St. Peter Canisius Apostolate

In the mid-sixth century, the Church had to face the lingering effects of Nestorianism, which, if we recall, said that Jesus had both two natures and two persons. Thus, the Second Council of Constantinople was held in 533. Paragraph 468 of the Catechism speaks of this Council:

After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ’s human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that “there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity.” Thus everything in Christ’s human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: “He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity.”

Because the human and divine natures were perfectly united by the person of the Son of God, we can properly say that everything Jesus Christ did on earth was done by the second person of the Holy Trinity. Thus, we can say that God was born, that God suffered and died, and that God rose from the dead.

In paragraph 469, the Catechism wraps up this section by stating the Church’s teaching about Jesus Christ:

The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother:

“What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed”, sings the Roman Liturgy. And the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: “O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!”

As a response to Nestorianism, a man named Eutyches (d. 454) ended up under-emphasizing Christ’s human nature to the point of nearly (but not quite) denying it. This teaching is known as the Monophysitism, which is a two-dollar word that means “one-nature” (mono, single + physis, nature). As paragraph 467 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God’s Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed:

“Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; like us in all things but sin. He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.

“We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.”

Just so we’re clear, note that the second two paragraphs from the Catechism are citations from the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

First, let’s note how Chalcedon speaks of the two natures of Christ: “the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; like us in all things but sin.”

The key word here is “consubstantial.” We know it better when it’s interpreted as “one-in-being.” This is what we say in the Nicene Creed when we profess that Jesus Christ is “one-in-being with the Father”; that is to say, Jesus Christ is God.

Chalcedon uses this word, which became a key to Catholic theology at the Council of Nicaea in 325, not only to tell us that Jesus is fully God, but also to say that Jesus is full man. To restate Chalcedon in language we are familiar with, it would read like this: “one-in-being with the Father as to his divinity and one-in-being with us as to his humanity.” This is the clearest definition that Christ is true God and true man ever made.

Then Chalcedon addresses the Monophysite heresy: “We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person and one hypostasis.”

Two points: First, Christ’s human and divine nature co-exist “without confusion, change, division, or separation,” and second, this perfectly harmonious unity between his human and divine nature is possible only because “they came together in one person,” the person of the Son of God.

To understand exactly what this means, we need to understand what “nature” and “person” means. Nature tells us what kind of actions are possible, but it is the person who does them. My human nature allows me to perform all sorts of actions, but it is I who do those actions. Nature tells us “what” a thing is, and “person” tells us who a thing is.

So the two natures of Christ — the two sources of operations he possessed, his divine nature and his human nature — came together in perfect harmony in the one person — the divine Who of the second person of the blessed Trinity, the eternal Son.

We’ll talk about the profound theological consequence of this teaching next time.

In paragraph 466, the Catechism speaks of the Nestorian heresy, a heresy important both in terms of the Church’s teaching on Christ as well as the Church’s teaching on Mary. Paragraph 466 says:

The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed “that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man.” Christ’s humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: “Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh.”

Nestorianism represents a development in Christological thinking. Whereas the early heresies we spoke of could be boiled down to either denying Christ’s humanity while accepting his divinity (Docetism), or vice-versa (Adoptionism and Arianism), Nestorianism accepted both Christ’s divinity and his humanity. In other words, Nestorius would have no problem saying that Jesus is true God and true man. If that’s the case, where did he go wrong?

While it’s true that Nestorius taught that Jesus had both a divine nature and a human nature, it is also true that Nestorius taught that Jesus has both a divine person and a human person. Recall paragraph 464; it said that some Christological heresies taught that Jesus was part God and part man, while others confused the relationship between Christ’s divine and human natures. Simply put, by saying that Jesus had two persons, Nestorianism confuses this relationship.

Due to the work of St. Cyril of Alexander, at the Council of Ephesus (431) the Church taught that Jesus has two natures, a human nature and a divine nature, but only person, that of the Son of God. In other words, we do not believe that the Son of God possessed a man, but, rather, that the Son of God became a man.

