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The Catechism of the Catholic Church Today on the Divinity of Christ.

The Catechism Today
All the Church Fathers
From the Scriptures

This is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church states on this issue:

I. Why Did The Word Become Flesh?

456 With the Nicene Creed, we answer by confessing: "For us men and for our salvation he came down from Heaven ; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man."

457 The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God, who "loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins": "the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world", and "he was revealed to take away sins": (1 John 4:10; 4:14; 3:5)

Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?

— St. Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. catech 15: PG 45, 48B

458 The Word became flesh so that thus we might know God's love: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him." (1 John 4:9) "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

459 The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me." "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." (Matthew 11:29; John 14:6) On the mountain of the Transfiguration, the Father commands: "Listen to him!" (Mark 9:7; cf. Deuteronomy 6:4-5) Jesus is the model for the Beatitudes and the norm of the new law: "Love one another as I have loved you." (John 15:12) This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example. (cf. Mark 8:34)

460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": (2 Peter 1:4) "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." (St. Irenæus, Adv. Hæres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939) "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." (St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B) "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4)

II. The Incarnation

461 Taking up St. John's expression, "The Word became flesh", (John 1:14) the Church calls "Incarnation" the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. In a hymn cited by St. Paul, the Church sings the mystery of the Incarnation:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8; cf. Liturgy of the Hours, Saturday, Canticle at Evening Prayer)

462 The Letter to the Hebrews refers to the same mystery:

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Lo, I have come to do your will, O God." (Hebrews 10:5-7, citing Psalms 40:6-8 ([7-9] LXX))

463 Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith: "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God." (1 John 4:2) Such is the joyous conviction of the Church from her beginning whenever she sings "the mystery of our religion": "He was manifested in the flesh." (1 Timothy 3:16)

III. True God And True Man

464 The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.

During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.

465 The first heresies denied not so much Christ's divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism). From apostolic times the Christian faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God's Son "come in the flesh". (cf. 1 John 4:2-3; 2 John 7) But already in the third century, the Church in a council at Antioch had to affirm against Paul of Samosata that Jesus Christ is Son of God by nature and not by adoption. The first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 confessed in its Creed that the Son of God is "begotten, not made, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father", and condemned Arius, who had affirmed that the Son of God "came to be from things that were not" and that he was "from another substance" than that of the Father. (Council of Nicaea I (325): DS 130, 126)

466 The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man." (Council of Ephesus (431): DS 250) Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh." (Council of Ephesus: DS 251)

467 The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God's Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed:

Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; "like us in all things but sin". He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God. (Council of Chalcedon (451): DS 301; cf. Hebrews 4:15)

We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis. (Council of Chalcedon: DS 302)

468 After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ's human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that "there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity." (Council of Constantinople II (553): DS 424) Thus everything in Christ's human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: "He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity." (Council of Constantinople II (553): DS 432)

469 The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother:

"What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed", sings the Roman Liturgy. (Liturgy of the Hours, 1 January, Antiphon for Morning Prayer; cf. St. Leo the Great, Sermo in nat. Dom. 1, 2; PL 54, 191-192) And the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: "O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!" (Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Troparion "O monogenes.")

IV. How Is The Son Of God Man?

470 Because "human nature was assumed, not absorbed", (Vatican II, Gaudium et spes 22 § 2) in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ's human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body. In parallel fashion, she had to recall on each occasion that Christ's human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it. Everything that Christ is and does in this nature derives from "one of the Trinity". The Son of God therefore communicates to his humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity: (cf. John 14:9-10)

The Son of God. . . worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin. (Vatican II, Gaudium et spes 22 § 2)

Christ's soul and his human knowledge

471 Apollinarius of Laodicaea asserted that in Christ the divine Word had replaced the soul or spirit. Against this error the Church confessed that the eternal Son also assumed a rational, human soul. (cf. Pope Damasus I: DS 149)

472 This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time. This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, "increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man", (Luke 2:52) and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience. (cf. Mark 6 38; 8 27; John 11:34; etc.) This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking "the form of a slave". (Philippians 2:7)

473 But at the same time, this truly human knowledge of God's Son expressed the divine life of his person. (cf. St. Gregory the Great, "Sicut aqua" ad Eulogium, Epist. Lib. 10, 39 PL 77, 1097A ff.; DS 475) "The human nature of God's Son, not by itself but by its union with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God." (St. Maximus the Confessor, Qu. et dub. 66: PG 90, 840A) Such is first of all the case with the intimate and immediate knowledge that the Son of God made man has of his Father. (cf. Mark 14:36; Matthew 11:27; John 1:18; 8:55; etc.) The Son in his human knowledge also showed the divine penetration he had into the secret thoughts of human hearts. (cf. Mark 2:8; John 2 25; 6:61; etc.)

