Rival Schools of Thought
On Wednesday nights, we use the expansive-language version of the liturgy for Holy Eucharist. Officially adopted by the General Convention in 2018 as a trial-use liturgy, this version seeks to replace masculine imagery for God with gender-neutral language except where the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is invoked. Thus, instead of saying, “The Lord be with you,” the presider bids, “God be with you,” but, when recalling the incarnation, the presider reminds us that God sent God’s “only and eternal Son.”
Because the text of the expansive-language eucharistic prayers are almost identical to the ones found in the prayer book, I get tripped up easily. When my eye stops scrutinizing the text in the bulletin and the familiar cadence takes over in my mind, I sometimes blurt out the traditional masculine pronouns more quickly than my brain can catch up. Old habits die hard. Worshippers in the congregation sometimes struggle, too, when their Sunday-morning rhythms take over and phrases like “heavenly Father” get added to the post-communion prayer even though the Wednesday-night liturgy leaves them out.
The part that I find the most difficult to get right is the expansive-language version of the Nicene Creed. You may remember that, back when the General Convention authorized the use of the expansive-language rites in 2018, we tried them out on Sunday mornings. After a month or two, the feedback I received was a strong preference for the traditional version. In part, that was because the updates stopped short of the truly gender-expansive understanding of God that many desired, but the reason that was cited most often was the change to the language of the Nicene Creed.
Following a principle it had adopted decades earlier, the General Convention decided to leave out the filioque clause when it published the expansive-language text of the creed. That clause is the part of the creed that declares that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Although the Great Schism of the eleventh-century between the East and the West was far more complicated than the Western Church’s decision to add the filioque to the creed without convening an ecumenical synod, that single word has become a symbol for the split. The General Convention’s decision to omit it from future liturgies is an acknowledgement of our desire to seek deeper ecumenical relationships across the Body of Christ, but the unintended consequence has been awkward congregation stumbling that ironically has made the expansive-language text less accessible.
In a sense, without realizing it, we participate in a theological division every time we say the Nicene Creed. On Sunday mornings, we declare our allegiance to the West, and on Wednesday nights, whenever we observe a major feast and, thus, say the prescribed creed, we align ourselves with the East. Although almost all of us stumble over it, I bet that only a few are conscious of that theological distinction. I appreciate the symbolic significance of our congregation’s practice of using both, but there is another major theological division that, in a way, is embedded within the Nicene Creed, and, although it does not get as much attention as the filioque, I think it has even more profound implications for our faith.
Earlier, in the fifth century, another great split took place in Christianity. As the church sought to understand and articulate the reality of the union of Christ’s divine and human natures, disagreements arose over how that union was possible. One school of thought, which was represented by Nestorius of Constantinople, held that the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ must be distinct. It made no sense, he argued, to say that Mary, the mother of Jesus and clear contributor of his humanity, was also the Mother of God (Theotokos). After all, how could the eternal Logos ever be born? The other side, represented by Cyril of Alexandria, rejected Nestorius’ claims because they seemed to imply that within Jesus Christ were two distinct persons, which, to use anachronistic language, would create schizophrenic problems for our faith.
At the Council of Ephesus in 431, Nestorius and his approach were rejected, and the Nicene Creed was reaffirmed, but the disagreement had not really been settled. Those who sympathized with Nestorius’ logical approach began to question whether Cyril and his followers had gone too far. Did their understanding of the union of Christ’s divine and human natures represent an unfair and unscriptural blending of the two in a way that denied the true and distinct humanity and divinity of Christ? Another ecumenical council was called, but this time the results were divisive.
The majority of bishops who gathered at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 believed that Christ’s two distinct natures were united “without confusion, change, division, or separation.” But the minority believed that the majority’s approach was Nestorianism by a new name—another schizophrenic approach to the incarnation. Instead, they argued that the divine and human natures must come together in a way that results in one nature (miaphysitism) and, thus, one person. Although they claimed that this union did not result in the mixture or alteration of the two distinct natures, the majority rejected their approach as both illogical and inadequate (monophysitism), and the split was enshrined.
To this day, the Oriental Orthodox Churches remain distinct from the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches and the denominations that have come from them, including our own. Although we all confess the faith of the Nicene Creed, we disagree about its implications. Whether conscious of it or not, when we proclaim that Jesus Christ is “of one being with the Father,” we understand that differently than our Christian siblings in the Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches, to name a few. Given that we must dig through centuries of church history to uncover the source of that difference, we may not expect it to play a significant role in our contemporary faith, but the split represented by those two schools of thought have led to profound differences in how we talk about God, the Bible, the church, and the world.
Before the split, the church had room for the two rival schools of Christian thought—one from Antioch and the other from Alexandria. Those from the Antiochene school included Nestorius, Diodorus, and John Chrysostom. Those from the Alexandrian included Cyril, Jerome, Basil the Great, and Origen. The Antiochene school was more closely connected with Jewish scholarship, and it tended to read scripture literally or historically, but the Alexandrian school was more influenced by Platonic philosophy, and it tended to read scripture allegorically.
When the Council of Chalcedon sided with the Antiochenes, we lost much of our connection with the Alexandrian tradition because many of its teachings were condemned as heretical. The writing of celebrated theologians like Origen were censored, sanitized, or rejected. As a result, once-accepted teachings, like the eventual deification of humanity as the fullest expression of Christian hope, were shelved. How different our understanding of the faith might be if we had left enough room for the Alexandrian tradition to continue to influence us throughout the years!
Although the Anglican church was still centuries away from being formed, the split over Chalcedonian orthodoxy filtered down through the years to produce a version of Christianity that is familiar to us but foreign to our Oriental Orthodox counterparts. We may not invoke the Chalcedonian Definition in worship very often, but it has shaped—perhaps narrowed—our understanding of the Christian faith. (You can read it on page 864 of the Book of Common Prayer.)
For what it is worth, I am an avowed Chalcedonian, who has always more easily identified with the Antiochene school than its Alexandrian counterpart, but I think that the church is at its best when it finds a way to embrace diversity within the bounds of generous orthodoxy. For starters, it helps to recognize that there are other devoted Christians who profess the same creedal faith but hold significantly different conclusions that arise from it. Acknowledging those differences is the first step toward respecting them. And, once we respect them, we may even learn from them.
Yours faithfully,
Evan D. Garner
