CHAPTER IV
THE ETHOS OF MONOPHYSITISM
Monophysitism originated in a monastery. Eutyches, "the father of the monophysites," was a monk. The monastic temperament is peculiarly susceptible to this heresy, and the monastic element has always been dominant in the monophysite churches. The cloister is the natural habitat of the doctrine of the one nature. Monasticism is applied monism. If the world's existence be a sham, if its value compared with God be negligible, it becomes a religious duty to avoid all influences that heighten the illusion of the world's real existence and intrinsic value. The monist, like the monk, must renounce all secular interests and "go out of the world." The path of renunciation had an additional claim on the Christological monist. In his universal ideal, as manifested in time, the human elements were sublimated into the divine. Consequently his ideal of conduct imposed a negative attitude towards the world and a merging of his ego in the universal spirit. These are the ruling elements in the spirit of the cloister, and these are the characteristics of the monophysite ethos.
Those men, to whom God is the sum of all reality and the world merely a cosmic shadow, regard worship as the sole worthy activity of the human spirit. In worship union with God is sought, a union so close that the personality of the worshipper is absorbed into the being of the worshipped. His experience of God is so intimate that his experience of the world is reduced to insignificance. As an overpowering human love welds two beings into one, and identifies their thoughts, wills, springs of action and even feelings, so the amor dei identifies man with God and makes possible a deification of humanity. Deeply religious natures in all ages have heard this mystic call. To lose their ego in the divine spirit is the height of their religious ambition. The conception is lofty, but it is not the Christian ideal of life and duty.
Mysticism and monophysitism are twin systems. Both are religious phases of pantheism. As, to the intellect, acosmism is the corollary of pantheism, so, to the heart, asceticism follows from mysticism. Whether conceived in terms of existence or of value, the world for the mystic is an obstacle to the unio mystica. It snares the mind through the senses and creates a fictitious -appearance of solid reality in sensuous objects. It makes pretensions to goodness and attaches to itself a spurious value. The only remedy is self-denial, denial of existence to the world, denial of credence to the senses, denial of gratification to the passions, desires, and inclinations. The monophysites were mystics. They were the rigorists of the eastern church. They formed the "no compromise" party. They stood for a thorough-going renunciation of the world and the flesh. Though they did not officially lay down the inherent evil of matter, Manicheanism is latent in their system. They did not explicitly identify matter with the spirit of evil, but they had the spiritual man's suspicion of matter and his contempt for the body of the flesh. Abstinence, mortification of the flesh, and all ascetic practices flourished in their communion. Art and culture were suspect; they had no eye for natural beauty. Some of their hymn-writers possessed considerable poetic taste; but poetry was discouraged by their leaders. Several of the extant letters of Severus of Antioch show that that patriarch did his best to banish that art from his church. His attitude may be gathered from the following quotation.[[1]] "As to Martyrius, the poet, ... I wish you to know that he is a trouble to me and a nuisance. Indeed in the case of the others also who follow the same profession, and were enrolled in the holy clergy of the Church that is with us, I have debarred them from practising such poetry; and I am taking much trouble to sever this theatrical pursuit from ecclesiastical gravity and modesty, a pursuit that is the mother of laxity and is also capable of causing youthful souls to relax and casting them into the mire of fornication, and carrying them to bestial passions." The result of this asceticism was a jaundiced and inhuman outlook on life. There was much piety among the monophysites, but it was confined to a narrow channel. Their zeal for purity of doctrine amounted to fanaticism; their hatred of the Nestorian and of the Melchite at times reached a white heat. Toleration was almost unknown in their communion.
The claims of humanity appeal less to a monophysite than to other Christians. He places all life's values in the other world. He has no motive for trying to ameliorate the lot of his fellow-men. Social service has to him little or no divine sanction or religious value. We are speaking only of general tendencies. No follower of Christ, however perverted his views, could be totally indifferent to the welfare of other men; but it came natural to the monophysite to think that it does not matter much how a man lives in this world of shadows, provided he holds communion with the world of unseen realities. The same motive accounts for the rapid decline of missionary activity in their communion. The Nestorians were far more active propagandists. Worship is a very high type of service; but worship becomes selfish and sickens into sentiment, if it neglects the inspiring tonic of contact with human need. The monophysite Christology encouraged that form of self-sacrifice, whose goal is Nirvana, which lapses lazily into the cosmic soul and loses itself there in contemplation and ecstasy. It supplies no motive for that finer piety which manifests itself in ethical endeavour and practical philanthropy. His Christ had not partaken of the cup of suffering. His Christ's advance to human perfection was illusory. So the monophysite could not look for the sympathy of Christ in his own struggles, nor could he appeal to Christ's example in respect of works of human charity. Monophysitism considers only the religious nature of man, and takes no account of his other needs. We must therefore characterise the system as unsocial, unlovely, unsympathetic.
The uncompromising attitude of the individual monophysites was reflected in their ecclesiastical polity. We cannot but admire their sturdy independence. The monophysite church stood for freedom from state control. Her principles were the traditional principles of the Alexandrian see. Alexandria would not truckle to Constantinople, nor let religion subserve imperial policy. She would allow the catholic party to be Melchites (King's men) and to reap all the temporal advantages accruing to the established church. In this matter the monophysites took a narrow view; but their narrowness evinces their piety. They felt the evils attendant on Constantine's grand settlement, and they made their ill-judged protest. They made it for no unworthy motive. There are always such thinkers in the church. A spiritual enthusiast despises the outward dignity that the church gains from an alliance with the State, and is often blind to the spiritual benefits conferred on the nation by that alliance, while he concentrates his gaze on incidental evils. To connect with Christology such an attitude towards the principle of Establishment may seem forced at first sight. The connection, however, exists. Independence of the temporal power is symptomatic with that unworldliness which, as we have shown above, characterises monophysitism. Its adherents paid no respect to the human as such. They attached no value to merely human institutions, and made no attempt to see or foster the divine that is in them. The argument that because the State is a human institution it should have no voice in ecclesiastical policy is typically monophysite; it is the argument of one who could draw no inspiration from the human life of the Son of God.
Mysticism and rationalism have much in common. They both are elements in the mental composition of almost every serious thinker. The sterility of logic often drives him to seek a higher and surer instrument of knowledge. So there is no inconsistency in further characterising the monophysites as rationalists. The intellectuals of the eastern church were found mostly in their communion. Theirs was the formal logic point of view. Christ, they urged, was one and not two; therefore His nature was one and not two. They could not see that He was both. In Bergsonian language, they used exclusively mechanical categories. Intelligence, an instrument formed by contact with matter, destined for action upon matter, they used on a supra-material subject. Their thinkers were highly trained logicians; they revelled in abstract argument; theirs was a cold intellectual metaphysic, unwarmed by flesh and blood empiricism.
Their narrow outlook on life, their religious zeal and their rationalist philosophy combined to produce in them sectarianism of an extreme type. Party spirit ran high among them. They fought the catholics; they fought the Nestorians; they fought one another. The list of schisms that occurred in their communion is of amazing length. The letters of Severus of Antioch make sad reading. They show us that the patriarch had constantly to interfere in cases of disputed succession to bishoprics. At almost every vacancy in the provincial dioceses there were parties formed each with their own nominee, ready to schismatise if they could not secure recognition and consecration for him. It is evident that monophysitism does not foster the generous, tolerant, humane virtues of Christianity. It is the creed of monks, mystics, and intellectualists.
[[1]] E. W. Brooks, "Select Letters of Severus of Antioch," vol. ii. pp. 88, 89.