They were united in pronouncing an anathema upon Nestorius, his partisans, and all who upheld his creed (1).

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After that council (2) they convened a fifth council. The occasion was a physician-monk in Constantinople named Eutyches who declared: “The body of Christ is not by nature like our bodies, and whereas Christ consisted of two natures before the Incarnation, after the Incarnation He possesses but one.” He was the first to advance this view, which later became the doctrine of the Jacobites (3).

Some bishops travelled to him, debated him, refuted him, and demolished his arguments. One of them then went on to Constantinople and informed its patriarch of the debate and of Eutyches’ defeat. The Patriarch of Constantinople therefore summoned him, assembled a large gathering, and engaged him in debate.

Eutyches said, “If we say that Christ has two natures, we will have spoken like Nestorius. Rather, we affirm that Christ is one nature and one hypostasis, for although there were two natures before the Incarnation, once He accepted the Incarnation they passed away, and He became a single nature and a single hypostasis” (4).

The Patriarch of Constantinople replied, “If Christ is a single nature, then the ancient nature must be identical with the nature that came into being; and if what is ancient is the newly originated, the One who has never ceased to be would be identical with the one who never was—and if it were permissible for the ancient to be the originated, then… (5)"