the conclusion that the differences between the incarnated Word and a human individual were too great for a strict comparison to be useful. Yet he continued to defend the notion of composition. Indeed, his views on this point have been lauded as an important step in the development of doctrine. This article seeks to show that composition itself had become problematic, and that it was relentless Nestorian polemic that induced Maximus, and his contemporary Leontius of Jerusalem, to change their understanding of the concept.

Highlights

  • When in his Christological writings Cyril of Alexandria sought to explain what had happened at the incarnation he spoke most often of an assumption of the flesh into the divine Word, which made it the Word’s ‘own’.[1]

  • Used the alternative formula ‘composite hypostasis’, which was reconcilable with the Chalcedonian teaching of two natures.[6]

  • In the year 519 a group of men, the so-called Scythians monks, had claimed that the formula of the ‘one composite hypostasis’ was needed in order to safeguard the oneness of the incarnated Word on which Cyril had insisted and to dispel any suspicion that Chalcedonians were in reality followers of Nestorius.[10]

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Summary

Introduction

When in his Christological writings Cyril of Alexandria sought to explain what had happened at the incarnation he spoke most often of an assumption of the flesh into the divine Word, which made it the Word’s ‘own’ (ἴδιον).[1].

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