POPE HONORIUS BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL OF REASON AND HISTORY.

I

Origin and Nature of Monothelism

 

THE great controversy concerning the Incarnation, which for three centuries raged, in the Oriental Church with a violence bordering upon madness, relates to the subject of the two natures in Christ. No heresy caused more calamitous disasters to the Church and the Empire during the first seven centuries than the one called Monophysite. It struck its roots so deeply and strongly in the East, that neither the authoritative Dogmatic Letter of the great Pope Leo, nor the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, aided even by the zeal of the virtuous Emperor Marcian, could succeed in extirpating it.

Indeed, after the general council of Chalcedon, it spread with a new growth, and developed itself with a fresh vigour. It invaded the patriarchate of Jerusalem; it overflowed into those of Alexandria and Antioch, and enthroned its adherents in the patriarchal sees; it was supported by the Patriarch of Constantinople himself,—nay even by the successors of Marcian on the imperial throne.

The famous Henotikon of the Emperor Zeno was evidently in favor of the heresy, though it originated new divisions and schisms among the sectarians. The persecutions of the Emperor Anastasius against the defenders of the faith of Chalcedon, and the deplorable Acacian schism, helped to consolidate its existence and widen its influence. Notwithstanding the exertions of the Emperors Justin II and Justinian I, and of the Bishops assembled in the fifth general council in Constantinople, no means were discovered of reconciling the Monophysite heretics with the doctrine of the Synod of Chalcedon.

The defenders of one nature in Christ, although broken up into manifold minor parties,—such as Severians, Julianists, Agnoetes, Theodosians, Jacobites, Copts,—were spread in large numbers over Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Palestine, as well as Armenia and Egypt; and as these factions were in the ascendant, they appointed their own patriarchs to the sees of Alexandria, of Antioch, and of Firjin in Armenia.

The supreme influence which the Monophsytes had gained, and which extended into the provinces of the Eastern Empire, and the violent hatred they entertained against the Catholics, had become a continued danger, and a standing menace to the Court of Constantinople. The Empire was at that time exposed to the savage incursions of the Persians on one side, and of the Arabs on the other.

During the sixth century the Arabs had forced its frontier, and, bursting into Egypt, had devastated the country far and wide. At the same time the Persian armies had advanced westward; and in the first part of the seventh century, after having ravaged Syria, Palestine, and Africa as far as Carthage, had showed themselves on the shores of the Bosphorus within sight of the walls of Constantinople(621). So that if the Monophysites of Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor had preferred the strong yoke of these barbarians to the effeminate rule of the Greek Empire, far advanced in its decadence, the Byzantine power would soon have fallen into ruin.

It was well known that during the invasion of Egypt by the Arabs the Monophysite influence had been exercised in favor of the Saracens, who in turn had assisted their partisans to obtain possession of the Alexandrine patriarchate. But the mere existence of these sectarians was a perpetual source of domestic trouble. Their frequent risings were not suppressed without much bloodshed, and the strength of the Empire was thus enervated and rendered more and more unable to cope with its enemies from without.

Such was the state of things at the accession of Heraclius. The ascendency of the Monophysites on the one side, and the alarming invasions of the Persian armies on the other, made him anxious to effect a reconciliation between the Catholics and the heretics, that so he might be able to make head against the foreign enemy, and preserve the Empire from utter ruin. But whilst Heraclius, led by political reasons, sought for union in his states, some Bishops, who had long before imbibed the poison of the Monophysite heresy, conceived the design of reproducing its fundamental dogma under a different form, and of forcing it as a law upon the Church, under the plausible show of a means well adapted to reconcile the Monophysites with the Catholics.

The formula under which, the old Monophysite error was to be disguised asserted the unity of operations in Christ. Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, seems to have been the first to conceive this formula as a means of securing the desired reconciliation and union; and therefore the Sixth General Council said that he was the first to propagate the new error by his writings. It is certain that the Emperor Heraclius was gained over to the new formula, and saw in it a means well calculated to establish concord between Monophysites and Catholics, and to give the Empire internal peace, and with it strength and power.

