Aloys Grillmeier wrote Christ in Christian Tradition: From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon in 1964 and proved himself to be acquainted not only with the debates of the early church, but also with Christological issues in modern theology. His first chapter runs through the present situation and its dismissal of biblical witness. After that, Grillmeier himself goes to the biblical witness of Christ as a person. His descriptions proved to be biblically faithful and exegetically informed. For Grillmeier there is continuation between the thought of the early church and the apostolic biblical data (Contra-Harnack who saw massive helenization in the early church).
So after this foundational conversation, Grillmeier starts to talk about the development of christology in the second century. Some of the conclusions that can be drawn after the survey of the second century debates are that Arianism and Gnosticism are probably the greatest enemies on the rise. There are a few attempts to come to a doctrine of the two natures, but those are very shy attempts.
It can be said that one of the greatest aims of Grillmeier in the book is to make the reader aware of the Logos-sarx and the Logos-anthropos debate. The author argues that is completely necessary for the biblical authors to understand a Logos-anthropos christology. Christ has to have a human nature comprised of body and soul. Probably drawing from Gregory of Nazianzus soteriological formulation, Grillmeier said several times that what Christ does not take, he cannot save. Therefore, the human nature has to be understood here as body and soul. Still, in the early steps of the church, Origen is the first to talk about Christ's soul, but he does not develop it in the correct way. There is plenty of middle-platonism in Origen and also his christology flirts with a dangerous variety of subordinationalism.
In the second part of the book, Grillmeier dives into two dangerous opponents to biblical christology: Arianism and Apollinarianism. Starting with the developments that lead to the Nicaea, the author indicts Arius and several arians for their Logos-flesh christology. Common to arianism and as a ultimate consequence of the arian thought is Apollinarianism, which also works in the logos-sarx framework. Here the danger is the Logos acting as the human soul of Christ (leading to concept as the Mia Physis).
Another debated topic in this section was Athanasius' Christology. Even though there are some that would classify Athanasius with a more Antiochene christology, Grillmeier wants to place him together with the Alexandrians, because of his Logos-sarx understanding.
The second section of part two of the book deals with the developments of the Logos-anthropos christologies. Even though some of the first developments are still working in some kind of Logos-sarx framework, (like Diodore of Tarsus, the Capadocian fathers and others, who saw a soul in christ, but not as of theological importance, 357) the rise of a discussion on the soul of Christ becomes a landmark.
So in the eve of Ephesus, there are already theologians speaking in some terms that are almost chalcedonians. Theodore, for example, became a champion of the critique of the Logos-sarx christology and also was able to speak of one hypostasis and two natures. Grillmeier still has doubts on wether hypostasis here means person of if it is equivalent to physis. However, we come long ways in the early church to finally hear something like this.
The debate over Nestorius is still very complex and even Grilmeier at times seems not to want to take a position (229). However, it seems clear that the fact that in the unity of the natures, Nestorius uses prosopon for the natures and attributes of Christ (463). This creates difficulties and probably what generates the long debate of Nestorius saying that Christ has two persons. Probably one of the best effects of the nestorian debate was Cyril of Alexandria becoming a Logos-anthropos theologian.
When we arrive at Chalcedon, all these debates are in the background and should be informing the definition. However, the definition of the council is biblically informed and it is not a major turning point in the history of the Church (as Harnack argued) it is a continuation of the tradition.
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