§ 142. TUE ORTHODOX CHEISTOLOGY. 14A
The emperor, hy several edicts, gave the force of law to the decisions of the council, and commanded that all Eutjchians should be banished from the empire, and their writings burned.' Pope Leo confirmed the doctrinal confession of the council, but protested against the twenty-eighth canon, which placed the patriarch of Constantinople on an equality with him. Notwithstanding these ratifications and rejoicings, the peace of the Church was only apparent, and the long Monophysite troubles were at hand,'
But before we proceed to these, we must enter into a more careful exposition of the Chalcedonian Christology, which has become the orthodox doctrine of Christendom.
§ 142. The Orthodox Christology — A'tialysis and Criticism,
The first council of Nicsea had established the eternal pre existent Godhead of Christ. The symbol of the fourth ecu- Constantinople equal rights with the bishop of Rome, and places him next after him iu rank, comp. above § 56 (p. 279 ff.).
' Eutyches, who, in the very beginning of the controversy, said of himself, that he had lived seventy years a monk, died probably soon after the meeting of the council. Dioscurus was banished to Gangra, in Paphlagonia, and lived till 454. Comp. Schrbckh, Th. xviii. p. 492.
* Domer judges very unfavorably of the council of Chalcedon (ii. p. 83), and denies it all vocation, inward or outward, to render a positive decision of the great question in controversy ; forgetting that the third ecumenical council, which condemned Nestorius, was, in Christian spirit and moral dignity, decidedly inferior to the fourth. "Notwithstanding its 630 bishops," says he (ii. 130), "it is very far from being able to claim canonical authority. The fathers of this council exhibit neither the harmony of an asseiibly animated by the Holy Ghost, nor that certainty of judgment, past wavering and inconsistency, nor that manly courage in maintaining a well-gained conviction, which is possible where, out of antitheses long striving for unity, a bright and clear persuasion, shared by the general body, has arisen." Kahnis (Der Kirchenglaube, 3d. ii. 1864, p. 89) judges as follows : " The significance of the Chalcedonian symbo> Joes no: lie in the ecumenical character of this council, for ecumenical is an exceedingly elastic idea ; nor in its results being a development of those of the council of Ephesus (431), for, while at Ephesus the doctrine of ihe anity, here that of the distinction, in Christ's person, was the victorious side; nor in the spirit with which all the proceedings were conducted, for passions, intrigues, political views, tumultuous disorder, &c., prevailed in it in abundant measure : but it lies rather in the unity of acknowledgment which it has received in the Church, even to our day, and in the inner unity of Its definitions."
748 THIBD PERIOD. A.D, 311-590.
menical council relates to the incarnate Logos, as lie T^alkcd upon earth and sits on the right hand of the Father, and it is directed against errors which agree with the Nicene Creed as opposed to Arianisni, hut put the Godhead of Christ in a false relation to his humanity. It substantially completes the orthodox Christology of the ancient Church ; for the definitions added by the Monophysite and Monothelite controversieB ar-; few and comparatively imessential.
TJie same doctrine, in its main features, and almost in its verj words (though with less definite reference to Kestorianism and Eutychianism), was adopted in the second part of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed,' and in the sixteenth century passed into all the confessions of the Protestant churches.'' Like the Mcene doctrine of the Trinity, it is the common inheritance of Greek, Latin, and Evangelical Christendom ; except that Protestantism, here as elsewhere, reserves the right of searching, to ever new depths, the inexhaustible stores of this mystery in the living Christ of the Gospels and the apostolic writings.^
' Comp. above § 132.
^ Comp. my article cited in § 132 upon the Symbolura Quicunqtte. One of the briefest and clearest Protestant definitions of the person of Christ in the sense of the Chalcedonian formula, is the one in the Westminster (Presbyterian) Shorter Catechism : " Domirms Jesus Christus est electorum Dei Redemptor unicus, qui etarnue Dei filius cum esset factus est homo; adeoque fuit, est eritque ^edv^pwiTos, e [in] naturis duabus distinctis persona unica in sempiternum ; " or, as it is in English • " The only Redeemer of God's elect is the T/Ord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and Man, in tico distinct nafurex, and one person forever." The Westminster Confession fommlates this doctrine (ch. viii. sec. 21) in very nearly the words of the Chalcedonian symbol : " The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and etenial God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fulness of time was come, take upon Ilim man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infinnities thereof, yet without sin ; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, — the Godhead and the manhood, — were inseparably joined together 5n one per-son, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is voiy God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man."
* The Lutheran Church has framed the doctrine of a threefold comrmtnicatio idiomatum, and included it in the Formula Concordia;. The controversy betweev the Lutheran theologians of Giessec and Tiibingen, in the seventeenth century, eon eerning the kt^o-ij (the possession), the xp^o^'s (the use), the Kpv>l/it Uhe secret us*^),