Is the Assyrian Church of the East really Nestorian?

[EkhristosAnesti]

ioannis,

The so-called non-chalcedonean churches are Monophysite.

[sarcasm]Very convincing argument! You’ve sold me…[/sarcasm]

Tell us, if you believe in the two natures of Christ, unconfused like we do, then why is it that you cannot say Christ-God did not suffer on the Holy Cross, only his human nature suffered?

Are you telling me that according to Chalcedonian Christology, God does not suffer, only the human nature does? So you divide Christ between two subjects; one subject is human nature, the subject of suffering, and the other subject is God who is not subject to suffering? You can’t get more Nestorian than that!

I’ll show you why the Oriental Orthodox Church could never submit to such a teaching:

St. Cyril’s 12th Anathema: If anyone does not confess that the God the Word suffered in the flesh and was crucified in the flesh and tasted death in the flesh and became the first born of the dead, although as God he is life and life-giving, let him be anathema.

Humanity is not the subject of suffering, it is the means by which God the Word—the Personal Subject and Eternal Hypostasis of Christ—suffered. God suffered in or according to His Humanity; God was definitely the subject of suffering, regardless of the fact He did not suffer in His Divinity. The Oriental Orthodox Church confesses that God impassibly suffered / suffered impassibly; He suffered according to His Humanity, yet He did not suffer according to His naked/bare Divinity; this is the divine paradox revealed to the Orthodox Church. On multiple occasions Nestorius, by virtue of his reductionist and simplistic Christology, sought to force St. Cyril to choose between the proposition that God suffered and the proposition that God did not suffer, as if logic compelled one or the other. He attempted to set up a false dichotomy between the two propositions. Glory be to God, St. Cyril did not bow down to such faulty logic.

Such Christology is faithful to the Athanasian-Cyrillian principles of Divine Appropriation and Communicatio Idiomatum. As God the Word hypostatised perfect Humanity, He thus appropriated the properties and attributes of Human Nature; as such His Human experiences became His very own, and consequently, we can ascribe those human experiences to God the Word, just as St. Paul the Apostle does when proclaims that the Jews “crucified the Lord of Glory" (I Cor. 2: 8).

[ioannis]

The so-called non-chalcedonean churches are Monophysite.

[sarcasm]Very convincing argument! You’ve sold me…[/sarcasm]

I was not trying to convince you of anything, I was stating simple fact. Do you not believe Christ had "one nature"?

I should have some time tomorrow night to respond, and further expand on the differences between us.

[EkhristosAnesti]

I was not trying to convince you of anything, I was stating simple fact.

You have no credibility do you? I wander who would actually be foolish enough to take you seriously at face value in the absence of an iota of evidence, reason or logic.

Do you not believe Christ had "one nature"?

Monophysitism is a concept, that may be expressed by a linguistic confession of Christ's One Incarnate Nature; this does not mean the Orthodox Confession of Christ's one Incarnate Nature necessarily presumes the very concept of Monophysitism that your Fathers fabricated. Unless of course you wish to accuse St. Cyril of Alexandria of Monophysitism:

St. Cyril of Alexandria states in his letter to Bishop Succensus after the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus 431:

"For not only in the case of those who are simple by nature is the term ‘one’ truly used, but also in respect to what has been brought together according to a synthesis, as man is one being, who is of soul and body. For soul and body are of different species and are not consubstantial to each other, but united they produce one Nature (physis) of man, even though in the considerations of the synthesis the difference exist according to the nature of those which have been brought together into a unity. Accordingly they are speaking in vain who say that, if there should be one incarnate Nature (physis) ‘of the Word’ in every way and in every manner it would follow that a mixture and a confusion occurred as if lessening and taking away the nature of man.’

As with St. Cyril who expresses the spirit of Ephesus 431, the Oriental Orthodox Church confesses the fact that by virtue of the unconfused, unmingled, and unaltered union between Christ's perfect Divinity and perfect Humanity in One Hypostasis, all the attributes and properties of both perfect Divinity and perfect Humanity are realised by the One Hypostasis of God the Word, and that is One Set of realised attributes and properties united in the One Hypostasis constitute One Incarnate Nature of God the Word, just as the unconfused, unmingled, and unaltered union between the body-nature and soul-nature constitute One Nature of Man, viz. Human Nature.

As a linguistic note, the Greek term for One employed in our confession, is the term mia not mono, for the latter implies singularity, whereas the former implies the unity of multiple things. The whole premise underlying the mia suffix is that the One (mia) Nature of Christ preserves the distinction between His perfect Humanity and Divinity whilst securing their Union simultaneously.

I should have some time tomorrow night to respond, and further expand on the differences between us.

Please do. I'm learning quite a bit regarding just how heteredox Chalcedonian Christology is. First one person tells me that the Chalcedonian Christ is capable of internal conflict, division, and hence schizophrenia and non-existence, then you come and tell me that you deny that God was the subject of suffering in His Humanity, and that it was His Humanity alone that was the subject of suffering instead, contra to the 12th Anathema ratified by Ephesus 431. This is a real eye-opening experience.

[尼古拉前执事]

Please, let us keep this thread to discussing Nestorians & Nestorianism and let us discuss Monophysites, Monophysitism, & Chalcedon at the current active thread about this at http://EuphrosynosCafe.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7275

[Pensees]

Do you not believe Christ had "one nature"?

You are not citing a fact but a strawman. To be "Monophysite" is to deny either the divinity or the humanity of Christ, something which Oriental Orthodox Christians have never done. In the Council of Ephesus, your own church accepted St. Cyril's Christology, so that must mean that your fathers were also "Monophysite."

Monophysitism: Reconsidered
Fr. Matthias F. Wahba
St. Antonius Coptic Orthodox Church
http://www.coptic.net/articles/Monophys ... idered.txt

Peace.

[Pensees]

Please, let us keep this thread to discussing Nestorians & Nestorianism and let us discuss Monophysites, Monophysitism, & Chalcedon at the current active thread about this at http://EuphrosynosCafe.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7275

I believe that the two topics relate to each other. Other than denying Mary the title "Theotokos," what is the substantial difference between Nestorianism and Chalcedonianism?

"Two natures in one person" and "two persons in one flesh" are essentially of the same meaning, or at least would have been understood as such by St. Cyril and the Council of Ephesus. One must not forget that Nestorius' supporters, who had previously been condemned, were pardoned by the Council of Chalcedon.

With the Cyrilline Christology, there is a true union between the flesh and deity of Christ, for they are joined as one, just as husband and wife, though previously two persons, are now joined as one flesh.
There is no mixture nor separation in Cyril's Christology, but there is a true inward unity of the human and the divine that Chalcedon lacks.

Peace.

[George Australia]

Other than denying Mary the title "Theotokos," what is the substantial difference between Nestorianism and Chalcedonianism?

???
It's really not that difficult.....
OK. Imagine that I am holding an apple in my hand. That is the number of Hypostases we Orthodox believe Christ is.
Now imagine I pick up another apple in my other hand, so that I have an apple in each hand. That is the number of Hypostases Nestorianism logically concludes that Christ is.

"Two natures in one person" and "two persons in one flesh" are essentially of the same meaning,

???
How could you possibly come to that conclusion? What a strange arithmetic and logic you guys have where: Nature=Person and 1=2.....

or at least would have been understood as such by St. Cyril and the Council of Ephesus.

I think you need to give St Cyril and the Fathers of Ephesus a little more credit than that......