Luce. Monophysitism past and present : a study in christology. 1920

8/6/2019 Luce. Monophysitism past and present : a study in christology. 1920.

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MONOPHYSITISMPAST AND PRESENT

A STUDY IN CHRISTOLOGY

BYA. A. LUCE, M.C., D.D.CAPTAIN LATE I2TH ROYAL IRISH RIFLESFELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN

LONDONSOCIETY FOR PROMOTINGCHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGENEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO.

1920


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PRINTED BYWILLIAM CLOWES AND PONS, LIMITED,

LONDON AND BECCLES


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CONTENTSCHAPTER

I. The Metaphysical Basis of MonophysitismII. The Origins of Monophysitism

III. MoNOPHYSiTE DoctrineIV. The Ethos of Monophysitism ...V. Monophysitism and Modern PsychologyVI. Monophysitism in the Present Day ...

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BOOKS CONSULTED IN THEPREPARATION OF THIS ESSAY

J. S. AssEMANi, " Bibliotheca Orientalis," especially the IntroductoryDissertation to Vol. II.

A. Harnack, " History of Dogma," translated by Speirs and Millar.J. C. Robertson, "History of the Christian Church."WiNDELBAND, " History of Philosophy," translated by Tufts.Wright, '* Short History of Syriac Literature."H. Bergson, "Les donnees immediates de la conscience," ** Matiere

et Memoire," " L'evolution creatrice."


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MONOPHYSITISM PASTAND PRESENTCHAPTER I

THE METAPHYSICAL BASIS OF MONOPHYSITISMMONOPHYSITISM was a Christological

heresy of the fifth century. It was con-demned by the church in the middle of thatcentury at the council of Chalcedon. Survivingits condemnation it flourished in the East forseveral centuries. Its adherents formed them-selves into a powerful church with orders andsuccession of their own. Although the mono-physite church has long since lost all influence,it is still in being. The Coptic and Jacobitechurches of Egypt and Mesopotamia, respec-tively, preserve to this day the doctrines andtraditions of the primitive monophysites.

The history of the sect, however, does notconcern us here. The writer's purpose is toreview its doctrine. Monophysitism is a systemof religious thought, and, as such, its importanceis out of aU proportion to the present or eventhe past position of the churches that professedit. Its significance lies in its universality. It

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTis grounded in the nature of the human mind. Itis found in West as well as East, to-day as well asin the early centuries of our era. Wherevermen bring intellect to bear on the problem ofChrist's being, the tendency to regard Him asmonophysite is present.An examination of the heresy is of practicalvalue. Our subject-matter is not an orientalantique or a curiosity of the intellect, but apresent-day problem of vital moment to theFaith. If we are concerned with a half-forgottenheresy, it is because a study of that heresy servesboth as a preventive against error and as anintroduction to the truth. The doctor studiesdisease to ascertain the conditions of health ;pathological cases are often his surest guide tothe normal ; just so the study of heresy is thebest guide to orthodox Christology. It was inconflict with monophysitism that the church ofthe fifth century brought to completion herdogmatic utterances about Christ ; and theindividual thinker to-day can gain the surestgrasp of true Christology by examining themonophysite perversion.

With this practical purpose in view, we nowproceed to an analysis of the heresy, Mono-physitism is a body of doctrine. It is a dogmaticsystem, in which the individual dogmata arecontrolled by a principle or dominant idea. Asall the particular doctrines of monophysitismdepend on this principle, and, as it is not

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THE METAPHYSICAL BASISproperly a theological concept, but one borrowedfrom philosophy, we may call it '' the meta-physical basis of monophysitism/' An intelligentgrasp of this basic principle is necessary to anappreciation of the whole system. Accordingly,our first concern is to ascertain and exhibit thismetaphysical basis. In subsequent chapters weshall analyse in detail the doctrines specificallymonophysite and trace the Christological errorsback to their source in metaphysic.The a priori and a posteriori in Christology

The following considerations prove the neces-sity of this procedure. Two methods of ex-amining the being of Christ can be distinguished.According to the one method the facts of Hislife are reviewed as they are presented in theNew Testament, and a formula is then con-structed to fit them. The other method startsfrom the concept of a mediator between God andman. It supposes that concept actuahsed, andasks the question, '' Of what nature must sucha mediator be ? '' These methods may bedistinguished, but they cannot be separated.No one, however scientific, can come to a studyof the hfe of Jesus with an absolutely open mind.Presuppositions are inevitable. Similarly, asthe a priori thinker develops his concept of amediator, he compares the results of his thinkingat every stage with the picture presented in theGospel story, and that picture unavoidably


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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTmodifies his deductions. Both diphysite andmonophysite used a combination of these twomethods. Each party took the recorded factsand interpreted them in accordance with theirnotion of what a mediator should be. Bothparties studied the same facts ; but the a prioriof their thought differed, and so their conclu-sions differed. In the realm of Christology thisa priori of thought is of paramount importance.Preconceived opinions inevitably colour ourmental picture of Christ. Readers of the Gospelnarrative find there the Christ they are preparedto find. On this well-recognised fact we baseour contention that an examination of anyChristological system must begin with thephilosophy on which the system rests. Thatphilosophy suppHes the a priori, or the pre-supposition, or the metaphysical basis, whichevername we prefer.We do not suggest that theologians haveconsciously adopted a metaphysical principle asthe basis of their beUefs, and then have appliedit to the special problem of Christology. Thatis a possible method but not the usual one. Inmost cases the philosophic basis remains in thebackground of consciousness ; its existence isunrecognised and its influence undetected. IfChristian thinkers took the trouble to analyse thebasis of their beUefs about Christ, they would nothalt, as they so often do, at the stage of mono-physitism. If they laid bare to the foundations

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTthought or the process of their thinking, but totheir different presuppositions and startingpoints.Presented in this way the monophysite andother Christological controversies of the fifth andsixth centuries become phases of the cosmicproblem. They thus regain the dignity whichis theirs by right, and which they lose in theordinary church histories. The heat of passionthey aroused becomes intelligible. It was nobattle about w^ords. The stakes were high.The controversiahsts championed far-reachingprinciples with a decisive influence on the courseof thought and conduct. Unfriendly criticsusually portray the Christologians as narrow-minded and audacious. So, no doubt, theywere, but they were not wrong-headed. If thematters in dispute between theist, deist, andpantheist are trivialities, then and then only canwe regard the enterprise of the Christologiansas chimerical and their achievements as futile.The different formulae represented attitudes ofmind fundamentally opposed. No peace betweencathoUc and monophysite was possible. Theyhad conflicting conceptions of ultimate truth.

Dependence of Christology on PhilosophyWe mentioned above the two other chief

Christological systems, the Nestorian and thecatholic. No analysis of monophysitism which

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THE METAPHYSICAL BASISomitted a reference to these systems would becomplete. They were three nearly contemporaryattempts to solve the same problem. The com-parison is of special interest when, as here,fundamental principles are under examination.It demonstrates the closeness of the connectionbetween the Christological and the cosmicproblems. In each of the three cases we findthat a school of philosophy corresponds to theschool of theology, and that the philosopher'sdominant idea about the cosmos decided thetheologian's interpretation of Christ.

This connection between philosophy andChristology is of early date. From the natureof both disciplines it had to be. Even inapostolic days the meaning of the incarnationwas realised. Christ was apprehended as abeing of more than national or terrestrial im-portance. The PauUne and Johannine Christo-logies gave cosmic significance to His work, andso inevitably to His Person. Theologians madethe tremendous surmise that Jesus of Nazarethwas no other than the Logos of the Neo-Pytha-goreans or the Wise One of the Stoics. That isto say. He stands not only between God andman, but between Creator and creation. He isthe embodiment of the cosmic relation. Fromearly days, then, philosophy and religion wereworking at the same problem ; their pathsmet at the one goal of the Ideal Person whosatisfied both head and heart. The systematic

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST ADD PRESENTChristology of the fifth century was, therefore,a completion of the work begun in the first.

