ЧЛЕН I. О ЛИЦЕ ГОСПОДА ИИСУСА ХРИСТА, ИЛИ О ТАИНСТВЕ ВОПЛОЩЕНИЯ

§ 132. The importance and incomprehensibility of the dogma, its brief history, the teaching of the Church about it and the composition of the teaching The doctrine of the Face of our Lord Jesus Christ constitutes one of the most important and incomprehensible dogmas of Christianity. The importance of this dogma is clear from the fact that the Lord Jesus is the very author of our faith (Heb. 12:2), the Holy Hierarch of our confession (Heb. 3:1), and there is no other name under heaven given among men, by whom it is fitting that we should be saved (Acts 4:12). Incomprehensibility - St. testified. The Apostle, when he said: Great is the mystery of godliness: God appeared in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). Due to the importance of this dogma, it is very natural that at all times, from the first days of Christ’s Church, reflective Christians were especially occupied with it; and due to its incomprehensibility, it is very natural that everyone who allowed themselves to philosophize about it more than they should philosophize (Rom. 12:3), and tried to understand and explain it according to their own concepts, fell into errors and heresies. With the exception of the dogma of the Holy Trinity, not a single Christian dogma has been subjected to so much controversy and distortion on the part of heretics, and has not been so defended by the shepherds of the Church as the dogma of the Person of the God-Man. In order to more conveniently embrace all these numerous misconceptions, from which the Orthodox The Church tried to protect the truth, still blessed. Augustine divided them into three main classes: misconceptions - a) regarding the Divinity of Jesus Christ; b) regarding His humanity, and c) regarding the union of both in Him 71 . 1) Misconceptions regarding the Divinity of Jesus Christ are divided, in turn, into three particular ones. The first and most ancient of them belongs to those who completely rejected the Divinity in Jesus Christ, and considered Him a simple man: this is what they taught - in the apostolic age, Cerinthus and Ebion, denounced by St. John the Theologian, who wrote his Gospel against them 72; in the second century - Carpocrates, Theodotus and Artemon with their followers, denounced by Irenaeus, Tertullian and others 73; in the third century - Paul of Samosata, denounced by two councils of Antioch (in 264 and 270) 74 . The same heresy, repeatedly condemned by the ancient Church, is adhered to in modern times by Socinians and rationalists. The second error is those who, although they did not consider Jesus Christ a simple man, and said that the Son of God was incarnate in Him, but claimed that this is the Son of God, not born of God, but created, the most perfect of all created spirits, but not having the nature of God: the heresy of the Arians, semi-Arians and other Arian sects, solemnly condemned at the first Ecumenical Council (in 326), and refuted in all details the most famous teachers of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries 75. The third, finally, misconception allowed that God himself was truly incarnate in Christ Jesus, but not God the Word, the only begotten Son of God, but God the Father or all the Holy Ones. The Trinity, understood as a single Divine Person, under three names and in a threefold manifestation: the heresy of the patripassians and anti-Trinitarians, repeatedly condemned in the second and third centuries 76. 2) Misconceptions regarding the humanity of Jesus Christ can also be divided into three types. Some of the heretics were mistaken regarding the flesh of Jesus Christ. Many, considering it unworthy for the Divinity to be clothed in any material form, taught that the Lord Jesus had no flesh at all, that His body was only imaginary, ghostly, from which they themselves received the name Docetes 77: this heresy arose in the days of the Apostles, and was exposed by St. John the Theologian in his first two epistles (1 John 4, 2. 3; 2 John 7), then intensified and spread among numerous Gnostic sects 78. Some, namely the Appellians, Valentinians and Manichaeans, even if they admitted that Christ had a real body, not a ghost, did not, however, recognize this body as similar to ours, human, but considered it either some kind of heavenly, spiritual body, with which the Lord only passed through the womb of the Virgin, without borrowing anything from her 79; or although for a material body, however, the subtlest of ours, and composed of the essence of the world, and so on. also not borrowed from Virgo 80. Following St. John the Theologian, the following wrote against these heretical opinions: Ignatius the God-Bearer, Irenaeus, Melito, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and many other teachers of the ancient Church 81; However, to this day the Quakers and Anabaptists philosophize something similar about the flesh of Jesus Christ. Other heretics were mistaken regarding the soul of Jesus Christ, claiming that Christ either did not have a human soul at all, which