Week 5 · AD 401–500
Grace and the One Christ
Baptism, grace, and the councils that defined Christ’s person
This week
Baptism, grace, and one Christ
- Augustine defends Baptism given outside his own church
- Councils at Ephesus and Chalcedon defend Christ’s one person
- Pelagius and the monks test how grace and faith begin
- Clovis is baptized, and Jerome translates Scripture into Latin
- Rome’s power fails in the West, while the church keeps teaching Christ
Christ as the Good Shepherd
Unknown artist, about AD 425–450, Ravenna. Christ is a gentle shepherd and a crowned ruler.
Church life
What Christians believed and did in daily life
Christ and the sacraments
Baptism belongs to Christ
- Augustine says Baptism given outside his church is still real Baptism
- The sacrament belongs to Christ, so it does not need repeating
- A person gains its benefit only by faith and unity with the church
Scripture in Latin
Jerome’s Latin Bible
- About AD 390–405, Jerome translates the first part of the Bible from Hebrew into Latin
- His work helps form the Vulgate, the Latin Bible of the western church
- It puts the Scriptures that point to Christ into the language of the West
- This page uses an earlier Latin text, the kind Jerome’s work was meant to replace
Christ and the sacraments
Clovis is baptized at Reims
- About AD 496, Clovis, king of the Franks, is baptized by Bishop Remigius
- Many of his warriors are baptized with him
- He joins the Nicene church, which confesses Christ as true God
- Arians denied that the Son is fully God
Controversy and heresy
Grace, and the two natures of Christ
Controversy
Grace and the first move
- Augustine says grace changes the will and does more than teach
- Pelagius, a British monk, says people obey by their own strength, helped by Christ’s example
- Augustine says Pelagius’s view shrinks the work of Christ
- After about AD 426, John Cassian and monks near Marseilles say a person makes the first move toward faith
- Later writers call this view Semi-Pelagianism. Orange condemns it in AD 529
Controversy
One Son, and Mary as Theotokos
- Cyril of Alexandria argues that Jesus Christ is one Son
- Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, is understood to split Christ into two persons
- Theotokos (Greek for “God-bearer”) is at the center of the dispute
- It says the child Mary bore is truly God
Controversy
Eutyches and the Henotikon
- The monk Eutyches taught that Christ’s humanity was absorbed into his divinity
- After Chalcedon, many Christians in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria rejected the council
- Today’s Oriental Orthodox churches descend from them, and do not teach Eutyches’s view
- In AD 482, Emperor Zeno issues the Henotikon (“act of union”) as the one standard
- The Henotikon does not say whether Christ has one nature or two
- In 484, Pope Felix III excommunicates Acacius, starting a split until 519
Councils and events
Each council, with its Lutheran classification
Carthage, AD 418
Pelagian teaching condemned
- An African synod, a regional church council, rejects two claims about sin
- Rejected: Adam was made to die, sin or no sin, and infants have no original sin
- Grace helps us do good, and does not only forgive past sins
- Canon 2: infants are baptized for the remission of sins
- Lutheran classification: Received
Ephesus, AD 431
Christ’s one person defended
- The council condemns Nestorius and defends the unity of Christ’s person
- It upholds Mary’s title Theotokos, “God-bearer”
- Nestorius is removed as bishop and later exiled
- This protects the Gospel: the one who died for us is God’s own Son
- Lutheran classification: Received
Constantinople to Chalcedon
Two synods, then Chalcedon
- Constantinople, AD 448: Flavian condemns Eutyches. Lutheran classification: Received
- Ephesus II, AD 449: backs Eutyches and removes Flavian. Lutheran classification: Spurious
- Chalcedon, AD 451: one Christ in two natures. Lutheran classification: Received
- Chalcedon, canon 28: gives Constantinople honors equal to Rome’s. Lutheran view: church order, not doctrine
Major people
Bishops, teachers, and a king
Major people
Teachers, bishops, and a king
- Augustine, bishop of Hippo, wrote on Baptism and grace
- Jerome, translator of the Latin Bible
- Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, defended Christ’s one Son
- Leo, bishop of Rome, wrote the Tome to Flavian
- John Chrysostom, famed preacher, taught that believers receive Christ’s body in the Supper
- Patrick, missionary bishop in fifth-century Ireland
- Clovis, king of the Franks, baptized at Reims
- Eutyches, monk whose view of Christ was rejected
Wider world
Sack, siege, battle, and a timeline landmark
Wider world
Rome under pressure
- AD 410: Alaric’s Goths sack Rome
- About AD 426: Augustine’s The City of God argues that Christ’s kingdom does not rise or fall with Rome
- About AD 430: Vandals besiege Hippo for about fourteen months, and Augustine dies during the siege
- AD 451: Attila’s Huns fight a Roman-led coalition at the Catalaunian Plains in Gaul
- AD 476: Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus, a conventional landmark for Rome’s fall in the West
Confessional Lutheran connection
What the Confessions say about Christ, Baptism, grace, and the Supper
Confessional Lutheran connection
Teaching prompts
- Christ: why does his one person matter for his saving work? (Solid Declaration VIII.5–12)
- Baptism: does the minister’s moral standing decide Christ’s sacramental promise? (Augsburg Confession VIII.1–3 and IX)
- Supper: how does Christ’s person reach us in the Supper? (Solid Declaration VIII.76–87)
- Grace: why do the Confessions say that faith itself is God’s gift? (Solid Declaration II.26–27)
- Authority: does church unity rest on rank or on the Gospel? (Chalcedon canon 28 and Smalcald Articles II.IV)
For discussion
If Christ is God and man in one person, how does his call in Baptism and the Supper reach sinners today?