Heresies:EUTYCHIANISM
Eutychianism
Eutychianism and Monophysitism
are usually identified as a single heresy. But as some Monophysites condemned
Eutyches, the name Eutychians is given by some writers only to those in Armenia.
It seems best to use the words indifferently, as no party of the sect looked to
Eutychius as a founder or a leader and Eutychian is but a nickname for all those
who, like Eutyches, rejected the orthodox expression "two natures" of Christ.
The tenet "one nature" was common to all Monophysites and Eutychians, and they
affected to call Catholics Diphysites or Dyophysites. The error took its rise in
a reaction against Nestorianism, which taught that in Christ there is a human
hypostasis or person as well as a Divine. This was interpreted to imply a want
of reality in the union of the Word with the assumed Humanity, and even to
result in two Christs, two Sons, though this was far from the intention of
Nestorius himself in giving his incorrect explanation of the union. He was ready
to admit one prósopon, but not one hypostasis, a "prosopic" union, though not a
"hypostatic" union, which is the Catholic expression. He so far exaggerated the
distinction of the Humanity from the Divine Person Who assumed it, that he
denied that the Blessed Virgin could be called Mother of God, Theotókos. His
views were for a time interpreted in a benign sense by Theodoret, and also by
John, Bishop of Antioch, but they all eventually concurred in his condemnation,
when he showed his heretical spirit by refusing all submission and explanation.
His great antagonist, St. Cyril of Alexandria, was at first vehemently attacked
by Theodoret, John, and their party, as denying the completeness of the Sacred
Humanity after the manner of the heretic Apollinarius.
The fiery Cyril curbed his natural impetuosity; mutual explanations followed;
and in 434, three years after the Council of Ephesus which had condemned
Nestorius, peace was made between Alexandria and Antioch. Cyril proclaimed it in
a letter to John beginning Lætentur cœli, in which he clearly condemned
beforehand the Monothelite, if not the Monophysite, views, which were to be
unfortunately based on certain ambiguities in his earlier expressions. If he did
not arrive quite at the exactness of the language in which St. Leo was soon to
formulate the doctrine of the Church, yet the following words, drawn up by the
Antiochian party and fully accepted by Cyril in his letter, are clear enough:
Before the worlds begotten of the Father according to the Godhead, but in the
last days and for our salvation of the Virgin Mary according to the Manhood;
consubstantial with the Father in the Godhead, consubstantial with us in the
Manhood; for a union of two natures took place, wherefore we confess one Christ,
one Son, one Lord. According to the understanding of this unconfused union, we
confess the Blessed Virgin to be Theotokos, because the Word of God was
incarnate and made man, and through her conception united to Himself the temple
He received from her. And we are aware that the words of the Gospels, and of the
Apostles, concerning the Lord are, by theologians, looked upon some as applying
in common [to the two natures] as belonging to the one Person; others as
attributed to one of the two natures; and that they tell us by tradition that
some are of divine import, to suit the Divinity of Christ, others of humble
nature belonging to His humanity.
In this "creed of the union" between John and Cyril, it is at least implied that
the two natures remain after the union (against Monophysitism), and it is quite
clearly enunciated that some expressions belong to the Person, others to each of
the Natures, as, e. g. it was later defined that activities (’enérgeiai) and
will are of the Natures (against Monothelites), while Sonship (against the
Adoptionists), is of the Person. There is no doubt that Cyril would have
understood rightly and have accepted (even apart from papal authority) the
famous words of St. Leo's tome: "Agit enim ultraque forma cum alterius
communione quod proprium est" (Ep. xxviii, 4). The famous formula of St. Cyril
mía phúsis toû Theoû Lógou sesapkoméne, "one nature incarnate of God the Word"
(or "of the Word of God"), derived from a treatise which Cyril believed to be by
St. Athanasius, the greatest of his predecessors, was intended by him in a right
sense, and has been formally adopted by the Church. In the eighth canon of the
Fifth General Council, those are anathematized who say "one Nature incarnate of
God the Word", unless they "accept it as the Fathers taught, that by a
hypostatic union of the Divine nature and the human, one Christ was effected".
In the Lateran Council of 649, we find: "Si quis secundum sanctos Patres non
confitetur proprie et secundum veritatem unam naturam Dei verbi incarnatum …
anathema sit." Nevertheless this formula, frequently used by Cyril (in Epp. i,
ii, Ad Successum; Contra Nest. ii; Ad eulogium, etc.; see Petavius "De Incarn.",
IV, 6), was the starting point of the Monophysites, some of whom understood it
rightly, whereas others pushed it into a denial of the reality of the human
nature, while all equally used it as a proof that the formula "two natures" must
be rejected as heretical, and therefore also the letter of St. Leo and the
decree of Chalcedon.
