In defense of icon veneration

    In my some of my recent posts, I’ve written about some of the considerations that drew me to Eastern Orthodoxy – the weakness of sola scriptura, the history of the liturgy, and apostolic succession. [1] I’ve also been writing about the theology and Christology of the first six ecumenical councils, since the rich theological tradition of the Church Fathers is incredibly compelling to me. [2] In this post, I’ll bring these themes together by discussing a topic that both drew me to Orthodoxy and was the subject of the seventh ecumenical council: iconography and icon veneration. Based on the common refrain of the Fathers that “the honor rendered to the image passes to the prototype,” icon veneration can be broadly defined as acts of honor done toward a material representation in order to reverence the heavenly reality represented.

    Here, I’ll be drawing on sources from the Iconoclasm – the 8th and 9th-century Byzantine controversy over icon veneration – and earlier, to try and answer three questions: Is icon veneration biblical? Is icon veneration consistent with orthodoxy? And is icon veneration apostolic (i.e., can be traced back to the earliest days of the Church)? The main iconophile sources that I’m drawing upon are pope Adrian I of Rome’s letter to the Roman emperors Irene and Constantinople VI (JE 2448); the acts of the council of Nicaea II (especially sessions 4–6) [3]; St John of Damascus’ Treatises on the Divine Images; and St Theodore the Studite’s On the Holy Icons.

Scripture

    “You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (Exod 20:4-5; Deut 5:8-9). This commandment was one of the favorite prooftexts of the iconoclasts, and in response, the iconophiles pointed out that it was part of the Old Covenant and meant for a specific context (Divine Images I.4-8; II.7-8; III.4-8; Holy Icons I.5-6). The Israelites were very prone to idolatry (e.g., Exod 32:1-6), and even turned legitimate images into idols (cf. 2 Kgs 18:4). Furthermore, because the Lord had no visible form that the Israelites saw, Moses told them not to make “an idol for yourselves in the form of any figure” (Deut 4:15-19).

    In fact, later on, God commands the Israelites to make two golden cherubim alongside the ark of the covenant, and to weave images of cherubim into the curtains of the tabernacle (Exod 25:18-22; 26:1, 31; 36:8, 35; 37:7-9). Presumably, this was meant to represent the fact that God in heaven is “enthroned upon the cherubim” (1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; cf. 22:11; 2 Kgs 19:15; 1 Chron 13:6; Ps 18:10; 80:1; 99:1; Isa 37:16; Ezek 10; Sir 49:8). Solomon’s temple also had gold cherubim and cherubim carved into the walls, along with palm trees, flowers, lions, and oxen (1 Kgs 6:23-36; 7:23-37; 2 Chron 3:5-14; 4:3-4). Ezekiel’s temple would also have carved cherubim and palm trees (Ezek 41:17-26). Clearly these were icons (material representations of heavenly reality) prominently featured in the temple, but there’s no indication that they were venerated. [4]

    When the Israelites were beset by a plague of serpents, God commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent on a pole; anyone who was bitten and looked at this serpent would live (Num 21:4-9). This has been seen as an example of icon veneration, which might seem odd at first. Yes, there is an act (looking) done toward a material object (the serpent) which mediates divine grace (healing), but how could the serpent represent a heavenly reality? The iconophiles are interpreting this passage through the lens of John 3:14 and the patristic tradition, which views the bronze serpent as a representation of Christ on the cross. [5] In this light, the Israelites were venerating an icon of Christ and receiving grace through him! Several centuries later, Israel began to see the serpent as a deity in itself (“Nehushtan”) and offered sacrifices to it, and it was rightly destroyed by Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18:4). This shows a distinction between icon veneration (acceptable, even commanded) and idolatry (detestable).

    The psalmist says, “I will bow down [proskynēsō] toward your holy temple” (Ps 5:7; 138:2). Likewise, Joshua and the idol of the Philistine deity Dagan bow down toward the ark of the covenant (Josh 7:6; 1 Sam 5:3-4; cf. Ps 99:5; 132:7-8). Since the ark represents God’s heavenly throne (e.g., 1 Chron 28:2), and the temple also represents his presence, they serve as icons (broadly construed) – material representations of heavenly realities. Thus, bowing down towards them is an acceptable form of icon veneration within the old covenant (Divine Images I.14, 27; II.22). (Dagan’s idol bowing toward the ark is a particularly interesting case: the false image venerates the true image!)

    Icons and their (licit) veneration were therefore present in Israelite religion under the old covenant, although not prominent. What about the New Testament? Scriptural data about the liturgical practice of the apostolic era is very scanty, and I’m not aware of any explicit evidence for icon veneration as such. However, as later iconophiles argued, the basis for icon veneration is certainly present in the Christology of the New Testament. St Paul refers to Jesus Christ as “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15; cf. 2 Cor 4:4-6). St John affirms that “no one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has revealed him” (John 1:18); he who has seen Jesus has seen the Father (12:45; 14:9).

    It’s no surprise, then, that the honor (and dishonor) shown to Jesus passes to God who sent him (Matt 10:40; Mark 9:37; Luke 9:48; 10:16; John 5:23; 12:44; 13:20; 15:23; 1 John 2:23). Indeed, Paul says that “every knee will bow... and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:10-11). Bowing is a bodily action, and Jesus’ body, insofar as it is Jesus himself, is actually a material icon of God the Father. Furthermore, the saints are icons of Christ in that honor (and dishonor) shown to them passes to Jesus, and through him, to the Father (Matt 10:40; 18:5; 25:40; Mark 9:37; Luke 9:48; 10:16; John 13:20). In an eschatological context, Jesus declares that the saints will be venerated (Rev 3:9; cf. Isa 60:14).

Christology

    The iconoclasts argued against venerating icons of Christ on the basis that divinity cannot be visibly depicted (e.g., Deut 4:12; John 1:18; 5:37). They also rejected venerating icons in general on the basis that this directs our attention toward matter rather than the intellectual veneration that’s proper to God (e.g., John 4:24). [6] St John of Damascus saw this as an implicit denial of the Incarnation:

I do not venerate the creation instead of the creator [cf. Rom 1:25], but I venerate the Creator, created for my sake, who came down to his creation without being lowered or weakened, that he might glorify my nature and bring about communion with the divine nature... Therefore I am emboldened to depict the invisible God, not as invisible, but as he became visible for our sake, by participation in flesh and blood. I do not depict the invisible divinity, but I depict God made visible in the flesh. (Divine Images I.4)

I do not venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became matter for my sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter worked my salvation, and I will not cease from reverencing matter, through which my salvation was worked. (I.16; cf. II.13-14) 

For if we were to make an image of the invisible God, we would really sin; for it is impossible to depict one who is incorporeal and formless, invisible and uncircumscribable. And again: if we were to make images of human beings and regard them and venerate them as gods, we would be truly sacrilegious. But we do none of these things. For if we make an image of God who in his ineffable goodness became incarnate and was seen upon earth in the flesh, and lived among humans, and assumed the nature and density and form and color of flesh, we do not go astray. (II.5; cf. III.2)

The same response was made by St Theodore the Studite – it isn’t wrong to materially depict Christ, since he became visible and material for our sake (Holy Icons I.7; III.1-14).

    Of course, the iconoclasts didn’t intend to deny the Incarnation, and they refined their argument to answer the iconophiles. At the iconoclast council of Hieria (754), they claimed that anyone who depicts Christ and venerates his icon must fall into either monophysitism (confusing his divinity and humanity) or Nestorianism (dividing him into two persons):

For he has made an image which he calls Christ, and the name ‘Christ’ signifies both God and man. This makes it an image of God and man. And so he has either, according to his futile conception, made the infinite Godhead share the finitude of the created flesh, or confused that unconfused union, falling into the folly of fusion, committing in consequence two blasphemies against the Godhead through making finite and through fusion. The one who has worshipped it has succumbed to the same blasphemies, and woe to both of them equally, because they have fallen into the same error as Arius, Dioscorus and Eutyches and the heresy of the Acephali [i.e., monophysitism]!

Condemned by those with sense for attempting to paint the incomprehensible and innite divine nature of Christ, they will assuredly have recourse to another ill-contrived defence, that ‘it is the image of the flesh alone, which we have seen and touched and consorted with, that we depict’ – which is impious and an invention of the Nestorian devilry. On this point it is necessary to consider that, if according to the orthodox fathers there was simultaneously flesh and the flesh of God the Word, never admitting any thought of partition, but assumed wholly and as a whole by the divine nature and totally deified, how can it be divided or made an individual on its own by those who impiously try to do this?...

