What was the condition of Christ's humanity?

[MilesVitae]

I'm pretty sure this topic has come up before in threads in which I've participated, but I don't remember the answer....
According to the EOC, what was the condition of Christ's humanity (prior to the resurrection, of course). That is, was it "naturally" subject to the same consequences of the fall as ours - i.e., death, suffering, etc., or were these things Christ merely permitted himself to undergo in spite of the condition of his humanity?

 

[~Anastasia~]

Looking forward to answers as well.

Christ experienced hunger, thirst, and fatigue apparently (I say this from reading Scripture and not recalling a particular Church teaching). But I have asked and been told that Christ's physical body in the Incarnation was not subject to death, because He never sinned. I have not gotten enough perspectives on it yet to the point where I would consider it absolutely to be the Orthodox position. Hearing from just two priests on a subject not widely taught, I still keep it in "reserve" in my mind - just in case.

 

[Petros2015]

What about the Orthodox concept of ancestral sin? Was He subject to the effects of that in his humanity? Is there a definite teaching on that point?

 

[dzheremi]

Hey, I was going to make this thread!

Here is a podcast that deals with the matter, by Antiochian Orthodox priest Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick. The portion that should interest us for the purposes of this thread begins at about 13:05. There Fr. Andrew states that St. Mary was purified by God at the Annunciation so that the human nature assumed by Christ would be "pre-lapsarian" (as it was before the fall).

Note/aside for anyone who has listened to Fr. Andrew S. Damick's Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy podcast series in the past: The version I just linked above is heavily rewritten from the original posted on AFR back in 2009. The original contains no discussion at all about Christ's human nature being "pre-lapsarian", and does in fact say that "Christ Himself suffered the effects of the fall without being guilty of anything." (I just checked it, and that's a direct quote. I have the original on my ipod and was unaware that there was a new version until I checked it today to send it to someone, found that it had a bunch of new stuff that I wasn't aware of, and decided better of it, since I'm not sure what to think. This may or may not be a point of difference between us, and I can't know without some investigation.)

I have my own questions on this, but from a Coptic Orthodox point of view, so they'd be better served in another thread.

So I'm still going to make this thread, sorta!

 

[MilesVitae]

Hey, I was going to make this thread!

Haha - well, our ongoing discussion was the genesis for this question on my part.

 

[ArmyMatt]

His nature from my understanding was prefallen, and all of the aspects that we see of fatigue, hunger, thirst, etc were by His will that He experienced those things. the great example is in John's Gospel and when Christ dies, He bows His head and then gives up the ghost. He was in total control the whole time.

jckstraw would know more

 

[truefiction1]

I'm pretty sure this topic has come up before in threads in which I've participated, but I don't remember the answer....
According to the EOC, what was the condition of Christ's humanity (prior to the resurrection, of course). That is, was it "naturally" subject to the same consequences of the fall as ours - i.e., death, suffering, etc., or were these things Christ merely permitted himself to undergo in spite of the condition of his humanity?

Christ "merely permitted Himself to undergo" (as you said) those things that we suffer as unnatural humans even though He was a natural human and therefore did not need to.

 

[~Anastasia~]

His nature from my understanding was prefallen, and all of the aspects that we see of fatigue, hunger, thirst, etc were by His will that He experienced those things. the great example is in John's Gospel and when Christ dies, He bows His head and then gives up the ghost. He was in total control the whole time.

jckstraw would know more

That's what kind of made me wonder. Christ was clearly in charge of "laying down His own life, and taking it up again" just as He told His disciples.

 

[dzheremi]

Haha - well, our ongoing discussion was the genesis for this question on my part.

And it's a good question, I think. I know it spurred me to learn more, which I always appreciate. And I just made my own thread pursuant to our earlier PM discussion, and have been satisfied by the answer given there, as well.

 

[buzuxi02]

Hey, I was going to make this thread!

Here is a podcast that deals with the matter, by Antiochian Orthodox priest Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick. The portion that should interest us for the purposes of this thread begins at about 13:05. There Fr. Andrew states that St. Mary was purified by God at the Annunciation so that the human nature assumed by Christ would be "pre-lapsarian" (as it was before the fall).

I have a bit of a problem with the above. I would say the Theotokos was purified body and soul in order not to be consumed, she still retained the fruit of ancestral sin.
Christ of course was born in the same condition as pre-fallen man. The only difference was Adam also resided in a pre-fallen bliss till he was cast out from Eden. Where Christ was born perfect in an imperfect world. Thus Christ voluntarily died and only in a violent death. This is why in the gospel of John the Jews were perplexed when Christ said he was soon going away. They debated amongst themselves whether he would go to the Greeks and preach to them. Because the Jews themselves had a tradition that the messiah "remains forever". (John 12.34, 7.32-36)

 

[Cappadocious]

According to the EOC, what was the condition of Christ's humanity (prior to the resurrection, of course). That is, was it "naturally" subject to the same consequences of the fall as ours - i.e., death, suffering, etc., or were these things Christ merely permitted himself to undergo in spite of the condition of his humanity?

It depends on how you think it functionally played out.

If you think "merely permitted" = The Logos chose to assume a human existence subject to our suffering despite it being a sinless human existence, then that's fine.

If you think "merely permitted" = The Logos chose to assume a functionally invulnerable human existence and, on a case-by-case basis, revoked this invulnerability (for example, instead of being moved by grief, he would deactivate his impassibility to weep for Lazarus for some educational purpose) then that makes a mockery of the incarnation and removes one's reason for being a Christian at all. This is the heresy of Aphthartodocetism. As St. John Chrysostom says, "For had He not been of our nature, He would not once and again have been mastered by grief."

