Speaker 1: Was linktern a little bit in the title. For whatever reason,
Speaker 1: YouTube doesn't like it when you try to add people
Speaker 1: in live stream titles, so I'll add it after the
Speaker 1: show's complete. We did have I think a great response
Speaker 1: twenty two thousand for our initial four hour talk, largely
Speaker 1: from Kai, and of course we had a lot of
Speaker 1: good input from David as well, and I think I
Speaker 1: added some stuff too. We're going to continue with still
Speaker 1: part one. We don't think we're going to completely finish
Speaker 1: part one tonight, so remember this will be an ongoing series.
Speaker 1: I'll try to eventually put it into a playlist. It'll
Speaker 1: be its own kind of again, sort of college course
Speaker 1: on the topic. Now, we haven't really gotten into the
Speaker 1: specifics of everything yet. We really only touched on some
Speaker 1: of the introductory issues with the Syrian Church of the
Speaker 1: East and the Storian positions last time. So please be
Speaker 1: patient and don't expect that every question must immediately be
Speaker 1: dealt with on tonight's stream or the next stream or whatever.
Speaker 1: I guarante to you every question that you have because
Speaker 1: of the exhaustive thoroughness of this lecture series. Whatever your
Speaker 1: questions are, they will eventually come up. So please be patient.
Speaker 1: Also to the Orientals so called mods. If they spam
Speaker 1: the chat like they did last time, in act ridiculous
Speaker 1: as they are wonted to do, please just immediately boot them.
Speaker 1: We are looking for honest, extensive discussions on these topics.
Speaker 1: We're not trying to play the gotcha game where you
Speaker 1: clip something that's thirty seconds. That's what all the low
Speaker 1: tier Muslims, the low tier Roman Catholics, the load tier
Speaker 1: Orientals do is look for low tier thirty second clips.
Speaker 1: That's not what we do. We do the extensive, thorough
Speaker 1: college course model here. And so Kai is going to
Speaker 1: pick back up where we left off last time. And Kai,
Speaker 1: if there's anything else you want to say before you
Speaker 1: kick us off, or David as well, feel free to interject.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just want to say thanks a lot, Jay. I'm
Speaker 3: really looking forward to continuing this series. And just to reiterate,
Speaker 3: this is the second installment of part one. We're probably
Speaker 3: going to be doing three streams, maybe four streams on
Speaker 3: part one, depends on how long it takes us to
Speaker 3: go through all of the slides. One thing that I
Speaker 3: would say is I think I'm going to expand the
Speaker 3: series for what I had planned to do. Last time
Speaker 3: we discussed some stuff on ecumenism. I did a community
Speaker 3: post asking for a vote if you guys would like
Speaker 3: to see something of that, and I think there is
Speaker 3: definitely some interest there. So I think at some point,
Speaker 3: I don't know where in the series I want to
Speaker 3: put it in, but we'll have a topic dedicated specifically
Speaker 3: to ecumenism and to discuss this whole notion that is
Speaker 3: starting to kind of make some grounds of so called
Speaker 3: Apostolic Christianity, as if to imply that the Oriental Churches,
Speaker 3: the Assyrian Church of the East, the Roman Catholics, as
Speaker 3: if these are Appostolic churches. So we vehemently deny any
Speaker 3: Apostolicity to them. It's not just about tracing a particular
Speaker 3: lineage to the Apostles that makes you apostolic. And I
Speaker 3: think this is a very dangerous push by certain people
Speaker 3: in the online sphere that are trying to make it
Speaker 3: as if all of these churches have some kind of
Speaker 3: validity to them. It's very important to emphasize as Orthodox
Speaker 3: that the Orthodox Church, or if you want to call
Speaker 3: it the Eastern Orthodox Church, we just refer to it
Speaker 3: as the Orthodox Church really is the only church that
Speaker 3: you can belong to to say that you are in
Speaker 3: the body of Christ, that it is really the only
Speaker 3: church where you will find valid sacraments, and outside of
Speaker 3: that you cannot be guaranteed salvation. So that's just one
Speaker 3: point there that I wanted to bring up, and I
Speaker 3: may have Father Michael join us for that. He's a
Speaker 3: very big proponent to speak against ecumenism. He's very knowledgeable
Speaker 3: in the top topic. So I look forward in doing
Speaker 3: that stream.
Speaker 1: Apart from that, Kai, they're saying that your voice is
Speaker 1: a little too low. Could you jack back up what
Speaker 1: you turned down?
Speaker 3: So I just increase my gain.
Speaker 1: That's fine right there, That should be good right there, okay, perfect.
Speaker 1: Also the yeah, the point there, I think is that
Speaker 1: we see a lot of people talking about this idea
Speaker 1: of just generic so called apostolic Christianity, as if episodic
Speaker 1: succession is some sort of mechanistic transmission that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: correlate to the faith that one holds. One of the
Speaker 1: big differences there is that Orthodox theology believes that not
Speaker 1: only is a succession necessary for the church, but also
Speaker 1: the Orthodox faith is necessary, and so both things are needed,
Speaker 1: and there's no such thing as a kind of a
Speaker 1: Roman Catholic mechanistic model where everybody has the Orthodox faith
Speaker 1: just by virtue of being ordained in some line of people. No,
Speaker 1: you can have succession and depart from the faith, and
Speaker 1: so then you are no longer in the succession because
Speaker 1: you're not teaching the faith of the apostles. It's that simple.
Speaker 1: And also I would add that on that topic of
Speaker 1: a humanism, Tim Honeycutt has posted a audio version of
Speaker 1: a publication from the Athos Monastery of Grigoriu and it
Speaker 1: has a statement which is the orthodox, fully orthodox statement
Speaker 1: on what Christology is. I'll put that in the links
Speaker 1: there as well if you want another sort of just
Speaker 1: a backup topic discussion from you know, prominent I guess
Speaker 1: monastics on Athos making all the points you hear us
Speaker 1: make today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, data, was there anything you wanted to chime in on?
Speaker 2: Nothing really, I guess specific. It's kind of just so
Speaker 2: far as presentation is pretty much at all those long introduction,
Speaker 2: it is I think a necessary introduction to kind of
Speaker 2: get Georgsodox point of view across in a very clear way.
Speaker 4: Of course, there's still going to be people that are
Speaker 4: not going to get it.
Speaker 2: But it's important to point out where the developments and
Speaker 2: I've speaken about not in terms of developments of douction,
Speaker 2: but where the developments of the understanding of certain terms
Speaker 2: and certain ideas, the chronology of it, and also.
Speaker 4: The conceptual mindset of it.
Speaker 2: And in terms of the talk that Jay was talking
Speaker 2: about from Timothy Undcuts channel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely that work is.
Speaker 2: I will say, very important, and you're seeing a lot
Speaker 2: of different works coming out in terms of how to
Speaker 2: understand an offset issue. And I took to listen to it,
Speaker 2: and as Jay said, I mean, it's pretty much a
Speaker 2: lot of it is pretty much what I have been
Speaker 2: talking about, you know, since twenty twenty on this issue.
Speaker 2: So it goes through I mean, it's not just kind
Speaker 2: of me kind of coming with these things up. It's
Speaker 2: what exists in the literature. And the problem is this
Speaker 2: literature has been you know, kept away, and it was
Speaker 2: kind of hidden, the kind of obscure to find for
Speaker 2: quite some time.
Speaker 4: But it's coming out.
Speaker 2: It's coming out, and people are starting to talk about these,
Speaker 2: you know, very important issues. I think once again, ever
Speaker 2: since you know, what we saw in the eighties and
Speaker 2: nineties with relation to the supposed union conversations, and in
Speaker 2: terms of you know, the ecumenism stuff. Again, the idea
Speaker 2: that there are these multiple genuine Christian churches and they
Speaker 2: somehow have this share in the Holy Spirit, and they
Speaker 2: all partake in this generic universal like Platonic idea or
Speaker 2: form of generic Christianity. It's it's just completely unacceptable, right,
Speaker 2: It's completely it's not part of the experiential theology that
Speaker 2: you see that is preserved within the your stock church. Right,
Speaker 2: So at start succession, the point is it is to
Speaker 2: preserve the meaning of what has been handed down to
Speaker 2: the apostles from Christ themselves.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: There aren't multiple different perennial meanings, right there, There's one faith,
Speaker 2: one Lord, one Baptism, as Saint Paul says. And this church,
Speaker 2: which is the pillar and ground of truth, as Saint
Speaker 2: Paul also says.
Speaker 4: Is one, just like Christ is one.
Speaker 2: So when we speaking about, you know, how Christ is one, right,
Speaker 2: this extends to the church as well.
Speaker 4: It's not really.
Speaker 2: Honest to say that, you know, Christ is one, but
Speaker 2: the Church is meaning. That's it's not really a good outlook,
Speaker 2: it's an inconsistent outlook.
Speaker 4: And so this is why all of this is very crucially,
Speaker 4: very important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's another form of branch theory. And if you
Speaker 1: heard yesterday's stream, I had a pretty heated debate with
Speaker 1: an Anglican trying to defend branch theory. So it's really
Speaker 1: basically what it is. But anyway, Ky, do you want
Speaker 1: to go ahead and start?
Speaker 3: Yeah, just before I start, I want to just make
Speaker 3: another preliminary comment. After the first stream, it looks like
Speaker 3: the Monophesites, the Orientals, they had a little bit of
Speaker 3: a meltdown. They started putting out some kind of like
Speaker 3: refutation streams. I mean, we didn't even get through part
Speaker 3: one and we have like a nine part, ten part
Speaker 3: series where we're going to discuss all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and here they are.
Speaker 3: They think as if we've played all our cards, if
Speaker 3: we have everything laid out. I'm not going to play
Speaker 3: their game in terms of getting caught up in all
Speaker 3: of the details. Right now, We're going to go through
Speaker 3: this series and just do a very guided treatment of
Speaker 3: all of these topics. Some of their so called attempts
Speaker 3: at refuting us will just naturally play out to demonstrate
Speaker 3: that they basically have nothing. But we will circle back
Speaker 3: at some point and just demonstrate the the nonsense that
Speaker 3: they're that they're putting out. So don't worry. At some
Speaker 3: point we will address all the stuff that they're that
Speaker 3: they're talking about. We're just gonna do it on our terms. Okay,
Speaker 3: we have the upper hand in this, right. We will
Speaker 3: take the time and we will do a thorough treatment,
Speaker 3: and we will demonstrate the absolute stupidity of the Oriental position,
Speaker 3: the Oriental argumentation, and just really drive the point home
Speaker 3: that these people are idiots. They don't know metaphysics, they
Speaker 3: just quote mine. They have no idea what they are
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 1: So that also, and they're just using these discussions to
Speaker 1: get attention for their channels. That's basically with it, of course.
Speaker 3: And then they're they're making memes and all this stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, go ahead, make your memes. I don't really
Speaker 3: care about that, because that's all you guys can do.
Speaker 3: So to launch in So what we talked about before,
Speaker 3: we started off looking at triadology and kind of setting
Speaker 3: the stage for the orthodox Christological paradigm, and we're contrasting
Speaker 3: that with the Orientals and the Nestorians, and now we're
Speaker 3: kind of building it up. We ended the last stream
Speaker 3: with basically looking at Saint Cyril of Alexandria in his
Speaker 3: letter to Empitheodosius, and this was some those were these
Speaker 3: are some key statements that he makes where he's not
Speaker 3: relying on specific terms to set up the paradigm. He's
Speaker 3: telling you in concepts to understand what exactly is being
Speaker 3: communicated by him, how to understand Christ. And so this
Speaker 3: is very important because we're not building our paradigm based
Speaker 3: on certain terms. We're building our paradigm based on ideas,
Speaker 3: and then these terms that we use are meant to
Speaker 3: reflect these ideas. And now when we continue building up
Speaker 3: this paradigm, we're going to look at some of the
Speaker 3: key texts that really make it very clear what the
Speaker 3: Orthodox position is. And one of these documents it is
Speaker 3: Canon five of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, the Council in
Speaker 3: five point fifty three, and this ties into one of
Speaker 3: the early slides from part from the first Stream that
Speaker 3: I was saying how the Fifth Ecumenical Council is basically
Speaker 3: like a litmus test whether or not you subscribe to
Speaker 3: a Nestorian reading of Chalcidon of the Fourth Council or not,
Speaker 3: because at issue here is the Church of the East.
Speaker 3: The Assyrian Church, whati we call is the Historian Church,
Speaker 3: and we rightly call it the Historian Church because it
Speaker 3: is a historian. It does teach historianism. Well, what the
Speaker 3: Orientals will do is they will say that, okay, you
Speaker 3: see these Nestorians. They agree with Chalcedon, and therefore CalCon
Speaker 3: is an historian. And so this first dream really kind
Speaker 3: of put to bed how stupid that kind of reasoning is.
Speaker 3: You can agree on wording but have completely different understandings
Speaker 3: of the details of those wordings. And so when we
Speaker 3: look at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, it starts making things
Speaker 3: a lot more clear how Calcedon should be properly understood
Speaker 3: and how you avoid Nestorianism from the Council of Calcedon.
Speaker 3: And so in this canon, it's very clear that to
Speaker 3: hold the Orthodox position, you cannot in any way subscribe
Speaker 3: to this notion that in Christ are many hypostasies. And
Speaker 3: this is very important because this idea of having multi
Speaker 3: hypostasis in Christ is found in both the Oriental position
Speaker 3: and the Nestorian position. The main differentiator between these two
Speaker 3: is that the Nestorians maintain that these hypostases are juxtaposed,
Speaker 3: they maintain their complete identities, whereas the Orientals allow a
Speaker 3: combination of the hypostasis to result in a tertium quid,
Speaker 3: a new hypostasis. And so this is something that we reject.
Speaker 3: This is something that can in five makes absolutely clear.
Speaker 3: You cannot hold to any notion of multiple hypostasies in Christ.
Speaker 3: And you must profess that there is only one hypostasis,
Speaker 3: one person of Christ. And this hypostasis is what is
Speaker 3: in fleshed. It's not that you have some kind of
Speaker 3: a hypostasis that takes on accidents of human nature and
Speaker 3: somehow conjoins with the divine hypostasis. That hypostasis of Christ
Speaker 3: is divine only. And there is no way you can
Speaker 3: get around that. If you speak of any other kind
Speaker 3: of epostasis in Christ, then you are not Orthodox. Is
Speaker 3: there anything either of you want to add to that.
Speaker 1: No, that's a great statement of fact. That and that
Speaker 1: vindicates as we've been saying for many years now. The
Speaker 1: Fifth Council really demonstrates the error of not just these
Speaker 1: online the historian positions, but and an off side positions
Speaker 1: meophys out whatever. It also refuses the other people in
Speaker 1: the so called Orthodox circles that are confused on this.
Speaker 3: All right, If there's nothing, David, I'm going to move on.
Speaker 3: So we take a look here at some more explicit statements.
Speaker 3: We'll look at one from Saint Justinian and per Saint Justinian,
Speaker 3: I put the entire text up for context, and I
Speaker 3: get it. Some of you guys who are watching the
Speaker 3: stream on the phone, it's very small font for you,
Speaker 3: you can't read it. If you're watch in your browser
Speaker 3: and you make the stream full screen, then you will
Speaker 3: be able to read the text quite nicely. But I
Speaker 3: am thinking at some point in the future I will
Speaker 3: make the slides publicly available, so then you guys can
Speaker 3: have direct access to that. So I'll just read the
Speaker 3: highlighted portions because those are the ones that are more
Speaker 3: that are more relevant. So Saint Justinian, he's saying the
Speaker 3: hypostatic union means that the divine logos, that is to say,
Speaker 3: one hypostasis of the three divine hypostasis is not united
Speaker 3: to a man who has his own hypostasis before the union,
Speaker 3: but that in the womb of the Holy Virgin, the
Speaker 3: Divine Logos made for himself in his own hypostasis flesh
Speaker 3: that was taken from her, and that was endowed with
Speaker 3: the reasonable and intellectual soul i e. Human nature. So
Speaker 3: this is really important because what it's saying here is
Speaker 3: this understanding of hypostatic union, or using the term hypostatic union,
Speaker 3: is something that we share in common with the Orientals,
Speaker 3: but we understand it completely differently. So what Saint Justinian
Speaker 3: is saying here is the hypostatus, that the hypostatus, that hypostasis,
Speaker 3: that is, Christ is the subject for his infleshment, and
Speaker 3: it's in that where the union occurs of the natures
Speaker 3: in that one hypostasis. The Orientals understand hypostatic union to
Speaker 3: mean that you have two hypostases, one that is particular
Speaker 3: to the divine nature, another one that is particular to
Speaker 3: the human nature, that combine in such a way to
Speaker 3: give you a single hypostasis. Though the properties of the
Speaker 3: divine and human do not intermingle, according to them, but
Speaker 3: nevertheless you do result in one hypostasis coming together, and
Speaker 3: that is where they find quote unquote a union.