The word phúsis was ambiguous. Just as the earlier writings of Theodoret against
Cyril contained passages which naturally permitted a Nestorian
interpretation–they were in this sense condemned by the Fifth General Council–so
the earlier writings of Cyril against Nestorius gave colour to the charge of
Apollinarianism brought against him by Theodoret, John, Ibas, and their party.
The word phúsis produced just the same difficulties that the word ‘upóstasis had
aroused in the preceeding century. For ‘upóstasis, as St. Jerome rightly
declared, was the equivalent of ousís in the mouths of all philosophers, yet it
was eventually used theologically, from Didymus onwards, as the equivalent of
the Latin persona, that is, a subsistent essence. Similarly phúsis was an
especially Alexandrian word for ousía and ‘upóstasis, and was naturally used of
a subsistent ousía, not of abstract ousía, both by Cyril often (as in the
formula in question), and by the more moderate Monophysites. The Cyrillian
formula, in its genesis and in its rationale, has been explained by Newman in an
essay of astounding learning and perfect clearness (Tracts Theol. and Eccl., iv,
1874). He points out that the word ‘upóstasis could be used (by St. Athanasius,
for example), without change of meaning, both of the one Godhead, and of the
three Persons. In the former case it did not mean the Divine Essence in the
abstract, but considered as subsistent, without defining whether that
subsistence is threefold or single, just as we say "one God" in the concrete,
without denying a triple Personality. Just the same twofold use without change
of meaning might be made of the words ousía, eîdos, and phúsis. Again, phúsis
was not applied, as a rule, in the fourth century, to the Humanity of Christ,
because that Humanity is not "natural" in the sense of "wholly like to our
nature", since it is sinless, and free from all the imperfections which arise
from original sin (not para natura but integra natura), it has no human
personality of its own, and it is ineffably graced and glorified by its union
with the Word. From this point of view it is clear that Christ is not so fully
"consubstantial with us" as He is "consubstantial with the Father". Yet again,
in these two phrases the word consubstantial appears in different senses; for
the Father and the Son have one substance numero, whereas the Incarnate Son is
of one substance with us specie (not numero, of course). It is therefore not to
be wondered at, if the expression "consubstantial with us" was avoided in the
fourth century. In like manner the word phúsis has its full meaning when applied
to the Divine Nature of Christ, but a restricted meaning (as has been just
explained) when applied to His Human Nature.
In St. Cyril's use of the formula its signification is plain. "It means", says
Newman (loc. cit., p. 316), "(a), that when the Divine word became man, He
remained one and the same in essence, attributes and personality; in all
respects the same as before, and therefore mía phúsis. It means (b), that the
manhood, on the contrary, which He assumed, was not in all respects the same
nature as that massa, usia, physis, etc., out of which it was taken; (1) from
the very circumstance that it was only an addition or supplement to what He was
already, not a being complete in itself; (2) because in the act of assuming it,
He changed it in its qualities. This added nature, then, was best expressed, not
by a second substantive, as if collateral in its position, but by an adjective
or participle, as sesarkoméne. The three words answered to St. John's ‘o lógos
sárks ’egéneto, i. e. sesarkoménos ên." Thus St. Cyril intended to safeguard the
teaching of the Council of Antioch (against Paul of Samosata, 264-72) that the
Word is unchanged by the Incarnation, "that He is ‘én kaì tò a’utò tê o’usía
from first to last, on earth and in heaven" (p. 317). He intended by his one
nature of God, "with the council of Antioch, a protest against that
unalterableness and imperfection, which the anti-Catholic schools affixed to
their notion of the Word. The council says 'one and the same in usia'; it is not
speaking of a human usia in Christ, but of the divine. The case is the same in
Cyril's Formula; he speaks of a mía theía phúsis in the Word. He has in like
manner written a treatise entitled 'quod unus sit Christus'; and, in one of his
Paschal Epistles, he enlarges on the text 'Jesus Christ, yesterday, and to-day,
the same, and for ever.' His great theme in these words is not the coalescing of
the two natures into one, but the error of making two sons, one before and one
upon the Incarnation, one divine, one human, or again of degrading the divine
usia by making it subject to the humanity" (pp. 321-2). It has been necessary
thus to explain at length St. Cyril's meaning in order to be able to enumerate
the more briefly and clearly, the various phases of the Eutychian doctrine.
