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The ebionites threatened the Faith from the opposite quarter. They taught that Christ was real man and only man. According to them, the whole value of His life and work lay in His moral teaching and His noble example; there is no mystery, no contact of divine and human in Christ; what He attained, we all may attain. The ebionites were recruited from the Jewish element in the Church. The rigid monotheism of the Jews made it hard for them to conceive an intermediary between God and man; they were naturally disposed to embrace a humanistic explanation of Christ.

Docetism was elaborated by Valentinus, Manes and other gnostics and adopted into their systems, while ebionitism provided the basis for the Christologies of Paul of Samosata, of the Photinians and Adoptionists. In contact with these heresies orthodox beliefs, originally fluid, gradually hardened. The dogma "Christus deus et homo" had from the beginning been held in the Church. Its full implications were not realised and formulated until the conflict with error came. The controversies of the third and fourth centuries threw into bold relief the unity of the person and the perfection of the divinity and of the humanity.

THE PROBLEM OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION

The manner of the hypostatic union then became an urgent problem. The Church of the fifth century was called upon to attempt a solution. Any reading of the Gospels compelled the recognition of divine and human elements in Christ; but speculative theology found it difficult to reconcile that fact with the equally important fact of the unity of person.

APOLLINARIANISM

Apollinaris was, as far as we know, the first theologian to approach this subject. We may note in passing that, though he was bishop of Laodicea in Syria, Alexandria was his native place. His father was an Alexandrian, and he himself had been a friend of Athanasius. The fact of his connection with Alexandria deserves mention, because his doctrine reflects the ideas of the Alexandrian school of thought, not those of the Syrian. Apollinaris set himself to attack the heretical view that there were two "Sons"--one before all time, the divine Logos, and one after the incarnation, Jesus Christ. In doing so he felt constrained to formulate a theory of the union of natures. He started from the Platonic division of human nature into three parts, rational soul, animal soul, and body. He argued that in the statement "the Logos became flesh," "flesh" must mean animal soul and body. He urged in proof that it would be absurd to suppose the Logos conditioned by human reason; that rational soul was the seat of personality, and that if it were associated with the Logos, it would be impossible to avoid recognising "two Sons." He expressly asserted that the humanity of Christ was incomplete, contending that this very defect in the human nature made possible the unity of His person. According to Apollinaris, then, the union was a composition. The Logos superseded the human reason, and was thus united to body and animal soul.

THE NESTORIAN REACTION

Opposition to Apollinarianism gave rise to the Nestorian heresy. The original ebionitism had died away, but its spirit and central doctrine reappeared in Nestorianism. Nestorianism might be described as ebionitism conforming to the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople. The leaders of the opposition to the Apollinarists of the fifth century were their own Syrian countrymen whose headquarters was at Antioch. The Antiochians differed from the Apollinarians in the starting-point of their Christology and in the controlling motive of their thought. While Apollinaris had constructed his Christology on the basis of the doctrine of the Trinity, the Antiochians started from the formula "perfect alike in deity and humanity." The reasonings of Apollinaris were governed by the thought of redemption. The fundamental question of religion for him was, "How can the closest union between divine and human be secured?" The tendency of the Antiochians, on the other hand, was to neglect the interests of Soteriology and to emphasize the ethical aspect of Christ's life and teaching. They put in the background the idea of the all-creating, all-sustaining Logos, who took man's nature upon Him and in His person deified humanity. Their thought centred on the historic Christ, the Christ of the evangelists. They did not revert to crude ebionitism, but they explained the Nicene creed from an ebionitic stand-point. They maintained as against the Apollinarians the completeness of Christ's human nature; with equal vigour they maintained the essential deity of the Logos. The "poverty" of their doctrines consisted in their paltry view of the hypostatic union. The union, according to the Nestorians, was subsequent to the conception of Jesus. It was not a personal, but a moral union. It was a conjunction of two co-ordinate entities. They taught that the more the man Jesus acted in accordance with the divine promptings, the closer became his union with the Logos. That is to say, the union was relative not absolute. Thus the union between divine and human in Christ differed only in degree from the union of the same elements in any good man. The unity of the Son of God and the Son of Mary consisted solely in the identity of name, honour and worship.

