Monothelitism

MONOTHELITISM. - A Christological heresy of the 7th century, the last great attempt to re-establish unity with the Monophysites (v.) by means of partial concessions, admitting the two natures in Christ, but at the same time affirming the uniqueness of the operation (monenergism) and of the will (Monothelitism, from the Greek μόνη θέλησις, ἐν θέλημα).

I. THE ORIGINS OF THE HERESY AND THE MONENERGETIC PHASE

Already around the year 600 the patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria (580-607) had defended the existence of two activities or energies (δύο ἐνέργεια) and two wills (δύο θελήματα) in Christ (cf. O. Bardenhewer, Ungedruckte Excerpte aus einer Schrift des Patriarchen Eulogius von Alexandrien über Trinität und Incarnation, in Theolog. Quartalsch., 78 [1896], pp. 353-401). Eulogius's adversaries, who must probably be sought in the ranks of Theodosian or Severian Monophysitism, had already fully professed the Monothelite doctrine ("μίαν θέλησιν ἤγουν ἐν θέλημα ἐν χριστῷ δυσσεβῶς δογματίζουσιν," says Eulogius of those "new descendants of Apollinaris," ibid., p. 372). In fact Severus of Antioch, while admitting two categories of works in Christ, had taught that the operation in the incarnate Word is one, since the one who operates is one; just as the will also is one, because the subject willing is one. These formulas, although in Severus susceptible of a benign interpretation, had prepared the heresy that was to disturb almost the whole of the 7th century. But Monothelitism rose to a quite particular importance only when, under the emperor Heraclius (610-41), it seemed suited to promote that religious union so desired by political power at a moment when the Byzantine Empire threatened to collapse, first under the Persian incursion, then under the Arab one. It seems that it was the patriarch Sergius of Constantinople (610-38) who proposed to the Emperor the attempt to bring the Monophysites of Syria and Egypt back to the Church by means of the doctrine of monenergism (μία ἐνέργεια, "a single operation"). The first attempts at agreement, initiated by Sergius in Egypt with George Arsas, head of the Monophysite sect of the Paulianists, and by the Emperor himself in Armenia with Paul the Blind, an eminent leader of the Severians, had no lasting success. Important, on the other hand, were the contacts established by Heraclius in the year 626 with Cyrus, metropolitan of Phasis (Sebastopolis). The latter asked for and obtained from Sergius further explanations, to which the patriarch of Constantinople added the letter that one of his predecessors, Menna, was said to have sent in 536 to Pope Vigilius; a treatise later rejected as apocryphal by the papal legates at the Council of 680-81. In it Menna was said to have taught "ἐν τὸ τοῦ χριστοῦ θέλημα καὶ μίαν ζωοστούν ἐνέργειαν." The bishop Theodore of Faran in Arabia was also won over to the new formula. For some time, however, the movement came to a halt. In June 631 Heraclius appointed Cyrus of Phasis patriarch of Alexandria, conferring on him also political and military power over Egypt, with the explicit charge of winning the Monophysites to the Church by means of the doctrine of monenergism. Cyrus indeed achieved union with the Theodosians (Severians or Phthartolatrae). The act of union, concluded on 3 June 633, consisted of 9 anathematisms; in the 7th the doctrine of the two natures was proposed with the greatest circumspection, while it explicitly professed "unum Christum et Filium, operantem Deo decibilia, et humana una dei virili operazione (μὴ θεανδρικῇ ἐνεργεῖς), secundum sanctum Dionysium" (Mansi, XI, col. 565). In the same year 633 Heraclius was able to conclude union with the Armenian Church, at the Council of Theodosiopolis (Erzerum). In Syria the Emperor had already in 631 reached an understanding with Athanasius, Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, during the Conferences of Hierapolis (Mabbûg). The whole Empire thus seemed to have recovered religious unity in its adherence (not sincere in all) to the Council of Chalcedon and to the doctrine of monergy (but the importance that the latter had in the union with the Armenians is not entirely clear).