1. The Cyrillian party before Chalcedon did not put forward any doctrine of
their own; they only denounced as Nestorians any who taught dúo phúseis, two
natures, which they made equal to two hopostases, and two Sons. They usually
admitted that Christ was ’ek dúo phúseon "of two natures", but this meant that
the Humanity before (that is, logically before) it was assumed was a complete
phúsis; it was no longer a phúsis (subsistent) after its union to the Divine
nature. It was natural that those of them who were consistent should reject the
teaching of St. Leo, that there were two natures: "Tenet enim sine defectu
proprietatem suam utraque natura", "Assumpsit formam servi sine sorde peccati,
humana augens, divina non minuens", and if they chose to understand "nature" to
mean a subsistent nature, they were even bound to reject such language as
Nestorian. Their fault in itself was not necessarily that they were Monophysites
at heart, but that they would not stop to listen to the six hundred bishops of
Chalcedon, to the pope, and to the entire Western Church. Those who were ready
to hear explanations and to realize that words may have more than one meaning
(following the admirable example set by St. Cyril himself), were able to remain
in the unity of the Church. The rest were rebels, and whether orthodox in belief
or not, well deserved to find themselves in the same ranks as the real heretics.
(2) Eutyches himself was not a Cyrillian. He was not a Eutychian in the ordinary
sense of that word. His mind was not clear enough to be definitely Monophysite,
and St. Leo was apparently right in thinking him ignorant. He was with the
Cyrillians in denouncing as Nestorians all who spoke of two natures. But he had
never adopted the "consubstantial with us" of the "creed of union", nor St.
Cyril's admissions, in accepting that creed, as to the two natures. He was
willing to accept St. Cyril's letters and the decisions of Ephesus and Nicæa
only in a general way, in so far as they contained no error. His disciple, the
monk Constantine, at the revision, in April, 449, of the condemnation of
Eutyches, explained that he did not accept the Fathers as a canon of faith. In
fact Eutyches simply upheld the ultra-Protestant view that nothing can be
imposed as of faith which is not verbally to be found in Scripture. This,
together with an exaggerated horror of Nestorianism, appears to describe his
whole theological position.
3. Dioscorus and the party which followed him seem to have been pure Cyrillians,
who by an excessive dislike of Nestorianism, fell into excess in minimizing the
completeness of the Humanity, and exaggerating the effects upon it of the union.
We have not documents enough to tell us how far their error went. A fragment of
Dioscorus is preserved in the "Antirrhetica" of Nicephorus (Spicil. Solesm., IV,
380) which asks: "If the Blood of Christ is not by nature (katà phúsin) God's
and not a man's, how does it differ from the blood of goats and bulls and the
ashes of a heifer? For this is earthly and corruptible, and the blood of man
according to nature is earthly and corruptible. But God forbid that we should
say the Blood of Christ is consubstantial with one of those things which are
according to nature (‘enos tôn katà phúsin ‘omoousíon)." If this is really, as
it purports to be, from a letter written by Dioscorus from his exile at Gangra,
we shall have to class him with the extreme Monophysite "Incorrupticolæ", in
that he rejects the "consubstantial with us" and makes the Blood of Christ
incorruptible of its own nature. But the passage may conceivably be a Julianist
forgery.
4. Timothy Ælurus, the first Monophysite Patriarch of Alexandria, was on the
contrary nearly orthodox in his views, as has been clearly shown by the extracts
published by Lebon from his works, extant in Syriac in a MS. in the British
Museum (Addit. 12156). He denies that phúsis, nature, can be taken in an
abstract sense. Hence he makes extracts from St. Leo, and mocks the pope as a
pure Nestorian. He does not even accept ’ek dúo phúseon, and declares there can
be no question of two natures, either before or after the Incarnation. "There is
no nature which is not a hypostasis, nor hypostasis which is not a person." So
far we have, not heresy, but only a term defined contrary to the Chalcedonian
and Western usage. A second point is the way Ælurus understands phúsis to mean
that which is "by nature". Christ, he says, is by nature God, not man; He became
man only by "oikonomía" (economy or Incarnation); consequently His Humanity is
not His phúsis. Taken thus, the formula mía phúsis was intended by Ælurus in an
orthodox sense. Thirdly, the actions of Christ are attributed to His Divine
Person, to the one Christ. Here Ælurus seems to be unorthodox. For the essence
of Monothelism is the refusal to apportion the actions (’enérgeiai) between the
two natures, but to insist that they are all the actions of the one Personality.