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA

Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, led the opposition to Nestorius. He declared that the moment of conception was the moment of the union, and that the notion of incarnation involved much more than an association of natures. He maintained that the incarnation was a hypostatic union . He endeavoured to guard against an Apollinarian interpretation of his teaching; but in this attempt he was not altogether successful. He asserted the perfection of Christ's humanity and the distinction between the two natures. The perfection, however, is compromised, and the distinction rendered purely ideal by his further statement that there were "two natures before, but only one after the union." He cited in proof the words of Athanasius, "one incarnate nature of God the Word."

MONOPHYSITISM A PRODUCT OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE CURRENTS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

The foregoing sketch of the early Christological heresies exhibits monophysitism as a product of two opposite intellectual currents. A man's convictions are settled for him partly by acceptance, partly by rejection of what tradition offers or his mind evolves. The mass mind works similarly. It accepts and rejects, approves and disallows. The stabilisation of a body of mass opinions, such as a heresy, is thus determined by opposite forces. It was so with monophysitism. Its Christian antecedents comprised positive and negative currents. The positive current was docetism, the negative ebionitism. Docetism, originating in apostolic times, passed through many phases, to provide, at the end of the fourth century, in its most refined form, Apollinarianism, the immediate positive cause of monophysitism. Ebionitism, related to docetism as realism to idealism, possessed equal vitality and equal adaptability. It showed itself in various humanistic interpretations of Christ. Of these the most elaborate was Nestorianism, which exerted the most insistent and immediate negative influence on the early growth of monophysitism.

MONOPHYSITISM AND NON-CHRISTIAN THOUGHT

We leave here the subject of the influence of other heresies on monophysitism, and proceed to exhibit its affinities with non-Christian thought. At Alexandria, the home of the heresy, two systems of philosophy, the Aristotelian and the Neo-Platonist, were strongly represented. Both of these philosophies exercised a profound influence upon the origins and upon the later developments of monophysite doctrine. We propose to take, first, the Aristotelian, and then the Neo-Platonist philosophy, elucidating those leading ideas in each on which the monophysite thinker would naturally fasten, as lending intellectual support to his religious views.

THE ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC

Aristotle was held in high estimation by the monophysite leaders, particularly in the sixth and seventh centuries. His works were translated into Syriac in the Jacobite schools. The West owes much to these translations. For it was largely by this agency that his metaphysic reached the Arabs, who transmitted it to the West in the Middle Ages.

The Aristotelian logic was widely known among the monophysites. It seems to have formed part of their educational curriculum. Taken apart from the rest of the system, the logic produces a type of mind that revels in subtle argumentation. It exalts the form of thought at the expense of the matter. It had this effect on the monophysite theologians. They were trained dialecticians. They were noted for their controversial powers, for their constant appeal to definition, for the mechanical precision of their arguments. These mental qualities, excellent in themselves, do not conduce to sound theology. Formal logic effects clarity of thought often at the expense of depth. It treats thoughts as things. Procedure, that is proper in the sphere of logic, is out of place in psychology and theology. Concepts such as person and nature must be kept fluid, if they are not to mislead. If they are made into hard and fast ideas, into sharply defined abstractions, they will be taken to represent discrete psychic entities, external to one another as numbers are. The elusive, Protean character of the inter-penetrating realities behind them will be lost to view. The most signal defect of monophysite method is its unquestioning submission to the Aristotelian law of contradiction. The intellectual training that makes men acute logicians disqualifies them for dealing with the living subject. The monophysite Christologians were subtle dialecticians, but the psychology of Christ's being lay outside their competence.

ARISTOTLE'S CRITICISM OF DUALISM--A WEAPON IN THE HANDS OF THE MONOPHYSITES

Leaving the formal element in Aristotle's system, we come to its material content. Some of the prominent ideas of the Aristotelian cosmology and psychology reappear in the heresy we are studying. We shall take first the rejection of the Platonic dualism. Aristotle's repeated criticism of his master's theory of ideas is not merely destructive. It formed the starting-point for his own metaphysic. The ideas, he says, simply duplicate the world of existent things. They do not create things or move them; they do not explain genesis or process; they merely co-exist with the ideates. The participation which Plato's later theory postulated is inadequate. A more intimate relation is required. The theory of ideas confronts God with a world, and leaves the relation between them unformulated and inexplicable.