It is not easy to determine with exactness the thought of monenergism, given the imprecision of the term ἐνέργεια, which sometimes means energy, the active principle of operation, and at other times rather designates τὸ ἐνεργεῖν, the operation in act. According to Tixeront (Histoire des dogmes, III, Paris 1928, p. 163, note 3) in the controversy the term ἐνέργεια would have to be interpreted in this second sense; but the assertion has not remained uncontested (cf. Fr. Bauer, in Theol. Revue, 26 [1927], col. 273). It may be said that the monenergists conceived the ἐνέργεια as the first motion that emanates from the person: "a principio quod actionis." Monenergism (of the 7th century) admitted human activity and operation in Christ, as also the "principium quo" of this activity; but it refused to call this activity by the term ἐνέργεια and above all did not want to count it in such a way that, adding it to the divine, there would result two operations (ἐνέργεια) in Christ: "Non ut humanam tollamus, unam operationem dicimus, sed quod ea ratione qua distinguitur contra divinam operationem, passio dicitur" (Pyrrhus, in the Carthaginian disputation of 645: PG 91, 349). The monenergists looked so much to the unity of the acting subject that they attributed the operari solely to the suppositum; since this in Christ is one and theandric, they deduced that the operation too is one and theandric. The uniqueness of operation was therefore affirmed on the level of the person, not of the nature; for this reason they called this single operation of the Lord hypostatic, hegemonic, theandric, but in no way physical or a natural property. They interpreted in their own sense the famous christological formula of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (at the end of the letter to the monk Caius: PG 3, 1072), that Christ as God made man would have manifested to us "καυτὴν τινὰ τὴν θεανδρικὴν ἐνέργεια" (note that in the act of union of 633, in place of a "new" theandric operation, there is mention of "one").

The monenergists (like the properly so-called Monothelites afterwards) wished to remain orthodox. It may be granted that their thought is less heretical than their formulas taken in themselves. But they altered the natural and traditional sense of the word ἐνέργεια (expressing by it, as later by the word θέλημα, not the essential property of the nature, as operation and will are, but what is proper to the person) and made themselves particularly dangerous by their silence on the physical operations (and physical wills) of the two natures. From silence to true and proper denial the distance was not great. In fact, after the act of union concluded by Cyrus, the Monophysites rejoiced, saying that they had not adhered to the doctrine of Chalcedon, but that rather the Council had drawn near to them, admitting, with the affirmation of a single operation, also a single nature in Christ (Vita s. Maximi: PG 90, 77-80).

II. THE FIRST RESISTANCE AND THE TRANSITION TO THE MONOTHELITE FORMULA

The first opposition to the act of union of 633 came from the Palestinian monk St. Sophronius (v.), who was then in Egypt with his friend Maximus. When every attempt to bring Cyrus back to orthodoxy proved vain, Sophronius asked Sergius himself to remove from the articles of union the expression μία ἐνέργεια. Sergius, not wishing to compromise the movement of conversion to orthodoxy, which he considered very promising, ended by affirming that one should speak neither of one nor of two operations in Christ, but that one must profess, with the tradition of the Holy Fathers and Councils, a single one operating in the divine and human actions of the incarnate Word. He wrote in this sense to Cyrus, and Sophronius then promised not to raise the question again. These events are known from another letter of Sergius to Pope Honorius I (625-38), written in 634, when he already knew of the elevation of Sophronius to the see of Jerusalem and had to try to forestall the Pope against possible moves of the highly learned monk who had become patriarch (the letter of Sergius in Mansi, XI, coll. 529-37; a critical analysis in Tixeront, loc. cit., pp. 167-69). Affirming that he did not wish to take a position for either of the two expressions (monenergism and dyenergism), Sergius clearly excluded the second, because in his view it would have led to the affirmation of two wills, opposed to one another; he also recalled, with evident sympathy, the letter of Mennas, a veritable collection of patristic testimonies on the single will of Christ. The letter marks the transition from monenergism to Monotheletism properly so called (the Ecthesis published in 638 by Heraclius is substantially identical to the so-called ἄβρος, the doctrinal decision of Sergius communicated to Cyrus and to Pope Honorius). It is true that the formula "one will" (ἐν θέλημα) is not openly proposed there, but it is skillfully insinuated. Pope Honorius, on the other hand, used it, making it his own.