From that time the new heresy gained consistency and support, Sergius and Heraclius being its most zealous apostles. In a short time all the leaders of the Monophysite sects were won over to the formula, and upon this basis they admitted the confession of the two natures in Christ. Thus Theodorus, Bishop of Pharan in Arabia, Paul and Athanasius,—the former being head of the Armenian Monophysites, the latter chiefs of those of Syria, were persuaded to embrace the new formula. Even Cyrus, bishop of Phasis, was induced by the artfulness of Sergius to subscribe to it, and as a price of his apostasy was appointed Patriarch of Alexandria by Heraclius, as Athanasius had been rewarded with the patriarchal see of Antioch.

In this manner the new heresy was enthroned, in the course of a few years, in the three patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch, and shielded with the imperial protection. Athanasius of Antioch, having attained the object of his ambition, labored for the reconciliation of the Jacobites.

Cyrus of Alexandria brought the Theodosians of Egypt to terms of concord by means of a formal treaty, consisting of nine articles, the seventh of which had reference to the new doctrine of one operation in Christ; whilst Sergius, who was the centre and the life of all the movement, encouraged and supported his adherents in their deceitful task, and raised up new enemies against the confession of Chalcedon. He sought to enforce by imperial law a reconciliation which could not possibly be lasting so long as it rested merely on the basis of error and heresy.

But the courageous resistance of Sophronius, a monk of Alexandria, deranged for a while the designs of this arch-heretic. Sophronius had in vain implored the Patriarch of Alexandria not to give publicity to the articles signed by the Theodosians. To the learned monk Sergius replied, that the peace of the Church and of the Empire imperiously demanded, this condescension to be shown to the Monophysites. Nevertheless, he was well aware that a policy of silence afforded the only hope of bringing to a successful issue his deceitful and heretical labor of reconciliation. He wrote to this effect to Cyrus of Alexandria, and gave the same advice to the Emperor Heraclius.

But the zealous Sophronius did not allow himself to be entangled in the snares of the patriarch. From his convent in Palestine he wrote strongly against the new heresy, and when raised to the patriarchal chair of Jerusalem, assembled all the bishops under his jurisdiction, and pronounced anathema against the new error of one operation and will in Christ.

The election of Sophronius to the patriarchal see of Jerusalem, and much more his first synod against Monothelism, could not fail to awaken grave misgivings in the mind of the Patriarch of Constantinople, for he feared that the influence of his own authority, even with the support of the two Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, would prove insufficient to counteract the zeal and vigour of his saintly opponent. Therefore, in order to prop up the falling edifice of Monothelism some more powerful influence was needed, and this could be found nowhere but in Rome, in the countenance of the supreme Head of the Church and Father of all Fathers.

Sergius was so strongly persuaded of this, that even before the Synod of Jerusalem he had addressed a most insidious letter to Pope Honorius, whose support he sought in favor of his policy of silence, hoping thus to counteract the opposition of Sophronius. But before examining his letter and the answer given to it by Pope Honorius, it will be well to have a clear understanding of the exact question raised by the Monothelites.

 

The error of one operation and one will in Christ is, in its substance, of ancient date in the Church. Long before the Monothelites, Beron, and after him the Arians, had denied two operations and two wills in Christ: the former taught that our Lord’s human nature was swallowed up by the divine; the latter maintained that the Word supplied the functions of the soul in his humanity.

Apollinaris had also inculcated the same doctrine, in order to show that the flesh of Christ was consubstantial with his divinity, capable consequently of suffering.

On the other hand, as early as the third century, the Catholic doctrine of the two operations and wills in Christ had been clearly understood and accurately propounded by the early Fathers of the Church, among whom St. Hippolytus, in his fragments against Beron, had spoken of it with great precision. He and all the others who had treated the matter had laid down the important maxim, that identity of operation would imply identity of nature. And unquestionably all the heretics who had held the doctrine of one operation  and one will in Christ had either implicitly or explicitly denied the two natures.