This criticism is of first importance for theology. Faith as well as reason demands a real relation between idea and ideate. The Christian student in the fifth century, familiar with Aristotle's criticism of Plato, would inevitably apply it in Christology. Any theory of redemption that ascribed duality to the Redeemer would seem to him to be open to the objections that Aristotle had urged against the theory of ideas. The Nestorian formula, in effect, juxtaposed the ideal Christ and the real Jesus, and left the two unrelated. This was Platonism in Christology. Aristotle's attack on Plato's system provided a radical criticism of Nestorianism. The monophysite theologians were blind to the difference between the Nestorian position and that of the orthodox. They saw that Aristotle had placed a powerful weapon in their hands, and they used it indifferently against both opposing parties.

ARISTOTLE'S PSYCHOLOGY

We turn now to Aristotle's psychology. We must give a brief sketch of it in order to establish the fact that the Aristotelian and the monophysite science of the soul labour under the same defect. It is a radical defect, namely, the almost complete absence of the conception of personality. The principle of Aristotle's psychology, like that of his metaphysic, is the concept of form and matter. The soul of man comes under the general ontological law. All existence is divisible into grades, the lower grade being the matter whose form is constituted by the next highest grade. Thus there is a graduated scale of being, starting from pure matter and rising to pure form. The inorganic is matter for the vegetable kingdom, the vegetable kingdom for the animal kingdom; the nutritive process is material for the sensitive, and the sensitive for the cognitive. Man is an epitome of these processes. The various parts of his nature are arranged in an ascending scale; form is the only cohesive force. The animal soul is the form of the body, born with it, growing with it, dying with it; the two are one in the closest union conceivable. Besides the soul of the body, there is, says Aristotle, a soul of the soul. This is reason, essentially different from animal and sensitive soul. It is not connected with organic function. It is pure intellectual principle. It is immaterial, immortal, the divine element in man. This reason is not a bare unity. As it appears in human experience, it is not full-grown. Potentially it contains all the categories, but the potentiality must be actualised. Consequently reason subdivides into active and passive intellect. The action of the former on the latter, and the response of the latter to the former, constitute the development of the mind, the education of the truth that is potentially present from the beginning.

This hierarchy of immaterial entities contains nothing corresponding to our idea of personality. There is in it no principle that is both individual and immortal. Aristotle allows immortality only to the universal reason. The psychic elements are condemned to perish with the body. There is no hope for the parts of the soul which are most intimately connected with the individual's experience.

INTELLECTUALISM AND MYSTICISM COMPLEMENTARY SYSTEMS

After this sketch of the Aristotelian features recognisable in monophysitism, we turn to the other great pagan philosophy that assisted in the shaping of the heresy. Intellectualism and mysticism are closely allied; the two are complementary; they are as mutually dependent as are head and heart. It is not then surprising that monophysitism should possess the characteristics of both these schools of thought. The intellectualism of the heresy was largely due, as we have shown, to the Aristotelian logic and metaphysic; its mystic elements derive, as we proceed to indicate, from Neo-Platonism and kindred theosophies.

