Papers originally delivered at a joint session of the American Academy of Religion Eastern

Orthodox Study Group and the Society of Biblical Literature Development of Early
Christian Theology Unit in Baltimore, November 2013.
Forthcoming in the Scottish Journal of Theology.
Response to Reviews by Brian Daley and Paul Gavrilyuk of
The Unity of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic Tradition (Yale UP: 2012)
by Christopher A. Beeley
I am very grateful to my colleagues for their careful attention to my work, and for
the invitation to respond to their comments in the pages of the Scottish Journal of Theology.1 It
is a privilege to participate in such a conversation among friends and fellow scholars.
My purpose in writing this book was to discern the main lines of orthodox patristic
tradition, as defined by the confession of Christs unity. Like many others, I had long noticed
how complicated this central body of Christian theology is. In recent years it became even
clearer to me that the conventional narrative of orthodox patristic tradition was ridden with
puzzles, contradictions, and hidden fault lines which could be better explained if we
concentrated on the basic doctrinal matters at hand, noting the actual theological similarities
and differences among the leading figures. This book is the result of my efforts to provide a
new map of orthodox patristic tradition.
I am glad to know that Professors Daley and Gavrilyuk find the book to be an
exciting and even liberating new approach to patristic tradition, and a work that is both
revisionist and orthodox. My colleagues have also raised a number of concerns which
deserve further attention. I will address what I take to be the most significant points in their
remarks, moving from fundamental conceptual matters to particular figures and questions of
historical-theological method.
The Unity of Christ in Patristic Theology
It will be helpful first to summarize the books organizing theme, the unity of Christ
in patristic thought. Orthodox patristic Christology centers on the confession that the
human being Jesus Christ contains, or is, only one subject of existence, action, and
predication, which is the divine Son or Word of God. At the heart of the Christian faith is
the belief that Christ crucified and risen is himself the divine Son of God, the second person
of the Trinity. Christs divine identity, moreover, not only includes a complete human
existence, in mind, soul, and body, without contradiction or competition, but Christs
divinity positively enables the integrity of his humanity.
The patristic doctrine of Christs unity is not the product of later theological
development; it arises directly from the variety of statements about Christ in the Scriptures
and runs from the second century to the end of the patristic era. The biblical witness to
Christ includes plainly divine statements and plainly human ones, and it also contains divine
statements made about the human Jesus and human statements made about the divine Son
of God, a pattern of cross-predication known as the communicatio idiomatum. By taking these
1

My thanks are due as well to the other panelists, Oliver Crisp, Stephen Fowl, and George
Hunsinger, to Mark Weedman, who organized the panel, and to Iain Torrance, who offered
to publish these papers in the ScotJTheo.
1

various statements as real and true descriptions of Christ, unitive theologians routinely refer
them all to the divine Son of God, either in his purely divine form apart from any
involvement in the economy or in his created, human form as the incarnate Lord.
Accordingly, all of Jesus acts and experiencesand especially his suffering and deathare
understood to be the human acts of the divine Son of God, where the second person of the
Trinity is the true subject throughout. Some theologians describe the close relationship
between Christs divinity and humanity in strong terms such as union, unity, mixture,
and the like, or, in later centuries, as both a natural and a hypostatic union; however, such
terms are not necessary to establish a unitive doctrine of Christ. Notable examples of unitive
Christology are found in Irenaeus, Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and
Ambrose, and in the more developed systems of the high-patristic period produced by
Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus Confessor, and some,
though not all, of John of Damascus work.
Dualist Christology
Dualist Christology likewise operates according to a single principle, which can be
found in two main forms. Christological dualism is not the belief that Christ is both divine
and human, or that he has two natures: unitive theologians routinely affirm Christs full
divinity and humanity. Rather, Christological dualism separates Christs divine and human
natures in such a way that the single subjectivity of Christ as the divine Son of God is lost to
view, and, correspondingly, biblical references to Christ are referred to two different subjects.
While unitive Christology looks basically the same in each instance, there are several ways in
which one can construct a dualist Christologysomewhat like Tolstoys comment that every
happy family is happy in the same way, whereas there are many ways to be unhappy.
(A) The most pronounced form of Christological dualism posits two relatively selfcontained figures, the divine Son of God and an independently existing human being; this is
the doctrine we find in Origen, Diodore, Nestorius, and the Strict Chalcedonians. These
theologians refer the divine statements of Scripture to the divine Son and the human
statements to the human Jesus, or to his human nature. (B) Less obvious, perhaps, but no
less dualist is terms of its basic structure is the notion of an internally divided Jesus, who is
composed of the divine Word plus a human body, such as we find in Athanasius and
Apollinarius. These theologians refer divine statements to the Word of God and human
statements to the Words human body (Athanasius), or sometimes to a hybrid of the two
(Apollinarius). In both cases dualist exegesis requires that one explain away the realistic sense
of the communicatio idiomatum: at most, the divine Son can be said to undergo a human life and
death, or he may have associated himself with a human body which dies; but it cannot
really have been the case that the divine Son underwent a human death. The motivation for
dualist exegesis can vary: ones primary motivation can be can be to keep God free from the
contamination of human suffering and death (Origen, Athanasius, and Diodore), or one can
make it ones chief aim to avoid a perceived conflict between the Word of God and Jesus
human mind (Apollinarius and possibly Athanasius). Accordingly, dualist theologians
routinely deny even an economic sense of divine suffering, and they oppose the strong terms
for unity that might be employed by unitive theologians.
Dualist Christology has raised its head at several key points in patristic tradition, both
within the officially orthodox fold and outside of it: for example, in the work of Origen,
Athanasius, and Apollinarius; in several major texts by Gregory of Nyssa; in the Antiochene
tradition of Diodore and Nestorius and the allied doctrine of Leo of Rome; and in the Strict
Chalcedonianism of Leontius of Byzantium and his heirs. The persistence of both streams of
2

