The Hypostatic Union: The Phrase "Hypostasis Christi Composita"

May we speak of the Hypostasis of our Lord as “composite”? Tiphanus vehemently denounced the phrase as “dangerous.”¹ Yet it was used without hesitation, not only by later Scholastics but by the Fathers of the Church and several councils from the fifth century onward.² St. Bonaventure’s own remark — “since the word ‘composition’ is open to calumny, the doctors of the present age retain its sense … while avoiding the term itself” — shows only that the phrase “composite Hypostasis of Christ” is liable to misconstruction, exactly like St. Cyril’s formula “one incarnate nature of the Word.”³ Used correctly, it is perfectly orthodox.

Material and Formal Senses

“Hypostasis Christi” can be taken in two senses. Materially, it is simply synonymous with “the Person of Christ,” i.e., the Logos — and the Person of the Logos, like that of the Father and the Holy Ghost, is absolutely simple, admitting no composition whatever. Formally, “Hypostasis Christi” means “Christ Himself, the Incarnate Word” — and in this sense it is entirely correct to speak of a composite Hypostasis. Tiphanus himself admitted the orthodoxy of the proposition “Christ is composite,” which makes his own rejection of “composite Hypostasis of Christ” inconsistent.

In What Sense Christ Is “Composite”

Composition properly means combining several parts into one whole, where the combined elements are genuine “parts” that complete and intrinsically perfect one another and the whole they form together. In this strict sense there is no composition in Christ at all: as the Divine Logos, He cannot be perfected from outside Himself. Christ’s humanity, though perfected and deified by its assumption into the Logos, cannot therefore be a component part of the Logos, or of the whole they form together, in the strict sense.⁴ Theologians accordingly describe Christ’s sacred humanity as a “quasi-part” — a component only in a figurative sense (per modum partis). Hence the standing theological axiom: “Christ is one [reality] from several [elements], not a whole made of parts.”⁵

Further Reading

Clemens, Die spekulative Theologie Anton Günthers, Cologne 1853 — J. Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit, Vol. III, pp. 60 sqq., Münster 1870 — F. Abert, Die Einheit des Seins in Christus nach der Lehre des hl. Thomas, Regensburg 1889 — F. Schmid, Quaestiones Selectae ex Theologia Dogmatica, qu. 5, Paderborn 1891 — J. B. Terrien, S. Thomae Aquinatis Doctrina Sincera de Unione Hypostatica Verbi cum Humanitate Amplissime Declarata, Paris 1894 — St. Thomas, Quaestiones Disputatae, De Unione Verbi, ed. Paris 1883, t. II, pp. 532 sqq. — Wilhelm-Scannell, A Manual of Catholic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 91 sqq., 2nd ed., London 1901.

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