Alexandria had been for centuries the home of the mystics. The geographical position, as well as the political circumstances of its foundation, destined that city to be the meeting-place of West and East. There the wisdom of the Orient met and fought and fused with that of the Occident. There Philo taught, and bequeathed to the Neo-Platonists much of his Pythagorean system. There flourished for a while and died fantastic eclectic creeds, pagan theosophies masquerading as Christianity. Gnosticism was a typical product of the city. Valentinus and Basilides and the other gnostics made in that cosmopolitan atmosphere their attempts to reconcile Christianity with Greek and oriental thought. There Ammonius Saccas, after his lapse from the Christian faith, taught and laid the foundation of Neo-Platonism. Plotinus was the greatest of his disciples, and, though he taught at Rome for most of his life, it was in the spirit of Alexandria that he wrought his absolute philosophy, the full-orbed splendour of the setting sun of Greek thought. Neo-Platonism did not die with Plotinus. In the middle of the fifth century, when monophysitism was at its zenith, Proclus was fashioning an intellectual machinery to express the Plotinian system. The story of Hypatia evidences the dominant position of Neo-Platonism in Alexandrian culture. The violence of Cyril's measures against her shows what a menace to the Church that philosophy was. Cyril was not a monophysite, but much that he said and did promoted their cause. Dioscurus, his nephew and successor in the see of Alexandria, championed monophysitism at the council of Chalcedon. In later generations Alexandria always offered an asylum to exiled monophysite leaders.

These facts render it impossible to regard the connection between Alexandria and monophysitism as fortuitous. They further suggest that Neo-Platonism was the connecting link. Such in fact it was. Monophysitism, we might almost say, was Neo-Platonism in Christian dress. The ethos of the two systems is the same, and the doctrinal resemblance is marked. It was natural that the home of pagan mysticism should cradle the kindred system of heretical Christian mysticism.

NEO-PLATONIST ONTOLOGY

The representative figure amongst the Neo-Platonists is Plotinus. His comprehensive mind gathered up the main threads of Alexandrian thought, and wove them into the fabric of a vast speculative system. The system is as much a religion as a philosophy. It is the triumph of uncompromising monism. The last traces of dualism have been eradicated. God, for Plotinus, is true being and the only being. He is all and in all. God is an impersonal Trinity, comprising the One, the cosmic reason and the cosmic soul. The One is primal, ineffable, behind and beyond all human experience. All we know of Him is that He is the source and union of reason and soul. Creation is effected by a continuous series of emanations from God. Emanation is not an arbitrary act of divine will; it is a necessary consequence of the nature of the One. God must negate Himself, and the process is creation. The further the process of negation is carried, the less reality does the created object possess. Last in the scale comes matter, which has no self-subsistence, but is the absolute self-negation of God. We referred in the last chapter to Plotinus' favourite illustration. We may be allowed, perhaps, to repeat it here. As light, he says, issues from the sun and grows gradually dimmer, until it passes by imperceptible degrees into the dark, so reason emanates from God and, passing through the phases of nature, loses its essence gradually in its procession, until finally it is derationalised and becomes its opposite.

NEO-PLATONIST PSYCHOLOGY

Human souls are at an intermediate stage of this cosmic process. Like the ray of light which touches both sun and earth, they have contact with God and with matter. They stand midway in creation. They are attracted upwards and downwards. Reason draws them to God; sense chains them to earth. Their position decides their duty. . The duty of man is to break the sensuous chains and set the soul free to return to its home in God. This return of the soul to God is attained by the path of knowledge. The knowledge that frees is not speculative; for such enhances self-consciousness. It is immediate consciousness indistinguishable from unconsciousness. It is intuitive knowledge. It is vision in which the seer loses himself, and what sees is the same as what is seen. It is the absorption of the soul in the world reason, and so with God.

MONOPHYSITISM AND NEO-PLATONISM

When we compare monophysitism with the system of Plotinus, several points of resemblance appear. There is first the impersonal character of the deity. Monophysitism was not a Trinitarian heresy, and the Catholic doctrine of the three persons in the godhead was the official creed of the heretical church. But their theologians refrained from laying emphasis upon the distinct personalities of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Their sympathies were Sabellian to the core, and Sabellian heresies were constantly recurring within their communion. The impersonal Trinity, such as Plotinus taught, was thoroughly in keeping with their Christology. They lacked a clear conception of personality in the second Person of the Trinity. It was inevitable that they should overlook the same element in the incarnate Christ.

The Neo-Platonic view of matter finds its counterpart in monophysite theory. The monophysites, without formally denying its real existence, nursed a Manichean suspicion of it. It was, to them, the seat of illusion; it was an obstacle to spirit, the enemy of spiritual development. If not unreal, it was at any rate unworthy. The association of Christ with matter through His body and through His human nature was, in their eyes, a degradation of deity. That Christ took matter up into His being as a permanent element, that He dignified the body and glorified human faculties, these facts seemed to the monophysite mind improbable, and, if true, devoid of religious significance. It came natural to him to explain Christ's body as a phantom. He was prepared to regard the human nature as unsubstantial. The mystic's view of matter, of sense and human existence characterises the whole monophysite outlook.

