Chalcedonian Definition
Conciliar · Definition · 451 · Greek
The formula that made and broke the eastern churches: one and the same Christ, acknowledged in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation. Four adverbs that refuse both Nestorius and Eutyches without ever explaining how. It was drafted under imperial pressure against a majority that wanted to say nothing beyond Nicaea, and it is the reason the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and Ethiopian churches stand outside communion with Rome and Constantinople to this day.
To: the whole church
The text
The definition
Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before the worlds according to his Godhead; but in these last days for us men and for our salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to his manhood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and being united in one Person and subsistence, not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old time have spoken concerning him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath delivered to us.
The four adverbs — unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably — are the whole of the settlement.
That no one bring forward another faith
These things, therefore, having been expressed by us with the greatest accuracy and attention, the holy Ecumenical Synod defines that no one shall be suffered to bring forward a different faith (heteran pistin), nor to write, nor to put together, nor to excogitate, nor to teach it to others. But such as dare either to put together another faith, or to bring forward or to teach or to deliver a different Creed (heteron sumbolon) to as wish to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles, or Jews or any heresy whatever, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, and the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laics: let them be anathematized.
The prohibition the East would later cite against the filioque.
Percival, NPNF series 2 vol. 14 (1900) · Henry R. Percival · NPNF2 XIV, The Definition of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon
Received it
- 451–453 — Pope Leo I (Affirms). Leo's Tome supplied the two-natures language the commissioners ordered inserted — asked to choose between Leo and Dioscorus the bishops cried out 'We believe as Leo' — and he afterwards held the council's faith while refusing its twenty-eighth canon. Henry R. Percival (ed.), The Seven Ecumenical Councils (NPNF series 2 vol. 14) · Acts of Chalcedon, in Percival, NPNF2 XIV (the acclamation, and the commissioners' instruction to add Leo's formula to the definition)
- c. 452 — Euthymius the Great (Affirms). A Palestinian abbot contemporary with the council, whose judgment on its decree survives and repeats the disputed clause in the synod's own words — that in two natures the one Christ is acknowledged. Henry R. Percival (ed.), The Seven Ecumenical Councils (NPNF series 2 vol. 14) · Hefele, quoted in Percival, NPNF2 XIV, note on the Definition's 'in two natures'; the fragment is in the Vita S. Euthymii Abbatis by his pupil Cyril, printed in Mansi VII.774
Refused it
- 451 — The bishops assembled at Chalcedon (Doubts). The majority tried to refuse a new statement altogether — 'we make no new exposition in writing … the law wills that no other exposition should be made' — and only drafted the Definition after the imperial commissioners overrode them. Henry R. Percival (ed.), The Seven Ecumenical Councils (NPNF series 2 vol. 14) · Acts of Chalcedon, extracts from the acts, session II, in Percival, NPNF2 XIV
- after 512 — Severus of Antioch (Rejects). Severus held it a great reproach and an unpardonable offence in the fathers of Chalcedon that they had declared Christ acknowledged in two natures, indivisibly. Henry R. Percival (ed.), The Seven Ecumenical Councils (NPNF series 2 vol. 14) · Hefele, quoted in Percival, NPNF2 XIV, note on the Definition's 'in two natures', citing the Sententiae Severi in Mansi VII.839
What it formulates
- Two natures in one person One and the same Christ is made known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, the difference of the natures being in no way taken away by the union.
In the disputes
- The division over Chalcedon The council that settled one question opened another that has not closed.