Calvinism, the Definition of Chalcedon, and the Mother of God

 

One of the most common accusations hurled against the Roman Communion by Protestants is that of Mariolatry. This term, which is formed by combining the name of Our Lord’s Mother and the word idolatry, refers to the act of awarding Mary the type of honour that belongs only to God Himself and therefore making an idol out of her. To hear some Protestants talk about this, one would think that this was a more important issue in the Reformation than the authority of Scriptures, the gracious nature of salvation, and the Pauline doctrine of justification.

Mariolatry must not be confused with Mariology. The latter term is the branch of theology into which doctrines pertaining to the Virgin Mary fall. It is not a pejorative term, whereas Mariolatry is. Technically, the one term has to do with practice and the other with doctrine. Mariolatry is an error of practice, whereas all doctrine about Mary, whether it is true doctrine or false doctrine, belongs to the theological category of Mariology.

This distinction tends to get blurred by the more zealous of the Protestant opponents of Mariolatry. Several doctrines of the Roman Communion – the Immaculate Conception, perpetual virginity, and bodily assumption, for example – are treated as examples of Mariolatry. In fact, however, the most that a careful theologian who considers such doctrines to be in error ought to say about these is that they are Mariological errors held as official dogma by a Communion which in the same theologian’s judgement also practices Mariolatry. This does not preclude, of course, a discussion of the relationship between Mariological error and Mariolatry, and indeed, it would be absurd to regard both as existing in the same Communion without there being any relationship between the two.

In the matter of the titles bestowed upon Mary, doctrine and practice are blended to the point where no absolute distinction is possible. Each of these asserts something about Mary, which is doctrinal, and honours her in liturgical practice. When Protestants object to these, therefore, it is both on the grounds that the title in question ascribes too much honour and therefore crosses the line into Mariolatry and on the grounds that it asserts something that is doctrinally in error. There are many Protestants that would include even the oldest of such titles in making these accusations. In doing so, however, they display an extreme sloppiness in their own theology.

There is a huge divide between Protestants with regards to this title. It is important to note at this point a related division among Protestants. Some Protestants affirm that which is Catholic – the beliefs and practices of the Creeds, Fathers, and Councils of the early Church, especially the first five centuries – and reject only what they would identify as errors specific to the Roman Communion – doctrines such as transubstantiation and practices such as clerical celibacy which date from a much later period in Church history and in connection with the Patriarch of Rome’s claims to supremacy over the entire Church. Other Protestants do not make this distinction and identify that which they reject and are in “protest” against as Catholic. This division largely coincides with the distinction between the Churches of the Magisterial Reformation – Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed - and the separatist sects. The Churches of the Magisterial Reformation are those which follow the early continental and English Reformers in affirming that which is Catholic, while rejecting Roman errors, while the separatist sects are those which declare their opposition to the Catholic tradition. 

The Protestants who would treat the oldest title awarded to Mary – Θεοτόκος (Theotokos), which would most literally translate as “God-bearer” but is generally rendered in English as “Mother of God” – as an example of Romish Mariolatry, to a large degree overlap with the second group of Protestants in the previous paragraph – the separatist sectarians who protest the Catholic tradition and not merely Roman error. Here, however, one of the three branches of the Magisterial Reformation breaks ranks. John Calvin, in at least one place rejected this title as appropriate to Mary, and, while a case can be made that he was not consistent on the matter, (1) the Reformed tradition has tended to align with the separatist sectarians on this. Interestingly, the first Reformed theologian Ulrich Zwingli affirmed the title, as did Heinrich Bullinger. This is a rare example of a case where Zwingli was in accord with Luther and the English Reformers and Calvin moved the Reformed tradition further away from them rather than closer to them.

The Lutherans have long accused the Calvinists of having revived the heresy of Nestorianism. The Calvinists, of course, deny the accusation. I demonstrated a few years ago how the arguments of the late R. C. Sproul against the lyrics to a well-known hymn of Charles Wesley reduce to Nestorianism, which, coming from such an eminent theologian within that tradition would seem to indicate a major blind spot here. The focus of the Lutheran accusation was on the Calvinist understanding of the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I will defer an explanation of why until later in this essay. The Calvinist response was to accuse the Lutherans of Monophysitism, which is the heresy that errs in the opposite direction of Nestorianism.