In consequence those who intend to paint an image of Christ are left with either a divinity that is finite and fused with the flesh or a body of Christ that is separated and deprived of Godhead, the flesh possessing a personhood with its own hypostasis, which makes them like the Nestorians in their battle against God. Those who fall into such blasphemy and impiety should be ashamed, repent, and cease – both those who make and those who love and worship the ‘image of Christ’ that they falsely make and falsely so call. Let us escape in equal measure the division of Nestorius and the fusion of Arius, Dioscorus, Eutyches and Severos – evils diametrically opposed to each other but equal in impiety. (Acts of Nicaea II, VI.656-666) [7]

It seems like the iconoclasts are treating “Christ” (his hypostasis) as just a composite of his divine and human natures. In this light, their dichotomy makes sense: either the iconophiles are trying to depict only Christ’s humanity, in which case they’re making his humanity its own person, or they’re trying to depict Christ himself (i.e., both divinity and humanity), in which case they’re making his divinity finite.

    However, the iconoclasts didn’t fully realize the implications of neo-Chalcedonian Christology, which makes a complete distinction between hypostasis and nature. [8] “Christ,” along with his other names, doesn’t refer to a natural reality at all (even a composite one), but a hypostatic reality – the person who is anointed. He is the underlying subject, who bears both divinity and humanity, but remains one and the same both before and after the Incarnation. Christ is both truly circumscribed (i.e., able to be depicted) as human and uncircumscribed as divine (Holy Icons III.1-58; cf. I.2-4, 7; II.1-9, 41-47). Nicaea II rightly accused the iconoclasts of confusing the logics of nature and hypostasis, like the monophysites (Acts, VI.668). [9] Images don’t depict natures, but concrete realities (i.e., hypostases), and who they depict – shown by the “name” on the image – is an entirely different question than what they depict, that is, the essence (VI.658, 664, 670, 680). Otherwise, we wouldn’t even be able to depict regular humans, since the human soul isn’t visible either!

    Some iconoclasts argued that because Christ didn’t assume “a particular human, but rather humanity in general,” his humanity is “without distinguishing characteristics” and can’t be “portrayed in various colors” (Holy Icons III.15). However, universal natures only exist in particular, concrete subjects (hypostases), which have certain properties that distinguish them from other hypostases of the same nature. If Christ only had “humanity in general,” then he wouldn’t have a real, concrete existence as human, and he wouldn’t be distinguished from other humans (III.15-21). But his individual humanity isn’t a separate person, because it’s made individual (“enhypostatized”) in none other than the hypostasis of God the Word (III.22-23). Therefore, this objection also reveals the iconoclasts’ failure to understand standard neo-Chalcedonian Christology.

    Another Christological principle that the iconoclasts (implicitly or explicitly) denied is that “the honor rendered to the image passes to the prototype,” which might be called the iconic principle. This was emphasized by the fourth-century Fathers in their polemic against Arianism: just as the emperor’s image and the emperor don’t make two emperors, the Son and the Father don’t make two Gods; and just as there is one honor shown to the emperor and his image, there is one worship of the Father and the Son. [10] Although the iconic principle was primarily used to explain the relationship between God and his Son, it also clearly applies to material depictions (like the emperor’s image). Thus, the iconophiles made a distinction between natural images (like a parent and child) and artificial images (like a person and their photo), for both of which the iconic principle applies (cf. Divine Images III.18-23). [11]

    These principles of Christology – the distinction between nature and hypostasis and the iconic principle – lead to the full-fledged icon theology of Nicaea II. If Christ is really divine and really human (hence circumscribed), and he is venerable, and the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype, then icons of Christ certainly can (and arguably should) be made and venerated. Furthermore, dishonoring icons of Christ, as the iconoclasts did, dishonors Christ himself. It’s a small step from this to venerating icons of the Mother of God and the saints, since they’re certainly both human and venerable (although, equally certainly, not worthy of worship in themselves), due to their close association and real union with Christ and God (Divine Images I.19-21; III.33-41; Holy Icons I.17-19). [12]

History

    One of the main arguments of the Byzantine iconoclasts was that icon veneration was an innovation that didn’t exist in the apostolic era. This wasn’t entirely wrong: the fully-fledged, officially-sanctioned cult of icons didn’t arise until the sixth and seventh centuries. [13] However, written evidence for various types of icon veneration goes back to the fourth century and earlier, and material evidence appears as early as the second century! As I hope to show, even though the full-fledged cult of icons appeared much later, it’s not at all unreasonable to believe that limited veneration of icons does go back to the apostles, in line with the claims of Nicaea II.

6th and 7th centuries

    As I said, there was a rise in the cult of icons during the sixth and seventh centuries, and it’s in this period that private veneration of holy images seems to have increased dramatically. [14] The earliest surviving panel portrait icons date back to the second half of the sixth century, including the famous Christ Pantocrator, which were brought by pilgrims to St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai and preserved there until today. [15] Several late sixth- and seventh-century hagiographies describe miracles attributed to icons. [16] Leontios of Neapolis wrote the first defense of icon veneration in the early seventh century, which St John of Damascus later drew upon. The ecumenical(-ish) Quinisext Council in 692 recommended that images of Christ should depict him as a human rather than a lamb, but that both types of images should be “venerated” (canon 82). All of these texts were cited by Nicaea II as part of their iconophile florilegium.

4th and 5th centuries

    There’s very little evidence of private veneration of panel portrait icons before the sixth century. This practice was discouraged by Eusebius of Caesarea in his letter to the empress Constantia (ca. 320), which was cited by later iconoclasts. Several texts attributed to St Epiphanius of Salamis reject both private and public veneration of images, which are found in iconoclast florilegia, although the authenticity of these texts was (and is) disputed. [17] If they are authentic, then it’s hard to square with the fact that church buildings during this period were filled with religious imagery (see below). That might explain why Epiphanius complained to the emperor Theodosius I (in a disputed letter) that “only a few” people paid attention to his iconoclasm.

    Church buildings and saints’ shrines in the fourth and fifth centuries had images on the walls, usually depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and the apse, usually depicting Christ surrounded by the apostles or other saints. [18] These were referenced by various Church Fathers in their sermons and writings, and Sts Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine even describe praying via these images. [19] St John Chrysostom favorably reports how people depicted the deceased St Meletius, bishop of Antioch, on rings, cups, walls, and elsewhere (On Saint Meletius 3). [20] Eusebius of Caesarea, despite his apparent dislike of religious images (see above), describes a statue of Jesus in Caesarea Philippi which was believed to have miraculous healing properties (Church History 7.18.1-3).

2nd and 3rd centuries

    Although the written evidence dries up before the fourth century, icon veneration (broadly construed) appears in some second- and third-century Christian texts. [21] St Methodius of Olympus (ca. 300) writes that “we make images of God’s angels... to his honor and glory” (On the Resurrection 2). [22] Origen (ca. 250) refers to the practice of decorating the altar and church building (Hom Josh 10.3). Tertullian (ca. 210), despite his general aniconism, accepts certain non-idolatrous images in the Old Testament (Against Marcion 4.22) and refers to the practice of painting Christ the Good Shepherd on the Eucharistic cup (On Modesty 7; 10). [23] Clement of Alexandria (ca. 200) advised that Christian signet rings should have symbols representing Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Cross, or the apostles, rather than idols, swords, drinking cups, or lovers (Paedagogus 3.11). [24] St Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 175) reports that the Carpocratian gnostics venerated portraits of Christ with those of other philosophers (Against Heresies 1.25.6), whereas the gnostic Acts of John (mid-2nd century) critiques Christian veneration of portraits of saints. [25]

    The material evidence is much more interesting, in my opinion. Once Christians obtained their own spaces of gathering in the second and third centuries, they began to decorate them with religious imagery (see the Roman catacombs, Dura-Europos baptistry, Megiddo church mosaic). [26] This art wasn’t merely for teaching or decoration, but invited ritual participation. For example, the baptistry at Dura-Europos invites the participant to identify with David at their anointing, with Christ in the tomb at their baptism, and with members of the Good Shepherd’s flock as they come out of the water. [27] In the catacombs, orant-figures invite onlookers to imitate them in prayer – perhaps for the intercession of the dead Christian depicted in this way – in more than one case, directed to another image of Christ the Good Shepherd. [28]

1st century

    Can we trace Christian imagery and icon veneration back to the first century? Not by contemporary evidence, since we don’t really have first-century material evidence of Christianity, and our written evidence is basically limited to the New Testament. Eusebius of Caesarea says that portraits of Christ and the apostles were made and honored as early as the first century, although in line with his aniconism, he attributes this to “the gentiles of old” (Church History 7.18.4). The second-century gnostic Acts of John (26–29) retrojects the debate over veneration of saints’ portraits to the first century. Several markings and a signet ring from Pompeii (pre-AD 79) have been interpreted as crosses, which would be a very early form of Christian imagery. [29]

    In summary, there was clearly a development in Christian religious imagery and its function from the first century to the Iconoclasm. The full-fledged cult of icons only developed in the late sixth and seventh centuries. However, religious imagery was a regular aspect of church decoration from the third century (the earliest surviving church buildings) onward. Even the earliest surviving Christian art, in the second and third centuries, wasn’t merely didactic or decorative but actually meant to invite ritual participation. Although we lack virtually any material evidence of Christianity in the first century, based on the fact that veneration of images (broadly construed) is attested throughout the entire Christian material record all the way back to the second century, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to believe that certain limited types of icon veneration have always been present in Christianity.