Why is this important? If Jesus had two persons, a divine and human person, then there would be questions as to which person was responsible for a particular action. Was it the divine person who suffered on the cross, or only the human person? So in saying that Jesus is only one person, the Church is also saying that whatever we see Jesus doing, we see God doing. Thus, God really walked the shores of Galilee; God really fed the multitudes; God really suffered and died for us; and God really rose from the dead.

It’s because we believe that Jesus Christ is one divine person that we believe that Mary is the Mother of God. If we say that God really walked the shores of Galilee, fed the multitude, suffered, died, and rose again, then we can also say that God was really born of a woman. And the woman who bore God in human form would consequently be called the Mother of God. Hence, Mary is truly the Mother of God.

This great truth about Mary says more about Jesus than it does about Mary. Protestants, in denying that Mary is the Mother of God, do so because they misunderstand both the historical context as well as the theological implications of the title. To say that Mary is the Mother of God is to preserve the teaching that in Jesus Christ there is one person, the person of the eternal Son of God, and two natures, human and divine.

Next up: Monophysitism

In paragraph 465, the Catechism speaks of the first three great Christological heresies — Docetism, Adoptionism, and Arianism.

The first heresies denied not so much Christ’s divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism). From apostolic times the Christian faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God’s Son “come in the flesh.” But already in the third century, the Church in a council at Antioch had to affirm against Paul of Samosata that Jesus Christ is Son of God by nature and not by adoption. The first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 confessed in its Creed that the Son of God is “begotten, not made, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father”, and condemned Arius, who had affirmed that the Son of God “came to be from things that were not” and that he was “from another substance” than that of the Father.

Now, I have to say that this paragraph can be a bit misleading if it is not read carefully. The opening sentence says that the first heresies denied Christ’s humanity, not his divinity. This is certainly true of Docetism, but it is not true of the other two heresies spoken of in this paragraph — Adoptionism and Arianism.

Docetism was a form of Gnosticism, and Gnosticism denied the goodness of material things. Since matter was inherently evil, the all-good God would not willing join himself to what is evil. Therefore, Docetism said that Christ only seemed to be a man; that is to say, he was human in appearance only, not in reality. Simply put, Docetism said that Christ is fully God, but only seemed to be a man.

After the Catechism speaks of Docetism, it turns to a heresy called “Adoptionism.” This heresy affirms that Jesus Christ is truly a man, but it denies that Jesus is God. Adoptionism denied that Jesus Christ is the natural Son of God and instead asserted that he is only the adoptive son of God. If we think in terms of natural and adoptive sonship in human terms — say, of a father who has both a biological son as well as a son he’s adopted — we can easily understand what Paul of Samosata was saying, namely, that at one point in time Jesus had no special relation to God, then at another point in time he had that special relationship to God. Orthodox Catholic teaching is that Jesus Christ is, from the moment of his conception, the true and natural Son of God. In short, that Jesus Christ is truly God.

Finally, the Catechism mentions perhaps the most influential heresy of the early Church — that of Arianism. Arianism also denied Christ’s divinity, but in a fundamentally different way than Adoptionism did. Arius, the founder of Arianism, believed that when St. Paul said that Jesus was the “firstborn son of all creation,” St. Paul meant that Jesus himself was the highest of all creatures, but still a creature. So Arianism believed that this pre-existence created son of God became man. Simply put, Arianism taught that Jesus was not fully God.

Strangely, Arianism did not teach that Jesus was fully man, either, for it denied that Jesus had a human soul. So for the 4th-century Arian, Jesus Christ was neither God nor man. If that was the case, then what exactly was he? I’m not sure I can answer that question.

At any rate, the next time you say the Nicene Creed during Mass, when you recite the following part: “…eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one-in-being with the Father…” remember that you are reciting the Church’s response to Arianism. Arius said that Jesus was not God, but the Church says that he is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.” Arius said that Jesus did not share the same nature as God, but he Church says that Jesus was “eternally begotten of the Father . . . and one-in-being with the Father.” And Arius said that Christ was created, but the Creed says that he “was begotten, not made.” Without a doubt, this is my favorite part of the Nicene Creed.

Now, as I noted before, there’s no such thing as a new heresy. So let’s ask a question: Are any of these three heresies — Docetism, Adoptionism, and Arianism — still with us today?