doctrine into the later centuries is, I believe, the main complicating factor in patristic
theological tradition.
The Ontology of the Savior
In speaking of the paradox of the Incarnation, Professor Daley has drawn our
attention to a further notion that distinguishes unitive and dualist Christologies. Many have
regarded Christs incarnation as a deep or absolute paradox concerning how God could
possibly co-exist with a complete human being. Central to unitive patristic Christology is the
counter-argument that there is, in fact, no competition or contradiction between Christs
divine nature and his human form, including Jesus human mental functioning. The
Incarnation does not represent an ontological conflict at all, and it is not a paradox in the
strict sense, although it is certainly a wonder (paradoxon) of unanticipated divine activity and
manifestation. Our unitive authors regularly note that the incarnation is seen as an
ontological problem, however, from the standpoint of unbelief, whether philosophically
motivated or in the form of dualist Christology. Key instances of this counter-argument
occur in Gregory Nazianzen, certain passages Gregory of Nyssa (e.g. Or. cat. 5, 9-10), Cyril
of Alexandria, Augustine, and Maximus Confessor. In light of this principle of ontological
non-contradiction, it will be apparent that unitive doctrine is the more Christologically
expansive and liberating of the human creaturea point that Maximus regularly emphasizes
length (e.g. Pyrrh. 349B-52A; Opusc. 7, 80A-B)and that it is the dualist position that
represents the straightjacket of which Gavrilyuk speaks.
Divine Suffering
Professor Gavrilyuk has raised questions about my treatment of divine impassibility,
divinization (theosis), and the conventional distinction between Antiochene and Alexandrian
theologies. Modern theologians have reconsidered the impassibility of God in various ways,
but my interest in this book is simply to elucidate the teaching of the fathers, about which
Gavrilyuk has also written at length.2 By way of definition, I understand passibility in
patristic usage to mean being subject to, and possibly threatened by, another being or force,
or being passive to the activity of another; it does not mean having feelings or caring about
others, as some moderns tend to imagine it.
Gavrilyuk and I are in agreement about the classical Christian doctrine of divine
impassibilitythat God, qua God, does not and cannot suffer, not because God does not
care about the suffering of his creatures, but because it is both conceptually and
ontologically impossible. The notion of divine suffering goes against the very idea of what it
means to be God, and it contradicts everything we know about God from the Bible and
orthodox Christian tradition. To claim that God suffers per se (or suffers divinely) means
that there is some other force or principle that has power over Godthat there is, in effect,
another god besides Godand that is something that most Jews, Christians, and Muslims
will vehemently want to deny.
On the other hand, it appears that Gavrilyuk and I disagree about the patristic notion
of divine suffering in Christ. Central to orthodox patristic Christology, I argue, is the
proclamation that in Christ God has undergone human birth, life, death and resurrection for
the salvation of the world, and that Gods real involvement in Christs human life stands at
the heart of the Christian faith. The patristic notion of divine suffering involves two
2

Paul L. Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought. Oxford
Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
3

important qualifications. (1) It is human or creaturely suffering that we are talking about,
suffering within the realm of creation and according to its terms, or, as the Greeks like to say,
in the economy, not divine suffering per se. (2) Nevertheless, the fathers believe that it is
God who directly and immediately undergoes creaturely suffering in Jesus Christ, a belief
which calls forth a whole range of theopaschite expressions from the second to the eighth
century. Hence, Gregory Nazianzen and Cyril speak of Gods impassible passion, and the
Second Council of Constantinople (663) confesses that one of the Trinity was crucified in
the Incarnation. The confession of Gods suffering in Christ has met with opposition since
at least the second century, ranging from knee-jerk reactions to philosophically informed
cosmologies to dualist Christological sensibilities.
Divinization
My comments on theosis build on my earlier treatment of the subject, which refers
extensively to Norman Russells masterful study.3 My argument that Gregory Nazianzen is
the immediate and defining precedent for the emerging tradition of theosis in Greek Christian
soteriology serves as an emendation to Russells work, yet only by a half. Russell observes
that it was Gregory who coined the term theosis, that the idea enters Byzantine theology
through Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus Confessor, and that it did so in Gregorys terms,
rather than in the language of theopoiesis that Athanasius and others had used beforehand.
Adding to Russells account, I have simply filled out the picture of Gregorys doctrine and its
influence, noting the participatory nature of divinization and its programmatic significance in
Gregorys work and highlighting the path of tradition running to Pseudo-Dionysius and
Maximus. Yet neither Russell nor I believe that Gregory develops his language for
divinization from Greco-Roman notions of apotheosis,4 as Gavrilyuk suggests. My claim that
divinization plays only a minor role in Athanasius spiritual and soteriological works (as
opposed to his polemical works) likewise echoes a point already established by Russell.5 That
Athanasius teaches a kind of automatic divinization of Christ at the point of his incarnation,
rather than through Christs passion and resurrection, has long been noted and should not
be controversial;6 these passages helped give rise to the later aphthartodocetist teaching of the
sixth century. However, the great difference between Athanasius polarized spirituality and
the more integrated doctrine of the unitive theologians extends well beyond the idea of
divinization or the concerns of Russells study.
Alexandria and Antioch
Most patristic scholars now agree that the division of vast swathes of patristic
theology into opposing Alexandrian and Antiochene camps is no longer tenable. I
believe my work may have shed new light on the situation. In brief, there does appear to be a
coherent Antiochene school of thought as defined by the work of Diodore, carried forward
by Nestorius (Theodore of Mopsuestia and John Chrysostom being hybrid figures), and
3

