1) Official pronouncement of the Church

Sixth Ecumenical Synod, Synodical Letter by St. Sophronios of Jerusalem

He gave to the human nature, whenever He wanted, time to act and to suffer what was proper… For He did not accept these [human idioms] involuntarily or by constraint… His human characteristics were above human nature. Not because [His] nature was not human, but because He became a human being voluntarily, and having become a human being He accepted [them] voluntarily; and they are not [acting] tyrannically or by constraint and unwillingly, as it is with us, but He gave His consent whenever and to the extent that He wanted He allowed them to inflict pain on Him and to cause Him sufferings which were against nature.

2) The witness of the Holy Scripture

John 10:18

No one takes [My life] from Me, but I lay it down on My own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.

3) The witness of the Fathers of the Church

St. Hilary

He had a body to suffer and He suffered, but He had not a nature which could feel pain, for his body possessed a unique nature of its own; it was transformed into heavenly glory on the Mount, it put fevers to flight by its touch, it gave new eyesight by its spittle.

St. Ambrose

He did not hunger because He was overcome by the weakness of the body, but by His hunger He proved that He had verily taken upon Himself a body; that so He might teach us that He had taken not only our body, but also the weaknesses of that body.

St. Maximos

When it comes to the Lord the natural characteristics do not precede His will, as it happens with us. For even though He truly hungered and thirsted, He did not hunger and thirst after our manner, but in a manner that exceeds ours, because He accepted such things voluntarily.

4) The witness of the hymnology of the Church

Vespers of the Holy Spirit

Master, who by extreme condescension have become a partaker with us of like flesh and blood and of our blameless passions, which You have willingly accepted to experience in Your bowels of compassion; and in that You Yourself have accepted to be tempted, You of Your own free will became a Helper for us that are tempted; wherefore, You led us into Your own passionlessness.

5) The confirmation by Orthodox theologians

Vladimir Lossky

Only Christ has known what death really is, since His deified humanity must not die. Only He could take the full measure of agony, since death seized His being from the outside instead of welling up like fate from within, instead of being, as with fallen man, the irreducible kernel of a being mixed with non-being when sickness and time have corrupted his pulp of flesh… The finality of death was, in effect, not rooted in the human nature of Christ.

Fr. John Romanides

That He was not allowing oeconomically His incorruptibility to be operative does not mean that He was under the dominion of death. He received the human nature from the Virgin through the Holy Spirit as it was before the fall, neither incorruptible nor under the dominion of death.

Metropolitan Hierotheos

The innocent passions functioned in Christ above nature, because it was not possible for them to take precedence over His will. There was nothing compulsory in Christ. Therefore it was by willing that He hungered, by willing that He thirsted, by willing that He was afraid, and by willing that He died. In other words, the passions did not govern Christ, but Christ governed them.

I must have left you quite confused and puzzled with our previous post. In our very first post we proposed that there is an alternative to fallen or un-fallen. But then we brought evidence that Christ had a nature like Adam before the fall. We will clarify that in becoming human the Son of God voluntarily accepts only certain consequences of the fall, called the blameless or innocent passions, while rejecting the sinful passions.

1) Official pronouncements of the Church

St. Sophronios of Jerusalem, Synodical Epistle

“God the Logos operates through humanity. However, Christ experiences everything human ‘naturally’ and ‘in a human way’ although not by necessity or involuntarily.”

Second Confession of Orthodox Bishops at their Consecration

“The Word of God…took our whole fallen human nature from the pure and virginal blood of the only immaculate and pure Virgin…Furthermore I confess that He assumed all our human blameless passions that constitute our nature, excepting sin, i.e. hunger, thirst, weariness, tears, and such like: He underwent them not of necessity as in our case, but by His human will following His divine will; for willingly He hungered, willingly He thirsted, willingly He wearied, willingly He died.”

