The Nature of This Union

”The Divine nature did not mix with the human nature nor mingle with it, but it was a unity that led to Oneness of Nature”.1 To illustrate this, Pope Shenouda quotes St. Cyril, who used the analogy of fire and iron: When iron is heated, it does not become two natures, fire and iron. But rather the iron unites with the fire. The fire and the iron is united but retains all their respective properties. In the same way the Incarnate Logos is not ”God and man”.

St Cyril and St Augustine2 used the example of the union between the soul and the body, ”...both become one in essence and in nature, so we say that this is one nature and one person.”3 Those who believe that Christ had two natures never mention the two natures in man, but consider them one4. In fact, ”If we go into detail we would find...ourselves before three natures in Christ!!! The Divinity, the soul, and the body, each and each of them has its distinct entity and essence.”5 If we accept the union of soul and body in one nature in Christ, it becomes easier for us to use the expression ”One Nature in Christ”.6 And ”just as we say that the human nature is one nature consisting of two elements or natures, we can also say about the Incarnate Logos, that He is one entity of two elements or natures.”7

The above allegory is not valid, because the union of the soul and the body does not constitute a union between two different human natures – as Pope Shenouda himself affirms in the above. St. Maximos says about the Incarnate Logos that, ”We speak of a distinction of natures to avoid asserting that the flesh is coessential in its nature with the Logos”.8 Which is exactly the heresy of Appolinarius, whom Pope Shenouda rightly condemns.

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1 Shenouda p 16.
2 No reference.
3 Shenouda p. 18.
4 St. John of Damascus explains the two natures in man. See p. 2 of this paper.
5 Shenouda p. 18.
6 CF. Ibid. pp. 18-19.
7 Ibid. P. 19.
8 Philokalia Vol 2 p. 250.

>>> To be continued