This was the case in the instances above given of Beron, the Arians, and the Apollinarists; for human nature deprived of all its powers, and animated and moved as a material and inactive instrument by the Logos, cannot be truly termed a human nature, much less a distinct and perfect human nature; that kind of union would result either in the total destruction of one nature, or in a coalition of both into something compounded of the two. Therefore the Monophysites, and especially Severus with his partisans, deprived Christ of a double natural will and operation, in order that they might deprive Him of His human nature.

Severus did not deny the essence and the reality of manhood in Christ, but held the doctrine of a substantial change in its qualities from the in-flow of the Word of God into the sacred humanity. Consequently he anathematized the dogmatic letter of St. Leo and the confession of Chalcedon, because these taught two natures and two operations in Christ after the hypostatical union of His Godhead with His humanity.

Theodosius of Alexandria, the leader of the Theodosians, laid down the same doctrine in his address to the Empress Theodora, with whom he was in favor; and as a general statement we may say that Monophysites of every motion professed the same dogma. The heretic Anthimus also deduced the unity of operation and will in Christ from the unity of His incarnate nature.

Thus we have sufficient proof that the Monothelites were really a section only of the Monophysites. Theodore of Pharan and Athanasius were certainly both Monophysites; Sergius himself was born in Syria, of Jacobite parents; and when these agreed upon upholding the dogma of one operation in Christ, they must have grounded their teaching on the unity of His nature as well as of His person. For, as Theophanes remarks, they knew well that “where one operation is admitted, there must one nature be acknowledged”.

Consequently Cyrus of Phasis also must have been well acquainted with that doctrine at the time when he yielded to the suggestions of Sergius and became a fiery promoter of the Monothelite tenets for the sake of the proffered patriarchal see. Moreover, after the solemn reconciliation of the Theodosians and Jacobites with the Catholics, the former publicly boasted, as Theophanes testifies, “that the Council of Chalcedon had entered their communion, not themselves that of Chalcedon”; and that the unity of operation being once admitted in Christ, they would be able to hold and teach the oneness of His nature.

Therefore in the Council of Lateran, as well as in the Sixth General Synod, it was truly said that the Monothelites had renewed, by their errors, the dogmas of Apollinaris and Severus. Nevertheless the Monothelites professed externally to admit the faith of Chalcedon, and solemnly acknowledged two natures in Christ. Thus Cyrus of Alexandria made this profession in all the above-quoted articles of the concord concluded with the Theodosians, except the seventh, on the wills and operations in Christ. Macarius of Antioch made the same in his confession of faith, read in the Sixth Council. So did all the leaders of that sect, whose professions of faith exist both in the Council of Lateran and the third of Constantinople.

But this need not surprise us: Eutyches himself, in the synod held at Constantinople under Flavian, asserted that Christ was perfect God and perfect Man; and yet it is well known that he was condemned in the Council of Chalcedon because he admitted in Christ a compound nature, such as would undoubtedly destroy both, the Godhead and the Manhood. When a formula of Christian faith has been preserved through centuries, from generation to generation, and has become in a manner a part of the mind of the Church, the denial of it would argue consummate impudence, and must meet with opposition if not contempt. Now such a formula was that of “perfect God” and “perfect Man” in Christ. After the Council of Chalcedon the Monophysites repudiated the system of physical composition of two natures in Christ, as taught by Eutyches. They understood perfectly that to give any plausibility to their error they must retain the time-honored form of words; and when the authors of the Monothelite system offered the Monophysites admission to Catholic communion, on the easy condition of admitting the ancient formula of perfect God and perfect Man in Christ, which had been long before sanctioned at Chalcedon, they could not refuse to accept terms which would leave them still at liberty to carry on their work of mischief.

The new error, in real truth, of the Monothelites differed from that of the Severians in this only—that what the elder sect derived as a corollary from a principle, was in the new system the fundamental principle itself. From the earliest period of their existence, they maintained in plain terms that there is only one operation, as there is only one person, in Jesus Christ.

