St.

Catherine’s College
6019 Carcar City, Cebu
SENIOR HIGHSCHOOL DEPARTMENT
A.Y 2019-2020
Learning Activity in Theology II

Name: _________________________ Gr. & Community:_________Date:__________

Name of Teacher: Jeffrey V. Torre Score: __________

Topic: The Christological Controversies and the Christological Councils.

Learning Competency: Explores and understands the false teachings against the Nature and
Person of Jesus and the reasons behind such heresies, and the correct Catholic Doctrines about
the Person and Nature of Jesus Christ.

Specific Learning Outcome:

After going through this lesson, you are expected to:
a. Identify and understand the different Christological controversies or heresies and its
corresponding Christological council.
b. Differentiate each Christological controversies, and with different Christological councils.
c. Highlight the importance of the Christological councils as response to each controversy and
most especially embrace the totality of our Creed.
d. Develops a deeper conviction and appreciation on the formulation of the Nicene Creed.
Content:
Catholic Doctrine about Jesus Christ:

- Jesus Christ is one Divine Person (the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity) with two
natures: Divine and Human

Catholic Doctrine about the Blessed Trinity:

- We believe in ONE God in THREE Divine PERSONS

Christological Controversies/Heresies:

- When Christianity was finally allowed to surface in the roman empire, doctrinal debates
began to arise. As a result, the church had been plagued by Christological heresies or
false teachings regarding the person and nature of Jesus.
- In her commitment to preserve unadulterated the teachings of the apostles, the church
convoked ecumenical councils. These were gatherings of bishops from all over the
world, through which the church once and for all defined the true doctrines handed
down by the apostles.

CONTROVERSIES ON THE PERSON AND NATURE OF JESUS:

1. Docetism
2. Modalism
3. Arianism
 4. Apollinarism
5. Nestorianism
6. Eutychianism/Monophysitism
1. DOCETISM
- The Greek work “dokei” means “seemed”.
- Its teachings are mainly an adaptation of the Gnostic beliefs especially their main
teaching that matter is evil.
- Docetism is the heresy which teaches that Christ was Divine who appeared to be
human. He did not have a real human body.
- What people saw of Christ was a phantom, an illusion.
- ACCORDING TO SCRIPTURES: JOHN 1:14, MATTHEW 4:2, JOHN 4:7, 19:28,
MATTHEW 9:24
2. MODALISM
- Attributed to Sabellius
- this heresy is the belief that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the
same person.
- “Father”, “Son” and “Holy Spirit” are just “modes” or “forms” by which this single
person – GOD, revealed Himself.
- READ: MARK 1:11, JOHN 17:1
3. ARIANISM
- The principal heresy denying the divinity of Christ, named after its author Arius.
- Arianism maintained that the Son of God was not eternal but was created by the Father
from nothing as an instrument for the creation of the world;
- the Son was therefore not coeternal with the Father, nor of the same substance.
- READ: JOHN 1:1-2,18 JOHN 14, PHIL. 2:6
4. APOLLINARISM
- Apollinarius spread the belief that Christ had a human body but not a human soul. The
“Word” (The Spirit of God the Son) replaced the human spirit.
- Apollinarius argued that if Christ had a human soul then he might have sinned.
- READ: MARK 14:34
5. NESTORIANISM
- Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, questioned the Divine Motherhood of Mary with
the argument that in Christ are two persons: a human person and a divine person.
Mary is mother only of the human Jesus.
- Nestorius believed that God the Son simply used the human body as an instrument.
Jesus is “God-bearing man” rather than “God-Man.”
- READ: LUKE 1:43
6. EUTYCHIANISM OR MONOPHYSITISM
- Eutyches, an Abbot in Constantinople, preached the belief that Christ had only one
nature: Divine. Jesus is not man.
- “Physitos” is Greek for “nature”. Hence, Monophysitism, because Christ had only one
nature
- This was because the human nature was absorbed by the Divinity of God the Son.
- READ: GAL. 4:4, ACTS 2:22
The Christological Councils

The Council of Nicaea/Nicea

The Council of Nicaea (325 CE) was an important meeting of about 300 bishops from across the
Roman Empire who met to discuss theological and administrative issues. It is best known for
resulting in the Nicene Creed, which is still used by most Christian denominations today as a
statement of faith.