474 By its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate, Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal. (cf. Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34; 14:18-20, 26-30) What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal. (cf. Mark 13:32, Acts 1:7)

Christ's human will

475 Similarly, at the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but cooperate in such a way that the Word made flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation. (cf. Council of Constantinople III (681): DS 556-559) Christ's human will "does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will." (Council of Constantinople III: DS 556)

Christ's true body

476 Since the Word became flesh in assuming a true humanity, Christ's body was finite. (cf. Council of the Lateran (649): DS 504) Therefore the human face of Jesus can be portrayed; at the seventh ecumenical council (Nicaea II in 787) the Church recognized its representation in holy images to be legitimate. (cf. Galatians 3:1; cf. Council of Nicaea II (787): DS 600-603)

477 At the same time the Church has always acknowledged that in the body of Jesus "we see our God made visible and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see." (Roman Missal, Preface of Christmas I) The individual characteristics of Christ's body express the divine person of God's Son. He has made the features of his human body his own, to the point that they can be venerated when portrayed in a holy image, for the believer "who venerates the icon is venerating in it the person of the one depicted". (Council of Nicaea II: DS 601)

The heart of the Incarnate Word

478 Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20) He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, (cf. John 19:34) "is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without exception. (Pope Pius XII, encyclical, Haurietis Aquas (1956): DS 3924; cf. DS 3812)

In Brief

479 At the time appointed by God, the only Son of the Father, the eternal Word, that is, the Word and substantial Image of the Father, became incarnate; without losing his divine nature he has assumed human nature.

480 Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person; for this reason he is the one and only mediator between God and men.

481 Jesus Christ possesses two natures, one divine and the other human, not confused, but united in the one person of God's Son.

482 Christ, being true God and true man, has a human intellect and will, perfectly attuned and subject to his divine intellect and divine will, which he has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

483 The Incarnation is therefore the mystery of the wonderful union of the divine and human natures in the one person of the Word.

— St. Ignatius of Antioch, (A.D. 50-107)
— Aristides of Athens, (A.D. 110-180)
— Melito of Sardis, (A.D. c.110-c.180)
— Tatian the Assyrian, (the Syrian), (A.D. c.120-180)
— St. Irenæus of Lyons, (A.D. 125-202)
— St. Clement of Alexandria, (A.D. 150-220)
— Tertullian, (A.D. 160-218)
— St. Hippolytus of Rome, (A.D. 170-236)
— Origen of Alexandria, (A.D. 184-253)
— St. Cyprian of Carthage, (A.D. 200-258)
— St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, (A.D. 213-270)
— Lactantius, (A.D. 240-c.330)
— St. Athanasius of Alexandria, (A.D. 296-372)
— Arnobius of Sicca, (unknown - A.D. c.320)
— Council of Nicaea, (A.D. 325)
— St. John Chrysostom, (A.D. 344 - 407)
— Council of Ephesus, (held in A.D. 431)
— Pope St. Innocent I, (A.D. c.350-417)
— Council of Chalcedon, (held in A.D. 451)
— Council of Constantinople, (A.D. 360-754)
— St. Maximus (the Confessor, (A.D. c.580-662)

St. Ignatius of Antioch, (A.D. 50-107), Syrian; ecclesiastical writer, bishop, martyr. A disciple of St. John, the Apostle; he was bishop of Antioch, in which see he succeeded St. Peter, or, as others think, Evodius. He is supposed to have governed that church for about forty years. He suffered martyrdom at Rome in the year 107.

Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the Church at Ephesus in Asia . . . predestined from eternity for a glory that is lasting and unchanging, united and chosen through true suffering by the will of the Father in Jesus Christ our God.