Speaker 1: When you say, according to them, they do not intermingle,
Speaker 1: you must mean they're the the Storian side, right, because
Speaker 1: the other side says they do intermingle.
Speaker 3: Well, they would say that you could. So the Orientals
Speaker 3: would say that they the hypostasis come together, but that
Speaker 3: you can still distinguish the divine properties and the human properties,
Speaker 3: so that there isn't some kind of a new while
Speaker 3: like a new divino human property. There is a tertim quid.
Speaker 3: But they will say that there is still a distinction
Speaker 3: in the properties. Now we our critique is is that
Speaker 3: this is an inconsistent position, right, that this does not
Speaker 3: make sense. It doesn't follow from the metaphysics. You can't
Speaker 3: avoid having a mixture. So I'm just saying this is
Speaker 3: the way. They're just trying to play the word games
Speaker 3: by saying, well, we're going to combine these hypostasies, but
Speaker 3: we don't really actually have a mingling, but we can
Speaker 3: only talk about one. It's like you can't have it
Speaker 3: both ways. So what you're saying doesn't actually follow from
Speaker 3: the metaphysics right that you're professing. It's exactly the same
Speaker 3: way how we critique the historians, where they say, well,
Speaker 3: no we don't believe in two persons, we believe in
Speaker 3: one person. Well, first of all, what do you mean
Speaker 3: by one person? But no, you guys want to have
Speaker 3: a certain result. But your metaphysics doesn't allow it, and
Speaker 3: so you're actually holding to an inconsistent position. Absolutely, okay,
Speaker 3: And so now Saint Justinian, he just ends this portion.
Speaker 3: He says, for the fact of the matter is that
Speaker 3: whenever this father said one nature of the logos incarnate,
Speaker 3: so here he's referring to Saint Athanasius, who would use
Speaker 3: that phrase one nature of the logos incarnate. He used
Speaker 3: the term quote unquote nature in this formula for hypostasis,
Speaker 3: meaning that the way we understand one nature of the
Speaker 3: logos incarnate, we mean that Christ is a single subject,
Speaker 3: that divine hypostasis is the subject for his infleshment. In
Speaker 3: the writings in which he makes use of this formula,
Speaker 3: he frequently follows it by adding either the terms sun
Speaker 3: or logos or only begotten, which are not names that
Speaker 3: indicate nature, but the hypostasis or prosopon. So this is
Speaker 3: really beautiful that you see in Saint Cyril is Saint
Speaker 3: Cyril goes out of his way to supplement what he says. Additionally,
Speaker 3: with two, three, four.
Speaker 1: Others Cyril or Justinian.
Speaker 3: No, no, Saint just Onion is making reference to previous sabers.
Speaker 3: Saint Cyril and Saint Anthonasius.
Speaker 1: Oh I heard you talking about Athanasius. Where's where's the seril?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I was, I was.
Speaker 2: I also wanted to add, like, in terms of one
Speaker 2: nature statement, it's not found in Saint Anthonasius, It's found
Speaker 2: in Saint Carol. But there are the press is having
Speaker 2: one nature that are a poonym, because the Polonais himself
Speaker 2: was actually the first one to say that Christ was
Speaker 2: one nature.
Speaker 4: Exactly to ada on Kye's point.
Speaker 2: What he's trying to make, what he's trying to say
Speaker 2: here is is that the one nature of the word
Speaker 2: incarnate that statement of Saint Carole of Alexander the way
Speaker 2: he understand it. First of all, he qualifies it with
Speaker 2: it being in fleshed, and he even goes as far
Speaker 2: as to say, if you didn't make this qualification, then yes,
Speaker 2: we will be saying something heretical. So he actually implies
Speaker 2: that you know, just like any formula, that there needs
Speaker 2: to be qualifications. And the point that Saint Justin is
Speaker 2: making we know that the term one nature here does
Speaker 2: not refer to nature in the sense that we use
Speaker 2: it as you know, essence or substance. It means you know,
Speaker 2: a person because the terms sun logos only begots in.
Speaker 2: These are names. These are terms that refer to the hypostasis.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the first to the person.
Speaker 2: It does not refer to natural properties. Right, we don't
Speaker 2: refer to the divine nature as sun.
Speaker 4: Father.
Speaker 2: The Father is not a sun, right, the Father is
Speaker 2: not the only begotten for example, Right, Yeah, these names
Speaker 2: are proper to the person, the word of God himself.
Speaker 1: What alone, Right, what Kai was probably referring to was
Speaker 1: the at the time of Nicea, and if you read
Speaker 1: the Nicene Creed, this is why hypostasis refers to nature.
Speaker 1: They'll say that, you know, there's one there's one nature
Speaker 1: in the godhead, one hypostasis. That's just because the word
Speaker 1: is referring to at that time, a particular nature. And
Speaker 1: it's after the capp of Dosans that the word takes
Speaker 1: on a more precise meaning. But Cyril at times, as
Speaker 1: David is saying, might use that term for just a
Speaker 1: particular nature. However, in the case that we're looking at,
Speaker 1: that particular is nature is particularized by the person of
Speaker 1: the word. So it's it's it's not an either or
Speaker 1: in the sense of like, well, you only have one
Speaker 1: way that you could use the word hyposthasis. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: used in this more nuanced specific sense to refer to
Speaker 1: a particular the person that has the nature. And that's
Speaker 1: the whole point here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And also like to add throughout the Krillian writings,
Speaker 2: like in terms of the Nestorian controversy, you need to
Speaker 2: understand how he specifically uses certain terms. So one certain
Speaker 2: terminology that he uses is that he'll refer to the
Speaker 2: divine nature as Christ's own nature. And I mean he
Speaker 2: speaks about the human nature. He does sometimes use the
Speaker 2: term nature for it, but a lot of times he
Speaker 2: kind of just refers to it in various different terms.
Speaker 2: And the reason the reason why he does this is
Speaker 2: to emphasize is that what he means by the divine
Speaker 2: nature of being his own nature, he's actually referring to
Speaker 2: the fact that the Word of God is a divine person. Right,
Speaker 2: That's kind of what he's trying to point hope, you know,
Speaker 2: point towards in relation to you know, the partner Storman
Speaker 2: position and even the Pulinarian position.
Speaker 4: Is on the one hand, he's trying to.
Speaker 2: Stand on the fact that all of these activities, all
Speaker 2: of these things that Christ does, it refers to the
Speaker 2: Word of God, right, that Jesus Christ is the Word
Speaker 2: of God.
Speaker 4: Right, they're the identical person.
Speaker 2: And so he's trying to establish that while also establishing
Speaker 2: the reality of Christ's humanity.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So he'll speak about, you know, Christ assuming hyposthetically the
Speaker 2: body and soul, and that he acts in accordance with
Speaker 2: his human nature. And he'll even argues, for example that,
Speaker 2: for example, in certain passages of Scripture.
Speaker 4: When Scripture says the word flesh.
Speaker 2: Argue, this means man, right, includes you know, it's about
Speaker 2: the body and the soul as well, in order to
Speaker 2: showcase first of all that he's not a pollinarian because
Speaker 2: he affirms that Christ has a soul, but also at
Speaker 2: the same time he affirms that this is the divine hypostasis,
Speaker 2: the Word of God himself that he's speaking about. So
Speaker 2: this is one example that's really important to understand why
Speaker 2: seeing Curl uses this kind of terminology.
Speaker 4: Now, of course, as.
Speaker 2: We're going to see in the presentation in the future
Speaker 2: future presentations, this terminology is understood in a very different
Speaker 2: light when we look at the on.
Speaker 4: Off sadd interpretation of it.
Speaker 2: Right, So keep, you know, keep that somewhere in your
Speaker 2: mind as we're going with this presentation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, just to kind of clarify what I was saying,
Speaker 3: is so when I say Athanasius synathnesis using this same
Speaker 3: kind of formula, you have to keep in mind that
Speaker 3: at the time, so not discounting what Jay and David
Speaker 3: had said with regards to the forgeries, at the time
Speaker 3: it was believed that this was an appropriate phraseology to
Speaker 3: be used within an Orthodox context, and so I make
Speaker 3: that attribution in that sense of the word. Though we
Speaker 3: do need to recognize it's a Pollinarian origin, and though
Speaker 3: it hasn't a Pollinarian origin, there is a very clear
Speaker 3: Orthodox way of understanding that, and the supplementation by terms
Speaker 3: additional to its usage really kind of drives the point
Speaker 3: home how we're supposed to be understanding this. So we
Speaker 3: look at another another instance from Saint Justinian, and this
Speaker 3: is actually made by a footnote by Russia, who was
Speaker 3: the one to translate on the person of Christ, and
Speaker 3: he's encapsulating the way the Christology is understood, and he's saying,
Speaker 3: the hypostatsis of Christ is the divine Logos, who is
Speaker 3: himself Jesus. So that we see that when we're talking
Speaker 3: about the hypostasis of Christ. We're talking of a divine
Speaker 3: only hypostasis. There is no additional hypostatic component, if you will,
Speaker 3: or element to Christ. And the term composite Christ moreover
Speaker 3: refers to the divine logos, not to the divine nature,
Speaker 3: and is simply a way of saying that the divine
Speaker 3: Logos becomes incarnate by adding to his previously divine mode
Speaker 3: of existence a human mode of existence, taking on himself
Speaker 3: on his hypostasis all the attributes and properties of human
Speaker 3: nature without becoming a human hypostasis. So this is going
Speaker 3: to lead into a future stream where we're going to
Speaker 3: go into understanding the appellation composite Christ and fleshing that
Speaker 3: out how we can make a proper Orthodox understanding of that.
Speaker 1: Add to the composite hypostasis between the Orthodox and the
Speaker 1: Orientals has very different meanings, as Kay's pointing out here.
Speaker 1: For the Orientals, it can mean that the person of
Speaker 1: the word the hypostasis itself becomes now a new tertiam quid,
Speaker 1: a new product of the union, in the sense that
Speaker 1: he underwent substantial change, and in fact, one of the
Speaker 1: guys calling in you've heard him basically trying to go
Speaker 1: down that route a while back. That's the false reading
Speaker 1: that we do not accept. Composite hypistasis means that what
Speaker 1: he possesses is two what's to Nature's hence, it's just
Speaker 1: a restatement of the meaning of diophysite. Diophysite means two natures,
Speaker 1: that's all it means.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is really going to be very important
Speaker 3: to understand how the Oriental charge against the Orthodox of
Speaker 3: Nestorianism holds no weight whatsoever because what exactly is too
Speaker 3: If we're saying that you have substantially one hypostasis, that
Speaker 3: is Christ divine only, well, where do you have two persons?
Speaker 3: Because Thestorianism is two persons.
Speaker 1: Two subjects, right, two.
Speaker 3: Subjects exactly, two clearly defined subjects. And it's impossible to
Speaker 3: have that reading on the Orthodox context.
Speaker 2: Now, yes, I also want to add really quickly, just
Speaker 2: a very quick demonstration of the importance of understanding that
Speaker 2: Christ is a divine person on the one hand, that
Speaker 2: the crisis divine human and how to understand as you know,
Speaker 2: kan j pointed out, the composite hype stasis refers to
Speaker 2: the composition of the hypesetic union of the two natures
Speaker 2: that's the reference to. But we need to understand from
Speaker 2: the orthodox perspective, right, it is completely heretical to refer to,
Speaker 2: for example, the Virgin Mary as anthropotokos, right, the mother
Speaker 2: of the man. Well, why is that wrong? Because isn't
Speaker 2: Christ man?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: The reason is because this ter in how you're supposed
Speaker 2: to refer to the Virgin Mary. It refers to the person, right,
Speaker 2: That's that's one of the main points that we see.
Speaker 2: And you know the sour has tried to go around
Speaker 2: this by saying, oh, you know, we can call her
Speaker 2: mother of Christ, which isn't really especially it doesn't really
Speaker 2: convey anything new.
Speaker 4: And there are many Christs in scripture, right, which Christ? Right?
Speaker 2: But if you talk about, you know, the Mother of God,
Speaker 2: when it picks out Jesus Christ, right, that picks out.
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ as God.
Speaker 2: But the reason why we use the term Mother of
Speaker 2: God isn't just to be scandalous or because we have this.
Speaker 2: You know, we obviously you know a lot of the
Speaker 2: Virgin Mary, and it's not just for that reason. It's
Speaker 2: also to confess that Christ is a divine person.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So this is one example in which we can refer
Speaker 2: to Christ in a specific way to his divinity. But
Speaker 2: we don't make a reference to the Virgin Mary as
Speaker 2: again just mother of the man. And it's again it's
Speaker 2: not proper to say this. It's not even will I
Speaker 2: believe it go as far as I say it's for
Speaker 2: the most part, it will be incorrect to say because
Speaker 2: the person she gave birth to is not a human person.
Speaker 4: It's a divine person.
Speaker 2: And if you're talking about a theanthropic person, right, divine
Speaker 2: human person, that is again a reference to the natures
Speaker 2: of Christ, right that he is in a sense composed
Speaker 2: of in the hypostatic union. It is not bringing in
Speaker 2: another human person or human personality into Christ. That's an
Speaker 2: important distinction to make. And the you know, Theotoko's term
Speaker 2: is one illustration of why that's important.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks so much for that, David. In terms of anthropotocus,
Speaker 3: I do have slides that I'm going to get to
Speaker 3: and we will talk about this specifically and how it
Speaker 3: relates to the Church of the East and Nestorianism. Some
Speaker 3: other statements I'm actually going to pull from the Catechism
Speaker 3: of the Roman Catholic Church. And though we as Orthodox
Speaker 3: have issues with the Roman Catholics, on this particular point,
Speaker 3: it actually does reinforce the idea that Christ is a
Speaker 3: divine only person, and so I have it listed. There
Speaker 3: are the specific sections the paragraphs where you can find these,
Speaker 3: but you have statements from the Roman Catholics that say
Speaker 3: stuff like Christ humanity has no other subject than the
Speaker 3: divine person of the Son of God. We confess that
Speaker 3: one in the same Christ, Lord and only begotten Son
Speaker 3: is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division,
Speaker 3: or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished
Speaker 3: by their union, but rather the character property each of
Speaker 3: the two natures was preserved as they came together in
Speaker 3: one person prosopone and one hypostasis. Everything in Christ's human
Speaker 3: nature is to be attributed to his divine person as
Speaker 3: its proper subject. Christ's human nature belongs as his own
Speaker 3: to the divine person of the Son of God who
Speaker 3: assumed it. The Son of God therefore communicates to his
Speaker 3: humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. Now,
Speaker 3: the reason why I'm bringing in the Roman Catholic points
Speaker 3: here is not because we need the Roman Catholics to
Speaker 3: substantiate the Orthodox position. I'm bringing these in to show
Speaker 3: how the Roman Catholic Church is setting itself up in
Speaker 3: a contradiction when it says that it professes the same
Speaker 3: Christology as other churches, for example, the Orientals or the
Speaker 3: Church of the East. And I'll get to the point
Speaker 3: where there was the joint agreement signed between Theman Catholics
Speaker 3: and the Assyrian Church that says, well, basically, we're professing
Speaker 3: the same faith. No, we are not professing the same faith.
Speaker 3: The Assyrian Church of the East, that is a Nestorian,
Speaker 3: will not permit this kind of language. It is absolutely
Speaker 3: against the Christology to use this kind of expressions and
Speaker 3: apply that to Christ. It just does not work.
Speaker 1: So note again the double hypocrisy there as Chai's pointing out.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, the classical Roman Catholic position and
Speaker 1: the Orthodox position on this specific point are in perfect unison.
Speaker 1: We do not disagree at this point. But yet Rome,
Speaker 1: as Chai is pointing out, because they want to, for
Speaker 1: geopolitical and ecumenist reasons, placate and pretend that they're all
Speaker 1: part of the same church. They now honor and revere Marnastorius,
Speaker 1: and so this stuff is played down. When even the
Speaker 1: Orientals will not agree to these positions, as Kai is
Speaker 1: pointing out again showing that only the Orthodox position has
Speaker 1: been consistent, and Rome admitting classically the Orthodox position, confirms
Speaker 1: that point.
