These hymns, which go back to the earliest days of Christianity, sharply contradict the popular notion that the doctrine of the Incarnation is only a brainchild of fourth-century theologians playing irrelevant word-games. Long before Christian emperors convened their solemn assemblies, thousands of Christian worship services sang the praises of the Holy Child of Bethlehem.

This is one reason the orthodox party eventually triumphed in the Arian controversy: Athanasius simply argued theologically what the church had been singing for two centuries. But if the Arian controversy settled the issue of Christ’s full divinity and humanity, it did not settle the issue of exactly how the divine Christ became human. That concern was left to later theologians.

Very God of Very God? Could a transcendent God so limit himself? Could a holy God so willingly associate with human flesh? Such questions troubled many early Christians.

Christ without a Human Soul

With the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity (A.D. 312), the church marked a new phase in its triumphant expansion. Almost overnight it became fashionable to believe. As a result, churches were crowded, as professor Alan Richardson said, “with the half-converted, the socially ambitious, and the ill-instructed.�?The Greek idea of God as utterly transcendent reappeared with new vigor among professing Christians—with mixed results.

During the fourth century, two schools of theology offered contrasting interpretations of biblical passages speaking of the Incarnation. One of these was at Alexandria, the other at Antioch. The Alexandrians emphasized strongly the divine nature; the Antiochenes, the human. One began in heaven and moved to earth; the other commenced on earth and looked to heaven.

The first sophisticated explanation of the Incarnation came from the Alexandrian side of the debate, from one Apollinarius (c.310-c.392), an elderly pastor of Laodicea who greatly admired Athanasius, leader of the Alexandrian school. We may be inclined to think of all heretics as dark, sinister figures bent on the overthrow of Christian truth, but Apollinarius’s lapse into heresy didn’t happen until he was over 60. Till then he enjoyed a reputation as a pillar of orthodoxy. Churches throughout the empire experienced only shock when they first heard that the venerable bishop had fallen into error.

Echoing Athanasius, Apollinarius began his case for the Incarnation with the full deity of Christ: only God could save the world, and, if Christ is Savior, he must be divine. But the question is, how?

The old scholar struck upon the idea of approaching the question from a psychological view. He felt that human nature embraced the body and the soul. But at the Incarnation, the divine Word displaced the animating and rational soul in a human body, creating a “unity of nature�?between the Word and his body. Humanity, he felt, was the sphere, not the instrument of salvation—merely the place where salvation occurred, not a means of salvation. Christ, therefore, had only one nature: Apollinarius spoke of “one enfleshed nature of the divine Word.�?The Alexandrian stress on Christ’s deity remains, but the only thing human about Christ was his physical body.

Apollinarius, definite as his heresy was, deserves our praise for a pioneering effort that forced the church to think more deeply about Christ. His fault lies in his inability to push any further into the heart of truth. The widespread respect that Apollinarius had gained over the years explains why he was never exiled—though, as a heretic, he was forbidden to worship in the Catholic church. He died in his eighties, remaining a scholar and writer to the end.

Objections to Apollinarianism arose quickly. Does the Gospels�?picture of Jesus not depict a normal human psychology, showing Christ with a human mind and human emotions? And if the Word displaced the rational human soul, with its powers of choice and sin, how could Christ be fully human, and therefore, how could human beings be fully redeemed? If the Word did not unite full humanity with himself, then how can we hope to be saved?

In this atmosphere, the Council of Constantinople (381) effectively silenced the Apollinarian teaching. It simply was not an adequate description of the Incarnation.

Can God have a mother? A sixth-century Egyptian tapestry of Mary with Jesus, flanked by two angels. When the church started calling Mary “the Mother of God,�?one bishop, Nestorius, objected: “Mary did not bear God. The creature bore not the uncreated Creator, but the man who is the instrument of the Godhead.�?He was eventually condemned for denying Christ’s deity.

Mother of God?

The second “heresy�?was associated with the name Nestorius, a famous preacher at Antioch, who in 428 was appointed archbishop of Constantinople. In the shadow of the imperial palace, Nestorius proved to be a devout, well-meaning monk but a strident, tactless preacher. On the streets, his persecuting temper earned him a nickname, “Firebrand.�?Shortly after assuming his duties in the capital, he launched a sermonic attack against the popular term Theotokos, or “God-bearer,�?as a title for the Virgin Mary. Ordinary church folk assumed that their new preacher regarded the Savior as an inspired man, nothing more.

In point of fact, Nestorius meant nothing of the sort. He thought the term might suggest that the babe born of Mary was not human but God only, which he felt was another form of the Apollinarian heresy. He suggested as an alternative the title Christotokos, “Mother of Christ.�?But his unguarded rhetoric made some think he believed Christ not only had two natures but also two wills, that there were two Christs so to speak, one divine, one human, existing in the one body. Since this appeared to deny the Gospels�?portrait of Jesus as an integrated individual, controversy filled the air; charges sounded from pulpits. Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, called on Nestorius to recant.

To settle the uproar, the emperor adopted the time-honored policy of summoning a general council. It met at Ephesus in the summer of 431. Nestorius refused to attend, but the emperor, who had once supported Nestorius, acceded to Cyril’s demands and deposed the firebrand. Repudiated, Nestorius found himself exiled to his former monastery at Antioch even as a new bishop assumed his pulpit in Constantinople. Nestorius’s followers were also expelled from the church and soon established the Nestorian Syrian churches of the Middle and Far East, some of which survive to this day.

Nestorius lived until late in 451, long enough to welcome Pope Leo’s doctrinal epistle (or “Tome�? and the “definition�?of orthodoxy announced at the Council of Chalcedon. He received the council’s conclusions as his own. “I have endured the torment of my life,�?he said just before dying on the borders of the empire. “Every day I beseech God to accomplish my dissolution, whose eyes have seen the salvation of God.�?/STRONG>