Introduction
Alexandria and Antioch were the second and third most important cities in the Roman empire after Rome. Not surprisingly they also became centers of Biblical exegesis and theology in the early centuries of the Church. Throughout the Christological controversies of the first five centuries, the two cities were like poles representing two different approaches to the questions at hand. At the heart of the matter was the place that Greek philosophy could play in theology. On the one hand the Church leaders in the West and Asia Minor (including Antioch) distrusted Greek philosophy because of their battle with Gnosticism; on the other hand Church leaders in Alexandria followed in the footsteps of the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo, who combined Plato and Judaism, by combining Plato and Christianity. This difference of approach combined with the simultaneous political rivalry for importance in the empire set the stage for a competition between the Alexandrian and Antiochian schools of theology. This post compares and contrasts the two schools in two different stages: 1) the period preceding and including the First Ecumenical Council and 2) the period preceding and including the Third and Fourth Ecumenical Councils.Preceding and Including the First Ecumenical Council
Alexandria
Alexandria had a catechetical school at least as early as 185 AD, the first recorded leader of which was Pantænus, a converted Stoic philosopher. Little is directly known about his theological slant (Walker 72). His student and successor Clement, who died around 215 AD was also a presbyter in the Alexandrian church. Clement saw the divine Logos as the source of all intelligence and morality regardless of race. Whether using philosophy for the Greeks or the Law for the Hebrews, the divine Logos used both as a tutor to bring them to Christ. For Clement, although the divine Logos truly was incarnate in Jesus Christ, the actual events of the earthly life of Jesus generally lacked significance apart from the fact that He taught the knowledge of God, which is the highest good, so that His disciples could attain His same blessedness (73).Clement’s pupil and successor Origen was by far the most influential of all leaders in the Alexandrian school in terms of breadth, depth, and quantity of output; the size of his reader base both while living and extending beyond his death; as well as the perfection of interpreting Christianity in terms of Hellenic philosophy. The tool he used to accomplish this was the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, with which the Alexandrian school became synonymous, and which effectively allowed Origen to read whatever he wanted into the Scriptures. The allegorical method posited three layers of meaning to a passage corresponding to the tripartite composition of man (flesh, soul, spirit), with the “spiritual” meaning being the really important one and by which only perfect people could be edified (75). Because he did not think in the rigid categories of later Orthodoxy, Origen’s writings could easily be quoted by either side in controversies. For example, he simultaneously spoke of Christ as eternally generated and yet a “second God” and a “creature.” Also, Christ is the mediator through whom all Creation came into being, including the highest of all creatures the Holy Spirit (76). Later Orthodoxy’s Logos Christology found a great defender in Origen, but because of his belief in the soul’s pre-existence and the visible universe’s purpose as a place of punishment for those who sinned in their pre-existence, he fell of out of favor in later generations (77).
The last two leaders in the early Alexandrian school were Alexander, bishop of Alexandria from around 312 AD to 328 AD (107), and his successor Athanasius, bishop on and off between 328 AD and 378 AD (109). For them, the divinity of Christ was crucial because it was the only way to guarantee salvation. Unless it was genuine Godhead that had became a man, then there would be no basis for mankind thereby to experience divinization (110).