Conclusion

    The motives behind the Byzantine Iconoclasm were complex, as well as those behind Nicaea II. The iconoclast emperors saw their military defeats as a result of the Church’s descent into idolatry, while the iconophiles saw the idea that the Church could fall into idolatry and be rescued by emperors as blasphemous against Christ. The iconoclasts believed that making icons of Christ implied Christological heresy, while the iconophiles turned their accusation back upon them. The iconoclasts thought that icon veneration violated Scripture, while the iconophiles thought that Scripture validated their practice. It would be a mistake to reduce the controversy to just one of these factors. Moreover, the Iconoclasm itself wasn’t very wide-ranging, limited to the core of the Roman Empire which had dwindled to parts of Asia Minor and Greece.

    However, much like the other ecumenical councils which were occasioned by historical circumstances, Nicaea II revealed timeless truths that are still important for us today. Who is it that we worship? Not the divine nature, nor even the divine and human natures of Christ, but the person of Jesus Christ himself, with his Father and his Spirit. And, like the other doctrinal disputes of the first millennium, the Iconoclasm was indirectly about: how can we be truly be united to God? It’s not that, as the iconoclasts believed, only the Eucharistic body of Christ spans the gulf between God and the world. [30] By his Incarnation, Christ sanctified the entire material world, which makes it possible for material icons to act as real channels of God’s grace. Ultimately, the theology of icons is nothing more or less than the theology of the Incarnation experienced in the liturgical life of the Church.

No one could describe the Word of the Father; / but when he took flesh from you, O Theotokos, he accepted to be described, / and restored the fallen image to its former state by uniting it to divine beauty. / We confess and proclaim our salvation in word and images. [31]

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[1] Although my journey was certainly not purely intellectual, as I was also drawn by the beauty of the Eastern Christian tradition and by just experiencing Orthodoxy, these issues made me realize the serious problems with my own Evangelical and restorationist Protestant traditions.

[2] See my recent posts on “The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity” and “The orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation.”

[3] For an English translation, see Richard Price, The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787) (Liverpool University Press, 2018).

[4] The icons of cherubim which filled the tabernacle and temple were viewed as normative by the eighth-century iconophiles. Because these icons represented the cherubim surrounding God’s throne in heaven, they argued, Christians should have icons of Christ and the saints around the altar to represent the heavenly reality in the new covenant. St Tarasius of Constantinople: “If the old [covenant] had cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat, then we shall have images of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the holy Theotokos and his saints overshadowing the altar” (Acts of Nicaea II, IV.288).

[5] For example, see Ep Barn 12.6-7; Justin Martyr, Dialogue 91; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.2.8; Tertullian, Adv Jud 10; Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 14.31; John Chrysostom, Hom John 27.1-2.

[6] On the common features of iconoclastic argument, which run from the beginning to the end of the Byzantine Iconoclasm, and include these verses, see Vladimir Baranov, “The Theology of Early Iconoclasm as Found in St. John of Damascus’ Apologies,” Khristianskij Vostok 4 (2002): 23-55.

[7] Translation from Richard Price, Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea, 468-474.

[8] On the topic of neo-Chalcedonian Christology, see my recent post “The orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation (part 3 of 3)”.

[9] In the words of the council, “those nurtured by the catholic church know [hypostasis and nature] to be two different things, for we say that a hypostasis is an essence with individualizing characteristics, in addition to existing, while a nature is something that is self-subsistent and does not need anything else for its composition, apart from being brought into existence” (VI.668)

[10] For example, see Athanasius, Discourses Against the Arians III.5; Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 18.45; Contra Sabellianos, PG 31:605D–608A; cf. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 4.80-81; John Chrysostom, Hom Stat 3.18; Hom Col 12; Hom 1 Thess 10; Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 3.11; Origen, Homily 3 on Psalm 73 6; Epiphanius, Panarion 65.8.10. The veneration of imperial portraits was a regular feature of Roman civil life, which perhaps surprisingly wasn’t rejected by Christians (especially once there was a Christian emperor), and served as a helpful analogy for Christ and God, as well as humanity (as the image of God) and God.

[11] The iconophiles (because of their implicit confusion of nature and hypostasis) claimed that any true image must be consubstantial with its prototype, and so the Eucharist is the only true icon of Christ (Acts of Nicaea II, VI.670-672). This was ridiculous to Nicaea II, which insisted that the Eucharist is Christ himself and not an icon (VI.672-676).

[12] Some Protestants might view this as an unjustified leap, but during the Iconoclasm, this was accepted by both parties. The iconoclasts also saw the acceptance or rejection of icons of the saints as a simple corollary of the acceptance or rejection of icons of Christ (Acts, VI.680-682). But for a more detailed argument, see St John of Damascus, Divine Images I.19-21; III.33-41; On the orthodox faith IV.15-16.

[13] Richard Price (Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea, 43) notes that “the iconoclast claim that reverence towards images did not go back to the golden age of the fathers, still less to the apostles, would be judged by impartial historians today to be simply correct.”

[14] Benjamin Anderson, “Images in Byzantine Thought and Practice, ca. 500–700,” in A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm, ed. Mike Humphreys (Brill, 2021), 144-187.

[15] Beat Brenk, “Apses, icons and ‘image propaganda’ before iconoclasm,” AnTard 19 (2011): 113-118.

[16] Beat Brenk, “Apses, icons and ‘image propaganda’,” 113-114; Richard Price, Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea, 42-43.

[17] For an argument against the authenticity of these texts, from an admittedly not unbiased source, see Steven Bigham, Epiphanius of Salamis: Doctor of Iconoclasm? Deconstruction of a Myth (Orthodox Research Institute).

[18] Sean V. Leatherbury, “Christian Wall Mosaics and the Creation of Sacred Space,” in The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art, ed. Robin M. Jensen and Mark D. Ellison (Routledge, 2018), 86-103; Robin Jensen, “Figural Images in Christian Thought and Practice before ca. 500,” in A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm, 128-134. The disputed letter of St Nilus of Ancyra to Olympiodorus (ca. 415), which was cited at Nicaea II, describes how a church building should be decorated with scenes from the Old and New Testaments to spur illiterate churchgoers to emulate the saints’ virtues.

[19] For example, see Basil the Great, Homily 19 on the Forty Martyrs 2; Homily 17 (“On the martyr Barlaam,” possibly by John Chrysostom instead); Gregory of Nyssa, De deitate filii et spiritus sancti; Asterius of Amasia, Sermon 11; Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 41.21-23; all of which were cited at Nicaea II. As for prayers through the images, see Gregory of Nyssa, In Praise of Blessed Theodore, PG 46:737C–740B; Augustine, Sermon 316.5.

[20] Note that St Gregory of Nyssa taught around the same time that St Meletius was in heaven interceding for the people (Funeral Oration for Meletius). “Thus, the portraits described by Chrysostom could have functioned not only in the commemoration of Meletius, but also as visual foci for prayer to him”: Katherine Marsengill, “Panel Paintings and Early Christian Icons,” in The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art, 201.

[21] Note that the passages in the second- and third-century apologists which are often interpreted as aniconist (e.g., Justin Martyr, 1 Apol 9–10; Clement of Alexandria, Strom 5.5-6; Origen, Contra Celsum 7.62-65; Minucius Felix, Octavius 10) should rather be taken as anti-pagan polemic, against the practice of treating material objects as deities, rather than against Christian religious images which undoubtedly existed at that time: Robin Jensen, “Figural Images in Christian Thought,” 114-128.

[22] The full passage, as preserved by St John of Damascus (Divine Images III.138), reads: “For instance, then, the images of our kings here, even though they be not formed of the more precious materials – gold or silver – are honored by all. For men do not, while they treat with respect those of the far more precious material, slight those of a less valuable, but honor every image in the world, even though it be of chalk or bronze. And one who speaks against either of them, is not acquitted as if he had only spoken against clay, nor condemned for having despised gold, but for having been disrespectful towards the king and lord himself. The images of God’s angels, which are fashioned of gold, the principalities and powers, we make to his honor and glory.”

[23] Tertullian (in his rigorist-Montanist phase) critiques the Church for its moral laxity, which he attributes to the Shepherd of Hermas (a second-century text that allowed repentance after post-baptismal sin). Therefore, he says that the shepherd they depict on their chalice isn’t actually the Good Shepherd, but the false shepherd of Hermas (On Modesty 10). The unspoken premise is that they honor whomever they depict on the chalice; since they honor the Shepherd of Hermas over Christ, it must be the former whom they depict. This does serve as an example of icon veneration – honoring a prototype through his material representation.

