A Florilegium: The Divine-Human Hypostasis of Christ

Since 2018-2019 there have been Christological discussions on the internet between Orthodox Christians regarding the hypostasis of Christ. Initially, those who affirmed Christ’s hypostasis as composite, that is, divine-human, were accused of being Nestorian heretics that were leading inquirers and catechumens astray. Those making these charges of heresy have since softened their position, and have come to acknowledge that Christ is, in fact, the one, composite, divine-human Word. Yet, these charges of heresy were never recanted, and those who were right all along about the divine-human Christ continue to be accused of heresy years later.

This small Florilegium has been compiled with the simple goal of vindicating those who have been falsely accused, and that the Fathers have always taught that Christ’s hypostasis is divine-human, and not divine-only.

Pope St. Leo the Great

“But of the concupiscence of the flesh, nothing has been transmitted in this unique generation; nothing of the law of sin has descended. A royal virgin of the House of David is chosen as the bearer of the Sacred Fruit, who had conceived her divine and human Offspring (divinam humanamque prolem) in her soul, before she conceived Him in her body.” (Sermon 21.1)

St. Maximus the Confessor

“And in a manner beyond man, He truly became man,” since He maintained the modes of existence (which are above nature), along with the principles of being (which are according to nature), united and unimpaired. The conjunction of these was beyond what is possible, but He for whom nothing is impossible became their true union, and was the hypostasis in neither of them exclusively (μηδετέρῳ τὸ παράπαν ὧν ὑπόστασις ἦν), in no way acting through one of the natures in separation from the other, but in all that He did He confirmed the presence of the one through the other, since He is truly both (εἴπερ ἄμφω κατ’ ἀλήθειαν ὤν).” (Ambiguum 5.17)

“This mystery is obviously the ineffable and incomprehensible union according to hypostasis of divinity and humanity. This union brings humanity into perfect identity, in every way, with divinity, through the principle of the hypostasis (εἰς ταὐτὸν ἄγουσα τῇ θεότητι κατὰ πάντα τρόπον τῷ τῆς ὑποστάσεως λόγῳ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα), and from both humanity and divinity it completes the single composite hypostasis, without creating any diminishment due to the essential difference of the natures.” (Ad Thalassium 60.2)

St. John of Damascus

“So the Logos became flesh, not changing the nature nor only seeming to appear in the economy, but, being one hypostasis of the hypostases of divinity, also became one hypostasis of the hypostases of humanity (ἀλλ’ ὑπόστασις ὢν μία τῶν τῆς θεότητος ὑποστάσεων ἐγένετο καὶ μία τῶν τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος ὑποστάσεων), hypostatizing in his hypostasis flesh animated by a rational and intellectual soul from the unwedded Virgin, and by this being called [man].” (Contra Nestorianos, Section 2)

St. Gregory of Sinai

“Shining forth as God, he is revealed in an outpouring of light, but as a human being he is seen and recognized through his flesh as one with the prophets. As other than human, he is the Word, who is both human and divine (ὁ θεάνθρωπος Λόγος ἐστίν); but as the same one, both God and human, he enlightens their mind with the radiance of the divinity, by a most pure light that overpowers the senses of those chosen ones.” (Homily on the Transfiguration, Section 7)

St. Gregory Palamas

“Then he [Simeon] conversed with the infant's Virgin Mother. He showed that her grief on account of the child's Cross revealed her as the mother according to nature of the now theandric Babe (τοῦ νῦν θεανθρώπου βρέφους), and that by disclosing the doubtful thoughts surrounding the child she would dispel them from people's hearts. Simeon gave the true Mother of the paradoxical child clear evidence of her pain at the child's suffering and her intense sorrow and compassion for Him.” (Homily 5.10)

“The mystery of the Cross was working in Abraham, whereas his son Isaac himself prefigured the one who was afterwards crucified. In the same way, the mystery of the Cross was at work throughout Jacob's life, while Jacob's son Joseph was himself a type and mystery of the divine and human Word who was later crucified (μυστήριον τοῦ σταυρωθησομένου μετὰ ταῦτα θεανθρώπου Λόγου).” (Homily 11.13)

“Just as the Virgin, the divine servant and divine mother, was taken up, so also she was proclaimed by the archangel Gabriel to be full of grace, as being truly the chosen of the chosen, and spotless and undefiled vessel and worthy to contain and collaborate with the theandric hypostasis (θεανδρικῆς ὑποστάσεως ἄξιον καὶ χωρῆσαι καὶ συνεργάσασθαι).” (Homily 57.3)

