There have been several responses to Lance Simmons' posting about Jesus' humanity. None seems to have taken into account the historical standards. [I should warn you here that I'm a Presbyterian. I'm going to be speaking from the perspective of discussions in the 4th through 6th Centuries. Protestants generally accept the early ecumenical councils. If there are later doctrinal developments in the Roman Catholic Church, this posting will not take them into account. But I don't think there are.] >Jesus is perfect man, but he is not a human _person_, he is a divine person. >He was already _who_ he was (a person) when he assumed a human nature (_what_ >he is as a man) to himself. We are not persons prior to being human persons. This position is clearly taught by Athanasius. It's referred to technically as "anhypostasia". In modern terms it can be summarized by saying that Jesus is human, but not *a* human. His individuality (hypostatis) was that of the Logos. While the divine Logos took on all of the parts of a human being, there was not a separate human individual. In my opinion this view is incorrect. However I believe it is orthodox. Neither the Nicene Creed nor the Formula of Chalcedon specifies a complete theology. Both were compromises, and both were intended to be acceptable to moderate representatives of two warring factions. Thus it is possible for people to hold different ideas and both be orthodox, as long as those ideas fall within the limits established by the standards. This position is Alexandrian. The Alexandrians were the ultimate heirs of the tradition of Origen and others who attempted to make Christianity intelligible in terms of Greek philosophy. Alexandrian Christology is Christology "from above". The Alexandrians believed that it was essential to see Jesus as God himself. For if God himself were not born and crucified, then salvation could not have taken place. Thus their basic model was that God took on humanity. Initially I think they envisioned the Logos as simply taking on a human body as its way of becoming present in the world. The most extreme version was Apollinarius, who said that Jesus was a human body with the Logos taking the place of a soul. Athanasius didn't say that, largely because the issue hadn't been raised yet when he was alive, but many people think that his writings imply it. The moderate Alexandrians accept that Jesus' humanity is complete: that there is a human body and soul. However there is still no separate human individual: humanity is assumed directly by the Logos. When people talked to Jesus, they were talking directly to God. The other position is that of Antioch (the Antiochenes). They were the ultimate heirs of Syrian and Jewish Christianity. They attempted to take seriously the portrait of Jesus in the Gospels. The Antiochenes believed that it was essential to see Jesus as fully human, for if he were not human, then God had not truly divinized humanity. Thus their basic model was that the Logos somehow united himself to a human being. The identity was dynamic, not metaphysical. That is, Jesus was different from other human beings, not because of something about his hypostatis or essense, but because of God's choice to make this particularly human being his presence with humanity. In its extreme form, the result was criticized as "two Christs", since Jesus and the Logos look like separate individuals. However in its moderate form, the ideas were developed in a direction that made Jesus the Logos' human form, so that rather than two separate individuals, we had the Logos in two separate forms: divine and human. In many ways I think it would have been better off if both traditions had been allowed to develop independently. I think everyone understood that in one way or another Jesus had to be both God and man. As early as Irenaeus, it was understood that if Jesus weren't God, he wouldn't have the ability to save us, but if he weren't human, his death and resurrection wouldn't be relevant to us. Interestingly, enough, the heirs of those who would not accept Chalcedon (the monophysites) have recently begun to have discussions with other Christians again. At this point it appears that we essentially agree. It is now apparent that their differences with Chalcedon are just terminology. That doesn't mean that this was always so. I think it took both sides maturing separately before fruitful discussions could take place. However the emperors believed that the survival of the empire required a unified faith, and Christians believed that there must be only one faith. Furthermore, the sees of Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople were engaged in bitter fights for precedence. Heresy was a dandy accusation to use in these fights. That alone would have been enough to keep the wars alive. Many historians believe that the motivations behind the doctrinal wrangles were more political than theological. At Chalcedon, the emperor did what many people often say should be done in such situations: lock both sides into a room and don't let them out until they come to an agreement. The agreement was intended as a compromise, and indeed it does include the emphases from both groups: it maintains the separate integrity of Jesus' humanity and the Logos (the concern of Antioch), while also maintaining that there is only one Christ (the concern of Alexandria). However the overall framework of Chalcedon is the "two nature" model. The concept of two separate natures was originally Antiochene. Thus many people on both sides saw Chalcedon as a victory for Antioch. (Nestorius -- the most extreme of the Antiochenes -- considered himself to have been vindicated by Chalcedon.) The final outcome of Chalcedon shows the reason that locking people up in a room isn't always such a good idea: While you may be able to force the leaders to come to an agreement, you can't always force their followers to honor it. Chalcedon was rejected by much of the East. Eventually both intellectual and political reasons forced most of the leaders in the East to accept it, but many of the people did not. The resulting alienation between people and their leaders is considered by some to be one reason that the Arabs managed to conquer much of the East. While the Moslems weren't exactly welcomed as saviors, there was also no great enthusiasm for defense. Ironically, the major Antiochene authors were eventually anathematized. In an unsuccessful attempt to come up with a compromise that the monophysites could accept, Theodore of Mopsuestia and the writings of two other Antiochenes (together called the "three chapters") were condemned. This did not reconcile the East. Nothing short of rejecting Chalcedon would do that. The problem had become one of symbolic politics. The actual doctrines didn't matter. Chalcedon had to go. But no one was prepared to do that. So the end result was that the theologians on whose work Chalcedon was based were rejected by a church that continued to hold Chalcedon as its standard. (It's unclear whether the West ever actually accepted the condemnation of the three chapters. I certainly don't accept the anathematization of Theodore.) This doesn't necessarily mean that Chalcedon is a bad standard. As far as I know, no one has yet come up with a reasonable approach that isn't basically Antiochene or Alexandrian. Each approach has its dangers. Chalcedon makes sure that the Antiochene approaches don't go so far as to threaten the unity of Christ, and that the Alexandrian approaches don't go so far as to be docetic (i.e. to say that Jesus wasn't really human, but only appeared to be). My personal view is that the Antiochene approach does a better job with the Scriptural evidence. It's hard for the Alexandrian approach to deal with things like Jesus' agony in the garden of Gethsemanae. Jesus looks like a real human being, not God wearing a human body and soul. However I think that Alexandrian theology is probably more common among those who take the divinity of Christ seriously. At any rate, I believe we need to be careful not to call either position heretical, as long as the exposition stays within the limits prescribed by Chalcedon.