[24] “And let our seals be either a dove [i.e., the Holy Spirit], or a fish [i.e., ichthys, Christ], or a ship scudding before the wind, or a musical lyre, which Polycrates used, or a ship’s anchor [i.e., shapes like the Cross], which Seleucus got engraved as a device; and if there be one fishing, he will remember the apostle, and the children drawn out of the water. For we are not to delineate the faces of idols, we who are prohibited to cleave to them; nor a sword, nor a bow, following as we do, peace; nor drinking-cups, being temperate. Many of the licentious have their lovers engraved, or their mistresses, as if they wished to make it impossible ever to forget their amatory indulgences, by being constantly reminded of their licentiousness.”

The implication is that what is symbolized in the depiction is honored (see also n. 23); we honor Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Cross, and the apostles, but not idols, war, drinking, or sex. In the third century, Christian seals began to move away from this symbolism and explicitly depict the Good Shepherd and other biblical figures: Jeffrey Spier, “Engraved Gems and Amulets,” in The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art, 141-146. These amulets could be apotropaic (e.g., BM Inv. T 1986, 5-1,1), which means supplication for protection was implicitly directed toward the one depicted.

[25] Acts of John 26–29 describes how the disciple Lycomedes, who had been resurrected by God through John, commissioned a portrait of John, took it to his bedroom, crowned it with garlands, and lit lamps before it. John, the mouthpiece of the gnostic author, confronts him for “still living in heathen fashion.” Lycomedes answers that he has only one God, but “next to that God, it is right that the men who have benefitted us [i.e., saints] should be called gods.” John retorts that the portrait captures only his “fleshly image,” being “a dead likeness of the dead,” and Lycomedes should instead ‘paint’ with the virtues. This episode implies that debate over private veneration of panel-portrait icons of saints was already underway in the second century: Katherine Marsengill, “Panel Paintings and Early Christian Icons,” 202.

[26] Norbert Zimmerman, “Catacomb Painting and the Rise of Christian Iconography in Funerary Art,” in The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art, 21-28; Rina Talgam, “Christian Floor Mosaics: Modes of Study and Potential Meanings,” in ibid., 106; Robin Jensen, “Figural Images in Christian Thought,” 123-128.

[27] Michael Peppard, “Early Christian Art and Ritual,” in The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art, 281-284; Robin Jensen, “Ritual and Early Christian Art,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual (Oxford, 2018), 598-601.

[28] Norbert Zimmerman, “Catacomb Painting,” 26-28; Robin Jensen, “Ritual and Early Christian Art,” 589-592.

[29] Bruce W. Longenecker, The Cross before Constantine: The Early Life of a Christian Symbol (Fortress Press, 2015), 121-148; The Crosses of Pompeii: Jesus-Devotion in a Vesuvian Town (Fortress Press, 2016); but for a contrasting perspective, see John Granger Cook, “Alleged Christian Crosses in Herculaneum and Pompeii,” Vigiliae Christianae 72, no. 1 (2018): 1-20.

[30] On the contrasting perspectives between iconoclasts and iconophiles about the relationship between God and the material world, see Ambrosios Giakalis, Images of the Divine: The Theology of Icons at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Brill, 2005).

[31] Sunday of Orthodoxy, Kontakion (Tone 8).

The Cosmic Scope of the Incarnation

“The Word of God, very God, wills that the mystery of his Incarnation be actualized always and in all things.” – St Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 7.22

    I don’t usually write book reviews, but as one of the best (if not the best) theology books I’ve ever read, I felt that I had to write about The Whole Mystery of Christ: Creation as Incarnation in Maximus Confessor by Jordan Daniel Wood (2022). This book offers a novel reading of St Maximus the Confessor in which creation and salvation are the historical Incarnation of Jesus Christ. That sounds bold and controversial – but is it really any bolder than St Paul when, looking to the man on the cross, he declares, “in him all things in heaven and on earth were created” (Col 1:16), and that all things are destined to be “gathered up in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:10)?

    Wood seeks a “thick retrieval” of St Maximus’ theology, which allows him to speak for himself but also asks questions that he might not have asked himself (pp. xv-xvii). In this way, we can use the theology of Maximus – who was an incredibly profound but by no means systematic thinker – to answer more systematic questions about creation, salvation, and the relationship between God and the world. Modern scholars tend to interpret the identity between God and the world in Maximus’ thought metaphorically, in terms of a relation or participation between the world and God rather than a hypostatic identity as in Jesus Christ (pp. 3-14). But what if we take the Confessor at his word about the Incarnation’s cosmic scope: that the Word wills to accomplish the mystery of his Incarnation always in all things?

The Middle

    What does “the mystery of his Incarnation” – or translated more literally, “his embodiment” – mean? How could God become human, that the Word become flesh? St Maximus interpreted the logic of the Incarnation according to the neo-Chalcedonian revolution in metaphysics, which made a pivotal distinction between the nature of a thing and the concrete thing itself (hypostasis). Hypostasis and nature obey different, opposing logics, such that a hypostasis is irreducible, indifferent, and yet identical to (that is, becomes the individuality of) its nature (pp. 20-39). Because of this, two natures that have no similarity to one another (divinity and humanity) can coexist in one hypostasis (Jesus Christ).

    Hypostasis and nature are the two basic elements of Maximus’ metaphysics. The only two ways that one thing can be really united to another, while retaining its integrity, are according to nature or according to hypostasis. I am united to my parents according to (human) nature, while my body and my soul are united to one another according to hypostasis (me). Therefore, hypostatic union is what makes the difference between Christ’s natures possible in the first place. This is the second principle of Maximus’ Incarnational logic: “hypostatic identity generates natural difference” (pp. 39-43).

    In Christ, both divinity and humanity retain their full integrity. Neither one suppresses or changes the other, and in fact there can be no natural relation between divine and human nature. However, these natures with their natural activities and wills come together in one concrete reality, Christ, who acts and wills without division. Maximus refers to this new, divine-human mode of action, in which divinity and humanity mutually pervade one another, as perichōrēsis, which is the third principle of his Incarnational logic (pp. 43-49).

    This “Christo-logic” would be impossible to know if it weren’t for the historical event of Jesus of Nazareth himself. It’s only because of Christ, who performed miracles with his flesh and suffered with divine power, that we can know about this divine-human mode. His hypostasis – the concrete fact of Christ himself, with his divine-human mode of acting and willing – is what discloses both divine and human nature and their ultimate identity. This is the fourth and final principle of Incarnational logic that Wood discerns (pp. 49-52).

The Beginning

    What does it mean for “the Word of God, very God... [to be] in all things”? Like Christ’s divinity and humanity, there is no natural commonality whatsoever between God and creation, which is the Confessor’s major objection to Platonism and Origenism (pp. 63-67). How, then, could creation come to be, if there can be no natural relation between God and creation? Maximus says: not from God’s nature, but from God’s eternal will and knowledge, which are the logoi (“reasons” or “definitions”) of all natures and individuals (p. 65).

    These many logoi, according to St Maximus, are the one Word (logos), and the one Word is the many logoi, which give beings their natures, powers, and activities (pp. 68-72), as well as their hypostatic properties (pp. 72-75). The logoi, then, are really one with God (the Word) – he is them – despite there being no natural similarity between God and the logoi, which would allow for Neoplatonic participation (pp. 75-79). How is this possible? Within Maximus’ metaphysics, there is only one possible answer: according to hypostasis. The Word of God unites the logoi of created beings with his divinity in his one hypostasis, “the body of Christ,” and thereby makes created nature and participation possible (pp. 79-83).

The End

    What does it mean for the Word’s Incarnation to “be actualized” in others? In line with the patristic tradition, Maximus viewed salvation as union with God or deification, but he developed this theme to a much greater extent. This union between us and God is certainly not according to nature, as the Origenists believed. Instead, the Confessor says, we become “everything that God is, however, without identity in essence” (pp. 91-94). This real union between things that are naturally different can only be hypostatic union, and not just any hypostasis, the Lord himself (pp. 89-96). This achieves identity between the saints and God in the person of the incarnate Word (pp. 96-104).

    The power of deifying grace is certainly not a natural power within us that is activated. St Maximus points out that this would make us already God by nature (pp. 104-109). But grace is nevertheless a power within us, or else we could never be saved while remaining ourselves (pp. 109-112). How is this possible? Because, once again, grace is in us not according to nature, but according to hypostasis! The Word already exists in every being as the logoi, thereby making his divinity immediately present and available to all people (pp. 112-120).