See Christopher A. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your
Light We Shall See Light. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2008), pp. 116-22 and passim.
4
See Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition. Oxford Early
Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 337 on the rare Christian uses
of apotheosis, which do not include Gregory Nazianzen.
5
Russell, Deification, p. 167, and Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 117n5.
6
The idea runs throughout De Incarnatione: see 8, 10, 20-21, 31, 43-44.
4

continued to a significant degree in the Chalcedonian Definition and the Strict

Chalcedonianism of Leontius of Byzantium, who tells us that he was initially an Antiochene
himself. The real cause for revision lies on the other side. What was formerly known as the
Alexandrian school of theology and exegesis, defined preeminently by the unitive doctrine of
Cyril of Alexandria, I have shown was not in fact Alexandrian in any historical sense, but
should more accurately be called Gregorian (of Nazianzus) or, in the context of the Arian
debates, Eusebian (of Caesarea), whose theology, we must recall, was opposed to the
doctrine of Athanasius of Alexandria; and Cyrils theology is certainly not Origenist except in
some rudiments of Trinitarian doctrine that he took from the fourth-century fathers. What
used to be called the Alexandrian school of Cyril is in reality the long and broad tradition
of unitive Christology.
Athanasius Dualist Christology
I am happy to learn that my colleagues find compelling my reinterpretations of
Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea. While some have judged my analysis of Athanasiuss
Christology to be on the mark as well,7 Professors Daley and Gavrilyuk have both registered
their reservations, to which I offer the following reply.
Scholars have long noted the puzzling character of Athanasius Christology, the
tumultuous nature of his episcopate, and his sometimes-belligerent character. As noted
above, I have argued that Athanasius is a dualist theologian of the second type (B). In
Athanasius view, Christ is composed of distinct divine and human elements, the Word of
God plus a human body containing an emotional soul but not a human mind. Athanasius
consistently practices two-subject exegesis, in which all human statements refer to Christs
flesh or body, and all divine statements refer to the Word of God. Athanasius
systematically denies that the biblical communicatio idiomatum has anything more than a verbal
or indirect meaning, and he works very hard to avoid the suggestion that the Word was
touched in any way by the taint of human suffering. Professor Daley is therefore correct that
Athanasius is not radically dualist, meaning the first type (A), as Origen and the
Antiochenes were, yet Athanasius is dualist according to the second type. The confusion
among these terms as I presented them in the book is understandable given the received
categories of interpretation, in which Apollinarius is not normally considered a dualist. I am
therefore glad for the opportunity to clarify my meaning here.
Yet, aside from the designation dualist, I gather that my argument that Athanasius
Christology is Apollinarian is itself troubling. If that is the case, then it may help to note that
Athanasius has been interpreted in this way by a wide range of modern scholars. In the
1960s and 1970s Aloys Grillmeier concurred with the judgment of earlier German, French,
and English scholars that Athanasius Christ does not possess a human mind or soul. The
alarming nature of this judgment has elicited several attempts to rescue the Alexandrian
bishop from heretical associations,8 yet the situation cannot be so easily swept under the rug.
As Frances Young recently concluded, The weight of the evidence supports those who
7

E.g., Mark DelCogliano (BMCR 2013.07.09) and Lionel Wickham (JTS 64.2 [2013]: 718-21).
The most recent major study being Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of His
Thought, pp. 70-74. Anatolios attempt to justify Athanasius scheme by calling it a functional
or epistemological approach that is different from the analytical concern of Grillmeier and
others merely begs the question: both positions, and the full range of Christological issues
that arise from the biblical communicatio idiomatum, are equally functional, epistemological, and
analytical (i.e. dogmatic).
8

argue that Athanasius did not think that Christ had a human soul; his was a Word-flesh
Christology, and he was Apollinarian before Apollinarius.9 To this judgment we can add the
observation of several recent scholars that Athanasius was not as central to fourth-century
orthodoxy as we have long been taught to assume.10 The idiosyncratic nature of Athanasius
work is perhaps most visible when the stark contrast that he posits between Gods divine
being and creaturely nothingness is compared with the unitive theologians insistence that
there is no such ontological contrast between God and his creatures.
Historical-Theological Method
Finally, I will address the questions of method that Gavrilyuk has raised. In this book
I have attempted to bring more accurate historical-theological judgment to a field that is
often ridden with tacit assumptions and a very long history of unquestioned categories and
conclusions. Just as scholars now broadly agree that there was no grand Arian conspiracy
running through the fourth century, as Marcellus and Athanasius had taught us to believe, so
too I am offering a similar set of revisions to our understanding of patristic Christological
tradition. The examples of Athanasius and Cyril that Gavrilyuk has offered will serve well to
illustrate the point.
There are several reasons why it makes more sense to compare Athanasius image
doctrine with that of Origen, Eusebius, and Marcellus, rather than merely to attribute it to
his reading of the New Testament alone. First, by the start of Athanasius career Origen had
long been the main source of image Christology in Alexandrian tradition and in other eastern
Mediterranean churches, including the doctrine of Athanasius immediate predecessor,
Alexander. Second, both Alexander and Eusebius of Caesarea (and their associates) made
Origens image doctrine a key element in their own Christological programs, which then set
the terms for Athanasius polemical context. Third, Athanasius onetime associate Marcellus
held a very different view of Christs character as Gods image, namely the he is Gods image
only in the economy, but not eternally. Accordingly, the meaning of the biblical notion of
Christ as image in Colossians 1:15 and elsewhere was a matter of debate in the very
controversies in which Athanasius was embroiled. From everything that we know about
Athanasius actual context and his commitments as a theologian, it is therefore inconceivable
that Athanasius was operating sola scriptura on such a basic Christological point. The burden
of sound historical theology to bring out such connections.
As for my argument that Cyrils Christology is informed primarily by Gregory
Nazianzen, and that Cyrils use of Athanasius complicates the resulting product, I first
9

