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To contribute entries to the glossary, please send your submissions to the editors at theandros@gmail.com.
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Adoptionism
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| The doctrine that Jesus was a mortal man who was possessed by the Holy Spirit. This possession (or "indwelling") was usually held to have occurred at Christ’s baptism by St. John the Forerunner, though certain strains of Adoptionism stated that Jesus' possession by the Spirit was occasional, coinciding with His prophecies and miracles, making them possible. Paul of Samosata (fl. early third century) is the most famous prononent of adoptionist theology, teaching that "the Logos is from above, Jesus Christ is man from hence ... Mary is not older than the Logos, but she gave birth to a man like us, though better in every way, since he was of the Holy Spirit." The main problem with Adoptionism is that it downplayed the soteriological significance of Christ's Resurrection, by describing that event as simply a reward for Christ's obedience to God. |
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Anakephalaiôsis ("Recapitulation")
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| Literally, a "bringing to a head," a return to a starting-point (Latin, recapitulatio). This term occurs in the New Testament to refer to the fulfillment of God's plan for His creation through the Incarnation of Christ, in whom all things are "brought together" (Eph 1:10). In the patristic era, this term was generally used to indicate the return of creation to its original state, as intended by God, i.e., before humanity's fall into sin. St. Maximus the Confessor, for example, taught that God's original intention was to actualize His will in the act of creation. Since the crowning event of this actualization is the Incarnation of God's Logos in the created realm, then, Maximus argues, the Incarnation would have occurred whether or not humanity lapsed into sin. Anakephalaiôsis, as a technical theological term, denotes the renewal of God's plan for His creation through the establishment of Christ as the Lord of All (Pantokrator). |
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Apokatastasis, Apocatastasis
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| In pre-Christian Stoic and Middle Platonic philosophy, this term referred to the universal restoration of the cosmos to the state in which it was first constituted by the divine mind or first principle. The great Christian theologian Origen of Alexandria used this term to denote the final restoration of all souls to God. According to Origen, all souls pre-existed with their Creator in a perfect, spiritual (non-material) state as "minds," but later fell away in order to pursue an existence independent of God. Since all souls were created absolutely free, God could not simply force them to return to Him (this was, according to Origen, due to God's boundless love and respect for His creatures). Instead, God created the material cosmos, and initiated history, for the purpose of guiding the wayward souls back to contemplation of His infinite mind, which is, according to Origen, the perfect state. This obviously excludes any concept of eternal damnation or hell. Apokatastasis doctrine was officially declared a heresy at the Council of Constantinople II. However, St. Gregory of Nyssa taught the doctrine without repercussions, and St. Maximus the Confessor seems to have subscribed to a mild form of the teaching during his early years, though he later significantly revised Origenist ideas as he elaborated his own highly influential theology. The idea that salvation will be universal is to be found as well in the work of modern theologians, notably the Orthodox-inspired Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev. |
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Arianism
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| A Christological doctrine, first put forth by Arius of Alexandria, and condemned as a heresy by the first Council of Constantinople (381 A.D.), stating that Christ is a creation of the Father, and therefore of an entirely different nature. While admitting Christ the Logos' special status as the first and most perfect creation of God (drawing upon Proverbs 8:22 for scriptural support), Arius still considered Christ a lesser being than the Father. Arius' pupils Aetius, and the brilliant rhetorician and philosopher Eunomius took this basic doctrine further, declaring Christ to be of an entirely different substance (ousia) than the Father. Drawing upon the Neoplatonic concept of a primordial and unchangeable One whence all things emanate or are generated, Eunomius denied any true divinity to Christ or the Holy Spirit, declaring that only the Father is properly called God -- for only He is eternal and unchangeable, the source of all existence. Arianism was fiercely opposed by the Cappadocian Fathers. St. Gregory of Nyssa, especially, was instrumental in refuting Arian theology. |
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Communicatio Idiomatum (Greek, antidosis idiômatôn)
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| Related term: Enhypostasia
