Four movements, now heresies, of the past each adopted one of these four views mentioned previously. They are: Nestorianism, Eutychianism, Apollinarianism, and Arianism. Nestorianism and Eutychianism fall under the controversy of the relationship between the two natures. The controversy of Nestorianism arose over the propriety of the term theotokos (“God-bearing”) as a description of Mary. At the Council of Chalcedon in 428 Nestorius gave his view of theotokos to which he held and overly dividing view of the two natures of Christ. Nestorius felt that the term was of doubtful propriety unless the term anthropotokos (“human-bearing”) was also used. Nestorius was later condemned when Cyril of Alexandria; who held the belief in Christ having one nature got involved. Nestorius’ pronouncement towards the birth of Christ caused Cyril to oppose him. Nestorius said that God cannot have a mother; no woman can give birth to God. Cyril of Alexandria suggested that Nestorius was proposing that Jesus has two natures joined in a purely moral union. After Nestorianism came Eutychianism. Eutyches who was repeatedly summoned to the standing Synod of Constantinople in 448, finally appeared and stated his position whereas Christ has two natures before the incarnation, that was but one afterwards. The result of the Synod was the Eutyches was deposed and excommunicated and the one- nature doctrine rejected.
Arianism and Apollinarianism fall under the controversy surrounding the Christ being fully divine and fully human. Arianism is the teaching of the Alexandrian presbyter Arius, and his supporters. Arius denied the full divinity of Christ. He taught that the Son of God was not of the same substance as the father and that he was created “...
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...Bible Institute Colportage Ass'n., 1934.
Gore, Charles. The Incarnation of the Son of God. London: J. Murray, 1891.
Kelly, J. N. D.. Early Christian Doctrines. New York: Harper, 1960.
Lawson, Penelope. The Incarnation of the Word of God, being the Treatise of St. Athanasius, De Incartione Verbi Dei; New York: Macmillan, 1946. Print.
Nicene and post-Nicene fathers: The Seven Ecumenical Councils, vol 14. Philip Schaff, and Henry Wace. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994.4.
Nicene and post-Nicene fathers: Socrates, Sozomenus, Church Histories, vol 2. eds. Philip Schaff, and Henry Wace. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994. 274.
Streatfeild, George Sidney. The Incarnation. London: Longmans, Green, 1910.
Verball, Wim. "The Council of Sens Reconsidered: Masters, Monks, or Judges?." In Church History, vol 74. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
The medieval theologian Julian of Norwich was a mystic, writer, anchoress and spiritual director for her time. She is gaining in popularity for our time as she provides a spiritual template for contemplative prayer and practice in her compilation of writings found in Revelations of Divine Love. The insightful meditations provide the backdrop and basis for her Trinitarian theology’s embrace of God’s Motherhood found in the Trinity. Her representative approach of the all-encompassing unconditional love of a mother who nurtures, depicts Christ as our Mother ascending to the placement of Second hood within the Trinity while giving voice to the duality of God.
...e Theogony. Trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Web. Internet Sacred Text Archive. 8 Nov. 2009 .
Douglas, J.D., 2nd edn., The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church. Exeter: Paternoster Publishing. 1978
Aquinas, St. Thomas. COMMENTARY on SAINT PAUL'S EPISTLE to the GALATIANS. Trans. F. R. Larcher. Albany: Magi Books, 1996.
While the belief in Jesus Christ as a divine being, God himself come to earth, is a core belief of Christianity, in his book, How Jesus Became God, author Bart Ehrman seeks to disprove this. Focusing on answering the question of who Jesus thought he was, Ehrman argues that Jesus himself did not believe he was a divine being, and he illustrates his point by discussing how divine beings were common around Jesus’s time, and by exploring biblical texts to back up his claim that Jesus saw himself as a messiah rather than God. With these arguments, Ehrman paints a clear picture of the time period, while using historical and biblical references to prove his point.
In order to substantiate Orthodox triadology, there was an emergent necessity for St. Basil to develop a clear and understandable terminology. The most plausible of historical and philosophical sources that the saint used in the doctrine of differentiating between “essence” and “hypostases” by the so-called generic principle, is the “Introduction” of Porphyry of Tyre, who was a Neoplatonic philosopher, and “Categories” of Aristotle. In the understanding of “essence” (as opposed to the terms Aristotle used, while this term was used by Gregory of Nyssa), there is a place for orthodox stoic character. St. Basil characterized God’s essence using the ideas of community, identity, unity and simplicity, and yet God’s essence is still not comprehensible. The prelate says that the Father’s “hypostasis” has a distinctive characteristic—“fatherhood,” Son—“sonship,” and Holy Spirit—“...
Although Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian were contemporaries and leaders in Christian philosophy, the two held markedly different opinions on the pagan philosophies that came before Christ and his teachings. Plainly speaking, Clement allowed and even praised pagan teachings in some cases while Tertullian firmly opposed them. However, both men have intricacies in their arguments, which do not make this situation a simple dichotomy between the two ideologies.