The Christological and the CosmicProblemsThe essence of the Christological problem is

the question as to the union of natures in Christ.Are there two natures divine and human inHim ? Is each distinct from the other andfrom the person ? Is the distinction con-ceptual or actual ? The incarnation is a imion.Is it a real union ? If so, what did it unite ? Wehave seen that such questions cannot be ap-proached without presuppositions. What thesepresuppositions shall be is decided in the sphereof a wider problem. This wider problem isknown as the cosmic problem. The solutiongiven to it prescribes the presuppositions of anyattempt to solve the speciaUsed problem. Weshall proceed to sketch the cosmic problem, andto indicate the three main types of answersgiven to it. It will then be evident that thesethree answers find their respective counterpartsin the Nestorian, monophysite and the cathoHcsolutions of the Christological problem.

As man's intellectual powers mature, twosupreme generalisations force themselves on hisconsciousness. He conceives his experience as awhole and calls it the world ; he conceives thebasis of his experience as a whole and calls it

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THE METAPHYSICAL BASISGod. To some minds the world, to some mindsGod, is the greater reahty ; but both conceptsare present in varying proportions whereverthought becomes self-conscious. Here we havein its lowest terms the material for the ontologicalquestion, the first and the last problem ofphilosophy. God and the world, at first dimlyconceived and scarcely differentiated, graduallyseparate and take shape in the mind as distinctentities. The concepts become principles, fixedby language and mental imagery. The gulfbetween them widens until they stand atopposite poles of thought. In their isolationthey constitute a standing challenge to the mindof man. If he thinks the world in terms oftime, he must postulate a creator. If he thinksthe world out of time, he is forced to conceive aground of the world's being. The world cannotbe thought without God nor God without theworld. The one necessitates the other. Yetwhen the thinker tries to define the terms, hecan at first only do so by negatives. The worldis what God is not, and God is what the worldis not. The two primary concepts thus attractand repel each other. The mind's first task isto grasp them in their difference. It cannotrest there, but must proceed to attempt toreunite them and grasp them in their unity.Thus the main problem of philosophy is toconceive and find expression for the relationbetween God and the world. Christology attacks

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3MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTessentially the same problem. Christology is anattempt to define the relation between God andthe world in terms of personaUty.

This relation has been conceived in threemodes. According to the level of thoughtreached, or, as led by their disposition andeducation, men have made their choice betweenthree m.ediating concepts. Hence derive threedivergent types of thought and three outlookson life fundamentally opposed. We shall takethem in their logical sequence for convenienceof treatment. The historical connection is ofno importance for our present purpose, but it isnoteworthy that the time order both of theschools of philosophy and of the correspondingChristological systems follows approximately thelogical order.

The First Solution of the Cosmic ProblemDualism

The first attempted solution of the cosmicproblem is best expressed in the concept *' co-existence.'' God and the world co-exist. Godis, and the world is ; their relation is expressedby an '' and." '' God and the world '' is thetruth, all that man can and need know. Thissolution is verbal. It leaves the problem moreor less as it finds it. The two principles remainultimates ; neither is reduced to the other. Godstill stands outside the world and the world

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THE METAPHYSICAL BASISoutside God. Neither can explain the other.This duaHsm is the lowest stage of ontologicalthought. The thinker sees the problem, only toturn away from it. He surmises that there issome relation between the two ; but he cannotdefine it, and it remains ineffectual. This wasPlato's early standpoint. He established theidea as the truth of the thing, but he failed tofind expression for the relation between idea andideate. He took refuge in symbolical language,and spoke of the thing as a '' copy '' of the ideaor as a '' participant " in it. But as there wasno causation on the one side or dependence onthe other side, all that the earlier Platonicphilosophy achieved was in its ideal world toduplicate the real. Plato's heaven simply co-exists with the world, and the relation betweenthem is merely verbal.

This metaphysical idea survived Plato andPlato's system, and passed into common cur-rency. It found and still finds expression innumerous speculative and practical systems. Inreligious ontology we find it in deism. Accordingto the deist there was once at a definite point oftime a relation between God and the world, therelation of creation. But, creation finished, therelation ceased. In other words, God created theworld, and then withdrew into Himself, leavingthe world to work out its own salvation. Thedeist believes in God ; but his is a self-containedGod, who does not interfere in the course of

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THE METAPHYSICAL BASISin the gradual deepening of the association. AsJesus grew in spiritual power and knowledge andobedience to the divine will, the union whichat first was relative gradually deepened towardsan absolute union. Divinity was not His birth-right, but acquired. Thus throughout His lifethe two personalities remained external to oneanother. The divine worked miracles ; thehuman suffered. The Nestorian could pridehimself on having preserved the reality of thedivine and the reahty of the human ; he couldworship the one and imitate the other. But hissystem was non-Christian, because it excludes theelement of mediation. A dual personality couldnever make atonement or redeem humanity.God and man in Christ were brought intonominal contact, but there was provided nochannel by which the divine virtue might passinto the human. The Nestorian remains con-tent with his solution, because the backgroundof his thought is dualist. The thinker's attitudeto the cosmic problem decides his attitude tothe Christological problem. Content to coupleGod and the world by an '' and,'' he similarlycouples by an '' and " the Logos and Jesus Christ.Dividing God from the world, he divides Christ.Abandoning metaphysical relation between thecosmic principles, he despairs of finding, or,rather, has no motive, for seeking a personalrelation between God and man in the being ofChrist.

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTSecond Solution of the Cosmic Problem-

MonismThe second solution given to the cosmicproblem is of special importance for our thesis.It had a direct influence on monophysitism, andmay be regarded as supplying the metaphysicalbasis for that heresy. It represents an advanceto a higher stage of thought, just as mono-physitism, which depends on it, is an advance onNestorianism, and has always been regarded asa more venial heresy.

The mind finding no satisfaction in dualismadvances to monism. The spectacle of twounrelated ultimate principles impels it to seekand, if necessary, to invent some mode ofreconciling them. Explain it as we may, thecraving for unity, for synthesis, for mediationis radical in human thought. The mind cannotrest at anything short of it. God and the world,held asunder conceptually or only nominallyunited, constitute a contradiction in excelsis,and, as such, provide an irresistible motive forfurther and deeper thought.

As is natural, the swing of the pendulumcarries the mind to the opposite extreme.Co-existence failing to supply the required solu-tion, the key is sought in identity. God and theworld are thought as identical. The terms areconnected by the copula. God is the world,and the world is God. This is the truth of

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THE METAPHYSICAL BASISbeing, for the monist. The two principles aremerged in one, and the contradiction solved byan assertion of the identity of the contradictories.

Monism takes two forms. It may be eithermaterialist or spiritual. One term must beselected as the reality, and the other written offas an illusion. If the thinker's bent of mind bescientific, he is disposed to make the materialworld the only objective reality, and Godbecomes simply a working hypothesis or acreation of the subjective mind. It would bebeside our purpose to do more than mentionthis phase of monism. Spiritual monism, how-ever, requires lengthier treatment ; it is of vitalimportance to our subject. In this case themind takes sides with God as against the world.God is the reality and the world the illusion.The world is God, in spite of appearances to thecontrary. As world it has no substantivereality ; it has no existence for self. It is theshadow of God, an emanation from Him, or anaspect of Him. Like dualism, monism is onlya sham solution of the cosmic problem. It failsto keep prominent the idea of relation. Arelation must relate. If its terms are merged,the relation falls to the ground. A relationmust be such that, while the terms are unified,they are preserved as realities. It must bothunify and keep distinct. To abandon eitherGod or the world is a counsel of despair. Todetract from the reality of either is treason to

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTfact and tantamount to a shelving of the cosmicproblem.

Philosophical and Theological MonismThe systems that identify God and the

world range from the crude materiaUsm ofDemocritus to the lofty spirituaUsm of Plotmus.Stoic cosmology occupies an intermediate posi-tion. The Stoic was nominally a pantheist, buthe seems to have oscillated between a spiritualand a materiahst explanation of the universalbeing. The monist system that prepared thesoil for monophysitism and constantly fosteredits growth was Neo-Platonism. In the hands ofPlotinus all the main elements of spiritualmonism were worked up into a speculativephilosophy with a profound bearing on practicallife. The world and the human spirit, forPlotinus, were simply manifestations of God.He taught that, as Ught issues from the sun andproceeds forth on its way, growing graduall}^dimmer till it passes into darkness, so the worldof thought and thing has no true being apartfrom God, from whom it proceeded and towhom it returns. Spiritual monism found inAlexandria a congenial home. Blending therewith oriental mysticism it produced a crop ofgnostic speculative systems, in all of whichAcosmism or a denial of the world was the key-note. Whether the problem was conceived in

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THE METAPHYSICAL BASISterms of being or of value, the result was thesame. The world has no true being. Its appear-ance of soUdity is a sham. It has no value.Compared with God, it is negUgible. It is butthe shadow cast by the eternal sun.