Frances M. Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and Its Background, 2nd
ed., with Andrew Teal (Baker, 2010), p. 63. One finds the same conclusion in Aloys
Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 1: From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451), trans.
John Bowden (London: Mowbrays, 1965), p. 312; J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, rev.
ed. (Harper Collins, 1978), 287-88; R.P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God:
The Arian Controversy 318381 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark), pp. 447-48; and David Brakke,
Athanasius, in , Philip F. Esler, ed., The Early Christian World, vol. 2 (Routledge, 2000), pp.
1122-23.
10
E.g., Michel Ren Barnes, One Nature, One Power: Consensus Doctrine in Pro-Nicene
Polemic, Studia Patristica 29 (1997), pp. 205-23, at 220. See also Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its
Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004), which demonstrates that pro-Nicene theology arose from different and often
disconnected quarters in the fourth century, rather than from a unified Athanasian front.
6

presented my findings in a lengthy article in the Journal of Early Christian Studies on the urging
of two senior scholars of Cyril.11 Prior to my analysis, contemporary scholars agreed that
Athanasius and Gregory were far and away the two strongest influences on Cyrils work.12 By
making a detailed study of the question (to my knowledge, the only such study in modern
scholarship), I discovered that the key points of Cyrils Christologyin terms of the
structure of Christs person, Cyrils choice of terms, the theological principles involved,
Cyrils single-subject hermeneutical method, and his approach to divine sufferingall rely
on Gregory far more than they do on Athanasius, who differs considerably from Gregory on
most of these points, despite the fact that Cyril had clearly read and used Athanasius work
before the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy.13 To suppose that Cyril might have
assembled his fairly advanced technical Christology from disparate sources that are masked
by the larger patterns of Cyrils work simply ignores the evidence of the texts.
Finally, in briefer scope: my conclusion that Chalcedon was by and large an
Antiochene victory decorated with Cyrilline phrases is again based on a close analysis of the
Definition within its actual theological context, and on the evidence of the councils acts,
which are not normally considered at all in modern attempts to reappropriate the councils
theology. (The exclusion of the Egyptian delegation from the councils doctrinal proceedings,
for example, and the report that Nestorius was happy with the outcome, should tell us
something.) I do not claim that Arius was an Origenist, which is the textbook caricature of
the situation, but that his opponent, Bishop Alexander, was. My interpretation of Arius as a
particular sort of traditional Alexandrian theologian follows that of Rowan Williams and,
more recently, Winrich Lhr. I argue not that Marcellus was unitive in his Christology, but
that he was supremely dualist. And the idea that the Nicene Creed of 325 functioned chiefly
as a polemical device is, I believe, now standard view.
I am aware that my conclusions will reinforce certain received orthodoxies and upset
others. I hope that by remapping the stream of unitive patristic tradition on the basis of
close historical-theological analysis I will have clarified both the nature and the location of
Christological orthodoxy in the patristic period, to the rudimentary extent that a book of this
length can accomplish. There are indeed more figures and events to examine in light of the
conclusions I have reached. It is a pleasure to respond to my colleagues complements and
criticisms, and I look forward to the next stage of the conversation.
11

Cyril of Alexandria and Gregory Nazianzen: Tradition and Complexity in Patristic

Christology, JECS 17.3 (2009), pp. 381-419.
12
See, e.g., John A. McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy: Its
History, Theology, and Texts. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 23 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), p. 176.
13
Gavrilyuk points as well to Mark DelCoglianos questioning of my argument for Gregorys
influence on Cyril (BMCR 2013.07.09). As evidence against my conclusion DelCogliano
observes that Cyril quotes Athanasius, Ar. 3.29 (Athanasius statement of hermeneutical
method) in his letter to the monks of Egypt at the beginning of the Nestorian controversy
(Ep. 1.4). But this citation does not support DelCoglianos counter-argument. Cyril quotes
this passage from Athanasius third Oration not as a hermeneutical resource, as DelCogliano
argues, but in support of the confession of the Theotokos; moreover, when Cyril goes on to
make a case for hermeneutical procedure in the following sections of the letter, the biblical
examples that he gives do not follow Athanasius argument anywhere in the Orations against
the Arians. Following the strict procedure that DelCogliano, Gavrilyuk, and I agree is
essential to sound historical theology, Cyril does indeed appear to have been influenced
primarily by Gregory.
7

