Do you think Miaphysite Christology is reconciable with Dyophysite Christology?

[Livenotonevil]

So, from what I can understand, it seems that, based on how Chalcedonian Christians interpret the Council of Chalcedon today, I think that the question of Miaphysitism and Dyophysitism is something more mute.

Of course, that leaves a couple of questions;
1. How do you reconcile roughly 1600 years worth of different Saints, especially when each church canonizes saints who were enemies with each other (Leo and Dioscorsus), and when both sides have led to a lot of bloodshed and "martyrdom."
2. How do you resolve the question of what the intent of Pope Leo and his supporters were, especially in the context of the infamous Three Chapters - which would later be condemned as heretical.
3. How do you reconcile the Ecumenical status of the first 7 Councils, and Chalcedon especially.

However, in light of these facts, would you agree or disagree with the fact that Dyophysitism is reconcilable with Miaphysitism, why or why not?

[Livenotonevil]

It seems to me that the problem was that the concept of "Hypostasis" as Chalcedonians understand it now is much different than how the Alexandrians understood the term, which they saw as interchangable with "Nature," as such a term as Chalcedonians understood it didn't exist for the Alexandrians. Thus, when Saint Cyril says that "there is one nature of Christ, a composite of human and Divine, which are distinguished yet united - much like how the soul and the flesh is united and one, yet distinguished," I think that we are talking about the same thing - for when the Chalcedonians say "Two Natures united in One Person," they mean it in a sense that the "2 Different Parts - Soul and the Body - are united in one person." The soul and body are clearly distinct, but until our death, they are united together and are of one person.

However, that's my opinion.

What is yours?

[St.Justin]

Since the Greeks don't seem to understand theology you can't explain to them what is wrong with Miaphysitism.

[Machaut1377]

Since the Greeks don't seem to understand theology you can't explain to them what is wrong with Miaphysitism.

I am not sure what you mean, the Greeks are on the Dyophysite side of things.

[Xavier]

Dom Fr. John Chapman gives a good treatment of the issues here in the CE. Father was a scholar and theologian of the first rank. Essentially, the Catholic position is the only consistent one, that uses Nature and Person in the same sense in both Trinitarian theology (the Holy Trinity is Three Persons in One Divine Nature) and Christology (The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, by the Hypostatic Union of Two Natures in His Person, is true God and true Man) whereas that of Dioscorus and Severus was ultimately untenable, and quickly led to contradiction. Fr. Chapman treats the matter with a salutary insistence on true doctrine, and with great precision, while giving the history of the controversy, and a possible means to its final resolution here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10489b.htm

the question whether they can be exculpated from material heresy in their Christology ...

A simple scheme will make the matter plain:

    Nestorians: One person, two hypostases, two natures.
    Catholics: One person, one hypostasis, two natures.
    Monophysites: One person, one hypostasis, one nature.

It is urged by Bethune-Baker that Nestorius and his friends took the word hypostasis in the sense of nature, and by Lebon that the Monophysites took nature in the sense of hypostasis, so that both parties really intended the Catholic doctrine. There is a prima facie argument against both these pleas ...

it remains that the words person, hypostasis, nature (prosopon, hypostasis, physis) had received in the second half of the fourth century a perfectly definite meaning, as to which the whole Church was at one. All agreed that in the Holy Trinity there is one Nature (physia or physis) having three Hypostases of Persons. If in Christology the Nestorians used hypostasis and the Monophysites physis in a new sense, not only does it follow that their use of words was singularly inconsistent and inexcusable, but (what is far more important) that they can have had no difficulty in seeing what was the true meaning of Catholic councils, popes, and theologians, who consistently used the words in one and the same sense with regard both to the Trinity and the Incarnation. There would be every excuse for Catholics if they misunderstood such a strange "derangement of epitaphs" on the part of the schismatics, but the schismatics must have easily grasped the Catholic position. As a fact the Antiochene party had no difficulty in coming to terms with St. Leo; they understood him well enough, and declared that they had always meant what he meant. How far this was a fact must be discussed under NESTORIANISM. But the Monophysites always withstood the Catholic doctrine ...