The reply of Honorius (first letter to Sergius, preserved only in the Greek translation (Mansi, XI, coll. 537-44) approves the prohibition against speaking of one or two energies in Christ; in these distinctions the Pope sees useless and dangerous precisions "ad nos ista pertinere non debent, relinquentes ea grammaticis" (ibid., col. 542). But even earlier Honorius had energetically excluded the hypothesis of a human will of Christ that opposed his divine will and, in this sense, attributed to him a single will: "...unam voluntatem fatemur domini nostri Jesu Christi" (ibid., col. 539). In Christ, a single person, there can be no dualism or antagonism in willing. But Honorius clearly implied that this unity consists solely in the conformity of the human will with the divine. The Pope therefore, without saying so, supposed in Christ the presence of an act of his human will (thus the thought of Honorius has recently been interpreted by Galtier; concerning the works of Marić on the question, v. Fr. Diekamp, in Theologische Revue, 32 [1933], coll. 445-48). This does not alter the fact that the Pope's reply, little farsighted, accepted the tactic of silence proposed by Sergius, distrusted Sophronius instead and, also welcoming the equivocal formula of the single will, furnished weapons to the Monothelete movement.

But Sophronius had already acted; in 634, elected patriarch of Jerusalem, he used the enthronement letter to be sent to the Pope and to his colleagues of the patriarchate (Epistola Synodica, in Mansi, XI, coll. 461-509; PG 87, 3148-3200), to set out thoroughly the doctrine of the divine and human "energy" of Christ; faithful to the pact with Sergius he never speaks explicitly of two operations of Christ, but distinguishes with all clarity the operation of each nature as a necessary consequence of the dyophysite faith: "utriusque naturae utramque novimus operationem (ἐνατέραν ἐνέργειαν), essentialem dico, naturalem et congruam, indivise de unaquaque procedentem essentia et natura" (op. cit.; PG 87, 3169). Operation follows nature, therefore it cannot be hypostatic or personal, but essential, natural, a congruous motion of each nature from which it proceeds. The formula of Pseudo-Dionysius (v. above), used by the monenergists in a subjective sense, as if it wished to safeguard the unity of the subiectum agens and the single operari of this subject, was interpreted by Sophronius (as later by St. Maximus) in an objective sense: the "theandric operation" must be understood of that "intermediate class" of operations of Christ (between the operations emanating solely from the divine nature, ἐνέργειαι θεοπρεπεῖς, and those in which the human nature alone operates, ἐνέργειαι ἀνθρωποπρεπεῖς) in which there is the collaboration of the two natures, operating — without separation and without confusion — what is proper to each; but insofar as they collaborate toward a single and identical effect, this operation is theandric, divine-human (on the scholastic interpretation of the "operatio dei virilis", cf. I. Backes, Die Christologie des hl. Thomas von Aquin und die griechischen Kirchenväter, Paderborn 1931, pp. 108-11).

III. THE PROPER MONOTHELISM OF THE ECTHESIS

A new phase of the controversy opened when Heraclius, having been detained in the East for several years, returned in 638 to Constantinople and affixed his own signature to a doctrinal document prepared by Sergius: the so-called Ecthesis ("exposition"), which, drafted in the form of a symbol illustrating the dogma of the Trinity and the Incarnation, substantially repeated Sergius's position of 634; that is, it censured the two expressions of "one" or "two" energies, but further declared openly that in Christ there is a single will without any confusion of the two natures, which keep their own attributes intact in the single person of the incarnate Word (text in Mansi, X, coll. 991-98).