Christopher A. Beeley
Yale Divinity School

Response To Christopher Beeley,

The Unity Of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic Tradition
Brian E. Daley, SJ
It is always exciting to read the retelling of a familiar narrative, whether it is of the
early life of Shakespeare, the political careers of Washington and Jefferson, or the story of
the development of the classic Christian understanding of the person of Jesus Christ during
the first seven or eight centuries of Christianity. In this last case, the reader feels liberated
from the weight of inherited pieties, invited to look again at the existing documentation with
fresh eyes, urged to reconceive what he imagines to be the implied agenda of the main actors,
and their significance for the later history of Christian faith. Christopher Beeleys new book
from Yale certainly has this effect on those trained by earlier tellings of the story of early
Christology, from Newman to Harnack and Loofs, to Sellers and Grillmeier and Kelly. The
heroes and villains, characteristic phrases and defining moments of heresy and orthodoxy, all
take on a slightly new form in Christophers reconstruction a form centered on the
question of how the personal and ontological unity of the Savior is conceived and
emphasized by key Christian authors and principal Church synods from the third to the
eighth centuries.
One of the great benefits of Christophers book, I think, is the fact that it offers us a
few new heroes to admire. As one reads through the narrative, for instance, it becomes clear
that the real paradigm of an author who offers later tradition a vision of Christ that does
justice to the Christian message is St. Gregory of Nazianzus (with whom Christophers first
book was concerned) Gregory the Theologian in the parlance of the Eastern Churches;
while many recent historians of Christology have found Gregorys position on the person of
Christ puzzling, even anomalous, Christopher finds in the bishops lively, impassioned
rhetoric a way of emphasizing the paradoxical, lived unity of Christ that goes beyond the
antinomies of Greek philosophy and sees him as God in our human flesh, God suffering our
human weaknesses and dying our human death. Christopher seems to take Gregorys
occasional image of a new mixture (mixis; krsis) of God and the human in the incarnate
Son as a kind of implicit norm for both his intentions and for the adequacy of later
formulations, from Cyril of Alexandria to Leontius, Maximus, and the later councils.
More interesting still, Christopher devotes a whole chapter to the Christological
vision of Eusebius of Caesaraea, who up to now has received little recognition as a serious
theologian (much as he is respected for his historical and exegetical writings). Drawing from
his apologetic works, from passages in the History and some of the festal orations, and
especially from Eusebiuss writings against Marcellus of Ancyra, Christopher offers a
convincing portrait of Eusebius not simply as promoting a view of Christ as produced by the
eternal Father, not himself strictly eternal, and divine in a true but participated sense, but
also as a mediator and agent in the history of creation and redemption who is radically and
personally one. Avoiding the pitfalls of Origens view of Christ a created mind and the
divine Word who are personally unified only by the extrinsic means of loving contemplation
- Origens admirer Eusebius succeeded, Christopher argues, in presenting Christ, the Son of
the heavenly Father, as both a constituent member of the divine Trinity and an agent on the
stage of our history. In this way, Eusebius appears as a key transmitter of Origens early,
prescient understanding of God as Trinity to the later, vibrantly unified portraits of Christ
and God sketched by Gregory of Nazianzus and Cyril of Alexandria. In doing this,

Christopher allows a somewhat neglected figure to appear now on the scene, deservedly in
my view, as a major player.
On the other hand, Christophers revisionist narrative has a new set of villains, as
well. Chief among them, undoubtedly, is Athanasius of Alexandria, whom Christopher (like
R. P. C. Hanson) sharply criticizes for his lack of theological and philosophical education, his
bullying tactics as bishop of the chief Church of Egypt, and his overheated rhetoric. More
important and to me quite inexplicable is the fact that Christopher repeatedly insists that
Athanasiuss view of Christ ends by being radically dualistic, in that he powerfully
emphasizes the otherness of God and creation, and (in Christophers view) utterly fails to
present Christ as a single agent. His Christology is remarkably close to the later Antiochene
position of Diodore and Theodore (p. 267), a Christology of graver contrasts in which the
Word is all power, and human flesh can only await transformation into the Word itself. It is
also a scheme in which God lacks the desire and the ability to include human brokenness
into the divine being without being threatened with decomposition himself, and humanity
possesses no real and lasting nature of its own. (p. 169) One could, if there were time, raise
many questions about the details of Christophers interpretation of Athanasiuss work; to me,
however, its overriding fault is that Christopher continues to measure Athanasiuss
arguments against the standard never articulated of what seems to serve in the book as
the norm of all Christologys adequacy: a personal, naturally functioning unity of Son and
human Jesus in which God actually performs human actions, and dies a human death the
theopaschite conception of Christ promoted in the sixth century, by people who had
difficulty with the formulation of Chalcedon.
Christophers book also has its other, deeply puzzling revisionist moves. Arius
much discussed by Western scholars since the late 1970s appears as a fairly harmless, if
imprecise, Origenist, the victim of Athanasiuss caricatures. The creed of Nicaea which
emerges more or less as an ephemeral by-product of the synod, as Eusebius himself suggests
is a strictly polemical document, not intended to be a baptismal confession, which
distorts Ariuss real thinking. (p. 121) Marcellus of Ancyra and Apollinarius appear as
writers who misconceive the Jesus of the Gospels in a mistakenly unitive direction; but
equally to be rejected is the essentially divisive Gregory of Nyssa, the Antiochene
theologians, and Pope Leo, who fail to emphasize Christs active unity directly. The Council
of Chalcedons formulation of the Mystery of Christ is also seriously inadequate, a clear
statement of Antiochene and Leonine (but not Augustinian) two-nature Christology
enforced under government pressure, which left the basic identity of Christ and the nature
of the union disastrously ambiguous from the point of view of the more unitive traditions.
(p. 284) Among the post-Chalcedonian theologians Christopher briefly treats here, Leontius
of Byzantium and John of Damascus are written off as continuing the dualist tradition by
insisting on the enduring distinction of two natures in Jesus; only Maximus, with his stress
on the divinization of Christs human nature, appears to pass the test of offering a unified
model of Christ, in which God is the continuing real agent of salvation.
Christophers book, despite these sometimes puzzling judgments and seemingly
arbitrary generalizations, raises some important new issues in the Christological narrative.
For one thing, it suggests with new force the inherent connection between what modern
theology has traditionally regarded as the separate questions of God as Trinity and the
person of Christ. Surely the reason Christians have come to think of the Mystery of God as
irreducibly the eternal, dynamic communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is because of its
ancient conviction that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, is, in his person, God with us.
I have written myself on the phenomenon one can observe almost everywhere in Patristic
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literature: that those authors who set out to emphasize the transcendence and unity of the
divine Mystery, like Marcellus and, in a different way, the Antiochene theologians, tend to
have difficulty in conceiving of Jesus as one agent he is usually thought of as Gods
instrument or temple, rather than as God personally present. Conversely, those authors who
set out by stressing the uniqueness and subjective unity of the Savior like Origen and
Eusebius, the two Gregories and Cyril tend to emphasize also the threeness of God, in
which the Sons distinctive role leads to a fundamentally more articulated conception of God.
How we think of Christ determines how we think of God, and vice versa. In Christophers
narrative, this becomes more obvious.
Secondly, the problem Christopher singles out as a continuing focus of his history the unity of Christ as Savior seems to me to be just one face of a deeper problem: how
God is related to creation, how God is present in and for the world from its very beginning
without short-circuiting the genuine independence of creatures. The otherness of God,
which Patristic authors from the Apologists and Origen on (and certainly including
Athanasius, but also Cyril and Maximus) so emphasize, is not simply a borrowing from
Middle Platonism, but a conviction based on Israels experience of the nameless, formless
God on Sinai. To understand this triune God as remaining who and what he eternally is, yet
also to see God the Son as acting in a fully human way, having complete human experiences,
in Jesus, because he is human to think of the divinity of Jesus as engaged not in a constant
turf-battle for the real center of his humanity, but as enabling his humanity to be itself most
fully and perfectly - was always the challenge (and still is!). Philosophical considerations,
certainly, weighed strongly with some of the Fathers - leading Theodore and Theodoret, for
instance, to be very cautious about seeing in Jesus a genuine unity of subject; for others, such
as Cyril and those who later had reservations about the Chalcedonian formulation, the
Scriptural witness to Jesus simply demanded that Christians override their anxieties about
that philosophical and Biblical affirmation of Gods otherness, and find new categories like
the terminology of substance and nature, hypostasis and persona - to make the
personal presence of the ever-distant God somehow thinkable. In spite of the terminology
that developed, however, the person of Jesus his active and ontological unity, his inner
dialectic always remained a paradox; none of the formulas quite succeed at their task. To
divide the theologians of the age into dualists and (presumably) unifiers seems to me not
to do justice to their legitimate concerns, and to over-simplify a complex story.
Even Gregory of Nazianzus, who emerges early on as the hero of Christophers tale,
offers us in his rhetorically stunning, but often deliberately ambiguous formulations of the
Mystery of Christ a portrait that emphasizes the lasting otherness of Christs parts, as
well as their identity of his person. True, both he and his namesake and friend from Nyssa
speak on a number of occasions of the new mixture, the unexpected blending, of the
Word of the utterly unknowable God with the son of the Virgin (Greg. Naz., Or. 38).
Theologians of the mid-fifth century even those who emphasized Christs personal unity
strongly, like Cyril would come to avoid mixture-language, presumably because it
suggested confusion, a hybridization of the divine and the human into some new species
suspiciously like the mythic demigods of Greece. God was clearly other; a human being is
from here, part of the world. What the two Gregories, like Athanasius and so many other
Christian thinkers, struggled to do was to find words that might do justice to the whole of
the paradox.
In a famous passage near the end of Oration 29, for instance a paragraph or so
before he will himself use again the image of blending to express how the man Jesus is one