The union in Christ is not a union of two natures directly with one another, but a union of the two in one hypostasis; thus they are distinct yet inseparable, and each acts in communion with the other ... they were careful from the beginning that Christ is perfect Man, and that He assumed a complete Human Nature like ours. Dioscurus is emphatic on this point in his letter to Secundinus (Hist. Misc., III, i) and with need, since he had acquitted Eutyches who had denied our Lord's "consubstantiality with us". Ælurus is just as clear in the letters by which he refuted and excommunicated Isaias of Hermopolis and Theophilus as "Eutychians" (hist. Misc., IV, xii), and Severus had an acute controversy with Sergius the Grammarian on this very point. They all declared with one voice that Christ is mia physis, but ek duo physeon, that His Divine Nature is combined with a complete Human Nature in one hypostasis, and hence the two have become together the One Nature of that one hypostasis, howbeit without mixture or confusion or diminution. Ælurus insists that after union the properties of each nature remain unchanged; but they spoke of "the divine and human things", divina et humana, not natures; each nature remains in its natural state with its own characteristics (en idioteti te kata physin) yet not as a unity but as a part, a quality (poiotes physike), nor as a physis. All the qualities of the two natures are combined into one hypostasis synthetos and form the one nature of that one hypostasis. So far there is no heresy in intention, but only a wrong definition: that one hypostasis can have only one nature.

But however harmless the formula "one nature" might look at first sight, it led in fact immediately to serious and disastrous consequences. The Divine Nature of the Word is not merely specifically but numerically one with the Divine Nature of the Son and the Holy Ghost. This is the meaning of the word homoousios applied to the Three Persons, and if Harnack were right in supposing that at the Council of Constantinople in 384 the word was taken to imply only three Persons of one species, then that Council accepted three Gods, and not three distinct but inseparable Persons in one God. Now if the Divine and Human Natures are united in the Word into one Nature, it is impossible to avoid one of two conclusions, either that the whole Divine Nature became man and suffered and died, or else that each of the three Persons had a Divine Nature of His own. In fact the Monophysites split upon this question. Ælurus and Severus seem to have avoided the difficulty, but it was not long before those who refused the latter alternative were taunted with the necessity of embracing the former, and were nicknamed Theopaschites, as making God to suffer. Vehemently Severus and his school declared that they made the Divinity to suffer not as God, but only as man; but this was insufficient as a reply. Their formula was not "The Word made flesh", "the Son of God made man", but "one Nature of the Word made flesh";-the Nature became flesh, that is the whole Divine Nature. They did not reply: "we mean hypostasis when we say nature, we do not mean the Divine Nature (which the Word has in common with the Father and the Holy Ghost) but His Divine Person, which in the present case we call His physis"...

Just as there were many "Eutychians" among the Monophysites who denied that Christ is consubstantial with us, so there were found many to embrace boldly the paradox that the Divine Nature has become incarnate. Peter Fullo added to the praise of the Trinity the words "who was crucified for us", and refused to allow the natural inference to be explained away. Stephen Niobes and the Niobites expressly denied all distinction between the Human and the Divine Natures after the union. The Actistetae declared that the Human Nature became "uncreated" by the union ...

Thus Peter Fullo, the Actistetae, and the Niobites on the one hand, and the Tritheists and Damianists on the other, developed the Monophysite formulae in the only two possible directions. It is obvious that formulae which involved such alternatives were heretical in fact as well as in origin. Severus tried to be orthodox, but at the expense of consistency. His "corruptibilist" view is true enough, if the Human Nature is considered in the abstract apart from the union (see EUTYCHIANISM), but to consider it thus as an entity was certainly an admission of the Two Natures. All change and suffering in Christ must be (as the Julianists and Justinian rightly saw) strictly voluntary, in so far as the union gives to the Sacred Humanity a right and claim to beatification and (in a sense) to deification. But Severus was willing to divide the Natures not merely "before" the union (that is, logically previous to it) but even after the union "theoretically", and he went so far in his controversy with the orthodox John the Grammarian as to concede duo physeis en theoria...

[John Lamb]

Yes, it's a good article. It shows how one word, or one slightly different interpretation of a word, can overturn the meaning of an entire religion and turn a theological system upside down. This is why having a unified episcopal authority (through the petrine office) is so necessary for the Christian religion, seeing as it demands a correct theological articulation of its own very complex doctrine, which doctrine plays an essential role in our salvation.