The monophysite tenets traceable to monismwill be considered in detail in later chapters.Here our concern is to show that monism suppUesthe metaphysical principle on which the heresyis based ; that, as dualism provides the a prioriof Nestorian thought, monism provides thea priori of monophysite thought.

Christological MonismMonophysitismThe essential doctrine of monophysitism is

the assertion of the absolute numerical unity ofthe person of Christ. It carries to extremes itsdenial of the dual personaUty maintained by theNestorians. All vestiges of duality were banishedfrom His being ; there were not two persons :there were not even two natures. There was inChrist only the one nature of God the Word.The human nature at the incarnation wasabsorbed into the divine. It no more hassubstantive existence than has the world in apantheistic system. This is monism in terms ofpersonality. Its presuppositions are those of amind imbued with an all-powerful feeling forunity. It is faced with the problem of recon-cihng God and the world in the person of Jesus

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTChrist. It brings to that problem a prejudiceagainst the real being and the real value of theworld. Hence it is led to draw the false con-clusion that humanity, which is part of the world,is not a permanent element in the highest truth ;that even perfect humanity, humanity repre-sentative of all that is noblest in the race,cannot be allowed true existence in the Ideal.

Monism abandons the universal relation byabandoning one or other of the terms to berelated. Monophysitism cuts a similar knot ina similar fashion. It jettisons redemption byexcluding from the Redeemer aU kinship withthat which He came to redeem. Nominallyadmitting human nature into union with deity,it destroys the reality of that transaction at astroke by making the two natures identical.So the incarnation, for the monophysite, be-comes a myth ; no change in the nature of theLogos took place at it, and, consequently, nochange in the nature of the Man Christ Jesus.We may trace the likeness between the cos-mic and the Christological problems stiU further.Monism is forced to attempt to give some accountof the w^orld's apparent reality. Similarlymonophysitism had to try to explain thosefacts of Christ's life which on the face of theGospel narrative are human and normal. Theexplanation offered is essentially the same inboth systems. The monist asserts that theworld exists only in the mind of the thinker. It

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTfailed. They do not satisfy the philosopher andthey mislead the theologian. The one separatesGod from the world ; the other merges them.Thus both, in effect, abandon the originalenterprise. They destroy the relation insteadof expressing it. The concepts both of co-existence and of identity have proved fruitlessin the speculative problem, and in Christologyhave given rise to heresy. The third school ofthought takes as its starting point neither God,nor the world, nor the two as co-existing, butthe relation of the two. It makes that relationsuch that the terms related are preserved in therelation. Neither identity nor difference is thefull truth, but identity in and through difference.God is not the world, nor is the world God.God is, and the world is. Each are facts. Intheir separateness they are not true facts. It isonly as we conceive the two in their oneness,a supra-numerical oneness, that we can givetheir full value to each. The world is God'sworld ; therefore it has being and value. Thecosmic relation then is expressed not by an" and," nor by an " is," but by an " of." TheGod ''of the world is the key concept thatunlocks the doors of the palace of truth.

It was in the prominence given to this conceptthat Aristotle's system made a great advance onthat of his predecessor. Plato had estabUshed aworld of ideas with the idea of the Good as itscentre, but he left it unrelated to the world of

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THE METAPHYSICAL BASISexperience. Aristotle insisted on relating theideal and the real. His concept of relation wasthat of form and matter. The world apart fromGod is matter apart from form. It has onlypotential reality. When it becomes united toits form, it becomes actual. Its form makes it afactwhat it has in it to be. Aristotle con-ceives different grades of being. Unformedmatter is the lowest of these grades, and God thehighest. Each grade supplies the matter ofwhich the next highest grade is the form.Ascending the scale of being at last we reachpure form. Thus the ladder of development isconstructed by which the world rises to itsrealisation in God. Aristotle gave to humanitythe conception of a God who transcends theworld, and yet is inamanent in it, as form is inmatter. Thus Greek philosophy in Aristotleattained that spiritual monotheism whichsupplied the foundation for the edifice ofChristian doctrine.

The effect of Aristotle's teaching was felt byall the ecclesiastical parties in the fifth century.As we shall see in a later chapter, some of thesubsidiary elements of his philosophy are re-flected in monophysitism. The dominant ideas,however, of the system, the conception of Godand the world and the relation between them,were taken over by the catholic theologians, andincorporated into their Christology. We neednot here inquire whether Aristotle's influence

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTwas direct or indirect. No doubt many of thetheologians who constructed Christian doctrinehad read his works. Whether that is so or not,they must have unconsciously assimilated hiscentral doctrine. It was common property.The determination to keep God a reality and theworld a reality and yet relate the two became thecontrolling motive of their thinking.

Aristotle in theory and application of theor}^has alw^ays a feehng for fact. The individualthing and the world of individual things are, forhim, never negligible. Reahsed matter, Ufe, thehuman spirit, human nature, are actualities andhave their value as such. They are not all onthe same level of being ; they do not occupythe same rank ; and it is the philosopher'sbusiness to determine their respective positionsin the scale of being and value. But he cannothave his head in the clouds of contemplation,unless he have his feet on the earth of fact.

The Essence of Catholic ChristologyCatholic Christology has caught the spirit of

Aristotle's teaching. It is not primarily specu-lative. It is in close touch with fact. It is theoutcome of a deep>felt want. Redemption is thefirst demand of rehgious experience ; so it isthe motive and theme of all Christology. Thesoul views itself as a member of a world of soulsestranged from God, and for its own peace and

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THE METAPHYSICAL BASISwelfare seeks to effect a union between God andthe world. Such a union, to be effective, mustpreserve the being and value of the world. Ifthere were no world or only a valueless world,there would be nothing to redeem, or nothingworth redeeming. Seeking that union in per-sonality, and in the most marvellous personalityof history, the orthodox theologians by a trueinstinct ascribed to Him both divine and humannatures. He is the cosmic unity of opposites.His person is the cosmic relation. In that personthe lower term of the relation has true being andfull value. Thus the Church steered a middlecourse between the Scylla of co-existence andthe Charybdis of identity.

These a priori deductions as to the being ofChrist were verified by a reference to fact.The life-story of the historic Christ comprisestwo distinct groups of experience. There arethoughts, deeds, and words attributed to Himthat only God could have thought, done, andsaid. There are as well thoughts, deeds andwords of His that only a man could havethought, done and said. Hence the diphysitedoctrine was verified a posteriori. Again, inboth groups of experience there is a never-failing connecting link. There is a unity lyingdeeper in His consciousness than the duality.Christ, the Agent, is the same in both parts.Whether as God or man. He is never out ofcharacter. Hence the unity of the person also

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTwas established a posteriori. Thus, to theorthodox Christologians, the expectation thatthe human Ideal would be a unity, com-prising di\dnity and hmnanity, was justified byhistorical fact.

They found a further verification on applyingthe test of practice. Orthodox Christologysatisfies the requirements of the soul. Man'schief spiritual need is access to God through'' a daysman that might lay his hand uponboth." An exemplar, even though perfect, isnot adequate to his need. The unio mystica canonly be experienced by the leisured few. Mandemands a rehgion of redemption, a redemptionthat allows value to labour, to endeavour, tohuman thought, that recognises the reahty ofpain and sorrow and sin, a redemption thatredeems humanity in all its phases and in thewealth of its experiences. An Agent that hasnot shared to the full those experiences is uselessfor the purpose. Redemption must be the workof One who knows God and knows man, of Onewho has the touch of sympathy ; for to such atouch alone can humanity respond. The Christo-logy that makes Christ Jesus consubstantial withGod and with man satisfies man's deep-felt need.

Summary of the ChapterWe have taken a triad of ontologies and a

triad of Christological systems, placed them24


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THE METAPHYSICAL BASISside by side, and examined them. The resultof that examination is a triple correspondence.The metaphysical principle is found in each caseworked out in a corresponding Christology. Thecomparison is of general interest. It revealsChristology as intimately connected with theworkings of intellect, as in the main stream ofthe current of human thought, as capable ofphilosophic treatment. Further than that, thecomparison is vital to the main argument of thisessay. It provides the clue to the heart of oursubject. The scientist, who wishes to understanda botanical specimen, pays as much attention towhat is in the ground as to what is above ground.The seed and roots are as full of scientific interestas are stem, leaf and flower. Similarly, to under-stand the monophysite heresy, to be able todetect it and expose it, we must take it in thegerm. We may push the illustration further.The properties of a botanical specimen are beststudied in connection with organisms of alliedspecies. We cannot isolate unless we compare.By comparison the essential features, functionsand properties of the specimen under examina-tion are elucidated.

