Apollinarism or Apollinarianism was a view proposed by Apollinaris of Laodicea

Apollinaris of Laodicea

Apollinaris "the Younger" was a bishop of Laodicea in Syria. He collaborated with his father Apollinaris the Elder in reproducing the Old Testament in the form of Homeric and Pindaric poetry, and the New Testament after the fashion of Platonic dialogues, when the emperor Julian had forbidden...

 (died 390

390

Year 390 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus and Neoterius...

) that Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 could not have had a human mind; rather, that Jesus had a human

Human

Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

 body and lower soul (the seat of the emotions) but a divine

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

 mind.

The Trinity

Trinity

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...

 had been recognized at the Council of Nicea in 325

325

Year 325 was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Proculus and Paulinus...

, but debate about exactly what it meant continued. A rival to the more common belief that Jesus Christ had two natures was monophysitism

Monophysitism

Monophysitism , or Monophysiticism, is the Christological position that Jesus Christ has only one nature, his humanity being absorbed by his Deity...

 ("one nature"), the doctrine that Christ had only one nature. Apollinarism and Eutychianism

Eutychianism

Eutychianism refers to a set of Christian theological doctrines derived from the ideas of Eutyches of Constantinople . Eutychianism is a specific understanding of how the human and divine relate within the person of Jesus Christ .At various times, Eutyches taught that the human nature of Christ was...

 were two forms of monophysitism. Apollinaris' rejection that Christ had a human mind was considered an over-reaction to Arianism

Arianism

Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...

 and its teaching that Christ was not divine.

Theodoret

Theodoret

Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus was an influential author, theologian, and Christian bishop of Cyrrhus, Syria . He played a pivotal role in many early Byzantine church controversies that led to various ecumenical acts and schisms...

 charged Apollinaris with confounding the persons of the Godhead

Godhead (Christianity)

Godhead is a Middle English variant of the word godhood, and denotes the Divine Nature or Substance of the Christian God, or the Trinity. Within some traditions such as Mormonism, the term is used as a nontrinitarian substitute for the term Trinity, denoting the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not as...

, and with giving into the heretical ways of Sabellius

Sabellius

Sabellius was a third century priest and theologian who most likely taught in Rome, but may have been an African from Libya. Basil and others call him a Libyan from Pentapolis, but this seems to rest on the fact that Pentapolis was a place where the teachings of Sabellius thrived, according to...

. Basil of Caesarea

Basil of Caesarea

Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great, was the bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor . He was an influential 4th century Christian theologian...

 accused him of abandoning the literal sense of the scripture, and taking up wholly with the allegorical sense. His views were condemned in a Synod

Synod

A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...

 at Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, under Athanasius of Alexandria

Athanasius of Alexandria

Athanasius of Alexandria [b. ca. – d. 2 May 373] is also given the titles St. Athanasius the Great, St. Athanasius I of Alexandria, St Athanasius the Confessor and St Athanasius the Apostolic. He was the 20th bishop of Alexandria. His long episcopate lasted 45 years Athanasius of Alexandria [b....

, in 362, and later subdivided into several different heresies, the main ones of which were the Polemians and the Antidicomarianite

Antidicomarianite

The term Antidicomarianites literally means "opponents of Mary", from ἀντίδικ-ος adversary + Μαρία Mary.The Antidicomarianites were an ancient Eastern Christian sect which flourished in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. The Ebionites were the first who maintained that Jesus was the son of Joseph...

s.

It was declared to be a heresy

Christian heresy

Christian heresy refers to non-orthodox practices and beliefs that were deemed to be heretical by one or more of the Christian churches. In Western Christianity, the term "heresy" most commonly refers to those beliefs which were declared to be anathema by the Catholic Church prior to the schism of...

 in 381 by the First Council of Constantinople

First Council of Constantinople

The First Council of Constantinople is recognized as the Second Ecumenical Council by the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox, the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Old Catholics, and a number of other Western Christian groups. It was the first Ecumenical Council held in...

, since Christ was officially depicted as fully human and fully God. Followers of Apollinarianism were accused of attempting to create a tertium quid

Tertium quid

Tertium quid refers to an unidentified third element that is in combination with two known ones. The phrase is associated with alchemy. It is Latin for "third thing", a translation of the Greek tríton ti . The Greek phrase was used by Plato , and by Irenæus...

 ("third thing," neither God nor man).

Apollinaris further taught, following Tertullian

Tertullian

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...

, that the souls of men were propagated by other souls, as well as their bodies (see traducianism

Traducianism

In Christian theology, traducianism is a doctrine about the origin of the soul , in one of the biblical uses of word to mean the immaterial aspect of human beings . Traducianism means that this immaterial aspect is transmitted through natural generation along with the body, the material aspect of...

).