We may conclude this comparison of monophysitism with Neo-Platonism by pointing out that the two systems had a similar bearing on the conduct of life. Neo-Platonism was a religion. Its speculative aspect was subordinate to its practical. A knowledge of the soul's position in creation and of its destiny laid the philosopher under strict obligation. Fasting and self-denial were essential preliminaries to the higher mystic practices. Ecstasy could not be reached until body and sense had been starved into complete submission. Monophysitism adopted this tradition, and made ascesis the central duty of the Christian life. The monophysite church became celebrated for the length and rigidity of its fasts. The monastic element dominated its communion. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that the monophysite movement, on its external side, was an attempt to capture the Church for monastic principles. The heresy drew its inspiration from the cloister. The Christ of the monophysites had withdrawn from the market to the wilderness; so His followers must needs go out of the world to follow in His steps.

Harnack, "History of Dogma," vol. iv. chap. ii. p. 160.

MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINE

The distinctive doctrine of monophysitism, that from which the name of the heresy is taken, is the assertion that there is but one nature, the divine nature, in Christ. There existed some difference of opinion among the monophysites as to whether any degree of reality might be ascribed to the human nature. Some were prepared to allow it conceptual reality; they would grant that Christ had been diphysite momentarily, that He was "out of two natures." But that admission is quite inadequate. It amounts to no more than the paltry concession that Christ's human nature before the incarnation is conceivable as a separate entity. All monophysites united in condemning the diphysite doctrine that after the incarnation Christ was and is "in two natures." Such a Christ they would not worship. It was "the image with two faces that the Council of Chalcedon had set up." They adopted the Athanasian phrase, "One incarnate nature of God the Word," as their battle-cry.

Although the heresy has been officially condemned, it should none the less be studied. It is improbable that any one in our time will defend the formula, or openly profess the doctrines that follow from it. But, though not recognised as such, it is an ever-present and instant menace to the Faith. Monophysite tendencies are inherent in religious thought. The metaphysical idea, on which it rests, still has a powerful hold over the human mind. Spiritually-minded men are especially liable to this form of error. It is a mistake to think that Christological questions were settled once and for all in the fifth century. Each generation has to settle them afresh. Accordingly, to exhibit the consequences of the monophysite formula, to show how wrong abstract ideas develop into wrong concrete ideas and falsify Christian practice, is a task of practical and present-day importance.

CLASSIFICATION OF MONOPHYSITE ERRORS

Two classes of erroneous beliefs result from a misconception of the relation between God and man in Christ. There arise, on the one hand, false opinions about the deity of Christ, and on the other, false opinions as to His manhood. We shall adopt this classification as we investigate the doctrinal consequences of the monophysite formula. It is the method followed in one of the earliest systematic criticisms of the heresy. Leo's Tome, or letter to Flavian, contains a lucid statement of the catholic doctrine of the incarnation, and an acute analysis of the system of Eutyches, the heresiarch. He summarises the errors of Eutyches under two heads; there are two main counts in his indictment of the heresy. Eutyches, he contends, makes Jesus Christ "deus passibilis et homo falsus." Eutyches and his followers compromised both deity and humanity. The deity becomes passible, the humanity unreal. All the monophysite misbeliefs can be classified under one or other of these two heads.

THE CONCEPT "IMPASSIBILITY" AS APPLIED TO DEITY

Monophysitism, as we proceed to show, compromised this article of the Faith. Its adherents did not, perhaps, do so intentionally. In fact, the first generation of monophysites maintained that their definition safeguarded the impassibility. It was zeal for the honour of the Son of God that induced them to deny Him all contact with humanity. Their good intentions, however, could not permanently counteract the evil inherent in their system. In later generations the evil came to the surface. Theopaschitism, the doctrine that openly denies the impassibility of the godhead, flourished in the monophysite churches.

