Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 83:1 (Spring 2021)
Article: Zwingli’s Christology Reconsidered: Spirit/Flesh Dualisms And The Charge Of Nestorianism
Author: K. J. Drake

WTJ 83:1 (Spring 2021) p. 153

Zwingli’s Christology Reconsidered: Spirit/Flesh Dualisms And The Charge Of Nestorianism

K. J. Drake

K. J. Drake is Assistant Professor of History at Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ontario.

Many scholars have contended that Ulrich Zwingli separated Christ’s person (Nestorianism) owing to an underlying dualism between spirit and flesh. In the early twentieth century, Erich Seeberg and Helmut Gollwitzer argued that Zwingli’s eucharistic theology was predicated on a distinction of spirit and flesh. This criticism coalesced in later scholarship with Lutheran polemics against Reformed Christology more broadly, producing the claim that Zwingli’s apparent Nestorianism stemmed from this fundamental duality. This assessment of Zwingli’s Christology is erroneous because it overlooks the complex relationship of spirit and flesh in his thought and ignores the development in his Christology. Rather than a single driving spirit/flesh dualism, Zwingli presents three distinct spirit/flesh dualities within the domains of anthropology, ethics, and creational causality. None of these dualities exerts pressure upon his Christology to separate the person of Christ. This article investigates the charge of Nestorianism by sampling Zwingli’s early and later work. Zwingli’s early Christology in The Commentary on True and False Religion (1525) does inadequately guard against Nestorianism by failing to employ the language of “personal union.” This Nestorian tendency, however, is not the product of a dualism of spirit and flesh but a foundational commitment to the Creator/creature distinction combined with a reluctance to use non-biblical terminology. Zwingli’s christological understanding does not remain static throughout his short career but develops through polemical engagement with both Luther and the Anabaptists. By Zwingli’s final work, Fidei Expositio (1531), he presents a Christology devoid of Nestorian tendencies by ordering his reflection around classical Chalcedonian categories.

Ulrich Zwingli’s understanding of the person of Christ suffered from a fatal flaw, or so many scholars maintain. They contend Zwingli fell into the error of separating Christ’s person (Nestorianism) owing to an underlying dualism between spirit and flesh driving his thought. This

WTJ 83:1 (Spring 2021) p. 154

assessment of Zwingli’s Christology is erroneous because scholars have failed to account for the complex relationship of spirit and flesh within Zwingli’s theology and have ignored the maturation of his Christology over time. Zwingli presents three distinct dualities of spirit and flesh within the domains of anthropology, ethics, and creational causality. None of these dualities exert pressure upon his Christology ...