    How can we be really united to God while remaining ourselves? Maximus explains this by the logic of perichōrēsis, which we already saw in the Incarnation. Just as Christ’s divine and human natures wholly pervade one another while retaining their full integrity, “the whole man wholly pervades the whole God” (and vice versa) in the deified state (pp. 122-127). Christ is the logos not only of every nature, but of every hypostasis, making them “who” they are, which ensures that every person remains who they are even when deified (pp. 127-132). This unity in the person of Christ is the fullest realization of St Paul’s “body of Christ” language, which St Maximus frequently draws upon to describe the deified state (pp. 132-140).

The Whole

    Both creation and salvation display the same neo-Chalcedonian logic, what Wood calls “Christo-logic,” that we see in Maximus’ Christology. But how do creation and salvation relate to the actual historical event of Jesus Christ? And how can the creation be the Incarnation in light of the fact that this creation is obviously imperfect and fallen? In other words, how could the Word possibly “will” to accomplish his Incarnation “always”? I find this chapter hard to summarize, given how complex (and beset with temporal paradoxes) it is. However, to me it’s also the most interesting and profound section of the book.

    In short, humans were meant to be begotten voluntarily in the Spirit, and it’s because we wrongly identify ourselves with the fluctuating, sensible world (which is the Fall) that our origin is (or rather, appears) purposeless and irrational (pp. 145-155). Adam never existed in union with God as he was meant to, but from the very beginning falsely identified his ultimate good with this sensible world (pp. 155-167). This false identification is what makes us, like the sensible world, subject to irrational flux and suffering (passions), which is why the world is (or rather, appears) fallen (pp. 167-174). In other words, this is not really God’s creation yet, and if we are not yet united with God, we have not yet really been created!

    Jesus Christ, by being incarnate as the “suffering God-man” [emphasis his] – subject to the same flux and passion as us – establishes the very logoi of providence and judgment (pp. 175-187). Therefore, his suffering and death on the cross is the very condition that makes our rebellion, suffering, and death possible in the first place, as well as what redeems us from them. Likewise, the historical Incarnation of Jesus Christ as a human creature is the very condition that makes creation possible (cf. Amb 41.9), and indeed all the logoi are actualized in the “very ‘events’ of Jesus’s historical life”! (p. 191) This whole story is filled with temporal paradoxes (we exist before our true origin!), but that’s only because God is beyond time (pp. 187-191).

Conclusion

    I love this book because it made me look at the world in a whole new light. Together with St Paul, I can point to this man who lived in first-century Palestine and say, “in him all things on heaven and on earth were created” (Col. 1:16). Conversely, I can look around me at this world he created and see Christ, not merely as some abstract principle of logos, but the suffering God-man himself. That being said, this book is not for theological neophytes and assumes that the reader has at least a little background knowledge about the neo-Chalcedonian Christology that is so important to St Maximus. (Wood uses the term “enhypostatization” on page two without defining it first!) But I would still strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about God, the world, and the profound relationship between the two!

The orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation (part 3 of 3)

Part Two

    So far we’ve looked at the development of the doctrine of the Incarnation from the fourth century up to the council of Chalcedon (see my last two posts). During the Nestorian controversy, St Cyril of Alexandria (and the council of Ephesus I) emphasized that there is one single, concrete subject – our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word of God the Father – who is divine and human, who was born from Mary, suffered, died, and rose again for our salvation. In the later Eutychian controversy, St Leo of Rome (and the council of Chalcedon) emphasized that Christ is both fully divine and fully human in nature, with both divine and human activities, while remaining one subject who acts. Despite differences in emphasis (since they battled opposite errors) and terminology, the basic teaching was the same: Christ is one subject who is fully divine and fully human, without confusing his divinity and humanity, or dividing him into two externally-related subjects.

From Chalcedon (451) to Constantinople III (681) [19]

    Although the council of Chalcedon succeeded at reuniting the Eastern and Western Churches, it was extremely controversial in the East. St Juvenal of Jerusalem returned home to riots which temporarily forced him out of his see, and Dioscorus’ replacement St Proterius of Alexandria was murdered a few years later by anti-Chalcedonian extremists. Over the next decades, the imperial position on Chalcedon wavered back and forth, and the council was largely not seen as having any meaningful contribution to the faith in its own right.

• In response to Proterius’ death, the Eastern bishops endorsed Chalcedon in the letters known as the Encyclica. These letters never refer to the Chalcedonian formula of “two natures, one hypostasis,” but rather view Chalcedon as a confirmation of the Nicene Creed and a rightful condemnation of Eutychianism.

• The emperor Basiliscus (475–476) issued the Encyclical which condemned Chalcedon on the grounds that it had issued a new creed in addition to the Nicene Creed, which was contrary to canon 7 of the council of Ephesus I. This was signed by many Eastern bishops (although not Acacius of Constantinople).

• The emperor Zeno (474–475, 476–491) condemned the anti-Chalcedonians who had supported his rival Basiliscus. In response to a resurgence of conflict, he and Acacius of Constantinople issued the Henotikon in 482, which avoided discussion of Chalcedon and instead simply reaffirmed Nicaea and condemned Nestorius and Eutyches, in an attempt to restore unity.

• The Henotikon allowed Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonians to coexist in the imperial Church, and it strained relations with the West which remained pro-Chalcedon. This superficial unity in the East allowed tensions to grow under the surface, as Alexandria and Antioch developed a strong anti-Chalcedonian tendency, while Constantinople and Jerusalem developed a staunch loyalty to the council of Chalcedon.

    This fragile peace broke in the 510s, when the influential monk Severus presented an anti-Chalcedonian reading of the Henotikon which was widely circulated. Severus was elected as bishop of Antioch in 512, and wrote extensively against “two nature” Christology in favor of a staunchly Cyrillian “one (incarnate) nature” Christology. Around the same time, several pro-Chalcedonian monks – most notably John of Caesarea, Leontius of Jerusalem, and Leontius of Byzantium – wrote against Severus’ Christology and elaborated the meaning of Chalcedon’s “two natures, one hypostasis.” This movement is now referred to as “neo-Chalcedonianism.” This is the first time that we can really refer to a conflict between miaphysite and dyophysite Christology.

    The emperor Justin I and his nephew, St Justinian, inherited this deeply divided Church when they came to power in 518. Justinian, himself a theologian in the neo-Chalcedonian vein, was determined to reunite the Church under the council of Chalcedon, but not without giving the miaphysites (including his wife, St Theodora) a fair hearing. He held a conference of Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian representatives in 532, where the miaphysites presented their issues with Chalcedon, including that (1) “in two natures,” unlike Cyril’s formula “from two natures,” implies dividing Christ; (2) the Chalcedonian Definition failed to endorse theopaschism (i.e., that God the Word suffered), which was the subject of Cyril’s twelfth anathema; and (3) the council reinstated Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa, who had been Cyril’s fiercest critics. Justinian proposed a compromise solution, where the miaphysites didn’t have to accept the Definition but couldn’t anathematize those who did, which they rejected.

    Despite the failure of this conference, Justinian sought to win the miaphysites over to the imperial Church by making Chalcedonianism more palatable to them. This is exemplified in his 551 edict On the orthodox faith, which presented an explicitly Cyrillian, theopaschite, and dyophysite Christology as well as condemning the writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa against St Cyril. His mission was fulfilled at the ecumenical council of Constantinople II in 553, which condemned the “Three Chapters” (i.e., the person and writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and the letter of Ibas of Edessa to Maris) and gave the ecclesial stamp of approval to Justinian’s (rather uncontroversial) Cyrillian Christology. This challenged the West and Vigilius of Rome, who agreed with Justinian’s Christology but saw the condemnation of the “Three Chapters” as a betrayal of Chalcedon, but they eventually capitulated under pressure from the emperor.

    Unfortunately, Constantinople II failed to win over the miaphysites, who thought that the Chalcedonians had contradicted and anathematized themselves. In the mid-sixth century, anti-Chalcedonians began to  ordain their own clergy apart from the imperial Church – at first, out of pastoral concern for miaphysite laity who refused to commune with Chalcedonian clergy. Jacob bar ‘Addai, the miaphysite bishop of Edessa, consecrated many bishops throughout Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. By the end of the century, despite internal schisms between the anti-Chalcedonians, parallel miaphysite hierarchies had developed in many Eastern regions (which are now the Oriental Orthodox Churches).

    In the middle decades of the seventh century, as the Roman Empire came under assault from the Sassanian Empire and then the Rashidun Caliphate, internal unity was a priority. The emperor Heraclius (610–641) and Sergius of Constantinople managed to re-establish communion with several miaphysite churches in the early 630s on the basis of a formula that Christ has “one activity” (monenergism). The number of ‘activities’ in Christ had received little intra-Chalcedonian attention, so it was thought that it would be uncontroversial. However, this formula was strongly opposed by Honorius of Rome (who supported two activities but one will in Christ) and St Sophronius of Jerusalem (who supported two activities and wills). Their opposition caused Sergius to issue the Psēphos in 633 which rejected any discussion of the number of activities in Christ.