How far Ælurus was in reality a Monothelite cannot be judged until his works are
before us in full. He is, at all events in the main, a schismatic, full of
hatred and contempt for the Catholic Church outside Egypt, for the 600 bishops
of Chalcedon, for the 1600 of the Encyclia, for Rome and the whole West. But he
consistently anathematized Eutyches for his denial that Christ is consubstantial
with us.
5. In the next generation Severus, Bishop of Antioch (511-39), was the great
Monophysite leader. In his earlier days, he rejected the Henoticon of Zeno, but
when a patriarch he accepted it. His contemporaries accused him of contradicting
himself in the attempt, it seems, to be comprehensive. He did not, however,
conciliate the Incorrupticolæ, but maintained the corruptibility of the Body of
Christ. He seems to have admitted the expression ’ek dúo phúseon. Chalcedon and
Pope Leo he treated as Nestorian, as Ælurus did, on the ground that two natures
mean two persons. He did not allow the Humanity to be a distinct monad; but this
is no more than the view of many modern Catholic theologians that it has no esse
of its own. (So St. Thomas, III, Q. xvii, a. 2; see Janssens, De Deo homine,
pars prior, p. 607, Freiburg, 1901.) It need not be understood that by thus
making a composite hypostasis Severus renounced the Cyrillian doctrine of the
unchanged nature of the Word after the unconfused union. Where he is most
certainly heretical is in his conception of one nature not Divine (so Cyril and
Ælurus) but theandric, and thus a composition, though not a mixture–phúsis
theandriké. To this one nature are attributed all the activities of Christ, and
they are called "theandric" (’enérgeiai theandrikaí), instead of being separated
into Divine activities and human activities as by the Catholic doctrine. The
undivided Word, he said, must have an undivided activity. Thus even if Severus
could be defended from the charge of strict Monophysitism, in that he affirmed
the full reality of the Human Nature of Christ, though he refused to it the name
of nature, yet at least he appears as a dogmatic Monothelite. This is the more
clear, in that on the crucial question of one of two wills, he pronounces for
one theandric will. On the other hand utterances of Severus which make Christ's
sufferings voluntarily permitted, rather than naturally necessitated by the
treatment inflicted on His Body, might perhaps be defended by the consideration
that from the union and consequent Beatific Vision in the Soul of Christ, would
congruously ensue a beatification of the Soul and a spiritualizing of the Body,
as was actually the case after the Resurrection; from this point of view it is
true that the possibility of the Humanity is voluntary (that is, decreed by the
Divine will) and not due to it in the state which is connatural to it after the
union; although the Human Nature is of its own nature passible apart from the
union (St. Thomas, III, Q. xiv, a. 1, ad 2). It is important to recollect that
the same distinction has to be made in considering whether the Body of Christ is
to be called corruptible or incorruptible, and consequently whether Catholic
doctrine on this point is in favour of Severus or of his adversary Julian. The
words of St. Thomas may be borne in mind: "Corruptio et mors non competit
Christo ratione suppositi, secundum quod attenditur unitas, sed ratione naturæ,
secundam quam invenitur differentia mortis et vitæ" (III, Q. 1, a. 5, ad 2). As
the Monophysites discussed the question ratione suppositi (since they took
nature to mean hypostasis, and to imply a suppositum) they were bound to
consider the Body of Christ incorruptible. We must therefore consider the
Julianists more consistent than the Severians.
6. Julian, Bishop of Halicarnassus, was the leader of those who held the
incorruptibility, as Severus was of those who held the corruptibility. The
question arose in Alexandria, and created great excitement, when the two bishops
had taken refuge in that city, soon after the accession of the orthodox Emperor
Justin, in 518. The Julianists called the Severians phthartolátrai or
Corrupticolæ, and the latter retorted by entitling the Julians ’Aphthartodokêtai
and Phantasiasts, as renewing the Docetic heresies of the second century. In
537, the two parties elected rival patriarchs of Alexandria, Theodosius and
Gaianas, after whom the Corrupticolæ were known as Theodosians, and the
Incorrupticolæ as Gaianites. Julian considered, with some show of reason, that
the doctrine of Severus necessitated the admission of two natures, and he was
unjustly accused of Docetism and Manichæanism, for he taught the reality of the
Humanity of Christ, and made it incorruptible not formaliter quâ human, but as
united to the Word. His followers, however, split upon this question. One party
admitted a potential corruptibility. Another party taught an absolute
incorruptibility katà pánta trópon, as flowing from the union itself. A third
sect declared that by the union the Humanity obtained the prerogative of being
uncreate; they were called Actistetæ, and replied by denominating their
opponents "Ctistolaters", or worshippers of a creature. Heresies, after the
analogy of low forms of physical life, tend to propagate by division. So
Monophysitism showed its nature, once it was separated from the Catholic body.