The judgment given above on monenergism applies also to monotheletism properly so called. In affirming the single will or volition (ἐν θέλημα) the Monothelites did not intend to deny the existence of a human will, understood as natural, physical. But the volition (θέλημα) for them is the initial act, the first determination to will, to act; and this θέλημα is single, divine, belonging to the "principium quod actionis", to the person, and is therefore called hypostatic, hegemonic. To speak of δύο θελήματα in Jesus Christ was for them equivalent to affirming two contrary wills, or wills wholly independent of one another, as are the wills of two human persons. The Monothelite formula errs (as does the monenergism from which it springs) in inverting the commonly accepted sense of the word θέλημα and in passing over in dangerous silence the physical wills. The Church, notwithstanding all the explanations given to the formula of the "one will", could not but condemn the Ecthesis. Monotheletism is the fruit of a search for compromises: it accepted from the Severians the terminology regarding the will of the God-Man; it rejected, however, monoidiotism, that is, the Severian doctrine on the unity of the natural properties. Monotheletism has therefore been called a semi-Dyphysitism and a semi-Monophysitism (M. Jugie).

In the Eastern patriarchates the reception given to the edict was generally favorable. At Rome it became known only in the spring of 640, on the return of the apocrisiaries of Pope Severinus, the successor of Honorius I (d. 12 Oct. 638). Whether Pope Severinus condemned the Ecthesis before his death (2 Aug. 640) is not certain. It is known, on the other hand, that John IV (640-42) condemned the document in a Roman council and requested its suppression from the emperor Constantine III, who had succeeded Heraclius I (11 Feb. 641) and was hostile to monotheletism. But the Emperor's premature death (25 May 641) brought the supporters of monotheletism back to power. Pope Theodore I, who succeeded John IV in 642, repeated the condemnation of the Ecthesis (letter to the patriarch Paul of Constantinople, in Mansi, X, coll. 702-705).

But the principal champion of the struggle against monotheletism now came forward in the monk St. Maximus of Chrysopolis, formerly secretary to Heraclius. Particularly famous is his disputation with Pyrrhus, the deposed successor of Sergius, which took place at Carthage in 645 (PG 91, 288-353). As Sophronius had done before him, Maximus continually inculcates that every nature is a principle of operation (principium quo); that energy, operation or activity as such is physical, natural, emanating from the nature; that Christ, having two natures, necessarily has two connatural modes of operating, one divine and one human; as he has a divine knowledge and a human knowledge, so too he has a double will and operation. In christological difficulties Maximus constantly appeals to the trinitarian dogma. Against the great argument of Severus and Pyrrhus that the number of wills determines the number of those who will, Maximus maintains that, if the person is the principle of willing and acting, in God there is a threefold will (Disputatio cum Pyrrho: ibid., 348). Moreover Maximus, in the defense of dythelitism, frequently returned to the great principle developed by the Greek Fathers in the christological controversies from the 4th century onward: the intimate, indissoluble union between christology and the dogma of the Redemption. Christ, the Redeemer, must be a true mediator, perfectly consubstantial with the two poles: « Quod cum Dei et hominum mediator sit, necesse sit proprie servare naturalem necessitudinem, cum his, inter quae medius intercedit » (Ep., XII: PG 91, 468).

IV. END OF THE CONTROVERSY

In 647 Pope Theodore I excommunicated the patriarch Paul of Constantinople after the latter had refused to abjure Monotheletism. The imperial court, not wishing a complete break with Rome, sought to resolve the embarrassing religious situation with a new edict: the Typos (τύπος περί πίστεως, rule of faith), issued by the emperor Constans II in 647, in which he forbade "discussing in any way a single will or a single operation, two operations or two wills" (Mansi, X, coll. 1029-32). Martin I, who succeeded Theodore (d. 13 May 649), decided to put an end to Monotheletism; he convoked in the Basilica of the Lateran a council with an almost ecumenical character: Monotheletism was condemned, and with it the Typos, which attempted to leave in suspense a question of fundamental dogmatic importance (the acts in Mansi, X, coll. 863-1170). The reprisals against the Pope (v. MARTINO I) and against Maximus, the principal collaborator of the Lateran Synod, were ferocious. The break between Rome and Constantinople lasted until in the year 678 the emperor Constantine IV Pogonatus asked the Pope for the settlement of the conflict (for the final condemnation v. COSTANTINOPOLI, III Concilio Costantinopolitano, t. IV, coll. 748 ff.).

Agostino Mayer