It is by isolating the three germinal ideasof these three Christological systems and com-paring them, that a full comprehension ofmonophysitism in all its stages, from seed toflower, is reached. We have used this method,and have found that the roots of the heresy

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CHAPTER IITHE ORIGINS OF MONOPPIYSITISM

THE monophysitism of the fifth centuryhad its roots in the past as well as in thea priori. In the previous chapter we treated itas a phase of philosophic thought and reviewedthe metaphysic on which the heresy rests. Inthe present chapter its relations as a historicalsystem of religious thought are to be exhibited.As such, it owes much to outside influences.Much in the monophysite mode of thought andmany of its specific doctrines can be tracedeither to other ecclesiastical heresies or topagan philosophies. The fact of this doublederivation deserves to be emphasised. It refutesthe charge of inquisitorial bigotry, so frequentlylevelled against the theologians of the earlycenturies. The non-Christian affinities of theheresy account for the bitterness of the con-troversy to which it gave rise, and, in largemeasure, excuse the intolerance shown by bothparties. Heresies were not domestic quarrels.Contemporaries viewed them as involving a life

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTand death struggle between believers and un-believers. Christianity can afford to be tolerantto-day. It has an assured position. Its tenetsare defined. Christians can almost alwaysdistinguish at a glance errors that threaten theessentials of the Faith from those that do not.In the fourth' and fifth centuries the casewas otherwise. Christianity was then oneamong many conflicting systems of religion.Its intellectual bases were as yet only imper-fectly thought out. Any doctrinal error seemedcapable of poisoning the whole body of belief.Heresy, so the orthodox held, was of the devil.No charitable view of it was allowable. Thatuncompromising attitude was, to a large extent,justified because many articles of the hereticalcreeds were of purely pagan origin. Givensimilar conditions to-day, our easy tolerance ofopinion would disappear. If Islam, for instance,were to-day a serious menace to the Faith,Christians would automatically stiffen theirattitude towards monophysite doctrines. Tolera-tion of the false Christology would, under thosecircumstances, be treason to the true. TheChurch of the fifth century was menaced frommany sides. Monophysitism was the foe at hergates. That heresy was not a variety ofChristianity. It was a semi-pagan theosophy,a product of Greek and oriental, as well as ofpurely Christian speculation ; therefore it wasanathema to the orthodox.

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THE ORIGINS OF MONOPHYSITISMThe Elemental Forms of ChristologicalErrorDocetism and Ebionitism

We propose to begin the study of the ante-cedents of monophysitism by examining thoseof a Christian or semi-Christian character. Forthat purpose it will be necessary to give a briefsketch of the early heresies in so far as they bearon the Christological problem.The two primitive forms of doctrinal error,to which the Church, even in apostolic days,was exposed, were docetism and ebionitism.These are the elemental heresies. All the laterChristological heresies are refinements of oneor other of these two. They constitute theextremes of Christological thought : betweenthem runs the via media of orthodoxy. Eachof the two sees but one aspect of the two-foldlife of Christ. Docetism lays an exclusiveemphasis on His real divinity, ebonitism on Hisreal humanity. Each mistakes a half truth fora whole truth.

The docetists denied that Jesus Christ hadcome in the flesh. His bod}^ they taught, wasan apparition. He ate and drank, but thephysical frame received no sustenance. Heappeared to suffer, but felt no pain. The reaUtybehind the semblance was the divine spirit-being, who conjured up the illusion in order toelevate the thoughts of mankind. This docetictheory commended itself to many of the Greek

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTChristians. They were familiar with the notionof '' the gods coming down to them in theUkeness of men/' Greek mythology abounds ininstances of docetic incarnations. The gods ofthe popular reUgion constantly assumed visibleform during their temporary manifestations.

The ebionites threatened the Faith from theopposite quarter. They taught that Christ wasreal man and only man. According to them, thewhole value of His life and work lay in His moralteaching and His noble example ; there is nomystery, no contact of divine and human inChrist ; what He attained, we all may attain.The ebionites were recruited from the Jewishelement in the Church. The rigid monotheismof the Jews made it hard for them to conceivean intermediary between God and man ; theywere naturally disposed to embrace a humanisticexplanation of Christ.

Docetism was elaborated by Valentinus,Manes and other gnostics and adopted into theirsystems, while ebionitism provided the basisfor the Christologies of Paul of Samosata, of thePhotinians and Adoptionists. In contact withthese heresies orthodox beliefs, originally fluid,gradually hardened. The dogma *' Christusdeus et homo '' had from the beginning been heldin the Church. Its full implications were notrealised and formulated until the conflict witherror came. The controversies of the third andfourth centuries threw into bold relief the unity

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THE ORIGINS OF MONOPHYSITISMof the person and the perfection of the divinityand of the humanity.

The Problem of the Hypostatic UnionThe manner of the hypostatic union then

became an urgent problem. The Church of thefifth century was called upon to attempt asolution. Any reading of the Gospels compelledthe recognition of divine and human elementsin Christ ; but speculative theology found itdifficult to reconcile that fact with the equallyimportant fact of the unity of person.

The theologians of the previous century hadbequeathed little or no guidance. The fifth-century Christologians were pioneers in anunmapped region. Athanasius' great treatiseson the incarnation are hardly more than eloquentdefences of the true deity and true humanityof Christ. They contain httle or no constructiveChristology. Their theme is, auros evr^vOpajTr-qo-^v^Lva T^/xei? deojTTOLTjOcjfjLei'. He maintains the fact,but does not deal with the '' how.'' He usesthe phrase '' natural union '' (ei^wo-is (fyvo-iKrj), butdoes not attempt to define the mode of thatunion.

ApollinarianismApolUnaris was, as far as we know, the first

theologian to approach this subject. We may31


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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTnote in passing that, though he was bishop ofLaodicea in Syria, Alexandria was his nativeplace. His father was an Alexandrian, and hehimself had been a friend of Athanasius. Thefact of his connection with Alexandria deservesmention, because his doctrine reflects the ideasof the Alexandrian school of thought, not thoseof the Syrian. ApoUinaris set himself to attackthe heretical view that there were two '' Sons '*one before all time, the divine Logos, and oneafter the incarnation, Jesus Christ. In doingso he felt constrained to formulate a theory ofthe union of natures. He started from thePlatonic division of human nature into threeparts, rational soul, animal soul, and body.He argued that in the statement ''the Logosbecame flesh,'' '' flesh " must mean animal souland body. He urged in proof that it would beabsurd to suppose the Logos conditioned byhuman reason ; that rational soul was the seatof personaUty, and that if it were associatedwith the Logos, it would be impossible to avoidrecognising '' two Sons.'' He expressly assertedthat the humanity of Christ was incomplete,contending that this very defect in the humannature made possible the unity of His person.According to ApoUinaris, then, the union wasa composition. The Logos superseded the humanreason, and was thus united to body and animalsoul.

Apollinarianism was a form of docetism.32


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THE ORIGINS OF MONOPHYSITISMIn ascribing imperfection to the human natureof Christ it eo ipso denied its reahty. ApolHnaris,in fact, said of Christ's reason what the earlydocetists said of His body. The system is moreingenious than convincing. It is highly artificial.It provides no intellectual basis for a livingfaith in an incarnate Christ. The theory, how-ever, was very influential in its day, and wasintimately connected with the rise of mono-physitism. Eutyches, the *' father of the mono-physites,'* was condemned by a local synod atConstantinople in a.d. 448 on the ground thathe was *' affected by the heresy of Valentinusand ApolHnaris." * Harnack goes so far as tosay that '' the whole position of the later mono-physites, thought out to all its conceivableconclusions, is already to be found in Apol-linaris." Apollinarianism was condemned at thesecond general council, and there the Churchmade her first declaration, a negative one, onthe subject of the hypostatic union. In conflictwith the heresies which arose in the next twogenerations, she evolved a positive statementof the truth.

