I. The Heresy of Eutyches vs. the Teach-

ing OF the Church. — Eutyches, an archiman- drite (or abbot) of Constantinople, who had nobly defended the unity of Christ at the Coun- cil of Ephesus, in 431, sought to strengthen his position by maintaining that Christ had but
147
148 UNITY IN DUALITY
one nature (t^yn (f>v(TL^), because otherwise He could not strictly be one Hypostasis or Person. Eutyches appealed to St. Cyril's famous formu- las : cvwCTis (f>vcnKr] ^ and ^■'■^ (l>v(TL
as favoring his heresy.
a) Eutyches found a powerful protector in Dioscorus, who at that time disgraced the episcopal see of SS. Athanasius and Cyril. At a council held in Ephesus, A. D. 449, and which came to be called the Robber Synod, Eutyches was declared orthodox and the bishops who had crossed him were deposed, — a measure which greatly promoted the spread of the new heresy in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Armenia. Though they were unan- imous in holding the doctrine of the /ao'vt; ^uW, the Monophysites soon split on the question as to how God- head and manhood are united in Jesus Christ. Some held that the sacred humanity was absorbed and trans- fused by the Godhead.^ Others imagined that the two natures were simply welded into one.* A third, inter- mediate faction maintained that the two natures were united in Christ in a manner similar to that in which body and soul are united in man,** For an account of the vari- ous Monophysitic sects, such as the Acephali, the ad- herents of Peter the Fuller, called Theopaschitae, the Severians or Phthartolatrae,' the Julianists or Aphtharto- docetae, the Jacobites,^ etc., we refer the reader to the
1 Cone. Ephes., can. 3 (Denzinger- this heresy was never completely Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 113). extirpated. It is still held by the
2 V. supra, p. 108. Copts in Egypt and by the Jacobites 8 ipuais Kara dWoluffiif, of Syria and Mesopotamia. The * ivwais Karh ffiiyxvfftp^ Jacobites were named after Jacobus ^ evuiffis Karh ffvvdecriv, Baradai (571-578), who, after he
6 (jtOaproXdrpai = corrupticolae. had been established as metropolitan
7 In spite of the numerous efforts of the sect, labored with great suc- made to convert the Monophysites, cess to spread and strengthen Mono-
MONOPHYSITISM 149
current manuals of Church histor>' and the respective articles in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
b) Catholic orthodoxy found a valiant defender in Pope St. Leo the Great, who in his classic Epistula Dogmatica ad Flavianum so clearly de- fined the Catholic doctrine that the Bishops as- sembled at Chalcedon, in 451, loudly exclaimed: " Peter hath spoken through the mouth of Leo." * The Council of Chalcedon duly emphasized both the hypostatic unity of Christ ^ and the existence of two unmixed ^° natures in one divine Person, by defining that Christ exists in two indivisible and inseparable, but at the same time unchanged and inconfused natures, the indivisible and insep- arable unity of Person in no wise destroying the distinction between or the properties peculiar to the two natures.
2. The Teaching of Revelation. — The Scriptural arguments for Christ's Divinity and humanity, which we have outlined in the first part of this treatise, sufficiently prove the heretical character of Monophysitism as well as Nestorian- ism.
physitism. (Cfr. Duchesne-Mathew, Church History, Vol. I, p. i6o.
The Churches Separated From London 1910.)
Rome, pp. 33 sq., London 1907.) 8 " Per Leonem Petrus locutus
At the present day the Syrian and est."
Armenian Monophysites have patri- 9 Una persona atque subsistentia
archs at the Zapharan monastery (ev irpoffuirov Kal tiia. vvoaraaK) ,
near Bagdad and at Etchmiadzin 10 Duae naturae inconfuse, im-
in the Russian Caucasus. (Cfr. mutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter
Funk-Cappadelta, A Manual of (,iy Siio (pvffeaiv acrvyxyf^^s drpiir-
II50 UNITY IN DUALITY
a) By constantly referring to our Saviour as true God and true man, the New Testament im- plicitly refutes the heretical conceit that He is the product of a mixture or confusion of natures, for such a being would be neither God nor man.