Documents and Evidence on the Council of Nicaea

 As the Council of Nicea was such importance to the early church, quite a bit of information
survives in ancient documents. Several church historians who lived during or shortly after
the Council of Nicea documented the events of the council. In addition, writers such as
Athanasius (main defender of Nicene orthodoxy). Following are links to English translations
of these ancient sources of Nicaea.
• Eusebius, Life of Constantine (eyewitness account of bishop)
• Athanasius, Letter of Bishops of Africa (eyewitness account)
• Athanasius, Defense of Nicene Definition (eyewitness, mainly on theology)
• Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History (early 400s AD)

Constantine and Arianism

 The newly-converted Emperor Constantine had hoped Christianity would be the uniting
force of his empire. He was thus distressed to hear of the dispute over Arianism, which
held that Jesus Christ was greater than man but inferior to God. In 325, Constantine called
the Council of Nicea with full confidence that the bishops could work out their differences.

 The Council of Nicea condemned the teachings of Arius (pictured right) and adopted a
creed outlining correct belief about the Son's relationship to the Father. The council was
the first to include bishops from several different regions, and is thus considered the first
"ecumenical council" of the church.

Arius formulated the following doctrines about Jesus:

 that the Logos and the Father were not of the same essence (ousia);

 that the Son was a created being (ktisma or poiema) and;

 that though He was the creator of the worlds, and must therefore have existed before
them and before all time, there was – Arius refused to use such terms as chronos or aion –
when He did not exist.

The subsequent controversy shows that the absence of the words chronos or aion was mere
evasion and that when defending himself he argued in just the same manner as though he
had used those words. Moreover, he asserted that the Logos had a beginning; yet not only
Athanasius but Origen before him, had taught that the relation of the Son to the Father had no
beginning and that, to use Dorner’s words (Person of Christ, ii. 115) Arius was obviously
perplexed by this doctrine, for he complains of it in his letter to the Nicomedian Eusebius, who
like himself had studied under Lucian. It is regretted that so much stress should have been laid
 in the controversy on words which, when used in metaphysical discussions had a tendency to
confuse the eternal generations.

THE NICENE CREED

 The most famous result of the council is the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith issued by
the Council of Nicaea. It reflects decision (by overwhelming majority) that Jesus was divine
in the same sense as God the Father, and not in the sense of a created divine being.

The second part, which condemns certain views as heretical, makes it clear that the question was
not whether Jesus was divine, but in what way he was divine. The "heretical" view, taught by
Arius and his followers, was not that Jesus was just a mortal prophet but that he was inferior to
God the Father and created by the Father.

This creed is documented in several contemporary sources, including the Acts of the Ecumenical
Councils of Ephesus and Acts of Chalcedon, in the Epistle of Eusebius of Cæsarea to his own
Church, in the Ecclesiastical Histories of Theodoret and Socrates, and elsewhere.

This council taught all of us to have faith in God and believe in Him. As we all know that this
Council was the one who produced the Nicene Creed. A creed that relies a message to all
Christians to believe and have faith to our loving Father. The topic revolves all about Emperor
Constantine who won the war and it says, they put the cross sign in their shields.

The Council of Constantinople

SETTING AND PUROSE

The first council of Constantinople was held in Constantinople, modern day Istanbul, Turkey. It
was convened by Theodosius I who at that time was Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. The
council met from May to July, 381.

The council was convened to try to unite a church that remained divided over the issue of Christ’s
nature and his relationship with the Father. Though the First Council of Nicea had already
attempted to reach concensus, Arianism and the heterodox understandings remained a
battleground in every region of the empire.

Creed of the council of Constantinople

 In the year 380 the emperors Gratian and Theodosius I decided to convoke this council to
counter the Arians, and also to judge the case of Maximus the Cynic, bishop of
Constantinople.

 The council met in May of the following year. One hundred and fifty bishops took part, all
of them eastern Orthodox, since the Pneumatomachi party had left at the start.

 No copy of the council’s doctrinal decisions, entitled tomos kai anathematismos engraphos,
has survived. The synodical letter of the synod of Constantinople was presented in 382.
Along the lines defined by the council of Nicea, the consubstantiality and co-eternity of the
divine persons against the Sabellians, Anomoeans, Arians, and Pneumatomachi, who
thought that the divinity was divided into several natures;
  And the enanthropesis (taking of humanity) of the Word, against those who supposed that
the Word had in no way taken a human soul.