Note: It does not say that His human nature is fallen, but that He assumed our fallen nature (what happened when He did that will be addressed in a future post). Later on it explicates that by this expression it means that He assumed only the blameless passions of our human nature (and it lists them, excluding any sinful consequences). It also makes clear that He assumed the blameless passions “not of necessity as in our case.” These are the two points postlapsarianists need to understand and accept. Otherwise they are outside the pale of Orthodoxy.

2) The witness of the Holy Scripture

John 19:30

“He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”

John 10:18

“No one takes [My life] from Me, but I lay it down on My own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”

3) The witness of the Fathers of the Church

St. Gregory the Theologian

“Are you then to be allowed to dwell upon all that humiliates Him, while passing over all that exalts Him, and to count on your side the fact that He suffered, but to leave out of the account the fact that it was of His own will?”

St. John Damascene

“Of a truth our natural passions were in harmony with nature and above nature in Christ. For they were stirred in Him after a natural manner when He permitted the flesh [by an act of His human will] to suffer what was proper to it: but they were above nature because that which was natural did not in the Lord assume command over the will. For no compulsion is contemplated in Him but all is voluntary. For willingly He hungered, willingly He thirsted, willingly He feared and willingly He died.”

4)The witness of the hymnology of the Church

Vesperal hymn

“Let us sing hymns of praise to Him who of His own free will was crucified in the flesh, suffered, was buried and rose from the dead for us.”

Holy Saturday Matins

“Rise up of Your own will, You who willingly gave Yourself up for us.”

5) The confirmation by Orthodox Theologians

Fr. Georges Florovsky

“Like the First Adam before the fall, He is able not to die at all (potens non mori), though obviously He can still die (potens autem mori). He was exempt from the necessity of death, because His humanity was pure and innocent. Therefore Christ’s death was and could not but be voluntary, not by the necessity of fallen nature, but by free choice and acceptance.”

I don’t know how can our blogger state so categorically that Christ “assumed every part of humanity as it is (post-fallen).” If he or anyone else were to search carefully for a single document supporting his position he would go away empty. Not only would he not find any such teaching in the tradition of the Church, but au contraire he would come up with a great number of statements “proclaiming unequivocally” that the Incarnate Son of God did not have a fallen human nature. Actually, the Church’s teaching is that Christ’s nature was as that of Adam before the fall. Check out these authorities:

1) An official pronouncement of the Church

Fourth Ecumenical Council, Tome of Leo

Jesus Christ was born in the entire and perfect nature of man very God, whole in what was His, whole in what was ours. By “ours” we mean those things that the Creator formed in us at the beginning and which He once more received restored. For those things that the deceiver introduced, and the deceived man admitted, not a trace was in the Savior.

2) The witness of the Holy Scripture

Heb. 13:8

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings.

1 Cor. 2:8

None of the rulers of this age understood this [i.e. “redemption in Christ” (RSV)]; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

3) The witness of the Fathers of the Church

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Christ has refashioned the nature of man into what it was in the beginning. “In Him all things are made new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

St. Maximos the Confessor

In being formed as a human being, He condescended to what was by law the creaturely origin of Adam prior to his fall.

St. John Damascene

You assumed, O Master, the entire Adam, before His transgression, free from sin.

4) The witness of the hymnology of the Church

Kontakion, First Sunday of Lent

The uncircumscribed Word of the Father became circumscribed taking flesh from thee, O Theotokos, and He has restored the sullied image to its ancient glory, filling it with the divine beauty.

Vespers of Annunciation

I will give birth to the Bodiless One who will take flesh from me, so that by His union with it, He may raise man, as the only mighty One, to the ancient dignity.

5) The confirmation by Orthodox Theologians

Panagiotis Trembelas

Since the Lord was sent by His Father to the world to raise the fallen human nature, reconstituting it as another ancestor and new Adam, it was natural for Him to assume the human nature, which “Adam received sinless at the first creation,” so that that nature which the first Adam threw to “corruption and death,” the Lord raised “sinless according to nature.” Therefore the Lord did not assume another human nature, different from the one that came out of the hands of the Creator, but the self same one carried by us, save healthy, and not one corrupted or rendered sick by sin, which reveals Him perfect man, precisely as the first Adam was in Paradise before falling into transgression.