St. Paul ^^ treats the " forma Dei " ^^ and the " forma servi " ^^ as separate and distinct, though they are hypo- statically united in Christ, " who, being in the form of God, took the form of a servant." ^* Only on the as- sumption that Godhead and manhood co-exist in two in- separable but at the same time unchanged and inconfused natures in Christ, was He able to say of Himself : ^^ " Ego et Pater unum sumus — I and the Father are one," i. e., as God, and again : " Pater motor me est — The Father is greater than I," i. e., as man.^^ " For," says St. Augustine, " He did not so take the form of a servant as that He should lose the form of God, in which He was equal to the Father. If, then, the form of a servant was so taken that the form of God was not lost, since both in the form of a servant and in the form of God He Himself is the same only-begotten Son of God the Father, in the form of God equal to the Father, in the form of a servant the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; is there any one who cannot perceive that He Himself in the form of God is also greater than Himself, but yet likewise in the form of a servant less than Himself ? " " The Johannine
Tws, dStaip^Tcas, Axwplarui) • Cfr. lojohn XIV, 28.
Ph. Kuhn, Die Christologie Leos I., 17 " Neque enim sic accepit for-
Wurzburg 1894. mam servi, ut amitteret formam
11 Phil. II, 6. Dei, in qua erat aequalis Patri. Si
12 /iop07) Qeov. ergo ita accepta est forma servi, ut
13 /iop(f)ij 8ov\ov- non amitterctur forma Dei, quum et
14 V. supra, p. 95. in forma servi et in forma Dei idem 18 John X, 30. ipse sit Filius unigenitus Dei Patris,
ONE PERSON IN TWO NATURES 151
passage : " And the Word was made flesh," ^« not only describes the Hypostatic Union of the Divine Logos with human flesh (= human nature), but it also implies that each of the two natures remained perfect in its kind after the union and in spite of it.^^
b) The Fathers who flourished before the Council of Chalcedon (A. D. 451) believed in the inconfused existence of both natures in Christ as an article of faith.
a) Thus St. Athanasius exclaims: "What hell hath uttered the statement that the body born of Mary is con- substantial ^^ with the Godhead of the Logos? or that the Logos was changed into flesh, bone, hair, and into the whole body, and [thus] lost His nature ?"=^^ Similarly St. Gregory of Nazianzus : " God came also as a mortal man, combining two natures into one (not: into one nature), the one hidden, the other manifest to men." 22 St. Ephraem Syrus gives sublime expression to his faith as follows: " Perfectam habet duplicem naturam, ne duas perdat. Neque enim in una sola natiira Deiis super terrain est visits, neque in altera sola homo in coelos ascendit; verum perfectus ex pcrfecto, homo ex homine, Deus ex Deo, ex virgine Christus." ^^ The last of the Greek Fathers, who is at the same time our chief authority concerning their teaching, St. John of Damascus, writes : "If there is but one nature in
in forma Dei aequalis Patri, in 18 John I, 14.
forma serin mediator Dei et homi- 19 V. supra, p. 93.
num homo Christus lesus, quis non 20 d/jLOOiiaiov.
intelligat, quod in forma Dei etiam 21 Epist. ad Epictet.
ipse se ipso maior est, in forma 22 Carm., sect. 2.
autem servi etiam se ipso minor 23 Orat. de Marg. Pret. est?" (.De Trinit., I, 7, 14.)
