Christology and Leo the Great

[billcu1]

I guess today is Leo the Greats feast day. The priest told us at Mass today. He founded some works for the ecumenical councils to discuss at a later time. So I decided today to begin looking at some things. I believe Jesus is said to have two distinct and indivisible natures. Divine and Human. The hypostatic Union. I always say Jesus is the “son” or “word”. Now that’s not nature but personage if I’m correct. My mother always starts saying that Jesus gave up divine nature to become human. don’t know what the name of such a heresy would be. Well she’s protestant.

So what was Leo the great a doctor of? AM i correct so far? What would be my Mother’s heresy?

 

[po18guy]

Here is a link to a quickly read link. You can also click on audio.

franciscanmedia.org/saint-leo-the-great/

As to your mom, she might be a oneness Pentecostal who denies the Tinity? There were several early heresies that had difficulty with the hypostatic union - among them the Kerinthians, Ebionites, the Elchasaites, the Modalsits and the Adoptionists.

A great book on heresies: Dissent from the Creed by Fr. Richard M. Hogan.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

My mother always starts saying that Jesus gave up divine nature to become human.

This error stems from a misinterpretation of St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Ch. 2:

[5] For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
[6] Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[7] But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man.

Some read into the phrase “emptied himself” that he forfeited his divinity. But this flies in the face of Jesus’ own words about himself – “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30), “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9, etc.).

Others think “emptied himself” means that he was still hypostatically united to the Father, but declined to exercise his divinity, and worked all his miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit rather than by his own power. Against such an error, St. Thomas Aquinas writes (S.T. III, Q. 43, a4):

He worked miracles as though of His own power, and not by praying, as others do. Wherefore it is written (Luke 6:19) that “virtue went out from Him and healed all.”

Of what, then did Christ empty Himself? Challoner’s edition of the DRV has this note:

[7] Emptied himself: exinanivit, made himself as of no account.

 

[billcu1]

This error stems from a misinterpretation of St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Ch. 2:

[5] For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
[6] Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[7] But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man.

Some read into the phrase “emptied himself” that he forfeited his divinity. But this flies in the face of Jesus’ own words about himself – “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30), “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9, etc.).

Others think “emptied himself” means that he was still hypostatically united to the Father, but declined to exercise his divinity, and worked all his miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit rather than by his own power. Against such an error, St. Thomas Aquinas writes (S.T. III, Q. 43, a4):

He worked miracles as though of His own power, and not by praying, as others do. Wherefore it is written (Luke 6:19) that “virtue went out from Him and healed all.”

Of what, then did Christ empty Himself? Challoner’s edition of the DRV has this note:

[7] Emptied himself: exinanivit, made himself as of no account.

She seems to believe for some reasons that he gave up his divinity. The way I understand the hypostatis is that divine nature and human nature were there but separate. Fr. said they weren’t mingled. I told my Mother I believe what she was saying I believe as “modalism” or “Sabellianism”. We aren’t arguing just talking. Pentecostalism is her past. I don’t think that is even a century old. If so not by much. You raised a good point here and I want to understand more. He did say you see me you seen the father. I know his personage is the Son. And it is separate and cosubstanial with the Father. So he says “you see the father…” yes that is confusing. I very much like Aquinas but I don’t think it’s official doctrine or dogma.

 

[billcu1]

This error stems from a misinterpretation of St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Ch. 2:

[5] For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
[6] Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[7] But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man.

Some read into the phrase “emptied himself” that he forfeited his divinity. But this flies in the face of Jesus’ own words about himself – “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30), “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9, etc.).

Others think “emptied himself” means that he was still hypostatically united to the Father, but declined to exercise his divinity, and worked all his miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit rather than by his own power. Against such an error, St. Thomas Aquinas writes (S.T. III, Q. 43, a4):

He worked miracles as though of His own power, and not by praying, as others do. Wherefore it is written (Luke 6:19) that “virtue went out from Him and healed all.”

Of what, then did Christ empty Himself? Challoner’s edition of the DRV has this note:

[7] Emptied himself: exinanivit, made himself as of no account.

So Jesus is the person of the Son. “When you seen me you’ve seen the Father.” What did he mean there? Is the Father in the Son? I thought they were separate persons. Distinct.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

So Jesus is the person of the Son. “When you seen me you’ve seen the Father.” What did he mean there? Is the Father in the Son? I thought they were separate persons. Distinct.

Mysterious, isn’t it? If you go on to verse 10, he says, “Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” His words convey both an equality and a distinction.

Some Patristic commentary on Jn. 14:9:

St. Augustine: When two persons are very like each, we say, If you have seen the one, you have seen the other. So here, “He that has seen Me, has seen the Father”; not that He is both the Father and the Son, but that the Son is an absolute likeness of the Father.

St. Hilary: …[T]he Father was seen in the Son by His essential nature.