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1 - Chalcedon and Its Legacy

from Part I - A Critical History of Kenotic Christologies and Their Antecedents:

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2021

Bruce Lindley McCormack
Affiliation:
Princeton Theological Seminary, New Jersey
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Summary

This chapter argues that there is a logical aporia at the very heart of the Chalcedonian Definition: namely, that Jesus of Nazareth contributes nothing to the constitution of the “person,” or, said differently, that he stands in no real relation to the Logos. This aporia has its origins in a twofold historical pressure: the desire to affirm a unified subject and in Gregory of Nazianzus’ declaration that “the unassumed is the unhealed.” Throughout this chapter the historical conditions for this aporia are explored in the theologies of Origen, Apollinaris, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Cyril of Alexandria. The chapter argues that the majority of the bishops at Chalcedon followed Cyril in making the preexistent Logos as such to be the “person of the union,” leading to this aporia in the Chalcedonian Definition. The chapter ends with John of Damascus’ Christology and his solution to working with the given Chalcedonian definition.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Humility of the Eternal Son
Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon
, pp. 27 - 65
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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