Robin Orton: The ‘consubstantiality’ of Christ’s flesh and divinity in Apolinarius of Laodicea’s fourth century disciples

We know the names of some of Apolinarius’s early disciples, but few fragments of their writings have survived, the most extensive being by Polemon, Timothy of Beirut and Valentinus. It will be shown that in these fragments can be seen reflected the three versions of the unorthodox Christological teachings of Apolinarius which Epiphanius of Salamis in his adversus haereses (377 CE) says were adopted or developed by different groups of Apolinarius’s pupils.The most apparently significant differences between Apolinarius’s disciples, as revealed in the fragments (and mentioned by Epiphanius), is on whether or not it can be said that Christ’s flesh was ‘of the same nature’ (ὁμοούσιος) with God. Timothy defends the notion, and is criticised by Valentinus (who points out that it was explicitly rejected by Apolinarius) for doing so.On the other hand, Timothy also teaches that Christ was ‘a complete God in the flesh and a complete man in the spirit’; Polemon says that he is thereby implying the doctrine, anathema to all Apollinarianists, that there were ‘two Christs’ (even though Timothy explicitly denies this.)Timothy did indeed believe that Christ was both complete man and complete God, but that he nevertheless remains fully one. It will be argued that he uses the concept of the communicatio idiomatum to explain this. Just as Christ's divinity was in effect fully assimilated to his humanity, so his flesh, was completely assimilated to his divinity. It can therefore properly be said to share an οὺσία with it.