Speaker 2: I also want to add the parts for Kai oltdye
Speaker 2: in green. A lot of them are, you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: direct quotations, sometimes very clear paraphrases of seeing Curla, f
Speaker 2: alexandri One in particular the last one right Christ human
Speaker 2: nature belongs as his own to the divine person of
Speaker 2: the Son of God who assumed it. And then he
Speaker 2: says this son of God therefore communicates to his humanity
Speaker 2: his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. So
Speaker 2: seeing Carola, I think something says something very similar, but
Speaker 2: says it in a different way, and I think it's
Speaker 2: very relevant to the Orthodox view. He says this in
Speaker 2: his Scholia on the Incarnation, he says, and he communicates
Speaker 2: as to his own flesh the operation that is the
Speaker 2: energy of his own divine powers. This was how he
Speaker 2: was able to give life to the dead and to
Speaker 2: heal the sick. This statement from Saint Curle that you know,
Speaker 2: the Roman Catholic Catholicism is making a reference, is actually
Speaker 2: making I will say a stronger point that the divine
Speaker 2: energies of God, right yeah, and consistent, Yeah yeah, fully
Speaker 2: interpreenetrate his humanity in a very strong way. Right, And
Speaker 2: this is a model to our salvation essentially.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind Rome does not teach. Rome does
Speaker 1: not teach that there are uncreated energies after Trent.
Speaker 4: Yes, so that kind of brought to my mind when
Speaker 4: I was saying.
Speaker 2: But as I said, a lot of these parts in
Speaker 2: Green there are again either direct quotations or paraphrase of
Speaker 2: what Saint Kurla Alexander is saying. But the last one
Speaker 2: needs I think a bit of a clarification to understand
Speaker 2: it even even better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So now we're going to ask the question what
Speaker 3: makes it so object because if we're going to insist
Speaker 3: that Nestorianism is two subjects, so we need to kind
Speaker 3: of look at, well, what do we mean when we
Speaker 3: say a subject? And so we understand hypostasis in the
Speaker 3: sense of a concrete, ontological existent and not in the
Speaker 3: sense of an abstract category. So, for example, hypostasis in
Speaker 3: the sense of nicee a one where it was just
Speaker 3: a nature like human nature. And so though hypostasis was
Speaker 3: used by Hellenic philosophers as well as in scripture and
Speaker 3: some of the Church fathers in that antiquated sense and
Speaker 3: the most immediate references in Hebrews one three. The Christological
Speaker 3: application of hypostasis, indicating a concrete ontological existent, is an
Speaker 3: extension of Origins usage with regards to the Holy Trinity. Now,
Speaker 3: I want to be careful here because that does not
Speaker 3: mean what we that we are using hypostasis in the
Speaker 3: way Origin himself understood it in a complete sense. It's
Speaker 3: just more of this idea to avoid modalism, so that
Speaker 3: you have a real distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Speaker 3: And so for Origin, hypostasis is what gives the Son
Speaker 3: as well as the Holy Spirit a truly real ontological
Speaker 3: existence distinct from the Father and not just a distinction
Speaker 3: in thought only, so it staves off modalism, whereas for modalist,
Speaker 3: a persona does not have ontological status or person, but
Speaker 3: making person identical to hypostasis, thereby making both points to
Speaker 3: the same underlying ontology is Cappadocian. And this is very important,
Speaker 3: and essentially what it's saying is is that the individuated
Speaker 3: is the individual. You can't separate that. And when you
Speaker 3: talk to the Church of the East and historians they
Speaker 3: play this three tier onto logical game where they'll say
Speaker 3: the hypostasis that they will in a way equate it
Speaker 3: with knuma, but at the same time say, well, it's
Speaker 3: not really an equivalence. They will say the pnuma is
Speaker 3: what individuates a kiana or a nature, but then to
Speaker 3: get the individual that's the function of the parasupa or
Speaker 3: the prosopon. So it would be like if you would
Speaker 3: think the knuma is like a mannequin, you have a
Speaker 3: row of mannequins that you can enumerate, but you can't
Speaker 3: really distinguish them, and so for them that that's what
Speaker 3: individuated means. It's something that is concretized that acts as
Speaker 3: a substrate to concretize an abstract, But there still needs
Speaker 3: to be some kind of individualizing of each of these
Speaker 3: things that are individuated. So you think of like multiple mannequins,
Speaker 3: you dress them up in different garb, and now you
Speaker 3: can enumerate them and distinguish them.
Speaker 1: And that's specifically referring to the Church of the East
Speaker 1: this terminology because of the only audience is going to
Speaker 1: get their audience is going to get confused and lost,
Speaker 1: and where simultaneous are responding to both the Coptic position,
Speaker 1: the orient position, and the Assyrian position, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, and so this is very important because this
Speaker 3: is where we see the metaphysical paradigms completely diverge, and
Speaker 3: this is where it makes it impossible for example, Rome
Speaker 3: to come into a Christological agree with the Church of
Speaker 3: the East. So either the two sides are absolutely stupid
Speaker 3: in their understanding of their metaphysics, or it's just a
Speaker 3: geopolitical game that they're playing. They're looking for some kind
Speaker 3: of geopolitical benefit for coming into union. But the Cappadocian
Speaker 3: sense is very clear that you can't individuate without at
Speaker 3: the same time individualizing, So the individual is what is individuated.
Speaker 3: So a subject then is a hypostasis or person in
Speaker 3: the sense of a concrete ontological existent in other words,
Speaker 3: So for the Cappadocians, if you have a hypostasis, then
Speaker 3: you have a subject. And it is from this basic
Speaker 3: premise that two hypostasis means you have two subjects or
Speaker 3: two persons in capitaltionmenclature. So anyone who believes that Christ
Speaker 3: to be two hypostasis in the Cappadocian sense makes of
Speaker 3: Christ two subjects or two persons, and maintaining two subjects
Speaker 3: in Christ is fundamentally and unavoidably Nestorian. And it doesn't
Speaker 3: matter how much one professes Christ to be quote unquote
Speaker 3: one person, as the Nestorians do. And one thing that
Speaker 3: I think needs to be made clear is that Nestorianism
Speaker 3: is properly speaking to profess two subjects in Christ. And
Speaker 3: so the reason the Orthodox will say that Nostorianism is
Speaker 3: too quote unquote person is because for us person equals
Speaker 3: the subject. And that's following the Cappadocians.
Speaker 1: And it's restated again as you just saw earlier in
Speaker 1: the slides at the Fifth Council, which is intended to
Speaker 1: resolve the linguistic dis view. It's on this topic after
Speaker 1: many centuries.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just to wrap up this slide, so if
Speaker 3: a different metaphysical system is used, and in this I'm
Speaker 3: going to use an example of the Church of the East,
Speaker 3: where their notion of person is not the same as
Speaker 3: our notion of person, but two subjects can still be
Speaker 3: identified in Christ, meaning that you still have two concrete
Speaker 3: ontological existence along the lines of hypostasis, which they will
Speaker 3: call Pnuma as an individuate in nature, then that still
Speaker 3: constitutes Nestorianism, and in a similar vein the Oriental churches
Speaker 3: are also to be considered a historian since the incarnation
Speaker 3: adds another concrete ontological existent, the human hypostasis, to Christ.
Speaker 3: Though the combining of the hypostasis in their scheme results
Speaker 3: in a form of monophysitism, it doesn't matter that they
Speaker 3: will say that the human hypostatic component in Christ is
Speaker 3: never separate from the divine. Nevertheless, the fact that it's
Speaker 3: added as a concrete means that you still have some
Speaker 3: kind of two subjects that in some form reduces to
Speaker 3: a one subject, So it would be a etertium quid subsc.
Speaker 1: But the point is that both of them are using
Speaker 1: the same faulty definition of what a person or or
Speaker 1: or what person hypostasis are, right, They coming to different conclusions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're just making different metaphysical moves, but making.
Speaker 1: But it's based on the same mistaken idea of hypostasis
Speaker 1: as a particular particular nature, right.
Speaker 3: Correct, Correct?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'd also like to add, if you want to really
Speaker 2: simplify it, you can just think of this in terms
Speaker 2: of Aristotelian s since accident dichotomy, and this is going.
Speaker 4: To be this time.
Speaker 2: I'm planning on talking about this in future streams much
Speaker 2: more extensively. But if you talk about, you know, substance
Speaker 2: versus accident as defined as substance has self subsistent, accident
Speaker 2: is non self subsistent, the main difference is, well, I
Speaker 2: guess not the main difference. The common part that monosis
Speaker 2: and the stories both have is this system and that
Speaker 2: person in terms of rational beings, refers to a self
Speaker 2: subsistent substance. And this is where we get the question
Speaker 2: of Okay, how do we understand crisis one person? The
Speaker 2: monopaid answer is, well, it has to be one substance.
Speaker 2: Then the historian answer is, well, we have to protect
Speaker 2: the quality of the natures. So two substances, and within
Speaker 2: the certain view you get two self subsistent things. With
Speaker 2: the monoposide, you get one self subsistent you know. Think
Speaker 2: but both of these views lead to incorrect paths. And
Speaker 2: the reason or that that being the case is because
Speaker 2: they actually share the same pre suppositions that the Orthodox
Speaker 2: do not hold to.
Speaker 4: So I believe I think, yeah.
Speaker 2: Saint Curly even says in the Scolia that the universal
Speaker 2: particular distinction makes it hard to explain certain things about
Speaker 2: you know, Christology, and he kind of points out that
Speaker 2: it's not actually fully you know, helpful to kind.
Speaker 4: Of just completely use you.
Speaker 2: Know, aristotelic understanding of substance and accidents and particular and universal.
Speaker 2: They need to be understood in an ecclesiastical manner. And
Speaker 2: this is exactly what we see in the in the
Speaker 2: Fifth Council, of the sixth Council. Uh, this getting more
Speaker 2: you know, ecclesiastically, you know, define it a stronger.
Speaker 4: Aid even in the FLIC Medical Council.
Speaker 2: So this is again a very crucial point to bear
Speaker 2: in mind. Otherwise you're going to have very serious problems
Speaker 2: in terms of the Trinity and Christology, right, You're going
Speaker 2: to go wrong in both of these pasts.
Speaker 4: So it's very important to understand that.
Speaker 2: A person is not simply just a particular nature or
Speaker 2: just a particularization. But it is certainly correct to say
Speaker 2: that it is very the particularization occurs. And that's a
Speaker 2: very fine distinction, but a very important distinction that we see,
Speaker 2: especially in Leontius of Jerusalem and the you know, the
Speaker 2: time of the Fifth Council This becomes pretty much over time,
Speaker 2: the main understood way of thinking about hypostasis, and another
Speaker 2: key point I want to make, you know, I want to.
Speaker 4: Make again further simplify things.
Speaker 2: The modelists use the term prosopon right, which is translated
Speaker 2: as person as to the persons of the trinity. Right,
Speaker 2: there are three prosopa. But the problem with the term
Speaker 2: process upon in the Greek is it also means mask.
Speaker 2: It means appearance, right, So it doesn't have this substantiative
Speaker 2: meaning of you know, personhood as a real concrete sense.
Speaker 2: But hypostasis does because hyperstatis literally and it used to
Speaker 2: pretty much mean basically this prior to the fourth century
Speaker 2: as just essence.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: In Greek it literally meets substance hepaw under and stasis standing,
Speaker 2: so it's basically substance and it's again that's an example
Speaker 2: of a term becoming transformed in order to ecclesiastically defined
Speaker 2: in a stronger manner the Orthodox faith.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, are you done? Can I say something? You
Speaker 1: want to keep going?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Sure, yeah, sure, you can go ahead.
Speaker 1: This is also where the Cappadocians and others bring in
Speaker 1: uh erisk Aerosol's notion of primary and secondary substance, which
Speaker 1: correspond to person and nature as well. This is why
Speaker 1: it's very crucial for trinitary theology and Christology to make
Speaker 1: the nature person distinction. And that's really what's underlying the
Speaker 1: page and the page that Kai has up. This is
Speaker 1: why by the time of Saint John Amascus, he will
Speaker 1: say twice, you know, on the Orthodox faith. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure twice he says that the failure to distinguish nature
Speaker 1: and person is in fact the root of all heresies,
Speaker 1: and so this confusion is central here to avoid we
Speaker 1: absolutely have to avoid the confusion collapsing nature into person
Speaker 1: or making person nature. I just put up a thing
Speaker 1: about the Tomas that do this very thing when they
Speaker 1: talk about a saiety as the divine essence. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get into all that tonight, but Kai, I
Speaker 1: did have a question for you, because it's David actually
Speaker 1: touched on it indirectly, which is this confusing usage of
Speaker 1: pros upon by the Nestorians. Nestorians will talk about a
Speaker 1: prosopic union. I think you did touch on a last time,
Speaker 1: but I think somebody in the chat made a comment
Speaker 1: to this effect. Is that because in other words, it's
Speaker 1: not that there's a problem with the word pros upon,
Speaker 1: but the Nestorian understanding of pros upon is not the
Speaker 1: same thing as what we mean by pros upon. And
Speaker 1: that's why that terminology might be utilized by the Coptics,
Speaker 1: for example, because they would say, oh, you're using the
Speaker 1: Nestorian idea because you're using the word pros on, so
Speaker 1: you just mean it's a mask, no no by for us.
Speaker 1: As the Fifth Council says, prosopon refers to the hypostasis
Speaker 1: of the word.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I don't want to get into too much
Speaker 3: detail now, just because I actually will go into greater details.
Speaker 3: But basically, we have our two tierontology of nature, person,
Speaker 3: and here we're using person to refer to the same
Speaker 3: ontology as the hypostasis, so we're using it equivalently synonymously.
Speaker 3: But the historians they have a three tier ontology basically
Speaker 3: nature hypostasis, person, and for them, in the Church of
Speaker 3: the East, person does not mean the same thing as hypostasis.
Speaker 3: I will get into greater until explain exactly what this
Speaker 3: whole system entails.
Speaker 2: I also want to add, like very shortly, when it
Speaker 2: comes to the christology of the vest and I think
Speaker 2: it's very clear that prior to the Council Ofdon, the
Speaker 2: Cristogiost is very you know, to nature focus, it's very Diophysite. Again,
Speaker 2: I think this is kind of it's very difficult to
Speaker 2: argue against this. But when they use the term person,
Speaker 2: it is not as weak as the Greek term prosopon right,
Speaker 2: because the Latin understanding of person already incorporates some kind
Speaker 2: of substantiality to it by nature of the way it's
Speaker 2: used in the Latin language.
Speaker 4: So that's also something to bear in mind. So then,
Speaker 4: for example, you know.
Speaker 2: The tone of Leo talks about Christ being one person,
Speaker 2: it is not as weak as a Greek saying Christ
Speaker 2: is one prosopon right, And the story can say that,
Speaker 2: but lost I can say that, Orthodox can say that.
Speaker 2: But in the Latin context it's actually quite different. Right,
Speaker 2: Latins don't really as far as I know, and I'm
Speaker 2: ninety five percent sure in this, but Latins don't really
Speaker 2: have this concept of person as just some external external appearance.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: There is indeed the understanding of you know, persona right
Speaker 2: as kind of like making up a personality or wearing something.
Speaker 4: As a mask.
Speaker 2: But again within the Latin context, the way it's used,
Speaker 2: that's much weaker, right, And there has been some discussions
Speaker 2: from you know, the Western Church prescis in Western Church
Speaker 2: on this issue as well at its time.
Speaker 4: So that's I.
Speaker 2: Think something important to point out that the Western Church
Speaker 2: in the Eastern Church in terms of cristogia, although are
Speaker 2: unified in this matter, the very certain terms developed, there's
Speaker 2: different expressions, right, It's very important to bear this in mind.
Speaker 2: The last thing that we should do is anachronistically apply
Speaker 2: modern understandings of certain terms for how it was used
Speaker 2: in the fifth century. We have to try to understand
Speaker 2: how a person in the fifth century understood these terms
Speaker 2: in order to understand exactly what they're saying. If you
Speaker 2: don't do that, we're just going to be we're not
Speaker 2: going to be able to go beyond just making you know,
Speaker 2: ten second clips and just trying to own the opponent
Speaker 2: and score.
Speaker 4: Some Internet points.
Speaker 2: That discussion is not going to be going beyond that
Speaker 2: if we don't try to understand what these people actually
Speaker 2: said for their time. This is why it's important to
Speaker 2: actually listen and understand what you're reading.
