The Nature of the Early Debate about Christ's Human Soul

Maurice F. Wiles

doi:10.1017/S0022046900053975

The Nature of the Early Debate about Christ's Human Soul

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

Maurice F. Wiles

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Maurice F. Wiles: Affiliation:
Dean of Clare College and University Lecturer in Divinity, University of Cambridge

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The New Testament writers, we are constantly being reminded, were not in the stricter sense of the word theologians. We all know what that reminder means and it is one of no small value. It would be disastrous, however, were we to allow it to suggest to us that the Christian writers of the ensuing centuries were men of an entirely different species, whose natural habitat was the study and whose primary characteristic was disinterested reflexion on theological topics. Their teaching, too, can only be rightly understood in the light of the particular concerns and pressures of the moment, which impinged upon them. The importance of this approach to the study of the Fathers is particularly well exemplified by the early history of the question whether or not Christ possessed a human soul.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , October 1965 , pp. 139 - 151

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900053975 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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^{page 140 note 1} Apol., ii. 10.

^{page 140 note 2} Raven, C. E., Apollinarianism, Cambridge 1923, 12Google Scholar.

^{page 140 note 3} Theology of Justin Martyr, Jean 1923, 240.

^{page 140 note 4} Adversus Haereses, v. i, 1.

^{page 141 note 1} De Carne Christi, xvi.

^{page 141 note 2} De Res. Carn., ii.

^{page 141 note 3} De Carne Christi, x.

^{page 141 note 4} De Res. Carn., xxxiv.

^{page 141 note 5} De Carne Christi, xiii.

^{page 141 note 6} Contra Noetum, xvii.

^{page 141 note 7} Victorinus, Adv. Ar., iii. 3; iv. 7 (P.L., viii. 1100D–1101A; 1118A); Hilary, De Trinitate, x. 19; 50–60 (P.L., x. 357; 383–90).

^{page 142 note 1} De Trinitate, xxv.

^{page 142 note 2} Kelly, J. N. D., Early Christian Doctrines, London 1958, 153Google Scholar.

^{page 142 note 3} D'Alès, A., Novation, Paris 1924, 108Google Scholar.

^{page 142 note 4} But see 152 n.4 below.

^{page 142 note 5} Dialogue with Herakleides, ed. Scherer, J., Cairo 1949, 136Google Scholar. A more detailed study of this subject would have to distinguish carefully between writers who think in dichotomist and those who think in trichotomist terms and, indeed, between differing usages within the writings of a single author. But the distinction is not of vital importance in a general treatment of the kind being undertaken here. The issue at stake does not really concern the animal soul at all; it is whether there was in Jesus a human element fulfilling a reasoning, guiding and determining function, by whatever name it may be described.

^{page 142 note 6} De Princ., ii. viii. 4: iv. iv. 4: ii. viii. 1.

^{page 142 note 7} Com. Jn., ii. 26.

^{page 142 note 8} De Princ., ii. vi. 5.

^{page 143 note 1} Ibid., iv. 4. 5: Con. Cel., iv. 18. (see also Con. Cel., iv. 15, where the application is to the divine Word and clearly no conflict is felt with the other application in Con. Cel., iv. 18.)

^{page 143 note 2} See Butterworth, G. W., Origen on First Principles, London 1936, 320 n.1Google Scholar.

^{page 143 note 3} De Princ., ii. vi. 3.

^{page 143 note 4} de Riedmatten, H., Les Actes du Procès de Paul de Samosate, Fribourg 1952, 145Google Scholar, 147, 155 (Frags. No. 19, 24, 33).

^{page 144 note 1} H. de Riedmatten, op. cit., 156–7 (Frag. No. 36).

^{page 144 note 2} Ibid., 154 (Frag. No. 30).

^{page 144 note 3} Apologia pro Origene, v: P.G., xvii. 590 AB.

^{page 144 note 4} Grillmeier, A., Das Konzil von Chalkedon, i., Würzburg 1951, 80–1Google Scholar; H. de Riedmatten, op. cit., 62–7. The most interesting single example is the passage where Methodius takes over the interpretation which Origen had given to Psalm xlv in terms of the soul of Christ and reapplies it to the flesh of Christ: Symposium, vii. 8. It can, however, be legitimately argued that this may have been determined by the concern of the context with the question of virginity and is not decisive as evidence concerning Methodius's belief about Christ's human soul. De Riedmatten includes Novatian amongst those who are illustrative of this late third century way of thought. I have earlier argued that he is, perhaps, more easily understood in the light of the otherwise unanimous tradition of Western thought. His own writings do not seem to me conclusive in either direction. If he was influenced by the Greek-speaking writers of his own day, then de Riedmatten's interpretation (with which Kelly so strongly agrees) may be correct.