“He is not a spiritual creature coming into being after previously not existing; nor flesh which is brought to birth but will soon perish; nor flesh and mind united to form a rational creature, but God and flesh mingled unconfusedly by the divine Mind to form the existence of one theandric hypostasis (ἀλλὰ Θεοῦ καὶ σαρκὸς διὰ νοῦ μεμιγμένων ἀφύρτως εὶς μιᾶς θεανδρικῆς ὑποστάσεως ὕπαρξιν), who entered the Virgin's womb for a time.” (Homily 58.2)

St. Justin Popovic

“In the Divine-human person of the Lord Jesus the most radical, most logical, and most complete monism of life of the one side and the other was achieved, and thereby: a monism of knowledge on the one side and on the other, a monism of sensation of the human and the divine. This means: life, human thought, and human sensation bridged the abyss that gapes between man and God, between this world and the other.” (Man and the God-Man, pg. 22)

“Only in the God-man Christ is man elevated to the highest level of perfection, to the apex of all apexes. For no one had ever glorified human nature or humanity to such an extent as the God-man. In His Divine-human person, the greatest justice possible has been done to man… Good, eternal good, is everything that Christ is in His Divine-human realities, everything that is divinely human.” (Ibid., pg. 23)

“Christ the Lord encompasses His entire teaching and works in His Divine-human person, and explains them by it. Consequently, the apostolic, Orthodox Church of Christ also condenses everything in Christianity into the life-creating person of the God-man: doctrine, truth, justice, goodness, and life. The person of the God-man Christ is her supreme value and her greatest valuable. She derives all other values from Him, like rays from the sun. Make no mistake: Christianity is Christianity because of the God-man; in this lies its exceptional significance, value, and power. Christ the Lord established Himself alone, His Divine-human person as the Church; hence the Church is the Church because of the God-man and in the God-man." (Ibid., pg. 27)

Note: St. Justin uses ‘divine-human’ language so often that one could type an entire Florilegium with just his quotes. Only 3 citations from 1 work is adequate here.

Blessed Dumitru Staniloae the Confessor

“Thus we see that Christian revelation is given in a Person, the divine-human Person of Christ, and that it is the consequence of the acts of the Son of God in becoming man, being crucified, raised and exalted as man, and in sending his Holy Spirit upon the world.” (Theology and the Church, pg. 124)

“Better said, by this two tabernacles were not laid aside, but one and the same tabernacle, uncreated and eternal was also made created. Because Christ is a single tabernacle uncreated and created, in His quality of a unique divine-human Person.”(Orthodox Spirituality)

“It is a movement of the Trinity towards us which has as its goal the return into the Trinity itself in company with us. A divine person descends from the Holy Trinity in order to return to the Trinity - and to communion with the infinite Trinity - not only as divine person, but also as human person, having united to himself all of humanity that desires this.” (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Vol. 1, pg. 76)

“If person alone is the irradiating center of life and of spiritual warmth that unifies, then the irradiating center of a loving life and of a unifying, endless force unscathed by any shadow of egoism cannot but be a divine Person who entered into a direct relationship with us as a human person fulfilled in the highest degree.” (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Vol. 3, pg. 33)

“The Person of God the Word as a free person explains the unity of all. He gives to all the capability of subsisting in a unity that is His unity. This explains the maximum unity accomplished in Christ, or the fact that God the Word becomes the Hypostasis of the human nature. It is proper to the divine Hypostasis of the Logos to be, especially in a free manner, the Hypostasis of the human nature; it is also proper to the human nature, called to the status of hypostasis, to have as its ultimate hypostasis the Hypostasis of the Word, given that it is created in His image.” (Ibid., pg. 35)

“Thus all human persons are strengthened in their identity as hypostases, or as persons, by the fact that they enter into a relationship with the Son of God, who became, as the Hypostasis of human nature, their ultimate Hypostasis in a more accentuated way. Before the Logos became their ultimate Hypostasis in a more accentuated way by assuming human nature in His Hypostasis, human persons were, to a certain degree, without a close hypostatic support. By receiving in Christ the incarnate Logos as the closer, ultimate Hypostasis, human beings receive the full consistency and hypostatic openness from His power as the superconsistent and superconscious Hypostasis of all human hypostases.” (Ibid., pg. 36)

