Apollinarism
Apollinarism or Apollinarianism was a view proposed by Apollinaris of Laodicea (d. 390) that Jesus had a human body and lower soul (the seat of the emotions) but a divine mind. It arose after the Trinity had been systematically formulated in 325 at the Council of Nicea, but debate continued about exactly what it meant. Apollinarism was declared to be a heresy in 381 by the First Council of Constantinople.
Apollianris had developed a solid reputation as a Christian theologian who supported Nicene orthodoxy and courageously defended the Christian faith during the time of Julian the Apostate. His christological formula attempted to solve a logical problem which many Christian had in understanding the Nicene formula, namely, "how could Jesus be 'true God' without losing his humanity?" Apollinaris sought to solve the problem by saying that Jesus retained a human body and feelings, while his mind was the mind of the Divine Logos.
His ideas were widely popular, but ran into stiff criticism from other church leaders, who accused him of dividing Christ into artificial parts—making him less than fully divine and more than truly human at the same time—and thus falling into heresy.
Apollinaris refused to recant his view and persisted in teaching them until his death. After this, his movement persisted for some time, but eventually faded. While some of his followers returned to the orthodox church, others would find a home in the later christological movements which addressed the problem he tried to solve: Monophysitism, Monothelitism, and Nestorianism. The Council of Chalcedon ultimately resolved the issue in (date), although Christians today still grapple with the seeming logical inconsistencies of the "mystery" of the Trinity and the Incarnation.
The career of Appolinaris
Apollinarism was christological theory according to which Christ had a human body and a human soul, but thought only the thoughts of God. Apollinaris (Apolinarios), bishop of the ancient and prestigious church at Laodicea, flourished in the latter half of the fourth century and was at first highly esteemed by men such as Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil the Great, and Jerome, due to his classical and biblical learning, his defense of Christianity against paganism during the reign of Julian the Apostate, and his loyalty to the Nicene faith. He assisted his father, Apollinaris the Elder, in popularizing Christian ideas through Greek literary genres. Together they translated the Pentateuch into Greek hexameters, converted the first two books of Kings into an epic poem of 24 cantos, and expressed biblical stories through comedic and tragic dramas. Saint Jerome credits him with many volumes on the scriptures, including two apologies on behalf of Christianity and a refutation of the Arian teacher Eunomius.
The precise time at which Apollinaris began to promulgate the theory which bears his name is uncertain. However, there are apparently two periods in the Apollinarist controversy. Up to 376, Apollinaris' name was never mentioned by his opponents, including Athanasius and Pope Damasus. Nor is he criticized in church councils such as that of Alexandria (362), and Rome (376). However, from 376 onward open open and personal theological warfare broke out between him and his critics.
Two late Roman councils, in 377 and 381, plainly denounce and condemn the views of Apollinaris as heretical—though not mentioning him by name. More importantly, his views solemnly anathematized at the general Council of Constantinople in 381. Indeed, the first act of this ecumenical synod entered Apollinarianism on the list of heresies. Still convinced that he was not in error, he died about 392.
The movement of Apollinarism
Apollinarism had considerable in Constantinople, Syria, and Phoenicia. However, after his death, the movement dissipated. Some of his disciples, such as Vitalis, Valentinus, Polemon, and Timothy, tried to perpetuate the teachings of the master and may be responsible for a number of pseudonymous writings to that end. A contemporary anonymous book: Adversus fraudes Apollinaristarum, claims that the Apollinarists, in order to win credence for their teaching, circulated a number of tracts under the approved names of such famous churchmen as Gregory Thaumaturgus (He kata meros pistis, Exposition of Faith), Athanasius (Peri sarkoseos, On the Incarnation), Pope Julius (Peri tes en Christo enotetos, On Unity in Christ), etc. Some of these works, still appear under their supposed authors' names in collections of their works.
The sect itself soon became extinct. Towards 416, many returned to the orthodox Church, while others drifted into Monophysitism and other similar theories.
Doctrine
Apollinaris taught that the souls of men were propagated by other human souls, as were their bodies, rather than being a direct creation of God. He based his theory on two principles, one objective, and one psychological or subjective.
Objectively, it appeared to him that the union of "true God" with "true man"—the Nicean forula—contained a logical inconsistency, combining two things which could not logically be combined. Two perfect beings with all their attributes, he argued, cannot completely one, especially when one is infinite and purely spiritual while the other is finite and at least partly physical. They are at most a compound. To make them absolutely one is not unlike the description of demigods in Greek mythology. However, Apollinaris was careful to affirm that he the Nicene faith, which forbade describing God the Son as anything less than the "same substance" with the Father. Indeed, he was a harsh critic of the Arian theology which the Council of Nicea condemned.