    Heraclius changed his position in light of these developments, and in 638 he issued the Ekthesis, which forbade discussion of the number of activities in Christ and supported Honorius’ doctrine of “one will” (monothelitism). In the same year, Sergius, Honorius, and Sophronius all died, and Sergius’ successor Pyrrhus supported the Ekthesis which found little opposition in the East. However, Honorius’ successors at Rome and the African monk St Maximus (who had been Sophronius’ disciple) opposed monothelitism and wrote extensively against it. This led the emperor Constans II (641–668) to forbid discussion of the number of wills in Christ in the Typos of 648, but Maximus and the pope St Martin held a Western council at Lateran in 649 which condemned monothelitism.

    The Typos led to a similar situation as the Henotikon a century prior, with division developing under the surface between monothelite Constantinople and dyothelite Rome, even though debate was forbidden. St Maximus’ continued vocal opposition to monothelitism led to his condemnation for rebellion against imperial policy, along with Sts Martin and Sophronius (posthumously), at a council in Constantinople in 662. There he was tortured and exiled, dying later in the same year, which is why he is remembered in the Church as Maximus “the Confessor.”

    When war with the Caliphate ended in 678, the emperor Constantine IV (668–685) finally addressed this internal division, and invited pope St Agatho to an ecumenical council where the number of wills in Christ would be discussed. At this council of Constantinople III (681), the bishops examined the writings of the Fathers, as well as those of Sts Sophronius and Maximus the Confessor. George of Constantinople and many other Eastern bishops became convinced of dyothelitism, and the monothelite Macarius of Antioch was deposed. This decision sealed off any hope of reunion with the miaphysites, but it officially settled Christology for the imperial, Chalcedonian Church.

“He has united the extremes in himself”

    Neo-Chalcedonian Christology was developed in opposition to Severus of Antioch, so we should make an effort to understand him first. For Severus, following the Cappadocian Fathers, ousia (i.e., essence) refers to what is universal (such as humanity) while hypostasis refers to what is particular (an individual human such as Paul). However, universals exist only as collections of particulars: humanity is nothing other than all humans who actually exist. [20] Physis (i.e., nature) might refer either to universal nature or a particular nature. Thus, his dilemma for Chalcedonians: if Christ is “in two natures,” are these universal or particular?

• If Christ is in universal divine nature and universal human nature, then (since universals exist only as collections of particulars) this means nothing else than that the entire Trinity is incarnate in all humans, which is patently ridiculous.

• If Christ is in particular divine nature and particular human nature (after the Incarnation), then this means nothing else than that Christ is a divine hypostasis and a human hypostasis, which is simply the heresy of Nestorius. [21]

Since Christ being “in two natures” is either ridiculous or heretical, he must be one nature, which (to avoid obviously heretical Eutychianism) must be a composite divine-human nature. However, we do say that Christ is “from two (particular) natures,” which is the same as saying “from two hypostases,” which means that before (i.e., conceived apart from) the union there is complete divinity and complete humanity, which are truly united to form one subject, “one hypostasis,” “one incarnate nature of the Word.” [22]

    The miaphysites who held to this Christology weren’t exactly viewed as heretics by Chalcedonians at the time. The word used to describe them was “hesitant” (diakrinomenos) or “dissident” (aposchistikos), which meant that they rejected Chalcedon (and communion with Chalcedonians) for invalid reasons. Their view that Christ is one composite nature from two natures, without confusing the divinity and humanity, was considered at best terminologically confused. The solution, then, was to clarify the terminology, which is exactly what neo-Chalcedonian theologians sought to do. Their job was to distinguish the logics of nature and hypostasis, such that Chalcedon’s formula of “two natures, one hypostasis” was shown not to be ridiculous or self-contradictory.

    It’s in the writings of St Maximus the Confessor, who stands at the apex of neo-Chalcedonian thought and bridges the fifth and sixth ecumenical councils, that the doctrine of the Incarnation reaches its fullest expression. We should therefore turn to him, without neglecting the neo-Chalcedonians who came before him. For these theologians (John of Caesarea and the two Leontii), there is no real difference between universal and particular nature: ousia/physis is what is common, which is not merely a collection of individuals, but is found wholly within each individual. [23] Thus, the humanity of Paul is not different from humanity in general. In contrast, hypostasis is the individual itself, in which the ousia/physis exists. Thus, the neo-Chalcedonians gave the term enhypostaton (“in-hypostasis”) a new technical meaning, to refer to individualized natures as they exist in a hypostasis. [24]

    St Maximus builds on these concepts in his Letter 15, written to explain Chalcedonian Christology to the new convert Cosmas, a deacon in Alexandria. He begins by stating:

According to the Fathers, the common and the universal, or general, are essence [ousia] and nature [physis], for they say that these things are identical to one another. The proper and the particular, on the other hand, are the hypostasis and the person [prosōpon], for these also, according to them, are identical to each other. (PG 19:545A) [25]

In support, he gives a series of quotations from Sts Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian in which they distinguish between ousia as common and hypostasis as particular (545A–549A). [26] Maximus defines the hypostasis as “that which subsists by itself separately” (to kath’ auto diōrismenōs synestōs; 557D). It isn’t merely the combination of essence plus particular properties (although he does recognize that definition, 557D), but is the irreducible particular reality of a being (e.g., Amb 17.5-6; cf. Opusc 21, PG 91:248BC).

    Every really-existing essence is also enhypostatic, that is, it exists in a particular being (hypostasis). St Maximus defines the enhypostatic as “that which in no way subsists by itself but is seen in others, as the species is seen in the individuals under it” (557D–560A; cf. Opusc 14, PG 91:150BC). Conversely, every hypostasis is also en-essenced (enousion), that is, it has or exists in a specific essence/nature. St Maximus defines the en-essenced as something (i.e., a hypostasis) which not only has its own particular properties, by which it is distinguished from others, but also has an essence in common with others (Opusc 14, PG 91:152A).

    The two basic elements of Maximus’ metaphysics are essences, which only exist enhypostatically, and hypostases, which only exist en-essenced. Therefore, there are two (and only two) ways that things can be really united or “the same” (tauton) as one another: according to essence and according to hypostasis. Things which are the same according to essence (i.e., homoousios, consubstantial) are necessarily different according to hypostasis: for example, Peter and Paul, or God the Father and the Son (549B–552C). Things which are different according to essence can only be really united according to hypostasis (552C). The classic example of this is the human body and soul, which are very different in nature, but exist in and as a single person (552C–553C).

    Keeping this metaphysical background in mind, St Maximus summarizes the doctrine of the Incarnation in a single passage:

Teaching us expressly that he is perfect according to both nature and essence, according to which he is identical and consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit, and also according to person and hypostasis, according to which he is other than the Father and Spirit, the Word of God became man perfectly, preserving personal difference without confusion, being incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. That is, he became perfect man through the assumption of flesh with an intellective and rational soul, the flesh receiving in him both nature and hypostasis – that is, being and subsistence – simultaneous with the very conception of the Word.

Seeing that it was the Word himself instead of seed – or better said, he was found willingly to be the seed of his own flesh – he, being by nature simple and uncomposite, became composite according to hypostasis. And thus, in the permanence of the parts from which he is constituted, he remained one and the same, unchanged, undivided, and unconfused. And in order that he might be, according to hypostasis, the “Mediator” between the parts from which he has been composed, he bridged the difference of the extremes in himself, making peace and reconciling human nature with God the Father through the Spirit.

Existing truly as God according to essence and becoming man truly by nature according to the economy, he neither divided his own parts that are different by nature, nor did he confuse them by their unity according to hypostasis. Instead, by the principle of the commonality of the parts from which he was composed according to essence, he was united with both the Father and with his Mother according to nature, and he was revealed as preserving the difference of the parts one to the other out of which he is composed. But by the principle of the particularity according to hypostasis of his own parts, he is distinguished from his extremes – that is, from the Father and from his Mother – and maintaining the oneness of his own hypostasis completely undifferentiated, he united his parts fully with one another in the extreme identity of person. (553C–556B)

    Let’s unpack this dense passage. Before (which, since God is outside time, really means conceived apart from) the Incarnation, the Son is a single person who is the same as the Father and the Spirit according to essence, and different from them according to hypostasis, by his particular property of being begotten by God. (This is standard trinitarian theology.) With the Incarnation, there is a human nature (that is, a body and a rational soul) which is enhypostatic in the same hypostasis of the Son. This humanity did not exist even for a single moment in a different hypostasis, but “the flesh was made particular by the Word himself according to hypostasis” (557D–560C).