[Livenotonevil]

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[Livenotonevil]

You should read this article.

http://www.stgeorgeministry.com/one-incarnate-nature-word/

[Xavier]

Yes, John. Also, the Syrian Orthodox are definitely right about one thing, Chalcedon dogmatically confirmed and enshrined forever the teaching of Papal Supremacy. Therefore, the Greek Orthodox are inconsistent. One should either be Syrian Orthodox and reject Chalcedon, or be Roman Catholic and accept it.

"We exhort you, honorable brother, that you obediently listen to what has been written by the blessed Pope of the city of Rome, since blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his own see, offers the truth of faith to those who seek. For we, in our zeal for peace and faith, cannot decide questions of faith apart from consent of the Bishop of Rome ...

"Wherefore the most holy and blessed Leo, archbishop of the great and elder Rome, through us, and through this present most holy synod together with the thrice-blessed and all-glorious Peter the Apostle, who is the Rock and foundation of the Catholic Church, and the foundation of the orthodox faith, hath stripped him (Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria) of his episcopate, and hath alienated from him all hieratic worthiness." -- Acts of Chalcedon, Session 3  http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/a35.htm

Of course, we know (1) Fr. Philip said something similar at the Council of Ephesus, so maybe even the Syrian Orthodox are wrong, and only the Assyrian Church of the East got it right. : D. (2) this simple syllogism shows the mistake in Miaphysite theology - (i) The Father is One Nature - Consubstantial with the Son (ii) Therefore, if Godhood and Humanity are One Nature, then, the Father is also Human. (iii) Therefore, Godhood and Humanity are indeed Two Natures, united in the One Person of the Word/Son of God.

The Athanasian Creed describes the true doctrine: "For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Substance [Essence] of the Father; begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance [Essence] of his Mother, born in the world." This is the exact formula followed by Pope St. Leo the Great - The Son of God has Two Natures from His Two Nativities - one, from His eternal Birth from His Eternal Father, the second in time from His temporal Birth from His Virgin Mother. Thus, Hypostatic Union, of Two Natures, in One Person.

[Livenotonevil]

Again, you should read this article.

[An aspiring Thomist]

I've heard it claimed that like the Assyrian Church of the East, the Coptic Christians and co have changed their theology. This article: http://www.stgeorgeministry.com/one-incarnate-nature-word/  basically seems to say they agree with us on Christology but that the phrase One Incarnate Nature of the Word is orthodox because nature actually means hypostasis here. The problem is, as was pointed out in the article cited by Xavier, why didn't they just agree to sign Chalcedon at the time or just use hypostasis instead of nature when schism was brewing? I think similar things are claimed about the Nestorians but oddly enough I'm sure the Coptics wouldn't accept the "well they really meant this by those words" explanation.

[Xavier]

Yes, that article starts off correctly, especially this part is acceptable, "So if we mean "one essence" when we say "one incarnate nature of the Word" then there is a problem. In very recent times it has been noted that the phrase we are considering uses the Greek word "mia", which is translated as "one". And it has been proposed, in fact by a theologian who is not a member of our Orthodox Church, that we should call ourselves miaphysites. The idea behind this is that "mia" could be taken as meaning "one by a union", and so the phrase "one incarnate nature of the Word" is interpreted as saying, "a union of essences in the incarnate Word", and does not mean simply one at all. Of course we do insist that in Christ the humanity and divinity are not mixed or confused into one, but that Christ is truly both God and man. So this seems an attractive way forward. It is as if we agree that there is one essence, but this essence is a union, not a confusion, of the essence of humanity and divinity." but then it continues "The problem with this explanation is that it does not describe what we believe, and what our Fathers teach, at all." and then later

"Wherefore also, when we say 'one nature which became incarnate', we do not say it absolutely, but by adding one nature of the Word himself clearly denote the one hypostasis. This is a very important passage indeed. It says exactly what we believe. It is nothing to do with a union of essences. This is what nature means in this context. The one nature of the Word refers to the person of the Word, the who he is, not the essence, which is the what he is."