“We talked above about the conciliation between the complexity of the Hypostasis's content and His perfect unity; also about the fulfillment of human nature and persons through the fact that the Logos becomes the direct Hypostasis of human nature and the ultimate Hypostasis of human persons.” (Ibid., pg. 37)

“The Son of God is humanized without ceasing to be God, but by becoming the Hypostasis of human nature. Through this He appropriates our ways of thinking and feeling in order to transfigure them or to humanize them until the end or, furthermore, to deify them.” (Ibid., pg. 41)

“He who is born as man from the Virgin is God. The Church has always considered the Virgin Mary as Birthgiver of God, because in this is implied the confession that the one born of her is not a human person distinct from the divine Person, but that the very Son of God was born of her according to His human nature. Never is a nature born, but a hypostasis that, in the human order, is a person, if nature does not come into real subsistence except as a person. The Person born of the Virgin Mary is identical with the Person of the divine Word, who also becomes through the Incarnation the Person of the human nature.” (Ibid., pg. 60)

“Hence, of the Virgin Mary the Son of God Himself is born as the Person of the human nature. To reject this identity of the Virgin Mary means to reject the Incarnation of the Son of God or to contest that the very Son of God became man, and it further means denying that Jesus Christ is the very Son of God incarnate for an eternal dialogue with us, becoming toward this end a human person as well.” (Ibid., pg. 61)

“Christ is not a double hypostasis, but the same Hypostasis has a double quality: God and man.” (Ibid., pg. 81)

“If on the plane of the ephemeral human existence only the relationship with another person can offer us certain warmth in life, a certain sense and reason for living, the eternal life as well as its meaning and whole reason cannot come but from the divine Person who entered into direct relationship with us through the fact that He became a human person.” (Ibid., pg. 87)

“The words that Christ communicates represent a direct radiation of His Person as their source as well as of His Person's self-explanation. This means that He as a Person is the Word as divine Hypostasis who also became human hypostasis.” (Ibid., pg. 98)

“Christ's divine and human Person uses death to perfect the relationship with God and with human beings. Thus, by restoring the perfect communion, Christ's Person conquers in Himself the death He suffered for other persons.” (Ibid. 120)

“In the relationship with the priest, the believer possesses on one hand a visible, human "thou" as the central intermediary for communion with the community of all those who believe in Christ. On the other hand he encounters a "thou" who is the occasion for his own experience of relating to Christ as the Person who is simultaneously divine and human, supreme and yet intimate in the highest degree, a Person toward whom the priest himself points the way, for the priest is a human being among the rest, yet is himself sent with a mission from above.” (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Vol. 5, pg. 23)

“He who loves those in distress loves the Lord, who humbled Himself as the least among men; he does the Lord's work, or the Lord's work is done through him. God became man only so that He Himself could be loved as a man and so that He might show by His example how the human person should love his neighbors. He wants us to love Him as a man; He requests our love and shows us how to love. He enters into a relationship of love with us and strengthens the relationships of love among us; He allows Himself to also be addressed as a concrete subject of love who is both divine and human.” (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Vol. 6, pg. 188)

“In hell there is a total fall from the right word, which reveals a true reality; from loving acts; and from relationship with Christ, the loving divine and human Word, the Subject of the act that perfects the human person. This means that in hell the fall from the light of meanings and of communion, as well as from the image of the authentic man created after the model of God, is total. It is a fall from the relationship with the Word that obliges man to respond by word and action; he is also obliged to respond because of the Reason that keeps the meanings of true reality present before his reason. This fall is a total departure from the face of the Word and Reason. And this total fall from meanings and communion is tantamount to madness--to the rejection of reality, which he replaces or distorts with the products of his hallucinations-and this is a source of endless torment.” (Ibid., pg. 207)

Conclusion:

Both ancient and contemporary Fathers have taught that Christ’s one hypostasis is composite, and not simple. Thus, the one subject is neither only divine nor only human, but rather both divine and human. Moreover, to say Christ’s hypostasis is both divine and human does not necessarily introduce a second subsistence, as that would indeed be heresy. Unless one would be willing to accuse the soon-to-be-glorified Fr. Dumitru Staniloae of being a Nestorian, we also see that it is acceptable to refer to Christ as ‘human person,’ not in the sense that would make him exclusively a human person, but insofar as the divine hypostasis has also become the hypostasis of the human nature, that is, the one hypostasis has accepted the name and definition of the nature it has assumed.