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with God, to becoming God down here Gregory of Nazianzus offers us a kind of
hermeneutical rule for thinking out the paradox presented by the New Testament:
In a word, attribute the higher things to the divinity, to the one who is by nature
superior to suffering and a body; but attribute the humbler things to the composite
one, to the one who emptied himself and became flesh for your sake not to put
too fine a point on it! and became human, and then was exalted, so that you might
let go of the fleshliness and lowness of your theories and learn to live on a higher
level, and might ascend to the divinity and might come to know what the rational
structure of nature is, and what is the structure of the divine economy. (Or 29.18)
Knowing the structure the logos of being God and being human, keeping them distinct in
our minds and speech because they are so distinct in reality, is certainly central to the rightthinking theologians task, Gregory seems to be saying; the astonishing part of the Christian
narrative, of the economy, is that these two, which remain utterly distinct in themselves,
have at a point of time become one unique agent, one subject who lives and acts in a unity
that leaves the difference intact. Christophers new book helps us to see anew the challenge
and the contours of this central, endlessly paradoxical Christian affirmation, and for that we
have to be grateful.

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Review of Christopher Beeley, Unity of Christ (Yale UP, 2013).

Paul Gavrilyuk
Professor Beeley has contributed a new chapter to the history of the doctrine of
communicatio idiomatum. He has written a provocative book, whose argument is both
revisionist and orthodox. Beeley proposes to revise the accepted Christological narrative by
questioning the significance and theological genius of Athanasius of Alexandria. In Beeleys
judgment, Athanasius contribution pales in comparison with such giants as Origen,
Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen and Maximus the Confessor. Beeley finds especially
in Nazianzens Christology the most profound and consistent rendering of the unity of
Christ, a golden standard for expressing communicatio idiomatum. According to Beeley,
Gregorys achievement was only partially matched by the Christologies of Cyril of
Alexandria and Leo of Rome. Gregorys Christology is the apex of the Origenist tradition, its
most complete and compelling expression. A permanent contribution of Beeleys work is the
restoration of Gregory the Theologian to the diptychs of contemporary western patristic
scholarship, in which Nazianzen has been overshadowed by another Cappadocian, Gregory
of Nyssa.
The first two chapters of Beeleys work present a richly detailed and sympathetic
account of some neglected elements of Origens and Eusebius Christologies. Of particular
interest is Beeleys discussion of Origens theology of the Son as the image of the Father and
of the mediatorial role of the Logos. It is also intriguing to read that the most influential
church leader of the early fourth century was not Athanasius of Alexandria, as most accounts
would have it, but the great scholar-bishop Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine. The reader
naturally anticipates that Eusebius influence upon the later tradition will be explored by the
author in the subsequent narrative. But Beeleys focal interest lies elsewhere, namely, in the
accounts of communicatio idiomatum in the fourth- and fifth- century Christologies.
Beeley identifies two major interpretative trajectories in Christology: unitive and
dualist. The unitive approach emphasizes the single subject to which both typically divine
and typically human characteristics of Christ are to be attributed. The dualist approach
variously accentuates the distinction between human and divine aspects of Christ. Beeley
identifies as dualist the Christological accounts of Origen, Athanasius, Diodore of Tarsus,
Gregory of Nyssa, Hilary of Potiers, Nestorius, and John of Damascus. According to Beeley,
the unitive approach is most consistently articulated by Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory
Nazianzen, and, following him, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine, and, less successfully, by Cyril
of Alexandria and Maximus the Confessor. The narrative that emerges both reinforces the
narrative of the attainment of Christological orthodoxy by lifting up Nazianzens treatment
of the unity of Christ as a golden standard and troubles the same narrative by questioning the
value and soundness of Athanasius and Cyrils christologies. To repeat, Beeleys narrative is
both historically revisionist and theologically orthodox, strongly influenced by contemporary
theological interest in the idea of divine suffering.
For our discussion, I would like to raise three methodological and two substantive
issues (as well as one minor point) with Beeleys account.
The first methodological issue has to do with the way in which Beeley draws genetic
links between the ideas of different theologians. (Here I draw on an earlier review of Beeleys
work by my colleague Mark DelCogliano). Beeley repeatedly proceeds with the assumption
that a mere fact that an influential theologian A held that p, and a later theologian B held that
p, makes it very probable that B borrowed p from A. A couple of examples will suffice.
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Beeley writes, Athanasius affirms that Christ is indeed the image of God apart from the
incarnation, as Origen and Eusebius taught and against the denials of Marcellus [of Ancyra].
(p. 147) But the point that the Son, who is the instrument of creation, is the image of God is
taught in the NT, perhaps most directly in Colossians 1: 15 (cf. 2 Cor 4: 4). It seems that
there is no need to invoke the authority of Origen or Eusebius in order to account for
Athanasius theology of the image of God.
The second example comes from Beeleys treatment of Cyril of Alexandria. Beeley
observes that Cyrils theology was guided primarily by Gregory Nazianzen (258). Beeley
subsequently writes that when [Cyril] teaches that all biblical sayings about Christ refer to
the same subject, Cyril reflects a deeply Gregorian principle. (264). Surely, among the early
Church Fathers Gregory Nazianzen did not hold a copyright on a single-subject Christology.
Bold theopaschite statements are found in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, Melito of
