The Christological Controversy

The Trinitarian debate achieved importance in part because of disagreement over the issue of Christ's existence as divine or human. Even when, in 381, the Council of Constantinople declared Christ to be divine, there was still the lingering problem of history, notably, the fact that the first-century Jew who was crucified was known to have been a human being. Because it was this person who was identified with the Christ/Godhead figure, there emerged the problem of how to conceptualize him: God, man, both, etc. Humanity of the historical Jesus faced the Christ who was of one substance with Father and Spirit. How could this religion make sense unless there was a coherent explanation for the existential status of its founder?

The big picture of the Christological debate is that it surfaced around Pelagianism, Nestorianism, and Monophysitism. Contained in each designated area is a piece of the doctrine that, ultimately, concluded that Jesus had two natures, divine

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, 1954, p. 346). Nestorius's ideas, not hostile to the historical Jesus or the spiritual Godhead, were still not ecclesiastically acceptable. What was at stake was what professed Christians would indeed profess about their understanding of Jesus. If Christians could not agree on that, the survival of the cult was in doubt. So was survival of the emergent ecclesial structure. Orthodox belief was essential to that structure. Nestorianism is associated with the idea that Christ, consubstantial with God the Father and Spirit, was completely human and, more, consubstantial with his human parents: "properly consubstantial with the parent, and [] it was to the creature of the Lord's humanity, joined with God, [being] of the Virgin by the Spirit, that what was seen among men was committed" (Nestorius, 1954, p. 348). It may seem precious to assert both divine and human natures for Christ on one hand, and to say that Christ is consubstantial with God, but to assert (as the orthodox fathers did) that Christ must not, as Nestorius declares, be solely consubstantial with human parents. If Christ were consubstantial with both God and the Virgin, he would be two persons. Meanwhile, the Virgin would be the mother of the human baby Jesus but not
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