The Emperor Justinian, in 565, adopted the incorruptibilist view, and made it a
law for all bishops. The troubles that arose in consequence, both in East and
West, were calmed by his death in November of that year.
7. The famous Philoxenus or Xenaias (d. soon after 518), Bishop of Mabug (Mabbogh,
Mambuce, or Hierapolis in Syria Euphratensis), is best known to-day by his
Syriac version of the N. T., which was revised by Thomas of Harkel, and is known
as the Harkleian or Philoxonian text. It is unfair of Hefele (Councils, tr. III,
459-60) to treat him as almost a Docetist. From what can be learned of his
doctrines they were very like those of Severus and of Ælurus. He was a
Monophysite in words and a Monothelite in reality, for he taught that Christ had
one will, an error which it was almost impossible for any Monophysite to avoid.
But this mía phúsis súnthetos was no doubt meant by him as equivalent to the
hypostasis composita taught by St. Thomas. As Philoxenus taught that Christ's
sufferings were by choice, he must be placed on the side of the Julianists. He
was careful to deny all confusion in the union, and all transformation of the
Word.
8. Peter Fullo, Patriarch of Antioch (471-88), is chiefly famed in the realm of
dogma for his addition to the Trisagion or Tersanctus, "Agios o Theos, Agios
Ischyros, Agios Athanatos", of the words "who wast crucified for us". This is
plain Patripassianism, so far as words go. It was employed by Peter as a test,
and he excommunicated all who refused it. There is no possibility of explaining
away this assertion of the suffering of the Divine Nature by the communicatio
idiomatum, for it is not merely the Divine Nature (in the sense of hypostasis)
of the Son which is said to have been crucified, but the words are attached to a
three-fold invocation of the Trinity. Peter may therefore be considered as a
full-blooded Monophysite, who carried the heresy to its extreme, so that it
involved error as to the Trinity (Sabellianism) as well as with regard to the
Incarnation. He did not admit the addition of the words "Christ our King" which
his orthodox rival Calandio added to his formula. Some Scythian monks of
Constantinople, led by John Maxentius, before the reconciliation with the West
in 519, upheld the formula "one of the Trinity was crucified" as a test to
exclude the heresy of Peter Fullo on the one hand and Nestorianism on the other.
They were orthodox adherents of the Council of Chalcedon. Pope Hormisdas thought
very badly of the monks, and would do nothing in approval of their formula. But
it was approved by John II, in 534, and imposed under anathema by the Second
Council of Constantinople in 553, which closed the so-called "Theopaschite"
controversy.
9. We have further to catalogue a number of subdivisions of Monophysitism which
pullulated in the sixth century. The Agnoetæ were Corrupticolæ, who denied
completeness of knowledge to the Human Nature of Christ; they were sometimes
called Themistians, from Themistus Calonymus, an Alexandrian deacon, their chief
writer. They were excommunicated by the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Timotheus (d.
527) and Theodosius. Their views resemble the "Kenotic" theories of our own day.
The Tritheists, or Tritheites, or Condobaudites, were founded by a
Constantinopolitan philosopher, John Asconagus, or Ascunaghes, at the beginning
of the sixth century, but their principal teacher was John Philopomus, an
Alexandrian philosopher, who died probably towards the end of that century.
These heretics taught that there were three natures in the Holy Trinity, the
three Persons being individuals of a species. A zealot of the sect was a monk
Athanasius, grandson of the Empress Theodora, wife of Justinian. He followed the
view of Theodosius, that the bodies to be given in the resurrection are new
creations. Stephen Gobaras was another writer of this sect. Their followers were
called Athanasians or Philoponiaci. Athanasius was opposed by Conon, Bishop of
Tarsus (c. 600), who eventually anathematized his teacher Philoponus. The
Cononites are said to have urged that, though the matter of the body is
corruptible, its form is not. The Tritheites were excommunicated by the Jacobite
Patriarch of Alexandria, Damian (577), who found the unity of God in a ’úparksis
distinct from the three Persons, which he called autótheos. His disciples were
taunted with believing in four Gods, and were nicknamed Tetradites, or
Tetratheites, and also Damianists and Angelites. Peter Callinicus, Patriarch of
Antioch (578-91), opposed them, and both he and Damian attacked the Alexandrian
philosopher Stephen Niobes, founder of the Niobites, who taught that there was
no distinction whatever between the Divine Nature and the Human after the
Incarnation, and characterized the distinctions made by those who admitted only
one nature as half-hearted. Many of his followers joined the Catholics, when
they found themselves excommunicated by the Monophysites.
