At Chalcedon in AD 451, the Fourth Ecumenical Council was convened. The former council was not seen to have been a fair and proper gathering. The Fourth Council thus better represented all views. This allowed for the Church to accept the notion that, in Christ, there are two natures in one person. This council did not create a new creed or update the older versions. The council clarified the universal church’s position on faith.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same God, perfect in divinity, and perfect in humanity, true God and true human…begotten of the Father before all time in his divinity, and also begotten in the latter days, in his humanity, of Mary the virgin bearer of God.[1]
This was done to guard against the dismantling the deity and incarnation of the Christ. It is an imperfect statement, but a necessary one to be formed at the time. This statement, however, is the first that historians have viewed to have caused what would become a permanent schism in the Church; dividing the East from the West. Many feared that the incarnation would be meaningless under a view of two natures because Jesus Christ would no longer be viewed as fully divine.
Though this entry merely represents a small summary of the issues, I believe it captures the major events and themes. There were four major councils to deal with the controversies that faced the church in the 4th and 5th Centuries. Shelley presented a very good question in his overview of the questions of the Church during past times and even today. The question is as Jesus asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” (Mat 16:15)
[1] An excerpt of the Chalcedon statement as found in Gonzales, p. 257.
The Emmanuel principle is a reference to when God says, “I will be your God, you will be my people.” (Deu 29 says that this is the purpose of his covenant: that it is to be a God to his people and his people be his own.)
The Hebrew for covenant is used after Phinheas.