Anhypostasis and Enhypostasis
Christ's humanity is fully real, yet has no person of its own
This paired teaching refines Chalcedonian Christology: Christ's human nature is complete and real, yet it has no independent personhood of its own (anhypostasis) and instead subsists within the person of the divine Word (enhypostasis). Developed by Leontius of Byzantium and John of Damascus, it explains how Jesus can be truly human without being a second, separate person standing alongside the eternal Son.
How it traveled
- John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox FaithDamascus · c. 749 CEexplains
- Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59)Paris · c. 1274 CEexplains
Key passages(20)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Reply to Objection 4: The perfection of the universe is not the perfection of one person or suppositum, but of something which is one by position or order, whereof very many parts are not capable of a
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Reply to Objection 1: Augustine (Tract. xlvii in Joan.), in commenting on the text of John, asks, since Christ is Word and soul and body, "whether He putteth down His soul, for that He is the Word? Or
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
If, therefore, the human nature accrued to the Son of God, not hypostatically or personally, but accidentally, as some maintained, it would be necessary to assert two beings in Christ---one, inasmuch
Tap to expand
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith · John of Damascus
Therefore, in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing that we recognise that He has two natures but only one subsistence compounded of both, when we contemplate His natures we speak of His divinity
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
On the contrary, As stated above (Q[16], AA[4],5), the attributes of human nature are predicated of the Son of God only by reason of the union. But what belongs to the body of Christ after death is pr
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Reply to Objection 3: When we say "this man," the demonstrative pronoun "this" attracts "man" to the suppositum; and hence "Christ as this Man, is God, is a truer proposition than Christ as Man is God
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Objection 2: Further, what is noblest in all things ought to be attributed to God. But in every genus what is of itself is best. Therefore the Son of God ought to have assumed self-existing [per se] m
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Objection 1: It would seem that this is false: "Christ as Man is a creature," or "began to be." For nothing in Christ is created except the human nature. But this is false: "Christ as Man is the human
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Objection 2: Further, what is the medium of the assumption is itself more assumable. But the spirit or mind is not more assumable than the soul; which is plain from the fact that angelic spirits are n
Tap to expand
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith · John of Damascus
For ever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heavenHe sent His Word and healed themThou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are createdBy the word of the Lord were the heavens made: and all the host of them by
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Hence, supposing the truth of the Catholic belief, that the true Divine Nature is united with true human nature not only in person, but also in suppositum or hypostasis; we say that this proposition i
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
[*The question is hardly apposite in English. St. Thomas explains why we can say in Latin, e.g. 'oratio dominica' (the Lord's Prayer) or 'passio dominica' (Our Lord's Passion), but not speak of our Lo
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Thirdly, a thing is made up of things not mixed nor changed, but imperfect; as man is made up of soul and body, and likewise of divers members. But this cannot be said of the mystery of the Incarnatio
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
I answer that, Person has a different meaning from "nature." For nature, as has been said (A[1]), designates the specific essence which is signified by the definition. And if nothing was found to be a
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Objection 2: Further, all composition requires parts. But the Divine Nature is incompatible with the notion of a part, for every part implicates the notion of imperfection. Therefore it is impossible
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Reply to Objection 2: This saying of Damascene may be taken in two ways: First, as referring to human nature, which, as it is in one individual alone, has not the nature of a common species, but only
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Reply to Objection 2: As Pope Leo says in the same Epistle, Christ's soul excels our soul "not by diversity of genus, but by sublimity of power"; for it is of the same genus as our souls, yet excels e
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Objection 3: Further, in the mystery of the Incarnation the whole Divine Nature is united to the whole nature assumed, i.e. to every part of it, for Christ is "perfect God and perfect man, complete Go
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Objection 1: It would seem that the union of the Divine and human natures is not anything created. For there can be nothing created in God, because whatever is in God is God. But the union is in God,
Tap to expand
Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
Reply to Objection 3: Assumption determines with whom the union is made on the part of the one assuming, inasmuch as assumption means taking unto oneself [ad se sumere], whereas incarnation and humana
Tap to expand