It is the Lutheran charge against Calvinism that has substance to it, especially when we take into consideration Calvin’s objections to Mary being called the Mother of God. For this is precisely the controversy that brought the anathema of the Council of Ephesus of 431 AD down upon Nestorius’ head. For in orthodox theology, the rejection of the title Theotokos for Mary is not merely a Mariological error, but a Christological heresy.

Nestorius, who was born in Germanicia in the Roman Province of Syria, and trained as a priest in Antioch under Theodore the Interpreter, was consecrated Patriarch of Constantinople on April 10th, 428 AD. He was only a little over forty years old at the time, but his term of office in this See would prove very short, lasting three years. For the controversy that bears his name broke out almost immediately. His principal opponent and accuser was Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria. Note that Constantinople and Alexandria were two of the five highest episcopal Sees of the early Church – the other three were Rome, Jerusalem, and Antioch.

The controversy began over Nestorius’ refusal to use the title Theotokos for Mary. He was not the only one to reject the title, nor was he the most vehement opponent of it – he, in fact, proposed a sort of compromise which was rejected by both sides. His intentions were good – he wished to protect the deity of Jesus Christ, which had come under attack by the Arian heresy of the previous century. All heresy, however, begins as a misguided excessive zeal for one truth that leads one to reject another. Nestorius believed that to call Mary the Mother of God was to imply that the divinity of Jesus was a lesser sort of divinity that had a beginning in time, which was what Arius had taught. Cyril, however, saw that Nestorius’ arguments undermined the unity of Christ’s Person.

In the first two Ecumenical Councils of the fourth century, The First Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and the First Council of Constantinople (381 AD), which had been convened to address the Arian and Sabellian heresies, as well as deal with several non-doctrinal issues, the doctrine of the Trinity had been at stake – that God is One in His Eternal Being, but Three in Person, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now in the fifth century, the issue was the Person of Jesus Christ – that He was One in Person, but Two in Nature, both fully God and fully human. This is the truth known as the hypostatic union, from the Greek word ὑπόστασις (hypostasis) which figured in the controversy and by this point in time had come to mean what we mean by “Person” when we say in English that Jesus Christ is One in Person. (2)

If it is not yet clear why Cyril saw Nestorius’ objection to this term as a violation of the hypostatic union, note that it is because Nestorius’ doctrine would make Mary the Mother, not of Jesus Christ the Person, but of one of His natures. Whatever can be truthfully postulated about Jesus Christ in one of His two natures, can be postulated about Jesus Christ in His whole Person. Jesus Christ, in His divine nature, is fully God, therefore Jesus Christ, the One Person, is fully God. Jesus Christ, in His human nature, is the Son of Mary, therefore Jesus Christ, the One Person, is the Son of Mary. Consequently, Mary is the Mother of God, not in the absurd sense of being the source of His divine nature, which nobody has ever asserted, but in the sense that Mary is the Mother of the Person, Jesus Christ, Who is God.

Cyril of Alexandria issued Twelve Anathemas against Nestorius. Nestorius in turn condemned Cyril as a heretic. Cyril was backed by Celestine I, Patriarch of Rome, who, although his See did not yet claim supremacy over the entire Church, was recognized as primus inter pares among the five Patriarchs. Nestorius had, at first, the support of Emperor Theodosius II, as well as the Syrian Church headed by John I of Antioch and the Persian Church. At Nestorius’ request Emperor Theodosius called an Ecumenical Council to convene at Ephesus on Whitsunday in 431 AD. The Council, however, took Cyril’s position, anathematized Nestorius and his teachings, deposed Nestorius, and affirmed Mary as Theotokos. The Syrian delegates who arrived late, objected to this having been done before their arrival, declared the proceedings invalid and held a counter-Council which condemned Cyril, but ultimately Emperor Theodosius withdrew his support of Nestorius and confirmed the Council of Ephesus, John of Antioch accepted the judgement, and Nestorius himself retired to a monastery. Only the Persian Church continued to reject the Council of Ephesus and broke away from the rest of the Church in schism.

Twenty years after the Council of Ephesus, and the year after Nestorius died, the fourth Ecumenical Council convened at Chalcedon. It was this Council which produced the clearest positive affirmation of the orthodox doctrine of the hypostatic union in its famous Definition:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us. 

