Monophysitism Past and Present: A Study in Christology

by A. A. Luce

The monophysitism of the fifth century had its roots in the past as well as in the a priori. In the previous chapter we treated it as a phase of philosophic thought and reviewed the metaphysic on which the heresy rests. In the present chapter its relations as a historical system of religious thought are to be exhibited. As such, it owes much to outside influences. Much in the monophysite mode of thought and many of its specific doctrines can be traced either to other ecclesiastical heresies or to pagan philosophies. The fact of this double derivation deserves to be emphasised. It refutes the charge of inquisitorial bigotry, so frequently levelled against the theologians of the early centuries. The non-Christian affinities of the heresy account for the bitterness of the controversy to which it gave rise, and, in large measure, excuse the intolerance shown by both parties. Heresies were not domestic quarrels. Contemporaries viewed them as involving a life and death struggle between believers and unbelievers. Christianity can afford to be tolerant to-day. It has an assured position. Its tenets are defined. Christians can almost always distinguish at a glance errors that threaten the essentials of the Faith from those that do not. In the fourth and fifth centuries the case was otherwise. Christianity was then one among many conflicting systems of religion. Its intellectual bases were as yet only imperfectly thought out. Any doctrinal error seemed capable of poisoning the whole body of belief. Heresy, so the orthodox held, was of the devil. No charitable view of it was allowable. That uncompromising attitude was, to a large extent, justified because many articles of the heretical creeds were of purely pagan origin. Given similar conditions to-day, our easy tolerance of opinion would disappear. If Islam, for instance, were to-day a serious menace to the Faith, Christians would automatically stiffen their attitude towards monophysite doctrines. Toleration of the false Christology would, under those circumstances, be treason to the true. The Church of the fifth century was menaced from many sides. Monophysitism was the foe at her gates. That heresy was not a variety of Christianity. It was a semi-pagan theosophy, a product of Greek and oriental, as well as of purely Christian speculation; therefore it was anathema to the orthodox.

THE ELEMENTAL FORMS OF CHRISTOLOGICAL ERROR—DOCETISM AND EBIONITISM

We propose to begin the study of the antecedents of monophysitism by examining those of a Christian or semi-Christian character. For that purpose it will be necessary to give a brief sketch of the early heresies in so far as they bear on the Christological problem.

The two primitive forms of doctrinal error, to which the Church, even in apostolic days, was exposed, were docetism and ebionitism. These are the elemental heresies. All the later Christological heresies are refinements of one or other of these two. They constitute the extremes of Christological thought: between them runs the via media of orthodoxy. Each of the two sees but one aspect of the two-fold life of Christ. Docetism lays an exclusive emphasis on His real divinity, ebionitism on His real humanity. Each mistakes a half truth for a whole truth.

The docetists denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh. His body, they taught, was an apparition. He ate and drank, but the physical frame received no sustenance. He appeared to suffer, but felt no pain. The reality behind the semblance was the divine spirit-being, who conjured up the illusion in order to elevate the thoughts of mankind. This docetic theory commended itself to many of the Greek Christians. They were familiar with the notion of "the gods coming down to them in the likeness of men." Greek mythology abounds in instances of docetic incarnations. The gods of the popular religion constantly assumed visible form during their temporary manifestations.

The ebionites threatened the Faith from the opposite quarter. They taught that Christ was real man and only man. According to them, the whole value of His life and work lay in His moral teaching and His noble example; there is no mystery, no contact of divine and human in Christ; what He attained, we all may attain. The ebionites were recruited from the Jewish element in the Church. The rigid monotheism of the Jews made it hard for them to conceive an intermediary between God and man; they were naturally disposed to embrace a humanistic explanation of Christ.

Docetism was elaborated by Valentinus, Manes and other gnostics and adopted into their systems, while ebionitism provided the basis for the Christologies of Paul of Samosata, of the Photinians and Adoptionists. In contact with these heresies orthodox beliefs, originally fluid, gradually hardened. The dogma "Christus deus et homo" had from the beginning been held in the Church. Its full implications were not realised and formulated until the conflict with error came. The controversies of the third and fourth centuries threw into bold relief the unity of the person and the perfection of the divinity and of the humanity.

THE PROBLEM OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION

The manner of the hypostatic union then became an urgent problem. The Church of the fifth century was called upon to attempt a solution. Any reading of the Gospels compelled the recognition of divine and human elements in Christ; but speculative theology found it difficult to reconcile that fact with the equally important fact of the unity of person.

The theologians of the previous century had bequeathed little or no guidance. The fifth-century Christologians were pioneers in an unmapped region. Athanasius' great treatises on the incarnation are hardly more than eloquent defences of the true deity and true humanity of Christ. They contain little or no constructive Christology. Their theme is, autòs enênthrópêsen, hína hêmeis theôpoiêthômen. He maintains the fact, but does not deal with the "how." He uses the phrase "natural union" (hénôsis physiké), but does not attempt to define the mode of that union.