Letter to the Ephesians 1 [A.D. 110]

For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God's plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit.

Letter to the Ephesians 1 18:2

To the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus Christ, our God, by the will of him that has willed everything which is.

Letter to the Romans 1 [A.D. 110]

Aristides of Athens, (A.D. 110-180), Greek; second century Greek Christian author who is primarily known as the author of the Apology of Aristides.

[Christians] are they who, above every people of the earth, have found the truth, for they acknowledge God, the Creator and maker of all things, in the only-begotten Son and in the Holy Spirit.

Apology 16 [A.D. 140]

Melito of Sardis, (A.D. c.110-c.180) was the bishop of Sardis near Smyrna in western Anatolia, was an exegete and apologist and a great authority in Early Christianity.

It is no way necessary in dealing with persons of intelligence to adduce the actions of Christ after his baptism as proof that his soul and his body, his human nature, were like ours, real and not phantasmal. The activities of Christ after his baptism, and especially his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the deity hidden in his flesh. Being God and likewise perfect man, he gave positive indications of his two natures: of his deity by the miracles during the three years following after his baptism, of his humanity in the thirty years which came before his baptism during which, by reason of his condition according to the flesh, he concealed the signs of his deity, although he was the true God existing before the ages.

Fragment in Anastasius of Sinai's The Guide 13 [A.D. 177]

Tatian the Assyrian, (the Syrian), (A.D. c.120-180), Assyrian; was an early Christian writer and theologian. A disciple of St. Justin. Tatian's most influential work is the Diatessaron, a Biblical paraphrase, or "harmony", of the four gospels that became the standard text of the four gospels in the Syriac-speaking churches until the 5th century.

We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man.

Address to the Greeks 21 [A.D. 170]

St. Irenæus of Lyons, (A.D. 125-202), Asia Minor; bishop, missionary, theologian, defender of orthodoxy. Though by birth a Greek, he was Bishop of Lyons in the second century. He tells us that, in his early youth, he learned the rudiments of religion from St. Polycarp, the disciple of St. John the Apostle. He wrote several works, of which only a few fragments are now known, with the exception of his Treatise against Heretics which we have in five books.

For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and from their disciples the faith in one God, Father Almighty, the creator of Heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them; and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who announced through the prophets the dispensations and the comings, and the birth from a Virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily ascension into Heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from Heaven in the glory of the Father to reestablish all things; and the raising up again of all flesh of all humanity, in order that to Jesus Christ our Lord and God and Savior and King, in accord with the approval of the invisible Father, every knee shall bend of those in Heaven and on earth and under the earth.

Against Heresies 1:10:1 [A.D. 189]

St. Clement of Alexandria, (A.D. 150-220), Greek; theologian, a scholar of Pantaenus, to whom he succeeded as head of the Catechetical School at Alexandria, Egypt. His writings display great acquaintance with the Gentile philosophy. He wrote with the express design of hiding the mysteries of the Christian religion from the Pagans, and the uninitiated, while at the same time, laboring to show the immense practical superiority of the Christian code of morals over that of every Pagan sect and system of philosophy.

The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning — for he was in God — and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our good things.

Exhortation to the Greeks 1:7:1 [A.D. 190]

Despised as to appearance but in reality adored, [Jesus is") the expiator, the Savior, the soother, the divine Word, he that is quite evidently true God, he that is put on a level with the Lord of the universe because he was his Son.

Exhortation to the Greeks 10:110:1

Tertullian, (A.D. 160-218), North African; ecclesiastical writer, Christian apologist and lawyer, son of a centurion and contemporary of St. Irenæus, a native and citizen of Carthage. The zeal and ability with which he defended the Christian cause, and vindicated its faith and discipline, have immortalized his name, though it has suffered by his adoption, around the year A.D. 200, of some of the Montanist's errors, whose cause he is thought to have supported until his death. His works are numerous, and are written with great ability and erudition, but in an harsh style.

The origins of both his substances display him as man and as God: From the one, born, and from the other, not born.