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| Translated variously as “communion (exchange) of properties,” “communion of idioms,” this technical theological term refers to the incarnate Christ as a “single divine person in two complete natures.” According to the Tome of Leo, whence the Latin phrase is derived, Christ’s person is the Logos, in which the idiomata (“things peculiar to a nature”) of both humanity and divinity are united. For example, when Christ performed miracles, He did so through His divine nature; when He wept in the Garden of Gethsemane and asked His Father to spare Him suffering, it was Christ’s assumed human nature that was operative. Yet in both cases He did not cease to be both fully human and fully divine, for His actions were always those of His person, the Logos, in which the divine and human natures inhere. (see Enhypostasia) |
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Docetism
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| From the Greek dokêsis, “to seem or appear,” docetism (coined by Serapion of Antioch in the late second century) is the doctrine that Christ did not appear on earth in the flesh, but only seemed to have a body. According to the docetists, His form was purely spiritual. Philippians 2:6-8, likely a fragment of an early Christian hymn, is perhaps evidence of docetic tendencies among early believers. The New Testament (1 Jn 4:3, 2 Jn 1:7) and the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (To the Smyrnaeans 2.1-8.2, To the Trallians 10) contain statements against those holding docetic views. However, it is with the early Gnostic theologians that we find docetism as an elaborated Christological doctrine in which Christ, only appearing as a real human being, fooled the malignant cosmic powers into thinking He died on the Cross (see, for example, the account of Basilides’ teaching in Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.24.3-1.24.4). This teaching was an attempt to preserve the concept, common to Hellenistic philosophy, of the divinity as impassible, incapable of suffering. Irenaeus and Tertullian both dismissed docetism as an untenable position, for they saw it as denying the efficacy of Christ’s salvific act. If He only appeared to be human, they argued, then our salvation, too, is merely apparent, not real. |
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Dunamis, Dynamis
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| Related term: energeia
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| A general term meaning "power" or "might." In the New Testament dunamis refers to the "power of God" (dunamis theou) which effects salvation through His historical intervention in the Incarnation, as well as through the miracles performed by Christ, and the preaching of the Gospel carried out by His Apostles. The New Testament also speaks of the dunamis bestowed upon the Apostles by the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:31-33). A related term, energeia or "energy" (see below), is used by the Church Fathers in a more technical sense to refer to God's ongoing revelation and creative presence in the world. |
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Economy (Greek, oikonomia; Latin, dispensatio)
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| In Greek, this term meant literally “laws of the home,” the management of a household. In the New Testament, St. Paul uses it to refer to God’s plan for the salvation of the universe (Eph 1:10). In later Christological developments, especially in the theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria, the prinicple of economy referred to the specific historical actions of God in the world, notably the Incarnation of the Logos. This allowed for distinctions to be made between statements about the actual nature (ousia) of God, and His actions in history carried out according to His plan for the world (kat’ oikonomian). For example, economically speaking, it would be proper to say that the divine Logos suffered; but speaking “according to the divine nature” or “theologically” (kata theotêta) such a statement would be inappropriate, indeed blasphemous, for it confuses the transcendent and unknowable nature of God with His circumscribed activity in history. The caveat “according to economy,” then, allowed for concrete statements about God’s actions in the created order, without the risk of identifying these actions with His eternal essence. Economy was also invoked in ecclesiastical situations to allow for the relaxation of particular church laws for the purpose of maintaining harmony – both spiritual and political – within the community. |
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Energeia
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| Related term: dunamis
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| Literally "energy" or "operation," this term was used by several Church Fathers to denote the active presence of God in the world; it was also employed in the service of orthodox Trinitarian doctrine, which states that God is one essence in three persons, each distinct yet united by their shared energeia. St. Gregory of Nyssa used this term in the plural (energeiai, "energies") in order to explain his doctrine that while the essence of God is beyond human comprehension, He can nevertheless be 'known' through contemplation of his operations (energeiai) as manifested in the world both through natural phenomena and divine grace. Gregory was here revising the Hellenic philosophical concept of divine logoi, or thoughts in the mind of the highest principle, replacing the static conception of the universe (as expressed in pagan Stoic and Platonic philosophy) with a dynamic conception of God's constant transformative presence in and amongst His creation. Our knowledge of God, therefore, confined as it is to His operations in the created order, leads to a concept of salvation involving eternal yearning (epektasis) for an ever-more intimate knowledge of God's powers. This is how St. Peter's famous reference to our becoming "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4) came to be interpreted by the later Fathers. |
