The theological dogma that the Person of Jesus Christ was fully
God and fully Man. This holds that Christ's humanity and divinity are not mixed, but are united without loss of separate identity. The doctrine of the hypostatic union is an attempt to explain how
Jesus could be both
God and man at the same
time. It is ultimately, though, a doctrine that human minds are incapable of understanding fully. It holds that there is no mixture or dilution of Christ's Human or Divine
nature, and that He is one united Person. The doctrine of the hypostatic union was made dogma at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.
D., in response to the need to clearly define the Church's position in the face of heretical teachings, and further articulated at the fifth general council at Constantinople in
533 A.
D. The latter council declared that the union of
two natures is real (against Arius), not a mere indwelling of
God in a man (against Nestorius), with a rational soul (against Apollinaris), and that in Christ’s divine nature remains unchanged (against Eutyches).
Doctrines which stand in opposition to the doctrine of the hypostatic union include: Docetism, Arianism, Apollinarianism, Ebionism, Eutychianism, and Nestorianism. The Church eventually declared all of these doctrines heresies by
the end of the Sixth
Century A.
D.
