Tomus ad Flavianum

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Apostles Peter and Pope Leo, fresco in the Church of San Nicola in Mottola

The Tomus ad Flavianum , also Epistola ad Flavianum , is a teaching letter from Pope Leo the Great from the year 449. It is considered to pave the way for the christological formula of the Council of Chalcedon , which condemned Monophysitism .

occasion

After the Council of Ephesus of 431, which had condemned Nestorianism with its (supposed) overemphasis on the human nature of Christ, Monophysitism, the doctrine of the one, divine nature of Christ, with its chief representative Eutyches, gained the upper hand in the Greek-speaking East . To enforce them, Emperor Theodosius II convened another council after Ephesus in 449, which was dominated by Patriarch Dioskoros I of Alexandria . With a teaching letter addressed to the Archbishop of Constantinople Flavianus , Pope Leo tried to influence the Council in the spirit of the doctrine of two natures . However, the letter was not even read. For this reason, and because of the violent accompanying circumstances, Leo coined the term robber synod ( latrocinium ) for the council of 449 and refused to recognize it. When Leo's teaching letter was read out at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the congregation responded with the acclaimed acclamation “Petrus per Leonem locutus est” ( Peter spoke through Leo).

content

The Tomus ad Flavianum comprises 205 verses and is considered to be a new and original work by Leo in many ways. It is controversial how large the proportion Prospers of Aquitaine is in its content.

Based on the Apostles' Creed , Leo sets out the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, the divine and the human, in the unity of the one person. In doing so, he develops the figure of thought of the Communicatio idiomatum (“exchange of properties”): “Because of this unity of the person in either of the two natures it can be said: the Son of man descended from heaven ... and the Son of God was crucified and buried ”(126–132, quoted from Drobner).

The thought, which goes back to Augustine , of the condescension of the divine and the exaltation of human nature in the incarnation of God is significant .

literature

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