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Enhupostasia, Enhypostasia
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| Literally, "being hypostasized," i.e., having substantial existence, this term took on a technical Christological significance in the post-Chalcedonian period (late fifth and sixth centuries), when difficulties arose over the definition of Christ as "two natures (ousiai) in one person (hupostasis)." These difficulties centered around the term ousia (nature or substance) and its philosophical import. Aristotle had taught that every substance (ousia) is composed of both matter and form. In order for matter (hulê) to exist, according to Aristotle, it must be actualized in a form (eidos). Christologically speaking, then, in order for Christ's divine nature to exist, it must be contained in/as a person (hupostasis). The person of Christ, however, is identical with the divine Logos; therefore, it logically follows, the substance or nature of Christ is purely divine. Putting this in Aristotelian terms, Christ's form is the Logos, and His matter is the divine nature - united together a single, divine, person. What place, then, is left (if we follow this reasoning) for the presence of a distinct human nature in the person of Christ? The concept of enhupostasia was developed to answer this question, and to counteract the tendency to downplay the full humanity of Christ. Since Christ, as divine Logos, is identical with the creative power of God, He is not limited to a single nature. In His capacity as Logos, Christ hypostasized both natures, the human and divine, in a single person. |
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Eschatology
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| Related term: eschaton, eskhaton
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| The teaching about the "last things" (ta eskhata). In the Apostolic and early patristic eras, eschatological thought centered largely around doctrines of the return of Christ (the Parousia), the final judgment of humanity, and our salvific state. Later Fathers, however, began to focus on the historical development of humanity, and the fulfillment of our existence as "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4). Unlike Hellenic conceptions of history and the end times as involving cosmic cycles and eternal recurrence, the Christian view of the eskhaton emphasized the co-operative relationship between God and His creatures - a relationship in which history is shaped equally and respectively by the will of God and that of His free creation. In the words of St. Macarius of Egypt: "The will of man is an essential condition, for without it God does nothing." |
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Eutycheanism
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| The Christological teaching of Eutyches of Constantinople (ca. 378-454) in which Christ was said to have had two natures before the Incarnation and one nature afterwards, comprising both His divine nature and the human nature He assumed from the Virgin Mary. Eutcyhes seems to have held the position that the humanity assumed by Christ through Mary is not the same as ours. Since Eutyches was by most accounts a confused and confusing thinker, his contemporaries had a difficult time comprehending his theology. His opponents charged him with holding a view of Christ’s humanity that made it either deficient, or some muddled mixture of divinity and humanity. In any event, Eutyches did not accept the two-nature (dyophysite) Christology championed by Pope Leo I. Eutycheanism, after several interesting synodical trials, was finally condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. |
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Filioque
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| A Latin term meaning "and from the Son," from a phrase added by the Western Church to the Creed of the Second Oecumenical Council (Constantinople 381) some time in the early Middle Ages, in reference to the procession of the Holy Spirit. The original, Greek creed stated that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone; the Latin version states that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father and from the Son," giving us the problematical doctrine of "double procession." The Eastern Church argued against the filioque clause on two grounds. First, it is not supported by scripture; John 15:26 clearly refers to “the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father.” Secondly, it contradicted or undermined the Triunity of the Godhead, i.e., the doctrine that God is one divine nature expressed in three hypostases: the Father hypostatized as Uncaused Cause; the Son as only-begotten; and the Spirit as processional. To say that the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son is to diminish the uniqueness of the Spirit’s hypostatic function within the Trinity as an expression of the divine nature of the Father. In other words, if the Son mediates the procession of the Spirit – as the filioque clause implies – then a hierarchy is introduced into the Trinity, an unacceptable doctrinal lapse into subordinationism. It must be noted that certain Eastern Fathers, notably Athanasius and John of Damascus, spoke of the Spirit in a manner suggesting procession from the Son. However, this was always in the context of the salvific economy, i.e., when speaking of Christ’s sending of the Spirit into the world for the inspiration of humanity. |
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