October 451 A.D. 1st Meeting of the Council of Chalcedon
October
451 A.D. 1st Meeting
of the Council of Chalcedon
No author. “1st Meeting of the Council of
Chalcedon.” Christianity.com. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/301-600/1st-meeting-of-the-council-of-chalcedon-11629700.html. Accessed 30 May 2014.
When Jesus asked his disciples,
"Who do people say that I am?" he received a multitude of answers.
Some said he was John the Baptist, some said he was Elijah or Jeremiah or
another one of the prophets. The disciple Peter came up with the correct answer
when he said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." The
early Christians
accepted Peter's confession, but they had many different ideas of exactly what
it meant for Jesus to be the Christ. What was Jesus' real nature and person
like? How was he related to God and to the Father? To what degree was he truly
human? There were many debates over these issues in the fourth through the
sixth centuries of the church.
When Constantine became emperor of
the Roman Empire and made Christianity a legal religion, he believed unity of the Church
was important to the political strength of the empire. So, in 325 he called a
Council at Nicea to settle disputes over the nature of Christ. The council
issued the Nicene Creed, agreeing that Christ was both man and God and that as
the Son of God he had the same divine nature as the Father.
Once it was accepted that Jesus
was both fully God and fully man, debates began to rage over how Christ's deity
was related to his humanity. One group, the Apollinarians, said the divine Word
of Christ took the place of Jesus' human mind and will so that his divine
nature was always predominant. Others argued back that if Jesus did not have a
human mind and will he could not be fully human. Yet another group argued that
at the incarnation the divine and human were so combined in the person of
Christ as to produce a new, unique individual. Others again thought that the
divine and human natures of Jesus were kept so separate that it was almost like
he was two persons. Very often each conflicting group became associated with a
particular city - Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople, so that political
rivalry became entangled in theological debate.
In July, 450, Emperor Theodosius
died from a fall off his horse and his brother-in-law Marcian ascended the
imperial throne. Spurred by his wife, the Empress Pulcheria, one of Marcian's
first acts was to call a church council to deal with some of these religious
problems. He hoped for religious unity as a support to the political unity of
the empire -- a political unity to face the growing military threat from the
east.
On this day, October 8, 451, the largest of all church councils opened at
Chalcedon, near Constantinople (modern Istanbul). Five or six hundred bishops
were present representing the many conflicting views found within the church.
After much debate, on the 22nd of
October, a Chalcedonian creed was adopted which re-affirmed the divine and
human natures of Christ recognized at Nicea and further stated that the two
natures of Christ were "without confusion, without conversion, without
severance, and without division." Jesus was affirmed as being both fully
divine and human. His two natures were combined in one person without his
becoming less divine or less human. The work Christ did was the work of his
whole person, not of one nature or another. In that day Pope Leo stated the
Chalcedonian position that in Christ the "lowliness of man and the majesty
of God perfectly pervade one another...the two natures make only one
person."
Some of the Egyptian, Turkish and
eastern Christians could not bring themselves to accept the Chalcedon Creed,
but it has been accepted by the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, and
Protestant churches. The Chalcedon Creed is an important basic statement on the
nature and person of Christ, but even this creed which has stood for centuries
cannot fathom fully the wondrous depths and mystery of Christ's person and
nature.
Bibliography:
Adapted from an earlier Christian
History Institute story.
Bellitto, Christopher M. The General
Councils : a History of the Twenty-one General Councils from Nicaea to Vatican
II. New York : Paulist Press, 2002.
"Chalcedon, Council of."
The
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross
and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Guitton, Jean. Great Heresies
and Church Councils. [English translation by F.D. Wieck] New York:
Harper & Row, 1965.
Schaefer, Francis J. "Council
of Chalcedon." Catholic Encyclopedia. (New York: Appleton, 1914).
Last updated July, 2007
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