 Scholars find difficulties with the creed attributed to the council of Constantinople. Some
say that the council composed a new creed. But no mention is made of this creed by
ancient witnesses until the council of Chalcedon; and the council of Constantinople was
said simply to have endorsed the faith of Nicea, with a few additions on the holy spirit to
refute the Pneumatomachian heresy.

 An explanation must be given of why the first two articles of the so-called
Constantinopolitan creed differs considerably from the Nicene creed.

One in faith: constantinople follows Nicea

 The 150 Fathers of Constantinople believed that what they taught was the same Faith as
what the 318 Fathers of Nicea had taught.

 Here we are faced with various heresies of both a subordinatonist (the Son is less divine
than is the Father) and modalistic (the distinction between the Persons is only in Name not
in reality) type which developed between 325 and 381, together with heresy
(Apollinarianism) concerning the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of them are to be
banished from the church of God.

 Thus no place is found for the error of Sabellius in which the Hypostases are confused and
their individualities taken away, nor does the blasphemy of the Eunomians and Arians and
Pneumatomoachi [=‘fighters against the Spirit’] prevail, in which the substance or nature
of the Godhead is cut up and some kind of later nature, created and a different substance,
is added to the uncreated and consubstantial and coeternal Trinity.

 Hypostasis is an important word in Christology. At the Council of Nicea it is used in the

anathemas against Arianism as a synonym for ousia. Literally, hypo-stasis is ‘that which
stands under’ and it refers to the permanent being which underlies the appearance of
things.

 Ousia has the similar but more abstract meaning of essence or being. However, because of
the work of the Cappadocian theologians the word Hypostasis came to be used for the
subsistences of being, not being itself, and thus they spoke of the hypostases, that is the
subsistences of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost in the Holy Trinity, One
God. At the same time, the word ousia retained its general meaning of essence and being
and was used of the deity, the Godhead, common to each of the Three. Thus the later
statement of orthodoxy used by the Fathers – one ousia and three hypostases.

The second council of Constantinople

SETTING AND PURPOSE

Like the First Council of Constantinople, the second council of Constantinople was held in
modern-day Istanbul, Turkey. The council met from May 5 to June 2,553 and was convened by
Emperor Justinian I in an attempt to reconcile those who sided with the decisions of Chalcedon
a hundred years prior and the Monophysites who had not.
THE PROCEEDINGS

Justinian issued an edict in 543 condemning three things: the person and writings of Theodore
of Mopsuestia, Theodore of Cyrusa’s writings against Cyril, and the letter of Ibas of Edessa to
Maris the Persian. These were condemned because they were understood to support Nestorius
and his view of Christ’s human and divine natures being distinct rather than united.

The third council of Constantinople

SETTING AND PURPOSE

The third council of constantinople was convened by Emperor Constantine IV in an attempt to

settle further differences between the Eastern and Western church I nthe way they understood
the nature of Christ’s will and power. The council began on November 7, 680 in the Trullus, a
great domed room In the imperial palace at Constantinople. Only 43 bishops were present,
marking this as the smallest of the seven ecumenical councils.

THE CONFLICT

The primary conflict in the council was regarding the two doctrines of monoenergism and
monothelitism. Monoenergism arose not long after the second council of constantinople as
another attempt to reconcile the churches of the East and West. It was the belief that, though
Christ may have had two distinct natures, there was but one energy operative in his person:
the divine energy.

Not long after the emergence of monoenergism, the discussion turned more toward discussions
about Christ’s will in place of his energy. From this came monothelitism, the belief that Christ had
only one will, namely his divine will,”for at no time did His rationally quickened flesh, separately
and of its own impulse…exercise its natural activity, but it exercised that activity at the time and in
the manner and measure In which the Word of God willed it.”

LASTING SIGNIFICANCE

Once again, the council had clarified the nature of Christ as fully God and fully man, now
extending that definition to include his nature, power and will. And once again, the church had
preserved orthodox, Trinitarian doctrine I nthe face of new assaults. For the time being there
would be peace between the church of the East and West.