    How is it possible for one hypostasis to have two different natures – which might be called “the logical problem of the Incarnation”? One solution might be that there is some commonality between divinity and humanity, which would mediate between Christ’s divinity and his body. [27] St Maximus unequivocally rejects this possibility: there is nothing in common between divinity and humanity, “except the hypostasis of the same natures [i.e., Christ]” (Disp Pyr, PG 91:296CD; cf. Amb 5.20). If the hypostasis is in two natures that are utterly different, then what is this hypostasis in itself? That’s the wrong question entirely, since “what” pertains to nature, while “which” (for impersonal things) or “who” (for persons) pertain to hypostasis, and the answer to “who” is precisely the Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word of the Father.

    This is the fundamental insight of neo-Chalcedonian metaphysics. A nature, even an individualized nature, doesn’t explain the particular, concrete reality itself. This reality (i.e., hypostasis) presents itself to us as something utterly experiential and irreducible to nature, which can’t be abstracted as a “what,” but only revealed as a “who.” [28] Because hypostasis does not and cannot have any essential content in itself, it’s also fundamentally indifferent to nature. Therefore, there’s nothing impossible about one hypostasis existing in two natures – this is clear from the fact that a human person exists in and as body and soul, which are different in nature. The manner of the hypostatic union is, as the Fathers frequently say, impossible to describe (arrētos) – in the case of the human body and soul as well as Christ’s divinity and humanity – but it does not involve a logical contradiction. [29]

    All right, then: being divine and human in one hypostasis (i.e., one concrete reality), the real difference between Jesus Christ’s divinity and humanity does not divide him, nor does the fact that he is one and the same hypostasis confuse his natures (556B–557A). For this reason, to avoid either division or confusion, St Maximus says that both the expressions “two natures” and “one incarnate nature of the Word” (or, as he prefers to say, “one composite hypostasis”) are necessary; the miaphysites wrongly reject one in favor of the other (Letter 12, 477A–504C). According to his different essential properties, Christ is identical to God the Father and his mother Mary, while his divinity and humanity differ; and according to the same hypostatic properties, Christ makes his divinity and humanity identical, and he differs from God the Father and his mother Mary (Letter 15, 557AD). [30]

    Once again, for Maximus, the only ways for two things to be really united are according to essence or according to hypostasis. Since there’s no commonality between divinity and humanity, it’s not possible for God to be united to us according to essence. Thus, hypostatic union is the only way for God to be really united to humans. Christ is united to “the extremes” (i.e., God and humans) according to essence, and he has also united the extremes (i.e., divinity and humanity) in himself according to hypostasis, thereby making it possible for us to be really united to God the Father through him (556BD). Jesus Christ isn’t only “from two natures” or “in two natures,” he is his natures (as St Maximus frequently says), proving God and man to be one and the same according to the concrete reality of his hypostasis (573AC).

An aside: Contra Severum

    The rest of Maximus’ Letter 15, and most of his Letter 12, is dedicated to refuting Severus of Antioch’s miaphysite Christology. St Maximus points out that a number in itself is not a substance, and therefore has no power to act, nor is it an accident to be acted upon, so a mere number can neither divide in reality nor be divided (Letter 12, 473B–476D; Letter 15, 561C–564D). Number only indicates a quantity of real differences, and doesn’t indicate whether the realities that differ are one or divided. There is a difference between divinity and humanity, therefore, we must confess two natures without thereby dividing Christ (477A–481A; 564D–568C).

    Severus confusingly says that there is one nature in Christ, but two “natural qualities” (see his letters to Sergius the Grammarian). This makes no sense to Maximus – if, as Severus thinks, hypostasis and nature are identical, then a difference in natural quality implies a difference in hypostatic quality, which implies Nestorianism! (568D) But if there is no difference in hypostasis, then there can’t be a difference in natural quality either, which implies that Christ’s humanity and divinity are consubstantial, as Apollinarius said (569AB). And if Christ is a composite nature with both divine and human qualities, then he can’t be consubstantial with the Father, whose nature is not composite (569BC). Thus, the difference in Christ’s natural qualities must be grounded in two natures (569D–572A).

    Severus says that Christ is a composite nature, like human nature which includes body and soul. For every composite nature, the parts come into existence at the same time and involuntarily, and the nature is shared between multiple individuals (488C–489A). But Christ’s divinity and humanity did not come into existence at the same time, the Incarnation was a voluntary act of the Son, and “Christ” is not a species shared by multiple individuals (489A–492B). Therefore, it’s ridiculous to say that Christ is a composite nature like humanity; rather, just as body and soul come together in and as one human person, Christ’s divinity and humanity exist in and as one “composite hypostasis” (489CD).

“The whole Word wholly deified our whole nature”

    Why did St Maximus oppose monenergism and monothelitism so strongly? A central tenet of classical metaphysics is that natures ground powers (dynameis) which are expressed in activities (energeiai). [31] For the Cappadocian Fathers, the way we know that the Son and the Holy Spirit share the Father’s nature is that they cooperate in the same activities (e.g., Gregory of Nyssa, Letter to Eustathius). Likewise, St Maximus says that the only way we could know that Christ has a human nature is that he performs properly human activity.

The only valid proof that this [human] essence is present in its entirety moreover, is its natural, constitutive power, which one would not be mistaken in calling a “natural activity,” properly and primarily characteristic of the nature in question, since it is the most generic motion constitutive of a species, and contains every property that naturally belongs to the essence, apart from which there is only nonbeing, “since only that which has absolutely no being whatsoever” – according to that great teacher [Dionysius the Areopagite] – “has neither motion nor existence.” (Amb 5.2)

For how will he be God by nature and man by nature without possessing completely what belongs to each nature in its natural constitution? What and who will he be known to be – which is not subject to change – if this could not be confirmed by what he performs by means of his natural activities? How could each of the natures – from which, and in which he is constituted, and indeed which very things he is – how, I say, can these constitutive elements be confirmed if they are devoid of their natural motion and activity? (5.12)

    The more learned monenergists didn’t necessarily deny this tenet, but they proposed a few different ways that Christ could be fully divine and fully human, yet have one activity. Maximus addresses these in his Opusculum 5, which discusses three ways that Christ’s activity could be both “one and two”:

• Christ has one composite, divine-human activity. But since activity is grounded in nature, this would imply a composite, divine-human nature, which is absurd for the reasons he lays out in Letter 12: the parts of a composite nature (or activity) come into existence involuntarily at the same time, and this nature (or activity) is shared by multiple individuals. This is not true of Christ or his activity, which refutes the first option.

• Christ’s divine activity uses his human activity like an instrument. This instrumentality is either natural or artificial. If it’s natural, then it implies the same absurdity as a composite nature. If it’s artificial, then the divine and human either relate to one another as separate entities (which would be Nestorian) or as active agent to passive instrument (which would be Apollinarian, denying that Christ’s humanity has its own movement).

• Christ’s divine activity dominated his human activity. But domination implies “relation” (pros ti), and there can be no natural relation between divinity and humanity (only the identity of hypostasis). Any natural relation between divinity and humanity, even an asymmetric one, would imply mixture and change on the part of both natures. [32]

    This raises the question of how Christ’s divine and human activities are united, if there is no natural relation whatsoever between them. The answer is “according to hypostasis”! One and the same concrete reality, one person, acts divinely and humanly in an inseparable manner.

[There is] one Christ who works both divine and human things. He worked the divine things bodily, for the natural activity of the flesh did not lack the power to work miracles, and the human things divinely, for he willingly received the trial of human sufferings with authority and without natural constraint. (Letter 15, 573B; cf. Amb 5.12-19)

For example, Jesus walking on water “shows that the natural activity of his own flesh is inseparable from the power of his divinity,” since this requires both “transcendent power” and a body that can move from one place to another (Amb 5.7). [33] In short, Christ’s divine and human activities are wholly present in everything that he does.

    St Maximus refers to this as perichōrēsis, the mutual interpenetration of divinity and humanity in the one Christ, which importantly goes both ways: the human nature has also “penetrated throughout the whole” divine nature without change (Amb 5.14). This is what makes possible our union, as humans, with God – that “the Word became human so that we might become God,” or as Maximus often puts it even more provocatively, “we might become God to the same extent that he became human” – “the whole human wholly pervading [perichōrēsas] the whole God, and becoming everything that God is” (Amb 41.5). [34] This would not be possible if there were some natural relation by which Christ’s divine activity overpowered, or worse obliterated, his human activity. We can see why Maximus fought so strongly against monenergism: for him, “one activity” is an implicit denial of salvation itself!

