What is Apollinarianism?

Apollinarianism was the opposite kind of error, being an attack on Christ's humanity. He denied that the Lord had a human spirit. But before we consider this in detail, let us first examine the scriptural doctrine of the tripartite nature of Man.

“Two beings persisting in their completeness, he conceived, could not be united into one whole. Out of the union of the perfect human nature with the Deity one person never could proceed; and more particularly, the rational soul of the man could not be assumed into union with the divine Logos so as to form one Person. This was the negative side of the doctrine of Apollinaris; but as to the positive side, this was closely connected with his views on human nature. He supposed that human nature consisted of three parts—the rational soul which constitutes the essence of man's nature; the animal soul, which is the principle of animal life; and the body, between which and the spirit, that soul is the intermediate principle. The body, by itself considered, has no faculty of desire; but this soul which is united with it, is the source and fountain of the desires that struggle against reason. This soul Apollinaris believed he found described also by the apostle Paul, in the passage where he speaks of the flesh striving against the spirit. See [Gal. 5:17. Also Rom. 7:18-23, and Matt. 26:41.] The human mutable spirit was too weak to subject to itself this resisting soul; hence the domination of the sinful desires. Therefore, for the redemption of mankind from the dominion of sin, it was necessary that an immutable Divine Spirit, the Logos Himself, should enter into union with these two parts of human nature. It does not pertain to the essence of that lower soul, as it does to the essence of the higher soul, that it should determine itself; but, on the contrary, that it should be determined and ruled by a higher principle: but the human spirit was too weak for this; the end and destination of human nature, therefore, is realised when the Logos, as an immutable Divine Spirit, rules over this lower soul, and thus restores the harmony between the lower and higher principles in man's nature”.

This, then, in the words of Neander, was the doctrine of Apollinaris. It does not really matter whether the reader has understood the particular train of reasoning which led Apollinaris to his erroneous conclusion. It is sufficient to know what the distinctive error was, and it can be summarised thus: Apollinaris believed, in common with other Christians, that man consisted of three parts—body, soul and spirit. But he stated that, in the Lord's case, the weak and mutable human spirit gave place to the immutable Divine Spirit. He did not acknowledge complete humanity in Christ, but only two parts—body and soul. The spirit inhabiting that body was not a human one, but only the Divine Spirit. Apollinaris clearly taught that the Lord's eternal Self was the Spirit, and the only Spirit, of His body.

It is to be feared that other eminent men besides Apollinaris have fallen into this error, but it should be recognised as one of the fundamental heresies of Church History.

The doctrine was condemned formally by a council in AD. 375 and another in A.D. 378 deposed Apollinaris from his bishopric and forced him and his followers out of communion. He died in A.D. 392, maintaining his false doctrine to the last, but his sect continued until about the middle of the fifth century. To combat his doctrine, the following words were included in the Athanasian creed: “Perfect God and perfect man: of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.... For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man; so God and man is one Christ”. So the church of that period dealt decisively with fundamental error and merited the Lord's commendation: “Thou holdest fast My Name and hast not denied My faith”. Let us hope that all those who aspire to be Christians today are as worthy of the Lord's approval.

With these words our author launches us into deep waters. It was during the fourth century that one Apollinarius, in opposing the Arians, who emphasized Christ's Manhood and denied His Deity, formed the theory that in Christ the Word (Greek, Logos) took the place of the rational element in man; or in other words that our Lord assumed only a human body, and that the Divine nature in Him took the place of the rational human soul or mind. By this he hoped to meet the Arian heretics on their own ground, and give a rational explanation of the otherwise inexplicable mystery of His Person.

H.A.I. — And we read, “He groaned in spirit and was troubled.” The denial of this is an old heresy known as Apollinarianism. It is the teaching that the Logos took the place in His body that my spirit and soul do in mine.

Thus the proof of His true humanity is complete. Here too He is in all things made like unto His brethren; and how much, in fact, depends upon this! That, we must seek to get before us later on; but first, we must turn to certain denials or explanations otherwise of what these texts seem to teach; old speculations having been revived of late, and calling for fresh examination. It will be of use to trace it first in its older form and then in its modern phases. The older form is known (in Church history only) as Apollinarianism; the later is all around us to-day in what is known as Kenoticism.