After going in a circle, it seems to almost come back to what is right, but not quite. Let us be clear - the Hypostatic Union is a Union of the Essence of Divinity and the Essence of Humanity in the One Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Pope St. Leo the Great, in his magnificent Tome, declares

"Not knowing, therefore, what he was bound to think concerning the incarnation of the Word of God, and not wishing to gain the light of knowledge by researches through the length and breadth of the Holy Scriptures, he might at least have listened attentively to that general and uniform confession ... Therefore in consequence of this unity of person which is to be understood in both natures , we read of the Son of Man also descending from heaven, when the Son of God took flesh from the Virgin who bore Him. And again the Son of God is said to have been crucified and buried, although it was not actually in His Divinity whereby the Only-begotten is co-eternal and con-substantial with the Father, but in His weak human nature that He suffered these things. And so it is that in the Creed also we all confess that the Only-begotten Son of God was crucified and buried, according to that saying of the Apostle: "for if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory 1 Corinthians 2:8 ." ... to that end He talked with His disciples, and dwelt and ate with them, He allowed Himself to be handled with diligent and curious touch by those who were affected by doubt, He entered when the doors were shut upon the Apostles, and by His breathing upon them gave them the Holy Spirit John 20:22, and bestowing on them the light of understanding, opened the secrets of the Holy Scriptures. Luke 24:27 So again He showed the wound in His side, the marks of the nails, and all the signs of His quite recent suffering, saying, "See My hands and feet, that it is I. Handle Me and see that a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me have ;" in order that the properties of His Divine and human nature might be acknowledged to remain still inseparable: and that we might know the Word not to be different from the flesh, in such a sense as also to confess that the one Son of God is both the Word and flesh. Of this mystery of the faith your opponent Eutyches must be reckoned to have but little sense if he has recognized our nature in the Only-begotten of God neither through the humiliation of His having to die, nor through the glory of His rising again. Nor has he any fear of the blessed apostle and evangelist John's declaration when he says, "every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ to have come in the flesh, is of God: and every spirit which destroys Jesus is not of God, and this is Antichrist. " But what is "to destroy Jesus," except to take away the human nature from Him, and to render void the mystery, by which alone we were saved, by the most barefaced fictions ...

VI. The wrong and mischievous concession of Eutyches. The terms on which he may be restored to Communion. The sending of deputies to the east.

But when during your cross-examination Eutyches replied and said, "I confess that our Lord had two natures before the union but after the union I confess but one ," I am surprised that so absurd and mistaken a statement of his should not have been criticised and rebuked by his judges, and that an utterance which reaches the height of stupidity and blasphemy should be allowed to pass as if nothing offensive had been heard: for the impiety of saying that the Son of God was of two natures before His incarnation is only equalled by the iniquity of asserting that there was but one nature in Him after "the Word became flesh." And to the end that Eutyches may not think this a right or defensible opinion because it was not contradicted by any expression of yourselves, we warn you beloved brother, to take anxious care that if ever through the inspiration of God's mercy the case is brought to a satisfactory conclusion, his ignorant mind be purged from this pernicious idea as well as others. He was, indeed, just beginning to beat a retreat from his erroneous conviction, as the order of proceedings shows, in so far as when hemmed in by your remonstrances he agreed to say what he had not said before and to acquiesce in that belief to which before he had been opposed. However, when he refused to give his consent to the anathematizing of his blasphemous dogma, you understood, brother , that he abode by his treachery and deserved to receive a verdict of condemnation. And yet, if he grieves over it faithfully and to good purpose, and, late though it be, acknowledges how rightly the bishops' authority has been set in motion; or if with his own mouth and hand in your presence he recants his wrong opinions, no mercy that is shown to him when penitent can be found fault with: because our Lord, that true and "good shepherd" who laid down His life for His sheep and who came to save not lose men's souls Luke 9:50, wishes us to imitate His kindness ; in order that while justice constrains us when we sin, mercy may prevent our rejection when we have returned. For then at last is the true Faith most profitably defended when a false belief is condemned even by the supporters of it.

The Tome was also specially and miraculously approved by St. Peter, who also appeared with St. Paul, when Pope St. Leo withstood the might of Attila the Hun, something even non-Catholic historians have praised in the Saintly Pontiff. Let our brethren among the Copts and others come back by a right confession of Catholic Faith, then they will be mercifully received, just as the Holy Father here says is right.

The relevant portion of the Athanasian Creed, which will also suffice: http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Symbola/Quicumque.html The terms Nature/Person should be used correctly and consistently, as in confessions of the Catholic Faith in the Creed of St. Athanasius and in the Tome of Pope St. Leo the Great.