The Nestorian ReactionOpposition to Apollinarianism gave rise to

the Nestorian heresy. The original ebionitismhad died away, but its spirit and central doctrine

* Harnack, " History of Dogma,*' vol. iv. chap, ii. p. i6o.33


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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTreappeared in Nestorianism. Nestorianism mightbe described as ebionitism conforming to thecreeds of Nicaea and Constantinople. Theleaders of the opposition to the Apollinarists ofthe fifth century were their own Syrian country-men whose headquarters was at Antioch. TheAntiochians differed from the ApoUinarians inthe starting-point of their Christology and inthe controlling motive of their thought. WhileApollinaris had constructed his Christology onthe basis of the doctrine of the Trinity, theAntiochians started from the formula '' perfectalike in deity and humanity/' The reasoningsof Apollinaris were governed by the thought ofredemption. The fundamental question ofrehgion for him was, *' How can the closest unionbetween divine and human be secured ? " Thetendency of the Antiochians, on the other hand,was to neglect the interests of Soteriology andto emphasize the ethical aspect of Christ's lifeand teaching. They put in the background theidea of the all-creating, all-sustaining Logos,who took man's nature upon Him and in Hisperson deified humanity. Their thought centredon the historic Christ, the Christ of the evange-lists. They did not revert to crude ebionitism,but they explained the Nicene creed from anebionitic stand-point. They maintained asagainst the ApoUinarians the completeness ofChrist's human nature ; with equal vigour theymaintained the essential deity of the Logos.

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENThowever, is compromised, and the distinctionrendered purely ideal by his further statementthat there were '' two natures before, but onlyone after the union/' He cited in proof thewords of Athanasius, '' one incarnate nature ofGod the Word."

Cyril prevailed. Nestorius was condemnedand the Antiochian school discredited. Cyril'svictory, however, was of doubtful value toorthodoxy. His ardent but unbalanced utter-ances bequeathed to the Church a legacy ofstrife. His writings, particularly the earlierones, furnished the monophysites with anarmoury of w^eapons. His teaching could notwith justice be styled docetic or ApoUinarian,but its mystic tone was so pronounced that itproved a propaedeutic for monophysitism. Theshibboleth of orthodoxy, quoted above, '' oneincarnate nature of God the Word,'' passedrapidly into the watchword of heresy. Atha-nasius had used the word *' nature " in a broadsense. The monophysites narrowed it down toits later technical meaning. Thus they exaltedChrist into a region beyond the ken of mortalman. The incarnation became a mystery pureand simple, unintelligible, caUing for bhndacceptance. The monophysites, following Cyril,heightened the mystery, but, in doing so, theyeliminated the reality and the human appeal ofthe incarnate life. They soon began to arguethat, since Christ is monophysite, the properties

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTdetermined by opposite forces. It was so withmonophysitism. Its Christian antecedents com-prised positive and negative currents. Thepositive current was docetism, the negativeebionitism. Docetism, originating in apostohctimes, passed through many phases, to provide,at the end of the fourth century, in its mostrefined form, ApolUnarianism, the immediatepositive cause of monophysitism. Ebionitism,related to docetism as reahsm to ideaUsm,possessed equal vitaUty and equal adaptabiUty.It showed itself in various humanistic inter-pretations of Christ. Of these the most elaboratewas Nestorianism, which exerted the mostinsistent and immediate negative influence onthe early growth of monophysitism.

Monophysitism and Non-Christian ThoughtWe leave here the subject of the influence

of other heresies on monophysitism, and pro-ceed to exhibit its affinities with non-Christianthought. At Alexandria, the home of the heresy,two systems of philosophy, the Aristotelian andthe Neo-Platonist, were strongly represented.Both of these philosophies exercised a profoundinfluence upon the origins and upon the laterdevelopments of monophysite doctrine. Wepropose to take, first, the Aristotehan, and thenthe Neo-Platonist philosophy, elucidating thoseleading ideas in each on which the monophysite

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THE ORIGINS OF MONOPHYSITISMthinker would naturally fasten, as lendingintellectual support to his religious views.

The Aristotelian LogicAristotle was held in high estimation by the

monophysite leaders, particularly in the sixthand seventh centuries. His works were trans-lated into Syriac in the Jacobite schools. TheWest owes much to these translations. For itwas largely by this agency that his metaphysicreached the Arabs, who transmitted it to theWest in the Middle Ages.

The Aristotelian logic was widely knownamong the monophysites. It seems to haveformed part of their educational curriculum.Taken apart from the rest of the system, thelogic produces a type of mind that revels insubtle argumentation. It exalts the form ofthought at the expense of the matter. It hadthis effect on the monophysite theologians.They were trained dialecticians. They werenoted for their controversial powers, for theirconstant appeal to definition, for the mechanicalprecision of their arguments. These mentalqualities, excellent in themselves, do not conduceto sound theology. Formal logic effects clarityof thought often at the expense of depth. Ittreats thoughts as things. Procedure, that isproper in the sphere of logic, is out of place inpsychology and theology. Concepts such as

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTperson and nature must be kept fluid, if they arenot to mislead. If they are made into hard andfast ideas, into sharply defined abstractions, theywill be taken to represent discrete psychicentities, external to one another as numbers are.The elusive. Protean character of the inter-penetrating realities behind them will be lostto view. The most signal defect of mono-physite method is its unquestioning submissionto the Aristotelian law of contradiction. Theintellectual training that makes men acutelogicians disquaUfies them for deaUng with theliving subject. The monophysite Christologianswere subtle dialecticians, but the psychology ofChrist's being lay outside their competence.Aristotle's Criticism of Dualisma Weapon

IN THE Hands of the MonophysitesLeaving the formal element in Aristotle's

system, we come to its material content. Someof the prominent ideas of the Aristotelian cos-mology and psychology reappear in the heresywe are studying. We shall take first the rejectionof the Platonic duahsm. Aristotle's repeatedcriticism of his master's theory of ideas is notmerely destructive. It formed the starting-pointfor his own metaphysic. The ideas, he says,simply duplicate the world of existent things.They do not create things or move them ; theydo not explain genesis or process ; they merelyco-exist with the ideates. The participation

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THE ORIGINS OF MONOPHYSITISMwhich Plato's later theory postulated is in-adequate. A more intimate relation is required.The theory of ideas confronts God with a world,and leaves the relation between them un-formulated and inexplicable.

This criticism is of first importance fortheology. Faith as well as reason demands areal relation between idea and ideate. TheChristian student in the fifth century, familiarwith Aristotle's criticism of Plato, would in-evitably apply it in Christology. Any theoryof redemption that ascribed duality to theRedeemer would seem to him to be open tothe objections that Aristotle had urged againstthe theory of ideas. The Nestorian formula, ineffect, juxtaposed the ideal Christ and the realJesus, and left the two unrelated. This wasPlatonism in Christology. Aristotle's attack onPlato's system provided a radical criticism ofNestorianism. The monophysite theologianswere blind to the difference between the Nesto-rian position and that of the orthodox. Theysaw that Aristotle had placed a powerful weaponin their hands, and they used it indifferentlyagainst both opposing parties.

Aristotle's PsychologyWe turn now to Aristotle's psychology. We

must give a brief sketch of it in order to establishthe fact that the Aristotelian and the mono-physite science of the soul labour under the same

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTdefect. It IS a radical defect, namely, the almostcomplete absence of the conception of per-sonality. The principle of Aristotle's psychology,hke that of his metaphysic, is the concept ofform and matter. The soul of man comes underthe general ontological law. All existence isdivisible into grades, the lower grade being thematter whose form is constituted by the nexthighest grade. Thus there is a graduated scaleof being, starting from pure matter and rising topure form. The inorganic is matter for thevegetable kingdom, the vegetable kingdom forthe animal kingdom ; the nutritive process ismaterial for the sensitive, and the sensitive forthe cognitive. Man is an epitome of these pro-cesses. The various parts of his nature arearranged in an ascending scale ; form is theonly cohesive force. The animal soul is the formof the body, born with it, growing with it,dying with it ; the two are one in the closestunion conceivable. Besides the soul of thebody, there is, says Aristotle, a soul of the soul.This is reason, essentially different from animaland sensitive soul. It is not connected withorganic function. It is pure intellectual principle.It is immaterial, immortal, the divine element inman. This reason is not a bare unity. As itappears in human experience, it is not full-grown. Potentially it contains all the categories,but the potentiality must be actualised. Con-sequently reason subdivides into active and

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTother great pagan philosophy that assisted inthe shaping of the heresy. Intellectuahsm andmysticism are closely allied ; the two are com-plementary ; they are as mutually dependent asare head and heart. It is not then surprising thatmonophysitism should possess the character-istics of both these schools of thought. Theintellectuahsm of the heresy was largely due, aswe have shown, to the Aristotehan logic andmetaphysic ; its mystic elements derive, as weproceed to indicate, from Neo-Platonism andkindred theosophies.

