In his excellent The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture , John McGuckin gives this brief, dispassionate account of the dynamics of Western Christology in the fifth century: “The Archimandrite Eutyches in the fifth century misunderstood [the Eastern notion that immortality was given to the body of Jesus] to mean that the humanity was so flooded with the divinity that it was almost magically transformed. He called it a ‘heavenly body’ and suchlike. The church (especially in the writings of Pope St Leo I) censured this view (however piously meant) as being a denial of the real and true humanity which the Word accepted: a veritable kenosis for all the limitations and suffering that choice involved. But, as a result of this tendency to insist on the ‘separateness and discreteness of natures,’ certain later Latin theologians progressed over the centuries towards a view that over-strictly differentiated both spheres: to a certain extent hermetically isolating the humanity of the Lord from the divinity, or only mechanically relating them.”

In the genuine Orthodox view, McGuckin says, represented by Cyril, the idea is that the the humanity is “changed into” the divinity nor, of course, vice versa. Rather, the very fact of the union means that the humanity is transfigured, while remaining genuinely human. McGuckin writes, “Many of [Cyril’s] own contemporaries (and many critics of Orthodox Christology following their steps to this day) have complained that this ‘transfiguration of the humanity’ must have meant the annihilation of authentic manhood. St Cyril argued consistent that not only was this a false conclusion, but that his opponents’ premise (that the divinity and humanity remained untouched by one another in Christ, perfectly an mutually intact after the Incarnation) was a meaningless and dead theology that took no account of the basic motive for the entire Incarnation: namely, to render a dying race immortal.”

I think the infusion of Eastern motifs into contemporary Western Christology is a good and refreshing thing, but McGuckin’s summary of Cyril leaves some questions unanswered.

First, the “transfiguration of the humanity” might mean that, by virtue of the Word becoming flesh “by itself” the humanity of Christ is translated into glorified humanity. I would think that transfiguration in this sense occurred in the resurrection. So, Cyril’s position is right if “Incarnation” is taken in a broad sense to include everything from the moment of in-carning to the glorification of the Son in the ascension.

Second, if we take “transfiguration of the humanity” to mean “humanization of the humanity” or somesuch, then things can make more concrete sense of how the Word is transfiguring humanity even in His earthly life. Human beings are called from the beginning to use their bodies as instruments of righteousness, to hunger and thirst for righteousness in their deepest soul. Throughout the drama of the Word incarnate history, He was fulfilling humanity in this way. The humanity of the Incarnate Word was doing what humanity is supposed to do, and in this way the humanity of the Word is transfigured, and takes on divine properties. The humanity of the Son is just and love and compassionate, like God; the humanity of the Son is impassible in face of dangers and threats, like God Himself. I wonder if Cyril, or McGuckin, would be satisfied with this kind of description of the transfiguration of humanity. Would they find it insufficiently “ontological”?

Finally, I wonder how the picture would change if we gave adequate attention to the role of the Spirit in the life of the incarnate Son - something John Owen highlights.