Day 66: True God and True Man

The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it. CCC 464

In today's reading, the Catechism takes us through the litany of heresies that rocked the early Church on the natures of Jesus. Was He truly God and truly man? The Church answers in the affirmative, yet Gnostic Docetism, Adoptionism, Arianism, Nestorianism, and others tried to argue against these core Christological teachings. 

As the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church sums up our understanding:

The Church confesses that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, with two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, not confused with each other but united in the Person of the Word. Therefore, in the humanity of Jesus all things - his miracles, his suffering, and his death - must be attributed to his divine Person which acts by means of his assumed human nature.

“O Only-begotten Son and Word of God you who are immortal, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary (...) You who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!” (Byzantine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom) [#89]

What has been surprising to see, though perhaps should not be, are some Evangelical Protestants deny that Mary is Theotokos. Their confusion of honor and veneration with idolatry has led to a serious Christological error that was resolved all those centuries before. As the Catechism Companion, Vol I states:

The Council of Ephesus in AD 431 affirmed that Mary is Theotokos, meaning "God bearer" - she is the Mother of God. Mary is not just the mother of Jesus' human nature; one does not give birth to a "nature" but to a "person". She is rightly called "Mother of God" because Jesus, though possessing human and divine natures, is a divine Person, who became incarnate through Mary... The Son of God chose to become man and be born of a human mother, Mary, for the salvation of the world... Thus Jesus is biologically the son of Mary; he took human flesh from her. Jesus is truly the Son of God and the son of Mary. (p. 137)

Mary is nothing without Jesus, just like the rest of us. In affirming that she is Theotokos this is protecting orthodox Christology, not to honor her above or equal to God (as if this were even possible). Mary bore the whole Person of Jesus, God and man, not just His human nature. She also did not give birth to the Most Holy Trinity or the Persons of the Father and Holy Spirit. Yet to Jesus the Divine Man she did and thus is rightly called Theotokos or Mater Dei. 

Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, 1876 painting by Vasily Surikov