HISTORY
Of the origin of Eutychianism among the Cyrillian party a few words were said
above. The controversy between Cyril and Theodoret was revived with violence in
the attacks made in 444-8, after Cyril's death, by his party on Irenæus of Tyre,
Ibas of Edessa, and others (see DIOSCURUS). The trial of Eutyches, by St.
Flavian at Constantinople, brought matters to a head (see EUTYCHES). Theodosius
II convened an œcumenical council at Ephesus, in 449, over which Dioscurus, the
real founder of Monophysitism as a sect, presided (see ROBBER COUNCIL OF
EPHESUS). St. Leo had already condemned the teaching of one nature in his letter
to Flavian called the tome, a masterpiece of exact terminology, unsurpassed for
clearness of thought, which condemns Nestorius on the one hand, and Eutyches on
the other (see LEO I, POPE). After the council had acquitted Eutyches, St. Leo
insisted on the signing of this letter by the Eastern bishops, especially by
those who had taken part in the disgraceful scenes at Ephesus. In 451, six
hundred bishops assembled at Chalcedon, under the presidency of the papal
legates (see CHALCEDON, COUNCIL OF). The pope's view was assured of success
before-hand by the support of the new Emperor Marcian. Dioscurus of Alexandria
was deposed. The tome was acclaimed by all, save by thirteen out of the
seventeen Egyptian bishops present, for these declared their lives would not be
safe, if they returned to Egypt after signing, unless a new patriarch had been
appointed. The real difficulty lay in drawing up a definition of faith. There
was now no Patriarch of Alexandria; those of Antioch and Constantinople had been
nominees of Dioscurus, though they had now accepted the tome; Juvenal of
Jerusalem had been one of the leaders of the Robber Council, but like the rest
had submitted to St. Leo. It is consequently not surprising that the committee,
appointed to draw up a definition of faith, produced a colourless document (no
longer extant), using the words ’ek dúo phúseon, which Dioscurus and Eutyches
might have signed without difficulty. It was excitedly applauded in the fifth
session of the council, but the papal legates, supported by the imperial
commissioners, would not agree to it, and declared they would break up the
council and return to Italy, if it were pressed.
The few bishops who stood by the legates were of the Antiochian party and
suspected of Nestorianism by many. The emperor's personal intervention was
invoked. It was demonstrated to the bishops that to refuse to assert "two
natures" (not merely "of" two) was to agree with Dioscurus and not with the
pope, and they yielded with a very bad grace. They had accepted the pope's
letter with enthusiasm, and they had deposed Dioscurus, not indeed for heresy
(as Austolius of Constantinople had the courage, or the impudence, to point
out), but for violation of the canons. To side with him meant punishment. The
result was the drawing up by a new committee of the famous Chalcedonian
definition of faith. It condemns Monophysitism in the following words:
"Following the holy Fathers, we acknowledge one and the same Son, one Lord Jesus
Christ; and in accordance with this we all teach that He is perfect in Godhead,
perfect also in Manhood, truly God and truly Man, of a rational soul and body,
consubstantial with His Father as regards his Godhead, and consubstantial with
us as regards His Manhood, in all things like unto us save for sin; begotten of
His Father before the worlds as to His Godhead, and in the last days for us and
for our salvation [born] of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to His Manhood; one and
the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only- betotten, made known as in two natures [the
Greek text now has "of two natures", but the history of the difinition shows
that the Latin "in" is correct] without confusion or change, indivisibly,
inseparably [’en dúo phúsesin ’asugchútos, ’atréptos, ’adiairétos, ’achorístos
gnorizómenon]; the distinction of the two natures being in no wise removed by
the union, but the properties of each nature being rather preserved and
concurring in one Person and one Hypostasis, not as divided or separated into
two Persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten, God the Word, the Lord
Jesus Christ; even as the Prophets taught aforetime about Him, and as the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself taught us, and as the symbol of the Fathers has handed down
to us."
