we acknowledge two natures without mixture, without change, without separation, without division;[1] for the difference of the two natures is not suppressed by their union. On the contrary, the attributes of either nature are kept intact and subsist in one person and one hypostasis. We confess not a (Lord) divided and separated in several persons, but one only Son, only-begotten, the Word of God, our Saviour Jesus Christ."[2]
This, then, is the famous symbol[3] of Chalcedon, which henceforth is the test of Catholicism as opposed to Monophysism. From now the situation theologically becomes simple. A Catholic is (as far as the Christological question is concerned) one who accepts the dogmatic decree of the fifth session of Chalcedon; a Monophysite is not a man who accepts all Eutyches' ideas, but one who rejects this. We shall still hear very much about Monophysite troubles. The disturbance lasted for centuries in the empire, and finally produced the four heretical Churches of which the stories remain to be told. But from now there is no more controversy among Catholics. The Monophysites soon settle down as rival sects. This symbol ends the discussion which began twenty-two years before, when Anastasius preached against the title Theotókos (p. 61). Now let the reader look again at this symbol and ask himself: Was it worth all this disturbance, these synods and anti-synods, depositions of bishops and anathemas, the noisy meetings and shrieking crowds which fill up so much of the 5th century, in order to arrive at a conclusion so obvious that one would think that any reasonable man who knew his New Testament would admit it at once?
The Council had done its work; it would have been better if the bishops had gone home at once. However, they stayed at Chalcedon some time longer, and made further laws which were to have far-reaching and by no means happy results. Marcian and
- ↑ ἀσυγὐτως, ἀτρέπτως (against Monophysism), ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως (against Nestorianism).
- ↑ The text of the whole decree is in Mansi, vii. 116; also in Hefele-Leclercq, ii. (2), 722–726; cf. Denzinger: Enchiridion, No. 148. For the question of the variant readings, ἐν δύο φύσεσιν or ἐκ δύο φύσεων, in this declaration, see Hefele-Leclercq, ii. (2), p. 723, n. 1.
- ↑ Symbol in rather a different sense from the creed of Nicæa. That was as condensed a statement as possible; this Chalcedonian declaration is long and detailed.
