Hypostatic union

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For other uses of "Mystical union", see Mystical union (disambiguation).

In Christian theology, the hypostatic union (also known as the personal union and the mystical union) is the dual nature of Jesus Christ as being simultaneously God and Man. What is considered to be the orthodox doctrine of the hypostatic union, especially defined by the Council of Chalcedon (451), is opposed to the doctrine that Jesus Christ has only one nature after His incarnation (monophysitism), and it is opposed to Nestorianism, which posits a mixture of the two natures but is considered to leave room for believing that Jesus Christ is two persons. It further denies the doctrine of Apollinarianism, which supposes that Jesus' deity simply occupied a vacant, mindless body.

Hypostatic union is a theological term used with reference to the Incarnation to express the revealed truth that in Christ one person (ὑπόστασις, hypostasis) subsists in two natures (φύσεις, physeis); the divine and the human. Hypostasis means, literally, "that which stands beneath"; as the basis or foundation. It thus came to be used by the Greek philosophers to denote reality as distinguished from mere appearance (Aristotle, "Mund.", IV, 21). It occurs also in Saint Paul's Epistles (2 Corinthians 9:4, 11:17; Hebrews 1:3, 3:14), but not in the sense of a person. Previous to the Council of Nicaea (325), the term hypostasis was sometimes synonymous with ousia (οὐσία), and even St. Augustine (De Trin., V, 8) declared that he saw no difference between them. The distinction was in fact brought about gradually in the course of the controversies to which the Christological heresies gave rise and was definitively established by the Council of Chalcedon (451), which declared that in the Christ there are two natures; each retaining its own properties, and together united in one subsistence and in one single person (εἰς ἓν πρόσωπον καὶ μίαν ὑπόστασιν, eis hen prosopon kai mian hupostasin) (Denzinger, ed. Bannwart, 148). The two natures are not joined in a moral or accidental union (Nestorius), nor commingled (Eutyches), but nevertheless they are substantially united. The precise nature of this union is held to defy human comprehension, hence the alternative term "mystical union."