Alexandria had been for centuries the homeof the mystics. The geographical position, aswell as the political circumstances of its founda-tion, destined that city to be the meeting-placeof West and East. There the wisdom of theOrient met and fought and fused with that ofthe Occident. There Philo taught, and be-queathed to the Neo-Platonists much of hisPythagorean system. There flourished for awhile and died fantastic eclectic creeds, pagantheosophies masquerading as Christianity.Gnosticism was a typical product of the city.Valentinus and Basilides and the other gnosticsmade in that cosmopoUtan atmosphere theirattempts to reconcile Christianity with Greekand oriental thought. There Ammonius Saccas,after his lapse from the Christian faith, taughtand laid the foundation of Neo-Platonism.Plotinus was the greatest of his disciples, and,

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTNeo-Platonist Ontology

The representative figure amongst the Neo-Platonists is Plotinus. His comprehensive mindgathered up the main threads of Alexandrianthought, and wove them into the fabric of a vastspeculative system. The system is as much areUgion as a philosophy. It is the triumph ofuncompromising monism. The last traces ofdualism have been eradicated. God, for Plotinus,is true being and the only being. He is all andin all. God is an impersonal Trinity, comprisingthe One, the cosmic reason and the cosmic soul.The One is primal, ineffable, behind and beyondall human experience. All we know of Him isthat He is the source and union of reason andsoul. Creation is effected by a continuous seriesof emanations from God. Emanation is not anarbitrary act of divine will : it is a necessaryconsequence of the nature of the One. God mustnegate Himself, and the process is creation. Thefurther the process of negation is carried, theless reality does the created object possess.Last in the scale comes matter, which has noself-subsistence, but is the absolute self-negationof God. We referred in the last chapter toPlotinus' favourite illustration. We may beallowed, perhaps, to repeat it here. As light, hesays, issues from the sun and grows graduallydimmer, until it passes by imperceptible degreesinto the dark, so reason emanates from God

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THE ORIGINS OF MONOPHYSITISMand, passing through the phases of nature, losesits essence gradually in its procession, untilfinally it is derationalised and becomes itsopposite.

Neo-Platonist PsychologyHuman souls are at an intermediate stage of

this cosmic process. Like the ray of Ught whichtouches both sun and earth, they have contactwith God and with matter. They stand midwayin creation. They are attracted upwards anddownwards. Reason draws them to God ; sensechains them to earth. Their position decidestheir duty. (Here the philosophy becomes areUgion). The duty of man is to break thesensuous chains and set the soul free to returnto its home in God. This return of the soul toGod is attained by the path of knowledge. Theknowledge that frees is not speculative ; forsuch enhances self-consciousness. It is im-mediate consciousness indistinguishable fromunconsciousness. It is intuitive knowledge. Itis vision in which the seer loses himself, andwhat sees is the same as what is seen. It isthe absorption of the soul in the world reason,and so with God.

The Neo-Platonist took practical steps toattain this mystic state. He submitted to ruleand discipline. By mortification of the flesh heendeavoured to weaken sensuous desire. The

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THE ORIGINS OF MONOPHYSITISMadopted this tradition, and made ascesis thecentral duty of the Christian Ufe. The mono-physite church became celebrated for the lengthand rigidity of its fasts. The monastic elementdominated its communion. Indeed, it ishardly too much to say that the monophysitemovement, on its external side, was an attemptto capture the Church for monastic principles.The heresy drew its inspiration from the cloister.The Christ of the monophysites had withdrawnfrom the market to the wilderness ; so Hisfollowers must needs go out of the world tofollow in His steps.

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CHAPTER IIIMONOPHYSITE DOCTRINE

THE distinctive doctrine of monophysitism,that from which the name of the heresyis taken, is the assertion that there is but onenature, the divine nature, in Christ. Thereexisted some difference of opinion among themonophysites as to whether any degree ofreahty might be ascribed to the human nature.Some were prepared to allow it conceptualreahty ; they would grant that Christ had beendiphysite momentarily, that He was *' out oftwo natures." But that admission is quiteinadequate. It amounts to no more than thepaltry concession that Christ's human naturebefore the incarnation is conceivable as a separateentity. All monophysites united in condemningthe diphysite doctrine that after the incarnationChrist was and is ''in two natures." Such aChrist they would not worship. It was '' theimage with two faces that the Council ofChalcedon had set up." * They adopted the

* "The Chronicle of Zachariah of Mitylene," translatedby Hamilton and Brooks, chap. iii. p. 46.52


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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEAthanasian phrase, *' One incarnate nature ofGod the Word/' as their battle-cry.

Monophysitism can make out a strong primafacie case. It is attractive at first sight. Theheretical formula seems simpler and more naturalthan the catholic. The unity of nature appearsa corollary of the unity of person. Humanpersonality is ordinarily assumed to be mono-physite ; so it is natural to make the sameassumption as to divine personality. The sim-pUcity of the doctrine is, however, all on thesurface. It will not bear examination. As adefinition of Christian faith it is useless. Itcannot account for the recorded facts of Christ'sUfe. The facts of His body, of His mind, of Hissufferings refuse to fit into it. It affords nofoundation for belief in His transcendent work.No intelHgible doctrine of redemption can bebuilt upon it. It contains no germ of hope formankind. Therefore the Church in the nameof Christ and on behalf of humanity rejected it.

Although the heresy has been officially con-demned, it should none the less be studied. Itis improbable that any one in our time willdefend the formula, or openly profess thedoctrines that follow from it. But, though notrecognised as such, it is an ever-present andinstant menace to the Faith. Monophysitetendencies are inherent in religious thought.The metaphysical idea, on which it rests, stillhas a powerful hold over the human mind.

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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEthe humanity unreal. All the monophysite mis-beliefs can be classified under one or other ofthese two heads.The Concept *' Impassibility '' as applied

TO DeityWe shall take first those errors that com-

promise the nature of the deity, and shall prefaceour analysis by an explanation of the meaningof the term '' deus impassibilis.*' The impassi-bility of God is the corner-stone of spiritualmonotheism. Christianity owes it, as a philo-sophic doctrine, largely to Aristotle. He con-ceived deity as " actus purus," as the Onewho moves without being moved, a ** causasui.'' The popular gods of Greece were passible ;they were possible objects of sense ; they wereacted on largely as man is acted on. They hada beginning, and were subject to many of theprocesses of time. They were swayed by humanmotives. They were, at times, angry, afraid,unsatisfied, ambitious, jealous. Aristotle gaveto the world the conception of a transcendentGod, a being who is real and yet is '' withoutbody, parts and passions,'' who cannot receiveidolatrous worship, and is not an object of sense.ImpassibiUty was one of the highest attributesof this being. The attribute does not involveor imply absence of feeling. Originally it hadno reference to feeling, in the psychologicalsense of that word. It certainly excludes

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTincidentally the lower, specifically human feel-ings, feeUngs caused by external stimuU, feeUngsdue to want or to lack of power. It does notexclude the higher affections from the deity.Even in the v6rj(TL


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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEthat their definition safeguarded the impassi-bility. It was zeal for the honour of the Son ofGod that induced them to deny Him ail contactwith humanity. Their good intentions, however,could not permanently counteract the evilinherent in their system. In later generationsthe evil came to the surface. Theopaschitism,the doctrine that openly denies the impassibilityof the godhead, flourished in the monophysitechurches.Monism entails a Debased Conception ofDeity

The metaphysical basis of monophysitismmade this result inevitable. Extremes meet.Extreme spirituality readily passes into itsopposite. It cuts the ground from under itsown feet. It soars beyond its powers, and fallsinto the mire of materialism. Illustrations ofthis fact can be found in the history of philo-sophy. The Stoics, for instance, contrived tobe both pantheists and materiaHsts. Comingnearer to our own time, we find Hegelianismexplained in diametrically opposite ways. AfterHegers death his disciples split into opposingcamps ; one party maintained that the real wasspirit, the other that it was matter. Each partyclaimed the authority of the master for theirview. The divergence is easy to explain. Fromspiritual monism it is a short step to material-istic monism. For the monist, all is on one

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTlevel of being. He may by constant effort keepthat level high. But gravity will act. We aremore prone to degrade God to our level, thanto rise to His. The same truth can be put inabstracto. Unless the relation between Godand the world be preserved as a true relation,the higher term will sooner or later fall to thelevel of the lower, and be lost in it. This ruleholds as well in movements of reUgious thought.The monophysite strove for a lofty conceptionof deity but achieved a low one. He under-mined the doctrine of impassibiUty by the verymeasures he took to secure it.

