The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

INTRODUCTION xxxv
life; and the providential history of the Christian empire (see below,
‘Evagrius as historian’). Ecclesiastical matters take precedence. The ¢rst
chapter of the whole work sets the scene, with the Church delivered
from the pagan challenge of Julian and the heretical disruption of Arius
but then ambushed by the Devil, who devised the variation of a single
letter in order to prevent Christian unanimity. 56 Nestorius wished to
exclude the notion that the divinity had su¡ered in the person of Christ,
but chose to present his argument through the formula that the God in
Christ did not su¡er; he also objected to the increasingly popular title
for the Virgin Mary of Theotokos, Mother of God. His arguments,
which were interpreted by opponents as denying the unity of Christ, led
to contentious and often violent discussions at First and Second
Ephesus (the Councils of 431 and 449) and then Chalcedon (451). These
Councils resulted in doctrinal de¢nitions that sought to include as
much of the Eastern Church as possible, by incorporating the attention
to the full humanity of Christ (the hallmark of Antiochene theologians),
while giving equal emphasis to the unity of divinity and humanity
in Christ (the position characteristic of theologians associated with
Alexandria).
At the root of the dispute lay complex problems of language and
meaning, as theologians attempted to comprehend the divine mystery of
the Trinity. The resolution of the Arian controversy in the fourth
century had enshrined the unity of Christ as God-man through acceptance
of the Nicene Creed; this had asserted the consubstantiality of the
Son with the Father (and, ultimately, the consubstantiality of the three
persons of the Trinity), thus making it clear that the Son, incarnate in
the God-man, is as fully God as the Father. One formula for resolving
the issue of Trinitarian unity was three hypostases in one ousia, with
hypostasis being used to express the distinct reality of the persons of the
Trinity in the one God; however, in discussion of the incarnation, hypostasis
could be applied more loosely to the God-man produced by the
union of human and divine in Christ, which complicated this solution. 57
In the ¢fth century, Christological discussion focused on the manner of
56 This refers to the di¡erence between the Chalcedonian ‘in two natures’ (e ’n) and the
Monophysite ‘from two natures’ (e ’k) formulae: cf. i.1, with nn. 12^13, and ii.5, with n. 84
below.
57 Grillmeier, Christ II.2. 505^6; J. T. Leinhard, ‘Ousia and Hypostasis: The Cappadocian
Settlement and the Theology of ‘‘One Hypostasis’’’, in Davis, Trinity 99^121.