Conclusion

Arianism gradually faded away and the Christian Church had finally confirmed that Christ was fully
human and fully divine.

CHRIST WAS GOD (John 1:1)

CHRIST WAS HUMAN IN EVERY RESPECT (Hebrews 2:17)

The Council of Ephesus

• Is the third in this historical list.

• Took place in the year of our Lord 431, when Saint Celestine I was the Pope and
Theodosius the Younger was Emperor.

• It was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus.

The Heresy of Nestorianism

Nestorianism is basically the doctrine that Jesus existed as two persons, the man Jesus and the
divine Son of God, rather than as a unified person.

The Theology of the council

• Pope Celestine ordered the council because of a certain wicked heresy being promoted by
the Bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius called Nestorianism.

• The Nicene Creed was solemnly read and followed by the reading of Cyril’s second letter
Nestorius, which set down the Catholic Doctrine concerning the union of the Natures in
Christ as opposed to the teaching of Nestorius.

• During the proceedings, Saint Cyril stressed the unique Personality of Christ as being that
of the Eternal Logos Himself.

• The Holy Bishop went on to draw the analogy between the union of the two Natures in
Christ and the union of the body and soul in man.

• The controversial title of Theotokos was proclaimed to be in harmony with the ancient
Faith, and was furthermore declared to be the watchwood of orthodoxy, meaning that he
who refused to grant this title to the Virgin Mary was deprived of the communion of the
faithful.

Result of the Council of Ephesus

The Council of Ephesus confirmed the Nicene Creed and the title Theotokos for Mary as a
legitimate title based on that creed.They also condemned Nestorianism and excommunicated all
those bishops who did not hold to the council’s decision. It confirmed the hypostatic union of
Christ as it was made explicit in the Nicene Creed.

Conclusion

• The Coucil of Ephesus clarifies and rectifies the teaching of Nestorius that Jesus existed as
two persons and the argument againts calling Mary the “Mother of God” (Theotokos).

• The council of Ephesus confirms the original Nicene Creed and condemned the teachings
of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who held that the Virgin Mary may be called the
Christotokos, “Birth Giver of Christ” but not the Theotokos, “Birth Giver of God.”
The Council of Chalcedon

The fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. The largest and best-documented of the
early councils.

Two letters of Cyril against Nestorius, which insisted on the unity of divine and human persons in
Christ.

Pope Leo I- Tome of Pope Leo I confirming two distinct natures in Christ and rejecting the
Monophysite doctrine that Christ had only one nature.

FALSE TEACHING:

--Eutyches denied that Jesus was truly Human, saying Jesus’ human nature was “Absorbed” or
swallowed up by His divine nature.

CORRECTION

The Council of Chalcedon anathematized (cursed) those who taught that Christ had only a single,
divine nature and those who taught a “mixture” of His two natures. The Council produced the
“Chalcedonian Definition”, which affirms that Christ is “the same perfect in manhood; truly God
and truly man.” He is “consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father according to the Godhead,
and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood.” Jesus Christ is “to be acknowledged in two
natures, in confusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably”. The Divine and human natures of
Christ are distinct yet united in one Person. This co-existence of Christ’s two natures is called the
hypostatic union.
The Chalcedonian Definition affirms the truth that Jesus Christ is fully divine and, at the same
time, fully human. He is both the Son of God (1 John 5:10) and the Son of Man (Mark 14:21).
Jesus, the Word incarnate, assumed perfect humanity in order to save fallen humanity. He could
not have saved us unless he was fully God and fully man

Concept

 Christ was truly God and truly man

 Christ was homoousias with God and homoiousias with Man

 Christ was like man without sin;

 Christ was begotten on Mary, the God bearer

 Christ had two distinct natures and one person, without fusion or change or division of
these natures.
ACTIVITIES

A. Fill in the timeline below (not necessarily in order):

Christological Heresies Heresy (Explaination Christological Council Response of the

of the heresy) who solved to the Church
heresy
B. Answer the Following Questions comprehensively.

1. If you encounter a brother from different religion who believes that Christ is not divine but
only a prophet, how would you defend your faith?
2. What council would suit best to answer the aforementioned question?
3. If you have a younger brother who is currently a grade 7 student, how would you explain
the two natures of Christ?