In the technical language of Christology themonophysites' debased conception of deity wasa consequence of *' confounding the natures.''Attributes and actions, belonging properly onlyto Christ's humanity, were ascribed recklesslyto His divinity. The test phrase '' theotokos,"invaluable as a protest against Nestorianism,became a precedent for all sorts of doctrinalextravagancies. The famous addition to theTrisagion, '' who wast crucified for us," whichfor a time won recognition as sound and catholic,was first made by the monophysite Bishop ofAntioch.* Both these phrases have scripturalauthority, and they are justified by the com-municatio idiomatum. But they are liable to

* This addition to the Trisagion was ofi&cially condemnedat the close of the 7th century owing to its monophysiteassociations.

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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEmisuse and misinterpretation. All depended onhow they were said and who said them. Themonophysite meant one thing by them, thecatholic another. The arriere pensee of themonophysite gave them a wrong turn. He wasalways on the look-out for paradox in Christ'slife. He emphasised such phrases as appearedto detract from the reality of His humanexperiences. He spoke of Christ as '' ruling theuniverse when He lay in the manger," or as'' directing the affairs of nations from theCross." The catholic can approve these phrasesin the mouth of a monophysite they have aheretical sound. They suggest a passible God ;they degrade the infinite to the level of the finite.The monophysite confounds the natures, and sohe has no right to appeal to the communicatioidiomatum. Unless the idiomata are admittedas such, unless they are preserved in theirdistinctness, there can be no coptmunicatiobetween them. If they are fused, they cannotact and react upon each other. The mono-physite, by identifying the natures, forfeits theright to use the term '' Theotokos " and theTrisagion addition. On his lips their inevitableimplication is a finite suffering God.monophysitism and the doctrine of the

TrinityMonophysitism was not originally or per se

a Trinitarian heresy. Equally with catholics59 E


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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINENot in respect of what He has in common withthe other persons of the Trinity, but in respectof His property of sonship did He lower Himselfto the plane of suffering. The catholic holdsnot a suffering God, but a suffering divineperson. He maintains an impassible God, buta passible Christ. A dead God is a contradictionin terms ; a Christ who died is the hope ofhumanity.

Monophysite theology became involved infurther embarrassments. Unwillingness to attri-bute passibility to God, coupled with thedesire to remain in some sort trinitarians, forcedmany of the monophysites into the SabeUianposition. Deity, they said in effect, did notsuffer in the second person of the trinity, becausethere is no such person. The persons of thetrinity are simply characters assumed by themonadic essence, or aspects under which menview it. On this showing, the Logos, who wasincarnate, had no personal subsistence. Therelation between God and man ever remainsimpersonal. Christ, qua divine, was only anaspect or effluence of deity. This, for the mono-physite, was the one alternative to the doctrineof a passible God. He was faced with a desperatedilemma. If he retained his belief in a trans-cendent God, he must surrender belief in atriune God. He could choose between the two ;but his Christology permitted no third choice.For him, the only alternative to a finite God was

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MONOPPIYSITE DOCTRINEtheir Christianity at every turn. Instead ofbreaking free from it, they pretended that theiropponents were polytheists. The cathohc, how-ever, was neither monist nor plurahst. Theincarnation was not the addition of a fourthdivine being to the trinity. The essence of thegodhead remained complete, unchanged and im-passible ; while the hypostatic union of God andman in Christ made possible the assumption of apassible nature by the person of the Son of God.

MONOPHYSITISM AND ISLAM SaBELLIANISMTHE Connecting Link

It is in place here to point out the somewhatintimate connection that existed between mono-physitism and Islam. The monophysites heldthe outposts of the Empire. Mahomet cameinto contact with them, and it was probablyfrom them that he formed his conception ofChristian doctrine. The later history of themonophysite churches shows that they oftensecured a large measure of toleration at the handsof the Caliphs, while the diphysites were beingrigorously persecuted. Lapses to Islam werenot infrequent, and in some periods apostasyon a large scale occurred. Cases are on recordeven of monophysite patriarchs who abjuredtheir faith and joined the followers of theProphet. The connection between monophy-sitism and Islam was not fortuitous. There

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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEvitally connected. Misconception of the onerelation entails misconception of the other.Denial of relation in the godhead goes hand inhand with denial of relation in Christ. If thetheologian reduces the latter to bare unity, hedoes the same for the former. CathoUc Christ-ology is thus a necessary deduction from trini-tarian dogma. Nicaea necessitated Chalcedon.To safeguard the distinction of persons in thegodhead, a distinction in the natures of Christwas essential. To preserve intact the latterdistinction, the proprium of the Son and Hispersonal subsistence had to be kept distinct fromthe proprium and subsistence of the Father.

The Christological Errors of MonophysitismWe leave here the area of theology and come

to that of Christology. We have exhibited themonophysite errors with respect to the doctrineof primal deity ; we now proceed to analyse theirviews with respect to the incarnate Christ. Theformer subject leads the thinker into deep water ;the layman is out of his depth in it ; so it doesnot furnish material for a popular controversy.It is otherwise with the latter subject. Here theissue is narrowed to a point. It becomes aquestion of fact, namely, '' Was Christ a realman ? '' The question and most of the answersgiven to it are readily inteUigible, and theynaturally gave rise to heated controversy.

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTTheopaschitism is, as we have shown, atendency inherent in the heresy, but one slowto come to the surface, and one easily counter-acted and suppressed by the personal piety ofthe monophysite. Its docetism, the assertionof the unreality of Christ's human nature, Heson the surface. No amount of personal pietycan neutralise it. It has had, and still has, acrippUng effect on the faith of devout Christians.Even where it is not carried to the length offormal heresy, it spreads a haze of unreaUty overthe gospel story, and dulls the edge of behef.

The second count of Leo's charge against themonophysites was, it will be remembered, thattheir presentation of Christ made Him " homofalsus." Under this heading '' homo falsusmay be classed a wide group of erroneous tenets,ranging from the crudities of early docetism tothe subtleties of Apollinarianism. We proposeto sketch those of major importance. Noattempt will be made to take them in theirhistorical order or historical setting. Further,it is not implied that they all formed part of theofficial doctrine of the monophysite church.The standard of belief in that communion wasconstantly varying, and the history of its dogmawould need a work to itself. We shall deal withthose Christological errors, which, whether partof the official monophysite creed or not, arelogical results of the monophysite formula.

Unreality may be predicated of Christ's66


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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTwho walked in Galilee were admittedly one andthe same. The second person of the trinity andJesus of Nazareth were one personality. IfBethlehem made no change in that personality,it was purposeless, and the import of theincarnation disappears.The Monophysite Theory of a Composition

OF NaturesFor the consistent monophysites, then, thehuman nature, as a psychic entity with pecuHar

properties, did not survive the incarnation.They did, however, allow it a verbal reality.They admitted a composition of natures, andthis composition provided for them whateverdegree of reality the incarnation possessed.On this point their Christology passed throughseveral stages of development, the later stagesshowing progressive improvement on the earHer.They distinguished three senses of the word*' composition/' First, they said, it might mean** absorption/' as when a drop of water isabsorbed in a jar of wine. Second, it mightimply the transmutation of constituent particles,as when a third unlike thing is formed from two.Thirdly, there is composition when, from theassociation of two whole and entire things, athird whole and entire compound thing isformed without loss to the components. Theyillustrated the third mode of composition bythe union in man of soul and body. The

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTnot be taken as absolute ; for the whole is aunity, and the parts are not discrete quanta.The division is rather a classification of psychicstates according to predominating features.The classification corresponds, however, to thefacts of experience, and so psychology is justifiedin making use of it. We shall adopt it in ourinvestigation of the psychology of Christ. Thesharpest dividing line is that between im-material and material, between soul and body.The states of the soul fall into three well-markedgroups, thought, will, and feeUng. The physicaland the psychic are not always distinguishable.Still more uncertain and tentative is the identifi-cation in the psychic of cognitive, volitional, andemotional faculties. But in every man theseparts are found. They are constituents ofhuman nature. There may be other elementsas yet unanalysed ; but there can be no completehumanity that is deficient in respect of any ofthese parts. We propose to take them singlyin the above order, to show their existence in thehistoric Christ, and to expose the monophysiteattempts to explain them away.