Speaker 3: Right, consubstantial metaphysics. So this is now going into demonstrating
Speaker 3: how the Orientals are trying to play two games at
Speaker 3: the same time. So to speak of Christ being doubly
Speaker 3: consubstantial with the Father meaning divine and Us meaning human,
Speaker 3: is to admit Christ is in to nature's and this
Speaker 3: is very important. Christ is in two natures if he's
Speaker 3: to be doubly consubstantial. But the Orientals they're going to
Speaker 3: say that Christ is in one nature, and that denies
Speaker 3: the double consubstantiality. So, given that double consubstantiality requires speaking
Speaker 3: of two distinct natures, we can speak of Christ in
Speaker 3: two distinct natures because he is consubstantial with others in
Speaker 3: those natures. In those natures. If you cannot speak of
Speaker 3: Christ in two distinct natures, then you cannot speak of
Speaker 3: Christ consubstantial with others in those natures. This is important
Speaker 3: because it's precisely because consubstanti is at the level of
Speaker 3: nature and not hypostasis, that Christ does not require a
Speaker 3: human hypostasis in order to become substantial with us according
Speaker 3: to human nature. This is why we deny that metaphysical
Speaker 3: move that says we must first have some kind of
Speaker 3: a human substrate that can individuate or particularize a human nature,
Speaker 3: and that substrate has to be particular to that human nature.
Speaker 3: We deny that metaphysical move and this is why we
Speaker 3: can say that Christ is a divine only hypostasis. Now,
Speaker 3: to be consubstantial is to be of the same essence
Speaker 3: or homousios, as stipulated by the Nicene Creed, which, as
Speaker 3: Saint Anthonasius reminds us, is to be of the same nature.
Speaker 3: And he's using the word feces here, for we believe
Speaker 3: that there is one Godhead and that it has one
Speaker 3: nature feasin, and not that there is one nature of
Speaker 3: the Father from which that of the Son of the
Speaker 3: Holy Spirit are distinct. So the First Documenical Council mandates
Speaker 3: that Christians profess the Father and Son to be of
Speaker 3: the same essence homo ussios, meaning consubstantial, which means to
Speaker 3: exist in the same nature. But now, if we look
Speaker 3: at what the Orientals will say, that Christ can only
Speaker 3: be spoken of as being in one nature. So they
Speaker 3: will say he's of two natures, but they will not
Speaker 3: say that he is in two natures. The Oriental position
Speaker 3: is crystal clear that you can only ever speak of
Speaker 3: Christ in one nature incarnating. So if he's only in
Speaker 3: one nature. The oriental metaphysics has two possibilities. Either Christ
Speaker 3: retains only his divine nature and as a result he
Speaker 3: is not consubstantial with us, and that means that is
Speaker 3: a form of gnosticism. Or Christ's nature changes and as
Speaker 3: a result he is no longer consubstantial with the Father,
Speaker 3: and that would be a form of arianism. So that
Speaker 3: is a metaphysical consequence of the oriental positions. You cannot
Speaker 3: have it both ways to say Christ is in one nature,
Speaker 3: but say he's doubly consubstantial and saying that he has
Speaker 3: human properties and divine properties and that is what makes
Speaker 3: him consubstantial and leave it at that. That does not
Speaker 3: work if you guys want to contribute anything to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the main response you get to this is,
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of this, it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: Christ is one whole out of two parts, right, and
Speaker 2: we are referring to the two parts that the whole
Speaker 2: is made of. But again, if you're going to use
Speaker 2: the language of consubstantiality and say that this is real
Speaker 2: and this is applicable to Christ after the hypostatic union,
Speaker 2: I really fail to see how you can affirm double consubstantiality,
Speaker 2: but not two natures, right, especially when nature and substance
Speaker 2: in disregard that the av use, it is pretty much
Speaker 2: the same.
Speaker 4: Right. So, and we.
Speaker 2: Also know that Serahsophantiac actually explicitly rejects saying that Christ
Speaker 2: is into substances. And that's because he has a specific
Speaker 2: understanding of universals.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: For him, universals are just collection of all particulars, all hypostasies, basically,
Speaker 2: And so to say that there are two substances in
Speaker 2: Christ for him will be to say that Christ has
Speaker 2: all hypostasis of humanity and divinity in him.
Speaker 4: Right, That's kind of how he understands. But of course.
Speaker 2: You having a wrong understanding of the relationship between universe
Speaker 2: and particular is not a good enough excuse to deny
Speaker 2: a formula that actually gives a that has a very
Speaker 2: strong expantory power for certain basic truths, such as that
Speaker 2: Christ is fully God and fully mad. This is why
Speaker 2: it's important again from Nords, that's perspective to make this confession.
Speaker 2: And what is united in Christ? And what is being
Speaker 2: united in different things? What is united in Christ?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: The two natures being united to each other, they're united
Speaker 2: in his person in his hypostasis. You can think of
Speaker 2: this in the same sense as the body and the soul, right,
Speaker 2: for example, they're united in the person, the body and
Speaker 2: the soul. That is uh So that's that's that's all
Speaker 2: I have to add for for now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd also just like to add the conceptential metaphysics.
Speaker 3: Conceptentiality plays a very important role when we start to
Speaker 3: understand how Christ is mediator. What does it mean for
Speaker 3: Christ to be mediator? And this is very important for
Speaker 3: understanding why consubstantiality double consupstentiality is real.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why i'd just put that quote in, you know,
Speaker 1: from Timothy one media between God and man, right, the God,
Speaker 1: man Christ Jesus.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So when we look at Saint Cyril's letter to
Speaker 3: emper Theodosius, this is a highly relevant letter. I think
Speaker 3: it's one of the more neglected writings from Saint Cyril
Speaker 3: in the discussion. And I think it's really more neglected
Speaker 3: just because a translation of it has only appeared fairly recently.
Speaker 3: But I think it's it's it's highly highly relevant. It's
Speaker 3: anticipating the Third Ecumenical Council to combat Nestorianism. But what's
Speaker 3: really important about this letter is Saint Cyril is distancing
Speaker 3: himself from various prior heresies, and in so doing he's
Speaker 3: establishing single subject metaphysics. So when we talked about the
Speaker 3: metaphysics earlier, what makes a subject, it's very important. This
Speaker 3: letter goes to great length to demonstrate in Saint Cyril's
Speaker 3: thought he has a single subject Christ in mind. Now,
Speaker 3: some of the things that he distances himself from is
Speaker 3: dough Cticism or doceticism, theomorphism arianism or Sellianism or pollinarianism,
Speaker 3: and then the diophysitism, which is a direct front two
Speaker 3: Nesto orientism. I'm not going to go into detail of
Speaker 3: these heresies. I'm just giving you an overview of what
Speaker 3: to expect if you're going to read that letter.
Speaker 4: I highly well.
Speaker 1: Note that diophysicism there does not mean nature's It means subjects.
Speaker 4: For him to subjects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also because because later on, of course, we
Speaker 1: explicate the diophysite position, in other words, the two nature's position,
Speaker 1: not the two subject position. Now. Uh, this this also
Speaker 1: is of course what you consistently see presented in the
Speaker 1: John mcguck and book that we've recommended for many many years.
Speaker 1: Say Cyril of Alexander the Christological controversy. Really, the whole
Speaker 1: thesis of the book is mainly just, I should say,
Speaker 1: one of many theses is basically just presenting the argument
Speaker 1: that Cyril is a single subject Christological proponent. That single
Speaker 1: subject is identical to the subject prior to the incarnation,
Speaker 1: namely the second person of the Godhead. And so that
Speaker 1: means that in the incarnate state, the only subject for
Speaker 1: all the incarnate action is the divine person of the word. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I'd also like to add one of the reasons
Speaker 3: why I really like Saint Cyril's letter in this regard
Speaker 3: is the way he's phrasing things, the way he's explaining things.
Speaker 3: It is crushing all of the stupidity coming from the
Speaker 3: Oriental side with their quote mining. It will demonstrate how
Speaker 3: Saint Cyril's understanding of Christ is completely in line with
Speaker 3: the Orthodox position. And when you really take the effort
Speaker 3: to understand what he's saying in his letters, you start
Speaker 3: to see. This is where the cracks start falling for
Speaker 3: the Orientals that they really do not understand Saint Cyril.
Speaker 4: They really do not.
Speaker 3: Understand his terms, They do not understand what his thought is.
Speaker 1: The two letters to six census are also really good
Speaker 1: for showing that after the resurrection.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and his formula for union letters nine, it's always
Speaker 2: gets talked about and there's always a response against it,
Speaker 2: which I don't think it's very convincing. But the main
Speaker 2: point that I want to get across with letter thirty nine, right,
Speaker 2: the formula of reunion he had with Jona Fantioch is.
Speaker 4: As as as you all see.
Speaker 2: Saint Cirrole's main point is that all of the sayings
Speaker 2: of the Devincent humanity are attributed ultimately to the one
Speaker 2: person word of God. That's the main point that he's
Speaker 2: trying to protect. And it's very interesting that he says
Speaker 2: that this is protected if you used to nature's language.
Speaker 2: In letter thirty nine, right, he says this very clearly,
Speaker 2: you know, right, he says, some theologians, you know, they
Speaker 2: refer all the sayings to you know, some you know,
Speaker 2: we refer to all the sayings of Christ to the
Speaker 2: one person, and there are some theologians that refer to
Speaker 2: the sayings of Christ, you know, dividing the sayings. No,
Speaker 2: it's not dividing the natures, but dividing the sayings to
Speaker 2: the two natures.
Speaker 4: So and he has. I think he's learned the Eulogius,
Speaker 4: if I'm remember correctly.
Speaker 2: He defends this, right, he defends saying this, and he says, look,
Speaker 2: you know they're they're actually trying to say the same
Speaker 2: thing as we do. The highest criticism he makes like
Speaker 2: you know, they're sayings are a bit obscure, more difficult
Speaker 2: to understand. But never does he say, oh, yeah, you
Speaker 2: know these people are heretics or anything like that, which
Speaker 2: is what you see you know, monopsized later on, do
Speaker 2: is I accuse this language of being a heretical language
Speaker 2: and seeing curl of Alexandria at his own time accepted it.
Speaker 2: And the main point that I'm trying to make is
Speaker 2: that for Saint Carol, it is consistent to be able
Speaker 2: to speak of one Christ, one divine person of the logos,
Speaker 2: while being able to speak of you know, divine and
Speaker 2: human things in Christ. And this is you know what
Speaker 2: you see trout Saint Curle's writings. You know, he consistently
Speaker 2: applies this these principles, right, this is not just the
Speaker 2: concession that he made like this is actually what monopsized,
Speaker 2: like service police, like he pretended to agree with what
Speaker 2: they said, but he actually didn't agree with anything they said.
Speaker 2: He was just trying to keep peace in the church.
Speaker 2: And this is kind of problematic to say, but we'll
Speaker 2: look at it in the future presentations. But what I'm
Speaker 2: trying to get at here is what you're going to
Speaker 2: see in this letter is again it's important to understand
Speaker 2: Saint Curle and his own terms, the way he speaks,
Speaker 2: and to understand what he's actually trying to say. And
Speaker 2: this is why for us, seeing Curle is a teacher
Speaker 2: of the two natures of Christ. It's not just that, oh,
Speaker 2: he says one nature and that's that's the end of
Speaker 2: the story, or he says two natures and that stated story.
Speaker 2: His writings as a whole is what's preserved and what's explicated,
Speaker 2: what's taught in the ecumenical councils, or rather, what Saint
Speaker 2: Curle is teaching is he's actually teaching the Orthodox faith.
Speaker 4: So it's important to bear this in mind, all right.
Speaker 3: So with that in mind, I'm going to read these
Speaker 3: quotes and I'm going to read them in their entirety
Speaker 3: rather than just talking about them, because I want people
Speaker 3: to actually hear Saint Cyril speaking the way he's portraying
Speaker 3: his christology, so he'll say so. Someone will probably ask
Speaker 3: at this point, to whom did the Holy Virgin give birth?
Speaker 3: Was it to a man or to the Word of God.
Speaker 1: We reply that.
Speaker 3: Question is wholly misguided. It is in default of what
Speaker 3: is right and true. As far as I'm concerned, you
Speaker 3: ought not to allow any division after the union. Nor
Speaker 3: may you reshape a manual into two persons by splitting
Speaker 3: him up individually into a man and God the Word.
Speaker 3: No one should accuse us of having taken an unorthodox
Speaker 3: position here, since this is just what is expressly condemned
Speaker 3: by Holy scripture. There is no way there can be
Speaker 3: any division, especially if it involves talking of quote unquote
Speaker 3: two after the union, or thinking of each separately. It
Speaker 3: is appropriate for one's mind to sense a distinction between
Speaker 3: the natures, after all, human and divine natures are not identical.
Speaker 3: But at the same time as this acknowledgment, the mind
Speaker 3: must also accept the concurrence of the two into a unity.
Speaker 3: So it was as God that he issued from God
Speaker 3: to Father, and as man that he issued from the
Speaker 3: Virgin the Word who shone out from God the Father
Speaker 3: in a manner that can be neither described nor imagined,
Speaker 3: is said to have also been born of a woman,
Speaker 3: descending into humanity and entering into what was not his own,
Speaker 3: not with the aim of remaining thus emptied, but rather
Speaker 3: so that he might be believed to be God and
Speaker 3: appear on earth in human form, not just as if
Speaker 3: he were dwelling inside someone, but by himself, becoming a
Speaker 3: man by nature, while simultaneously preserving his own glory. So
Speaker 3: God's mouthpiece, Paul Come binds these two things into a unity,
Speaker 3: namely the divinity and the humanity, which would otherwise be
Speaker 3: so far from being consubstantial with each other, and which
Speaker 3: are so utterly distinct. And he makes this combination in
Speaker 3: the context of salvation history. And then he demonstrates that
Speaker 3: there is one single Christ out of the two elements,
Speaker 3: one Son, one God. Here we see single subject christology.
Speaker 3: We see that Saint Cyril allows for speaking of two
Speaker 3: after the union. But he's telling you how you must
Speaker 3: understand the speaking of two and what exactly is one.
Speaker 3: This is completely in line with Canon five of the
Speaker 3: Fifth Ecumenical Council. We don't necess necessarily have to express
Speaker 3: our theology in this hippostatic language. But what Saint cyril
Speaker 3: Is writing is exactly what our Christology reflects, and it
Speaker 3: is completely contrary to the Orientals continuing on from the
Speaker 3: same letter. So the Son, who was co eternal with
Speaker 3: the one from whom he issued, and who exists prior
Speaker 3: to every age, descended into human nature, taking up humanity
Speaker 3: to himself, rather than slipping away from being God. And
Speaker 3: hence he may legitimately be thought of as being born
Speaker 3: of David's seed, and of experiencing a wholly new human birth.
Speaker 3: What he took up into himself was not foreign to him,
Speaker 3: but is truly his very own. It is therefore to
Speaker 3: be reckoned as being one with him, just as one
Speaker 3: might naturally think of how a person is constituted a
Speaker 3: person whose nature is woven from unlike parts, namely soul
Speaker 3: and body, but the combined person is still reckoned as
Speaker 3: a single individual. One sometimes names an entire animal on
Speaker 3: the basis of just its physical body, but at the
Speaker 3: other times the combined being is meant when the soul
Speaker 3: is explicitly mentioned. We ought to accept just the same
Speaker 3: way of talking about Christ, for there is only one
Speaker 3: son and one Lord Jesus Christ, both before his taking
Speaker 3: flesh and when he appeared as a man. So this
Speaker 3: here is important because now he's what Saint Cyril is
Speaker 3: doing is he's elaborating what he said prior to this
Speaker 3: and really enforce, reiterating and enforcing the point that we're
Speaker 3: talking about one ontology, and he's not saying that you
Speaker 3: can have a soul and a body come together and
Speaker 3: then you get a result. That's not what Christ is,
Speaker 3: the one soul and one body coming together. You don't
Speaker 3: have the person without the soul without the body. It's
Speaker 3: talking about. These are fundamental to what makes the ontology
Speaker 3: in the first place, and that is the unity that
Speaker 3: Christ is that he possesses. It's ontologically. Christ is one,
Speaker 3: He is divine who in fleshes I still have just
Speaker 3: a couple more quotes here, but I'm sure there will
Speaker 3: be people who ask who is Jesus Christ really? Is
Speaker 3: he a man born of a woman, or is he
Speaker 3: God's Word? It is a waste of effort even to
Speaker 3: bother repudiating such stuff and nonsense. I would say, though,
Speaker 3: that splitting man and word into two separates the arts
Speaker 3: is dangerous and will cause damage. It is excluded by souteriology,
Speaker 3: while the Holy scriptures pronounced that Christ is one. I
Speaker 3: would myself assert that neither God's word, while separate from
Speaker 3: the humanity, nor the temple born of a woman, when
Speaker 3: not united to the Word, can be called quote unquote
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ. For what we think of as Christ is
Speaker 3: God's Word, after it has been ineffably brought together with
Speaker 3: the humanity in accordance with the Saving Union. He is
Speaker 3: above humanity, since he is by nature God and Son.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, the fact that he saw
Speaker 3: fit to bring himself down to the human level does
Speaker 3: him no dishonor. At one time he said, whoever has
Speaker 3: seen me has seen the Father. I and the Father
Speaker 3: are one, but then at another that the Father is
Speaker 3: greater than I. It was for humanity's sake that he
Speaker 3: called himself in fear, even though he was not actually
Speaker 3: lesser than the Father, since he is the same in
Speaker 3: terms of substance and in every way his equal. And
Speaker 3: then the last part from the letter, so then the
Speaker 3: same individual is at once both the only begotten and
Speaker 3: the firstborn. He is the former in so far as
Speaker 3: he is God, and he is the firstborn in so
Speaker 3: far as he is one of us. In the way
Speaker 3: the Saving Union requires it one among many brothers, a man.
