For my short communication, I would like to offer an analysis of Fr. 4 of Eustathius of Antioch’s treatise Contra Ariomanitas et de anima (formerly attributed to Gregory of Nyssa). This fragment occurs in a larger argument defending the proposition – denied by the author’s ”Arian” opponents – that Christ had a human soul. It offers a remarkably detailed description of the corporeal reality of Christ’s digestive system. I would like to examine the context for this notable passage, outlining its reflection of ancient medical knowledge about human digestion and its possible awareness of earlier Docetic claims that Christ did not experience normal human digestion. I then intend to explain how this excursis serves Eustathius’s larger Christological polemic against “Arians” and what it contributes to the later shape of patristic Christological orthodoxy.
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