The "voluntary union" of Theodore of Mopsuestia

[gferrer]

I am currently reading A History of Christianity in Asia by Samuel Moffett. He describes Theodore of Mopsuestia’s theology of the incarnation as follows. Christ is a single person (parsopa or prosopon) composed of two substances (qenuma or hypostasis) with two natures (keyane or physis) in a voluntary union, akin to that of marriage.

I have read previous postings by Chaldean Catholics explaining that the orthodoxy of his theology can be grasped by understanding that he did not intend hypostasis to mean “person”; that when he was writing, the term had not really acquired “person” as an unambiguous meaning. Moffett discusses this as well. That makes sense to me. What confuses me is:

1. 
   *]How can the “voluntary union” be understood in an orthodox sense, if at all? It does sound Nestorian in a heretical way.
   *]What essential idea or concept was Theodore trying to express with this phrase?
   *]What insight is gained by separating qenuma from keyane?
   
   I am most interested in hearing Chaldean Catholic answers, but any insight would be appreciated. I know that Theodore was condemned at Constantinople II because of issues of this kind, but I am curious to know about how a sympathetic observer understands him.

 

[Leo_The_Great]

You have to Remember that gnosticism at Theodore’s time was still real, and so was apollinarianism and arianism.

First:

Gnosticism said that Christ was not real flesh. His humanity was illusory.
Apollinarianism said that The Word took real flesh, but not a real human nature, for the Word displaced the Human soul and was the conscious principle of the Enfleshed God.
And of course Arianism denied that the Son was of the same nature as the Father.

Second: The terms Hypostasis did not, and still does not phiolosophically speaking mean “Person”, if by Person we mean an individual rational being. Hypostasis is an Independent Subsistence, an individual reality, a substance that has come into being. So a chair has an hypostasis, a bird has an hypostasis. But see, it is still abstract in thought.
Prosopon, or Parsopa, is basically the same as hypostasis but when it becomes a solid material reality, or in a sense gets its “face” put on it materially speaking, it is said that the hypostasis receives its prosopon, or in other words, it moves from abstraction into reality.

Third: keeping this in mind, Theodore was Simply trying to emphasize:

1. The reality of the flesh of the Incarnate Word.
2. The Fullness of the individual and complete humanity of the incarnate word
3. The fullness of the individual and complete reality of the Divine nature of the Word

These philosophical terms are appropriate for the end Theodore had in mind, but keep in mind he was a syrian translating greek ideas into semetic and back…

The union terminology was unfortunate, but I imagine what he had in mind was what Christ said : “The two no longer are two, but one flesh” which indicates the fact that he perceived Christ as a Union of Godhead and manhood.

That’s just my take on it.

 

[gferrer]

You have to Remember that gnosticism at Theodore’s time was still real, and so was apollinarianism and arianism.

[etc.]

Third: keeping this in mind, Theodore was Simply trying to emphasize:

1. The reality of the flesh of the Incarnate Word.
2. The Fullness of the individual and complete humanity of the incarnate word
3. The fullness of the individual and complete reality of the Divine nature of the Word

These philosophical terms are appropriate for the end Theodore had in mind, but keep in mind he was a syrian translating greek ideas into semetic and back…

The union terminology was unfortunate, but I imagine what he had in mind was what Christ said : “The two no longer are two, but one flesh” which indicates the fact that he perceived Christ as a Union of Godhead and manhood.

That’s just my take on it.

While the “union” terminology can make it sound like the human Christ and divine Christ were initially separate and united only later, in the context you describe it doesn’t look like he was using the marriage metaphor to say that. It really only became problematic, I suppose, in the context of the Nestorian controversy after his death. It does say a lot, I think, that he was never condemned in his own lifetime.

 

[Madaglan]

I am currently reading A History of Christianity in Asia by Samuel Moffett. He describes Theodore of Mopsuestia’s theology of the incarnation as follows. Christ is a single person (parsopa or prosopon) composed of two substances (qenuma or hypostasis) with two natures (keyane or physis) in a voluntary union, akin to that of marriage.

I have read previous postings by Chaldean Catholics explaining that the orthodoxy of his theology can be grasped by understanding that he did not intend hypostasis to mean “person”; that when he was writing, the term had not really acquired “person” as an unambiguous meaning. Moffett discusses this as well. That makes sense to me. What confuses me is:

1. 
   *]How can the “voluntary union” be understood in an orthodox sense, if at all? It does sound Nestorian in a heretical way.
   *]What essential idea or concept was Theodore trying to express with this phrase?
   *]What insight is gained by separating qenuma from keyane?
   
   I am most interested in hearing Chaldean Catholic answers, but any insight would be appreciated. I know that Theodore was condemned at Constantinople II because of issues of this kind, but I am curious to know about how a sympathetic observer understands him.

1. 1. Voluntary union would have to mean that the eternal Word became man–that in the Incarnation there are not two individual subjects, the Word and Christ, but one individual subject, the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.
   The problem with the marriage analogy is that man and woman are one in the sense of a common life but remain distinct subjects or persons. This is not true of the Incarnation, in which there can only be one individual subject, the Word become flesh. The Incarnation is not a union between the Word and a man, as this implies two subjects, one the Word and the other a [created] man who by his union with the Word is raised in dignity. This is not orthodox teaching.
   1. Perhaps he did not mean by hypostasis an individual subject as we understand it. I think more to the point is what exactly he means by prosopon. Does it entail a union of natures, divine and human, in the one Incarnate Word, as we understand the hypostatic union; or does it entail a union of one individual subject (the divine Word) with another individual subject (the man Jesus), as the heretics have understood it?
   2. Can’t help you here. Sorry.