So Monophysitism was exorcised; but the unwillingness of the larger number of
the six hundred Fathers to make so definite a declaration is important. "The
historical account of the Council is this, that a doctrine which the Creed did
not declare, which the Fathers did not unanimously witness, and which some
eminent Saints had almost in set terms opposed, which the whole East refused as
a symbol, not once, but twice, patriarch by patriarch, metropolitan by
metropolitan, first by the mouth of above a hundred, then by the mouth of above
six hundred of its bishops, and refused upon the grounds of its being an
addition to the Creed, was forced upon the Council, not indeed as a Creed, yet,
on the other hand, not for subscription merely, but for its acceptance as a
definition of faith under the sanction of an anathema, forced on the Council by
the resolution of the Pope of the day, acting through his Legates and supported
by the civil power" (Newman, "Development", v, §3, 1st ed., p. 307). Theodosius
issued edicts against the Eutychians, in March and July, 452, forbidding them to
have priests, or assemblies, to make wills or inherit property, or to do
military service. Priests who were obstinate in error were to be banished beyond
the limits of the empire. Troubles began almost immediately the council was
over. A monk named Theodosius, who had been punished at Alexandria for blaming
Dioscurus, now on the contrary opposed the decision of the council, and going to
Palestine persuaded the many thousands of monks there that the council had
taught plain Nestorianism. They made a raid upon Jerusalem and drove out
Juvenal, the bishop, who would not renounce the Chalcedonian definition,
although he had been before one of the heads of the Robber Council. Houses were
set on fire, and some of the orthodox were slain. Theodosius made himself
bishop, and throughout Palestine the bishops were expelled and new ones set up.
The Bishop of Scythopolis lost his life; violence and riots were the order of
the day. Eudocia, widow of the Emperor Theodosius II, had retired to Palestine,
and gave some support to the insurgent monks. Marcian and Pulcheria took mild
measures to restore peace, and sent repeated letters in which the real character
of the decrees of Chalcedon was carefully explained. St. Euthymius and his
community were almost the only monks who upheld the council, but this influence,
together with a long letter from St. Leo to the excited monks, had no doubt
great weight in obtaining peace. In 453, large numbers acknowledged their error,
when Theodosius was driven out and took refuge on Mount Sinai, after a tyranny
of twenty months. Others held out on the ground that it was uncertain whether
the pope had ratified the council. It was true that he had annulled its
disciplinary canons. The emperor therefore wrote to St. Leo asking for an
explicit confirmation, which the pope sent at once, at the same time thanking
Marcian for his acquiescence in the condemnation of the twenty-eighth canon, as
to the precedence of the See of Constantinople, and for repressing the religious
riots in Palestine.
In Egypt the results of the council were far more serious, for nearly the whole
patriarchate eventually sided with Dioscurus, and has remained in heresy to the
present day. Out of seventeen bishops who represented, at Chalcedon, the hundred
Egyptian bishops, only four had the courage to sign the decree. These four
returned to Alexandria, and peacably ordained the archdeacon, Proterius, a man
of good character and venerable by his age, in the place of Dioscurus. But the
deposed patriarch was popular, and the thirteen bishops, who had been allowed to
defer signing the tome of St. Leo, misrepresented the teaching of the council as
contrary to that of Cyril. A riot was the result. The soldiers who attempted to
quell it were driven into the ancient temple of Serapis, which was now a church,
and it was burnt over their heads. Marcian retaliated by depriving the city of
the usual largess of corn, of public shows, and of privileges. Two thousand
soldiers reinforced the garrison, and committed scandalous violence. The people
were obliged to submit, but the patriarch was safe only under military
protection. Schism began through the retirement from his communion of the priest
Timothy, called Ælurus, "the cat", and Peter, called Mongus, "the hoarse", a
deacon, and these were joined by four or five bishops. When the death of
Dioscurus (September, 454) in exile at Gangra was known, two bishops consecrated
Timothy Ælurus as his successor. Henceforward almost the whole of Egypt
acknowledged the Monophysite patriarch. On the arrival of the news of the death
of Marcian (February, 457), Proterius was murdered in a riot, and Catholic
bishops were everywhere replaced by Monophysites. The new emperor, Leo, put down
force by force, but Ælurus was protected by his minister Aspar. Leo wished for a
council, but gave way before the objections made by the pope his namesake, and
the difficulties of assembling so many bishops. He therefore sent queries
throughout the Eastern Empire to be answered by the bishops, as to the
veneration due to the Council of Chalcedon and as to the ordination and the
conduct of Ælurus. As only Catholic bishops were consulted, the replies were
unanimous. One or two of the provincial councils, in expressing their
indignation against Timothy, add the proviso "if the reports are accurate", and
the bishops of Pamphylia point out that the decree of Chalcedon is not a creed
for the people, but a test for bishops. The letters, still preserved (in Latin
only) under the name of Encyclia, or Codex Encyclius, bear the signatures of
about 260 bishops, but Nicephorus Callistus says, that there were altogether
more than a thousand, while Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria in the days of St.