The Flesh of Christ 5:6-7 [A.D. 210]

That there are two gods and two Lords, however, is a statement which we will never allow to issue from our mouth; not as if the Father and the Son were not God, nor the Spirit God, and each of them God; but formerly two were spoken of as gods and two as Lords, so that when Christ would come, he might both be acknowledged as God and be called Lord, because he is the Son of him who is both God and Lord.

Against Praxeas 13:6 [A.D. 216]

St. Hippolytus of Rome, (A.D. 170-236), Roman; bishop and martyr, probably a scholar of St. Irenæus of Lyons.

Only [God's] Word is from himself and is therefore also God, becoming the substance of God.

Refutation of All Heresies 10:33 [A.D. 228]

For Christ is the God over all, who has arranged to wash away sin from mankind, rendering the old man new.

Refutation of All Heresies 10:34

Origen of Alexandria, (A.D. 184-253), Alexandrian; born in Egypt, philosopher, theologian, writer.

Although he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man, he remained what he was: God.

On First Principles 1:0:4 [A.D. 225]

St. Cyprian of Carthage, (A.D. 200-258), North African; bishop; biblical scholar, martyr.

One who denies that Christ is God cannot become his temple [of the Holy Spirit].

Letters 73:12 [A.D. 253]

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, (A.D. 213-270), (of NeoCæsarea), also known as Gregory the Wonderworker Asia Minor; bishop of Cæsarea, built up the Christian Church, extended its influence, and strengthened its institutions, student of Origen.

"There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is his subsistent wisdom and power and eternal image: perfect begetter of the perfect begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, only of the only, God of God, image and likeness of deity, efficient Word, wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and power formative of the whole creation, true Son of true Father, invisible of invisible, and incorruptible of incorruptible, and immortal of immortal and eternal of eternal. . . . And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides ever".

Declaration of Faith [A.D. 265]

Lactantius, (A.D. 240-c.330), was an early Christian author, the goal of his writings was to present Christianity in a form that would be attractive to philosophical pagans.

He was made both Son of God in the spirit and Son of man in the flesh, that is, both God and man.

Divine Institutes 4:13:5 [A.D. 307]

"We, on the other hand, are [truly] religious, who make our supplications to the one true God. Someone may perhaps ask how, when we say that we worship one God only, we nevertheless assert that there are two, God the Father and God the Son—which assertion has driven many into the greatest error . . . [thinking] that we confess that there is another God, and that he is mortal. . . . [But w]hen we speak of God the Father and God the Son, we do not speak of them as different, nor do we separate each, because the Father cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father".

Divine Institutes 4:25-29

St. Athanasius of Alexandria, (A.D. 296-372), Egyptian; bishop, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. He was present, as an assistant to St. Alexander of Alexandria, at the council of Nicea who he succeeded in A.D. 326. During more than forty years he was the champion of orthodoxy, and suffered much severe persecution from the Arian party.

"For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."

St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B.

Arnobius of Sicca, (unknown - A.D. c.320), was an Early Christian apologist, during the reign of Diocletian (A.D. 284-305), the master of Lactantius: he was a distinguished rhetorician who taught rhetoric at Sicca, in Numidia, at the end of the third or beginning of the fourth century. He has left us seven books against the Pagans.

"Well, then," some raging, angry, and excited man will say, "is that Christ your God?" "God indeed" we shall answer, "and God of the hidden powers".

Against the Pagans 1:42 [A.D. 305]

Council of Nicaea, (A.D. 325), met for two months and twelve days in Nice, (or Nicsea), in Bithynia. Three hundred and eighteen bishops were present. This council gave us the Nicene Creed as a result of Arius' heretical opinions, defining the true Divinity of the Son of God (homoousios). They also fixed of the date for keeping Easter and passed several canons of ecclesiastical discipline.

The first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 confessed in its Creed that:

Tthe Son of God is "begotten, not made, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father", and condemned Arius, who had affirmed that the Son of God "came to be from things that were not" and that he was "from another substance" than that of the Father.

Council of Nicaea I (325): DS 130, 126.

St. John Chrysostom, (A.D. 344 - 407), Syrian; archbishop, Doctor of the Church. Born at Antioch in 344; he was ordained priest in A.D. 383, and raised to the see of Constantinople in the year A.D. 398. His eloquence gained him the title of Chrysostom, or the mouth of gold. His expositions of Scripture, especially the Epistles of St. Paul, are very valuable. This illustrious prelate died on his road to exile, in A.D. 407.