Speaker 3: The point of this was that we two, both in
Speaker 3: Him and through Him naturally and also by grace, might
Speaker 3: become God's children. So just the side comment this is
Speaker 3: now getting into discussing this idea that Christ is a mediator.
Speaker 3: We become so naturally because we exist in Him and
Speaker 3: in Him alone, whereas we become so through Him by
Speaker 3: the spirit by participating in his grace. Just as the
Speaker 3: condition of being the only begotten, which belongs especially to Christ,
Speaker 3: became a property of his humanity when the latter was
Speaker 3: united to the Word, a conjunction that occurred in accordance
Speaker 3: with the plan of salvation. So also, in turn to
Speaker 3: the conditions of being quote unquote one among many brothers
Speaker 3: and of being the firstborn, become properties of the Word
Speaker 3: after being united to the flesh. Because his being God
Speaker 3: and his eternal changelessness were firmly established, he remained just
Speaker 3: what he was even when he became a man who
Speaker 3: was crowned with the highest glory and transcendence. This is
Speaker 3: why the most sacred and blessed army of heavenly spirits
Speaker 3: has been commanded to worship Him, just as we do
Speaker 3: where in any of this do you hear speaking of
Speaker 3: hypostass But you hear quite clearly in explanatory terms, single
Speaker 3: subject christology that is completely reflected when we as Orthodox
Speaker 3: say that Christ is divine only who has become and fleshed.
Speaker 3: We don't have a mixing of hypostasis or any of
Speaker 3: that sort. I don't know if any if you guys
Speaker 3: want to contribute to that. It's a bit of a
Speaker 3: lengthy quote.
Speaker 4: I think you can. I think you can.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess, like I think this is kind
Speaker 2: of just a very like a simple breakdown of Saint
Speaker 2: Curl's Christology. And this is pretty much consistent with what
Speaker 2: you see with throughout the rest of his work. Just
Speaker 2: the main difference being like in certain different works he
Speaker 2: explains on some of the things that he talks about
Speaker 2: related to your manner, right, So that's the main thing
Speaker 2: that I'd want to point out.
Speaker 4: I guess the one.
Speaker 2: Takeaway that one can make is that for him, nature
Speaker 2: or substance is very real right in the person's and
Speaker 2: between the persons, right, the union of between a human
Speaker 2: person and another human person in terms of substance is
Speaker 2: not just kind of in saying but it's very real,
Speaker 2: it's very fundamental, and the basis of salvation is being
Speaker 2: able to confess that Christ right, that Christ's divinity acting
Speaker 2: is acting in his humanity, and so we being part
Speaker 2: of his humanity, and we becoming a real substantial part
Speaker 2: of his humanity by becoming members of his Church, which
Speaker 2: is his body, are able to ex experience this right.
Speaker 2: This is the basis of right salvation, experiencial theology in
Speaker 2: the Orthodock's faith.
Speaker 4: So there's that aspect as well.
Speaker 2: It's important in terms of Christology because again I kind
Speaker 2: of hinted at it, but what you see, if it's
Speaker 2: service Fantich, for example, is a very kind of it's
Speaker 2: kind of a monominalist account of universals if you ask me,
Speaker 2: because the universe is just a collection of all particulars
Speaker 2: and that's all it is. Right, It's not just that
Speaker 2: all particulars are in the universes, but no, the universe
Speaker 2: is just that, and so we can kind of contrast
Speaker 2: that with this as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so then this also plays into this whole
Speaker 3: understanding of a hypostatic union, where we see this differentiation
Speaker 3: between ourselves as Orthodox and on the other hand, the Orientals.
Speaker 3: So for us, this hypostatic union really meaning that we're
Speaker 3: not separating Christ's divine in human existences, whereas the Orientals
Speaker 3: when they're talking about hypostatic union and the logos and fleshing,
Speaker 3: what they're talking about is not that Christ assumes another
Speaker 3: mode of existence per se, but really that he assumes
Speaker 3: another human hypostasis, sorry, assumes a human hypostasis into his
Speaker 3: mode of existence upon in fleshing and so that you
Speaker 3: see this substantial change. But for us, there is no
Speaker 3: substantive change in Christ. He just comes in his incarnation
Speaker 3: to exist in a separate mode or not a separate
Speaker 3: modes or an additional mode in addition to being God
Speaker 3: as well as a human. The prosopic union. So now
Speaker 3: though we can understand the prosopic union in the Orthodox sense,
Speaker 3: the prosopic union becomes relevant in the context of Nestorianism
Speaker 3: because by separating the prosopic ontology from the hypostatic ontology,
Speaker 3: the Nestorians, the Church of the East, they deny a
Speaker 3: hypostatic union, but they profess a prosopic union. And this
Speaker 3: is understood as a voluntary or an impassable unit union
Speaker 3: because passibility cannot become part of the divine nature of
Speaker 3: the logos. And so in Nestorius's thought, prosopon and will
Speaker 3: are used synonymously. So to have the procipone of God
Speaker 3: it means to will what God wills. To have the
Speaker 3: prospone of God means to act as God acts revelation
Speaker 3: of God to the world. Every nature must have a
Speaker 3: prosopone which arises out of it as its natural expression,
Speaker 3: which unquote reveals the nature or Usiah. And so the
Speaker 3: union in Christ is to utilize the flesh in order
Speaker 3: to express the divine and this expression is realized in
Speaker 3: the quote unquote one person of Christ. So this is
Speaker 3: now we're unfolding the metaphysics of the Nestorian position to
Speaker 3: really understand what they mean by one person or what
Speaker 3: they mean person in general. And you will now see
Speaker 3: that it's going to be drastically different to the Cappadocian understanding.
Speaker 3: This was something that I posted as a community post
Speaker 3: and made the rounds and made the Oriental zol kind
Speaker 3: of I don't know, have a melt down in pictorial representation.
Speaker 3: If you have a human hypostatic component to Christ, then
Speaker 3: while this can be thought of as a meme, it
Speaker 3: really does accurately represent what is happening ontologically the Church
Speaker 3: of the East. Having two subjects means that you really
Speaker 3: do have two different centers that can be attributed to
Speaker 3: Christ's activities. And this is very prominent when you read
Speaker 3: somebody like Theodore of Mopsuestia in his commentaries, where he
Speaker 3: will attribute divine activity specifically to the Logos and he
Speaker 3: will attribute human activity specifically to the human component of Christ.
Speaker 3: So there is a distinction between the activities of Christ
Speaker 3: with the Orientals. With this tertian quid. You speak of Christ,
Speaker 3: but now it becomes some kind of a combination of
Speaker 3: the divine no human that acts. And that's kind of
Speaker 3: like you can see in the in the picture, a
Speaker 3: fair representation of what their metaphysics entails. Because if they
Speaker 3: say you can only have one nay, that Christ is
Speaker 3: in one nature, well, if you're talking about one nature,
Speaker 3: it has to it can't be the divine only, it
Speaker 3: can't be the human only. It is some tertian quid.
Speaker 3: You cannot get around that orthodoxy if we speak of
Speaker 3: Christ the way he is.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 3: So that kind of wraps up Christology, just an overview
Speaker 3: of Christology and now we're going to go into soteriology,
Speaker 3: and this is now very relevant because soteriology is discussing salvation.
Speaker 3: It's talking about what is the whole purpose of Christ incarnating,
Speaker 3: how does the incarnation be effectively selvific. And so in general,
Speaker 3: we can divide the positions between the Orthodox, the Orientals,
Speaker 3: and the Nestorians by hypostatic union language versus prosopic union language.
Speaker 3: Though we the Orthodox can also talk about a prosopic union,
Speaker 3: it's going to be in the same sense as a
Speaker 3: hypostatic union. But what we have at play here is
Speaker 3: when we look at the hypostatic union for the Orthodox position,
Speaker 3: we are looking at Christ being a subject, and so
Speaker 3: in this Christ has one hypostasis that exists in two
Speaker 3: modes simultaneously, and the logos unites within himself to natures
Speaker 3: because he exists in those to natures. But the metaphysical
Speaker 3: system at play here is that a single hypostasis can
Speaker 3: an hypostatize multiple natures. And that's the metaphysical move that
Speaker 3: we as Orthodox make that differentiates us from the Orientals
Speaker 3: and from the Nestorians. And then it's also important to
Speaker 3: understand that in our system there are two wills in Christ,
Speaker 3: and that will is a property of nature, it's not
Speaker 3: a property of the hypostasis. And this is going to
Speaker 3: be important in future slides when we get into discussing
Speaker 3: will in a little bit more detail. For the Orientals,
Speaker 3: the hypostatic union is that Christ is kind of both
Speaker 3: a subject and an object kind of at the same time.
Speaker 3: So essentially what you have is the hypostasis of the
Speaker 3: logos assuming into itself a nonsense, self subsistent human hypostasis,
Speaker 3: and that gives you that tertion quid hypostasis of Christ,
Speaker 3: because you can only talk of one hypostasis after the incarnation,
Speaker 3: and so this individuated human hypostasis cannot exist apart from Him.
Speaker 3: And the metaphysical move that we deny that the Orientals
Speaker 3: and the Church of the East make is that a
Speaker 3: nature can only ever be individuated by a hypostasis of
Speaker 3: its corresponding kind. So if you're going to talk about
Speaker 3: Christ having a human nature or having a human mode
Speaker 3: of existence, then there must be a human hypostasis. You
Speaker 3: cannot avoid it. That's the metaphysical constraint that they're imposing.
Speaker 3: The Orientals are just saying that this human hypostatic existence
Speaker 3: cannot be a part from the logos. It is always
Speaker 3: a part of the logos, and the logos is a
Speaker 3: subject of it. For them, will Christ has only one will,
Speaker 3: and that will is a property of the hypostasis. And
Speaker 3: this is really important because in this particular case, this
Speaker 3: is going to get the Orientals into a tritheistic problem,
Speaker 3: because for them to try and be consistent in their
Speaker 3: triadology with their Christology is going to necessitate that you
Speaker 3: have basically three wills in the Godhead for Father, Son,
Speaker 3: and Holy Spirit. If the will is a property of hypostasis.
Speaker 3: With regards to the Nestorians who take the prospic union,
Speaker 3: Christ is an object. So you have two hypostases that
Speaker 3: come together to give you Christ. Christ doesn't exist before
Speaker 3: the incarnation, and you have the human hypostasis being self subsistent.
Speaker 4: There is no.
Speaker 3: Non self subsistence to it in a metaphysical sense. What
Speaker 3: they're saying is, even though it is inseparable from the logos,
Speaker 3: it is still in its metaphysical understanding ontologically self subsistent.
Speaker 3: So then what ends up happening here is the union
Speaker 3: that is brought about in Christ between these hypostasis or
Speaker 3: krume is the Logos is giving his divine will to Jesus.
Speaker 3: So that means that there isn't any kind of ontology
Speaker 3: where the union is happening to hypostatic level. In terms
Speaker 3: of the individuation, it's happening merely through some kind of
Speaker 3: a giftable property. And again they make the same metaphysical
Speaker 3: move as the Orientals to say that a nature is
Speaker 3: only ever individuated by a hypostasis of its corresponding kind.
Speaker 3: So the kruma kiana, the knuma individual individuates a kiana
Speaker 3: according to kind. The divine Logos enters into a voluntary
Speaker 3: conjunction with the human Jesus. And their position is that
Speaker 3: there is only one will. It's a confluence of the
Speaker 3: divine and human wills. So the human will is in
Speaker 3: effect the divine will. I will show you from the
Speaker 3: Nestorian writings where they profess one will. And though you
Speaker 3: will have Nestorians who will say that no, they do
Speaker 3: you agree that Christ has two wills, but that in
Speaker 3: effect what is expressed is one will. This is going
Speaker 3: to become very problematic for them because then that is
Speaker 3: an admission to full blown Nestorianism. And I'm going to
Speaker 3: show you why that is the case. But now let's
Speaker 3: look at what are some things that Nestorius himself says,
Speaker 3: and Thestorius is venerated in the Church of the East.
Speaker 3: The suddeness spoken of in the Divine Scriptures in a
Speaker 3: double manner in hypostasis, as relating to God the Word,
Speaker 3: and in honor, as relating to him who was taken.
Speaker 3: For in the honor of the union which he has
Speaker 3: with God the Word, he is called son. He is
Speaker 3: not son because of himself, nor in himself, nor through grace,
Speaker 3: like those who are baptized, these being sons through grace.
Speaker 3: The sonship therefore of the god Head and of the
Speaker 3: manhood is not one in a composition of one hypostasis,
Speaker 3: but in honor. If we say that, as in the
Speaker 3: composition of a hypostasis, is there the form of a
Speaker 3: servant who was taken and of him who takes united together,
Speaker 3: he who was taken would be found to be derived
Speaker 3: from the Father. If it is not by union or
Speaker 3: by conjunction that he is called son. Okay, now, let's
Speaker 3: contrast that to how we understand one person. When Saint
Speaker 3: Justinian writes of one person and also of the fifty
Speaker 3: humenical council. Nor do we believe that the divine logos
Speaker 3: in Christ are different persons. But we confess that the
Speaker 3: Lord Jesus Christ and the divine Logos are one and
Speaker 3: the same. And so although we say there are two
Speaker 3: different natures in one and the same only be God
Speaker 3: and Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, we do
Speaker 3: not propose two sons, or hypostasis or prosopa. And at
Speaker 3: the same time we confess his one hypostasis despising the
Speaker 3: division of Nestorius, and then the other one from the fifth.
Speaker 3: A communical council is one that I already talked about.
Speaker 3: But this is again really important because Rome would agree
Speaker 3: with Saint Justinian. Saint Justinian is a saint under Rome,
Speaker 3: they would agree with his Christology. And when you look
Speaker 3: at what Nestorius himself says and what we hold to
Speaker 3: a ar theology, they are irreconcilable. They're one hundred percent irreconcilable.
Speaker 3: So now where do we get that Christ is a mediator?
Speaker 3: So in the Orthodox position, Christ is consubstantial with the
Speaker 3: Father and his divinity. Christ is consubstantial with us in
Speaker 3: his humanity. So Christ is the mediator between us and
Speaker 3: the Father because he is perfectly consubstantial with both the
Speaker 3: Father and us. So we see here that Christ incarnating
Speaker 3: is salvific. But for the Orientals, well, you don't have
Speaker 3: consubstantiality with the Father, you don't have consubstantiality with us,
Speaker 3: and so you can't have Christ being a mediator if
Speaker 3: he is some unique tertium quid. So Christ incarnating is
Speaker 3: not sealvific. There's no metaphysics to explain why Christ incarnating
Speaker 3: would be salvific if he's not consubstantial to us. And
Speaker 3: in the Church of the East a historian position, Christ
Speaker 3: is not consubstantial with the Father. The logos in Christ
Speaker 3: is what's consubstantial or who is consistential with the Father. Likewise,
Speaker 3: Christ is not consubstantial to us. Only Jesus or the
Speaker 3: human component in Christ, is consubstantial with us. So then
Speaker 3: Christ cannot be the mediator between us and the Father
Speaker 3: because he has no real ontological.