Est ergo fides recta ut credamus et confiteamur, quia Dominus noster Iesus Christus, Dei Filius, Deus et homo est.
Thus the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man.
Deus est ex substantia Patris ante saecula genitus: et homo est ex substantia matris in saeculo natus.
As God, He was begotten of the substance of the Father before time; as man, He was born in time of the substance of His Mother ...
Unus autem non conversione divinitatis in carnem, sed assumptione humanitatis in Deum.
And He is one, not because His divinity was changed into flesh, but because His humanity was assumed unto God.
Unus omnino, non confusione substantiae, sed Unitate Personae.
He is one, not by a mingling of substances, but by Unity of Person.

[Kreuzritter]

When did Latins decide that one ousia in three hypostases means instead its converse? Around the same time they decided that ousia (literally being), rather than hypostasis (literally substance), means substance, and the latter indentical with prosopon? And now the Anglophones have even ditched the distinction between essence and substance? That switcheroo becomes even more lamentable in an age in which "person" is now in English parlance taken to be identical with the existential subject and connotative of consciousness and will, which clearly, in the Bible and thought of the Greek Fathers, belong to ousia (being), the hypostases of the Blessed Trinity having one identical divine will, acting as one in all things, and God ( announcing Himself as "I am".

[lauermar]

Wikipedia lists a myriad of these kinds of definitions that attempt to explain the divinity of Christ:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyophysitism

Dyophysitism has also been used to describe some aspects of Nestorianism, the doctrines ascribed to the Patriarch N
See also
Miaphysitism
Monophysitism
Nestorianism
Dyophysitism

I got exhausted just trying to read and understand all these definitions.  Then I realized it would have been simpler and more humble if the East had just submitted to Rome's teachings on the relationship of Christ's humanity and divinity rather than inventing their own terms and nuanced definitions, then fighting with Rome for centuries over it.

This is nothing more than pride.

[Livenotonevil]

Well, lauermar, I will say a few things.

1. I encourage you to study the History of the Church; it would be helpful for you to learn about the heresies that were fought and to learn about the Saints of the Church, and how serious the people of the past took the Faith of Christ, seeing it as a precious inheritance that they must be willing to die for on all fronts. For example, Nestorianism; the teaching of Nestorius is demonic; stating that the "human" Jesus is a different person than the "Divine" Son of God / Word, who "dwells" within the humanity and works through the humanity of Jesus. Nestorius even said that the Virgin Mary should not be called "The Mother of God", as she couldn't have given birth to God. Saint Cyril of Alexandria spent his whole life fighting against it, getting to the point where Nestorius was confined at a monastery for the rest of his life, after Nestorius was condemned at the 3rd Ecumenical Council.

2. It was Saint Cyril of Alexandria who really came up with the "foundational" ideas of Miaphysitism; although linguistic barriers surely created difficulty (as the Alexandrian term for "nature" can mean "hypostasis" and "essence", which are two different things), he stated that there is One Incarnate Nature of the Word, which is a of distinct human and Divine essences that, after the Incarnation, are inseparable; not that the two are blended in any way, nor do the two natures disappear, still remaining distinct, but they come together in the Person of Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man. And although surely Pope Celestine played an active role in the 3rd Ecumenical Council, it was really Saint Cyril's ideas that were accepted as Orthodox, not the Pope's.

3. If obedience to Rome were really that simple, then obey the Novus Ordo changes, go worship with Pagans like Assisi under JPII, kiss the Quran, stop proselytizing people as a sin against ecumenism, and believe the Death Penalty is always personally sinful. Humbly submit yourself to Rome.

Even if we assume the premises of Vatican I Papal Infallibility existing in the pre-schism Church, and accept the premise that the RCC is the True Church, then simply looking at the situation today should tell you that always obeying every single thought of the Pope is a foolish idea, particularly in light of the 6th Ecumenical Council, where the Pope signed his name on a heresy, allowing it to flourish, and the 5th Ecumenical Council, where the ideas of the Pope were condemned. Even post-schism this was the case, with Pope John XXII, who denied the Beatific Vision and almost fought against it to his dying breath.

I won't play your game of passive-aggressive proselytism, especially when you won't even spend the time to read up on Church history, and simply just confirming your own biased view of the world, which involves ignoring the very premises which you want to enforce upon me; that is, obedience to Pope Francis.