An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

Before continuing the narrative, let us pause awhile to consider what it has already brought before us. An aged and blameless man, the friend of a Saints and him the great champion of the faith against the heresy of his day, is found in the belief and maintenance of a doctrine, which he declares to be the very doctrine which that Saint taught in opposition to that heresy. To prove it, he and his friends refer to the very words of St. Cyril; Eustathius of Berytus quoting from him at Ephesus as follows: "We must not then conceive two natures, but one nature of the Word incarnate." [Note 62] Moreover, it seems that St. Cyril had been called to account for this very phrase, and had appealed more than once to a passage, which is extant as he quoted it, in a work by St. Athanasius [Note 63]. Whether the passage in question is genuine is very doubtful, but that is not to the purpose; for the phrase which it contains is also attributed by St. Cyril to other Fathers, and was admitted by Catholics generally, as by St. Flavian, who deposed Eutyches, nay was indirectly adopted by the Council of Chalcedon itself.

5.

But Eutyches did not merely insist upon a phrase; he appealed for his doctrine to the Fathers generally; "I have read the blessed Cyril, and the holy Fathers, and the holy Athanasius," he says at Constantinople, "that they said, 'Of two natures before the union,' but that 'after the union' they said 'but one.'" [Note 64] In his letter to St. Leo, he appeals in particular to Pope Julius, Pope Felix, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, Atticus, and St. Proclus. He did not appeal to them unreservedly certainly, as shall be presently noticed; he allowed that they might err, and perhaps had erred, in their expressions: but it is plain, even from what has been said, that there could be no consensus against him, as the word is now commonly understood. It is also undeniable that, though the word "nature" is applied to our Lord's manhood by St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen and others, yet on the whole it is for whatever reason avoided by the previous Fathers; certainly by St. Athanasius, who uses the words "manhood," "flesh," "the man," "economy," where a later writer would have used "nature:" and the same is true of St. Hilary [Note 65]. In like manner, the Athanasian Creed, written, as it is supposed, some twenty years before the date of Eutyches, does not contain the word "nature." Much might be said on the plausibility of the defence, which Eutyches might have made for his doctrine from the history and documents of the Church before his time.

6.

Further, Eutyches professed to subscribe heartily the decrees of the Council of Nicæa and Ephesus, and his friends appealed to the latter of these Councils and to previous Fathers, in proof that nothing could be added to the Creed of the Church. "I," he says to St. Leo, "even from my elders have so understood, and from my childhood have so been instructed, as the holy and Ecumenical Council at Nicæa of the three hundred and eighteen most blessed Bishops settled the faith, and which the holy Council held at Ephesus maintained and defined anew as the only faith; and I have never understood otherwise than as the right or only true orthodox faith hath enjoined." He says at the Latrocinium, "When I declared that my faith was conformable to the decision of Nicæa, confirmed at Ephesus, they demanded that I should add some words to it; and I, fearing to act contrary to the decrees of the First Council of Ephesus and of the Council of Nicæa, desired that your holy Council might be made acquainted with it, since I was ready to submit to whatever you should approve." [Note 66] Dioscorus states the matter more strongly: "We have heard," he says, "what this Council" of Ephesus "decreed, that if any one affirm or opine anything, or raise any question, beyond the Creed aforesaid" of Nicæa, "he is to be condemned." [Note 67] It is remarkable that the Council of Ephesus, which laid down this rule, had itself sanctioned the Theotocos, an addition, greater perhaps than any before or since, to the letter of the primitive faith.

7.

Further, Eutyches appealed to Scripture, and denied that a human nature was there given to our Lord; and this appeal obliged him in consequence to refuse an unconditional assent to the Councils and Fathers, though he so confidently spoke about them at other times. It was urged against him that the Nicene Council itself had introduced into the Creed extra-scriptural terms. "'I have never found in Scripture,' he said," according to one of the Priests who were sent to him, "'that there are two natures.' I replied, 'Neither is the Consubstantiality,'" (the Homoüsion of Nicæa,) "'to be found in the Scriptures, but in the Holy Fathers who well understood them and faithfully expounded them.'" [Note 68] Accordingly, on another occasion, a report was made of him, that "he professed himself ready to assent to the Exposition of Faith made by the Holy Fathers of the Nicene and Ephesine Councils and he engaged to subscribe their interpretations. However, if there were any accidental fault or error in any expressions which they made, this he would neither blame nor accept; but only search the Scriptures, as being surer than the expositions of the Fathers; that since the time of the Incarnation of God the Word... he worshipped one Nature... that the doctrine that our Lord Jesus Christ came of Two Natures personally united, this it was that he had learned from the expositions of the Holy Fathers; nor did he accept, if aught was read to him from any author to [another] effect, because the Holy Scriptures, as he said, were better than the teaching of the Fathers." [Note 69] This appeal to the Scriptures will remind us of what has lately been said of the school of Theodore in the history of Nestorianism, and of the challenge of the Arians to St. Avitus before the Gothic King [Note 70]. It had also been the characteristic of heresy in the antecedent period. St. Hilary brings together a number of instances in point, from the history of Marcellus, Photinus, Sabellius, Montanus, and Manes; then he adds, "They all speak Scripture without the sense of Scripture, and profess a faith without faith." [Note 71]

8.

Once more; the Council of the Latrocinium, however, tyrannized over by Dioscorus in the matter of St. Flavian, certainly did acquit Eutyches and accept his doctrine canonically, and, as it would appear, cordially; though their change at Chalcedon, and the subsequent variations of the East, make it a matter of little moment how they decided. The Acts of Constantinople were read to the Fathers of the Latrocinium; when they came to the part where Eusebius of Dorylæum, the accuser of Eutyches, asked him, whether he confessed Two Natures after the Incarnation, and the Consubstantiality according to the flesh, the Fathers broke in upon the reading:—"Away with Eusebius; burn him; burn him alive; cut him in two; as he divided, so let him be divided." [Note 72] The Council seems to have been unanimous, with the exception of the Pope's Legates, in the restoration of Eutyches; a more complete decision can hardly be imagined.

62. Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 127.

63. Petav. de Incarn. iv. 6, § 4.

64. Concil. Hard. t. 2, p.168.

65. Vid. the Author's Athan. trans. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. pp. 351-333, 426-429, and on the general subject his Theol. Tracts, art. v.]

66. Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxvii. 39.

67. Ibid. 41. In like manner, St. Athanasius in the foregoing age had said, "The faith confessed at Nicæa by the Fathers, according to the Scriptures, is sufficient for the overthrow of all misbelief." ad Epict. init. Elsewhere, however, he explains his statement, "The decrees of Nicæa are right and sufficient for the overthrow of all heresy, especially the Arian." ad. Max. fin. St. Gregory Nazianzen, in like manner, appeals to Nicæa; but he "adds an explanation on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit which was left deficient by the Fathers, because the question had not then been raised." Ep. 102, init. This exclusive maintenance, and yet extension of the Creed, according to the exigences of the times, is instanced in other Fathers. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. p. 82.]

68. Fleury, ibid. 27.

69. Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 141. [A negative is omitted in the Greek, but inserted in the Latin.]

70. Supr. p. 245.

71. Ad Const. ii. 9. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881. vol. ii. p. 261.]

72. Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 162.