The Response to the Letter of Photius, Written by the Armenian Vardapet Sahak Mrut, at the Order of King Ashot Bagratuni

[Thomas_Deretich]

In the late ninth century, Patriarch Photius of Constantinople attempted to establish unity between the Byzantine Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church in order to bolster Christian solidarity against encroaching Muslim forces. He sent a letter exhorting the King of Armenia to accept the Council of Chalcedon and the councils that succeeded it; however, the Armenians steadfastly refused, while pointing out in there reply the similarity between Leo's Tome and the teachings of Nestorius, and the incoherence of the Chalcedonian Definition of Faith.

The Armenian letter does not prove that Leo and Chalcedon are guilty of Nestorian heresy simply because of some overlap. Theodotus overlapped with Nestorius when Thedotus referred to the visible nature and the God in the visible nature. Severus overlapped with Nestorius when he spoke of two hypostases united in Christ. The Armenian letter does not coherently explain how two natures remain unconfused if they are no longer two natures, but merely one nature. Is the united nature created or uncreated? Is the composite nature homoousios with the Father and Spirit or with humanity? Is the one nature passible or impassible? The Armenian letter seems to recognize the Orthodoxy and holiness of Saint Photius the Great, but it tries to defend the self-contradictory slogans inherited from the Greek Severians: "without confusion" and "no longer two, but one." Both slogans cannot be true.

[Thomas_Deretich]

Explain to us how the two natures are united in one person without change of the two natures and without co-mingling of the two natures and without confusion of the two natures?

[Thomas_Deretich]

Explain to us how the two natures are united in one person without change of the two natures and without co-mingling of the two natures and without confusion of the two natures?

I already explained it in my last post. In the same way that human beings are one composite nature out of two natures (a soul and a body), Christ is one composite nature out of two natures (divine and human). The natures are joined together to become one without confusion, and they can only be distinguished in their natural qualities by contemplation, in the same way that the human nature can only be distinguished by it's natural qualities in thought alone. The natures of Christ are not mingled or confused by their union into one, in the same that our body and soul are not mingled or confused by their union into one.

This proves the incoherence of the miaphysite position: the body and soul remain two (although in one person) while the one person is alive and they even separate into two separate things at death. The two-ness is real not just in human thought. If Christ's God-substance and His flesh are different (one impassible and one passible) and unconfused, then they are two in one person. Saying that the God-substance and the human flesh become one substance is confusing the two