I’ve never met a Docetist; I’ve never met a person who claimed that Jesus was truly God but only seemed to be a man. I have met people, however, who refuse to limit Jesus’ human knowledge. One incident that comes to mind was when a person told me that Jesus could have spoken any language he wanted. This might look like Docetism on the surface, but to me it seems more like a form of Monophysitism (which we’ll get to in another post). At any rate, I think it’s safe to say Docetism is not with us today. Of course, that doesn’t mean it won’t be with us in the future.

On the other hand, Adoptionism seems to be alive and well — at least a modified version of it. I suspect that many people see Jesus as little more than a great ethical and spiritual figure, a Jewish version of the Buddha or Socrates. But what gave Jesus his profound insight was his deep relationship with God. Whether or not a person who holds this view would call himself an Adoptionist (he’d probably look at you funny if you told him he was one) is debatable. Also debatable is whether or not he is in fact a true Adoptionist. Still, anyone who places the Lord Jesus on the level of Socrates, Buddha, or Mohammed, and then claims that what makes Jesus different is that he obtained a deeper relationship with God is flirting with Adoptionism.

Arianism is also alive and well today, too, under the guise of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. If I’m not mistaken, the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus is, in his spiritual form, the archangel Michael, who is the greatest of God’s creatures. But don’t try to tell them that this part of their religion is nothing more than a rehashing of an old heresy. I did that once. The response? The Jehovah’s Witnesses told me Arius was correct.

Next time: Nestorianism.

In this first post of five, we’re going to study paragraphs 464 to 469 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In these paragraphs, the Catechism sketches the errors made about Jesus Christ in the early Church.

Why would studying error be an important part of catechesis? The simple fact is that we often learn best from our mistakes. And since there’s no such thing as a new heresy, chances are that many of us, at one time or another, perhaps even now, think about Jesus Christ along the lines of one of these heresies. Once we see the mistake, the truth of the matter will become easier to both understand and accept.

That’s being said, let’s begin.

In paragraph 464, the Catechism tells us that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. It says:

The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.

During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.

First, the Catechism sketches the two most basic mistakes one can make about Jesus Christ — namely, thinking that he is a kind of demi-god, half-god and half-man, or thinking that there was a kind of struggle between his human and divine natures.

Then the Catechism tells us the traditional and orthodox understanding: “He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.” This understanding came about vis-à-vis error and misunderstanding.

We’ll talk about these misunderstandings in the next four posts.

Paragraphs 461-463 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church speak of the Incarnation.

Paragraph 461 provides us with a simple definition:

Taking up St. John’s expressions, “The Word became flesh,” the Church calls “Incarnation” the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it.

Two points: first, the “Incarnation” is when the Son of God assumed a human nature, and second, the reason the Son of God assumed a human nature was to accomplish our salvation in it. So the full definition of the Incarnation speaks of both the reality as well as the rationale behind the reality: The Son of God became man in order to save us.

Paragraph 461 continues by grounding this teaching in Sacred Scripture:

In a hymn cited by St. Paul, the Church sings the mystery of the Incarnation:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2.5-11)

Paragraph 462 continues with a passage from Scripture that speaks of the Incarnation:

The Letter to the Hebrews refers to the same mystery:

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Lo, I have come to do your will, O God.” (Heb 10.5-7, citing Ps 40.6-8)

Read in context, Hebrews 10.5-7 tells us that through his sacrifice, Jesus Christ annuls the first covenant — the covenant God established with Israel through Moses — and ushered in the definitive order of salvation founded on the death and resurrection of Christ.

Once again, the rationale of the Word becoming flesh is highlighted: The Son of God became man in order to save us.

Finally, Paragraph 463 tells us that faith in the Incarnation of the Son of God is the hallmark of authentic Christian faith:

Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.” Such is the joyous conviction of the Church from her beginning whenever she sings “the mystery of our religion”: “He was manifested in the flesh.”

In the Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast, episodes 1-3, we’ll be talking quite a bit about the Word — one of the titles given to Jesus — and why the Word became flesh. I thought it would be good to spend the next few weeks taking a close look at what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about the theology of the Incarnation. That is to say, I want to spend the next few weeks talking about the meaning of the Incarnation, about why the Word became flesh. To do this, our focus will be on paragraphs 456-483 of the Catechism.

