Was Eutyches a heretic?

[TheLostCoin]

So, I was reading Father V.C. Samuel's Book "Chalcedon revisited," he discusses the trial of Eutyches:

https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/constantinople_448_eutyches.html

Based on this text, Father V.C. Samuel seems to suggest that, although Eutyches was flawed in his theology, and inadvertently did not know what he was talking about, nonetheless he still confessed an Orthodox confession of Faith when ordered to, and that he was excommunicated for not saying "in two natures."

This is why, it seems, that Dioscorus rehabilitated him in Ephesus 449 and excommunicated Flavian.

So, this begs the question: If this argument and conclusion were true, what do we make of the fact that afterwards both the Oriental Orthodox and the Eastern Orthodox held him to be a heretic, and subsequent councils in both Churches excommunicated Eutyches for heresy?

 

[Uber Genius]

There were many such pronouncements and rehabilitation a during the period of the first 7 Chirch councils.

The knowledge about the trinitarian nature of God and diophysite nature of Christ were developed over a period of several centuries. Antioch and Alexandria were the primary opposing schools of thought.

For a discussion of the conflict and arguments from Theodore of Mopsuestia pro-diophysitism (two natures) see:

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/pod...-doctrine-of-christ/doctrine-of-christ-part-3

 

[dzheremi]

Yes, Eutyches was definitely a heretic. To say that he waffled on Christology and was confused is definitely the case, but it is also the case that he was condemned by name at the third council of Ephesus in 475, presided over by HH Pope St. Timothy II (the successor to HH Pope St. Dioscorus) and attended by something on the order of 500 Orthodox Miaphysite bishops. He was also condemned by name in the letters of HH Catholicos Babken II of the Armenians (the Catholicos under whom the Armenian Apostolic Church formally rejected Chalcedon via a council in Dvin in 506), and the letters of HH St. Severus of Antioch, who if I recall correctly wrote of him that he was as a dog returning to his vomit (because he had given an accepted confession at Ephesus II only to abandon it soon after).