The terms οὐσία and φύσις and the teaching on the “double consubstantiality” of Christ in the theology of John of Caesarea and Severus of Antioch

Abstract

The publication explores on of the problem aspects of the polemic between the followers of the Council of Chalcedon and its opponents concerning the understanding of the term “nature” and “essence”. In the IV century, thanks to the efforts of the first two Ecumenical councils and especially the Cappadocian Fathers the categories of the “common” and “particular” received their precise definitions. Closer to the end of the IV century these categories were uniquely used for expressing the category of “common” existence as opposed to “hypostasis” and “person”. After the Council of Chalcedon (451), during the polemic about the teaching of the “two natures” of Christ, the opponents of Chalcedon, to explain their monophysite teaching on the incarnation, invented a new interpretation of the category of “common” and “particular”. IT was Severus of Antioch who was it inventor, however is founded his ideas in an older tradition, which was based on the authority of Sts. Gregory the Theologian and Cyril of Alexandria. According to Severus the term “nature” must change its meaning of “common” and be used as a category of the “particular”, if one was to talk about the incarnation of the Son of God, while the term “essence” must express the abstract essence of the divine and humanity, having lost its connection with “nature”. Such a stance was necessitated by a resistance to accept two natures in Christ after the incarnation. This lead to controversies in the Trinitarian doctrine, which was always regarded be the Church Fathers as inseparable from the teaching of the incarnation. Severus’ adversary, the Chalcedonite John of Caesarea the Grammarian, juxtaposed Severus and the traditional understanding of Cappadocian terminology, together with the teachings of St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Council of Chalcedon.