As we all seem to wonder about how, when and why Arianism arose, you must first be able to understand the man who created such a branch of Christianity. His name was Arius and he was a churchman and noble scholar who was the founder of Arianism. It is believed that he came from Libya and it is estimated that he was born in 256. He also liked to refer to himself as a student of Lucian of Antioch. This aged man contended that Christ the Son, although the highest of all creatures, was still a creature (Arianism). His teachings where like a mixture of adoptionism and logos theology. His basic notion was the Son came into being through the will of the Father; the Son therefore had a beginning. Although the Son was before all eternity, he was not eternal, and Father and Son were not of the same essence, In Jesus who suffered pain and wept, the logos became human. A Strength of Arius’s position was that it appeared to safeguard a strict monotheism while offering and interpretation of the language of the New Testament- notable, the word Son- which was conformed to general usage of meaning. The weakness of his view was that, precisely because Jesus was capable of suffering as a human, it was difficult to understand how he could be fully divine and thus affect the redemption of humankind (Christology). So basically the main problem that he was trying to address was how the Son of the Father can be divine and human at once, or is he a little bit of both. The trouble with this issue is that no one really knows the true answer and there are many passages in the bible to support both sides of the argument.
Athanasius of Alexandria lived from 296 AD to 373 AD. Athanasius was famously known for his writing on the incarnation. On the Incarnation of the Word is the work written by Athanasius that compiles classics of Orthodox theology. In this work, Athanasius significantly upheld the incarnation of Jesus Christ against the ridicule of the non-believers of the incarnation. Athanasius also explains in his work why God chose to contact the sinners on Earth in the form of life. Athanasius states, "The death of all was consummated in the Lord's body; yet, because the Word was in it, death and corruption were in the same act utterly abolished" (Athanasius, 17). He solved the problems with the contradiction of the incarnate by relying on both the church
24382). However, Cassian did not call his view Semi-Pelagianism and he believed that Pelagian’s teachings contributed to Nestorianism (Jurgens, 198). That is the fifth-century heresy taught by Nestorius (circa 386-450) that Christ was two persons, a human and divine with no union between them (Enns, 19102). Therefore, the term Semi-Pelagianism should not be understood as a watered down form of Pelagianism.
Arian heresy was the ideology from a priest from Alexandria, Egypt believed that the son and Holy Spirit had been created by God the father. Constantine realize that Christians were two divided to adequately do the job he hoped for. In 320 A.D, Constantine ordered all major Christian leaders the city of Nicaea. The result paid off of Constantine because the questions unified by rejecting Arian Heresy, and issued the Nicene
Monophysitism is the Christological position that, after the union of the divine and the human in the historical Incarnation, Jesus Christ, as the incarnation of the eternal Son or Word (Logos) of God, had only a single "nature" which was either divine or a synthesis of divine and human. Although the triune or trinity is never mentioned in the bible, in Matthew 28:19 Jesus commanded His disciples to “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” which clearly separates the natures of Jesus. Monophysitism began as the antithesis of Nestorianism. Whereas Nestorius had been accused of teaching a dual Christ, Eutyches, an archimandrite from Constantinople, offered a radically anti-Nestorian view, at the Council of Ephesus. Eutyches taught that Jesus’ humanity was essentially dissolved or obliterated by His divine nature, describing it as being “dissolved like a drop of honey in the sea” which is known as Eutychianism.” Nestorianism emphasizes the distinction between the divine and human nature of Jesus. Christians believe that God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are what makes up the
The Doctrine of Salvation (Soteriology). God provides us with everything we need; we see this in Genesis where he provided Adam with everything he needed. Jesus became a man by reincarnation; a verse to support this is John 1:14 “
St. Augustine Clarifies the Trinity and Augustine gives a mental hypothesis of the Trinity. Three Properties of the Spirit: Memory, Comprehension, Will. St. Augustine Clarifies the Trinity By developing a ceaseless feeling of God's vicinity inside of our psyches, the Trinity will be revealed. Eastern/Greek Christians Perspective of Jesus People would just satisfy them when they had been united to God. We can all seek to end up exalted people like Christ, yet just by the Finesse of God. Latin Christianity is the Western Perspective of Jesus Sin was such an extraordinary attack against God that just the penance of his child could set things directly in the middle of man and God.
Jewish scholars attributed "ideal" preexistence to things (law, temple) and persons (Adam, Moses) deeply reverenced, echoed perhaps in Paul's calling Christ "last Adam. . . from heaven." Greek thinking, reflected in Philo, was familiar with preexistence of souls. But it is unnecessary to find here more than a source of usable terms. The idea that the Son of God, eternally preexisting in glory with the Father, moved by love became incarnate was too central to Christian faith to depend upon coincidences of language for its basis.