Speaker 1: I'd like to interject here because it's also important to
Speaker 1: understand that the essence energy distinction is crucial at this
Speaker 1: point to understand the metaphysics as you're speaking of by
Speaker 1: which we are deified, and that deification is first of
Speaker 1: all rooted in the glories, graces, and immortality, et cetera,
Speaker 1: that the divine person of the word communicates to the
Speaker 1: human nature that he assumed. This is pretty consistent throughout
Speaker 1: the Church Fathers, but it really gets explicated especially in
Speaker 1: John Damascus in book three about chapter fifteen onwards, where
Speaker 1: he talks about the energies in Christ. It's restated at
Speaker 1: the six Ecumenical Council where it says that the human
Speaker 1: nature that he assumed he fully deified. How does this
Speaker 1: deification occur? Well, two Letters to six Census and many
Speaker 1: other texts of Saint Cyril, as David mentioned earlier, talk
Speaker 1: about the uncreated energy in Christ deifying the human nature
Speaker 1: that he assumed. So you have to keep in mind
Speaker 1: that it is first of all rooted in this hypostatic
Speaker 1: union as we're talking about. But what that hyposthetic union
Speaker 1: affects is a synergy and a deification of the human
Speaker 1: nature at the level of natures. So you understand that
Speaker 1: it is a real raising of the human nature, a
Speaker 1: real union. Otherwise there wouldn't there would not be a
Speaker 1: real deification were it not a real union. And this
Speaker 1: is so crucial to understand, not just for Christology, but
Speaker 1: also for soteriology. So I know we're not specifically on
Speaker 1: the point of the energies yet, but the two energies,
Speaker 1: which is a necessary corollary of the two wills doctrine
Speaker 1: of diophysitism, right, is bound up with the deification of
Speaker 1: the human nature by the uncreated in energies of Christ,
Speaker 1: not by the divine essence of Christ, but by the
Speaker 1: divine energies of Christ, interpenetrating and fully suffusing the human
Speaker 1: nature without destroying, without diminution, without division, without any destruction
Speaker 1: to the properties of those natures. So even though the
Speaker 1: human nature gets deified, and that's the root of our steriology,
Speaker 1: it never ceases to create to retain his created properties,
Speaker 1: so it never sees as being a creature, but it's
Speaker 1: a deified creature. And again this is the two Letters
Speaker 1: of Cerial to six Census, where he specifically talks about
Speaker 1: even after the Resurrection, when Christ was no longer susceptible
Speaker 1: to the blameless passions, right, he could still eat because
Speaker 1: he willed to, even though he has this transfigured flesh.
Speaker 1: And Cyril says that that transfigured flesh comes about not
Speaker 1: by the divine essence communicating anything to the humanity, but
Speaker 1: by the uncreated energies communicating to the humanity in Christ
Speaker 1: that destroys Roman Catholicism and Tomism.
Speaker 2: By the way, another point that I also want to
Speaker 2: make in addition is, look, you know Orientals and the historians,
Speaker 2: they can say, and sometimes you know, their figures do say,
Speaker 2: you know, Christ is constantial with the Father, Christ consubstantial
Speaker 2: with us. But it's it's similar to how a Poulinarius
Speaker 2: will say, right, Paulinaries will say Christ is doubly consubstantial.
Speaker 2: But what they mean by consubstantial, for example, in this
Speaker 2: case is Christ has a human body, because they think
Speaker 2: the soul is the human you know, is the person
Speaker 2: that is the human person. So it's important, Okay, what
Speaker 2: do we mean by consubstantial and this is the question
Speaker 2: that we should be asking ourselves.
Speaker 1: Okay, the soul is the person a Pollinarius, Oh yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So like that's what he means that Christ is
Speaker 2: consubstantial with us. When he says that, what he means
Speaker 2: is he's not actually fully consubstantial, He's just consubstantial with
Speaker 2: the human body.
Speaker 4: That's that's basically all that he's trying to say.
Speaker 2: When we say this, we're saying, and this is the
Speaker 2: question that we must ask, what do we actually mean
Speaker 2: by consubstantial? What does this term actually mean? What it
Speaker 2: means is that there's something real that is in Christ
Speaker 2: that we share as well, namely humanity. It's not just
Speaker 2: that Christ is a body and the soul. We have
Speaker 2: a different kind of a body and the soul, and
Speaker 2: we you know, we use the same terminology, and they're
Speaker 2: very similar, They're very close. And that's why, No, there
Speaker 2: is a real ontological similarity with Christ's humanity and or humanity,
Speaker 2: namely that or nature is the same. It's it's identical.
Speaker 2: And this identical nature is something again, as I said,
Speaker 2: it's a real ontological reality. This is why Christ's activities
Speaker 2: in his humanity affects us.
Speaker 4: And you can say that these effects.
Speaker 2: Are actualized in a solvage way once that person joins
Speaker 2: the Orthodox Church, right, once that person is baptized, Once
Speaker 2: that person partakes of what Christ did and of what
Speaker 2: he accomplished, this becomes the case. The problem is what
Speaker 2: in the Oriental and in the Nestorian view, what do
Speaker 2: you actually mean by consubstantial? And if you mean consistantial
Speaker 2: with the sense that you know, as we say that
Speaker 2: Christ and human beings and Christ with the Father, there
Speaker 2: is this realantological sameness, right, and he's not just some
Speaker 2: kind of a nominal like same set, but a genuine sameness.
Speaker 2: Then you have to confess to natures. You have to
Speaker 2: acknowledge that Christ is in two natures. In order to
Speaker 2: make that convention, you have to be able to say
Speaker 2: that if you think that Christ is consistential with us
Speaker 2: in the sense that he has he is some kind
Speaker 2: of you know, particular human existence that is in the
Speaker 2: same set as this universal of all human particulars and
Speaker 2: universal of all divine particulars, and he's part.
Speaker 4: Of those two sets.
Speaker 2: That kind of an understand I think is much closer
Speaker 2: to noomenalism. If that's not already denomenalism. That's basically the
Speaker 2: problem that's at hand. And if you read Seras Fantics,
Speaker 2: and this is I guess we will be analyzed this
Speaker 2: in the future presentation. But if you read Seras of
Speaker 2: Antioch's letter to Julian, when Julian is an after taduktist,
Speaker 2: which means he kind of denies that Christ has certain
Speaker 2: specific human properties it's a lot stronger than just saying
Speaker 2: that Christ doesn't suffer or anything like that. That he
Speaker 2: kind of denies that Christ as human properties. He kind
Speaker 2: of service kind of makes the point that you know,
Speaker 2: Christ does not have a have two natures, but he
Speaker 2: has properties, natural properties proper to human nature. Okay, So
Speaker 2: does that not mean that he has human nature? I
Speaker 2: mean does that mean that, of course he denies that
Speaker 2: being the case, right, he denies that there is a
Speaker 2: human nature and divine nature in Christ in order to
Speaker 2: protect his old crystological projects, so to speak. So the
Speaker 2: point here what you see with this slide is not
Speaker 2: what orients and in the store.
Speaker 4: And say, is what actually is the case?
Speaker 2: That's very important to understand and when we again try
Speaker 2: to talk about this, we need to ask us als, Okay,
Speaker 2: what these terms, what do you actually mean by this?
Speaker 2: And this is why double consubstantiality within your slax framework
Speaker 2: is the doction of two natures. That's really kind of
Speaker 2: you can even kind of say that's all there is
Speaker 2: to it. It's kind of just very simple in this regard,
Speaker 2: but it also has a lot of explanatory power in
Speaker 2: order to understand how Christ has human activities. How Christ
Speaker 2: as a human will and how the union of sativity
Speaker 2: and humanity in the one person. You know, how there
Speaker 2: is an interaction between the two. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: expansive power in that regard. So that's all I wanted
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 3: The Marganita, this is a very authoritative book in the
Speaker 3: Church of the East. It is not a book that
Speaker 3: an Assyrian Church of the East proponent can dismiss. It
Speaker 3: is basically like catechortical instructions, if you will, It lays
Speaker 3: out exactly what the Church of the East believes, using
Speaker 3: its own terminology, its own phraseology. And this is that
Speaker 3: what solidifies, if you will, that they are Nestorian without
Speaker 3: a doubt. So in the Marganita, it segments the Orientals,
Speaker 3: the Orthodox, and then the Church of the East, basically
Speaker 3: identifying in the whole Kiana Knuma language what each respectively believes,
Speaker 3: and so they the Margantha identifies the Orientals to hold
Speaker 3: to one kana one kanuma basically one nature, one hypostasis.
Speaker 3: With regards to the Orthodox, it basically says that we
Speaker 3: profess two kiane, two natures, and one kanuma or one hypostasis.
Speaker 3: And then it immediately follows and discusses the Nestorian or
Speaker 3: the Church of the East position as consisting of two
Speaker 3: kiane and two kume, so two natures and two hypostasis.
Speaker 3: Now what's very interesting here is immediately following their statement
Speaker 3: of what the Orthodox believe the Church of the East,
Speaker 3: the Morganita, it does not redefine what cnuma means, so
Speaker 3: its understanding of cnuma is functionally the same. And what
Speaker 3: that then entails from a metaphysical perspective is the Marganita
Speaker 3: the Church of the East correctly identifies metaphysically that the
Speaker 3: Orthodox are saying that you can have one cnuma and
Speaker 3: hipposthetizing to Kane, one hypostasis and hipposthetizing to natures. That
Speaker 3: is correct, That is them clearly understanding the Orthodox position.
Speaker 3: So then when they say to Knuma and Tukiane, they
Speaker 3: are saying that metaphysically, each nature must have its own
Speaker 3: particular individuating substrate, if you will, its own particular numa.
Speaker 3: And then what the Marghanita says is they explicitly name Nestorius.
Speaker 3: But they make a very big mistake that they probably
Speaker 3: didn't even realize. And this is something what the Assyrian
Speaker 3: speakers are perhaps ignorant of when they keep saying, oh,
Speaker 3: it's a language issue, you don't know Syriac. There's a
Speaker 3: specific meaning to Knuma all of that garbage, because they
Speaker 3: say clearly that though Nestorius basically follows the position that
Speaker 3: the Church of the East espouses, they say that Nestorius
Speaker 3: held the same faith, but he didn't understand their language.
Speaker 3: He didn't understand Syriac. So that means that if you
Speaker 3: are telling us that Nestorius held the same faith, we
Speaker 3: don't need to understand Syriac to understand what you believe.
Speaker 3: We can understand Nestorius in the original Greek. We know
Speaker 3: what Thestori has professed in the original Greek. That means
Speaker 3: we do correctly understand what the Church of the East
Speaker 3: is teaching, and we are correct in charging you with Nestorianism. Okay,
Speaker 3: we don't need your kluma garbage. We don't need your Oh,
Speaker 3: you don't understand what we're saying, because Syriac is a
Speaker 3: mystical language that only us Assyrians can understand. No, we
Speaker 3: understand what you're saying, and you are expressing specifically the
Speaker 3: metaphysical move that you require to have a particular hippostatic
Speaker 3: kind to individuate your nature, and that sets up a
Speaker 3: double subject christology. And moreover, in your Marganita, you are
Speaker 3: saying that you have two kluma, two subjects, but one will.
Speaker 3: And you think that because you say that Christ has
Speaker 3: one will or one son ship or one authority, that
Speaker 3: this now is your one person, that is Christ. And
Speaker 3: so now you're professing the the the Orthodox faith or
Speaker 3: the true faith if you will. Well, it's clear that
Speaker 3: when you're saying one person, you're not saying it in
Speaker 3: the same way that we are saying one person, because
Speaker 3: when you identify that we profess one cluma, that means
Speaker 3: we profess one person. But when you say you have
Speaker 3: two kluma, and then you're saying one person, well, if
Speaker 3: you're going to deny that person equates with cnuma, So
Speaker 3: then where what does person equate to? In your scheme?
Speaker 3: You have no other ontology to point to but to will.
Speaker 3: So for those who want to analyzer, who can understand
Speaker 3: the Syriac, that's just the slide there that shows the
Speaker 3: exact Syriac of the Marganita, that makes it crystal clear
Speaker 3: exactly those terms being used. So the Margnita correctly identifies
Speaker 3: the Orthodox Oriental and Church of the East positions with
Speaker 3: regards to hypostasis and nature. It does not redefine nature
Speaker 3: or person or like Keana or Knuma when elaborating the
Speaker 3: Church of these positions for not person but hypostasis. So
Speaker 3: there is no misunderstanding in Syriac between the Orthodox, Orientals
Speaker 3: and Church of the East. The Morganita explicitly affirms that
Speaker 3: the Church of the East professes the correct faith to
Speaker 3: the exclusion of the Orthodox and Orientals. So this is
Speaker 3: now setting up a problem for the Church of the
Speaker 3: East to say that they profess the same theology as Rome,
Speaker 3: because it clearly says that they don't, and it accepts
Speaker 3: Nestorius as having correct theology, despite Mystorius not speaking or
Speaker 3: writing in Syriac. And that is an admission that we
Speaker 3: can understand the Church of the East theology in Greek
Speaker 3: via Mystorius and by extension, Theodore of Mopsuestia. So Syriac
Speaker 3: is not necessary to understand the Church of the Easts theology. Nevertheless,
Speaker 3: we do understand your Syriac terminology. And so the modern
Speaker 3: day proponents of the Church of the East are playing
Speaker 3: word games when they insist that we as Orthodox do
Speaker 3: not understand this Knuma nonsense. Okay, the issue is not
Speaker 3: about Knuma. It is not about the Syriac language. You
Speaker 3: guys can cry day and night about these terms. We
Speaker 3: understand your metaphysics, We understand what you mean with your individuations.
Speaker 3: We understand what you mean by your individuals and how
Speaker 3: it pertains to universals in particulars. What is that play
Speaker 3: here is that proponents of the Church of the East
Speaker 3: are not competent in metaphysics to understand what their three
Speaker 3: tier ontology actually entails, and they're being arrogant in their
Speaker 3: claims by just simply relegating it as some Syriac terminology issue. Now,
Speaker 3: this one, I don't think I need to really read.
Speaker 3: All of what's quoted here is just put as a
Speaker 3: reference just to establish the point that Christ has two
Speaker 3: wills and not one one. One of the quotes is
Speaker 3: from the letter of Pope Agatho. Then I'm quoting the
Speaker 3: Catechism of the Orthodox Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church,
Speaker 3: just to demonstrate that metaphysically, we believe that Christ has
Speaker 3: two wills. So if you are going to enter into union,
Speaker 3: then you have to press the same This is another one.
Speaker 3: The definition of faith ratified at the sixth Ecumenical Council,
Speaker 3: that makes it very clear that you must profess two wills,
Speaker 3: and the Marganita it clearly says one will. And it
Speaker 3: doesn't really matter all that much that you would have
Speaker 3: other writings within the Church of the East that will
Speaker 3: say two wills. In effect, you do have only one
Speaker 3: one will. The importance of two wills is going to
Speaker 3: come apparent when we have the stream on the energies
Speaker 3: and wills being a property of nature. Now to unpack
Speaker 3: the Nestorian monothelitism or this idea that Christ is one will.
Speaker 3: So you have both the Church of the East and
Speaker 3: the Orientals professing Christ to have one will. So then
Speaker 3: you ask the question, well, is will a property of nature,
Speaker 3: hypostasis or person? So the Orientals they'll take the position
Speaker 3: that it's a property of the hypostasis. The Church of
Speaker 3: the East must take will to be a property of
Speaker 3: person in order to maintain and I'm going to use
Speaker 3: this term loosely, a coherent metaphysics. I don't believe that
Speaker 3: their metaphysics is coherent, but it's kind of like they
Speaker 3: have certain premisses and in order to kind of maintain
Speaker 3: the conclusions of those premisses and a coherent way they're
Speaker 3: forced into a certain line of thinking. Will can't be
Speaker 3: a property of nature because there is no union of
Speaker 3: natures in Nestorian theology. In Church of the East theology,
Speaker 3: will cannot be a property of hypostasis or kanuma because
Speaker 3: there is no union of hypostasis or kanuma. So simply
Speaker 3: by process of elimination, will must be a property of person,
Speaker 3: wherein two wills come together in a prosopic union to
Speaker 3: result in one will. However, this one will is a
Speaker 3: will of unison and not unity, because the divine and
Speaker 3: human subjects in Christ must maintain distinct personhood in order
Speaker 3: for there to be a quote unquote prosopic union, i e.
Speaker 3: A mixing of concrete ontological existence is not allowed. So
Speaker 3: a prosopic union necessitates to prosopa to persons. Otherwise there
Speaker 3: is no union because the natures and the hypostasis or
Speaker 3: the kiana and the krume are not what unite. So
Speaker 3: if the Logos gifts his person his parsupa to the humanity,
Speaker 3: and it is in that where the union is realized,
Speaker 3: then that is admission that there are two subjects in Christ,
Speaker 3: because if the humanity requires a parsupa, a person wherever
Speaker 3: it comes from divinity or elsewhere, then it demonstrates that
Speaker 3: the humanity in Christ is comprised of nature, hypostasis, and person.