Apollinaris attempted to solve the problem by affirming the complete unity of substance between the mind of Jesus' and the mind of God. However, he also affirmed that Jesus' body and feelings (soul) were basically human. Thus, Jesus remained both truly human and truly divine, but his human functions were separated from one another.
Psychologically, Apollinaris' conscience would not allow him to affirm Christ's impeccability—his absolutely sinlessness— except by affirming that the mind of Jesus was completely identified with the Divine Logos. Apollinaris appealed to the well-known Platonic division of human nature: body (sarx, soma), lower soul (psyche, halogos), spirit or mind (nous, pneuma, rational soul). Christ, he said, assumed the human body and the human lower soul, but his mind (or rational soul) was the mind of God. In other words, the Logos—God the Son—takes the place of the human mind or rational soul in Jesus. In this way, God became the rational and spiritual center, the seat of self-consciousness and self-determination, in Jesus Christ.
Though this formula, the Apollinarius sought to save Nicene Christianity from the logical paradox that so many have seen it. At the same time he hoped to preserve the unity of Christ himself, seeing him not as two things (completely God and man at the same time) but one thing (a man with the mind of God). In Apollinarius' view, this formula preserved Christ's moral immutability and at the same time made the infinite value of Redemption self-evident. For scriptural confirmation, he quoted from the Gospel John 1:14 ("and the Word was made flesh"), Philemon 2:7 ("Being made in the likeness of men and in habit found as a man"), and I Cor.15:47 (the second man, from heaven, heavenly").
Condemnations
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In answering the challenge of Apollinaris, the Church Fathers had not yet evolved the christological promulgated by the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, in which the idea was expressed that Christ's human and divine natures were equally present in his person, "without confusion or division." Theodoret of Cyrrhus charged Apollinaris with confusing the persons of the Godhead, and with giving into the early heretical ways of Sabellius. Basil accused him of abandoning the literal sense of the scripture, and taking up wholly with the allegorical sense.
They thus posited the following arguments:
- Scripture holds that the Logos assumed all that is human in Jesus. The only exception to this is that there was no sin in Jesus, as in other humans. He thus experienced both joy and sadness, which are properties of the "rational soul."[1]
- Christ without a human rational soul, having the mind only of God, is not a man. Such a being can neither be called God-man nor stand as the model of Christian life.
- The qualities of humanity which Christ has not assumed, he also not healed. Thus, the noblest portion of man, his mind (rational soul), is excluded from Redemption.
Apollinaris' orthodox critics also pointed out the "correct" meaning of the ccriptural passages quoted by Apollinaris, remarking that the true meaning of Saint Paul in Philippians and I Corinthians was made clear by the teaching of the Pastoral Epistles. Some of them even insisted upon the limitations of Jesus' knowledge as proof positive that his mind was truly human.
When Apollinaris sought to draw them into debates about the mystery of the Unity of Christ as both God and man, they simply acknowledged their ignorance and derided Apollinaris' insistence on mathematical logical and his implicit reliance upon merely human reasoning. God's ways, they pointed out, are higher than ours, after all.
The following condemnation of Apollinarism is found in the seventh anathema of Pope Damasus I in the Council of Rome of 381:
We pronounce anathema against them who say that the Word of God is in the human flesh in lieu and place of the human rational and intellective soul."[2] For, the Word of God is the Son Himself. Neither did He come in the flesh to replace, but rather to assume and preserve from sin and save the rational and intellective soul of man.
The First Ecumentical Council of Constantinople, in the same year, condemned Apollinarism and other heresies in its first act.
The Faith of the 318 Fathers assembled at Nice in Bithynia shall not be set aside, but shall remain firm. And every heresy shall be anathematized, particularly that of the Eunomians or Eudoxians, and that of the Semi-Arians or Pneumatomachi, and that of the Sabellians, and that of the Marcellians, and that of the Photinians, and that of the Apollinarians.
Legacy
The Apollinarian controversy, which nowadays appears somewhat arcane, had a major impact on the history of Christian dogma. It transferred the discussion from the Trinity into the christological field, anticipating both Monophysitism, Nestorianism, as well as Monothelytism. It thus opened the long line of christological debates which resulted in the mature "Chalcedonian orthodoxy."
Notes
- ↑ While moderns may see these as emotional functions and there related to the psyche, the Fathers apparently did not.
- ↑ Intellective soul," here is synonymous with "mind" or "spirit" (pneuma) in other discussion of the topic, while the "lower" soul is synonymous with "psyche" or the emotional functions.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- This article incorporates content from the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, a publication in the public domain.
- Apollinarism Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved September 24, 2007.
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