You see this heresy appear in EO and OO circles sometimes these days under the guise of trying to defend Christ's sinlessness and, occasionally, somehow to resist Nestorianism. This appeals to a false dichotomy: Exclusively two ways of being human, namely fallen vs. unfallen. Our tradition does not have this dichotomy, allowing for multiple general human tropoi including fallen, unfallen, glorified, etc.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I have a bit of a problem with the above. I would say the Theotokos was purified body and soul in order not to be consumed, she still retained the fruit of ancestral sin.
Christ of course was born in the same condition as pre-fallen man. The only difference was Adam also resided in a pre-fallen bliss till he was cast out from Eden. Where Christ was born perfect in an imperfect world. Thus Christ voluntarily died and only in a violent death. This is why in the gospel of John the Jews were perplexed when Christ said he was soon going away. They debated amongst themselves whether he would go to the Greeks and preach to them. Because the Jews themselves had a tradition that the messiah "remains forever". (John 12.34, 7.32-36)

Your post, Buzuxi, rings a few bells with things I have tucked back into my memory. Since I can't recall where they came from, I tend to think it MIGHT have been from the numerous teaching hymns we hear in Orthros/Matins, since I don't recall a conversation about those things. Particularly the Theotokos being purified so as not to be consumed ...

 

[MilesVitae]

So... I'm a little confused now....
I'm hearing that Christ had a pre-lapsarian human nature (that is, his human nature was pre-lapsarian in its condition - not that it was a different nature, obviously), but then He suffered what we suffer by His will (truefiction, Matt, etc.)... But, I'm also hearing that it is false to say he had a "functionally invulnerable" nature which he then willed to be subject to suffering, death, etc. (Capp)... These two explanations sound mutually exclusive to me... Am I missing something, or is there a disagreement here?

 

[Job8]

Christ was clearly in charge of "laying down His own life, and taking it up again" just as He told His disciples.

One cannot divorce Christ's humanity from His Deity. He was fully sinless Man and at the same time fully God. Yes, He chose the time and the place of His death, as well as His resurrection. But He had no sin, He could not sin, and He did not sin.

 

[~Anastasia~]

One cannot divorce Christ's humanity from His Deity. He was fully sinless Man and at the same time fully God. Yes, He chose the time and the place of His death, as well as His resurrection. But He had no sin, He could not sin, and He did not sin.

Forgive me, but I'm not sure why my post would imply differently?

 

[ArmyMatt]

So... I'm a little confused now....
I'm hearing that Christ had a pre-lapsarian human nature (that is, his human nature was pre-lapsarian in its condition - not that it was a different nature, obviously), but then He suffered what we suffer by His will (truefiction, Matt, etc.)... But, I'm also hearing that it is false to say he had a "functionally invulnerable" nature which he then willed to be subject to suffering, death, etc. (Capp)... These two explanations sound mutually exclusive to me... Am I missing something, or is there a disagreement here?

because even though His humanity was pre-fallen He still had the blameless passions, which would have occurred natural to Him being fully human. so when He was hungry, yes it was by His will since He is God, but also because He had a natural human stomach that hungers when empty. it was not simply the Divine Will choosing to be hungry. humans, even prior to the Fall, still have the blameless passions. so there is no disconnect (maybe aside from poor wording) and I am glad Capp posted because that is an easy way a lot of us can go off the rails.

 

[Cappadocious]

To add, for us, the Resurrection body is not simply the prelapsarian body. The eschaton is not simply a return to old eden.

 

[tapi]

John Meyendorff sums up the matter concisely in his treatment of John Damascus' christology in his book Christ in the Eastern Christian Thought ( quote from p. 166–167]:

...John (of Damascus) condemns them [the Apthartodocetae] when, on the pretext of divine freedom, they diminish the human reality of his (Christ's) suffering. The heresy of the Apthartodocetae consisted of their conception of the humanity of Jesus as an ideal humanity, free from the consequences of sin, the passions being individual acts of condescension and of "economy" that could or could not have been.

For John (of Damascus) and for the whole orthodox tradition, the incarnate Word accepted, from his conception, the assumption of the human nature in it's fallen state. As God, hypostatically, he undoubtedly remained free from the passions and from human nature itself, but the economy of salvation implied that once and for all he should become Servant, that he should accept the necessities of human nature, but not of sin, in order to free himself from the "from within", and by doing just that, to open the way to freedom for the whole of mankind.

 

[dzheremi]

See, what that quote/summation of John of Damascus says about Christ's nature seems to fit a bit better some of the prayers from my own tradition (hence I made a thread about this question from that perspective), but maybe not as well with what others have said about Christ's assumed humanity being 'pre-lapsarian'...or maybe it does, and I just don't understand how. I don't know. I don't know how these things fit together, but color me back to being confused again.

 

[ArmyMatt]

See, what that quote/summation of John of Damascus says about Christ's nature seems to fit a bit better some of the prayers from my own tradition (hence I made a thread about this question from that perspective), but maybe not as well with what others have said about Christ's assumed humanity being 'pre-lapsarian'...or maybe it does, and I just don't understand how. I don't know. I don't know how these things fit together, but color me back to being confused again.

well, I think that is the great mystery of the Incarnation. we confess Him to be the perfect Godman, His deification of humanity was at the Incarnation, and yet we know He truly hungered, truly suffered in the flesh, etc.