Sardis, Tertullian, Apollinaris, and so on. Gregory formulated his one-subject Christology in
response to the Apollinarian accusation of preaching two sons and in response to the
Eunomians, who argued from the passibility of the Logos to his subordinate status. The
general methodological point is that we have plausible historical grounds for believing that
theologian B depends on theologian A, if both A and B held a unique point p, not otherwise
attested in all preceding or contemporary authors. I say plausible historical grounds,
because this criterion does not constitute a sufficient condition. Generally, what Beeley takes
to be the Gregorian principle or the Gregorian tradition are homiletic and liturgical
commonplaces. It is true, of course, that Cyril directly quotes from Gregory and more
generally, Cyril is chiefly responsible for providing an early theoretical framework for the
practice of appealing to patristic precedents. But it is one thing to assert that Cyril draws on
Gregorys work just as he draws on the work of Athanasius and Apollinaris; it is a different
matter to assert that Cyril was guided primarily by Gregory Nazianzen. (p. 258). Beeley
himself subsequently qualifies this statement so considerably, that his original point loses
much of its explanatory force.
The second issue is the absence of a working definition of what counts as a dualist
Christology. The range of possible options is very broad from some Gnostic authors to
Athanasiuss double account of the Savior to the teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia. For
example, Theodore of Mopsuestias Christology disallows communicatio idiomatum as a
matter of theological principle. Athanasiuss double account of the Savior, according to
Beeley, allows cross-predication of attributes. This means that Athanasius allows for a merely
verbal as opposed to real communicatio idiomatum. In contrast, Gregory of Nazianzus
allows the cross-penetration of attributes, meaning that the divine subject participates in
human experiences, such as suffering and death, while human nature is transformed by its
union with the Logos and acquires the Logos characteristics. While Beeleys distinction
between cross-predication and cross-penetration is quite valuable, his language of dualist
Christology is not sufficiently precise. I would invite our author to clarify his use of this
crucial term.
The third methodological issue is Beeleys use of the pair Alexandrian/ Antiochene.
On p. 272, Beeley correctly cautions that the old caricature of fourth- and fifth-century
Christology as being divided between Alexandrian and Antiochene schools is no longer
tenable. The streams of orthodox tradition ran in more than two channels. (272). I am
very sympathetic to this caution and agree that the two schools hypothesis is unsustainable.
However, Beeley frequently speaks of Alexandrian or Antiochene tradition, Alexandrian
or Antiochene Christology, Antiochene provenance [of Leontius of Byzantium] (p. 291),
Antiochene bias (p. 281) and so on, as if those categories represented monolithic points of
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view. For example, he observes that Gregory of Nyssas account of communicatio idiomatum is
done under the orbit of Antiochene Christological influences. On p. 267, Beeley opines
that Athanasius view of divine suffering is remarkably close to the later Antiochene
position (p. 267), which is to say that Athanasius denies the divine natures involvement in
suffering in the manner of Theodore of Mopsuestia and his followers. Beeleys
characterization of Athanasius view both assumes that there is such a thing as a uniform
Antiochene position on divine suffering and attributes this view to an Alexandrian
theologian, namely, Athanasius. Absent any methodological qualifications, we are left with
both an assumption of the two schools (traditions or influences) hypothesis and its (more
sound) deconstruction. I would ask Professor Beeley to clarify this tension in his
presentation.
Now I wish to turn to the issues of substance, limiting the discussion to one
comment and two major points. My comment has to do with Beeleys statement on p. 343:
Astonishingly, we still lack an adequate book-length study of Augustines Christology. In
fact, there is such a book, it is William Babcocks 1971 dissertation The Christ of the
Exchange: A Study in the Christology of Augustines Ennarationes in Psalmos, defended at
Yale under Jaroslav Pelikan. Beeleys section on communicatio idiomatum in Augustines
Exposition of the Psalms could benefit from engaging Babcocks book-length study.
My two substantive points have to do with Beeleys treatment of the notions of
theosis and divine impassibility.
In his chapter on the Cappadocian Fathers and the Council of Constantinople,
Beeley observes that the term theosis was coined by Gregory (p. 185). A reference to Norman
Russells The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, which discusses Gregorys
neologism at length, would have been desirable.14 More significant is the fact that a
compound, apotheosis, (theosis with the prefix apo) was commonplace in classical and
late antique authors. Perhaps, it would be more accurate to speak of a major shift in meaning
of the term (apo)theosis, rather than of a neologism tout court.
Beeley subsequently claims that Gregorys notion of divinization became the main
foundation for the later Byzantine understanding of salvation through Pseudo-Dionysius and
Maximus the Confessor (p. 185). Beeleys valorization of his main intellectual hero
Nazianzen comes at a very high price for the Church Father whom our author scorns,
namely, Athanasius. Regarding the Alexandrian Father, Beeley states: Athanasius thus
presents us with a fairly unique example of what many modern readers have assumed most
of the Greek fathers held, namely, divinization and salvation (of a sort) at the point of
incarnation rather than in the passion and resurrection. (p. 137). Beeley goes so far as to
claim that in Athanasius divinization amounted to de-humanization, inasmuch as it meant
the freeing of humanity from the limitations of suffering and death. A quick look at Norman
Russells magisterial study would establish that Gregory is not the main foundation of the
doctrine of deification, but only one important patristic authority on the subject; that the
Athanasian contention that the union of divine and human natures in the incarnation is the
foundation of deification is shared both by earlier authors, such as Irenaeus, as well as by
14