Christ's BodyIt is obvious to an unprejudiced reader of the

gospels that Christ's pre-resurrection body wasreal and normal. It was an organism of fleshand blood, of the same constitution and structure

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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEas ours. It occupied space, and was ordinarilysubject to the laws of space. It was visible andtangible. It shared the natural processes ofbirth, growth, and metabolism. At the resurrec-tion a catastrophic change took place in it. Itwas still a body. It was still Christ's body.Continuity was preserved. The evidences ofcontinuity were external, and so strong as toconvince doubters. We cannot fathom eitherthe change or the continuity. What we knowis that after the resurrection the body was notso subject as before to the laws of space. It was,it would seem, of finer atoms and subtler texture.It had reached the height of physical being, anddevelopment apparently had ceased. It was theentelechy of the human body. It was still real,though no longer normal. To employ paradox,it was natural of the species '' supernatural.''It was the natural body raised to a higher power.It was natural to human denizens of a higherworld. Body's function is two-fold. It bothlimits the soul and expresses it. It narrows theactivity of the person to a point, and thus servesas a fine instrument for action upon matter.At the same time it draws out the potentiaUtiesof the soul and fixes its development. Thepost-resurrection body was apparently lesslimitative and more expressive.

The foregoing considerations may be summedup in the form of three dogmata, all of whichorthodox Christianity teaches. These are, first.


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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEpersonality, they thought, did not require andcould not use a material medium. This doctrinewas not part of the official monophysite creed ;but, as pointed out in the previous chapter,monophysitism was a lineal descendant ofdocetism, and always showed traces of itslineage. The saying that, '' Christ brought Hisbody from heaven,'' was commonly attributed toEutyches. He denied having said it, but, atany rate, the general feeling of his followers wasthat Christ's physical nature was divine andtherefore not consubstantial with ours.

Such doctrines destroy the discipline offaith in the resurrection. The radical differencebetween the natural and the resurrection bodyis blurred by them. The immense change isabolished. The resurrection becomes purely aspiritual change, which even a non-Christiancould accept. The body, according to the tenorof monophysite teaching, was spirit before theresurrection and spirit after it. Thus theascension too becomes purely spiritual. It isshorn of half its significance. The Christian'shope for the human body rests on the fact thatChrist returned to heaven with something thatHe did not bring from heaven, namely, a glorifiedhuman body. If He brought that body withHim from heaven, the main significance of Hishuman dispensation falls to the ground. Theincarnation becomes unreal, illusory, impotent.An offshoot of docetism that flourished

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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEthe true Christology, were predisposed to theinfection of this heresy. A being in whomorganic process was present seemed to theseheretics no fit object of worship. They calledthe orthodox Ctistolatrae or Phthartolatrae,worshippers of the created or corruptible.

Monophysites of all shades of opinion unitedin condemning the practice of worshippingChrist's human nature. That practice was intheir eyes both idle and injurious ; idle, becausethe human nature did not exist as a separateentity ; injurious, because it fixed the mind ofthe worshipper on the finite. In consequencethey were much opposed to all observancesbased on a belief in His humanity. Images orother representations of Him in human formseemed to them idolatrous. The monophysitechurch was not directly concerned in the icono-clastic controversy, but their doctrines wereindirectly responsible for it. In fact the greatmonophysites, Severus and Philoxenus, havebeen styled ** the fathers of the iconoclasts.''

MONOPHYSITISM BLIND TO THE DUAL CHARACTEROF Christ's Experience

Such were the difficulties and errors intowhich their Christology forced the monophysiteswith respect to Christ's body. Difficultiesequally great and errors equally fatal attendedtheir attempt to conceive the conjunction of

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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEhuman heart, as if all time past, present, andfuture was an open book to him, as if He werein the counsels of the Most High. On thoseoccasions divine intuition superseded in Him theslow and faulty methods of human intelUgence ;thought was vision, intellect intuition, know-ledge omniscience. Thus His divine naturecognised and knew. That, however, is only onehalf of the picture. On other occasions his mindappears to have been perfectly human. Hisintelligence and perceptive faculties differednot essentially from ours. He asked questionsand sought information. He used humancategories. He progressed in wisdom. Thedevelopment of His mind was gradual. Hisknowledge was relative to His age and surround-ings. Memory and obliviscence, those com-plementary and perhaps constituent elementsof soul-being, attention, sensation, recognition,and discursive reasoning, all these exhibitions ofthe workings of the normal mind appeared inChrist. In this manner His human naturecognised and knew.

MONOPHYSITISM ENTAILS THE ApOLLINARIANView of Christ's Human Nature asmerely an animated bodyThe Catholic welcomes these evidences of

the duality of Christ's intellectual life. On thetheoretical side, they confirm the central dogma

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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEcrippled in its highest member. It is a realmshorn of its fairest province. According toApollinaris, all that Christ assumed was ananimated body. His theory is like an ingenioussystem of canal locks for letting divine person-ality descend from the upper to the lowerwaters. The ingenuity displayed in it condemnsit. It is an artificial makeshift. The psychologyon which it rests is antiquated. The picture ofChrist it presents does not correspond to therecorded facts of His life. Christ's humannature, as chiselled by the Apollinarian sculptor,is a torso. Such an image fails to satisfy thedemands of rehgious feehng, and the doctrines,Apollinarian and monophysite, that enshrineit are therefore valueless.

Two Wills in ChristWe here leave the subject of cognition and

pass to that of voUtion. Orthodoxy teachesthat Christ had two wills. This doctrine has adouble basis. In the first place, it is a corollaryof the doctrine of two natures. In the second,it is established by the recorded facts of thegospel narrative. To take first the a prioriargument. A nature without a will is incon-ceivable. A cognitive faculty without thedynamic of the voUtional would be a machinewithout driving force. The absurdity of thesupposition, indeed, is not fully brought out by

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MONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENTthe simile. For we can consider the machineat rest ; it would then have existence andpotential activity. Will, however, is essentialto the existence as well as to the activity ofthought. The connection between them is vitalto both. The psychologist distinguishes therespective parts each plays in life and marks offfaculties to correspond to each. But his distinc-tion is only provisional. The two developpari passu ; they are never separable ; they actand re-act on one another. Without somedegree of attention there is no thought, not evenperception of external objects. Attention is asmuch an act of will as of thought. Man doesnot first evolve ideas and then summon will toactuate them. In the very formation of ideaswill is present and active. Accordingly fromthe duahty of Christ's cognitive nature thepsychologist would infer that He had two wills.There is in Christ the divine will that controlledthe forces of nature and could suspend theirnormal workings, the will that wrought miracle,the eternal will, infinite in scope and power,that was objectified in His age-long universalpurpose, in a word, the will that undertook thesuperhuman task of cosmic reconstruction andachieved it.It is not easy for us to conceive the co-existence of two wills in one person. Thedifficulty is part of the discipline of faith.Christ's human will is no less a fact than His

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MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINEdivine will. The former played as large a partin His earthly experience as the latter. It waspresent in all its normal phases, ranging frommotor will to psychic resolve. The lower formsof volition, motor impulse, desire and wish, thehigher forms, deliberation, choice, purpose andresolve. He shared them all with humanity.There is in Him a human will, limited in scope,varying in intensity, developing with the growthof His human experience, a will like ours ineverything, except that it was free from moralimperfection. It was a finite will, inasmuch asthe conditioning cognition was finite, perfectof its kind, adequate to its task, never faltering,yet of finite strength. The two wills have eachtheir own sphere. They operate in perfectharmony. Only at crises, such as the Agony,is there any appearance of discord. The o

Documents

Luce. Monophysitism past and present : a study in christology. 1920