In paragraphs 456-460, the Catechism answers this question: “Why did the Word become flesh?” In other words: Why did the Son of God become a man?

Paragraph 456 gives us the answer that we find in the Nicene Creed: “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven.” Simply put, the Word became flesh in order to save us.

But what does this salvation entail? Most people, I think, would say, “Yes, salvation means being saved from hell.” There’s no question that that is part of it. We learn more about hell from the lips of Christ himself in the four gospels than we do in the rest of the Old and New Testaments combined. But to define salvation only in this way emaciates both the teaching of Christ as well as the traditional Christian understanding of salvation.

Oddly, in paragraphs 456-460, the Catechism never defines salvation as being saved from hell. Instead, the Catechism, which expresses traditional Christian teaching in a new way, explains salvation not in a negative way (what we’re saved from), but, rather, it explains salvation in a positive way by telling us what it gives us.

Paragraph 457 tells us that the Word became flesh “in order to save us by reconciling us to God.” This is done by taking away our sins. To explain this truth, the Catechism quotes St. Gregory of Nyssa here: “Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us.” In other words, a fundamental truth of the mystery of salvation is that we are healed. The Word became flesh to take away our sins, and by taking away our sins he healed us. We are no longer at enmity with God; rather, we have be reconciled to the Father.

Paragraph 458 tells us that the Word became flesh “so that we might know God’s love.” Whereas 457 spoke of spiritual healing, 458 speaks of intellectual healing. Through human words, and by living a human life that culminates in his death and resurrection, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, reveals God’s infinite and merciful love. Quoting from both John 3.16 and 1 John 4.9, paragraph 458 tells us that God sent his Son into the world so that we might have life. Our intellect is healed by knowing that God’s infinite and merciful love expresses itself in the desire he has for us to share in his own very life.

In fact, paragraph 460 says as much, when it cites 2 Peter 1.4: The Word became flesh “to make us partakers of the divine nature.” What does it mean to be a partaker of the divine nature? In three different quotations, the Catechism shows what the traditional understanding of this biblical verse.

Going in historical order, the Catechism first cites St. Irenaeus (d. 202): “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.”

The Catechism then cites St. Athanasius (d. 373), who in a more emphatic way, says this: “For the Son of God became a man so that we might become God.”

Finally the Catechism cites St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), who says: “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

It takes awhile to wrap one’s mind around this concept — that through the grace of God we become like God. Yet, that is the truth of the matter. When we are baptized, we receive the supernatural life of God within our souls, thus becoming true children of the Father. In the Holy Eucharist, we receive the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, which nourishes the supernatural life of God within us. Both baptism and the Eucharist would not be possible had not the Son of God become man, for both through baptism and the Holy Eucharist we enter into communion with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (see Rom 6.1-12 for baptism, and 1 Cor 10.14-22 for the Eucharist).

Finally, in paragraph 459, we are told that the Word became flesh “to be our model of holiness.” Citing various passages of Scripture, we are reminded that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14.6); that we are take his yoke upon our shoulders and learn from him (Mt 11.29); that God the Father commanded us to listen to him (Mk 9.7); and that we are to imitate his love (Jn 15.12). Simply put, we are to live as he lived.

Thus, when we pray in the Nicene Creed that “for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven,” we must recall the Church’s understanding of salvation. It is not a negative understanding — it is not merely being saved from hell. Rather, it is immensely positive. Salvation for the Church means being reconciled with God, knowing that because of his love God wishes us to share in eternal life with him, and that God fills us with his own divine life in such a profound way that we become like him.

Yet, in all this heavy theology, there is a practical side: Part of our salvation depends up us — depends upon imitating Our Lord Jesus. Through his death and resurrection, he reconciled us to God; through his life and teaching, he reveals God’s infinite love; and through the sacraments, we become sharers of the divine nature. That’s what Our Lord does for us. All he asks of us is to be his disciple — to live as he lived.

And that is why the Word became flesh — to give us all the graces of salvation, and to teach us how to live a life worthy of this calling.