Apollinarius was the bishop of Laodicea around 360 A.D.  He rejected the orthodox view that Jesus Christ had full humanity and full divinity. He felt that wherever there was human free will (what was then called the “rational soul”), there was sin. Therefore the Christ could not have a human will¹.  Apollinarius wrote and taught that the Son assumed a human body and a human sensitive soul, but not a human rational soul.

Apollinarius and his views were rejected and condemned many times during his lifetime, although Apollinarius himself tended to be well respected for his graciousness and character.  The Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (381 A.D.) officially rejected Apollinarianim.  The chief argument against the view is that whatever parts of human nature Christ did not become, he could not save.  If he was only partly man, then man is only partly saved.

Scripture affirms the full humanity of Christ (Rom. 1:3-4; 8:2-3; Col. 1:15; Phil. 2:7) and the orthodox Chalcedonian view “This selfsame one is perfect both in deity and also in humanness; this self same on is also actual God and actual man, with a  rational soul and a body”