Apollinarianism

The apollinarism (sometimes Apollinarism ) is a by Apollinaris of Laodicea (also Apollinarius ) named theological doctrine, by the early Church as heresy was condemned.

The teaching of Apollinarius

Apollinarius tried to work out a christological model on the basis of ancient philosophy and devised a completely new christology and soteriology in the form of the syllogism . Based on the thesis of the equality of the essence of father and son and thus the divinity of the son, Apollinarius posed the question of the possibility of an incarnation of the divine Logos in the human Jesus Christ. In accordance with the Platonic duality of body and soul - the human being consists of a duality of body and soul, whereby the soul is the subject, i.e. H. determines people - Apollinarius came to the conclusion that in the "earthly" Christ both the human body and the human soul should be deleted. According to this theory, Christ would be divine both fleshly and spiritually. As a result, man would only be redeemed through participation in Christ in baptism and the Eucharist , but not through the death on the cross.

Apollinarius gives the following reasons for his theory:

The Son (Christ) is of the same nature as the Father. (This argument is a result of Apollinarius' doctrine of the Trinity .)

In his incarnation the divine Logos wanders into the human soul.

A body - logos and soul are combined.

Since with a perfect man and a perfect God in Jesus Christ the soul could have avoided redemption, the human will-subject, the soul, must be excluded.

Since in man the subject is given by the soul, but the soul has been replaced by the divine Logos, the human flesh is also entirely divine.

According to Apollinarius, redemption is thus tied to the church and only takes place in baptism and the Eucharist, as man “transforms” the human body into a heavenly body through participation in the divine body and blood of Christ.

The condemnation of Apollinarius

Although Apollinarius was one of the first theologians of the Trinity of the 4th century, he was nevertheless recognized because of his Christology at the Synod of Rome (375) , the Synod of Antioch (378) , the First Council of Constantinople (381) and the Synod of Rome (382 ) condemned. The Athanasian Creed is clearly differentiated from Apollinarianism. "The appearance of Apollinaris is the prelude to the great Christological dispute."

literature

Silke-Petra Bergjan , Benjamin Gleede, Martin Heimgartner (eds.): Apollinarius and his consequences . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-16-153587-1 .

Footnotes

^ Adolf Jülicher : Apollinarios . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, Col. 2842-2844., Here Col. 2843.
^ Karl Heussi : Compendium of Church History . 16th edition JCB Mohr, Tübingen 1981, ISBN 3-16-141871-9 , p. 99.

[1] Adolf Jülicher : Apollinarios . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, Col. 2842-2844., Here Col. 2843.

[2] Karl Heussi : Compendium of Church History . 16th edition JCB Mohr, Tübingen 1981, ISBN 3-16-141871-9 , p. 99.