Speaker 3: So then to what ontology does will refer process of
Speaker 3: elimination forced it to refer to the ontology of person,
Speaker 3: and in order to maintain a coherent quote unquote coherent metaphysics,
Speaker 3: the ontology has to be real. It can't be an aggregate,
Speaker 3: meaning that there must be two persons. So now this
Speaker 3: whole thing that Nestorius really was a Nestorian, because there
Speaker 3: have been some articles, some pseudo scholarship, and some bullship
Speaker 3: being presented that Nestorius really wasn't a Nestorian. So when
Speaker 3: we unpack this, the Nestorian three tier ontology is nature, hypostasis, person, kiana, knuma, persupa.
Speaker 3: The kiana is your abstract common or your universal, your
Speaker 3: knuma is your individuated, nature is your individual. So now
Speaker 3: we remember that will. We have to take will as
Speaker 3: a property of person of parsupa. So if Christ has
Speaker 3: two wills, you see, because this is what the Nestorians
Speaker 3: are gonna do they're gonna say, no, we deny that
Speaker 3: Christ is one will. Christ will have two wills. Well,
Speaker 3: you've got two natures, you've got two hypostases, you've got
Speaker 3: two wills. That means you have two persons. And if
Speaker 3: Nestorius's prosopic union is a quote unquote union of divine
Speaker 3: and human wills, that's how you get your one will.
Speaker 3: So the divine Logos gives his will to human Jesus
Speaker 3: in order to quote unquote unite the two persons into
Speaker 3: one person. And so the Nestorian incarnation is not an
Speaker 3: ontological incarnation of the Logos. It is a gifting of
Speaker 3: the divine will to a human subject. And so that
Speaker 3: means that, in effect, the prosopic union is not a
Speaker 3: real union. It is an illusion. What you have are
Speaker 3: two subjects in unison.
Speaker 1: What does that exactly mean to gift the will? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's just a very bizarre I mean, obviously he can't
Speaker 1: undergo change and lose or forego the human will. So
Speaker 1: what does it mean to gift a will to the humanity.
Speaker 3: It just means that the humanity will always act in
Speaker 3: accordance to what the divine will wants or like wills,
Speaker 3: it's basically.
Speaker 1: I think will in other words, grace. He graces the
Speaker 1: humanity to always operate correctly.
Speaker 3: It essentially becomes like the logos is remote piloting a
Speaker 3: human body. It's like he's playing a video game, if
Speaker 3: you will. He has this little controller and he's exercising
Speaker 3: his will to be actualized in humanity.
Speaker 2: But the main actisations started for cutting after it. But
Speaker 2: the main actiation that you get from seeing curle F
Speaker 2: Alexandria is that this kind of picture is basically like,
Speaker 2: how is it any different from God? You know, the
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit speaking true prophets? Right, this is the kind
Speaker 2: of thing that they that he criticized, Like, this is
Speaker 2: basically like big, No, this seems no different than the
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit coming into a prophet and like having him speak,
Speaker 2: Like where's the difference? And I think like logically speaking,
Speaker 2: there doesn't seem to be any difference. It's just kind
Speaker 2: of like instead of just like speaking like at a
Speaker 2: point in time, like Christ is only just speaking by
Speaker 2: the inspiration of the Holy Spirit within this picture, and
Speaker 2: that's like what makes him different amongst other things as
Speaker 2: well in this in this scheme.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but operationally there is no difference the main difference is,
Speaker 3: like as you said, David, it's just an ongoing occurrence
Speaker 3: of the logos rather than just a single moment in time.
Speaker 3: So let's take a look at some example through the
Speaker 3: Nestorian three tirontology how we can conceptualize this. So if
Speaker 3: we're looking at kianu kruma, parsupa or nature hypostasis person.
Speaker 3: So the nature in Christ you could say, is human,
Speaker 3: the knuma is Jesus, and the parsupa is that this
Speaker 3: Jesus is thirty three years old. Because that being thirty
Speaker 3: three years old is what's going to distinguish that kunuma
Speaker 3: from a different knuma that is, let's say twenty five
Speaker 3: years old. There's some differentiating property that individualizes that knuma
Speaker 3: to set it apart from all other instances of human. Well,
Speaker 3: if you look at the divine aspect, so you have
Speaker 3: the nature is divine, the knuma is the logos. So
Speaker 3: it's not the Father, it's not the Holy Spirit, it
Speaker 3: is the logos. But then what's the parsupa. It's that
Speaker 3: it's eternal or it's quote unquote son. And so in
Speaker 3: the prosopic union, sonship is given by the external divine logo,
Speaker 3: the eternal divine logos to the thirty three year old
Speaker 3: man Jesus, and this gifting of sonship. So remember that
Speaker 3: quote from the fore from Nestorius of saying son by honor.
Speaker 3: So Jesus is son basically by honor. The gifting of
Speaker 3: sonship by the logos results in the quote unquote person
Speaker 3: of Christ. And so then Christ just becomes a name
Speaker 3: indicating the gifting of sonship to Jesus. And so Christ
Speaker 3: in this metaphysical system does not have a distinct hypostasis,
Speaker 3: does not have a distinct curuma. There is no one
Speaker 3: to one hypostasis or cnuma two person part super relationship
Speaker 3: for Christ. So the two subject christology is the result
Speaker 3: of the prosopic union. And this is vehemently opposed by
Speaker 3: Orthodox It is an ereconcilable difference.
Speaker 1: So what I have a questionnaire? Would that mean then
Speaker 1: that the a Nestorian here doesn't affirm eternal generation because
Speaker 1: if sonship is something that's given in the economia, it's
Speaker 1: not an eternal relationship.
Speaker 3: Well, that would be applicable to the Jesus correct to
Speaker 3: the humanity.
Speaker 2: I think I think it's more like they will affirm
Speaker 2: that the word is begotten of the father. But that
Speaker 2: so there's certain like the terms, the names, they don't
Speaker 2: apply to.
Speaker 4: Communication.
Speaker 1: So Sun is a name that only applies in the
Speaker 1: economy as all right.
Speaker 2: So Christ is a term that applies to both natures.
Speaker 2: But if you say, for example, Jesus, that only applies
Speaker 2: to the human right, So that's that's the kind of
Speaker 2: naming convention. So Nestorians won't deny the eternal generation.
Speaker 4: This affirms it.
Speaker 2: But you know, he's yeah, so in terms of like
Speaker 2: again like this is comic, communicunty, mattern, the communication of properties.
Speaker 2: You don't have this in especially in this story, in
Speaker 2: later in later this you know, in some Nestorians, for
Speaker 2: who try to affirm the community cousture, they affirmed this
Speaker 2: only as a manner of speaking, right thermis.
Speaker 4: In antological way like we do.
Speaker 2: For example, so when we say that, for example, the
Speaker 2: Lord of Glory, Lord of Majesty was cruticified.
Speaker 4: For source, it's just a way of saying.
Speaker 2: But when we say that, we know the Lord of
Speaker 2: Glory ontologically really was crucified, right, the divine logos was crucified.
Speaker 2: The reason why he was critified was certainly because he
Speaker 2: had a body and the soul, body and the soul.
Speaker 2: But the communication of divine energies between the two persons
Speaker 2: in Christ is ontological. It's not just a manner of speaking,
Speaker 2: it's it's not a way of speaking, right, It's a
Speaker 2: real ontological thing. That's what distinguishes us from the position.
Speaker 2: But Earlierians like Theodore, the story is they're pretty much yeah,
Speaker 2: this kind of like communication of names. Even they didn't
Speaker 2: even accept that. So that's kind of where that comes from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when we consider Mariology, this is basically informing your Christology.
Speaker 3: So the way we understand the Virgin Mary will basically
Speaker 3: tell us whether or not you hold to an orthodox Christology.
Speaker 3: And so when we look at what Nestorius writes and
Speaker 3: his first letter to the Bishop of Rome san Celestine,
Speaker 3: so this is leading up basically there are a bunch
Speaker 3: of letters being communicated between Rome between Alexandria leading up
Speaker 3: to the Third Ecumenical Council, and so Nestorius is writing,
Speaker 3: we reject applying the term theotokos to the Virgin Mary,
Speaker 3: for properly, the nativity was consubstantial with the one giving birth,
Speaker 3: while his manifestation in a human being resulted from the
Speaker 3: creation of the Lord's manhood joined to the Godhead from
Speaker 3: the Virgin through the Spirit. Okay, So this is rejection
Speaker 3: of the term deo tokus, and it's going to be
Speaker 3: important in a moment. Nestorius in his second letter Christ tokos,
Speaker 3: so this is the preferred term for this expression uses
Speaker 3: a name that signifies both natures, namely Christ, and it
Speaker 3: conjoins Godhead and manhood in one adoration, since the Godhead
Speaker 3: of the son is consistential with the Godhead of the Father,
Speaker 3: while the manhood was born at a later time from
Speaker 3: the Holy Virgin, and because of its conjunction with the Godhead,
Speaker 3: is worshiped together with it by men and angels. So basically,
Speaker 3: what he's saying here is the only reason why you
Speaker 3: can worship Christ in his humanity is because of its
Speaker 3: association to the Divinity, and it's a conjunction, and that
Speaker 3: is what makes the adoration possible. And this is why
Speaker 3: he wants that term riso tolkus. Now Saint Cyril in
Speaker 3: his second letter to Nestorius, he's basically responding to this understanding.
Speaker 3: He's saying, we do not worship a man together with
Speaker 3: the word, lest a semblance of division might creep in
Speaker 3: through the use of the word quote unquote with But
Speaker 3: we worship him as one and the same, because the
Speaker 3: body with which he is enthroned with the Father is
Speaker 3: not alien to the Word. So Saint Cyril is talking
Speaker 3: metaphysics here, he's talking ontology. He's saying, we are worshiping
Speaker 3: the same ontology that is the Word. And this is
Speaker 3: why we call the Virgin Mary Theotokos, in understanding of
Speaker 3: the ontology that she is giving birth to. And then
Speaker 3: Nestorius in his second letter to Saint Cyril, for I
Speaker 3: do not understand how it meaning the hypostatic union could
Speaker 3: introduce the one declared earlier to be impassable and incapable
Speaker 3: of a second birth as again passable and newly created,
Speaker 3: as if the natural properties of God the Word are
Speaker 3: destroyed by conjunction with a temple, or as if it
Speaker 3: is thought a trivial thing by men that the sinless temple,
Speaker 3: inseparable from the divine nature, should undergo birth and death
Speaker 3: on behalf of sinners. So Nestorius is crystal clear the ontology,
Speaker 3: that is the logos, is not incarnating. That's not what's happening.
Speaker 3: The logos is not in fleshing. It is not the ontology,
Speaker 3: that is the logos that is in fleshing. And he's
Speaker 3: making it crystal clear. And the Marganitha is saying that
Speaker 3: this is the position of the Church of the East,
Speaker 3: because this is what Nestorians believe. Nestorius in the Church
Speaker 3: of the East belief in the exact same thing. Well,
Speaker 3: this is what Nestorius believes. Let's look at what the
Speaker 3: Metropolitan of Malabar and India of the Assyrian Church of
Speaker 3: the East says. So this is now an official cleric,
Speaker 3: high ranking cleric in the Church of the East. The
Speaker 3: necessity for a Nestorian Christology becomes inevitable when we think
Speaker 3: of the greatest position ascribed to Virgin Mary in the
Speaker 3: Roman Catholic Church. The fear expressed by Nestorius against the
Speaker 3: use of theotokos should not be ignored. It is one
Speaker 3: of the positive contributions of Nestorius to have exposed the
Speaker 3: potential danger of this title. As far back as our
Speaker 3: records of history go, there was nobody to speak against
Speaker 3: this title before four to twenty eight AD, though it
Speaker 3: was used by certain individuals. Perhaps it would have become
Speaker 3: the standard expression of all Christians if Nestorius did not
Speaker 3: wage such a crusade against this title.
Speaker 2: Can I just interject for this moment. I find it
Speaker 2: really funny that he says it was used by certain
Speaker 2: individuals like Saint Gregory Theologian. Yes, yes, certain individuals, certain individuals.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean this.
Speaker 2: So this was pretty much like at the time this
Speaker 2: term was introduced, theotokos was very much instantly received, very much,
Speaker 2: very yeah, very much.
Speaker 3: Till the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Church of
Speaker 3: the East was the only church which shared the concern
Speaker 3: of Nestorius against the use of theo tokus. Since the Reformation, however,
Speaker 3: many churches share this attitude, and thus the position taken
Speaker 3: by the Church of the East singularly down through the
Speaker 3: centuries is vindicated. Oh okay, so the Reformation actually was
Speaker 3: was productive. You agree with the Reformation, you guys in
Speaker 3: the Church of the East. You're siding with the reformers.
Speaker 3: Oh but wait a minute, aren't you part of this
Speaker 3: whole apostolic Christianity movement? Apparently not. The christological formula of
Speaker 3: this church is that the prosopic union, rejecting the formula
Speaker 3: of hypostatic union accepted by both Catholics and the Eastern
Speaker 3: Orthodox churches. This prosopic union is a three tier Christology
Speaker 3: where the union is not at the first level of natures,
Speaker 3: nor at the second level of the hypostasis, but at
Speaker 3: the third level of the prosopon. To the members of
Speaker 3: this church, the idea of perfect God and Man is
Speaker 3: understood only if Christ has both natures and plume of
Speaker 3: both God and Man, and the union has taken place
Speaker 3: only at the level of prosopon.
Speaker 2: I also want to yeah, like, so when we say
Speaker 2: that there's a hypostatic union, right, this means that there's
Speaker 2: a union in the hypostasis, right, what is united in
Speaker 2: the hypostasis under two natures?
Speaker 4: So this perspective, what he's.
Speaker 2: Trying to get at is that I think the way
Speaker 2: I understand is he's criticizing our view by saying that,
Speaker 2: you know, you say Christ is fully human, but then
Speaker 2: you say Christ does not have his own hypostasis, right,
Speaker 2: So being fully human means having your own separate hypostasis,
Speaker 2: and this kind of showcases that. First of all, it
Speaker 2: means that there's no distinction proper between nature and person
Speaker 2: because to be a human need to have human nature
Speaker 2: means in this scheme, to be a human person. Right,
Speaker 2: this is what you kind of get. And like in
Speaker 2: this scheme the one person is kind of just again
Speaker 2: a union of the two prosopa, and you have the hypostasis.
Speaker 4: The hypostasis is just a particularization of that nature. Right.
Speaker 2: So that's the kind of that's what the three you know,
Speaker 2: that's what the threefold structure of this cern cristalgia. So
Speaker 2: you have the nature, which is this abstract universal common reality,
Speaker 2: so and so forth. Then you have the particular instantiation, right,
Speaker 2: particular nature, and then you have the person, right, that
Speaker 2: is attached.
Speaker 4: To it, and then the level of person.
Speaker 2: There is this union because there's the common will of
Speaker 2: the man Jesus and the Word of God. And this
Speaker 2: common will is the Word of God, you know, indwelling within.
Speaker 2: So again, like if you look at the terminology of
Speaker 2: the early historians, this becomes very clear, and they use scripture,
Speaker 2: they use the biblical language of you know, indwelling, right,
Speaker 2: that the Word dwells within the human body like he
Speaker 2: dwells like God dwelt in the tabernacle. And of course
Speaker 2: this is scriptural, right, But the meaning of the scriptural
Speaker 2: understanding is just the distinction of the two natures. In fact,
Speaker 2: in the skull of the incarnation. That's what saying curl
Speaker 2: for Alexandrosiys. That's to say that the two natures are
Speaker 2: distinct after the indwelling, which is kind of curious but.
Speaker 4: Curiously positive for the sidey, of course.
Speaker 2: But what I'm trying to get at is again with
Speaker 2: the structure. It's important to understand that for the Nestorian side,
Speaker 2: price being fully manned means he must have had his
Speaker 2: own human hype stations or even his human personhood. So
Speaker 2: when the Nestorian says that CHRISTI is a composite hype stasis,
Speaker 2: and when the Orthodox says Christ composite type stasis, and
Speaker 2: when the Monopasas says this says the same, there are
Speaker 2: three different meanings, three radically different meanings from the Orthodox
Speaker 2: perspective's union of the two natures.
Speaker 4: For a Nestorian perspective, it's a prosofect union. Right.
Speaker 2: There is a composition of two hypostasis that remain. For
Speaker 2: the monopseide side, it's a composition of two hype statis.
Speaker 2: But one of these hype stasis is an Aristotelian accidents,
Speaker 2: so to speak, it's an accident. It's not really a substance.
