Monophysites

MONOPHYSITES. - This is the name given to the heretics who in the incarnate Son of God admit only one nature (in Greek φύσις) resulting from the union of the divinity with the humanity. They stand in direct opposition to the definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451), which proclaimed that the Word of God, born, as regards his humanity, of the Virgin Mary, subsists in a single hypostasis or person and in two natures (ἐν δύο φύσει), which remain distinct and undivided, united and unconfused. The term Monophysitism is ambiguous, because the M. did not all explain the word φύσις in the same way. This is the first point that must be insisted upon. Since, moreover, several Monophysite Churches still exist today, it is appropriate to establish on what kind of Monophysitism they are founded. Furthermore, since Monophysitism gave rise to numerous sects in its first two centuries of existence (5th and 6th centuries), the principal ones must be recalled, referring for most of them to a separate treatment in the respective articles.

I. THE DIFFERENT FORMS OF MONOPHYSITISM

As has already been noted in the entry Eutiche e eutichianismo (v.), three kinds of Monophysitism are distinguished: the real or Eutychian; the verbal, called Severian from Severus of Antioch, who was its chief exponent; the orthodox, that is, that of St. Cyril of Alexandria, who used the pseudo-Athanasian formula: one incarnate φύσις of the Word of God: μία φύσις τοῦ λόγου σεσαρκωμένη, and explained it in a satisfactory manner. After the Council of Chalcedon, this formula no longer corresponded perfectly to the terminology fixed by the Council; this, however, has not prevented several theologians and even some councils from continuing to use it, though not exclusively.

Eutychianism is the radical form of Monophysitism, the one that many historians, even today, wrongly attribute to all Monophysites. Its varieties are numerous and many of them far earlier than Eutyches. Whatever Eutyches' own thought may have been, the name Eutychianism has been applied to all those systems that hardened in refusing to recognize in Christ anything but a single nature, a single essence. For this reason it is called real, that is, true, Monophysitism. Eutyches had maintained the two following propositions: 1) Jesus Christ is not consubstantial with us; 2) after the union of the divinity and the humanity, there is one nature, not two. All the errors that can logically be deduced from these two propositions have been attributed to Eutyches and constitute historical Eutychianism. A priori, there are four possible forms of Eutychianism: 1) the humanity is absorbed by the divinity, much as a drop of honey thrown into the sea is dissolved (cf. Theodoret, Eranistes, 2: PG 83, 153, 157); 2) the divinity disappears in the humanity. The Word loses its divine attributes, emptying (ἐκένωσεν: Philip., 2, 7), so to speak, itself of its divinity (hence the name Kenosis [v.] adopted by the modern supporters of this error); 3) the two natures are mixed or fused in such a way as to give a theandric compound, which is neither properly God nor properly man, but both at the same time, like water mixed with wine or like hydrogen and oxygen which, uniting, become water. This is the classic form of real Monophysitism; 4) the two natures of Christ are the parts of a natural whole, which complete one another and form one complete nature or essence. Such is the conception of Apollinaris, who, moreover, mutilated the human nature of Christ by depriving it of the rational soul or the νοῦς. The Apollinarists were called synousiasts (from συνουσίωσις = reduction of two essences to one). Docetism has also been reduced to Monophysitism, according to which the Word took only the appearances of the flesh, and the error of Valentinus and of Apelles, who maintained the heavenly origin of the Savior's humanity. Finally, note should be taken of the curious Monophysitism of certain heretics, according to whom the Word, by means of his omnipotence, would have brought about a metamorphosis, condensing himself into flesh. These various forms of Monophysitism had supporters, quite limited in number, who never constituted important groups, except the Apollinarists: such sects have all disappeared long ago.

Verbal Monophysitism consists solely in the terminology used. It is called Severian Monophysitism because its principal supporter was Severus of Antioch (d. 538). These Monophysites, who presented themselves as the faithful disciples of St. Cyril of Alexandria, maintained that in the incarnate Word there is a single φύσις after the union of the divinity and the humanity: they, however, gave to the term φύσις the meaning of a concrete being subsisting in itself, of a subject of attribution, that is, of an individual nature, which is at the same time a hypostasis, a true person. For these Monophysites, the terms φύσις, ὑπόστασις, πρόσωπον are entirely synonymous when they are applied to the mystery of the Incarnation. Whereas the Council of Chalcedon understands by φύσις (in Latin natura) an individual nature, an essence considered as distinct from the supposit in which it subsists, which is called hypostasis or person (ὑπόστασις, πρόσωπον), verbal Monophysitism considers the φύσις as equivalent to the ὑπόστασις or the πρόσωπον. According to the Council, in Jesus Christ there are two natures or essences, individual, the divinity and the humanity, and a single hypostasis or person, the person of the Word, Son of God. The logomachy over the term φύσις is clear. As for the rest, Severus speaks like an orthodox. If he refuses to say: two natures or φύσεις after the union, he readily admits two essences, δύο φύσεις: which is equivalent to the two natures of the Council. Severus rejected all forms of Eutychianism; according to him Jesus Christ is consubstantial with the Father according to the divinity and consubstantial with us according to the humanity; he rejected any mixture, any confusion of the essences, and although he held the perfect immutability of the Word in the union, he nevertheless refused to follow the terminology used at Chalcedon and hardened on the Cyrillian formula: one single φύσις of the incarnate Word, forgetting that St. Cyril had consented to say: two natures, δύο φύσεις, and this even before any conciliar definition. However orthodox their manner of expressing themselves concerning the mystery of the Incarnation, Severus and his disciples were heretics: a) because they accused Pope St. Leo the Great and the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon of Nestorianism; b) because they refused to recognize as legitimate a Christological terminology canonized by the Church and clung exclusively to the Monophysite terminology, which had become dangerous and equivocal after the rise of Eutychianism; c) because they used formulas, expressions and analogies which, taken in themselves, without the explanations with which they surrounded them, coincided with the heresy and favored it. They said, for example: two natures or φύσεις before the union; one single nature or φύσις after the union; or again: Christ results from two natures, ἐν δύο φύσεων, but does not subsist in two natures, ἐν δύο φύσεσι; in Jesus Christ there is a single composite φύσις or hypostasis, μία φύσις σύνθετος. Before monenergism and monothelitism (v.) arose, they already used the formulas that characterize these two errors, preoccupied as they were with affirming the unity of Christ in every field, and they considered everything in relation to the agent, to the person, to the principium quod, leaving in the shadows the nature taken as such or principium quo.