Gregory the Great, puts the number at 1600. He says that only one bishop, the
aged Amphilochius of Side, dissented from the rest, but he soon changed his mind
(quoted by Photius, Bibl., CCXXX, p. 283). This tremendous body of testimonies
to the Council of Chalcedon is little remembered to-day, but in controvresies
with the Monophysites it was in those times of equal importance with the council
itself, as its solemn ratification.
In the following year Ælurus was exiled, but was recalled in 475 during the
short reign of the Monophysite usurper Basiliscus. The Emperor Zeno spared
Ælurus from further punishment on account of his great age. That emperor tried
to reconcile the Monophysites by means of his Henoticon, a decree which dropped
the Council of Chalcedon. It could, however, please neither side, and the middle
party which adhered to it and formed the official Church of the East was
excommunicated by the popes. At Alexandria, the Monophysites were united to the
schismatic Church of Zeno by Peter Mongus who became patriarch. But the stricter
Monophysites seceded from him and formed a sect known as Acephali. At Antioch
Peter Fullo also supported the Henoticon. A schism between East and West lasted
through the reigns of Zeno and his more definitely Monophysite successor
Anastasius, in spite of the efforts of the popes, especially the great St.
Gelasius. In 518, the orthodox Justin came to the throne, and reunion was
consummated in the following year by him, with the active co-operation of his
more famous nephew Justinian, to the great joy of the whole East. Pope Hormisdas
sent legates to reconcile the patriarchs and metropolitans, and every bishop was
forced to sign, without alteration, a petition in which he accepted the faith
which had always been preserved at Rome, and condemned not only the leaders of
the Eutychian heresy, but also Zeno's time-serving bishops of Constantinople,
Acacius and his successors. Few of the Eastern bishops seem to have been
otherwise than orthodox and anxious for reunion, and they were not obliged to
omit from the diptychs of their churches the names of their predecessors, who
had unwillingly been cut off from actual communion with Rome, in the reigns of
Zeno and Anastasius. The famous Monophysite writer Severus was now deposed from
the See of Antioch. Justinian, during his long reign, took the Catholic side,
but his empress, Theodora, was a Monophysite, and in his old age the emperor
leaned in the same direction. We still posses the acts of a conference, between
six Severian and seven orthodox bishops, held by his order in 533. The great
controversy of his reign was the dispute about the "three chapters", extracts
from the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Ibas, which
Justinian wished to get condemned in order to conciliate the Severians and other
moderate Monophysites. He succeeded in driving Pope Vigilius into the acceptance
of the Second Council of Constantinople, which he had summoned for the purpose
of giving effect to his view. The West disapproved of this condemnation as
derogatory to the Council of Chalcedon, and Africa and Illyricum refused for
some time to receive the council.
The divisions among the heretics have been mentioned above. A great revival and
unification was effected by the great man of the sect, the famous Jacob Baradai,
Bishop of Edssa (c. 541-78). (See BARADÆUS .) In his earlier years a recluse in
his monastery, when a bishop he spent his life traveling in a beggar's garb,
ordaining bishops and priests everywhere in Mesopotamia, Syria, Asia Minor, in
order to repair the spiritual ruin caused among the Monophysites by Justinian's
renewal of the original laws against their bishops and priests. John of Ephesus
puts the number of clergy he ordained at 100,000, others at 80,000. His journeys
were incredibly swift. He was believed to have the gift of miracles, and at
least he performed the miracle of infusing a new life into the dry bones of his
sect, though he was unable to unite them against the "Synodites" (as they called
the orthodox), and he died worn out by the quarrels among the Monophysite
patriarchs and theologians. He has deserved to give his name to the Monophysites
of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia, with Asia Minor, Palestine, and Cyprus,
who have remained since his time generally united under a Patriarch of Antioch
(see Eastern Churches, A. Schismatical Churches, 5. Jacobites). A number of
these united in 1646 with the Catholic Church, and they are governed by the
Syrian Archbishop of Aleppo. The rest of the Monophysites are also frequently
called Jacobites. For the Coptic Monophysites see EGYPT, and for the Armenians
see ARMENIA. The Armenian Monophysite Patriarch resides at Constantinople. The
Abyssinian Church was drawn into the same heresy through its close connexion
with Alexandria. At least since the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt, in 641, the
Abuna of the Abyssinians has always been consecrated by the Coptic Patriarch of
Alexandria, so that the Abyssinian Church has always been, and is still,
nominally Monophysite.
(courtesy of
http://www.newadvent.org)