Alexander Schmemann

3. The Age Of The Ecumenical Councils (50 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 14

Council of Chalcedon (Fourth Ecumenical Council).

Outwardly the leading role of the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon fell to the share of the Roman legates. The East, again divided and weakened by disputes, accepted the mediation of Pope Leo. His Dogmatic Tome, written for the council of 449, was accepted as the norm of orthodox doctrine. This was a moderate policy, combining Cyril’s thought with the language of the Antiochenes. It clearly and precisely confessed two natures m Christ. The same policy was supported by the imperial couple’s representatives, who conducted the debates, but this time without imposing their theology. After accepting Leo’s epistle as the rule of faith, the council in several stormy sessions condemned the action in Ephesus in 449 and those chiefly responsible for it, especially Dioscurus. Most of the bishops considered their task finished, but the emperor and the legates demanded a Horos — a general obligatory and clearly ecumenical creed. Almost against the will of the council, a commission was appointed on which both theological schools were represented, as well as the Roman legates. It was this commission that presented to the council the famous text of the dogma of Chalcedon:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial [homoousion] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God [Theotokos], according to the manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably, the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one person [prosopon] and one substance [hypostasis], not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the creed of the Holy Fathers has handed down to us.

Two natures in union “unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably.” Even one untried in theology and philosophy inevitably senses that in these words was found at last the golden rule for which the Church had so earnestly longed. The words are all negative — what can human language say of the mystery of Christ’s Being? But this negative definition has an inexhaustible religious meaning: it guards, describes, and expresses forever what composes the very essence of Christianity, the joyous mystery of the Gospel. God is united with man, but in that union man is preserved in all his fullness; he is in no way diminished. And now God is wholly in him: one Person, one Mind, one striving. This is the meaning of God-Manhood; the Chalcedonian dogma gave mankind a new measure. What might seem outwardly a mere rhetorical balance of words expressed in fact the faith, hope, and love of the Church, the moving force of all our Christian life. God comes to man, not to diminish him, but to make the divine Person human.

 

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