the heresy of the Aphthartodocetae, whose leader was the sixth century theologian julian of Halicarnassus, conceived Christ's humanity as incorruptible,a nd they were accused of a docetic understanding of the Incarnation. As R. Draguet has shown, the issue was not so much the connection between hypostasic union and corruptibility, but the very nature of man. is man naturally corruptible (as he is natrually ignorant)m or did corruptibility come with sin? The Aphthartodocetae denied that man by nature was corruptible. since Christ is the New Adam and the truly "natural" man, His humanity was indeed incorruptible. In rejecting Aphthartodocetism, the Orthodox affirmed (1) that the inheritance of mortality from Adam was not an inheritance of guilt, and (2) that the Logos voluntarily assumed, not an abstract ideal manhood, but our fallen humanity, with all the consequences of sin, including corruptibility. Opposition to Aphthartodocetism certainly contributed to preserving a clearer notion of Christ's real and full humanity.

The Easter Sermon of John Chrysostom, Pastor of Constantinople (~400 AD)

Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!
Is there anyone who is a grateful servant?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!
If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.
To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!
First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!
Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

As the being, essence or nature of a reality answers the question "what?", the person of a reality answers the question "which one?" or "who?" Thus, when we ask "What is God?" we answer that God is the divine, perfect, eternal, absolute ... and when we ask "Who is God?" we answer that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Hopko)

In de sectus (anon.) "Most Fathers admitted that Christ was ignorant of certain things, since He is in all things consubstantial with us, and since we ourselves our ignorant of certain things, it is clear that Christ also suffered ignorance. Scripture says about Christ: 'He progressed in age and wisdom' Luke 2:52.; this means that He was learning what He did not previously know.." Meyendorff in continuing... Obviously, Byzantine theologians are authentically concerned about recognizing in Christ our fallen humanity, but their minds are less clear about the moment when, in Jesus, this humanity became the transfigured, perfect, and "natural" humanity of the New Man. (p.157)

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Doc[b/]: Interesting point. But I’m wonder, POW, what the force of saying "enough to save us." If his temptation was IN EVERY RESPECT like ours, and WE aren’t ensured against falling, how can CHRIST be ensured against falling? Also, what is the force of saying he took on OUR FALLENESS? Was Christ "fallen"? Is this a standard interpretation in the Eastern Orthodox Church?

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DOC:Here is, I believe, another important dimension to understanding Christ as fully human: he is OUR FUTURE. He is humanity, eschatologically defined.

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Meph, we are (believe it or not!) totally tracking on the same path here. To be fully human (read Lewis' "When We All Have Faces") is to use our freedom in constant pursuit of God's will. We will be so thoroughly transformed from God in us, before us and around us that we will never fall. This does not spell the END of freedom, but the completion of it. The goal of libertarian freedom is to BECOME compatibilistic freedom in perfect comformity with God's will.

In my view, Jesus was this from the start, but incarnated in our probationary period. Hence he had all the normal limitations of human existence (and yes POW, even a mortal nature), but a soldfied God-ward character. By infusing himself into our condition, he opened the door for us to be infused into his. We shall become -- and in principle already are -- what he always was. We shall be fully human.

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Meph:
Though I see some similarities, there is a major difference. What do you mean by compatibilistic freedom? The only thing I can see is that you mean the exercise of personal choice that is EXHAUSTIVELY, COMPLETELY determined by something. The "something" you want to posit is the SOLIDIFIED CHARACTER. Like the "greatest possible human being" that I mused about on the other thread.

Are you saying that the whole point of God introducing "free will" into His creation was for libertarian freedom to become compatibilistic towards Him? If this is indeed what you mean that I have to strongly DISAGREE. I believe that the point is NOT for libertarian freedom to become compatibilistic. The point for ALL existing "persons" is for libertarian freedom to ALWAYS be exercised God-ward. See, to me, the concept and building of "character" is INCIDENTAL to us as finite, HABITUATING human beings. Human beings are creatures of habit. But what about angelic or demonic beings? Perhaps they are not. But we would consider them "personal", would we not? I think that you may be using the criterion of "solidified character" because you are thinking to anthropocentrically. A common denominator for ALL beings who could rightfully be called "persons" is the POWER OF WILLING (without which the freedom of will would be worthless) Though all personal beings may NOT be habitual creatures like human beings, they ALL must possess some type of power of willing! See what I'm saying?

In my treatment of Jesus, I don't assume a solidified God-ward character. I assume a POWER OF WILLING that consistently presses God-ward, despite all odds. There is a substantial difference. That's why I consistently speak about CAPACITY and not some ontologically defined moral idea. Doc, you REALLY have some power behind the idea of Jonathon Edwards' "dispositions." Why not apply it here, where it can be really useful? Don't you see that the enduring reality that you are looking for need NOT be any type of ontological moral "substance"? It can be a "disposition" TOWARDS being good. And as you know, "disposition" though influential, are NOT DETERMINATIVE. Thus, one could say that Jesus has the "disposition" towards acting in a God-ward manner...and due to his being divine...has the effective power of willing to ACTUALIZE that disposition adequately? See what I'm saying? Break that book back out, Doc! LOL!

