GOCTheophan,
433: St. Cyril explicitly accepts two natures after the hypostatic union in his "Epistle to John of Antioch" (the Agreements of 433):
T. Thomas accounts for St. Severus of Antioch's understanding of the passage in question:
This statement affirms that theologians take some of the words and deeds of our Lord as referring to the one Person, and the others they divide between the two natures. The intention is not to divide the words and deeds ‘between the natures in such a way that some are ascribed to the divine nature alone, and some to the human nature exclusively; they are of the one incarnate nature of God the Word. We recognize the difference in the words and the deeds; some are God befitting, some are man befitting, and some befit Godhead and manhood together’. The fact about this statement is that it did not contradict the Cyrilline principle of seeing the difference between Godhead and manhood in the one Christ in contemplation. But the Council of Chalcedon, argues Severus, went beyond the Formula of Reunion in sanctioning the ‘two natures after the union’, which the fathers had excluded.
http://www.monachos.net/patristics/chri ... edon.shtml
Saint Cyril replies to extremists who questioned the Agreements:
Who are these “extremists” that questioned the agreements? Certainly not the Oriental Orthodox Church. St. Dioscoros of Alexandria praises the Agreement, as does St. Timothy and St. Severos.
449: Dioscoros presides over the Robber Synod and exonerates Eutyches, and deposes St. Flavian (who is beaten to death and replaced by an Alexandrian)
Sts. Athanasius and Cyril, the Alexandrian predecessors of St. Dioscoros, were both charged with murder also. Fabricating outrageous charges in an attempt to tarnish the moral character of Orthodox Saints was a typical feature of ecclesiastical politics of that day; where is your evidence that we should ascribe any credence to this particular charge?
condemns all who accept the Agreements and anathematizes all who confess two natures
A smart move at that considering the new Theodoretian movement that was employing two-nature terminology in its attempt to revive Nestorianism subsequent to the death of St. Cyril.
451: The Fourth Ecumenical Synod adopts all the teachings of St. Cyril, and condemns those who selectively choose some of them and reject others as heretical.
This irony at its best. It was undoubtedly the Chalcedonian Church that was selective in its application of St. Cyril, for it was she that refused to accept his predominant One Nature terminology. The only context in which St. Cyril used the phrase “two natures” was when it was qualified by “of” i.e. “of two natures”, or when he spoke of Christ in theological contemplation as opposed to his actual existence. Never did he use the Chalcedonian “in two natures” formula, which is the very formula we rejected.
457: Timothy Ailouros (another Monophysite "saint") condemns Saint Cyril on account of the agreements:
Nonsense. This quote doesn’t even belong to St. Timothy; the source you quote from attributes the quote to the 86th volume of Migne’s Patrologia Graeca. This volume does not contain the writings of St. Timothy Aulerus who was the second, not the third, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria.
Severos also condemns St. Cyril's Agreements:
No he doesn’t. The Chalcedonian figure who alleges St. Severus spoke these words says so, but this quotation is not found in any of the numerous primary source material that we have of St. Severus’ writings. St. Severus spends quite some time discussing the Formula of Reunion in his works Le Philalethesand in the Contra Grammaticum. He doesn’t condemn St. Cyril; on the contrary, he defends him. It is thus quite obvious that this quotation is the product of polemical fabrication.
I read that book by the Coptic Pope when I was an Eastern Rite Roman Catholic and basically a false Ecumenist also and what struck me that the he teaches firmly that Christ has only ONE will.
Yes, a united will, the product of synergy, not confusion, between the divine and human wills of Christ. If the EO understanding of the sixth council entails that the two wills of Christ are not One insofar as they operate in direct harmony, co-operation, and are hence united in purpose and object, then the sixth council is heretical.
Anyone who reads His Holiness Pope Shenouda III’s work honestly and openly will see that he clearly maintains the real existence of two wills. You don’t need the phrase “two wills” spelled out; it’s clearly implied in his constant reference to a human will of Christ and a divine will of Christ. His stress on the One Will of Christ is a stress on the unity of His human and divine wills; it is not an indication of the confounding of the two, or the dissolving of the one in the other. Any other conclusion is one drawn out of context.
I believe that Benjamin accepts the Council of Chalcedon because it has been accepted by the Mind of the Church. Ephesues II has been rejected by the same though I believe more people attended it.
This doesn’t answer Pensees’ problem which pertains to the subjectivity of your claims. An appeal to the “Mind of the Church” is meaningless within the context of dialogue with one who is questioning the very premise that Chalcedon and its decisions reflect the “Mind of the Church” in the first place.