152 UNITY IN DUALITY
Christ, how can He be consubstantial with [His] Father and mother? The former is God, but the latter [i. e., Mary] is a human being. But God and man have not one nature." ^* In the West St. Hilary testifies as follows : " Mediator ipse in se ad salutem ecclesiae constitutus et illo ipso inter Deum et homines mediatoris Sacramento utrumque unus existens, dum ipse ex unitis in idipsum naturis naturae utriusque res eadem est; ita tamen ut neutro careret in utroque, ne forte Deus esse homo nascendo desineret et homo rursum Deus manendo non esset." ^^ And St. Ambrose earnestly admonishes his hearers: " Servemus distinctionem divinitatis et carnis [i, e., humanitatis] ; unus in utroque loquitur Dei Filius, quia in eodem utraque est natura." ^*
(3) Not all of the Fathers, however, were so happy in their choice of terms in treating of this dogma. A few employed expressions which are open to Mono- physitic misconstruction. Such terms are, e. g.: Kpaais, /Ai^t?, mixtura, etc. Tertullian -'^ speaks of Christ as " homo Deo mixtus," and St. Cyprian says : " Deus cum homine miscetur." ^* But these are merely incautiously worded expressions intended to describe the intimate union of the two natures in one Person. We will quote a typical passage from St. Augustine, who undoubtedly held the orthodox faith: " Sicut in unitate personae anima unitur corpori, ut homo sit," he says, " ita in unitate personae Deus unitur homini, ut Christus sit. In ilia ergo persona mixtura est animae et corporis, in hac persona mixtura est Dei et hominis." ** But he adds by way of
2i De Dutib. Volunt., 8. Cfr. Pe- 27 De Came Christi. c. 15.
tavius, De Incarn., Ill, 6. 28 De Idol. Van.; cfr. Petavius,
2fi De Trinit., IX, n. 3. De Incarn., Ill, 2; Thoinassin, De
26 De Fide, II, 9, n. 77. Addi- Incarn., Ill, 5.
tional Patristic references in Jans- 20 Ep. ad Volusian., Ill, 11. sens, Christologia, pp. 84 sqq.
ONE PERSON IN TWO NATURES 153
warning : " Si tamen recedat auditor a consuetudine cor- porum, qua solent duo liquores ita commisceri, ut neuter servet integritatem suam, quatnquam et in ipsis corporihus aeri lux incorrupta misceatur." ^^ In this famous text St. Augustine employs no less than three analogues to illus- trate the Hypostatic Union : ( i ) The union of body and soul in man, (2) the mixture of two liquids, and (3) the mutual interpenetration of air and light. The first two comparisons savor of Monophysitism, for both the union of body and soul and the mixture of liquids are nat- ural compounds. For this reason he supplements them with a third, vis.: the mutual interpenetration of air and light, which enter into a most intimate union without losing their specific natures.
The most popular Patristic analogue was the union of body and soul, which Acacius of Constantinople (about 480) chose to bolster his Monophysitic errors. The same Ivwo-ts Kara avvOcmv, he said, which results from the union of body and soul in man,^^ takes place be- tween the Godhead and the manhood of Jesus Christ. But Acacius forgot that comparisons are inadequate and that the Fathers pointed out not only similarities but also important points of difference between the two unions. These points of difference may be reduced to the fol- lowing heads : ( i ) Body and soul are mutually related as parts of one whole, in the strict sense of the term, which cannot be said of the Godhead and manhood of Christ.^2 (2) In man the soul stands in a natural rela- tionship to the body, inasmuch as the one postulates the other. In Christ, on the other hand, the mutual relation-
80 Ep. cit. 1233) : " Illic quidem pars hominis
31 V. supra, p. 148. sunt anima et corpus, hie vera
32 Cfr. Fragm. inter Opera S. neque caro pars Verbi neque Ver- Athanasii (Migne, P. G,, XXVI, bum pars carnis."
154 UNITY IN DUALITY
ship between Godhead and manhood is entirely supernat- ural. (3) In man a finite spirit is united to finite flesh, in Christ an infinite Hypostasis to a finite but complete nature.^^ (4) Christ qua Godman is both God and man, whereas man is neither body alone nor soul alone, but a synthesis of both.^*
ARTICLE 2
THE EXISTENCE OF TWO WILLS IN CHRIST, AS DEFINED AGAINST MONOTHELITISM