^{page 145 note 1} H. de Riedmatten, op. cit., 68–81.

^{page 145 note 2} Ibid., 78 n.75, where detailed references are given.

^{page 145 note 3} De Princ., ii. viii. 5.

^{page 145 note 4} Ancoratus, xxxv.

^{page 145 note 5} H. de Riedmatten. op. cit., 113.

^{page 145 note 6} Athanasius, Or. Con. Ar., iii. 26.

^{page 145 note 7} A. Grillmeier, op. cit., 77–102; Richard, M., S. Athanase et la psychologie du Christ selon les Ariens (Mélanges de Science Religieuse 1947), iv, 5–54Google Scholar. The various attempts to refute Richard's contentions do not seem to me to have shaken his position. For a discussion of the recent controversy on this topic, see Gesché, A., ‘L'âme humaine de Jesus dans la Christologie du IVe siècle’, Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, liv (1959), 385–90, 403–9Google Scholar.

^{page 146 note 1} Spanneut, M., Recherches sur les Écrits d'Eustathe d'Antioche, Lille 1948, 108 (Frag. No. 41)Google Scholar.

^{page 146 note 2} Adv. Prax., xxvii.

^{page 146 note 3} Com. Jn., i. 28.

^{page 147 note 1} Cf. Athanasius, Or. Con. Ar., iii. 30: ‘The Word became man, and did not come into man’.

^{page 147 note 2} It should be made quite clear that I use the term ‘soteriological’ here to refer to the argument that Christ must have had a human soul for our human souls to be saved by him. It should not be understood to deny the very important truth that Athanasius's misgivings about the measure of unity implicit in a Word-man Christology were also motivated by soteriological concerns.

^{page 147 note 3} E.g. Eustathius, Frag. No. 17 (M. Spanneut, op. cit. 100).

^{page 148 note 1} Ad Epictetum, vii.

^{page 148 note 2} Ep. ad Dion., i. (Lietzmann, H., Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule, Tübingen 1904, 256–7Google Scholar).

^{page 148 note 3} Lietzmann, op. cit., 204 (Frag. No. 2).

^{page 148 note 4} Ibid., 222 (Frag. No. 76); 276 (Ep. ad Diocaes., ii). The difficulty here raised by Apollinarius had been felt long before by Origen. Origen not only noted that the term ‘soul’ is far more often the object of censure than of praise in Scripture, but even tentatively derived the word ψυχ from ψχεσθα (to grow cold) on the ground that it is something which has fallen away from its original and intended warmth of love towards that which is divine (De Princ., ii. viii. 3). With such an approach to the idea of the soul, it is hardly surprising that Origen should have recognised that the ascription of a human soul to Christ might seem strange to some. He himself dealt with the difficulty in terms of his own peculiar doctrine of the pre-existence of souls by claiming that Christ's soul was unique in having clung to the Logos without the slightest deviation of love or purpose (ibid., ii. vi. 5). A. Gesché has pointed out that when the author of the Commentary on the Psalms discovered at Tura (probably Didymus) deals with this objection of Apollinarius, he does so in a way which probably derives from his close acquaintance with the thought of Origen: art. cit., 421–3; La Christologie du ‘Commentaire sur les Psaumes’ découvert à Toura, Gembloux 1962, 140–8Google Scholar.

^{page 149 note 1} Gregory Nazianzen, Ep., ci. 7.

^{page 149 note 2} Ps-Athanasius, Con. Apoll., i. 17.

^{page 149 note 3} A. Gesché, op. cit., 123.

^{page 149 note 4} Ibid., 304, 321, 405–6.

^{page 149 note 5} Ibid., 147, 211, 358.

^{page 150 note 1} Dr. Kelly has argued that Christ's human soul plays a more active role in the thought of Cyril after the Nestorian controversy. Nevertheless, the modification in Cyril's later thought to which he points does not seem sufficient to undermine the general contrast with the Antiochene approach described here (op. cit., 323).

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