Primary sources

Creeds

The Chalcedonian Definition

Ὅρος τῆς ἐν Χαλκηδόνι συνόδου

451년

About this text

The English text below is this school's own study translation, made directly from the Greek definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451) — not the wording any denomination uses in worship.

In the original-language panel, this document's four defining adverbs are given in Greek — the heart of the text. A full parallel text is in Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2 (1877), which is out of copyright.

The school's Korean translations are released under CC BY 4.0: copy, adapt and distribute them for any purpose, including worship, teaching and print, as long as you credit “Blue Petra Learning Theology study translation”. The source texts themselves are in the public domain.

Following, then, the holy fathers, we all with one voice teach and confess:

One and the same our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in deity and perfect in humanity, truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body;

of one substance with the Father as to his deity, and of one substance with us as to his humanity, like us in all things except sin;

begotten of the Father before all ages as to his deity, and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the God-bearer, as to his humanity.

One and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, made known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.

The distinction of natures is nowhere taken away by their union, but rather the property of each nature is preserved, and both concur into one person and one hypostasis —

not divided or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son, only-begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Show the source text for comparison

칼케돈의 심장은 네 개의 부사입니다. 이 네 낱말이 그리스도론의 네 가지 오류를 각각 차단합니다.

ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως

  • ἀσυγχύτως — 혼합되지 않고 (유티케스주의를 막습니다)
  • ἀτρέπτως — 변하지 않고 (신성이 인성으로 변질되지 않습니다)
  • ἀδιαιρέτως — 나뉘지 않고 (네스토리우스주의를 막습니다)
  • ἀχωρίστως — 분리되지 않고

그리고 연합의 자리를 가리키는 표현:

ἐν ἑνὶ προσώπῳ καὶ μιᾷ ὑποστάσει

What to watch for

This document draws a fence rather than an explanation

Chalcedon does not explain how deity and humanity coexist in one person. Instead it marks, with four negatives, the four directions a confession must not cross. That is the character of this document, and a reader disappointed by it has misread what it was trying to do. Not replacing mystery with explanation is exactly this definition's virtue.

"God-bearer" (Θεοτόκος)

This title is not a statement about Mary but a statement about Christ: it says that the one Mary bore is truly God — that is, that deity and humanity were already united in one person at Christ's birth. Nestorius's rejection of this word was the flashpoint of the Council of Ephesus in 431.

This is why Protestants can accept the title without moving toward the veneration of Mary: what the word protects is not Mary's status but Christ's person.

"Like us in all things except sin"

This clause connects directly to Hebrews 4:15. The soteriological weight of the article is that if Christ's humanity were not the same kind as ours, there would be no substitutionary atonement.

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