According to TLG, the term theosis is attested twice in Ephraem the Syrians (?)
Precationes ad dei matrem 2 and 4. The text is most likely spurious. The work makes for
an interesting comparison with Gregory Nazianzens Sermo in sanctum baptisma (PG 36:
381).

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most later Byzantine authors, including Maximus the Confessor. With Russell, I am not
prepared to make a distinction between Athanasius and Gregorys treatment of deification
as sharply as Beeley does. Surely, for both theologians, deification meant immortality, which
is not an overcoming of humanity, but rather a restoration of true humanity, which is
precisely the central point of Athanasius On the Incarnation.
This naturally leads me to the second problem, namely, Beeleys treatment of the
idea of divine impassibility and the issue of divine involvement in suffering. Beeley ascribes
to Gregory Nazianzen a conceptual breakthrough in this arena. In fact, Beeley sees Gregory
as a strong champion of divine suffering (p. 296: exact quote: Maximus is explicitly
denying the divine suffering that Gregory had so strongly championed). In support, Beeley
quotes an important statement from Gregorys 45th Oration: We needed an incarnate God,
a God put to death, so that we might live, and we were put to death with him. (p. 193).
Gregory also speaks of Christians being saved by the sufferings of the impassible one (Or.
30.1). I agree that these are profound statements, but these statements are neither selfexplanatory, nor in any way unique to Gregory Nazianzen. Two centuries before him, Melito of
Sardis proclaimed: (It was for mans sake that): the judge was judged and the invisible was
seeni and the impassible suffered, and the immortal died, and the heavenly one was buriedii.
Since Melitos time such statements became a common stock of paschal sermons and even
made it into the liturgical tradition. So, for example, in the anaphora of The Apostolic
Constitutions VIII we read: He was delivered to Pilate the governor and) the judge was
judged and the Savior was condemned; the impassible was nailed to the cross; the immortal
by nature died; the life-giver was buried in order to free from passions and release from
death those for whose sake he came; in order to break the bonds of the devil and deliver
humankind from his deceit. The echo of Melito (or a later theologian writing in the same
mode) is clear in this fourth-century anaphora. Michael Slussers Oxford dissertation entitled
Theopaschite Expressions in Second-Century Christianity as Reflected in the Writings of
Justin, Melito, Celsus and Irenaeus, another conspicuous omission from Beeleys
bibliography, treats the matter comprehensively. More generally, Beeleys work shows only
partial engagement with the relevant scholarly literature addressing patristic accounts of
divine impassibility and participation in human suffering.
Although Beeley is not very explicit about this, it seems that for him a realist
rendering of communicatio idiomatum implies the abandonment of divine impassibility in favor
of theopaschitism. But if suffering can be predicated directly to the divine nature, or directly
to the pre-incarnate Logos (outside of the framework of the incarnation) then the paradox of
the impassible God suffering, the paradox that Beeley values in Nazianzens theology, would
be dissolved. If the divine nature is passible than it cannot communicate the property of
being impassible, threatening the very idea of communicatio idiomatum that Beeley wishes to
uphold throughout the book.
Perhaps it is a theological achievement of some of the later patristic authors, such as
Leontius of Byzantium and Maximus the Confessor, that their Christologies cannot be
straitjacketed into the scheme of unitive or dualist Christology, the framework in which
Beeley seeks to understand them. In fact, after the council of Ephesus, any self-reflective
theologian had to struggle both with the question of how Christ could be thought to be one
and how he could be thought to be two. While it is thought provoking and original, this
study raises more questions than it solves. But this is to be expected from any perpetually
contested issue, including most especially the doctrine of communicatio idiomatum.

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i
ii

Fr. 13 adds and the immeasurable was measured.

New fr. ii. 13. 135 adds in the earth.

17