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The Glorification of Jesus's Two Natures is a Loan from Mythology
By Evangelos Dim. Kepenes (November 28, 2025, 11:14 a.m.)
The Two Natures
This combined assertion of the conciliar fathers—that the pre-existent second God (the Son) came down from heaven and was incarnated "from the holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary" [thus, the man from heaven, Jesus, was not the Son of God but the incarnation of the pre-existent second God-Son]—inevitably led to the not-so-novel idea of the two natures of Jesus.
This idea has forerunners in mystical and philosophical systems (such as Hermeticism, Platonism, Gnosticism) that speak of the dual nature (Immortal/Mortal) of man; consequently, the idea of the two natures is a spiritual inheritance from Mythology. Furthermore, this 'idea' abolishes the antithesis established by Paul between the First man of the earth and the Second from heaven, emphasizing that "it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural/physical, then the spiritual," and distinguishing the "image of the man of dust" from the "image of the man of heaven" (1 Cor. 15:46-49)—formulations that leave no room for implication of a Hypostatic Composition of Opposites.
Already in mystical Hermeticism ("a metaphysical system and a body of systematic, magical, astrological, and alchemical practices") we encounter the idea of the two natures of the archetypal man who fell into the natural world.
"And the (archetypal) man himself, admiring his image, falls in love with himself and wishes to dwell on earth. Thus, we have the fall of man, and nature constricts him from all sides. And because of his fall, man has a double nature: mortal as regards the body and immortal as regards his essence, a slave and simultaneously master of Fate, which is ultimately determined by all the spheres."
The Greek, Aeschylus, Dionysus, and Heracles
Furthermore, according to the decipherment of the Phaistos Disc, the Greek, as a true son of God, is born from an earthly womb and heavenly seed.
In Aeschylus's work "Prometheus Bound," Prometheus prophesies that his Redeemer, "the one who will release him," will be born from God and the mortal virgin Io.
Also, Dionysus, whom the ancient Greeks called "Savior," "suffering god," and "divine infant," also had a dual nature, since he was the offspring of the union of the god Zeus (celestial primordial fire) and the mortal nymph Semele (earthly substance). He was also thrice-born (born three times): Dionysus-Phanes, Dionysus-Zagreus, and the resurrected Dionysus who was called by Zeus to rule.
The greatest of the Greek mythical heroes, Heracles, whose parents were the father of gods and men, Zeus, and the mortal Alcmene, also had two natures, as did many others.
Hybridism and Philosophy
Furthermore, in Mythology, another form of dual nature is found: that of the Mixed-Man (= half human and half beast, Themist. 284A, cf. Liban. 3. 282.) (Liddell-Scott). One of these was the mythical Typhon, son of Gaia.
The idea of the two natures had forerunners not only in mythical models of union (Zeus/Semele) and hybridism (Mixed-Man), but also in abstract philosophical schemes (Pythagoras) which placed duality within the very principle (the One) itself.
According to the Pythagoreans, nature is interpreted numerically, and the essence of beings consists of numbers. The number one (1), because of its dual nature, is both 'even' (identified with the 'infinite') and 'odd' (identified with the finite) (Metaphysics, 987a17, 986a19-20).
Furthermore, from the Gnostic Texts of the Nag Hammadi library discovered in the Chenoboskion region of Egypt at the end of 1945, a Letter to Reginus is preserved, a Valentinian text, a passage of which leaves no doubt that the idea of the two natures of Jesus had precursors in mystical systems before it was formulated at the Council of Chalcedon. The Gnostic author of the Letter to Reginus enlightens us:
Now the Son of God, [dear] Rheginos, was Son of Man. He embraced them both, possessing the humanity and the divinity, so that on the one hand he might vanquish death through his being Son of God, and that on the other through the Son of Man the restoration to the Pleroma might occur; because he was originally from above, a seed of Truth, before this structure had come into being. (Epistle to Rheginus 44,21-31)
A Brief History of the "Union of the Two Natures of Jesus" in One Person
The Ecumenical councils aimed to find, by the bishops of the Imperial religion, conciliatory and compromise solutions to their intra-ecclesiastical disputes, since a multitude of Gnostics and other "heretics" had been, for a considerable time, members of the "official Church."
Often, the resolution of dogmatic disputes took place in an "atmosphere of terror," with bribery and fanatical armed monks who pillaged rival churches, murdering their bishops (e.g., the "Robber Council" of 449 AD), where political violence and imperial interventions played a significant role.
The Christological Controversy and the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD)
Thus, the Christological doctrine of the composite dual nature of Jesus in one hypostasis (Dyophysitism / Hypostatic Union) was formulated in 451 AD by the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, which was convened by the Roman imperial couple Marcian and Pulcheria, with the aim of addressing the contentious teaching of the archimandrite Eutyches, a form of Monophysitism, a collaborator of Cyril of the Alexandrian school, who maintained that the human nature of Christ was absorbed into the divine, and therefore, Jesus had only one nature, the divine.
Thus, instead of the extreme "absorption" of one nature by the other (Monophysitism), the dogmatic position of the "union" of the two natures in one hypostasis (person) prevailed, which was founded upon the Tome of Leo (Bishop of Rome) and confirmed by the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451 AD).
The new conciliar formula concerning the identity of Jesus Christ's nature (Dyophysitism) caused a great schism. The churches that rejected Chalcedon were called Anti-Chalcedonian or non-Chalcedonian and maintained an intermediate Christological position, Miaphysitism.
The Basic Concepts of Christological Terms
Monophysitism: The theological teaching according to which Jesus Christ has only one nature (one nature), the Divine, which fully absorbed the human, material (earthly) nature. In its extreme form (Eutychianism), the human nature of Christ disappeared within the Divine, like a drop of water in the sea.
Miaphysitism: Christ has one united nature ("one incarnate nature of the Word"), which resulted from the union of the Divinity and the humanity. (Dogmatic position of the Oriental Orthodox Churches: Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopian, etc.). Miaphysite theologians such as Severus of Antioch, Philoxenus of Mabbug, and Jacob Baradaeus called the Dyophysite Chalcedonians "Sarkolatres" (Worshipers of the Flesh/Man) and “anthropolaters”
Dyophysitism (Chalcedonian Theology): Christ is one person ("one hypostasis") in two natures ("in two natures"), united unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably. (Dogmatic position of the Eastern Greek Orthodox and the Western Catholic Church).
Definition of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, Rendered (Dyophysitism)
"The union of the two natures in Christ occurred in such a way that they are not confused, not changed, not divided, not separated, without the difference of the two natures being abolished at all because of this union, which was accomplished in such a way that each nature preserves its properties, while also being (both) united in one person and one hypostasis."
The Definition of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon constitutes the cornerstone of Christology for the Greek Orthodox, Catholic, and most Protestant Churches. Its influence on subsequent dogmatic movements was decisive and led to further schisms and various disputes until today.
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