Apollinaris was a man in high esteem among the orthodox, and in opposition to Arianism a zealous Trinitarian. It was, in fact, in opposition to Arianism that his views seem to have been developed. "The Arian doctrine of the person of Christ," says Dr. Bruce,6 "was, that in the historical person called Christ appeared in human flesh the very exalted-in a sense,-divine-creature named in Scripture the Logos [or Word],-the Logos taking the place of a human soul, and being liable to human infirmity, and even to sin, inasmuch as, however exalted, he was still a creature, therefore finite, therefore fallible, capable of turning, in the abuse of freedom, from good to evil. Apollinaris accepted the Arian method of constructing [conceiving? ] the person, by the exclusion of a rational human soul, and used it as a means of obviating the Arian conclusion."

He did not deny a human soul in Christ in the scriptural sense of soul, but a rational human soul, which was the philosophic term for which Scripture uses the term "spirit." The spirit of Christ he maintained to be His Deity; and in this way he thought not merely to escape the Arian doctrine of moral frailty in the Lord, but to obtain other results of the greatest importance.

Thus the proof of His true humanity is complete. Here too He is in all things made like unto His brethren; and how much, in fact, depends upon this! That, we must seek to get before us later on; but first, we must turn to certain denials or explanations otherwise of what these texts seem to teach; old speculations having been revived of late, and calling for fresh examination. It will be of use to trace it first in its older form and then in its modern phases. The older form is known (in Church history only) as Apollinarianism; the later is all around us today in what is known as Kenoticism.

Apollinaris was a man in high esteem among the orthodox and, in opposition to Arianism, a zealous Trinitarian. It was, in fact, in opposition to Arianism that his views seem to have been developed. "The Arian doctrine of the person of Christ," says Dr. Bruce, "was that in the historical person called Christ appeared in human flesh the very exalted — in a sense, — divine — creature named in Scripture the Logos [or Word], — the Logos taking the place of a human soul, and being liable to human infirmity, and even to sin, inasmuch as, however exalted, he was still a creature, therefore finite, therefore fallible, capable of turning, in the abuse of freedom, from good to evil. Apollinaris accepted the Arian method of constructing [conceiving?] the person, by the exclusion of a rational human soul, and used it as a means of obviating the Arian conclusion."

He did not deny a human soul in Christ in the scriptural sense of soul, but a rational human soul, which was the philosophic term for which Scripture uses the term "spirit." The spirit of Christ he maintained to be His Deity; and in this way he thought not merely to escape the Arian doctrine of moral frailty in the Lord, but to obtain other results of the greatest importance.

152 Mark 14:34-39. — Cf. Luke 22:43, Heb. 5:7. "My soul is full of grief." This is one of the Gospel passages bearing on our Lord's full humanity, which was early questioned. Thus Apollinaris held that in the Lord the place of a human soul or spirit was taken by the word (λόγος). See Pullan, "Early Christian Doctrine," p. 101; or Dorner, "History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ," vol. ii., p. 35 f.

Apollinaris, a man of a strongly speculative mind, set himself to show how the doctrine of the Incarnation ought to be viewed. Neander describes his line of reasoning thus:

Now we can proceed in our study of Apollinarianism. Because of the wide meaning of the term ‘soul', it was customary at that time to refer to the spirit as the rational or higher soul, and the middle part of man as the lower or animal soul.

APOLLINARIANISM

Of these the first was the avoidance of all possibility of supposing a dual personality in Christ, such as in fact some of his opponents fell into. Quoting Dr. Bruce again: In his view "Christ was true God, for He was the eternal Logos manifested in the flesh. He was also true man, for human nature consists of three component elements, body, animal soul, and spirit;" and all these Christ had. "True, it might be objected that the third element in the person of Christ, the nous [mind] was not human but divine. But Apollinaris was ready with his reply. 'The mind in Christ,' he said in effect, 'is at once divine and human; the Logos is at once the express image of God and the prototype of humanity.' This appears to be what he meant when he asserted that the humanity of Christ was eternal, — a part of his system which was much misunderstood by his opponents, who supposed it to have reference to the body of Christ. There is no reason to believe that Apollinaris meant to teach that our Lord's flesh was eternal, and that He brought it with Him from heaven, and therefore was not really born of the Virgin Mary; though some of his adherents may have held such opinions. His idea was that Christ was the celestial man; celestial, because divine; man, not merely as God incarnate, but because the divine spirit is at the same time essentially human."