MONISM ENTAILS A DEBASED CONCEPTION OF DEITY

MONOPHYSITISM AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

MONOPHYSITISM AND ISLAM--SABELLIANISM THE CONNECTING LINK

It is in place here to point out the somewhat intimate connection that existed between monophysitism and Islam. The monophysites held the outposts of the Empire. Mahomet came into contact with them, and it was probably from them that he formed his conception of Christian doctrine. The later history of the monophysite churches shows that they often secured a large measure of toleration at the hands of the Caliphs, while the diphysites were being rigorously persecuted. Lapses to Islam were not infrequent, and in some periods apostasy on a large scale occurred. Cases are on record even of monophysite patriarchs who abjured their faith and joined the followers of the Prophet. The connection between monophysitism and Islam was not fortuitous. There was a doctrinal affinity between them. Both systems were rigidly monotheistic. Both degraded the notion of deity by a perverse attempt to exalt it. Both cut redemption and mediation out of their religion.

The family likeness between the two systems does not extend beyond the realm of the doctrine of supreme deity. In other respects the religion of the sword and the religion of love have little or nothing in common. Crescent and Cross are poles asunder. The monophysites as a body remained nominally and in intention Christians and trinitarians. But in the doctrinal area specified the resemblance holds. It could hardly be otherwise. Sabellian tendencies were always present and powerful in the monophysite communion, and Sabellianism is a long step in the direction of Islam. Sabellius taught in effect, "Allah is one." The three persons, for him, were only aspects of the one indivisible deity. There are no distinct entities corresponding to the names of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Sabellianism is intimately associated with monism in all its phases. Monophysitism being essentially monist could not escape the taint. Whether Sabellianism made the heretics monophysites, or monophysitism made them Sabellians, we need not inquire. The two creeds are bound up in the same bundle by the tie of monism. The relation of the Son to the Father and the relation of the Son to humanity are vitally connected. Misconception of the one relation entails misconception of the other. Denial of relation in the godhead goes hand in hand with denial of relation in Christ. If the theologian reduces the latter to bare unity, he does the same for the former. Catholic Christology is thus a necessary deduction from trinitarian dogma. Nicaea necessitated Chalcedon. To safeguard the distinction of persons in the godhead, a distinction in the natures of Christ was essential. To preserve intact the latter distinction, the proprium of the Son and His personal subsistence had to be kept distinct from the proprium and subsistence of the Father.

THE CHRISTOLOGICAL ERRORS OF MONOPHYSITISM

We leave here the area of theology and come to that of Christology. We have exhibited the monophysite errors with respect to the doctrine of primal deity; we now proceed to analyse their views with respect to the incarnate Christ. The former subject leads the thinker into deep water; the layman is out of his depth in it; so it does not furnish material for a popular controversy. It is otherwise with the latter subject. Here the issue is narrowed to a point. It becomes a question of fact, namely, "Was Christ a real man?" The question and most of the answers given to it are readily intelligible, and they naturally gave rise to heated controversy. Theopaschitism is, as we have shown, a tendency inherent in the heresy, but one slow to come to the surface, and one easily counter-acted and suppressed by the personal piety of the monophysite. Its docetism, the assertion of the unreality of Christ's human nature, lies on the surface. No amount of personal piety can neutralise it. It has had, and still has, a crippling effect on the faith of devout Christians. Even where it is not carried to the length of formal heresy, it spreads a haze of unreality over the gospel story, and dulls the edge of belief.

The second count of Leo's charge against the monophysites was, it will be remembered, that their presentation of Christ made Him "homo falsus." Under this heading "homo falsus" may be classed a wide group of erroneous tenets, ranging from the crudities of early docetism to the subtleties of Apollinarianism. We propose to sketch those of major importance. No attempt will be made to take them in their historical order or historical setting. Further, it is not implied that they all formed part of the official doctrine of the monophysite church. The standard of belief in that communion was constantly varying, and the history of its dogma would need a work to itself. We shall deal with those Christological errors, which, whether part of the official monophysite creed or not, are logical results of the monophysite formula.

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