was replaced in Him by His Divinity 83, or, if he had a soul, it was only a lower, sensory one, and did not have a human mind (νοϋς) or spirit (πνεύμα) 84. Against this false teaching in both its forms, which Apollinaris tried most to spread with his followers 85, the Church pronounced its verdict at the councils: Alexandria (in 362), Rome (in 373) and Constantinople - the first, second ecumenical (in 381) - without mentioning private teachers who refuted the same false teaching 86. Still others were mistaken regarding the birth of Jesus Christ according to humanity, preaching that He was not born supernaturally from the Most Holy One. Virgin Mary, and was born, as a simple person, from Joseph and Mary: the heresy of Cerinthus, Carpocrates and other Judaizing Gnostics 87, denounced from its very appearance by the teachers of the Church: Ignatius the God-Bearer, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyril of Jerusalem and others 88, and then solemnly condemned in the very symbol of the second Ecumenical Council, where the Son of God is confessed incarnate “by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” In the times closest to us, this heresy is again raised from the dust by rationalists. 1) Finally, there are four known errors regarding the union of two natures, Divine and human, in Jesus Christ: the errors of the Nestorians, Eutychians, Monothelites and Adoptians. Nestorius, the former Patriarch of Constantinople (in the 5th century), and his followers completely separated the two natures in Jesus Christ - to the point that he allowed two persons in Him, and taught: “God the Word was not hypostatically united with human nature and was not born from the Virgin Mary, but from her a simple man, Christ, was born, with whom God the Word was united only externally, morally, in whom he dwelt, as in a church, as he previously dwelt in Moses and other prophets, and who, therefore, was only the God-Bearer (θεοφόρος), and not the God-man, as well as Rev. The Virgin is only the Mother of Christ (χριστοτόκοζ), and not the Mother of God” 89. This is a false teaching, primarily denounced by St. Cyril of Alexandria, then the Roman Council, presided over by Pope Celestine, and then the Alexandrian Council, presided over by the same St. Cyril was finally solemnly condemned in 431 by the third Ecumenical Council, which took place in Ephesus 90. Eutyches, archimandrite of one of the Constantinople monasteries (in the 5th century), armed himself against the Nestorian heresy, fell into the opposite extreme, and completely merged two natures in Christ, so that he recognized in Him not only one Person, but also one nature, from which the followers of this heretic were called Monophysites (from μόνος one and φυσις nature): for humanity, he taught, in Christ was absorbed into the Divinity, at a hypostatic union, and has lost everything characteristic of human nature, except for the visible image; and therefore in Christ the Word itself appeared and lived on earth, under the guise of flesh only, and the Divinity of the Word suffered, was buried, and was resurrected 91 . This false teaching, which had arisen more than once before Eutyches 92, but only strengthened and spread by Eutyches, who defended it with particular tenacity and audacity, was solemnly condemned by the Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical 93. The essence of the Monothelite heresy (μόνος - one and θέλημα - will, desire), which arose around 630, which can rightly be considered a further development of the Monophysite heresy, was that in Jesus Christ, although there are two natures, there is one will, one action. This heresy, which caused the greatest unrest in the Church and captivated the patriarchs: Sergius and Pyrrhus of Constantinople, Honorius of Rome, Cyrus of Alexandria and many others, was solemnly condemned (in 680) at the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III 94. Finally, the false teaching of the Adoptians, which degenerated from the beginnings of Nestorianism towards the end of the 8th century, asserted that Jesus Christ, by his human nature, is not the Son of God the Father, but a gracious, adopted one (adoptivus), obviously suggesting a division in Jesus Christ of two natures into two persons. The culprits of this false teaching were two Spanish bishops - Felix and Elipandes (c. 783); but from Spain it soon spread throughout the Western Church, and was condemned by many local councils in Gaul, Germany and Italy 95 . In the midst of all these numerous heresies regarding the Person of the Lord Jesus, the Orthodox Church from the days of the apostles constantly defended and revealed the same teaching, which it expressed with particular force at the Fourth Ecumenical Council in the following words: “Following by the divine Father, we all unanimously teach to confess the one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in Divinity and perfect in humanity: truly God and truly man, the same from soul and body: consubstantial with the Father in Divinity, and consubstantial with us in