    What about monothelitism (one will in Christ)? In his Disputation with Pyrrhus, St Maximus makes distinctions between the subject who wills (ho thelōn), the will itself (to thelēma), the manner of willing (to pōs thelein), and the object of willing (to thelēton). He also distinguishes between “natural will,” which is common to beings of the same nature – “the desiring capacity for natural existence [which] contains all the properties that essentially belong to an entity’s nature” (Opusc 3, PG 91:45D) – and “gnomic will,” by which individuals decide between goods of differing value – “having ignorance, doubt and opposition, since one only deliberates about something which is doubtful, not concerning what is free of doubt” (Disp Pyr, 308CD). In his most mature thought, Maximus denies that Christ has any gnomic will. [35]

     If Jesus has only one will, there are a few options (Opusc 3, 53C–55A). This could be a will belonging to a unique “Christ”-nature – but that would make Christ different in nature than both his Father and us. It could be a deliberative will – but that only belongs to an individual, which again would make his will different from the Father and the Spirit. It could be only a divine will – but then he couldn’t be subject to passions like hunger and thirst. It could be only a human will – but that alone could never perform miracles. It could be a composite divine-human will – but that could only belong to his hypostasis (since he is not a composite nature), which again alienates him from the Father. Thus, if Christ is complete in divinity and complete in humanity, he must have both a divine and a human will.

    How can these two wills be united in one person? Let’s consider Jesus’ prayer in the garden: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I will, but your will be done” (Matt 26:39). The monothelites interpreted this to mean that his human will (“what I will”) was completely suppressed by his divine will, which he shared with the Father (“your will”). It should be clear why this isn’t an option for St Maximus: there can be no natural relation between Christ’s divine and human wills such that one overpowers the other. Instead, he says that Christ has one “deliberative will” and one “aim and intention” (Opusc 3, 56B) – what he calls in the Disputation “mode of willing” and “object of willing.” In other words, like Christ’s divine and human activities, his divine and human wills are never separated in reality, much less opposed, with regard to how and what he wills.

    The human natural will to avoid death, which Jesus exhibited in the garden of Gethsemane, isn’t wrong in itself or opposed to God, because “nothing natural is ever in any way opposed to God” (Opusc 3, 48D). But by purposely bringing this human will into alignment with the larger divine plan – “not what I will, but your will be done” – he thereby “wholly deified his natural will, bringing it into agreement with the divine will itself,” without suppressing it (Opusc 7, 80C–84D; cf. Opusc 3, 48AD; 6, 68AD). Although Maximus doesn’t use the term, this is perichōrēsis of the divine and human wills.  Thus, “the whole Word became substantial with our whole nature and thereby deified it wholly” (Opusc 6, 68C). As with monenergism, we see that, for St Maximus, monothelitism challenges salvation itself: it implies that we, as humans, can’t be fully united to God without our nature being suppressed!

Conclusion

     I might not have done the best job of showing it here, but the doctrine of the Incarnation isn’t really supposed to be metaphysically complex. Much like it is for the doctrine of the Trinity, the Nicene Creed is sufficient: there is one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, true God from true God, who took flesh from the Virgin Mary and became man, who was crucified for us, rose on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will come again. Also like the Trinity, the point of this is to explain how we can truly know and be united to God (the Father): because his Son, Jesus Christ, who is united to him in nature and will, came to share our nature as well and reveal him to us, that we might also be really united to the Father through him. (St Athanasius put it more succinctly: “the Word became human so that we might become God.”)

    The metaphysical speculation about the Incarnation, which came in the fifth through seventh centuries, was only meant to defend and give substance to this basic idea. How can divinity and humanity exist in one single person without dividing him into two? Conversely, how can one person be divine and human without confusing them into one? This led to a revolution in metaphysics, which made a crucial distinction between the concrete subject (hypostasis) and its individual nature (physis). [36] Because nature and concrete subject obey different, opposing logics, it’s possible for one subject to have (and be) two natures. The coexistence and mutual interpenetration of complete divinity and complete humanity in one subject, as St Maximus saw, is what makes our deification and real unity with God possible.

    Even so, the doctrine of the Incarnation doesn’t require us to know and understand all this philosophy. All that’s required of us is praise toward he who accomplished our salvation, our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Holy Trinity, whose death on the cross for us destroyed death:

Only-begotten Son and immortal Word of God, / who for our salvation willed to be incarnate of the Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, / who without change became man and was crucified, / who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, / O Christ our God, trampling down death by death, save us! [37]

______________________________

[19] This historical overview draws from Richard Price, The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553 (Liverpool University Press, 2009), 1-58; The Acts of the Lateran Synod of 649 (Liverpool University Press, 2014), 1-58; Sergey Trostyanskiy, Seven Icons of Christ, 225-255, 280-310.

[20] Johannes Zachhuber, “Personhood in miaphysitism: Severus of Antioch and John Philoponus,” in Personhood in the Byzantine Christian Tradition: Early, Medieval, and Modern Perspectives, ed. Alexis Torrance and Symeon Paschalidis (Routledge, 2018), 35-38; “Christology after Chalcedon and the Transformation of the Philosophical Tradition: Reflections on a neglected topic,” in The Ways of Byzantine Philosophy, ed. Mikonja Knežević (Sebastian Press, 2015), 113-119; The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics: Patristic Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus (Oxford University Press, 2020), 119-144.

[21] Johannes Zachhuber, “Personhood in miaphysitism,” 35-36; “Christology after Chalcedon,” 113-115; this dilemma is presented in Leontius of Byzantium, Epilysis, PG 86:1916Bff; John of Caesarea, Apology 14.8.

[22] For example, see Severus of Antioch, Against the Impious Grammarian, Or. 11.22 which addresses the meaning of “from two natures.”

[23] Johannes Zachhuber, “Christology after Chalcedon,” 114-115; The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, 189-217.

[24] Johannes Zachhuber, The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, 196-214. The ingenuity of this is that the concrete subject (hypostasis) is now distinguished from the individualized nature (enhypostaton), which is made particular by the hypostasis. This makes it logically possible for two individual natures to exist in one subject.

[25] Translation from Panayiotis Hasiakos, Saint Maximus the Confessor: Christological Letters (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2026), 96-135.

[26] Basil the Great, Letter 214.4; 236.6; 52.3; 210.5; 125.1; Gregory the Theologian, Oration 20.6-7; 42.16; 39.11.

[27] This was proposed by Origen and, after him, St Gregory the Theologian, who saw Christ’s human mind as that which mediates his divinity and his body (On First Principles 2.6.3; Letter 101.8).

[28] This distinction was greatly developed by the neo-Chalcedonians, but it can be found as early as Aristotle who distinguishes between “the what it is” (to ti einai, i.e., essence or nature), and “a certain ‘this’” (tode ti, i.e., the reality itself). St Gregory of Nyssa adds “the how it is” (to pōs einai: Letter to Ablabius), which refers to the particular property by which the persons of the Trinity are distinguished, such as being begotten.

[29] One might object that it’s still a logical contradiction for contrary attributes (e.g., invisible and visible, unlimited and limited, impassible and passible, atemporal and temporal) to be predicated of one individual. However, this is true of the human unity of body and soul as well, because every human person is both immaterial and material (but according to different natures). Because hypostasis is completely indifferent to nature, there can be no contradiction between hypostasis and nature. Any contradiction would be due to a natural relation; for example, I and a dog can’t be the same hypostasis, because we both have a material nature and can’t be in the same place at once. But since, as Maximus says, there is no commonality whatsoever between divinity and humanity, Christ’s divinity and humanity cannot enter into any relation with one another according to nature, which means there can be no contradiction here.

[30] It seems to me Maximus is saying that the same particular property by which the Son is distinguished from the other persons of the Trinity – that is, being begotten by God the Father – also distinguishes his humanity from other humans. This would mean that the virgin birth, when Christ was begotten by God the Father in the Virgin Mary, is indispensable to the hypostatic union. When I asked Maximus scholar Jordan Daniel Wood what he thought of this reading, he responded with “a hearty ‘yes’” (pers. comm. 2026).

[31] This is clearly articulated by St Gregory of Nyssa in a fragment of a letter to Xenodorus preserved by St Maximus: “For we say that activity [energeian] is the natural power [dynamin] and movement of each essence without which a nature neither is nor is known.”

[32] This overview of Opusculum 5 relies on Jordan Daniel Wood, The Whole Mystery of Christ: Creation as Incarnation in Maximus Confessor (Notre Dame Press, 2022), 45-48.

[33] Likewise, Christ’s death most fully reveals him as the God-man, since he accomplished the salvation of the world (the most transcendent, God-befitting activity) by dying on a cross (the most finite, human activity). It’s here most of all that we must therefore acknowledge the communication of attributes: “one of the Trinity was crucified.”

[34] Jordan Daniel Wood, The Whole Mystery of Christ, 85-140.

[35] For an overview, see Christopher A. Beeley, “Natural and Gnomic Willing in Maximus Confessor’s Disputation with Pyrrhus,” Studia patristica 75 (2017): 167-180.

[36] Johannes Zachhuber, The Rise of Christian Theology.

[37] Justinian I, “Only-Begotten Son,” used in Byzantine rite liturgy.