The council was condemned in the western, Latin-speaking half of the Roman Empire. Pope Leo the Great thundered against it as the “Robber Synod” (and the name stuck). After the death of emperor Theodosius, a new emperor, Marcian, called a new council at Chalcedon (in Asia Minor) in 451. This time, Eutyches and the extreme Alexandrians were defeated. The council skillfully wove together all that was good and true in the Antiochene and Alexandrian outlooks, producing a theological masterpiece on the person of Christ

It’s hard enough to pronounce “Chalcedon.” Getting to grips with its theology can be even more daunting. But the effort will be very richly rewarded. For the past 1,500 years, right up to the present day, virtually all orthodox Christian theologians have defined their “orthodoxy” with reference to the Council of Chalcedon. That certainly includes the Reformed tradition. We may not think that the early ecumenical councils were infallible. But we have generally held that they were gloriously right in what they affirmed, and that Christians who take the church and its history seriously must reckon with these great councils as providential landmarks in the unfolding life story of God’s people.

What was Chalcedon all about? Basically it was trying to settle the aftermath of the Arian controversy in the fourth century. Biblical theologians had struggled successfully against Arianism to affirm the deity of Christ. But this led to further controversy. This time, the issue was the relationship between the divine and the human in Christ. Two tendencies quickly became prominent. One was associated with the church in Antioch. It wanted to protect the full reality of Christ’s deity and humanity. To do this, it tended to keep them as far apart as possible. The Antiochenes were afraid that any close blending of the two natures might mix them up. Christ’s human limitations might get applied to His deity — in which case He wasn’t fully God. Or His divine attributes might get applied to His humanity — in which case He wasn’t fully human. This was fine, as far as it went. The trouble was, Antiochenes sometimes separated Christ’s two natures so much, He seemed to end up as two persons: a human son of Mary indwelt by a divine Son of God. The most famous Antiochene thinker who took this line was Nestorius, a preacher who became patriarch (chief bishop) of Constantinople in 428. Nestorius was condemned by the third ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 (it also condemned Pelagianism as heresy).

The other tendency was associated with the church of Alexandria. Their main concern was to protect the divine person of the Son as the one single “subject” of the incarnation. In other words, there is in Christ only one “I,” only one personal agent, and this is the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. And again, this was fine as far as it went. The trouble was, Alexandrians sometimes became so zealous for Christ’s divine person, they could lose sight of His humanity. To the extremists of Alexandria, any sort of emphasis on Christ’s human nature seemed to threaten the sovereignty of His single divine person. Would Christ not break apart into two persons — the hated Nestorian heresy — if one insisted too much on the full reality of His manhood?

In the aftermath of Nestorius’ condemnation at Ephesus in 431, the Alexandrians made all the running. Their greatest thinker was Cyril of Alexandria. But when Cyril died in 444, a more extreme figure stepped into his place. This was Eutyches, a leading monk in Constantinople. Eutyches was so violent in his commitment to Christ’s single divine person, he could tolerate no rivalry (as it were) from His humanity. So in an infamous phrase, Eutyches taught that in the incarnation, Christ’s human nature had been swallowed up and lost in His divinity: “like a drop of wine in the sea.” This extreme Alexandrian view triumphed at another ecumenical council in Ephesus in 449. Its victory, however, was due less to theological argument and persuasion, and due more to gangs of unruly Alexandrian monks who terrorized the proceedings, supported by the troops of emperor Theodosius II, who favored Eutyches.

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