All the documents referred to, both in the Council of Lateran and in the Sixth Ecumenical Synod, point to this teaching: all the leaders of the heresy, from the very first, spoke distinctly of one operation in Christ, though some maintained likewise the unity of His will. The word energya, although it is not infrequently used by the Greeks in the sense of an external act, still is more commonly used to express the operating principle, dynamis, substantial, essential to the nature itself which it enables to act. So that, as we have said, it was a very common maxim among the ancient Fathers, that no nature can exist without its natural principle of operation, energya.

Now the Monothelites absolutely denied this principle of operation in the human nature of Christ; and although they acknowledged that it possessed soul and body, with the faculties of each, still they plainly asserted that these were unable to perform any operation whatever by themselves; since all the operations both of the human and of the divine nature were to be ascribed to the power of the Divine Word, who was personally united with the humanity. They maintained, therefore, without disguise, that the human nature in Christ was only an instrument of His Divinity; consequently they acknowledged no other understanding and will in Christ than that of the Logos, from whom the operation and power of the soul flowed or proceeded.

The humanity of Christ without the Logos was compared by them to a senseless body without a soul. Nay, they went so far as to teach that the body of Christ was devoid of every principle of movement and action.

Of course they admitted that our Lord suffered in His flesh and they repudiated the error of Apollinaris, that the Divine nature was capable of suffering; but at the same time they professed that although the physical impression was received by the flesh, nevertheless its vital power of operation, upon which sensation depends, was entirely supplied by the Divine substance of the Logos.

This monstrous doctrine was copied literally by Sergius and Theodorus from Apollinaris, as can be seen by the extracts from his writings read both in the Council of Lateran and in the third of Constantinople. They were too cunning, however, not to conceal the true source of their heresy, and appealed to the doctrine of the Fathers of the Church, especially to the writings which bear the name of St. Denis the Areopagite.

But this holy doctor never taught that in Christ there was only one will, much less one operation. He taught that there were in Christ theandric operations—an expression which implies the two natures as separate principles of action, though in fact always acting together. But he never thought of asserting one theandric operation in Christ, so as to exclude all operating power from His humanity, and to reduce it to the state of an inoperative instrument of the Divinity.

Sergius endeavored to pervert a Catholic doctrine, and to shelter himself under the authority of St. Leo, hoping thus to throw dust into the eyes of the Catholics, and to insinuate his error as orthodox doctrine.

It is true, as he maintained, that the Godhead is the leading and ruling principle of the sacred humanity; but this does not mean that because the governing principle ever comes from the Person of the eternal Logos, therefore operation must flow from the same upon an inactive and insensible humanity. It is true, again, that human nature in Christ loses its independence, so far as to require the permission of the Divine Person in order to elicit its actions; but notwithstanding this, it keeps its natural freedom, preserves in its integrity the substantial power of operating, and acts from and through that power. The theandric operations, if referred to the Person of Christ, terminate in the unity of that Person; but considered in themselves are never so blended and united as to form a principle of action which is single in its essence. The same must be said of the two wills of Christ.

The Monothelites therefore, whilst they denied the natural will of the humanity of Christ, advocated one practical and personal will, and they hoped thus to be successful in deceiving the multitude, by conveying the impression that they merely wished to avoid the error of two contrary and conflicting wills in Christ, whilst in reality they absolutely denied the existence of the will in His human nature. On this account they were less reserved when maintaining one personal will in Christ than when defending one operation in Him. For it was well known that the word operation is commonly taken for what is substantial in every nature; and that consequently by denying the two operations in Christ, they would be convicted of denying along with these the reality of the two natures: since there is no nature or substance, if it be deprived of an physical operation. Moreover, they endeavored to justify their error by the argument, that the existence of two wills in the one indivisible Person of Christ implied a state of struggle and conflict in Him.

To sum up, then; we may reduce the errors of the Monothelites to the three following heads: 1st, they acknowledged in Christ one sole divine operation pervading the sacred humanity which was merely its instrument. 2dly, as a consequence, they did not acknowledge in Christ more than one sole divine will. 3dly, implicitly, and as a further consequence, they admitted the capital error of the Monophysites, especially that particular form of it which characterized the followers of Severus.