Antioch
The early leaders of the Antiochian school were Paul of Samosata, Lucian, Arius, and Eusebius of Nicomedia. Paul was bishop of Antioch from around 260 AD to 272 AD. He was a Dynamic Monarchian, which held that Jesus was the Son of God by adoption only. The man Jesus was inspired by an impersonal Logos and fell in love with God, effecting a moral but not essential union with God. After his resurrection, Jesus received a delegated kind of divinity (69). Lucian, a presbyter who taught in Antioch from around 275 AD to 303 AD, died as a martyr in 312 AD. Although his views are lost to history, we can assume that they are similar to his more well-known pupils Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia (97). Arius moved to Alexandria, where he was a presbyter under Bishop Alexander, conflict with whom led to the Arian controversy. Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia followed Origen’s lead that Christ was a created being. Further, in the incarnation, the Logos entered a human body replacing the human spirit, thus making Christ neither fully God nor fully man (107).Period Preceding and Including the Third and Fourth Ecumenical Councils
Having established in the First and Second Ecumenical Councils that the Son of God and the Holy Spirit were of one essence with the Father, the next point that needed to be clarified was what it means that the Son of God “was made a man”. In this controversy, the difference between the Alexandrian and Antiochian schools became quite manifest. The Alexandrian school emphasized the unity of Christ to the point that to some it appeared that His divinity practically absorbed his humanity. The Antiochian school emphasized the integrity of each of his divine and human natures to the point that to some it appeared that there were practically two separate beings contained within him. In this section, we will look at the main players in each of the two schools (131).Alexandria
In the latter Alexandrian school, there are four main personages at which to look: Apollinaris, Cyril, Dioscurus, and Eutyches. Apollinaris, who died around 390 AD, was in agreement with Athanasius that unless Christ was perfectly divine, our salvation was in jeopardy. His solution to the composition of Christ was as follows: Jesus had a human body and soul, but his reasoning spirit was replaced by the divine Logos. Although the Second Ecumenical Council condemned this formulation, with slight modification it became the Orthodox position, namely that Jesus still had a human mind but that his center or subject was the divine Logos (132). Cyril was the patriarch of Alexandria from 412 AD to 444 AD. In Alexandrian fashion, his position was that God-made-flesh was born, died, and consumed in Holy Communion, thus protecting our ability to become partakers of the divine nature but allowing Christ little more than an impersonal humanity centered in the divinity (134). The popular and ancient title Theotokos for the Virgin Mary, meaning “bearer of God”, was a very natural way to encapsulate this view. Dioscurus succeeded Cyril as the patriarch of Alexandria in 444 AD and appears mainly concerned with advancing his authority than clarifying Christology. Eutyches, an archimandrite of Constantinople, protecting the divinity of Christ, unfortunately, at the expense of his full humanity, posited this: “I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union [i.e., the incarnation], but after the union one nature”, and was condemned at the Fourth Ecumenical Council (138).Antioch
Besides the emphasis on the integrity of the human and divine natures in Christ already mentioned, the latter Antiochian school differed from that of Alexandria in a number of ways. First, its philosophy was Aristotelian rather than Platonic. Second, its dominant model of salvation was not theosis; rather, it was Christ as the “second Adam” and the significance of the reality of his temptations and sufferings as a human. Thirdly, the members of its school favored the simple grammatical, historical approach to Biblical exegesis as opposed to the Alexandrian bent toward allegory (133).The leading players in the latter school of Antioch where Diodorus and his three pupils Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Nestorius. Diodorus, who died in 394 AD, was a longtime presbyter in Antioch and later bishop in Tarsus. Similar to Paul of Samosata earlier, Diodorus taught that in Christ were two persons in moral rather than essential union. The union could be compared to the marriage of a man and wife (133). Diodorus was condemned at a local council in 499 AD (Kelly 302). Chrysostom, who lived from around 345 AD to 407 AD, served as a deacon and presbyter in Antioch before becoming bishop of Constantinople. He did not contribute much to the Christological struggles of the time; instead, he perfected the Antiochian school’s literal approach to exegesis by crafting practical homilies on Christian living (Walker 130). Theodore was bishop of Mopsuestia until his death in 428 AD. He admitted that there was only one person in Christ, but could not really explain how this was compatible with his other views that resembled those of his teacher. Theodore was posthumously condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (143). Nestorius like Theodore only admitted one person in Christ (133). However, his nemesis Cyril of Alexandria accused him otherwise and took offense at Nestorius’ hesitancy to use the title Theotokos, leading to Nestorius’ condemnation at the Third Ecumenical Council (136). With teacher and fellow pupils all condemned by history, it is almost amazing that Chrysostom escaped unscathed as a member of the Antiochian school. Apparently, enraging the empress for her extravagance kept him busy from making statements that later generations might consider heretical (130).
Conclusion
The schools of Alexandria and Antioch were influential during the first centuries of the Church but had very different points of view. The leaders of the Alexandrian school were Platonic and allegorical. Their understanding of salvation as theosis created a tendency toward viewing Christ’s divinity as subsuming his humanity. The leaders of the Antiochian school, on the other hand, were Aristotelian and literal. Their understanding of salvation as stemming from an intimate conjunction of the Logos with the man Jesus created a tendency toward viewing Jesus Christ as the conjunction of two separate beings. In the battle between the two schools and their episcopal sees for power, there was sometimes as much political intrigue as there was a concern for theology. In the end, through the course of the Third through the Fifth Ecumenical Councils, the school of Antioch was effectively condemned, and the formulation of Cyril of Alexandria became the Orthodox Christology (143).Works Cited
Walker, Willison. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Scribners, 1959.Kelley, J.N.D., Early Christian Doctrines, revised ed, San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1978.
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