Speaker 2: It's more like an accident. So that's kind of the
Speaker 2: three different key different differences in understanding composite hypostasis. And
Speaker 2: this is why it's important to kind of understand, Okay,
Speaker 2: what do we mean by these terms that we use.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not gonna be the last paragraph in its entirety,
Speaker 3: but it's basically, as for the marriology, it refuses to
Speaker 3: call Mary theotokus. Unlike the Orthodox Church. A historian is
Speaker 3: an Orthodox without theotokus, Okay, correct. A Nestorian is proclaiming
Speaker 3: the Virgin Mary without the appellation theotokos in its exclusivity,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't make them Orthodox. And so it's very
Speaker 3: clear that the Metropolitan, who is quite well understanding in
Speaker 3: the three tier ontology to make the distinctions that he does,
Speaker 3: to basically lay out for you that these are irreconcilable christologies.
Speaker 3: We are not talking about the same thing. When we
Speaker 3: say that Christ is one person, we are not saying
Speaker 3: the same thing. We are not professing the same faith.
Speaker 3: And will get to the agreement between Rome in a
Speaker 3: moment Theotokus versus Cristo tocus. So Theodora of Mopsuestia allowed
Speaker 3: the use of theotokos, but only in combination with Anthropotochus,
Speaker 3: and the two terms expressed different yet complementary perspectives of
Speaker 3: the incarnation. So Nestorius claimed to have reconciled proponents of
Speaker 3: both alternative usages by proposing Christo tokos instead has recently
Speaker 3: been doubted, But that Nestorius attempted in its theology to
Speaker 3: bridge the divide in that one term is essentially what
Speaker 3: Theodora of Mopsuestia tried to achieve by using those two
Speaker 3: terms side by side. And so Nistorius has an open
Speaker 3: hostility towards the usage of theotokos in its own.
Speaker 4: Right, Ja, Yeah, I think I think I can hear
Speaker 4: my own sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, all right.
Speaker 3: And so basically what's happening here is is you have
Speaker 3: Nestorious and Theater representing Theodore of Mopsuestia's theology in just
Speaker 3: a little bit more kind of cleaned up expressions.
Speaker 4: Can you can you go back? Can you go back?
Speaker 4: One start?
Speaker 2: I just want to make some comments. This is a
Speaker 2: very important to point out because so Theotokos. Again, as
Speaker 2: I said earlier in the stream, it's not a reference
Speaker 2: merely too, It's not just a statement that we make
Speaker 2: to make the virgin maybe look, you know too pretty
Speaker 2: upward language of her or anything like that. You can
Speaker 2: see with Theodore of mop Sevestia and the stories is
Speaker 2: pretty much he's basically saying what Theodore of Mops is
Speaker 2: saying in a different term. Right again, this story is
Speaker 2: the term Christ indicates the two natures, right, certain terms
Speaker 2: like Jesus in case only the humanity, word of God indicates.
Speaker 4: Only the divinity, but Christ indicates both of them.
Speaker 2: So that's why he used the term chrystal tocos as
Speaker 2: the as the best way to you know, that's that's
Speaker 2: the firstest he's willing to go. So is it acceptable
Speaker 2: to say that the virgin Mary is Teotokus in the
Speaker 2: same way she is Anthropotocus? Now, despite desmight make some
Speaker 2: people say, well Christ is God and man, so yeah,
Speaker 2: why not?
Speaker 4: But again, what are you the mother of?
Speaker 2: Is the kind of questions asked? You're a mother of
Speaker 2: a person, and what person is Christ? Christ is not
Speaker 2: a human person like in historianism. That's why we reject
Speaker 2: the term anthropotochos. It is not to reject the Christ
Speaker 2: as human. Christ is human. What we are stating is
Speaker 2: that Christ is a divine hypostasis.
Speaker 4: He's the divine word of God.
Speaker 2: Right, He's the pre existent Word of God who became
Speaker 2: incarnate within the Virgin Mana. That's why the Virginia is theotokos.
Speaker 2: That's why we reject crystal talkos. And again, chrystal tacos,
Speaker 2: I mean biblically, the Virgin Mary is referred to as
Speaker 2: the mother of Christ. But it's not a formula on
Speaker 2: its own, mainly because again there are many Christs in scripture. Right,
Speaker 2: What do you actually mean by crystal toalcos? What makes
Speaker 2: Christ as a special? What makes Christ special in this sense?
Speaker 2: There's nothing indicating that with crystal tokos. It's at best
Speaker 2: doesn't really indicate anything special. At worst, it serves to
Speaker 2: it serves a historian christology, right. But theotokos, that's a
Speaker 2: confession that Christ is God and also a divine person.
Speaker 2: He's the divine logos, right, and so there's a specific
Speaker 2: aspect in Christ that we can speak of him again
Speaker 2: as divine person. He's fully human, right, but he is
Speaker 2: a divine person, and as Saint Maximums the Confessor says, right,
Speaker 2: Christ is divine by hypostasis, but human by nature. So
Speaker 2: it's a confession of the full reality of the human
Speaker 2: nature of Christ. But being fully human does not mean
Speaker 2: being a human person. And in fact, this proposition, this
Speaker 2: idea that being fully human means being a human person
Speaker 2: as well, is the proposition of Apollinarius that was denied
Speaker 2: by Saint Atonatius, Saint Grigord's theologian, Saint Grigors Nizza.
Speaker 4: Right, so you can trace it back there.
Speaker 2: This is why the term crystal tocos and anthropotoccos, this
Speaker 2: is why it is a problem. Right, It's not accepted.
Speaker 2: It's why it's important to understand this. Right, the person
Speaker 2: that the virgin may gave birth to is the Word
Speaker 2: of God, is God the divine hypostasis. Right, So this
Speaker 2: is how we must understand the divine hype states on
Speaker 2: the one hand, and the compost hype station on the Again,
Speaker 2: the composition of the two natures. But the divine hype
Speaker 2: states is a reference to the eternally begodden word of God.
Speaker 3: And also I think we should mention where people might say, well,
Speaker 3: theotokos and anthropotocus are referring to the divine in human
Speaker 3: natures and just circles back to your point, Well, what
Speaker 3: does the Virgin Mary give birth to? Or who does
Speaker 3: the Virginmaria give birth to? She doesn't give birth to natures,
Speaker 3: she gives birth to a person.
Speaker 2: And Saint Carole off Alexandra actually like he makes this argument, right,
Speaker 2: he kind of he says, you know, no one separate
Speaker 2: like if so, for example, the Virgin Mary, if you
Speaker 2: want to be super technical, because we hold to a
Speaker 2: creationist belief in the soul. Right, the human body is
Speaker 2: generated from the parents, but the soul is created from God.
Speaker 4: Right, So the Virgin Mary.
Speaker 2: If you want to speak technically, right, it's only a
Speaker 2: part of humanity that she generates Christ. But that doesn't
Speaker 2: stop us from saying that she generates, you know, the
Speaker 2: humanity of Christ, and she gives birth to Christ. Right,
Speaker 2: it means generating in the sense of of course human body, right,
Speaker 2: not like generation et cetera, et cetera. But the you know,
Speaker 2: we for example, when we speak of a human being dying,
Speaker 2: the death is the separation of the soul body, right,
Speaker 2: the body dies, but we still say the whole of
Speaker 2: man died right, so no one uses language in the
Speaker 2: way of separating the nature is when we're supposed to
Speaker 2: refer to the one person.
Speaker 4: Right. This is the point that Saint Kurla Alexandria's is trying.
Speaker 2: To make right, and this is why he considers this
Speaker 2: to be a very important, very crucial point. So Saint
Speaker 2: Carol is emphasizing that again the term tyotokis refers to
Speaker 2: the person that is born right, and this reference is
Speaker 2: made due to a specific part mean mainly the human
Speaker 2: body that Christ hyposthetically assumed. Hyposthetic union again means that Christ,
Speaker 2: that the Word of God, in his divine personhood, assumed
Speaker 2: a full human nature to himself, right, And and it's
Speaker 2: ontologically united to himself, right, It's it's taken up on himself.
Speaker 2: It's not just an external kind of a union. He
Speaker 2: really did ontologically become man, even in its limitations, right
Speaker 2: though these limitations are not absolute, because Christ is still
Speaker 2: God right, but rather he genuinely experienced these kinds of
Speaker 2: genuine human experience, of course without sin, and this experience
Speaker 2: was again revealed in the transfiguration right fully, and this
Speaker 2: is kind of what we are being called to.
Speaker 4: So there.
Speaker 2: There's this kind of circling back to so theology at
Speaker 2: play here as well. But it's very again, it's very important.
Speaker 2: Why do we use the term theotokos. It's not just
Speaker 2: to confess that Christ is God, it's to confess that
Speaker 2: Christ is a divine person.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So we're almost wrapping up I guess part one this
Speaker 3: one here. I don't care about the entirety of this text.
Speaker 3: I give the link. You guys can look it up.
Speaker 3: This is basically this so called common Christological Declaration between
Speaker 3: Rome and the Assyrian Church of the East that took
Speaker 3: place in nineteen ninety four. That a lot of Roman
Speaker 3: Catholics will say that while you see, look, it was
Speaker 3: all just a big misunderstanding. We're all saying the same thing.
Speaker 3: Can't we all just get along? This is the unique
Speaker 3: faith that we profess in the mystery of Christ. The
Speaker 3: controversies of the past led to anathemas bearing on persons
Speaker 3: and on sort in formulas. The Lord's Spirit permits us
Speaker 3: to understand better today that the division brought about in
Speaker 3: this way we're due in large part to misunderstandings. So
Speaker 3: that's just a bunch of nonsense. We clearly see there
Speaker 3: is no misunderstanding. But in this common Christological declaration, it
Speaker 3: is said that both the Rome and the Church of
Speaker 3: the East the Assyrians profess that there is one person
Speaker 3: that is Christ. But you read this declaration and you
Speaker 3: ask yourself the question, what is meant by one person?
Speaker 3: And nowhere will you see this defined. Nowhere will you
Speaker 3: see this understanding explicated by either party. This is quite
Speaker 3: literally word concept fallacy, because we see that we do
Speaker 3: not profess the same faith. And when I say we,
Speaker 3: in this particular case, Rome would profess a one hippostatic,
Speaker 3: divine only appolition for Christ. And this is not reconcilable
Speaker 3: with a three tier ontology of the Church of the East,
Speaker 3: and even the that hierarchy. The metropolitan for the Church
Speaker 3: of the East, he is telling you, look, we don't
Speaker 3: believe the same thing. The Matagantha is telling you, look,
Speaker 3: we don't believe the same thing. So this is a
Speaker 3: false union. This is a false union through and through.
Speaker 3: And you cannot look at these declarations and then start
Speaker 3: speaking about oh, Apostolic Christianity. No, it's not Apostolic Christianity.
Speaker 3: You have churches that have deviated that they're not professing
Speaker 3: the faith.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 3: Like it or not, they're not apostolic. So was it
Speaker 3: all just a big misunderstanding? Well, if you're gonna say
Speaker 3: that it was all just a big misunderstand did the
Speaker 3: Bishop of Rome, Saint Celestine, and in the Bishop of Alexandria,
Speaker 3: Saint Cyril, both get it wrong? What Saint Celestine wrote
Speaker 3: to Nestorius, We have approved and approved the faith of
Speaker 3: the Bishop of the Church of Alexandria, and you, Nestorius,
Speaker 3: who have been amonished by him, must again share our
Speaker 3: beliefs if you wish to share our fellowship. If you
Speaker 3: are to demonstrate agreement with this brother, condemning everything you
Speaker 3: have held here, there too, we require you to preach
Speaker 3: at once what you see him to preach. Therefore, be
Speaker 3: fully aware of this our sentence, unless you preach about Christ,
Speaker 3: our God, that which is held by both the Roman
Speaker 3: and Alexandrian and the Universal Catholic Church, and what was
Speaker 3: also most firmly held by the Holy Church of the
Speaker 3: City of Constantinople, until you, and by a public and
Speaker 3: written profession, condemn the perfidious novelty that tries to divide
Speaker 3: what venerable scripture unites by the tenth day counting from
Speaker 3: the first day of this indictment becoming known to you.
Speaker 3: You are to be aware that you are expelled from
Speaker 3: the communion of the Universal Catholic Church. And then you
Speaker 3: have the Ecumenical Council, guided by Holy Spirit, did it
Speaker 3: get it wrong? The Holy Council assembled at Ephesus, by
Speaker 3: the grace of God, according to the decree of our
Speaker 3: most pious and Christ loving Emperors to Nestorius, the New Judas,
Speaker 3: be informed that because of your impious preaching and violation
Speaker 3: of the canons, you have been deposed by the Holy
Speaker 3: Council in accordance with the laws of the Church, on
Speaker 3: the twenty second of the present month of June, and
Speaker 3: that you are stripped of every ecclesiastical rank. So no,
Speaker 3: the Ecumenical Council didn't get it wrong. Saint Cyril didn't
Speaker 3: get it wrong. Saint Celestine didn't get it wrong. They
Speaker 3: got it right. Nestorius taught Nestorianism. The Church of the
Speaker 3: East is nestorian, It teaches Nestorianism. It is not an
Speaker 3: Apostolic church. So anybody who promotes the Church of the
Speaker 3: East as apostolic is promoting garbage, is promoting heresy. We
Speaker 3: are not in communion with that church. We will never
Speaker 3: be in communion with that church insofar as it holds
Speaker 3: to what it does as professed by the madiganthan Yuah
Speaker 3: and likewise the Orientals. Anybody who holds that the Oriental
Speaker 3: churches ow are Apostolic is preaching garbage. They are not apostolic,
Speaker 3: and we will not hold into a union with them,
Speaker 3: because we are clear in understanding the issues that divide us.
Speaker 3: It is not just a matter of incorrect language or misunderstandings.
Speaker 3: The misunderstandings are by idiots who don't understand the metaphysics,
Speaker 3: thereby people who are illiterate and don't actually understand what
Speaker 3: the discussion is about. If you take the time to learn,
Speaker 3: if you take the time to study your faith seriously,
Speaker 3: then you will see that the only apostolic church is
Speaker 3: the Orthodox Church, and we will not compromise. We stand
Speaker 3: firm in the faith, and we preach the faith. We
Speaker 3: uphold what the councils have taught. Nomenclature alone is insufficient, Okay.
Speaker 3: You cannot just simply do keyword searches and say, oh,
Speaker 3: look at what this person said. What is the theology
Speaker 3: behind those words? What is the underlying metaphysical paradigm? Do
Speaker 3: you actually understand what these historic people taught? Do you
Speaker 3: understand what the ecumenical councils taught? Do you accept that
Speaker 3: the Ecumenical councils were guided by the Holy Spirit? How
Speaker 3: are you certain that you're not committing word concept fallacies
Speaker 3: or equivocating on certain words? Okay? Are you willing to
Speaker 3: recognize that these issues are not just word games or
Speaker 3: that you can just say that they're because of certain
Speaker 3: political circumstances. Are you willing to recognize that there are
Speaker 3: fundamentally irreconcilable differences theologically and metaphysically. Okay? Can you recognize
Speaker 3: when being able to profess a particular doctrine actually precludes
Speaker 3: is precluded due to your underlying theology and metaphysics, despite
Speaker 3: that you want to profess that doctrine. By this, I
Speaker 3: mean you'll say, no, we don't profess Nestorianism, for example
Speaker 3: in the Church of the East. Well, no, look at
Speaker 3: your metaphysics. Understand your metaphysics and understand how the logical
Speaker 3: entailment of what your system is set up to hold
Speaker 3: to it is actually it precludes for you concluding what
Speaker 3: you want to conclude, Okay, have you developed a paradigm
Speaker 3: that is consistent, that has meaningful explanatory power, or are
Speaker 3: you just putting random quote minds in together and taking
Speaker 3: ideas out of context. So all of these questions, this
Speaker 3: is the whole point of why we want to do
Speaker 3: this extended series of streams, is to really flesh out
Speaker 3: the Orthodox positions, the Oriental and the Church of the
Speaker 3: East positions and demonstrate to you that we are not
Speaker 3: teaching the same thing, We are not compatible with each other,
Speaker 3: and if we're not teaching the same thing, then not
Speaker 3: everyone can be apostolic. It's not just a mechanical thing.
Speaker 3: Like Jay said at the beginning. To be apostolic, you
Speaker 3: have to uphold the correct faith, and this is not
Speaker 3: about having just some kind of sophisticated system that is irrelevant.
Speaker 3: Those people who can understand these things have an obligation
Speaker 3: to understand them and to explain it to other people
Speaker 3: to understand that they can better understand it. You cannot
Speaker 3: just relegate these as unnecessary details. When you look at
Speaker 3: the ecumenical councils, they went to great detail to explain
Speaker 3: what's happening theologically