Metropolitan Hierotheos

Christ’s conception in the womb of the Theotokos took place creatively through the Holy Spirit and not by seed, because Christ had to assume the pure nature that Adam had before his transgression.

In the Orthodox Church we don’t bring fancy arguments or express personal opinions. We rely on the Church, “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

Did Christ have a sin nature?

According to our blogger fallen nature means sin nature. Is everyone in agreement with that? What does fallen nature mean? What does sin nature mean? Do we all agree with the syllogism that since Christ was 100% human and since all humans have a sin nature ergo He must have by necessity a sin nature? Or with the syllogism behind the syllogism: Christ has a human nature; human nature is fallen; therefore He has a fallen nature? Can one have a sin nature and be sinless? How can the sinless One reap the “wages of sin”? Does assuming a postlapsarian nature and remaining sinless are mutually exclusive?

Does fallen nature mean sinful nature?

Postlapsarianists want Christ to be exactly like us, fallen, yet not exactly like us, sinful. How can the two be reconciled? Despite attributing to Him a “sin nature” they claim that He resisted temptations and never sinned. But even if Christ remained totally sinless, as most postlapsarianists aver, the fact remains that as fallen He must bear all the consequences of the fall, which, besides having an irresistible tendency to sin, includes corruption, suffering, and physical and spiritual death. Did Christ inherit a fallen human nature and did He necessarily live under the conditions of fallen world, as any other human being?

Is Christ’s human nature fallen or un-fallen?

Fallen – un-fallen. This has been the binary along which Christologists have been debating Christ’s humanness. But can it be that there is an alternative? Christ does not seem to be un-fallen. He exhibits the consequences of the fall, as we all do: He tires, He hungers, He thirsts, He displays ignorance, emotions, sadness, fears; He experiences pain, both physical and emotional, and as He comes into existence so He expires and dies. Yet, He also exhibits characteristics that are beyond normal human experience: He goes on for many days without any food or drink, He floats on water, and He shows extraordinary powers. He doesn’t seem to fit either condition. What’s the answer?

Was Christ in control of the passions or under their control?

Christ has clearly exhibited characteristics that belong to fallen humanity. Could we then call Him fallen? Well, there are a few more questions that need to be answered first: Was He inherently fallen, that is, were sinfulness, corruption and mortality ingrained in His human nature or was He free of these consequences of the fall, but He voluntarily assumed only certain of these consequences, called blameless or innocent passions? Are such passions essential elements of humanity so that Christ had to necessarily assume them in order to be fully human or did He exercise control over the human passions He accepted freely for our salvation?

How did Christ’s two natures coexist?

There is another set of questions pertaining to the union of humanity and divinity in His person. Was there any interchange between His two natures? Did the union have any effect over His humanity or did the two natures function separately and independently of each other? How do we perceive that union? Should we treat Christ as a mere human being in the way He thinks, He acts, He lives, and He dies, or should we take into account the fact that the hypostatic union exerts an influence on Christ’s humanity, making Him a unique reality? What are the consequences of the hypostatic union? How does Christ function as God and man?

Could Christ have a fallen human nature?

Could He? Christ is the incarnate Son of God. Anything predicated upon the human nature of Christ is predicated upon the Person of Christ. Isn’t saying Christ’s human nature is fallen the same as saying the Son of God is fallen? Could we possibly attribute fallenness to the Son of God? How could He be subject to all the consequences of the original sin? How could Christ win a victory over death when He was doomed to die from the moment He was conceived? How could the Son of God be an un-voluntary instrument of Satan? How could the powers of His intellect and soul be feeble and His spirit deprived of God’s sanctifying grace?

In this blog post we’ve only posed questions. In the posts that will follow we’ll examine our blogger’s unequivocal conviction that Christ was fallen, just like we all are, and attempt to provide what we think are definitive answers, at least from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.

In Part 2 we’ll address whether or not Christ had a fallen nature.