 Note the affirmation of Theotokos in the Definition. This reaffirmed the condemnation of Nestorianism, although the purpose of the Council of Chalcedon was to address the opposite heresy which had sprung up in the meantime. Eutyches, a priest from Constantinople who had supported Cyril in condemning Nestorius at Ephesus, took his opposition to Nestorianism to the extreme of asserting that Jesus’ full deity and humanity were blended into a single nature. He claimed Cyril’s support for this doctrine, although he only did so after Cyril’s death in 444 AD, and passages in Cyril’s writings which would seem to assert it can possibly be explained by a difference in the usage of terminology. At any rate, the Council of Chalcedon condemned the Eutychian doctrine as the heresy of Monophysitism which deviates from the orthodox doctrine of the hypostatic union in the opposite direction to that of Nestorianism. The latter divides the Person, the former confuses the substance, to use the terminology of the Athanasian Creed. Just as the Persian Church had rejected the Council of Ephesus and broke communion with the rest of the Church, so a number of Middle Eastern Churches – the Coptic, Armenian, Syrian, Ethiopian, Indian and Eritrean (3) – broke from the rest of the Church in rejection of the Council of Chalcedon. While the rest of the Church accused them of Monophysitism, they themselves insisted that they were rejecting the Council of Chalcedon, not supporting Eutyches.

Calvinists – well, the Reformed Church at any rate, perhaps not the Calvinists in the separatist sects – officially affirm the first four General Councils as being valid and orthodox, like the Lutherans and Anglicans. Indeed, the first Christian organization to pop to mind which names itself after Chalcedon is the Chalcedon Foundation, a very Calvinist organization, in the tradition of Cornelius Van Til, founded by the late Rousas J. Rushdoony, with which a number of prominent, very Calvinist theologians have been affiliated over the years. Yet there is a strong tendency among Calvinists to follow Calvin in denying to Mary the very title which Nestorius denied her and which the Council of Ephesus – and the Definition of Chalcedon – affirmed. Some try to get around this by saying that the Greek term Theotokos affirmed by the Council of Ephesus is inaccurately translated by “Mother of God” and the equivalent translations in other languages but this is disingenuous. Theotokos can be translated “God-bearer”, but so can “Theophorus.” Using the same English translation conceals a difference in meaning in the Greek. The word combined with Theos (God) in Theophorus is the same word that combines with Christ to make the name Christopher, which comes from St. Christopher who, according to the story connected to his name, bore Christ in the sense of carrying Him over a river. (4) The word combined with Theos in Theotokos refers to bearing in the sense of child-birth. Indeed, Liddell and Scott give as their first definition of this word “childbirth, parturition, of women”, with the subdefinition “the time of parturition” and as their second definition “offspring, of men and animals.” In other words the “bearer” in the “God-bearer” translation of Theotokos can only be “bearer” in the sense of “mother.”

Remember that this was not the only – or even the primary - basis of the charge of Nestorianism that the Lutherans had levelled against the Calvinists as far back as the sixteenth century. Indeed, they might not have been aware of Calvin’s words on the subject as they come from one of his private letters and not from the Institutes or his other written-for-publication works. Where Jakob Andrea, Martin Chemnitz and the other Lutheran scholastic theologians saw Nestorianism in Calvinism was in its view of the Eucharist.

 Dr. Luther had – rightly – rejected the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation in which the bread and wine start out as bread and wine, but at moment of consecration the substance of bread and wine is replaced by that of the Body and Blood of Christ, leaving only the appearance of bread and wine. The Church Fathers had not spoken of transubstantiation, only of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, and transubstantiation amounted instead to the “Real Absence” of the bread and wine. Luther maintained that when Christ said “this is My Body” and “this is My Blood”, these words were to be taken literally on faith, but that this did not mean that the bread and wine disappeared and were replaced by the Body and Blood. The faithful, receiving the Sacrament in faith, receive both the bread and wine which remain, and the Body and Blood which are joined to them. Some call this consubstantiation although Lutherans do not always accept this term for their teaching.

Other Protestants have taken different views. There is the memorialist view, which has only ever been officially held by separatist sects, although it has been attributed to the first Reformed theologian Ulrich Zwingli, in which the bread and wine are mere symbols, and there is no Real Presence except in the sense intended by verses like “where two or three are gathered together in My name there am I” and “behold I am with you always even unto the end of the age.” The Calvinist doctrine rejects memorialism – although many Calvinists appear to be unaware of this fact – and teaches that there is a Real Presence in the Eucharist, and that the Sacramental ritual is instrumental to the believer receiving it, but that it is entirely a spiritual presence. 

