The Teaching of the Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Council
The heretic Eutyches and his followers wrongly taught that the Divine Nature of Jesus Christ absorbed His human nature.
To counteract this heresy, the 650 Holy Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Council were convened in Chalcedon in 451 A.D. They emphasized the true incarnation of the Logos, God the Father’s Pre-existent Divine Son. He was born in time of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary as God-Man,Theanthropos. Jesus is fully Divine and fully human. He is one Person, one Hypostasis, but He has two natures, the Divine and the human. The two natures are united in Him without confusion, change, division, or separation.
Jesus Christ is the same with us according to His human nature and same with God, His Father, according to His Divine nature. He is both God and man, Theanthropos; He is of one essence, homoousios, with God, His Father, and homoousios with us, but without sin.
Below is a translation of the precise words of the Holy Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Council:
“Following the Holy Fathers, we all by agreement teach that the one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is to be confessed as perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, truly God and truly man, possessing a body and a rational soul, consubstantial with the Father according to divinity and consubstantial to us according to His humanity, being like us in all things except sin, begotten of the Father according to divinity before all ages, born of the Virgin Mary and Theotokos according to humanity for our salvation in the last days, the one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only Begotten, known in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation.”
God became man in order for man to become Godlike in Grace.
In the Gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus uses the similies, the symbols, of light, city on a hilltop, lamp on the lamp stand, to remind us that we need to shine with our good example to the people around us.
The Holy Fathers did not only teach the true Faith, but they also lived it. As Christians we need to live our Faith and become the light of Christ with our Christian example so that others may see our good works and glorify our Heavenly Father. A Saint said, “Become an active Christian yourself and a 1000 other people will be converted around you.”
With love, Fr. John P. Angelis