We therefore acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, complete God and complete man, of a rational soul and body; begotten of the Father before the ages according to His godhead, but in the last days for us and for our salvation, of the Virgin Mary, according to the manhood; that He is of the same nature as the Father according to His godhead, and of the same nature with us according to [pg 511] His manhood; for a union of the two natures has been made; therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this conception of the unconfused union, we confess that the holy Virgin is Theotokos, because God the Word was made flesh and became man, and from her conception united with Himself the temple received from her. We recognize the evangelical and apostolic utterances concerning the Lord, making common, as in one person, the divine and the human characteristics, but distinguishing them as in two natures; and teaching that the godlike traits are according to the godhead of Christ, and the humble traits according to His manhood.
§ 90. The Eutychian Controversy and the Council of Chalcedon A. D. 451
What is known as the Eutychian controversy is less a dogmatic controversy than a struggle between the patriarchs of the East for supremacy, using party theological differences as a support. Few passages in the history of the Church are more painful. The union made in 433 between the Antiochian and Alexandrian parties lasted fifteen years, or until after the death of those who entered into it. At Antioch Domnus became bishop in 442, at Alexandria Dioscurus in 444, and at Constantinople Flavian in 446. Early in 448 Dioscurus, who aimed at the domination of the East, began to attack the Antiochians as Nestorians. In this he was supported at Constantinople by Chrysaphius, the all-powerful minister of the weak Theodosius II, and the archimandrite Eutyches, the godfather of the minister. Eusebius of Dorylæum thereupon accused Eutyches, who held the Alexandrian position in an extreme form, of being heretical on the doctrine of the Incarnation. Eutyches was condemned by Flavian at an endemic synod [cf. DCA, I. 474]. November 22, 448. Both Eutyches and Flavian [cf. Leo the Great, Ep. 21, 22] thereupon turned to Leo, bishop of Rome. Leo, abandoning the traditional Roman alliance with Alexandria, on which Dioscurus [pg 512] had counted, supported Flavian, sending him June 13, 449, a dogmatic epistle (the Tome, Ep. 28) defining, in the terms of Western theology, the point at issue. A synod was now called by Theodosius at Ephesus, August, 449, in which Dioscurus with the support of the court triumphed. Eutyches was restored, and the leaders of the Antiochian party, Flavian, Eusebius, Ibas, Theodoret, and others deposed. Flavian [cf. Kirch, nn. 804 ff.], Eusebius, and Theodoret appealed to Leo, who vigorously denounced the synod as a council of robbers (Latrocinium Ephesinum). At the same time the situation at the court, upon which Dioscurus depended, was completely changed by the fall of Chrysaphius and the death of Theodosius. Pulcheria, his sister, and Marcian, her husband, succeeded to the throne, both adherents of the Antiochian party, and opposed to the ecclesiastical aspirations of Dioscurus. A new synod was now called by Marcian at Chalcedon, a suburb of Constantinople. Dioscurus was deposed, as well as Eutyches, but Ibas and Theodoret were restored after an examination of their teaching. A definition was drawn up in harmony with the Tome of Leo. It was a triumph for Leo, which was somewhat lessened by the passage of canon 28, based upon the third canon of Constantinople, A. D. 381, a council which was henceforth recognized as the “Second General Council.” Leo refused to approve this canon, which remained in force in the East and was renewed at the Quinisext Council A. D. 692.
Additional source material: W. Bright, Select Sermons of S. Leo the Great on the Incarnation; with his twenty-eighth Epistle called the “Tome”, Second ed., London, 1886; Percival, The Seven Ecumenical Councils (PNF); Evagrius, Hist. Ec., II, 1-5, 18, Eng. trans., London, 1846 (also in Bohn's Ecclesiastical Library); also much material in Hefele, §§ 170-208.
(a) Council of Constantinople, A. D. 448, Acts. Mansi, VI, 741 ff.
The position of Eutyches and his condemnation.
Inasmuch as Eutyches was no theologian and no man of letters, he [pg 513] has left no worked-out statement of his position. What he taught can be gathered only from the acts of the Council of Constantinople A. D. 448. These were incorporated in the acts of the Council of Ephesus, A. D. 449, and as his friends were there they may be regarded as trustworthy. The acts of the Council of Ephesus, A. D. 449 were read in the Council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451, and in this way the matter is known.
The following passages are taken from the seventh sitting of the Council of Constantinople, November 22, 448.
Archbishop Flavian said: Do you confess that the one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is consubstantial with His Father as to His divinity, and consubstantial with His mother as to His humanity?