"O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!"

Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Troparion "O monogenes."

Council of Ephesus, (held in A.D. 431) this third general council assembled at Ephesus and was composed of more than two hundred bishops, amongst whom St. Cyril of Alexandria, who represented Celestine, bishop of Rome, bore the principal part. St. Cyril was the most active in opposition to Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, against whose errors especially this council was convened. Nestorius asserted two persons in Christ, and affirmed that the Blessed Virgin ought not to be called Theotocos, mother of God.

The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed:

"That the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man."

Council of Ephesus (431)

Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb:

"Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh."

Council of Ephesus (431)

Pope St. Innocent I, (A.D. c.350-417) was pope from (A.D. 401 to 417), he lost no opportunity in maintaining and extending the authority of the Roman See as the ultimate resort for the settlement of all disputes.

Apollinarius of Laodicaea asserted that in Christ the divine Word had replaced the soul or spirit. Against this error the Church confessed that the eternal Son also assumed a rational, human soul.

CCC 471

Council of Chalcedon, (held in A.D. 451) was convened to oppose the errors of Eutyches, who was archimandrite of a monastery at Constantinople. In avoiding the errors of Nestorius, he fell into an opposite extreme, and taught that in Christ the human nature was so absorbed by the divine, that in Christ there was really but one nature, and that the nature of God.

Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; "like us in all things but sin". He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.

Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451)

We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.

Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451)

Council of Constantinople, (A.D. 360-754), can refer to any one of seven councils held within the patristic age, including three ecumencial councils of the Church held in A.D. 381/383, 553, and 680, the first dealing with the Nicene Creed, the Incarnation of Jesus and defining the Church as "One, holy, Catholic, and apostolical."

After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ's human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that:

"There is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity."

Council of Constantinople II (A.D. 553)

"He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity."

Council of Constantinople II (A.D. 553)

Similarly, at the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in A.D. 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but cooperate in such a way that the Word made flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation.

Council of Constantinople II (A.D. 681)

St. Maximus (the Confessor), (A.D. c.580-662), Byzantine; a Christian abbot, theologian, scholar and ascetical writer; he gave up this life in the political sphere to enter into the monastic life.

"The human nature of God's Son, not by itself but by its union with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God."

CCC 473

The Early Church Fathers believed and taught that Jesus Christ, as the second person of the Trinity, was God. He spoke with the authority of God and did things that only God could do. It is the reason why He was accused of blasphemy.

The Church's Scriptures that support the Divinity of Christ:

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God; 3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

John 1:1-4

The Testimony of John the Baptist: glory of Father's only Son, full of grace and truth

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. 15 John bore witness to him, and cried, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.' "

John 1:14-15

Jesus says, "if you knew me, you would know my Father."

19 They said to him therefore, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father; if you knew me, you would know my Father also."

John 8:19

Jesus states, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."

58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM." 59 So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

John 8:58-59

The Father and I are one.

30 I and the Father are one." 31 The Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, "I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?" 33 The Jews answered him, "It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God."

John 10:30-33

Note: The Greek word that Jesus used in John 10:30-33 is the Greek equivalent of echad which is the Hebrew word used in Deuteronomy 6:4

See Exodus 3:14, 20:7; Leviticus 19:12, Leviticus 24:14-16.

The Father is in me and I am in the Father

37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."

John 10:37-38

Who ever sees me, sees the one who sent me — and — I have not spoken on my own authority

44 And Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And he who sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. 47 If any one hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has a judge; the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day. 49 For I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has bidden me."

John 12:44-50

Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father.

8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip?
He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show us the Father'?
10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that
I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. 12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.

John 14:8-12

Jesus accepts Thomas' "My Lord and my God!"

28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."

John 20:28-29

The Church of God he acquired with His Blood

28 Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son.

Acts 20:28

In him we have redemption by His Blood

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

Ephesians 1:7

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily

9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

Colossians 2:9-10

Glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ

11 For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, 12 training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, 13 awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

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Titus 2:11-14

The Blood of His Son Jesus cleanses from all sin.

6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; 7 but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

1 John 1:6-7