In its most positive light, the Word-man Christology of Antioch gave full weight to the man Jesus Christ revealed in the gospels. Unlike the Alexandrians who began with the preincarnate Word when reasoning to their view of the incarnation, the men of Antioch began with the historical Jesus and emphasized those qualities that made him fully human. They argued that the Alexandrian position rendered the full humanity of Jesus at best inert and at worst nonexistent. Therefore, they saw the incarnation as a contingent conjunction or conjoining of natures, both being fully preserved, rather than as a necessary union of natures in which one was subsumed or eliminated. 

Word-man Christology took seriously the Scriptures’ depictions of the man Jesus Christ hungering, thirsting, growing weary, developing mentally and physically, being tempted, and dying. These were real events in the life of the man Jesus for which one must account in one’s view of the incarnation. Unless Jesus Christ possessed a fully functioning, undiminished, human rational soul and intellect, then these events must be predicated of the divine Logos, thus compromising his impassibility. Furthermore, these events have no meaning for us and for our salvation since they are not events in the life of a fully human person. 

Among the most articulate early formulators of this position was Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350-428 A. D.). J. N. D. Kelly points out that for Theodore, “The Lord’s created [human] soul had real significance…; it was the principle of life and activity in Him, and equally of the saving acts which secure our redemption” (Early Christian Doctrines, Fifth Ed., 305). So strong was Theodore’s language concerning the reality of Christ’s full humanity, that at times it appeared that he claimed the Word had taken to himself an already preexistent man! He considered the connection between the natures as an indwelling of the human “temple” of Jesus by the fully divine Word. This indwelling occurred by choice, favor, or grace rather than by necessity. But this indwelling was not like that of the apostles or the prophets. According to Theodore, 

[God] dwelt in the homo assumptus ‘as in a son’. This meant that ‘He united the whole man assumed with Himself, causing him to share with Him in all the honour which He, the Son by nature indwelling him, enjoys.” Thus He accomplishes all things in him (Kelly, 305). 

Thus, for Theodore, this indwelling was not simply an anointing that alighted upon a man, but the full presence of the Son of God wrapped up in complete humanity. 

Theodore nonetheless considered there to be a single subject of whom all of the actions of Jesus Christ may be predicated. Unlike the men of Alexandria, however, he seemed to be confused regarding just “who” this subject was. Herein lay the major weakness of the Word-man scheme. Although Theodore contended that there was one prosopon or person that was the subject of the words and actions of Jesus Christ, his emphasis on the distinction between the natures rendered this “person” less than fully substantial. Kelly observes that “this ‘common Person,’ does not seem, strictly speaking, to be the Person of the Word, but rather the external unity of presentation resulting from the ‘indwelling’ of the man by the Word” (Kelly, 308). An apparent unity by means of presentation falls far short of an actual unity. 

Hence, the theologians of Antioch ran aground on precisely the opposite shore as the Alexandrians. Whereas the proponents of the Word-flesh position had achieved a real ontological unity of person at the expense of the distinction in natures, the advocates of the Word-man view salvaged the distinction in natures at the expense of a real unity of person. And neither position’s weakness was lost on its opponents. As a result, the debate between the two camps escalated and reached fever pitch in the early fifth century. In the Word-man corner was Nestorius, former student of Theodore and Bishop of Constantinople (428 A.D.). Representing the Word-flesh team was the theological heavyweight Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444 A.D.). We will examine this confrontation blow by blow in our next post.

Blessings,

Arnie Gentile