II. THE MONOPHYSITISM OF THE MONOPHYSITE CHURCHES

It is well known how the opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, all upholders of a single nature or φύσις in Christ, ended by forming themselves into dissident groups, each with its own hierarchy; thus the so-called Monophysite churches were formed, of which three still exist today, dating back to the first half of the 6th century: the Egyptian or Coptic Church, on which the Church of Ethiopia depends, which recently became autocephalous (1948); the Syrian Jacobite Church, so called after Jacob Baradaeus, the first to give it an independent hierarchy; the Armenian Church, which took no part at all in the Council of Chalcedon and adhered to the Henotikon of Zeno, at the Synod of 491. Of each of these, however, it is necessary to determine here the form of Monophysitism to which it adhered. Anyone who has studied in depth the Christological doctrine of these groups has no difficulty whatever in answering that they have always taught verbal Monophysitism, even if from time to time true Eutychians appeared among them, who nevertheless failed to spread their error. From the very beginning these Churches anathematized all forms of Eutychianism and explained the Monophysite formulas as the first upholders of verbal Monophysitism interpreted them: Dioscorus, Timothy Aelurus, Philoxenus of Mabbug, the Henoticians, Severus of Antioch, etc. This is clearly evident: a) from the cult they render to the Fathers of the Church prior to the Council of Chalcedon, and particularly to St. Cyril of Alexandria, considered the doctor par excellence; b) from the professions of faith and the decrees of their particular councils; c) from their liturgical books; d) from the writings of their major theologians (cf. M. Jugie, Theologia dogmatica Orientalium dissidentium, V, Paris 1935, pp. 490-524); it should merely be noted that even before this, illustrious scholars had pointed out the logomachy existing around the term φύσις or nature in the Monophysite controversy.

It is worth pointing out that in the course of the centuries there were Eutychian infiltrations in the Churches under discussion; they were, however, immediately recognized and combated and thus had no opportunity to impose themselves on the common doctrine.

III. PRINCIPAL MONOPHYSITE SECTS

In the first two centuries following the Council of Chalcedon, Monophysitism, in its forms of Eutychianism and Severianism, fragmented into numerous sects. These divisions were caused both by conflicts of jurisdiction and by doctrinal differences and especially by the variety of terminology. There is no need to treat of the Eutychian sects, whose various kinds have already been mentioned, since none of them succeeded in forming a distinct and lasting group. It suffices to recall the principal divisions that occurred within verbal Severian Monophysitism. The classic land of the schisms was Egypt, in which the anti-Chalcedonian movement immediately took hold. The first apple of discord among the opponents of the Council of Chalcedon was the Henotikon of the emperor Zeno. The bishops who led the sect bowed to this formula of compromise, but a considerable number of their faithful refused to follow them: thus there arose the Henotikians and the Acephali. Around 518-20, that is, at the beginning of the reign of Justin, the controversy broke out between Julian of Halicarnassus and Severus of Antioch regarding the passibility of the body of Jesus before the Resurrection. Julian maintained that the body of Jesus, from the moment of its conception, had been habitually impassible and incorruptible, and had suffered and died by miracle. Severus maintained the opposite thesis, that is, the orthodox one. The Julianists, also called Gaianites, were called Aphthartodocetae, and the Severians Phthartolatrae.

Around 540, the Alexandrian deacon Themistius (v.) attributed to Jesus Christ as man a certain ignorance, particularly that of the day of judgment, thus becoming the head of the Agnoetae (v.). The opponents of the Agnoetae were called Theodosians, from the name of the Monophysite patriarch Theodosius (535-66), who had condemned Themistius.

The innovations of John Philoponus, concerning terminology, gave rise to several sects. He himself was accused of tritheism. With him the Monophysite controversy was not limited to the mystery of the Incarnation; it extended to the mystery of the Trinity. Most of the Monophysite sects were short-lived. Above and beyond them, the Monophysitism of Severus continued to subsist, in its broad outlines, in the three Churches that have been discussed.

Martino Jugie