Sunday, October 2, 2022

John Behr on on Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians 7:2

  


 

There is one Physician,
both fleshly     and spiritual
born (
γεννητος)          and yet eternal
in flesh,           God
in death,         true life,
both from Mary          and from God,
first passible   and then impassible

Jesus Christ our Lord

 

The first contrast probably comes from Romans 1:3-4, as does the fifth, from Mary )i.e. descended from David), yet from God (cf. Smyrn. 1). The second contrast would be the cause of much confusion several centuries later. In the way in which the terms were later employed, “begotten” (γεννητος) was used as the particular characteristic of the Son distinguishing him from the Father, who alone is “unbegotten” (αγεννητος), and so one could no longer use this latter term to refer to the eternity of Christ. Accordingly Theodoret changed the text to “and from the unbegotten” (και εξ αγεννητου), so destroying the balance of Ignatius’ words. Ignatius is not, however, using these terms in their later technical trinitarian sense, but to specify that Christ belongs both to the temporal world, as having been born, and to the divine, eternal realm. Likewise, the third contrast, “in the flesh, God” (εν σαρκι γενομενος θεος), should not be taken in a fourth-century, Apollinarian, perspective, where the divine Word inhabits flesh, taking the place of the soul. Rather, Ignatius is simply reaffirming the point that in the one physician, Jesus Christ, God has indeed become flesh. Finally, although Jesus Christ was passible (παθητος), subject to all the things which belong to created being, such a change and death, nevertheless through his death he has manifested true life and impassibility. This passage is as close as Ignatius gets to a “two-nature” Christology. It is clear that Ignatius affirms all the key points which will later be made: one Lord Jesus Christ, who is both divine and human, with all the properties pertaining to both, and does so in a manner which remains true to the Gospel itself. Ignatius does not mitigate either the divine or the human, by separating different elements in the composition of Jesus Christ: for Ignatius, the one who suffered is impassible, demonstrating life in death. (John Behr, Formation of Christian Theology, 2 vols. [Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001], 1:90-91)