The Lutheran charge that the Calvinist view amounts to Nestorianism follows this logic – if there is a Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament and it is only a spiritual Presence then only one of His natures is present which divides the Person of Christ.

Whether one accepts the conclusion or not, the logic is far more solid than that of the reverse charge levelled against the Lutherans by the Calvinists, and taken together with the Calvinist rejection of the very Marian title which featured into the original Nestorian controversy, and R. C. Sproul’s clearly Nestorian objection to Wesley’s “And Can It Be?” there are significant grounds for thinking that the Calvinist tradition, at the very least, has long flirted with the Nestorian heresy.

 I will note, obiter dictum, that the Anglican view of the Real Presence stated in the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, while obviously closer to the Calvinist than any of the other Protestant positions in its use of the words “heavenly” and “spiritual”, is more carefully worded, applying these words specifically to the “manner” in which “the body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper” rather than to the Presence directly. Frankly, I doubt that Calvin intended to go further than this, but he and the tradition which has followed him have unfortunately connected it with arguments about how Christ’s Body cannot be present on earth because it is at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, which lends much ammunition to the charge of Nestorianism against this view, and which the officially stated Anglican position wisely avoids. As worded, Article XXVIII, by saying that “The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner” does not suggest “only part of Jesus is present” but merely that He is present in a spiritual and heavenly way.

The persistent Calvinist objection to the Marian title of Theotokos, at least in translation, is, of course, connected to their strong stance against Mariolatry. It is laudable, of course, to oppose any ascription of the honour due only to God to a created being, but it is also possible to take this too far. Remember, Nestorius’ opposition to Arius was laudable, as was Eutyches opposition to Nestorius, but both turned to heresy when this blinded them to other truths. In this case, the Calvinist determination not to elevate Mary so far as to give her honour that is inappropriate for a created being has led to their denying her any special honour at all, and in the process coming close to embracing an ancient Christological heresy. There are verses in the Bible they can pull out of context to seemingly support them in this – Matthew 25:46-50 and its parallels in the other Synoptics and the fourth verse of the second chapter of John – are the obvious examples, but their practice conflicts completely with the twelfth chapter of Revelation, at least going by the interpretation which most immediately suggests itself, and the whole tone of the words addressed to Mary by Gabriel and Elizabeth in the first chapter of Luke (whatever one might think of the Sancte Maria, the Ave Maria merely joins Gabriel’s initial greeting to the first sentence in Elizabeth’s salutation), or, for that matter, the second part of the third verse in the Magnificat from the same chapter. (5) 

There is nothing wrong with Protestantism in the best sense of the word, but in this case the Calvinists, like the Player Queen in Shakespeare’s Hamlet as described by Queen Gertrude, doth protest too much, methinks.

 (1) Calvin’s Commentary on the Annunciation passage in St. Luke’s Gospel, for example, would seem to implicitly affirm Mary as Theotokos. 

 (2) This is the technical theological meaning ascribed to the term during the Christological debates of the fifth century. With most technical terms of Trinitarian and Christological theory, the centuries prior to the ones in which the Church issues conciliar statements anathematizing heresies and defining orthodoxy, saw much discussion and debate over what the precise word to best express the meaning of this or that was, and several of these changed meaning. This is something that needs to be kept in mind when comparing the official statements of the Ecumenical Councils to the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. 

 (3) These are known collectively as the Oriential Orthodox Churches, a term which can be confusing as it is almost identical to the Eastern Orthodox Churches, which are Chalcedonian and are the Churches of the Greek tradition which followed the Patriarch of Constantinople in breaking from the Churches of the Latin tradition which followed the Patriarch of Rome in 1054 AD.

 (4) For anyone interested in these things, the word meaning bring, bear, or carry here, is identical in Greek and Latin, φέρω and fero. 

(5) Without implying that he agrees with everything I have written in this essay, for a sounder Protestant approach to Mariology I refer you to Mary for Evangelicals: Toward an Understanding of the Mother of Our Lord by Anglican priest Tim Perry published by Inter-Varsity in 2006. Rev. Dr. Perry was a professor at what is now Providence University College when I studied there in the 1990s, although I did not take any classes from him, he having joined the faculty towards the end of my time there.