Think about it. With the idea I'm proposing here, Jesus' significant moral freedom is preserved WITHOUT all the angst about how certain it was that Jesus would fit the bill. I think it works. We're ALMOST tracking together. whohoo!

Holla back, Doc...



Love God. Love People. Love Truth. Dedicate your all to that which you love.

From Bishop Kallistos Ware's "The Orthodox Way", chapter 4--God as Man
(pp73-77)

Salvation as Sharing

The Christian message of salvation can best be summed up in terms of sharing, or solidarity and identification. The notion of sharing is a key alike to the doctrine of God in Trinity and to the doctrine of God made man. The doctrine of the Trinity affirms that, just as man is authentically personal only when he shares with others, so God is not a single person dwelling alone, but three persons who share each other's life in perfect love. The Incarnation equally is a doctrine of sharing or participation. Christ shares to the full in what we are, and so he makes it possible for us to share in what he is, in his divine life and glory. He became what we are, so as to make us what he is.

St. Paul expresses this metaphorically in terms of wealth and poverty: "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9). Christ's riches are his eternal glory; Christ's poverty is his complete self-identification with our fallen human condition. In the words of an Orthodox Christian hymn, "Sharing wholly in our poverty, thou hast made divine our earthly nature through thy union with it and participation in it." Christ shares in our death, and we share in his life; he "empties himself" and we are "exalted" (Phil. 2:5-9). God's descent makes possible man's ascent. St. Maximus the Confessor writes: "Ineffably the infinite limits itself, while the finite is expanded to the measure of the infinite."

As Christ said at the Last Supper: "The glory which thou hast given to me I have given to them, that they may be one, as we are one: I in them and thou in me, may they be perfectly united in one" (John 17:22-23). Christ enables us to share in the Father's divine glory. He is the bond and meeting-point: because he is man, he is one with us; because he is God, he is one with the Father. So through and in him we are one with God, and the Father's glory became our glory. God's Incarnation opens the way to man's deification. To be deified is, more specifically, to be "christified": the divine likeness that we are called to attain is the likeness of Christ. It is through Jesus the God-man that we are "ingodded", "divinized", made sharers in the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). By assuming our humanity, Christ who is Son of God by nature has made us sons of God by grace. In him we are "adopted" by God the Father, becoming sons-in-the-Son.

This notion of salvation as sharing implies two things in particular about the Incarnation. First, it implies that Christ took not only a human body like ours but also a human spirit, mind and soul like ours. Sin, as we saw (p.58), has its source not from below but from above.; it is not physical in its origin but spiritual. The aspect of man, then, that requires to be redeemed is not primarily his body by his will and his center of moral choice. If Christ did not have a human mind, then this would fatally undermine the second principle of salvation, that divine salvation must reach the point of human need.

The importance of hit principle was re-emphasized during the second half of the fourth century, when Apollinarius advanced the theory -- for which he was quickly condemned as a heretic -- that at the Incarnation Christ took only a human body, but no human intellect or rational could. To this St. Gregory the Theologian replied, "The unassumed is unhealed". Christ, that is to say, saves us by becoming what we are; he heals us by taking our broken humanity into himself, by "assuming" it as his own, by entering into our human experience and by knowing it from the inside, as being himself one of us. But had his sharing of our humanity been in some way incomplete, then man's salvation would be likewise incomplete. If we believe that Christ has brought us a total salvation, then it follows that he has assumed everything.

Secondly, this nation of salvation as sharing implies -- although not just unfallen our fallen human nature. As the Epistle to the Hebrews insists (and in all the New Testament there is no Christological text more important than this): "We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but he was in all points tempted exactly as we are, yet without sinning" (4:15). Christ lives out his life on earth under the conditions of the fall. He is not himself a sinful person, but in his solidarity with fallen man he accepts to the full the consequences of Adam's sin. He accepts to the full not only the physical consequences, such as weariness, bodily pain, and eventually the separation of body and soul in death. He accepts also the moral consequences, the loneliness, the alienation, the inward conflict. It may seem a bold thing to ascribe all this to the living God, but a consistent doctrine of the Incarnation requires nothing less. If Christ had merely assumed unfallen human nature, living out his earthly life in the situation of Adam in Paradise, then he would not have been touched with the feeling of ourinfirmities, nor would he have been tempted in everything exactly as we are. And in that case he would not be our Savior.

St. Paul goes so far as to write, "God has made him who knew no sin to be sin for our sake" (2 Cor. 5:21). We are not to think here solely in terms of some juridical transaction, whereby Christ, himself guiltless, somehow has our guilt "imputed" to him in an exterior manner. Much more is involved than this. Christ saves us by experiencing from within, as one of us, all that we suffer inwardly through living in a sinful world.