humanity: in everything similar to us, except for sin: born before the age of the Father according to Divinity, in the last days of the same, for our sake and for the sake of our salvation, from Mary the Virgin Theotokos, according to humanity: one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, in two natures inseparably, unchangeably, inseparably, inseparably cognizable (not the difference of two natures consumed by the union, but rather the preserved property of each nature, in one person and in one hypostasis of the united): not into two persons cut or divided, but one and the same Son, and the only begotten God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old about Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught us, and as our Father gave us a symbol” 96 . From this it is clear that the entire teaching of the Orthodox Church about the Person of the Lord Jesus consists of two main provisions: I) that in Christ Jesus there are two natures, Divine and human, and II) that these two natures in Him constitute one hypostasis. Error haereticorum de Christo tribus generibus terminatur: ant enim de divinitate ejus, aut de humanitate, aut de utroque falluntur (Quaest. Evangel. lib. 1, quaest. 45, in Patrolog. curs. compl. T. XXXV, p. 1332, 1). Iren. adv. haer. 1, 26; Sh, 2. n. 1; V, 1. n. 3; Euseb. Histor, eccl. Sh, 27. 38; Epiphan. haeres. XXVIII; Hieronym. de vir. illustr. cap. 9. Iren. adv. haer. 1, 25; Tertull. de praescr. haeret, c. 54; Hippolyt. adv. Noet. c. 3; Epiphan. haeres. Liv. LV. Philastr. haeres. 3, 64; Euseb. Η. E. V, 28; VII, 27; Hieronym. de vir. illustr. c. 71. Epiphan. haeres. 69, no. 12; 73 et 74; Socrates H E. 1, 5. 6; 11, 30. 35. 40; Sozom. H.E. 1, 15; II, 33; Ι II, 15. Iren. adv. haeg. 1, 23; Epiphan. haer. 57. 62; Basil, epist. 210. (77) From the Greek word: δοκέω, I think, I think, I seem. (78) Its main disseminators were the leaders of the heresies: Simon the Magus (Theodoret. Epl. CIV), Menander (Theodoret. Epl. CXLV); Saturninus (Theod. Haeret. Fab. 1, 3), Basilides (Epiphan. haer. 24 et 26), Valentinus (Tertul. de carn. Christ. XIV), Kidron (Epiphan. haer. 41), Marcion (Tertull. adv. Marc. III, 8), Tatian (Hieron. in Epl. ad Fab. VI). (79) ... σωλήνος οδεύει. Iren. adv. haer. 1, 7, no. 2; Euseb. Η. E. IV, 30; Epiphan. haer. 31 et 56; Augustin. haer. 35. … Ἐκ της τοΰ κόσμου ουσίας. Tertull. de carn. Christi c. 6; de praescript. haer. c. 51; Epiphan. haer. 44; Augustin. adv. Faust. XXIII, 2; haer. 47; Theodoret. Haeret, fab. 1, 26. Ignat. Epl. ad Smyrn. n. 2. 4. 5; ad Trall. n. 10. 11; Iren. adv. haer. V, 18, n. 3; 17, no. 3; III, 18. 19. 22; Meliton. de incarn. lib. III fragm. (in Anast. Sinait. Hodeg. c. 13); Tertull. de carne Christi c. 5; Clem. Alex. Strom. III, 13. Confess. Belg. art. ХVIII; Formula. conc. epit. c. XI; Gotta ad Gerhard. Loc. Theolog. tom. III, pag. 406, diss. 1, p, 13 et squ. Socrates Η. E. II, p. 46. Grieg. Theologian last to Kledon. I and II, in TV. St. Father IV, 200 et seq. Apollon. Epl. ad Petr. (in Mai. Coll. T. VII), Epl. ad Heracl. (ibid), adv. Diodor. (ibid,). Before Apollinaris, Lucian (Epiphan. Ancor. XXXIII) and Arius and his followers adhered to the same false teaching (vid. in Mai T. VII, p. 17; V40;III, p. 65). Which are: Athanasius the Great (contr. Apollin. et Epl. ad Epictet.), Gregory the Theologian (in letters to Kledonius), Gregory of Nyssa (Autirr. adv. Apolin.), Epiphanius (Anсor. 71 et sq.), Augustine (de divers. quaest. LXXXIII, qu. 80). Iren. adv. haeg. I, 25, n. 1; 26, no. I; III, 2, n. I; V, 1, n. 3; Philastr. haer. 36; Theodoret. Haeret. Fab. 1, 5. Ignat. ad Ephes. n. 18; Iren. adv. haer. III, 21; Tertull. de praescr. haeret. c. 13; Cyrill. (Cathech. IV, 9); Chrysost. in Is. VII, n. 6. Nestor, de incarn. Serm. 1, n. 10 (in Mar. Merc. ed. Gara. T. II, p. 5; cfr. p 118); Cyrill. Alex. Epl. ad Cler. Constantinople. VIII. See Brief. ist. III Ecumenical Cathedral, in Chr. Thu 1842, III, 340 onwards. Eutych. in Concil. Chalcedon, act. 1, p. 91–93 apud Binium; Leo Epl. ad Flavian. in Conc, chalcedon. act. 11, p. 165, ed. Bin. It was preached by: Veron and Helix (Hippol. adv. Beron. et Helicem, n. 5 sq.), Eudoxius Apollinaris (Vid. apud Mai VII, p. 17; Epiphan. haer. LXXXII, n. 33) See Brief. Histor. IV all. Council, Chalcedon, in Chr. Thurs. 1847, IV, 112 et seq. See Crat. Histor. VI all. Cathedral, in Chr. Thurs. 1848, II, pp. 1–33. Madrisii – de Felic. et Elipan. haer. dissert., in Opp. Paulini Aquil. p. 207 et 599, ed. Venet, 1737; Valch. hist. Adoptianor. Gotting. 1755. The same teaching is expounded in the symbol known under the name of St. Athanasius of Alexandria: “There is the Orthodox faith, let us believe and confess that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man, - God, born of the being of the Father before the ages; and man, born from the Mother's being in time; perfect God and perfect man, made of verbal and human flesh from the soul. Even though God is also man, neither are two, but Christ is one, one not by the fusion of natures, but by the unity of hypostasis.” You might be interested in: