{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30219/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30219","id":"gutenberg_30219","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30219","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Monophysites"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM\n\nPAST AND PRESENT\n\n\nA STUDY IN CHRISTOLOGY\n\n\n\nBY\n\nA. A. LUCE, M.C., D.D.\n\n\nCAPTAIN LATE 12TH ROYAL IRISH RIFLES\n\nFELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN\n\n\n\n\n\nLONDON\n\nSOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE\n\nNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.\n\n1920\n\n\n\n\nPRINTED BY\n\nWILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,\n\nLONDON AND BECCLES\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER\n\n   I.  THE METAPHYSICAL BASIS OF MONOPHYSITISM\n  II.  THE ORIGINS OF MONOPHYSITISM\n III.  MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINE\n  IV.  THE ETHOS OF MONOPHYSITISM\n   V.  MONOPHYSITISM AND MODERN PSYCHOLOGY\n  VI.  MONOPHYSITISM IN THE PRESENT DAY\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS CONSULTED IN THE\n\nPREPARATION OF THIS ESSAY\n\n\nJ. S. ASSEMANI, \"Bibliotheca Orientalis,\" especially the Introductory\nDissertation to Vol. II.\n\nA. HARNACK, \"History of Dogma,\" translated by Speirs and Millar.\n\nJ. C. ROBERTSON, \"History of the Christian Church.\"\n\nWINDELBAND, \"History of Philosophy,\" translated by Tufts.\n\nWRIGHT, \"Short History of Syriac Literature.\"\n\nH. BERGSON, \"Les donnees immediates de la conscience,\" \"Matiere et\nMemoire,\" \"L'evolution creatrice.\"\n\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM PAST AND PRESENT\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE METAPHYSICAL BASIS OF MONOPHYSITISM\n\nMonophysitism was a Christological heresy of the fifth century.  It was\ncondemned by the church in the middle of that century at the council of\nChalcedon.  Surviving its condemnation it flourished in the East for\nseveral centuries.  Its adherents formed themselves into a powerful\nchurch with orders and succession of their own.  Although the\nmonophysite church has long since lost all influence, it is still in\nbeing.  The Coptic and Jacobite churches of Egypt and Mesopotamia,\nrespectively, preserve to this day the doctrines and traditions of the\nprimitive monophysites.\n\nThe history of the sect, however, does not concern us here.  The\nwriter's purpose is to review its doctrine.  Monophysitism is a system\nof religious thought, and, as such, its importance is out of all\nproportion to the present or even the past position of the churches\nthat professed it.  Its significance lies in its universality.  It is\ngrounded in the nature of the human mind.  It is found in West as well\nas East, to-day as well as in the early centuries of our era.  Wherever\nmen bring intellect to bear on the problem of Christ's being, the\ntendency to regard Him as monophysite is present.\n\nAn examination of the heresy is of practical value.  Our subject-matter\nis not an oriental antique or a curiosity of the intellect, but a\npresent-day problem of vital moment to the Faith.  If we are concerned\nwith a half-forgotten heresy, it is because a study of that heresy\nserves both as a preventive against error and as an introduction to the\ntruth.  The doctor studies disease to ascertain the conditions of\nhealth; pathological cases are often his surest guide to the normal;\njust so the study of heresy is the best guide to orthodox Christology.\nIt was in conflict with monophysitism that the church of the fifth\ncentury brought to completion her dogmatic utterances about Christ; and\nthe individual thinker to-day can gain the surest grasp of true\nChristology by examining the monophysite perversion.\n\nWith this practical purpose in view, we now proceed to an analysis of\nthe heresy.  Monophysitism is a body of doctrine.  It is a dogmatic\nsystem, in which the individual dogmata are controlled by a principle\nor dominant idea.  As all the particular doctrines of monophysitism\ndepend on this principle, and, as it is not properly a theological\nconcept, but one borrowed from philosophy, we may call it \"the\nmetaphysical basis of monophysitism.\"  An intelligent grasp of this\nbasic principle is necessary to an appreciation of the whole system.\nAccordingly, our first concern is to ascertain and exhibit this\nmetaphysical basis.  In subsequent chapters we shall analyse in detail\nthe doctrines specifically monophysite and trace the Christological\nerrors back to their source in metaphysic.\n\n\n\nTHE _A PRIORI_ AND _A POSTERIORI_ IN CHRISTOLOGY\n\nThe following considerations prove the necessity of this procedure.\nTwo methods of examining the being of Christ can be distinguished.\nAccording to the one method the facts of His life are reviewed as they\nare presented in the New Testament, and a formula is then constructed\nto fit them.  The other method starts from the concept of a mediator\nbetween God and man.  It supposes that concept actualised, and asks the\nquestion, \"Of what nature must such a mediator be?\"  These methods may\nbe distinguished, but they cannot be separated.  No one, however\nscientific, can come to a study of the life of Jesus with an absolutely\nopen mind.  Presuppositions are inevitable.  Similarly, as the _a\npriori_ thinker develops his concept of a mediator, he compares the\nresults of his thinking at every stage with the picture presented in\nthe Gospel story, and that picture unavoidably modifies his deductions.\nBoth diphysite and monophysite used a combination of these two methods.\nEach party took the recorded facts and interpreted them in accordance\nwith their notion of what a mediator should be.  Both parties studied\nthe same facts; but the _a priori_ of their thought differed, and so\ntheir conclusions differed.  In the realm of Christology this _a\npriori_ of thought is of paramount importance.  Preconceived opinions\ninevitably colour our mental picture of Christ.  Readers of the Gospel\nnarrative find there the Christ they are prepared to find.  On this\nwell-recognised fact we base our contention that an examination of any\nChristological system must begin with the philosophy on which the\nsystem rests.  That philosophy supplies the _a priori_, or the\npresupposition, or the metaphysical basis, whichever name we prefer.\n\nWe do not suggest that theologians have consciously adopted a\nmetaphysical principle as the basis of their beliefs, and then have\napplied it to the special problem of Christology.  That is a possible\nmethod but not the usual one.  In most cases the philosophic basis\nremains in the background of consciousness; its existence is\nunrecognised and its influence undetected.  If Christian thinkers took\nthe trouble to analyse the basis of their beliefs about Christ, they\nwould not halt, as they so often do, at the stage of monophysitism.  If\nthey laid bare to the foundations the structure of their faith, the\ndanger of error would be reduced to a minimum.  Viewed from the\nstandpoint of timeless reason, monophysitism is based on a definite\nmetaphysical idea.  Not all monophysites have consciously adopted that\nbasis; many, had they recognised its presence, would have rejected it.\nBut it was present as a tendency.  A tendency may be neutralised by\ncounteracting causes; but it has its effect, and sooner or later it\nwill produce positive results.\n\n\n\nTHE THREE TYPICAL CHRISTOLOGIES\n\nThe same truth holds of the other Christological systems.  A different\nmetaphysical idea lies at the root of each.  Nestorian, monophysite,\ncatholic, these three were the main types of Christologian in the fifth\ncentury.  Each studied Christ's life.  After studying it, the Nestorian\nsaid of Him, \"There are two persons here.\"  \"Not so,\" said the\nmonophysite, \"I see but one incarnate nature of God the Word.\"  The\ncatholic replied, \"You are both wrong; there is one person in two\nnatures.\"  All three types deserve close study.  The thinkers were\ndevout and sincere, and, for the most part, able men.  There is no\nquestion here of superficial uninformed thought, nor of moral\nobliquity.  The disagreement was due not to their vision but to their\nview point, not to the object of their thought or the process of their\nthinking, but to their different presuppositions and starting points.\n\nPresented in this way the monophysite and other Christological\ncontroversies of the fifth and sixth centuries become phases of the\ncosmic problem.  They thus regain the dignity which is theirs by right,\nand which they lose in the ordinary church histories.  The heat of\npassion they aroused becomes intelligible.  It was no battle about\nwords.  The stakes were high.  The controversialists championed\nfar-reaching principles with a decisive influence on the course of\nthought and conduct.  Unfriendly critics usually portray the\nChristologians as narrow-minded and audacious.  So, no doubt, they\nwere, but they were not wrong-headed.  If the matters in dispute\nbetween theist, deist, and pantheist are trivialities, then and then\nonly can we regard the enterprise of the Christologians as chimerical\nand their achievements as futile.  The different formulae represented\nattitudes of mind fundamentally opposed.  No peace between catholic and\nmonophysite was possible.  They had conflicting conceptions of ultimate\ntruth.\n\n\n\nDEPENDENCE OF CHRISTOLOGY ON PHILOSOPHY\n\nWe mentioned above the two other chief Christological systems, the\nNestorian and the catholic.  No analysis of monophysitism which omitted\na reference to these systems would be complete.  They were three nearly\ncontemporary attempts to solve the same problem.  The comparison is of\nspecial interest when, as here, fundamental principles are under\nexamination.  It demonstrates the closeness of the connection between\nthe Christological and the cosmic problems.  In each of the three cases\nwe find that a school of philosophy corresponds to the school of\ntheology, and that the philosopher's dominant idea about the cosmos\ndecided the theologian's interpretation of Christ.\n\nThis connection between philosophy and Christology is of early date.\nFrom the nature of both disciplines it had to be.  Even in apostolic\ndays the meaning of the incarnation was realised.  Christ was\napprehended as a being of more than national or terrestrial importance.\nThe Pauline and Johannine Christologies gave cosmic significance to His\nwork, and so inevitably to His Person.  Theologians made the tremendous\nsurmise that Jesus of Nazareth was no other than the Logos of the\nNeo-Pythagoreans or the Wise One of the Stoics.  That is to say, He\nstands not only between God and man, but between Creator and creation.\nHe is the embodiment of the cosmic relation.  From early days, then,\nphilosophy and religion were working at the same problem; their paths\nmet at the one goal of the Ideal Person who satisfied both head and\nheart.  The systematic Christology of the fifth century was, therefore,\na completion of the work begun in the first.\n\n\n\nTHE CHRISTOLOGICAL AND THE COSMIC PROBLEMS\n\nThe essence of the Christological problem is the question as to the\nunion of natures in Christ.  Are there two natures divine and human in\nHim?  Is each distinct from the other and from the person?  Is the\ndistinction conceptual or actual?  The incarnation is a union.  Is it a\nreal union?  If so, what did it unite?  We have seen that such\nquestions cannot be approached without presuppositions.  What these\npresuppositions shall be is decided in the sphere of a wider problem.\nThis wider problem is known as the cosmic problem.  The solution given\nto it prescribes the presuppositions of any attempt to solve the\nspecialised problem.  We shall proceed to sketch the cosmic problem,\nand to indicate the three main types of answers given to it.  It will\nthen be evident that these three answers find their respective\ncounterparts in the Nestorian, monophysite and the catholic solutions\nof the Christological problem.\n\nAs man's intellectual powers mature, two supreme generalisations force\nthemselves on his consciousness.  He conceives his experience as a\nwhole and calls it the world; he conceives the basis of his experience\nas a whole and calls it God.  To some minds the world, to some minds\nGod, is the greater reality; but both concepts are present in varying\nproportions wherever thought becomes self-conscious.  Here we have in\nits lowest terms the material for the ontological question, the first\nand the last problem of philosophy.  God and the world, at first dimly\nconceived and scarcely differentiated, gradually separate and take\nshape in the mind as distinct entities.  The concepts become\nprinciples, fixed by language and mental imagery.  The gulf between\nthem widens until they stand at opposite poles of thought.  In their\nisolation they constitute a standing challenge to the mind of man.  If\nhe thinks the world in terms of time, he must postulate a creator.  If\nhe thinks the world out of time, he is forced to conceive a ground of\nthe world's being.  The world cannot be thought without God nor God\nwithout the world.  The one necessitates the other.  Yet when the\nthinker tries to define the terms, he can at first only do so by\nnegatives.  The world is what God is not, and God is what the world is\nnot.  The two primary concepts thus attract and repel each other.  The\nmind's first task is to grasp them in their difference.  It cannot rest\nthere, but must proceed to attempt to reunite them and grasp them in\ntheir unity.  Thus the main problem of philosophy is to conceive and\nfind expression for the relation between God and the world.\nChristology attacks essentially the same problem.  Christology is an\nattempt to define the relation between God and the world in terms of\npersonality.\n\nThis relation has been conceived in three modes.  According to the\nlevel of thought reached, or, as led by their disposition and\neducation, men have made their choice between three mediating concepts.\nHence derive three divergent types of thought and three outlooks on\nlife fundamentally opposed.  We shall take them in their logical\nsequence for convenience of treatment.  The historical connection is of\nno importance for our present purpose, but it is noteworthy that the\ntime order both of the schools of philosophy and of the corresponding\nChristological systems follows approximately the logical order.\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST SOLUTION OF THE COSMIC PROBLEM--DUALISM\n\nThe first attempted solution of the cosmic problem is best expressed in\nthe concept \"co-existence.\"  God _and_ the world co-exist.  God is, and\nthe world is; their relation is expressed by an \"and.\"  \"God and the\nworld\" is the truth, all that man can and need know.  This solution is\nverbal.  It leaves the problem more or less as it finds it.  The two\nprinciples remain ultimates; neither is reduced to the other.  God\nstill stands outside the world and the world outside God.  Neither can\nexplain the other.  This dualism is the lowest stage of ontological\nthought.  The thinker sees the problem, only to turn away from it.  He\nsurmises that there is some relation between the two; but he cannot\ndefine it, and it remains ineffectual.  This was Plato's early\nstandpoint.  He established the idea as the truth of the thing, but he\nfailed to find expression for the relation between idea and ideate.  He\ntook refuge in symbolical language, and spoke of the thing as a \"copy\"\nof the idea or as a \"participant\" in it.  But as there was no causation\non the one side or dependence on the other side, all that the earlier\nPlatonic philosophy achieved was in its ideal world to duplicate the\nreal.  Plato's heaven simply co-exists with the world, and the relation\nbetween them is merely verbal.\n\nThis metaphysical idea survived Plato and Plato's system, and passed\ninto common currency.  It found and still finds expression in numerous\nspeculative and practical systems.  In religious ontology we find it in\ndeism.  According to the deist there was once at a definite point of\ntime a relation between God and the world, the relation of creation.\nBut, creation finished, the relation ceased.  In other words, God\ncreated the world, and then withdrew into Himself, leaving the world to\nwork out its own salvation.  The deist believes in God; but his is a\nself-contained God, who does not interfere in the course of things or\ncontinue creating.  Such a conception of God is useless for religious\npurposes, because it represents Him as out of all relation with the\nworld.\n\n\n\nCHRISTOLOGICAL DUALISM--NESTORIANISM\n\nThe Christological counterpart of dualism and of deism is Nestorianism.\nThe Nestorians halt at the lowest stage of Christological thought.\nThey admit Christ to be the meeting-point of God and man, but they\nnullify the admission by introducing dualism into the person of Christ.\nThey set out to find the solution of the cosmic problem in Christ; they\nendeavour to express the relation between God and the world in terms of\nHis personality.  They bring the two concepts together, but they do not\nweld them.  Faith and courage fail them at the critical moment.  They\nsubstitute an association for a union.  They leave God and man\nco-existing in Christ, but not united there.\n\nNestorianism is a halfway house on the road from Arianism to\nChristianity.  It is a weak compromise.  The deity in Christ is\nadmitted, but its unity with humanity denied.  The divine remains\nexternal to the human nature.  According to the doctrine ascribed to\nNestorius two persons, the son of God and the son of Mary, at the\nBaptism were mysteriously associated.  The union consists partly in\nidentity of name, partly in the gradual deepening of the association.\nAs Jesus grew in spiritual power and knowledge and obedience to the\ndivine will, the union which at first was relative gradually deepened\ntowards an absolute union.  Divinity was not His birthright, but\nacquired.  Thus throughout His life the two personalities remained\nexternal to one another.  The divine worked miracles; the human\nsuffered.  The Nestorian could pride himself on having preserved the\nreality of the divine and the reality of the human; he could worship\nthe one and imitate the other.  But his system was non-Christian,\nbecause it excludes the element of mediation.  A dual personality could\nnever make atonement or redeem humanity.  God and man in Christ were\nbrought into nominal contact, but there was provided no channel by\nwhich the divine virtue might pass into the human.  The Nestorian\nremains content with his solution, because the background of his\nthought is dualist.  The thinker's attitude to the cosmic problem\ndecides his attitude to the Christological problem.  Content to couple\nGod and the world by an \"and,\" he similarly couples by an \"and\" the\nLogos and Jesus Christ.  Dividing God from the world, he divides\nChrist.  Abandoning metaphysical relation between the cosmic\nprinciples, he despairs of finding, or, rather, has no motive for\nseeking a personal relation between God and man in the being of Christ.\n\n\n\nSECOND SOLUTION OF THE COSMIC PROBLEM--MONISM\n\nThe second solution given to the cosmic problem is of special\nimportance for our thesis.  It had a direct influence on monophysitism,\nand may be regarded as supplying the metaphysical basis for that\nheresy.  It represents an advance to a higher stage of thought, just as\nmonophysitism, which depends on it, is an advance on Nestorianism, and\nhas always been regarded as a more venial heresy.\n\nThe mind finding no satisfaction in dualism advances to monism.  The\nspectacle of two unrelated ultimate principles impels it to seek and,\nif necessary, to invent some mode of reconciling them.  Explain it as\nwe may, the craving for unity, for synthesis, for mediation is radical\nin human thought.  The mind cannot rest at anything short of it.  God\nand the world, held asunder conceptually or only nominally united,\nconstitute a contradiction _in excelsis_, and, as such, provide an\nirresistible motive for further and deeper thought.\n\nAs is natural, the swing of the pendulum carries the mind to the\nopposite extreme.  Co-existence failing to supply the required\nsolution, the key is sought in identity.  God and the world are thought\nas identical.  The terms are connected by the copula.  God _is_ the\nworld, and the world _is_ God.  This is the truth of being, for the\nmonist.  The two principles are merged in one, and the contradiction\nsolved by an assertion of the identity of the contradictories.  Monism\ntakes two forms.  It may be either materialist or spiritual.  One term\nmust be selected as the reality, and the other written off as an\nillusion.  If the thinker's bent of mind be scientific, he is disposed\nto make the material world the only objective reality, and God becomes\nsimply a working hypothesis or a creation of the subjective mind.  It\nwould be beside our purpose to do more than mention this phase of\nmonism.  Spiritual monism, however, requires lengthier treatment; it is\nof vital importance to our subject.  In this case the mind takes sides\nwith God as against the world.  God is the reality and the world the\nillusion.  The world is God, in spite of appearances to the contrary.\nAs world it has no substantive reality; it has no existence for self.\nIt is the shadow of God, an emanation from Him, or an aspect of Him.\nLike dualism, monism is only a sham solution of the cosmic problem.  It\nfails to keep prominent the idea of relation.  A relation must relate.\nIf its terms are merged, the relation falls to the ground.  A relation\nmust be such that, while the terms are unified, they are preserved as\nrealities.  It must both unify and keep distinct.  To abandon either\nGod or the world is a counsel of despair.  To detract from the reality\nof either is treason to fact and tantamount to a shelving of the cosmic\nproblem.\n\n\n\nPHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL MONISM\n\nThe systems that identify God and the world range from the crude\nmaterialism of Democritus to the lofty spiritualism of Plotinus.  Stoic\ncosmology occupies an intermediate position.  The Stoic was nominally a\npantheist, but he seems to have oscillated between a spiritual and a\nmaterialist explanation of the universal being.  The monist system that\nprepared the soil for monophysitism and constantly fostered its growth\nwas Neo-Platonism.  In the hands of Plotinus all the main elements of\nspiritual monism were worked up into a speculative philosophy with a\nprofound bearing on practical life.  The world and the human spirit,\nfor Plotinus, were simply manifestations of God.  He taught that, as\nlight issues from the sun and proceeds forth on its way, growing\ngradually dimmer till it passes into darkness, so the world of thought\nand thing has no true being apart from God, from whom it proceeded and\nto whom it returns.  Spiritual monism found in Alexandria a congenial\nhome.  Blending there with oriental mysticism it produced a crop of\ngnostic speculative systems, in all of which Acosmism or a denial of\nthe world was the keynote.  Whether the problem was conceived in terms\nof being or of value, the result was the same.  The world has no true\nbeing.  Its appearance of solidity is a sham.  It has no value.\nCompared with God, it is negligible.  It is but the shadow cast by the\neternal sun.\n\nThe monophysite tenets traceable to monism will be considered in detail\nin later chapters.  Here our concern is to show that monism supplies\nthe metaphysical principle on which the heresy is based; that, as\ndualism provides the _a priori_ of Nestorian thought, monism provides\nthe _a priori_ of monophysite thought.\n\n\n\nCHRISTOLOGICAL MONISM--MONOPHYSITISM\n\nThe essential doctrine of monophysitism is the assertion of the\nabsolute numerical unity of the person of Christ.  It carries to\nextremes its denial of the dual personality maintained by the\nNestorians.  All vestiges of duality were banished from His being;\nthere were not two persons: there were not even two natures.  There was\nin Christ only the one nature of God the Word.  The human nature at the\nincarnation was absorbed into the divine.  It no more has substantive\nexistence than has the world in a pantheistic system.  This is monism\nin terms of personality.  Its presuppositions are those of a mind\nimbued with an all-powerful feeling for unity.  It is faced with the\nproblem of reconciling God and the world in the person of Jesus Christ.\nIt brings to that problem a prejudice against the real being and the\nreal value of the world.  Hence it is led to draw the false conclusion\nthat humanity, which is part of the world, is not a permanent element\nin the highest truth; that even perfect humanity, humanity\nrepresentative of all that is noblest in the race, cannot be allowed\ntrue existence in the Ideal.\n\nMonism abandons the universal relation by abandoning one or other of\nthe terms to be related.  Monophysitism cuts a similar knot in a\nsimilar fashion.  It jettisons redemption by excluding from the\nRedeemer all kinship with that which He came to redeem.  Nominally\nadmitting human nature into union with deity, it destroys the reality\nof that transaction at a stroke by making the two natures identical.\nSo the incarnation, for the monophysite, becomes a myth; no change in\nthe nature of the Logos took place at it, and, consequently, no change\nin the nature of the Man Christ Jesus.\n\nWe may trace the likeness between the cosmic and the Christological\nproblems still further.  Monism is forced to attempt to give some\naccount of the world's apparent reality.  Similarly monophysitism had\nto try to explain those facts of Christ's life which on the face of the\nGospel narrative are human and normal.  The explanation offered is\nessentially the same in both systems.  The monist asserts that the\nworld exists only in the mind of the thinker.  It is an illusion of the\nsenses.  The duty of the philosopher is to overcome the illusion by\nturning away from the world of sense and fixing his mind on true being;\nby ascesis and contemplation he endeavours to attain the ecstatic\nstate, in which the illusion of the world's reality disappears, and the\npotential identity of man with the universal spirit becomes actualised\nin experience.  Similarly, for the monophysite, the humanity of Christ\nwas a creation of the senses.  Christ's body was a phantom, and His\nhuman mind simply an aspect of Him.  They were impressions left on the\nminds of His contemporaries.  Having no substantive existence, no\nreality in fact, they were to be ignored in Christological dogma.  They\nwere not to be considered as part of the true Christ; they were not to\nbe worshipped.  No spiritual value attached to them.  They were\nhindrances rather than helps to the religion that aimed at entire\nabandonment of self and absorption in the divine.\n\n\n\nTHE THIRD SOLUTION OF THE COSMIC PROBLEM--IDENTITY IN DIFFERENCE\n\nWe come now to the third and last solution of the cosmic problem.  As\nwe develop it, we shall endeavour to show that it supplies that\nmetaphysical idea which forms the basis of catholic Christology.  The\ntwo previous solutions failed.  They do not satisfy the philosopher and\nthey mislead the theologian.  The one separates God from the world; the\nother merges them.  Thus both, in effect, abandon the original\nenterprise.  They destroy the relation instead of expressing it.  The\nconcepts both of co-existence and of identity have proved fruitless in\nthe speculative problem, and in Christology have given rise to heresy.\nThe third school of thought takes as its starting point neither God,\nnor the world, nor the two as co-existing, but the relation of the two.\nIt makes that relation such that the terms related are preserved in the\nrelation.  Neither identity nor difference is the full truth, but\nidentity in and through difference.  God is not the world, nor is the\nworld God.  God is, and the world is.  Each are facts.  In their\nseparateness they are not true facts.  It is only as we conceive the\ntwo in their oneness, a supra-numerical oneness, that we can give their\nfull value to each.  The world is God's world; therefore it has being\nand value.  The cosmic relation then is expressed not by an \"and,\" nor\nby an \"is,\" but by an \"of.\"  The God \"_of_\" the world is the key\nconcept that unlocks the doors of the palace of truth.\n\nIt was in the prominence given to this concept that Aristotle's system\nmade a great advance on that of his predecessor.  Plato had established\na world of ideas with the idea of the Good as its centre, but he left\nit unrelated to the world of experience.  Aristotle insisted on\nrelating the ideal and the real.  His concept of relation was that of\nform and matter.  The world apart from God is matter apart from form.\nIt has only potential reality.  When it becomes united to its form, it\nbecomes actual.  Its form makes it a fact--what it has in it to be.\nAristotle conceives different grades of being.  Unformed matter is the\nlowest of these grades, and God the highest.  Each grade supplies the\nmatter of which the next highest grade is the form.  Ascending the\nscale of being at last we reach pure form.  Thus the ladder of\ndevelopment is constructed by which the world rises to its realisation\nin God.  Aristotle gave to humanity the conception of a God who\ntranscends the world, and yet is immanent in it, as form is in matter.\nThus Greek philosophy in Aristotle attained that spiritual monotheism\nwhich supplied the foundation for the edifice of Christian doctrine.\n\nThe effect of Aristotle's teaching was felt by all the ecclesiastical\nparties in the fifth century.  As we shall see in a later chapter, some\nof the subsidiary elements of his philosophy are reflected in\nmonophysitism.  The dominant ideas, however, of the system, the\nconception of God and the world and the relation between them, were\ntaken over by the catholic theologians, and incorporated into their\nChristology.  We need not here inquire whether Aristotle's influence\nwas direct or indirect.  No doubt many of the theologians who\nconstructed Christian doctrine had read his works.  Whether that is so\nor not, they must have unconsciously assimilated his central doctrine.\nIt was common property.  The determination to keep God a reality and\nthe world a reality and yet relate the two became the controlling\nmotive of their thinking.\n\nAristotle in theory and application of theory has always a feeling for\nfact.  The individual thing and the world of individual things are, for\nhim, never negligible.  Realised matter, life, the human spirit, human\nnature, are actualities and have their value as such.  They are not all\non the same level of being; they do not occupy the same rank; and it is\nthe philosopher's business to determine their respective positions in\nthe scale of being and value.  But he cannot have his head in the\nclouds of contemplation, unless he have his feet on the earth of fact.\n\n\n\nTHE ESSENCE OF CATHOLIC CHRISTOLOGY\n\nCatholic Christology has caught the spirit of Aristotle's teaching.  It\nis not primarily speculative.  It is in close touch with fact.  It is\nthe outcome of a deep-felt want.  Redemption is the first demand of\nreligious experience; so it is the motive and theme of all Christology.\nThe soul views itself as a member of a world of souls estranged from\nGod, and for its own peace and welfare seeks to effect a union between\nGod and the world.  Such a union, to be effective, must preserve the\nbeing and value of the world.  If there were no world or only a\nvalueless world, there would be nothing to redeem, or nothing worth\nredeeming.  Seeking that union in personality, and in the most\nmarvellous personality of history, the orthodox theologians by a true\ninstinct ascribed to Him both divine and human natures.  He is the\ncosmic unity of opposites.  His person is the cosmic relation.  In that\nperson the lower term of the relation has true being and full value.\nThus the Church steered a middle course between the Scylla of\nco-existence and the Charybdis of identity.\n\nThese _a priori_ deductions as to the being of Christ were verified by\na reference to fact.  The life-story of the historic Christ comprises\ntwo distinct groups of experience.  There are thoughts, deeds, and\nwords attributed to Him that only God could have thought, done, and\nsaid.  There are as well thoughts, deeds and words of His that only a\nman could have thought, done and said.  Hence the diphysite doctrine\nwas verified _a posteriori_.  Again, in both groups of experience there\nis a never-failing connecting link.  There is a unity lying deeper in\nHis consciousness than the duality.  Christ, the Agent, is the same in\nboth parts.  Whether as God or man, He is never out of character.\nHence the unity of the person also was established _a posteriori_.\nThus, to the orthodox Christologians, the expectation that the human\nIdeal would be a unity, comprising divinity and humanity, was justified\nby historical fact.\n\nThey found a further verification on applying the test of practice.\nOrthodox Christology satisfies the requirements of the soul.  Man's\nchief spiritual need is access to God through \"a daysman that might lay\nhis hand upon both.\"  An exemplar, even though perfect, is not adequate\nto his need.  The _unio mystica_ can only be experienced by the\nleisured few.  Man demands a religion of redemption, a redemption that\nallows value to labour, to endeavour, to human thought, that recognises\nthe reality of pain and sorrow and sin, a redemption that redeems\nhumanity in all its phases and in the wealth of its experiences.  An\nAgent that has not shared to the full those experiences is useless for\nthe purpose.  Redemption must be the work of One who knows God and\nknows man, of One who has the touch of sympathy; for to such a touch\nalone can humanity respond.  The Christology that makes Christ Jesus\nconsubstantial with God and with man satisfies man's deep-felt need.\n\n\n\nSUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER\n\nWe have taken a triad of ontologies and a triad of Christological\nsystems, placed them side by side, and examined them.  The result of\nthat examination is a triple correspondence.  The metaphysical\nprinciple is found in each case worked out in a corresponding\nChristology.  The comparison is of general interest.  It reveals\nChristology as intimately connected with the workings of intellect, as\nin the main stream of the current of human thought, as capable of\nphilosophic treatment.  Further than that, the comparison is vital to\nthe main argument of this essay.  It provides the clue to the heart of\nour subject.  The scientist, who wishes to understand a botanical\nspecimen, pays as much attention to what is in the ground as to what is\nabove ground.  The seed and roots are as full of scientific interest as\nare stem, leaf and flower.  Similarly, to understand the monophysite\nheresy, to be able to detect it and expose it, we must take it in the\ngerm.  We may push the illustration further.  The properties of a\nbotanical specimen are best studied in connection with organisms of\nallied species.  We cannot isolate unless we compare.  By comparison\nthe essential features, functions and properties of the specimen under\nexamination are elucidated.\n\nIt is by isolating the three germinal ideas of these three\nChristological systems and comparing them, that a full comprehension of\nmonophysitism in all its stages, from seed to flower, is reached.  We\nhave used this method, and have found that the roots of the heresy lie\nin spiritual monism.  In subsequent chapters we shall analyse its\norigins as a historical system, its specific tenets and its practical\nconsequences.  It will then be seen that the spirit of monism pervades\nthe whole system.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE ORIGINS OF MONOPHYSITISM\n\nThe monophysitism of the fifth century had its roots in the past as\nwell as in the _a priori_.  In the previous chapter we treated it as a\nphase of philosophic thought and reviewed the metaphysic on which the\nheresy rests.  In the present chapter its relations as a historical\nsystem of religious thought are to be exhibited.  As such, it owes much\nto outside influences.  Much in the monophysite mode of thought and\nmany of its specific doctrines can be traced either to other\necclesiastical heresies or to pagan philosophies.  The fact of this\ndouble derivation deserves to be emphasised.  It refutes the charge of\ninquisitorial bigotry, so frequently levelled against the theologians\nof the early centuries.  The non-Christian affinities of the heresy\naccount for the bitterness of the controversy to which it gave rise,\nand, in large measure, excuse the intolerance shown by both parties.\nHeresies were not domestic quarrels.  Contemporaries viewed them as\ninvolving a life and death struggle between believers and unbelievers.\nChristianity can afford to be tolerant to-day.  It has an assured\nposition.  Its tenets are defined.  Christians can almost always\ndistinguish at a glance errors that threaten the essentials of the\nFaith from those that do not.  In the fourth and fifth centuries the\ncase was otherwise.  Christianity was then one among many conflicting\nsystems of religion.  Its intellectual bases were as yet only\nimperfectly thought out.  Any doctrinal error seemed capable of\npoisoning the whole body of belief.  Heresy, so the orthodox held, was\nof the devil.  No charitable view of it was allowable.  That\nuncompromising attitude was, to a large extent, justified because many\narticles of the heretical creeds were of purely pagan origin.  Given\nsimilar conditions to-day, our easy tolerance of opinion would\ndisappear.  If Islam, for instance, were to-day a serious menace to the\nFaith, Christians would automatically stiffen their attitude towards\nmonophysite doctrines.  Toleration of the false Christology would,\nunder those circumstances, be treason to the true.  The Church of the\nfifth century was menaced from many sides.  Monophysitism was the foe\nat her gates.  That heresy was not a variety of Christianity.  It was a\nsemi-pagan theosophy, a product of Greek and oriental, as well as of\npurely Christian speculation; therefore it was anathema to the orthodox.\n\n\n\nTHE ELEMENTAL FORMS OF CHRISTOLOGICAL ERROR--DOCETISM AND EBIONITISM\n\nWe propose to begin the study of the antecedents of monophysitism by\nexamining those of a Christian or semi-Christian character.  For that\npurpose it will be necessary to give a brief sketch of the early\nheresies in so far as they bear on the Christological problem.\n\nThe two primitive forms of doctrinal error, to which the Church, even\nin apostolic days, was exposed, were docetism and ebionitism.  These\nare the elemental heresies.  All the later Christological heresies are\nrefinements of one or other of these two.  They constitute the extremes\nof Christological thought: between them runs the _via media_ of\northodoxy.  Each of the two sees but one aspect of the two-fold life of\nChrist.  Docetism lays an exclusive emphasis on His real divinity,\nebionitism on His real humanity.  Each mistakes a half truth for a\nwhole truth.\n\nThe docetists denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh.  His\nbody, they taught, was an apparition.  He ate and drank, but the\nphysical frame received no sustenance.  He appeared to suffer, but felt\nno pain.  The reality behind the semblance was the divine spirit-being,\nwho conjured up the illusion in order to elevate the thoughts of\nmankind.  This docetic theory commended itself to many of the Greek\nChristians.  They were familiar with the notion of \"the gods coming\ndown to them in the likeness of men.\"  Greek mythology abounds in\ninstances of docetic incarnations.  The gods of the popular religion\nconstantly assumed visible form during their temporary manifestations.\n\nThe ebionites threatened the Faith from the opposite quarter.  They\ntaught that Christ was real man and only man.  According to them, the\nwhole value of His life and work lay in His moral teaching and His\nnoble example; there is no mystery, no contact of divine and human in\nChrist; what He attained, we all may attain.  The ebionites were\nrecruited from the Jewish element in the Church.  The rigid monotheism\nof the Jews made it hard for them to conceive an intermediary between\nGod and man; they were naturally disposed to embrace a humanistic\nexplanation of Christ.\n\nDocetism was elaborated by Valentinus, Manes and other gnostics and\nadopted into their systems, while ebionitism provided the basis for the\nChristologies of Paul of Samosata, of the Photinians and Adoptionists.\nIn contact with these heresies orthodox beliefs, originally fluid,\ngradually hardened.  The dogma \"Christus deus et homo\" had from the\nbeginning been held in the Church.  Its full implications were not\nrealised and formulated until the conflict with error came.  The\ncontroversies of the third and fourth centuries threw into bold relief\nthe unity of the person and the perfection of the divinity and of the\nhumanity.\n\n\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION\n\nThe manner of the hypostatic union then became an urgent problem.  The\nChurch of the fifth century was called upon to attempt a solution.  Any\nreading of the Gospels compelled the recognition of divine and human\nelements in Christ; but speculative theology found it difficult to\nreconcile that fact with the equally important fact of the unity of\nperson.\n\nThe theologians of the previous century had bequeathed little or no\nguidance.  The fifth-century Christologians were pioneers in an\nunmapped region.  Athanasius' great treatises on the incarnation are\nhardly more than eloquent defences of the true deity and true humanity\nof Christ.  They contain little or no constructive Christology.  Their\ntheme is, _autos enenthropesen_, _hina hemeis theopoiethomen_.  He\nmaintains the fact, but does not deal with the \"how.\"  He uses the\nphrase \"natural union\" (_henosis physike_), but does not attempt to\ndefine the mode of that union.\n\n\n\nAPOLLINARIANISM\n\nApollinaris was, as far as we know, the first theologian to approach\nthis subject.  We may note in passing that, though he was bishop of\nLaodicea in Syria, Alexandria was his native place.  His father was an\nAlexandrian, and he himself had been a friend of Athanasius.  The fact\nof his connection with Alexandria deserves mention, because his\ndoctrine reflects the ideas of the Alexandrian school of thought, not\nthose of the Syrian.  Apollinaris set himself to attack the heretical\nview that there were two \"Sons\"--one before all time, the divine Logos,\nand one after the incarnation, Jesus Christ.  In doing so he felt\nconstrained to formulate a theory of the union of natures.  He started\nfrom the Platonic division of human nature into three parts, rational\nsoul, animal soul, and body.  He argued that in the statement \"the\nLogos became flesh,\" \"flesh\" must mean animal soul and body.  He urged\nin proof that it would be absurd to suppose the Logos conditioned by\nhuman reason; that rational soul was the seat of personality, and that\nif it were associated with the Logos, it would be impossible to avoid\nrecognising \"two Sons.\"  He expressly asserted that the humanity of\nChrist was incomplete, contending that this very defect in the human\nnature made possible the unity of His person.  According to\nApollinaris, then, the union was a composition.  The Logos superseded\nthe human reason, and was thus united to body and animal soul.\n\nApollinarianism was a form of docetism.  In ascribing imperfection to\nthe human nature of Christ it _eo ipso_ denied its reality.\nApollinaris, in fact, said of Christ's reason what the early docetists\nsaid of His body.  The system is more ingenious than convincing.  It is\nhighly artificial.  It provides no intellectual basis for a living\nfaith in an incarnate Christ.  The theory, however, was very\ninfluential in its day, and was intimately connected with the rise of\nmonophysitism.  Eutyches, the \"father of the monophysites,\" was\ncondemned by a local synod at Constantinople in A.D. 448 on the ground\nthat he was \"affected by the heresy of Valentinus and Apollinaris.\"[1]\nHarnack goes so far as to say that \"the whole position of the later\nmonophysites, thought out to all its conceivable conclusions, is\nalready to be found in Apollinaris.\"  Apollinarianism was condemned at\nthe second general council, and there the Church made her first\ndeclaration, a negative one, on the subject of the hypostatic union.\nIn conflict with the heresies which arose in the next two generations,\nshe evolved a positive statement of the truth.\n\n\n\nTHE NESTORIAN REACTION\n\nOpposition to Apollinarianism gave rise to the Nestorian heresy.  The\noriginal ebionitism had died away, but its spirit and central doctrine\nreappeared in Nestorianism.  Nestorianism might be described as\nebionitism conforming to the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople.  The\nleaders of the opposition to the Apollinarists of the fifth century\nwere their own Syrian countrymen whose headquarters was at Antioch.\nThe Antiochians differed from the Apollinarians in the starting-point\nof their Christology and in the controlling motive of their thought.\nWhile Apollinaris had constructed his Christology on the basis of the\ndoctrine of the Trinity, the Antiochians started from the formula\n\"perfect alike in deity and humanity.\"  The reasonings of Apollinaris\nwere governed by the thought of redemption.  The fundamental question\nof religion for him was, \"How can the closest union between divine and\nhuman be secured?\"  The tendency of the Antiochians, on the other hand,\nwas to neglect the interests of Soteriology and to emphasize the\nethical aspect of Christ's life and teaching.  They put in the\nbackground the idea of the all-creating, all-sustaining Logos, who took\nman's nature upon Him and in His person deified humanity.  Their\nthought centred on the historic Christ, the Christ of the evangelists.\nThey did not revert to crude ebionitism, but they explained the Nicene\ncreed from an ebionitic stand-point.  They maintained as against the\nApollinarians the completeness of Christ's human nature; with equal\nvigour they maintained the essential deity of the Logos.  The \"poverty\"\n(ebionitism) of their doctrines consisted in their paltry view of the\nhypostatic union.  The union, according to the Nestorians, was\nsubsequent to the conception of Jesus.  It was not a personal, but a\nmoral union.  It was a conjunction of two co-ordinate entities.  They\ntaught that the more the man Jesus acted in accordance with the divine\npromptings, the closer became his union with the Logos.  That is to\nsay, the union was relative not absolute.  Thus the union between\ndivine and human in Christ differed only in degree from the union of\nthe same elements in any good man.  The unity of the Son of God and the\nSon of Mary consisted solely in the identity of name, honour and\nworship.\n\n\n\nCYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA\n\nCyril, Bishop of Alexandria, led the opposition to Nestorius.  He\ndeclared that the moment of conception was the moment of the union, and\nthat the notion of incarnation involved much more than an association\nof natures.  He maintained that the incarnation was a hypostatic union\n(_henosis physike_).  He endeavoured to guard against an Apollinarian\ninterpretation of his teaching; but in this attempt he was not\naltogether successful.  He asserted the perfection of Christ's humanity\nand the distinction between the two natures.  The perfection, however,\nis compromised, and the distinction rendered purely ideal by his\nfurther statement that there were \"two natures before, but only one\nafter the union.\"  He cited in proof the words of Athanasius, \"one\nincarnate nature of God the Word.\"\n\nCyril prevailed.  Nestorius was condemned and the Antiochian school\ndiscredited.  Cyril's victory, however, was of doubtful value to\northodoxy.  His ardent but unbalanced utterances bequeathed to the\nChurch a legacy of strife.  His writings, particularly the earlier\nones, furnished the monophysites with an armoury of weapons.  His\nteaching could not with justice be styled docetic or Apollinarian, but\nits mystic tone was so pronounced that it proved a propaedeutic for\nmonophysitism.  The shibboleth of orthodoxy, quoted above, \"one\nincarnate nature of God the Word,\" passed rapidly into the watchword of\nheresy.  Athanasius had used the word \"nature\" in a broad sense.  The\nmonophysites narrowed it down to its later technical meaning.  Thus\nthey exalted Christ into a region beyond the ken of mortal man.  The\nincarnation became a mystery pure and simple, unintelligible, calling\nfor blind acceptance.  The monophysites, following Cyril, heightened\nthe mystery, but, in doing so, they eliminated the reality and the\nhuman appeal of the incarnate life.  They soon began to argue that,\nsince Christ is monophysite, the properties of deity and humanity in\nHim are interchangeable; that therefore, while yet a Babe in the\nmanger, He ruled the world with the omniscience and omnipresence of the\nLogos; that while He hanged upon the Cross, His mighty power sustained\nand ordered the universe.  The monophysites professed great jealousy\nfor the honour due to the Redeemer.  But the ascription of such\nattributes to Jesus Christ detracts from His honour.  If the nature\nthat suffered on the Cross be not distinct from the nature that cannot\nsuffer, then the Crucifixion was a sham.  Monophysitism is docetism\nelaborated.  It abandons the Christ of history.  It rules out His\n_prokope_.  It ignores a fact, vital to Christology, namely the\n_kenosis_ or divine self-limitation.  Thus it throws a veil of\nunreality over those facts on which the Christian Faith is built.\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM A PRODUCT OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE CURRENTS OF RELIGIOUS\nTHOUGHT\n\nThe foregoing sketch of the early Christological heresies exhibits\nmonophysitism as a product of two opposite intellectual currents.  A\nman's convictions are settled for him partly by acceptance, partly by\nrejection of what tradition offers or his mind evolves.  The mass mind\nworks similarly.  It accepts and rejects, approves and disallows.  The\nstabilisation of a body of mass opinions, such as a heresy, is thus\ndetermined by opposite forces.  It was so with monophysitism.  Its\nChristian antecedents comprised positive and negative currents.  The\npositive current was docetism, the negative ebionitism.  Docetism,\noriginating in apostolic times, passed through many phases, to provide,\nat the end of the fourth century, in its most refined form,\nApollinarianism, the immediate positive cause of monophysitism.\nEbionitism, related to docetism as realism to idealism, possessed equal\nvitality and equal adaptability.  It showed itself in various\nhumanistic interpretations of Christ.  Of these the most elaborate was\nNestorianism, which exerted the most insistent and immediate negative\ninfluence on the early growth of monophysitism.\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM AND NON-CHRISTIAN THOUGHT\n\nWe leave here the subject of the influence of other heresies on\nmonophysitism, and proceed to exhibit its affinities with non-Christian\nthought.  At Alexandria, the home of the heresy, two systems of\nphilosophy, the Aristotelian and the Neo-Platonist, were strongly\nrepresented.  Both of these philosophies exercised a profound influence\nupon the origins and upon the later developments of monophysite\ndoctrine.  We propose to take, first, the Aristotelian, and then the\nNeo-Platonist philosophy, elucidating those leading ideas in each on\nwhich the monophysite thinker would naturally fasten, as lending\nintellectual support to his religious views.\n\n\n\nTHE ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC\n\nAristotle was held in high estimation by the monophysite leaders,\nparticularly in the sixth and seventh centuries.  His works were\ntranslated into Syriac in the Jacobite schools.  The West owes much to\nthese translations.  For it was largely by this agency that his\nmetaphysic reached the Arabs, who transmitted it to the West in the\nMiddle Ages.\n\nThe Aristotelian logic was widely known among the monophysites.  It\nseems to have formed part of their educational curriculum.  Taken apart\nfrom the rest of the system, the logic produces a type of mind that\nrevels in subtle argumentation.  It exalts the form of thought at the\nexpense of the matter.  It had this effect on the monophysite\ntheologians.  They were trained dialecticians.  They were noted for\ntheir controversial powers, for their constant appeal to definition,\nfor the mechanical precision of their arguments.  These mental\nqualities, excellent in themselves, do not conduce to sound theology.\nFormal logic effects clarity of thought often at the expense of depth.\nIt treats thoughts as things.  Procedure, that is proper in the sphere\nof logic, is out of place in psychology and theology.  Concepts such as\nperson and nature must be kept fluid, if they are not to mislead.  If\nthey are made into hard and fast ideas, into sharply defined\nabstractions, they will be taken to represent discrete psychic\nentities, external to one another as numbers are.  The elusive, Protean\ncharacter of the inter-penetrating realities behind them will be lost\nto view.  The most signal defect of monophysite method is its\nunquestioning submission to the Aristotelian law of contradiction.  The\nintellectual training that makes men acute logicians disqualifies them\nfor dealing with the living subject.  The monophysite Christologians\nwere subtle dialecticians, but the psychology of Christ's being lay\noutside their competence.\n\n\n\nARISTOTLE'S CRITICISM OF DUALISM--A WEAPON IN THE HANDS OF THE\nMONOPHYSITES\n\nLeaving the formal element in Aristotle's system, we come to its\nmaterial content.  Some of the prominent ideas of the Aristotelian\ncosmology and psychology reappear in the heresy we are studying.  We\nshall take first the rejection of the Platonic dualism.  Aristotle's\nrepeated criticism of his master's theory of ideas is not merely\ndestructive.  It formed the starting-point for his own metaphysic.  The\nideas, he says, simply duplicate the world of existent things.  They do\nnot create things or move them; they do not explain genesis or process;\nthey merely co-exist with the ideates.  The participation which Plato's\nlater theory postulated is inadequate.  A more intimate relation is\nrequired.  The theory of ideas confronts God with a world, and leaves\nthe relation between them unformulated and inexplicable.\n\nThis criticism is of first importance for theology.  Faith as well as\nreason demands a real relation between idea and ideate.  The Christian\nstudent in the fifth century, familiar with Aristotle's criticism of\nPlato, would inevitably apply it in Christology.  Any theory of\nredemption that ascribed duality to the Redeemer would seem to him to\nbe open to the objections that Aristotle had urged against the theory\nof ideas.  The Nestorian formula, in effect, juxtaposed the ideal\nChrist and the real Jesus, and left the two unrelated.  This was\nPlatonism in Christology.  Aristotle's attack on Plato's system\nprovided a radical criticism of Nestorianism.  The monophysite\ntheologians were blind to the difference between the Nestorian position\nand that of the orthodox.  They saw that Aristotle had placed a\npowerful weapon in their hands, and they used it indifferently against\nboth opposing parties.\n\n\n\nARISTOTLE'S PSYCHOLOGY\n\nWe turn now to Aristotle's psychology.  We must give a brief sketch of\nit in order to establish the fact that the Aristotelian and the\nmonophysite science of the soul labour under the same defect.  It is a\nradical defect, namely, the almost complete absence of the conception\nof personality.  The principle of Aristotle's psychology, like that of\nhis metaphysic, is the concept of form and matter.  The soul of man\ncomes under the general ontological law.  All existence is divisible\ninto grades, the lower grade being the matter whose form is constituted\nby the next highest grade.  Thus there is a graduated scale of being,\nstarting from pure matter and rising to pure form.  The inorganic is\nmatter for the vegetable kingdom, the vegetable kingdom for the animal\nkingdom; the nutritive process is material for the sensitive, and the\nsensitive for the cognitive.  Man is an epitome of these processes.\nThe various parts of his nature are arranged in an ascending scale;\nform is the only cohesive force.  The animal soul is the form of the\nbody, born with it, growing with it, dying with it; the two are one in\nthe closest union conceivable.  Besides the soul of the body, there is,\nsays Aristotle, a soul of the soul.  This is reason, essentially\ndifferent from animal and sensitive soul.  It is not connected with\norganic function.  It is pure intellectual principle.  It is\nimmaterial, immortal, the divine element in man.  This reason is not a\nbare unity.  As it appears in human experience, it is not full-grown.\nPotentially it contains all the categories, but the potentiality must\nbe actualised.  Consequently reason subdivides into active and passive\nintellect.  The action of the former on the latter, and the response of\nthe latter to the former, constitute the development of the mind, the\neducation of the truth that is potentially present from the beginning.\n\nThis hierarchy of immaterial entities contains nothing corresponding to\nour idea of personality.  There is in it no principle that is both\nindividual and immortal.  Aristotle allows immortality only to the\nuniversal reason.  The psychic elements are condemned to perish with\nthe body.  There is no hope for the parts of the soul which are most\nintimately connected with the individual's experience.\n\nMonophysite Christology shares this fundamental defect.  The\nmonophysite thinker attempted to express the union of two natures\nwithin one experience.  But his psychology, not containing the notion\nof personality, could furnish no principle of synthesis.  An agent in\nthe background of life, to combine the multiplicity of experience, is a\n_sine qua non_ of a sound Christology.  Personality was to the\nmonophysites a _terra incognita_; and it was in large measure their\ndevotion to Aristotle's system that made them deaf to the teaching of\nthe catholic church.\n\n\n\nINTELLECTUALISM AND MYSTICISM COMPLEMENTARY SYSTEMS\n\nAfter this sketch of the Aristotelian features recognisable in\nmonophysitism, we turn to the other great pagan philosophy that\nassisted in the shaping of the heresy.  Intellectualism and mysticism\nare closely allied; the two are complementary; they are as mutually\ndependent as are head and heart.  It is not then surprising that\nmonophysitism should possess the characteristics of both these schools\nof thought.  The intellectualism of the heresy was largely due, as we\nhave shown, to the Aristotelian logic and metaphysic; its mystic\nelements derive, as we proceed to indicate, from Neo-Platonism and\nkindred theosophies.\n\nAlexandria had been for centuries the home of the mystics.  The\ngeographical position, as well as the political circumstances of its\nfoundation, destined that city to be the meeting-place of West and\nEast.  There the wisdom of the Orient met and fought and fused with\nthat of the Occident.  There Philo taught, and bequeathed to the\nNeo-Platonists much of his Pythagorean system.  There flourished for a\nwhile and died fantastic eclectic creeds, pagan theosophies\nmasquerading as Christianity.  Gnosticism was a typical product of the\ncity.  Valentinus and Basilides and the other gnostics made in that\ncosmopolitan atmosphere their attempts to reconcile Christianity with\nGreek and oriental thought.  There Ammonius Saccas, after his lapse\nfrom the Christian faith, taught and laid the foundation of\nNeo-Platonism.  Plotinus was the greatest of his disciples, and, though\nhe taught at Rome for most of his life, it was in the spirit of\nAlexandria that he wrought his absolute philosophy, the full-orbed\nsplendour of the setting sun of Greek thought.  Neo-Platonism did not\ndie with Plotinus.  In the middle of the fifth century, when\nmonophysitism was at its zenith, Proclus was fashioning an intellectual\nmachinery to express the Plotinian system.  The story of Hypatia\nevidences the dominant position of Neo-Platonism in Alexandrian\nculture.  The violence of Cyril's measures against her shows what a\nmenace to the Church that philosophy was.  Cyril was not a monophysite,\nbut much that he said and did promoted their cause.  Dioscurus, his\nnephew and successor in the see of Alexandria, championed monophysitism\nat the council of Chalcedon.  In later generations Alexandria always\noffered an asylum to exiled monophysite leaders.\n\nThese facts render it impossible to regard the connection between\nAlexandria and monophysitism as fortuitous.  They further suggest that\nNeo-Platonism was the connecting link.  Such in fact it was.\nMonophysitism, we might almost say, was Neo-Platonism in Christian\ndress.  The ethos of the two systems is the same, and the doctrinal\nresemblance is marked.  It was natural that the home of pagan mysticism\nshould cradle the kindred system of heretical Christian mysticism.\n\n\n\nNEO-PLATONIST ONTOLOGY\n\nThe representative figure amongst the Neo-Platonists is Plotinus.  His\ncomprehensive mind gathered up the main threads of Alexandrian thought,\nand wove them into the fabric of a vast speculative system.  The system\nis as much a religion as a philosophy.  It is the triumph of\nuncompromising monism.  The last traces of dualism have been\neradicated.  God, for Plotinus, is true being and the only being.  He\nis all and in all.  God is an impersonal Trinity, comprising the One,\nthe cosmic reason and the cosmic soul.  The One is primal, ineffable,\nbehind and beyond all human experience.  All we know of Him is that He\nis the source and union of reason and soul.  Creation is effected by a\ncontinuous series of emanations from God.  Emanation is not an\narbitrary act of divine will; it is a necessary consequence of the\nnature of the One.  God must negate Himself, and the process is\ncreation.  The further the process of negation is carried, the less\nreality does the created object possess.  Last in the scale comes\nmatter, which has no self-subsistence, but is the absolute\nself-negation of God.  We referred in the last chapter to Plotinus'\nfavourite illustration.  We may be allowed, perhaps, to repeat it here.\nAs light, he says, issues from the sun and grows gradually dimmer,\nuntil it passes by imperceptible degrees into the dark, so reason\nemanates from God and, passing through the phases of nature, loses its\nessence gradually in its procession, until finally it is derationalised\nand becomes its opposite.\n\n\n\nNEO-PLATONIST PSYCHOLOGY\n\nHuman souls are at an intermediate stage of this cosmic process.  Like\nthe ray of light which touches both sun and earth, they have contact\nwith God and with matter.  They stand midway in creation.  They are\nattracted upwards and downwards.  Reason draws them to God; sense\nchains them to earth.  Their position decides their duty.  (Here the\nphilosophy becomes a religion).  The duty of man is to break the\nsensuous chains and set the soul free to return to its home in God.\nThis return of the soul to God is attained by the path of knowledge.\nThe knowledge that frees is not speculative; for such enhances\nself-consciousness.  It is immediate consciousness indistinguishable\nfrom unconsciousness.  It is intuitive knowledge.  It is vision in\nwhich the seer loses himself, and what sees is the same as what is\nseen.  It is the absorption of the soul in the world reason, and so\nwith God.\n\nThe Neo-Platonist took practical steps to attain this mystic state.  He\nsubmitted to rule and discipline.  By mortification of the flesh he\nendeavoured to weaken sensuous desire.  The arts of theurgy were\nemployed to wean the mind from sensuous knowledge, and to fix\naspiration on unseen realities.  Contemplation and self-hypnotism were\nwidely practised.  In ecstasy the mystic found a foretaste of that\nblissful loss of being, which is the goal and crown of philosophic\nthought.\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM AND NEO-PLATONISM\n\nWhen we compare monophysitism with the system of Plotinus, several\npoints of resemblance appear.  There is first the impersonal character\nof the deity.  Monophysitism was not a Trinitarian heresy, and the\nCatholic doctrine of the three persons in the godhead was the official\ncreed of the heretical church.  But their theologians refrained from\nlaying emphasis upon the distinct personalities of Father, Son and Holy\nGhost.  Their sympathies were Sabellian to the core, and Sabellian\nheresies were constantly recurring within their communion.  The\nimpersonal Trinity, such as Plotinus taught, was thoroughly in keeping\nwith their Christology.  They lacked a clear conception of personality\nin the second Person of the Trinity.  It was inevitable that they\nshould overlook the same element in the incarnate Christ.\n\nThe Neo-Platonic view of matter finds its counterpart in monophysite\ntheory.  The monophysites, without formally denying its real existence,\nnursed a Manichean suspicion of it.  It was, to them, the seat of\nillusion; it was an obstacle to spirit, the enemy of spiritual\ndevelopment.  If not unreal, it was at any rate unworthy.  The\nassociation of Christ with matter through His body and through His\nhuman nature was, in their eyes, a degradation of deity.  That Christ\ntook matter up into His being as a permanent element, that He dignified\nthe body and glorified human faculties, these facts seemed to the\nmonophysite mind improbable, and, if true, devoid of religious\nsignificance.  It came natural to him to explain Christ's body as a\nphantom.  He was prepared to regard the human nature as unsubstantial.\nThe mystic's view of matter, of sense and human existence characterises\nthe whole monophysite outlook.\n\nIn the spirit of Plotinus the monophysites conceived the incarnation as\nthe supreme example of the _unio mystica_.  The _unio mystica_ was a\nstate of rapture, abnormal and temporary in earthly experience, in\nwhich the identity of the mystic was actually merged in the cosmic\nreason.  The lower nature disappeared completely into the higher.  It\nwas absorption.  This word \"absorption\" was in common use among the\nheretics.  It was a trite saying among the first generation of the\nmonophysites that \"the human nature of Christ was absorbed in the\ndivine, as a drop of honey in the ocean.\"  They conceived His thought\nas lost in the universal reason, His will as surrendered to the will of\nGod, His human affections as fused in the fire of divine feeling, His\nbody as a phantom.  They could not admit that He lived the real life of\na real man.  They could not see the value of such a life.\nNeo-Platonism had paralysed their optic nerve.  Thinkers such as the\nChristologians of Alexandria, imbued with the spirit of Neo-Platonism,\nhad no motive for preserving the distinct subsistence of Christ's human\nnature.  It was their boast that their Ideal had faced and overcome and\ntrampled on the lower elements of His being.  He was a proof from fact\nthat body and sense and all that is distinctively human could be\nsublimated into the universal substance, which is the primary effluence\nof the Plotinian One.  In a word, the incarnate Christ was, to them,\nthe personification of the Neo-Platonist _unio mystica_.\n\nWe may conclude this comparison of monophysitism with Neo-Platonism by\npointing out that the two systems had a similar bearing on the conduct\nof life.  Neo-Platonism was a religion.  Its speculative aspect was\nsubordinate to its practical.  A knowledge of the soul's position in\ncreation and of its destiny laid the philosopher under strict\nobligation.  Fasting and self-denial were essential preliminaries to\nthe higher mystic practices.  Ecstasy could not be reached until body\nand sense had been starved into complete submission.  Monophysitism\nadopted this tradition, and made ascesis the central duty of the\nChristian life.  The monophysite church became celebrated for the\nlength and rigidity of its fasts.  The monastic element dominated its\ncommunion.  Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that the monophysite\nmovement, on its external side, was an attempt to capture the Church\nfor monastic principles.  The heresy drew its inspiration from the\ncloister.  The Christ of the monophysites had withdrawn from the market\nto the wilderness; so His followers must needs go out of the world to\nfollow in His steps.\n\n\n\n[1] Harnack, \"History of Dogma,\" vol. iv. chap. ii. p. 160.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nMONOPHYSITE DOCTRINE\n\nThe distinctive doctrine of monophysitism, that from which the name of\nthe heresy is taken, is the assertion that there is but one nature, the\ndivine nature, in Christ.  There existed some difference of opinion\namong the monophysites as to whether any degree of reality might be\nascribed to the human nature.  Some were prepared to allow it\nconceptual reality; they would grant that Christ had been diphysite\nmomentarily, that He was \"out of two natures.\"  But that admission is\nquite inadequate.  It amounts to no more than the paltry concession\nthat Christ's human nature before the incarnation is conceivable as a\nseparate entity.  All monophysites united in condemning the diphysite\ndoctrine that after the incarnation Christ was and is \"in two natures.\"\nSuch a Christ they would not worship.  It was \"the image with two faces\nthat the Council of Chalcedon had set up.\"[1]  They adopted the\nAthanasian phrase, \"One incarnate nature of God the Word,\" as their\nbattle-cry.\n\nMonophysitism can make out a strong _prima facie_ case.  It is\nattractive at first sight.  The heretical formula seems simpler and\nmore natural than the catholic.  The unity of nature appears a\ncorollary of the unity of person.  Human personality is ordinarily\nassumed to be monophysite; so it is natural to make the same assumption\nas to divine personality.  The simplicity of the doctrine is, however,\nall on the surface.  It will not bear examination.  As a definition of\nChristian faith it is useless.  It cannot account for the recorded\nfacts of Christ's life.  The facts of His body, of His mind, of His\nsufferings refuse to fit into it.  It affords no foundation for belief\nin His transcendent work.  No intelligible doctrine of redemption can\nbe built upon it.  It contains no germ of hope for mankind.  Therefore\nthe Church in the name of Christ and on behalf of humanity rejected it.\n\nAlthough the heresy has been officially condemned, it should none the\nless be studied.  It is improbable that any one in our time will defend\nthe formula, or openly profess the doctrines that follow from it.  But,\nthough not recognised as such, it is an ever-present and instant menace\nto the Faith.  Monophysite tendencies are inherent in religious\nthought.  The metaphysical idea, on which it rests, still has a\npowerful hold over the human mind.  Spiritually-minded men are\nespecially liable to this form of error.  It is a mistake to think that\nChristological questions were settled once and for all in the fifth\ncentury.  Each generation has to settle them afresh.  Accordingly, to\nexhibit the consequences of the monophysite formula, to show how wrong\nabstract ideas develop into wrong concrete ideas and falsify Christian\npractice, is a task of practical and present-day importance.\n\n\n\nCLASSIFICATION OF MONOPHYSITE ERRORS\n\nTwo classes of erroneous beliefs result from a misconception of the\nrelation between God and man in Christ.  There arise, on the one hand,\nfalse opinions about the deity of Christ, and on the other, false\nopinions as to His manhood.  We shall adopt this classification as we\ninvestigate the doctrinal consequences of the monophysite formula.  It\nis the method followed in one of the earliest systematic criticisms of\nthe heresy.  Leo's Tome, or letter to Flavian, contains a lucid\nstatement of the catholic doctrine of the incarnation, and an acute\nanalysis of the system of Eutyches, the heresiarch.  He summarises the\nerrors of Eutyches under two heads; there are two main counts in his\nindictment of the heresy.  Eutyches, he contends, makes Jesus Christ\n\"deus passibilis et homo falsus.\"  Eutyches and his followers\ncompromised both deity and humanity.  The deity becomes passible, the\nhumanity unreal.  All the monophysite misbeliefs can be classified\nunder one or other of these two heads.\n\n\n\nTHE CONCEPT \"IMPASSIBILITY\" AS APPLIED TO DEITY\n\nWe shall take first those errors that compromise the nature of the\ndeity, and shall preface our analysis by an explanation of the meaning\nof the term \"deus impassibilis.\"  The impassibility of God is the\ncorner-stone of spiritual monotheism.  Christianity owes it, as a\nphilosophic doctrine, largely to Aristotle.  He conceived deity as\n\"actus purus,\" as the One who moves without being moved, a \"causa sui.\"\nThe popular gods of Greece were passible; they were possible objects of\nsense; they were acted on largely as man is acted on.  They had a\nbeginning, and were subject to many of the processes of time.  They\nwere swayed by human motives.  They were, at times, angry, afraid,\nunsatisfied, ambitious, jealous.  Aristotle gave to the world the\nconception of a transcendent God, a being who is real and yet is\n\"without body, parts and passions,\" who cannot receive idolatrous\nworship, and is not an object of sense.  Impassibility was one of the\nhighest attributes of this being.  The attribute does not involve or\nimply absence of feeling.  Originally it had no reference to feeling,\nin the psychological sense of that word.  It certainly excludes\nincidentally the lower, specifically human feelings, feelings caused by\nexternal stimuli, feelings due to want or to lack of power.  It does\nnot exclude the higher affections from the deity.  Even in the _noesis\nnoeseos_ of Aristotle, there is room for the transcendent bliss of\ndivine self-contemplation.  Much more in the Christian God is there\nroom for spontaneous feeling, springing from His own nature, the\nnecessary concomitant of thought and will.  Impassibility is a\ncomprehensive attribute.  Originally negative, it soon acquired a rich\npositive connotation.  An impassible God is one who is outside space\nand time.  The attribute connotes creative power, eternity, infinity,\npermanence.  A passible God is corruptible, _i.e._ susceptible to the\nprocesses of becoming, change, and decay.  If to-day theists have to be\non their guard against debased conceptions of deity, in the plausible\ngarb of an \"invisible king,\" of a finite or suffering God, much more\nwas such caution necessary in the early centuries of the Christian era.\nChristians who came daily and hourly into contact with polytheistic\nbeliefs and practices had to be very jealous for the concept of\nimpassibility.  It represented to them all that was distinctive in the\nhighest region of their Faith.\n\nMonophysitism, as we proceed to show, compromised this article of the\nFaith.  Its adherents did not, perhaps, do so intentionally.  In fact,\nthe first generation of monophysites maintained that their definition\nsafeguarded the impassibility.  It was zeal for the honour of the Son\nof God that induced them to deny Him all contact with humanity.  Their\ngood intentions, however, could not permanently counteract the evil\ninherent in their system.  In later generations the evil came to the\nsurface.  Theopaschitism, the doctrine that openly denies the\nimpassibility of the godhead, flourished in the monophysite churches.\n\n\n\nMONISM ENTAILS A DEBASED CONCEPTION OF DEITY\n\nThe metaphysical basis of monophysitism made this result inevitable.\nExtremes meet.  Extreme spirituality readily passes into its opposite.\nIt cuts the ground from under its own feet.  It soars beyond its\npowers, and falls into the mire of materialism.  Illustrations of this\nfact can be found in the history of philosophy.  The Stoics, for\ninstance, contrived to be both pantheists and materialists.  Coming\nnearer to our own time, we find Hegelianism explained in diametrically\nopposite ways.  After Hegel's death his disciples split into opposing\ncamps; one party maintained that the real was spirit, the other that it\nwas matter.  Each party claimed the authority of the master for their\nview.  The divergence is easy to explain.  From spiritual monism it is\na short step to materialistic monism.  For the monist, all is on one\nlevel of being.  He may by constant effort keep that level high.  But\ngravity will act.  We are more prone to degrade God to our level, than\nto rise to His.  The same truth can be put _in abstracto_.  Unless the\nrelation between God and the world be preserved as a true relation, the\nhigher term will sooner or later fall to the level of the lower, and be\nlost in it.  This rule holds as well in movements of religious thought.\nThe monophysite strove for a lofty conception of deity but achieved a\nlow one.  He undermined the doctrine of impassibility by the very\nmeasures he took to secure it.\n\nIn the technical language of Christology the monophysites' debased\nconception of deity was a consequence of \"confounding the natures.\"\nAttributes and actions, belonging properly only to Christ's humanity,\nwere ascribed recklessly to His divinity.  The test phrase \"theotokos,\"\ninvaluable as a protest against Nestorianism, became a precedent for\nall sorts of doctrinal extravagancies.  The famous addition to the\nTrisagion, \"who wast crucified for us,\" which for a time won\nrecognition as sound and catholic, was first made by the monophysite\nBishop of Antioch.[2]  Both these phrases have scriptural authority,\nand they are justified by the _communicatio idiomatum_.  But they are\nliable to misuse and misinterpretation.  All depended on how they were\nsaid and who said them.  The monophysite meant one thing by them, the\ncatholic another.  The _arriere pensee_ of the monophysite gave them a\nwrong turn.  He was always on the look-out for paradox in Christ's\nlife.  He emphasised such phrases as appeared to detract from the\nreality of His human experiences.  He spoke of Christ as \"ruling the\nuniverse when He lay in the manger,\" or as \"directing the affairs of\nnations from the Cross.\"  The catholic can approve these phrases; in\nthe mouth of a monophysite they have a heretical sound.  They suggest a\npassible God; they degrade the infinite to the level of the finite.\nThe monophysite confounds the natures, and so he has no right to appeal\nto the _communicatio idiomatum_.  Unless the _idiomata_ are admitted as\nsuch, unless they are preserved in their distinctness, there can be no\n_communicatio_ between them.  If they are fused, they cannot act and\nreact upon each other.  The monophysite, by identifying the natures,\nforfeits the right to use the term \"Theotokos\" and the Trisagion\naddition.  On his lips their inevitable implication is a finite\nsuffering God.\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY\n\nMonophysitism was not originally or _per se_ a Trinitarian heresy.\nEqually with catholics and Nestorians its adherents accepted the Nicene\ndefinition.  They professed to believe in one God in three co-equal\npersons.  This belief, firmly held in all that it involves, would have\nkept them from attributing passibility to the Godhead, and ultimately\nhave neutralised the errors of their Christology.  But their\nChristology corrupted their theology.  Abandoning all vital relation\nbetween God and man in Christ, they abandoned the relation in the\nGodhead.  The internal and external relations of the Godhead are\nmutually dependent.  If there be no trinity of persons, the incarnation\nis impossible.  Were God a bare monad, He could not impart Himself and\nremain Himself.  The fact that there are related persons in the deity\nis the only justification for the use of the phrases discussed in the\nprevious paragraph.  When the catholic says, \"God was born, suffered,\ndied,\" he is right, because his presupposition is right.  When the\nmonophysite uses the same words, he is wrong, because his\npresupposition is wrong.  The catholic preserves in the background of\nhis thought the distinction between the _ousia_ and the threefold\n_hypostasis_, between the essential godhead and the three persons.  So\nhe is in no danger of ascribing passion to the essence or to the\npersons of Father or Holy Spirit.  When he says \"God was born,\" he is\ncompressing two statements into one.  He means \"Christ was born, and\nChrist was God.\"  Not in respect of what He has in common with the\nother persons of the Trinity, but in respect of His property of sonship\ndid He lower Himself to the plane of suffering.  The catholic holds not\na suffering God, but a suffering divine person.  He maintains an\nimpassible God, but a passible Christ.  A dead God is a contradiction\nin terms; a Christ who died is the hope of humanity.\n\nMonophysite theology became involved in further embarrassments.\nUnwillingness to attribute passibility to God, coupled with the desire\nto remain in some sort trinitarians, forced many of the monophysites\ninto the Sabellian position.  Deity, they said in effect, did not\nsuffer in the second person of the trinity, because there is no such\nperson.  The persons of the trinity are simply characters assumed by\nthe monadic essence, or aspects under which men view it.  On this\nshowing, the Logos, who was incarnate, had no personal subsistence.\nThe relation between God and man ever remains impersonal.  Christ,\n_qua_ divine, was only an aspect or effluence of deity.  This, for the\nmonophysite, was the one alternative to the doctrine of a passible God.\nHe was faced with a desperate dilemma.  If he retained his belief in a\ntranscendent God, he must surrender belief in a triune God.  He could\nchoose between the two; but his Christology permitted no third choice.\nFor him, the only alternative to a finite God was a lone God.  As a\nresult monophysite theology oscillated between denial of the\nimpassibility of God and denial of his three-fold personality.  In\neither case the orthodox doctrine of the godhead was abandoned.\n\nOne of the stock questions propounded by the catholics to the\nmonophysites was, \"Was the trinity incomplete when the Son of God was\non earth?\"  The question is crudely expressed, as it ignores the type\nof existence proper to spiritual personality; but it contains a\nsufficiently sound _ad hominem_ argument.  The monophysite could not\nsay \"yes,\" or he would then be driven to assert a passible God.  If he\nsaid \"no,\" his reply was tantamount to the assertion that the whole\nessence of the Godhead was incarnate.  The logic of this dilemma was so\ncogent that not a few monophysites succumbed to it, and adopted a\nposition similar to that of the earlier Patripassianists.  These\nseceded from the monophysite church, and founded an independent sect,\ncalled the Theopaschites.  As often happens, the sect is, doctrinally,\nmore representative than the parent body.  The Theopaschites were the\nthinkers who had the courage to push the monophysite doctrines to their\nlogical conclusions.  Those who did not secede, unable to defend their\nown doctrinal position, retaliated with the counter-charge of\ntetratheism.  This stroke was simply a confession of weakness.  Monism\nwas strangling their Christianity at every turn.  Instead of breaking\nfree from it, they pretended that their opponents were polytheists.\nThe catholic, however, was neither monist nor pluralist.  The\nincarnation was not the addition of a fourth divine being to the\ntrinity.  The essence of the godhead remained complete, unchanged and\nimpassible; while the hypostatic union of God and man in Christ made\npossible the assumption of a passible nature by the person of the Son\nof God.\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM AND ISLAM--SABELLIANISM THE CONNECTING LINK\n\nIt is in place here to point out the somewhat intimate connection that\nexisted between monophysitism and Islam.  The monophysites held the\noutposts of the Empire.  Mahomet came into contact with them, and it\nwas probably from them that he formed his conception of Christian\ndoctrine.  The later history of the monophysite churches shows that\nthey often secured a large measure of toleration at the hands of the\nCaliphs, while the diphysites were being rigorously persecuted.  Lapses\nto Islam were not infrequent, and in some periods apostasy on a large\nscale occurred.  Cases are on record even of monophysite patriarchs who\nabjured their faith and joined the followers of the Prophet.  The\nconnection between monophysitism and Islam was not fortuitous.  There\nwas a doctrinal affinity between them.  Both systems were rigidly\nmonotheistic.  Both degraded the notion of deity by a perverse attempt\nto exalt it.  Both cut redemption and mediation out of their religion.\n\nThe family likeness between the two systems does not extend beyond the\nrealm of the doctrine of supreme deity.  In other respects the religion\nof the sword and the religion of love have little or nothing in common.\nCrescent and Cross are poles asunder.  The monophysites as a body\nremained nominally and in intention Christians and trinitarians.  But\nin the doctrinal area specified the resemblance holds.  It could hardly\nbe otherwise.  Sabellian tendencies were always present and powerful in\nthe monophysite communion, and Sabellianism is a long step in the\ndirection of Islam.  Sabellius taught in effect, \"Allah is one.\"  The\nthree persons, for him, were only aspects of the one indivisible deity.\nThere are no distinct entities corresponding to the names of Father,\nSon and Holy Spirit.  Sabellianism is intimately associated with monism\nin all its phases.  Monophysitism being essentially monist could not\nescape the taint.  Whether Sabellianism made the heretics monophysites,\nor monophysitism made them Sabellians, we need not inquire.  The two\ncreeds are bound up in the same bundle by the tie of monism.  The\nrelation of the Son to the Father and the relation of the Son to\nhumanity are vitally connected.  Misconception of the one relation\nentails misconception of the other.  Denial of relation in the godhead\ngoes hand in hand with denial of relation in Christ.  If the theologian\nreduces the latter to bare unity, he does the same for the former.\nCatholic Christology is thus a necessary deduction from trinitarian\ndogma.  Nicaea necessitated Chalcedon.  To safeguard the distinction of\npersons in the godhead, a distinction in the natures of Christ was\nessential.  To preserve intact the latter distinction, the proprium of\nthe Son and His personal subsistence had to be kept distinct from the\nproprium and subsistence of the Father.\n\n\n\nTHE CHRISTOLOGICAL ERRORS OF MONOPHYSITISM\n\nWe leave here the area of theology and come to that of Christology.  We\nhave exhibited the monophysite errors with respect to the doctrine of\nprimal deity; we now proceed to analyse their views with respect to the\nincarnate Christ.  The former subject leads the thinker into deep\nwater; the layman is out of his depth in it; so it does not furnish\nmaterial for a popular controversy.  It is otherwise with the latter\nsubject.  Here the issue is narrowed to a point.  It becomes a question\nof fact, namely, \"Was Christ a real man?\"  The question and most of the\nanswers given to it are readily intelligible, and they naturally gave\nrise to heated controversy.  Theopaschitism is, as we have shown, a\ntendency inherent in the heresy, but one slow to come to the surface,\nand one easily counter-acted and suppressed by the personal piety of\nthe monophysite.  Its docetism, the assertion of the unreality of\nChrist's human nature, lies on the surface.  No amount of personal\npiety can neutralise it.  It has had, and still has, a crippling effect\non the faith of devout Christians.  Even where it is not carried to the\nlength of formal heresy, it spreads a haze of unreality over the gospel\nstory, and dulls the edge of belief.\n\nThe second count of Leo's charge against the monophysites was, it will\nbe remembered, that their presentation of Christ made Him \"homo\nfalsus.\"  Under this heading \"homo falsus\" may be classed a wide group\nof erroneous tenets, ranging from the crudities of early docetism to\nthe subtleties of Apollinarianism.  We propose to sketch those of major\nimportance.  No attempt will be made to take them in their historical\norder or historical setting.  Further, it is not implied that they all\nformed part of the official doctrine of the monophysite church.  The\nstandard of belief in that communion was constantly varying, and the\nhistory of its dogma would need a work to itself.  We shall deal with\nthose Christological errors, which, whether part of the official\nmonophysite creed or not, are logical results of the monophysite\nformula.\n\nUnreality may be predicated of Christ's human nature as a whole, or in\nrespect of its parts.  Consubstantiality with humanity may be denied of\nthe whole of his human nature; or deficiency in one or other of the\nessential constituents of human nature may be alleged.  We shall deal\nfirst with those errors that concern the entire nature, coming later to\nthe errors in respect of one or more of its several parts.\n\nSuspicion of the reality of Christ's human nature as a whole is\ncharacteristic of all monophysite thought.  This suspicion, not always\nformulated or expressed, is everywhere present.  If the monophysites\nadmitted the fact of His true manhood, they denied or neglected the\nreligious value of that fact.  Their spurious spirituality rebelled\nagainst a dogma which seemed to tie the infinite down to a point in\nhistory.  The fact that the Son of God lived a perfect human life\ncontained no inspiration for them.  They idealised the incarnation.  It\nwas not for them a historical event.  This is a corollary to the\nproposition, maintained by their great champion, Philoxenus, that \"no\naddition to His person took place.\"  It is tantamount to saying that\nthe union of divine and human in Christ is purely conceptual.  When the\nmonophysite faced the question, \"What change in Christ did the\nincarnation effect?\" his formula constrained him to reply, \"It made no\nchange.\"  The deity of the person was not denied.  The pre-existent\nLogos and the Christ who walked in Galilee were admittedly one and the\nsame.  The second person of the trinity and Jesus of Nazareth were one\npersonality.  If Bethlehem made no change in that personality, it was\npurposeless, and the import of the incarnation disappears.\n\n\n\nTHE MONOPHYSITE THEORY OF A COMPOSITION OF NATURES\n\nFor the consistent monophysites, then, the human nature, as a psychic\nentity with peculiar properties, did not survive the incarnation.  They\ndid, however, allow it a verbal reality.  They admitted a composition\nof natures, and this composition provided for them whatever degree of\nreality the incarnation possessed.  On this point their Christology\npassed through several stages of development, the later stages showing\nprogressive improvement on the earlier.  They distinguished three\nsenses of the word \"composition.\"  First, they said, it might mean\n\"absorption,\" as when a drop of water is absorbed in a jar of wine.\nSecond, it might imply the transmutation of constituent particles, as\nwhen a third unlike thing is formed from two.  Thirdly, there is\ncomposition when, from the association of two whole and entire things,\na third whole and entire compound thing is formed without loss to the\ncomponents.  They illustrated the third mode of composition by the\nunion in man of soul and body.  The pre-Eutychian monophysites regarded\nthe hypostatic union as a composition in the first sense of the word.\nThey spoke of Christ's human nature as absorbed in the divine, as is \"a\ndrop of vinegar in the ocean.\"  Eutyches adopted the term in its second\nsense.  He taught that the Word became flesh[3] \"as the atmosphere\nassumes bodily form and becomes rain or snow under the influence of the\nwind, and as water becomes ice by reason of the cold air.\"  Philoxenus\nin a later generation saw that both these positions were wrong and the\nsimiles misleading.  He taught a hypostatic union totally devoid of\nconfusion or loss or commutation of the elements of the two natures.\nTo illustrate his meaning he used the simile supplied by the\n\"Athanasian\" creed, \"as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so\nGod and Man is one Christ.\"  This position is a vast improvement on\nthat of the original monophysites.  It was ground gained to secure the\nadmission that in any sense Christ was very man.  But the monophysites\nnever learned the true manner of the union, namely, that Christ was\n\"one; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the\nManhood into God; one altogether; not by confusion of Substance but by\nunity of Person.\"\n\nRead in this connection the assertion that God and man is one Christ,\n\"as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man,\" is orthodox; read apart\nfrom this context, it is ambiguous.  If the simile be kept as a simile,\nas a mere suggestion or hint as to how, in general, two may compose one\nand yet remain two, then no exception can be taken to it.  If, however,\nthe clause be interpreted as a proportion sum, assigning corresponding\nvalues to the different terms, then it savours strongly of\nApollinarianism.  Most monophysites, like many moderns, probably\nunderstood it in the mathematical sense.  Christ, they argued, was God\nand man, just as man is rational soul and body; the terms are in\nproportion; therefore the divine nature was the rational soul, and the\nhuman nature was the body.  They forgot that the free act of the whole\ndivine person in assuming man underlies the union and makes it\nefficacious; they gave _sarx_; the narrow meaning of _soma_, they set\nbefore themselves the picture, not of the infinite robing in the\nfinite, but of the union of mind and matter.  Consequently they\nhabitually spoke of the Logos, as assuming, not man or a human nature,\nbut a body.\n\nSuch in its varying phases was the monophysite doctrine of composition.\nAt its worst, it contained a direct denial of the real humanity of\nChrist.  At its best, it falls far short of the catholic doctrine of\nHis real, perfect and complete humanity.  The permanent assumption of\nhuman nature into the transcendent personality had no meaning for the\nheretic party.  If it had taken place, it was, they thought, merely\nmomentary, with no after-effects, the passing of a summer cloud across\nthe face of the sun.\n\nWe have considered the monophysites' view of Christ's human nature,\nregarded as an integral psychic entity.  It is evident that they either\nundervalued it or denied its existence.  The more consistent thinkers\nof their party maintained that the incarnation had made no difference\nin the being of Christ, and that therefore His human nature had no\nobjective reality.  Those who shrank from carrying the doctrine to that\nlength conceded to the orthodox that the incarnation had to some extent\nmodified the being of Christ, that its net result was a composition.\nFurther analysis showed that this concession was rendered nugatory;\nthat in whatever sense the word \"composition\" was taken, it was\ninadequate to express the hypostatic union; that the composition proved\nin its first significance illusory, in its second, hybridous, in its\nthird, Apollinarianist.  We pass on now to review the human nature in\nits constituent parts, and it will be seen that the heretical formula\nundermines faith in respect of each several part.\n\n\n\nTHE \"PARTS\" OF HUMAN NATURE\n\nFrom the standpoint of psychology human nature is divisible into parts.\nThe division must not be taken as absolute; for the whole is a unity,\nand the parts are not discrete _quanta_.  The division is rather a\nclassification of psychic states according to predominating features.\nThe classification corresponds, however, to the facts of experience,\nand so psychology is justified in making use of it.  We shall adopt it\nin our investigation of the psychology of Christ.  The sharpest\ndividing line is that between immaterial and material, between soul and\nbody.  The states of the soul fall into three well-marked groups,\nthought, will, and feeling.  The physical and the psychic are not\nalways distinguishable.  Still more uncertain and tentative is the\nidentification in the psychic of cognitive, volitional, and emotional\nfaculties.  But in every man these parts are found.  They are\nconstituents of human nature.  There may be other elements as yet\nunanalysed; but there can be no complete humanity that is deficient in\nrespect of any of these parts.  We propose to take them singly in the\nabove order, to show their existence in the historic Christ, and to\nexpose the monophysite attempts to explain them away.\n\n\n\nCHRIST'S BODY\n\nIt is obvious to an unprejudiced reader of the gospels that Christ's\npre-resurrection body was real and normal.  It was an organism of flesh\nand blood, of the same constitution and structure as ours.  It occupied\nspace, and was ordinarily subject to the laws of space.  It was visible\nand tangible.  It shared the natural processes of birth, growth, and\nmetabolism.  At the resurrection a catastrophic change took place in\nit.  It was still a body.  It was still Christ's body.  Continuity was\npreserved.  The evidences of continuity were external, and so strong as\nto convince doubters.  We cannot fathom either the change or the\ncontinuity.  What we know is that after the resurrection the body was\nnot so subject as before to the laws of space.  It was, it would seem,\nof finer atoms and subtler texture.  It had reached the height of\nphysical being, and development apparently had ceased.  It was the\nentelechy of the human body.  It was still real, though no longer\nnormal.  To employ paradox, it was natural of the species\n\"supernatural.\"  It was the natural body raised to a higher power.  It\nwas natural to human denizens of a higher world.  Body's function is\ntwo-fold.  It both limits the soul and expresses it.  It narrows the\nactivity of the person to a point, and thus serves as a fine instrument\nfor action upon matter.  At the same time it draws out the\npotentialities of the soul and fixes its development.  The\npost-resurrection body was apparently less limitative and more\nexpressive.\n\nThe foregoing considerations may be summed up in the form of three\ndogmata, all of which orthodox Christianity teaches.  These are, first,\nthat Christ's pre-resurrection body was real and natural; second, that\nHis resurrected and ascended body is real and supernatural; third, that\nthere was a real continuity, whether by development or by epigenesis\nbetween the two.  In all these points the monophysites missed the\ntruth.  Their presuppositions misled them.  As monists they were\ninclined to regard matter as sinful.  They could not conceive the\ninfinite donning a soiled robe.  \"Our body with its hateful wants\"\ncould not, they thought, be a tabernacle for the Logos.  The idea of\nthe native dignity of the human frame and of its being ennobled by the\nKing's indwelling was completely foreign to the monophysites' ways of\nthinking.\n\nSince such was the background of their thought it was inevitable that\ndefinitely heretical doctrines should result.  In the first place we\nmeet the flat denial of the reality of Christ's body.  Even in\napostolic days those who held this heresy were found.  They denied that\nChrist had come in the flesh.  They were styled docetists or\nphantasiasts.  According to them the body had no objective reality.  It\nwas a phantom.  Its reality was entirely subjective.  It was the effect\nproduced on the perceptions of those who associated with the mysterious\nspirit-being.  The Logos, as viewed by the phantasiasts, at the\nincarnation struck His being into the bounds of time, but not of space.\nDivine personality, they thought, did not require and could not use a\nmaterial medium.  This doctrine was not part of the official\nmonophysite creed; but, as pointed out in the previous chapter,\nmonophysitism was a lineal descendant of docetism, and always showed\ntraces of its lineage.  The saying that, \"Christ brought His body from\nheaven,\" was commonly attributed to Eutyches.  He denied having said\nit, but, at any rate, the general feeling of his followers was that\nChrist's physical nature was divine and therefore not consubstantial\nwith ours.\n\nSuch doctrines destroy the discipline of faith in the resurrection.\nThe radical difference between the natural and the resurrection body is\nblurred by them.  The immense change is abolished.  The resurrection\nbecomes purely a spiritual change, which even a non-Christian could\naccept.  The body, according to the tenor of monophysite teaching, was\nspirit before the resurrection and spirit after it.  Thus the ascension\ntoo becomes purely spiritual.  It is shorn of half its significance.\nThe Christian's hope for the human body rests on the fact that Christ\nreturned to heaven with something that He did not bring from heaven,\nnamely, a glorified human body.  If He brought that body with Him from\nheaven, the main significance of His human dispensation falls to the\nground.  The incarnation becomes unreal, illusory, impotent.\n\nAn offshoot of docetism that flourished among the monophysites is the\naphthartodocetic heresy.  This is of considerable historical\nimportance.  Large numbers of the Syrian and Egyptian monophysites\nembraced it, and seceded from the parent church.  It became part of the\nofficial creed of Armenian Christianity, and that church has not\nrepudiated it to this day.  There are good, though hardly conclusive,\ngrounds for holding that the emperor Justinian, profound theologian and\nlife-long champion of orthodoxy, was converted to the heretical theory\nin the last few months of his life.[4]  Aphthartodocetism, affirming\nthe reality of Christ's body, denies that it was subject to the wear\nand tear of life.  The body, as this heresy taught, was superior to\nnatural process; it was neither corrupted nor corruptible.  The term\n\"corruptibility\" has the wide significance of organic process, that is\nthe lot of all created living things.  A milder form of the heresy\nasserted that Christ's body was corruptible but was not corrupted.\nAphthartodocetism springs from a spurious spirituality, from a\nfastidiousness that has no place in true religion.  It is symptomatic\nof Manicheanism, which associates matter with sin.  Christians affirm\nsinlessness of Christ's humanity; they do not affirm immateriality of\nHis body.  The monophysites, in abandoning the true Christology, were\npredisposed to the infection of this heresy.  A being in whom organic\nprocess was present seemed to these heretics no fit object of worship.\nThey called the orthodox Ctistolatrae or Phthartolatrae, worshippers of\nthe created or corruptible.\n\nMonophysites of all shades of opinion united in condemning the practice\nof worshipping Christ's human nature.  That practice was in their eyes\nboth idle and injurious; idle, because the human nature did not exist\nas a separate entity; injurious, because it fixed the mind of the\nworshipper on the finite.  In consequence they were much opposed to all\nobservances based on a belief in His humanity.  Images or other\nrepresentations of Him in human form seemed to them idolatrous.  The\nmonophysite church was not directly concerned in the iconoclastic\ncontroversy, but their doctrines were indirectly responsible for it.\nIn fact the great monophysites, Severus and Philoxenus, have been\nstyled \"the fathers of the iconoclasts.\"\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM BLIND TO THE DUAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST'S EXPERIENCE\n\nSuch were the difficulties and errors into which their Christology\nforced the monophysites with respect to Christ's body.  Difficulties\nequally great and errors equally fatal attended their attempt to\nconceive the conjunction of psychic elements with the divine person.\nTheir formula was too narrow.  It compelled them to shut their eyes to\none outstanding fact, namely, the duality of Christ's earthly\nexperience.  This fact confronts the reader on every page of the\ngospels.  The duality is deep-seated; it extends to each psychic\nelement, yet stops short of the personality.  In the world of Christ's\nnature there are two hemispheres.  His experiences are on two planes.\nIn both of these hemispheres or planes we find thought, will, and\nfeeling.  His thought on the higher plane is radically different in\nmode and scope from His thought on the lower plane.  The two are of a\ndifferent order.  The same difference holds with respect to the other\ntwo psychic elements.  We propose to exemplify this assertion, first,\nin the case of cognition, and then in the case of will and feeling.\nThis procedure will simplify the task of exposing the further\nconsequences of the monophysite Christology.\n\n\n\nTHE DUALITY OF CHRIST'S COGNITION\n\nThe duality of Christ's intellectual experience is evident to a New\nTestament student who has any acquaintance with psychology.  We find in\nChrist two cognitive faculties with two dominant universes of thought\nand knowledge.  On occasions He speaks and acts as if He read at a\nglance all the secrets of nature and the human heart, as if all time\npast, present, and future was an open book to him, as if He were in the\ncounsels of the Most High.  On those occasions divine intuition\nsuperseded in Him the slow and faulty methods of human intelligence;\nthought was vision, intellect intuition, knowledge omniscience.  Thus\nHis divine nature cognised and knew.  That, however, is only one half\nof the picture.  On other occasions his mind appears to have been\nperfectly human.  His intelligence and perceptive faculties differed\nnot essentially from ours.  He asked questions and sought information.\nHe used human categories.  He progressed in wisdom.  The development of\nHis mind was gradual.  His knowledge was relative to His age and\nsurroundings.  Memory and obliviscence, those complementary and perhaps\nconstituent elements of soul-being, attention, sensation, recognition,\nand discursive reasoning, all these exhibitions of the workings of the\nnormal mind appeared in Christ.  In this manner His human nature\ncognised and knew.\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM ENTAILS THE APOLLINARIAN VIEW OF CHRIST'S HUMAN NATURE AS\nMERELY AN ANIMATED BODY\n\nThe Catholic welcomes these evidences of the duality of Christ's\nintellectual life.  On the theoretical side, they confirm the central\ndogma of orthodox Christology.  On the practical side, they give him\nauthority for seeking Christ's sympathy in matters intellectual.  He\nrealises that since Christ understands the education of the mind and\ncan share his intellectual difficulties, there is hope for the\nredemption and regeneration of the highest part of his nature.  The\nmonophysite finds neither support for his dogma, nor inspiration for\nlife, in the fact that Christ had a human mind.  He is blind to the\nfact.  He has seen half the picture and regards it as the whole.  His\nideal is a being in whom intuition supersedes intellect, whose\nknowledge is immediate, absolute, and complete.  The orthodox who held\nthat Christ had and, at ordinary times, used a human reason, perfect of\nits kind, but still human in all the implications of the word, were in\nhis eyes Agnoetae; they were unbelievers who asserted the ignorance of\nChrist and set bounds to the vision and knowledge of the infinite.  The\nmonophysite would modify his opinions and approach the catholic\nposition on other doctrinal points, but never on this.  He might be\npersuaded to admit that Christ's body and \"animal soul\" were real and\nhuman, but to the consubstantiality of Christ's mind with man's he\nwould not subscribe.  The Apollinarian strain in monophysitism was\npersistent.  The later monophysites never succeeded in banishing it\nfrom their system.  By Apollinarianism the humanity of Christ is\ncrippled in its highest member.  It is a realm shorn of its fairest\nprovince.  According to Apollinaris, all that Christ assumed was an\nanimated body.  His theory is like an ingenious system of canal locks\nfor letting divine personality descend from the upper to the lower\nwaters.  The ingenuity displayed in it condemns it.  It is an\nartificial makeshift.  The psychology on which it rests is antiquated.\nThe picture of Christ it presents does not correspond to the recorded\nfacts of His life.  Christ's human nature, as chiselled by the\nApollinarian sculptor, is a torso.  Such an image fails to satisfy the\ndemands of religious feeling, and the doctrines, Apollinarian and\nmonophysite, that enshrine it are therefore valueless.\n\n\n\nTWO WILLS IN CHRIST\n\nWe here leave the subject of cognition and pass to that of volition.\nOrthodoxy teaches that Christ had two wills.  This doctrine has a\ndouble basis.  In the first place, it is a corollary of the doctrine of\ntwo natures.  In the second, it is established by the recorded facts of\nthe gospel narrative.  To take first the _a priori_ argument.  A nature\nwithout a will is inconceivable.  A cognitive faculty without the\ndynamic of the volitional would be a machine without driving force.\nThe absurdity of the supposition, indeed, is not fully brought out by\nthe simile.  For we can consider the machine at rest; it would then\nhave existence and potential activity.  Will, however, is essential to\nthe existence as well as to the activity of thought.  The connection\nbetween them is vital to both.  The psychologist distinguishes the\nrespective parts each plays in life and marks off faculties to\ncorrespond to each.  But his distinction is only provisional.  The two\ndevelop _pari passu_, they are never separable; they act and re-act on\none another.  Without some degree of attention there is no thought, not\neven perception of external objects.  Attention is as much an act of\nwill as of thought.  Man does not first evolve ideas and then summon\nwill to actuate them.  In the very formation of ideas will is present\nand active.  Accordingly from the duality of Christ's cognitive nature\nthe psychologist would infer that He had two wills.  There is in Christ\nthe divine will that controlled the forces of nature and could suspend\ntheir normal workings, the will that wrought miracle, the eternal will,\ninfinite in scope and power, that was objectified in His age-long\nuniversal purpose, in a word, the will that undertook the superhuman\ntask of cosmic reconstruction and achieved it.\n\nIt is not easy for us to conceive the co-existence of two wills in one\nperson.  The difficulty is part of the discipline of faith.  Christ's\nhuman will is no less a fact than His divine will.  The former played\nas large a part in His earthly experience as the latter.  It was\npresent in all its normal phases, ranging from motor will to psychic\nresolve.  The lower forms of volition, motor impulse, desire and wish,\nthe higher forms, deliberation, choice, purpose and resolve.  He shared\nthem all with humanity.  There is in Him a human will, limited in\nscope, varying in intensity, developing with the growth of His human\nexperience, a will like ours in everything, except that it was free\nfrom moral imperfection.  It was a finite will, inasmuch as the\nconditioning cognition was finite, perfect of its kind, adequate to its\ntask, never faltering, yet of finite strength.  The two wills have each\ntheir own sphere.  They operate in perfect harmony.  Only at crises,\nsuch as the Agony, is there any appearance of discord.  The opposition\nthere is only apparent.  The human will reaches its limit, and the\nsuperhuman will interposes to perform the superhuman task.\n\nThe reality of the two wills, established for the orthodox both _a\npriori_ and by an appeal to fact, is denied by the monophysite.  He\nregards will as the fundamental psychic state and makes it an attribute\nof personality.  Two wills, he says, would necessitate two persons.  He\ndoes not see that personality lies deeper than will, and that will and\ncognition are co-ordinate attributes of nature.  If Christ had but one\nnature, it follows that He had but one will and operation.  The\nmonophysite thinks of two wills as necessarily antagonistic, as are\nconflicting motives in man; so he sees no ethical value in dithelite\ndoctrine.  As a matter of fact the moral influence of Christianity\nwould be much weakened by an abandonment of the doctrine of two wills.\nThe belief in Christ's human will prevents men from despairing of their\nwill.  Human will cannot be wholly warped, or wholly misdirected, or\nutterly powerless, since Christ in His life has shown that it can work\nalong the same lines as the divine will, that the two can co-operate,\nand that where the lower reaches its limit, the higher can step in and\nperfect the work.\n\nFrom the historian's point of view the monothelite controversy is quite\ndistinct from the monophysite.  So we need only take a glance at it\nhere.  It originated in an attempt to win back the monophysites to the\northodox communion by a doctrinal compromise.  The emperor Heraclius\nendeavoured to unite catholic and monophysite on the basis of the\nformula, \"two natures with one will and operation.\"  That formula will\nnot bear analysis, and the emperor's attempt to use it as an eirenicon\nwas a complete failure.  Imperial pressure induced a few monophysites\nto modify their doctrine so far as to admit \"one theandric operation;\"\nbut the concession of \"one will\" from the orthodox side failed to win\nfrom the monophysites the expected concession of \"two natures.\"  The\nmonophysites were quite consistent here.  To deny will of nature is an\nelementary mistake in psychology.  Only a tyro in introspection will\nascribe will directly to personality.  A one-willed two-natured\npersonality is little short of a psychological monstrosity.  An attempt\nto rally Christendom round such a figure was bound to fail.  The only\nlasting result of the emperor's activity was the formation of a new\nsect, the Maronites.\n\n\n\nTHE DUALITY OF CHRIST'S EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE\n\nWe come now to the third element in the human spirit.  It is only in\nmodern psychology that feeling has secured recognition as a distinct\nconstituent of man's nature; so it is not surprising that the question\nas to its position in the incarnate Christ was not raised in former\ndays.  Now, however, the psychology of feeling has come into its own,\nand it has become important to consider whether in this particular,\ntoo, Christ shared our human experience.  Here, again, the argument for\nmaintaining the duality of Christ's emotional experience is twofold.\nIt follows, on the one hand, from the duality of the other parts of His\nnature; and, on the other hand, it is proved by the facts of His life\nas recorded in the gospels.\n\nHuman nature involves feeling, and two natures involve two universes of\nfeeling.  Divine personality cannot be conceived as devoid of feeling.\nWith men feeling lies in the depths of being; it is the dynamic of\nlife.  Feeling is the inner reflex of acts of thought and will.  It\ninvariably accompanies cognition and volition.  If thought and will be\nattributed to the supreme being, the attribute of feeling cannot be\nleft out.  When the God in Christ acted, divine feeling accompanied the\nact.\n\nThis surmise is proved correct on reference to the records of His life.\nWe find there two distinct emotional zones.  Christ has all the\nblameless feelings natural to man.  There are in Him the feelings\naccompanying sensation; physical pleasure and pain, hunger, thirst,\nweariness, and, in addition, the higher grades of feeling, aesthetic,\nsympathetic, and ethical.  He experienced wonder, surprise, righteous\nanger, the sublime, joy and love.  A life rich in emotion was the life\nof the Man Christ Jesus.  When, however, we look more closely into His\nexperience, we catch glimpses of feeling such as no man could know.  We\nsee there transcendent passion, great sorrow, great joy, so great that\nthey would break a human heart.  We may instance the deep emotion\naccompanying His resolve to go to meet His fate at Jerusalem, the\nrejoicing in spirit at the success of the apostles' mission, His Agony\nand His universal love.\n\nThe monophysites could not recognise this duality in Christ's emotional\nnature.  Hunger and thirst, and even the higher human feelings they\nconsidered derogatory to the Son of God.  Even when they admitted that\nHe suffered, they threw a veil of mystery over His sufferings.  They\nidealised the Passion.  They made it seem as if His flesh was\nprivileged, as if His omnipotence excused Him from the emotional\nexperiences of humanity.\n\n\n\nSUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER\n\nWe have examined the doctrine of one nature, and exposed its chief\nconsequences.  We have considered its effects in respect of the deity\nof Christ and in respect of His manhood.  We have applied the doctrine\nto the human nature as a whole, and to the several parts that compose\nit.  The result of the examination may be summarised in brief.\nMonophysitism destroys what is divine in the deity and what is human in\nthe humanity.  It offers to Christians a Christ who is not sufficiently\nabove man to be able to help them by His power, nor sufficiently man to\nbe able to help them by His sympathy.  The monophysite Christ is\nneither very God nor very man, but a composition in which all traces of\nthe original entities are lost to view.\n\n\n\n[1] \"The Chronicle of Zachariah of Mitylene,\" translated by Hamilton\nand Brooks, chap. iii. p. 46.\n\n[2] This addition to the Trisagion was officially condemned at the\nclose of the 7th century owing to its monophysite associations.\n\n[3] \"Chronicle of Zachariah of Mitylene,\" translated by Hamilton and\nBrooks, ii. 2, p. 21.\n\n[4] The question of Justinian's orthodoxy has been debated by Bury and\nHutton.  See _Guardian_, March 4th and April 15th, 1896.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE ETHOS OF MONOPHYSITISM\n\nMonophysitism originated in a monastery.  Eutyches, \"the father of the\nmonophysites,\" was a monk.  The monastic temperament is peculiarly\nsusceptible to this heresy, and the monastic element has always been\ndominant in the monophysite churches.  The cloister is the natural\nhabitat of the doctrine of the one nature.  Monasticism is applied\nmonism.  If the world's existence be a sham, if its value compared with\nGod be negligible, it becomes a religious duty to avoid all influences\nthat heighten the illusion of the world's real existence and intrinsic\nvalue.  The monist, like the monk, must renounce all secular interests\nand \"go out of the world.\"  The path of renunciation had an additional\nclaim on the Christological monist.  In his universal ideal, as\nmanifested in time, the human elements were sublimated into the divine.\nConsequently his ideal of conduct imposed a negative attitude towards\nthe world and a merging of his ego in the universal spirit.  These are\nthe ruling elements in the spirit of the cloister, and these are the\ncharacteristics of the monophysite ethos.\n\nThose men, to whom God is the sum of all reality and the world merely a\ncosmic shadow, regard worship as the sole worthy activity of the human\nspirit.  In worship union with God is sought, a union so close that the\npersonality of the worshipper is absorbed into the being of the\nworshipped.  His experience of God is so intimate that his experience\nof the world is reduced to insignificance.  As an overpowering human\nlove welds two beings into one, and identifies their thoughts, wills,\nsprings of action and even feelings, so the _amor dei_ identifies man\nwith God and makes possible a deification of humanity.  Deeply\nreligious natures in all ages have heard this mystic call.  To lose\ntheir ego in the divine spirit is the height of their religious\nambition.  The conception is lofty, but it is not the Christian ideal\nof life and duty.\n\nMysticism and monophysitism are twin systems.  Both are religious\nphases of pantheism.  As, to the intellect, acosmism is the corollary\nof pantheism, so, to the heart, asceticism follows from mysticism.\nWhether conceived in terms of existence or of value, the world for the\nmystic is an obstacle to the _unio mystica_.  It snares the mind\nthrough the senses and creates a fictitious -appearance of solid\nreality in sensuous objects.  It makes pretensions to goodness and\nattaches to itself a spurious value.  The only remedy is self-denial,\ndenial of existence to the world, denial of credence to the senses,\ndenial of gratification to the passions, desires, and inclinations.\nThe monophysites were mystics.  They were the rigorists of the eastern\nchurch.  They formed the \"no compromise\" party.  They stood for a\nthorough-going renunciation of the world and the flesh.  Though they\ndid not officially lay down the inherent evil of matter, Manicheanism\nis latent in their system.  They did not explicitly identify matter\nwith the spirit of evil, but they had the spiritual man's suspicion of\nmatter and his contempt for the body of the flesh.  Abstinence,\nmortification of the flesh, and all ascetic practices flourished in\ntheir communion.  Art and culture were suspect; they had no eye for\nnatural beauty.  Some of their hymn-writers possessed considerable\npoetic taste; but poetry was discouraged by their leaders.  Several of\nthe extant letters of Severus of Antioch show that that patriarch did\nhis best to banish that art from his church.  His attitude may be\ngathered from the following quotation.[1]  \"As to Martyrius, the poet,\n... I wish you to know that he is a trouble to me and a nuisance.\nIndeed in the case of the others also who follow the same profession,\nand were enrolled in the holy clergy of the Church that is with us, I\nhave debarred them from practising such poetry; and I am taking much\ntrouble to sever this theatrical pursuit from ecclesiastical gravity\nand modesty, a pursuit that is the mother of laxity and is also capable\nof causing youthful souls to relax and casting them into the mire of\nfornication, and carrying them to bestial passions.\"  The result of\nthis asceticism was a jaundiced and inhuman outlook on life.  There was\nmuch piety among the monophysites, but it was confined to a narrow\nchannel.  Their zeal for purity of doctrine amounted to fanaticism;\ntheir hatred of the Nestorian and of the Melchite at times reached a\nwhite heat.  Toleration was almost unknown in their communion.\n\nThe claims of humanity appeal less to a monophysite than to other\nChristians.  He places all life's values in the other world.  He has no\nmotive for trying to ameliorate the lot of his fellow-men.  Social\nservice has to him little or no divine sanction or religious value.  We\nare speaking only of general tendencies.  No follower of Christ,\nhowever perverted his views, could be totally indifferent to the\nwelfare of other men; but it came natural to the monophysite to think\nthat it does not matter much how a man lives in this world of shadows,\nprovided he holds communion with the world of unseen realities.  The\nsame motive accounts for the rapid decline of missionary activity in\ntheir communion.  The Nestorians were far more active propagandists.\nWorship is a very high type of service; but worship becomes selfish and\nsickens into sentiment, if it neglects the inspiring tonic of contact\nwith human need.  The monophysite Christology encouraged that form of\nself-sacrifice, whose goal is Nirvana, which lapses lazily into the\ncosmic soul and loses itself there in contemplation and ecstasy.  It\nsupplies no motive for that finer piety which manifests itself in\nethical endeavour and practical philanthropy.  His Christ had not\npartaken of the cup of suffering.  His Christ's advance to human\nperfection was illusory.  So the monophysite could not look for the\nsympathy of Christ in his own struggles, nor could he appeal to\nChrist's example in respect of works of human charity.  Monophysitism\nconsiders only the religious nature of man, and takes no account of his\nother needs.  We must therefore characterise the system as unsocial,\nunlovely, unsympathetic.\n\nThe uncompromising attitude of the individual monophysites was\nreflected in their ecclesiastical polity.  We cannot but admire their\nsturdy independence.  The monophysite church stood for freedom from\nstate control.  Her principles were the traditional principles of the\nAlexandrian see.  Alexandria would not truckle to Constantinople, nor\nlet religion subserve imperial policy.  She would allow the catholic\nparty to be Melchites (King's men) and to reap all the temporal\nadvantages accruing to the established church.  In this matter the\nmonophysites took a narrow view; but their narrowness evinces their\npiety.  They felt the evils attendant on Constantine's grand\nsettlement, and they made their ill-judged protest.  They made it for\nno unworthy motive.  There are always such thinkers in the church.  A\nspiritual enthusiast despises the outward dignity that the church gains\nfrom an alliance with the State, and is often blind to the spiritual\nbenefits conferred on the nation by that alliance, while he\nconcentrates his gaze on incidental evils.  To connect with Christology\nsuch an attitude towards the principle of Establishment may seem forced\nat first sight.  The connection, however, exists.  Independence of the\ntemporal power is symptomatic with that unworldliness which, as we have\nshown above, characterises monophysitism.  Its adherents paid no\nrespect to the human as such.  They attached no value to merely human\ninstitutions, and made no attempt to see or foster the divine that is\nin them.  The argument that because the State is a human institution it\nshould have no voice in ecclesiastical policy is typically monophysite;\nit is the argument of one who could draw no inspiration from the human\nlife of the Son of God.\n\nMysticism and rationalism have much in common.  They both are elements\nin the mental composition of almost every serious thinker.  The\nsterility of logic often drives him to seek a higher and surer\ninstrument of knowledge.  So there is no inconsistency in further\ncharacterising the monophysites as rationalists.  The intellectuals of\nthe eastern church were found mostly in their communion.  Theirs was\nthe formal logic point of view.  Christ, they urged, was one and not\ntwo; therefore His nature was one and not two.  They could not see that\nHe was both.  In Bergsonian language, they used exclusively mechanical\ncategories.  Intelligence, an instrument formed by contact with matter,\ndestined for action upon matter, they used on a supra-material subject.\nTheir thinkers were highly trained logicians; they revelled in abstract\nargument; theirs was a cold intellectual metaphysic, unwarmed by flesh\nand blood empiricism.\n\nTheir narrow outlook on life, their religious zeal and their\nrationalist philosophy combined to produce in them sectarianism of an\nextreme type.  Party spirit ran high among them.  They fought the\ncatholics; they fought the Nestorians; they fought one another.  The\nlist of schisms that occurred in their communion is of amazing length.\nThe letters of Severus of Antioch make sad reading.  They show us that\nthe patriarch had constantly to interfere in cases of disputed\nsuccession to bishoprics.  At almost every vacancy in the provincial\ndioceses there were parties formed each with their own nominee, ready\nto schismatise if they could not secure recognition and consecration\nfor him.  It is evident that monophysitism does not foster the\ngenerous, tolerant, humane virtues of Christianity.  It is the creed of\nmonks, mystics, and intellectualists.\n\n\n\n[1] E. W. Brooks, \"Select Letters of Severus of Antioch,\" vol. ii. pp.\n88, 89.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nMONOPHYSITISM AND MODERN PSYCHOLOGY\n\nChristology divorced from empirical psychology is a barren science.\nAbstract discussions about person, nature and union of natures soon\ndegenerate into logomachies.  If personality is a psychic entity, and\nnature another distinct psychic entity, then the question at issue\nbetween diphysite and monophysite is worth debating.  If they are\nconcepts merely, the debate is hollow and of purely academic interest.\nA study of psychology clothes the dry bones with flesh.  It puts life\nand meaning into these abstractions.  It shows that they represent\nentities, that something corresponding to the terms \"person\" and\n\"nature\" is actually part of the being of every man, and that therefore\ntheir existence in Christ is a proper and practical subject for\ninvestigation.  In so doing psychology provides the _rationale_ of the\nChristological controversies.  It justifies the church in her\ndetermined adherence to the precise expression of the truth.  No\nChristian with powers of introspection, who can distinguish in his own\nbeing personality and nature, can be indifferent to the Christological\nproblem.  The problem is one of fact, not theory.  The terms and the\nformula are only of importance as expressing or failing to express the\ntrue facts of Christ's being.  In a word, the psychology of the central\nfigure of human history is the matter at issue.\n\nReference to psychological fact is what one misses in the records of\nthe old controversies.  The disputes read as if they were about\nshadows.  No doubt that was often the case.  Catholics and\nnon-Catholics were often agreed as to the substance of belief, while\nowing to their devotion to words and formulae the agreement went\nunrecognised.  Had the disputants made clear to themselves and to each\nother what they meant by their abstract terms, had they translated them\ninto their concrete psychological equivalents, heresy and schism would\nhave been less frequent.  It was, however, almost impossible for them\nto do so, because in their day theology was far more highly developed\nthan psychology.  Systematic observation of the workings of spirit was\nalmost unknown.  There existed no science of psychology as we know it.\nNo clear notions attached to the terms \"person\" and \"nature.\"  They\nrepresented abstractions necessary to discursive reason rather than\nconcrete psychic facts.  All parties shared this defect.  Among\ncatholics and Nestorians as well as among monophysites knowledge of the\nconstituents of human nature was of the most rudimentary character.\nThe catholic party, however, by keeping close to the facts recorded in\nthe gospels, achieved a Christological formula that is psychologically\nintelligible; while the heretical parties were led by their\npreconceived opinions to fashion a Christ, whose features are\nunrecognisable as God or man, a psychological monstrosity.\n\n\n\nBERGSON'S THEORIES THROW LIGHT ON CHRISTOLOGY\n\nWithout claiming finality for the findings of modern psychology, we can\nconsider some results of the science as established.  They are\nsufficiently well established, at any rate, to provide a starting-point\nfor our investigation.  In particular the brilliant observations and\ntheories of M. Bergson throw, so it seems to the writer, a flood of\nlight on Christology.  We propose to outline the two key doctrines of\nthe Bergsonian psychology and show how they confirm the truth of the\northodox formula and expose the monophysite fallacy.  These key\ndoctrines are, first, the interpenetration of psychic states, and,\nsecond, the distinction between deep-seated and superficial\nconsciousness.\n\n\n\nBERGSON'S THEORY OF THE INTERPENETRATION OF PSYCHIC STATES\n\nIt is, says Bergson, characteristic of psychic states that they do not,\nlike material things remain external to one another.  They\ninter-penetrate.  Cut up by human intelligence into discrete elements,\nin their own nature they remain a continuum.  States of mind appear\nsuccessive and external to one another, because age-long association\nwith matter has accustomed men to material modes of thought.  Man's\nintelligence is a by-product of activity.  For purposes of action it is\nthe externality of things that matters.  The inner connection is\nrelatively unimportant.  Men act with precision on matter, because\nperception cuts up the continuum of matter into bodies, defined bodies\nno two of which can occupy the same space.  Intelligence originating\nthus by contact with matter naturally prefers mechanical categories.\nThese categories applicable to matter when applied to higher forms of\nexistence mislead.  We naturally conceive psychic states as external to\none another, and their interpenetration seems an abnormality.  At this\nstage of thought experience is pictured as a line of indefinite length,\ninfinitely divisible, whose divisions correspond to the moments of\nconsciousness.  This spatial picture of mind is misleading in many\nways, not the least in that it can offer no reasonable theory of the\nsubconscious.  Thinkers who materialise mental experience have no room\nin their theory for the sub-conscious.  It is for them bare\nnon-consciousness, a psychic vacuum.  When, however, we start from this\nunique characteristic, that mind possesses, of remaining one and\nindivisible throughout the greatest appearance of diversity, the\nsub-conscious falls naturally into the scheme.  No part of our\nexperience perishes.  It is essentially self-perpetuating memory.  The\nneeds of action relegate the greater portion of it to the\nsub-conscious, but it is there, always linked to our conscious\nexperience, and only awaiting the occasion to emerge into the full\nlight of consciousness.  Past penetrates into the present.  One portion\nof our present penetrates into the other portions.  Conscious and\nunconscious, past and present, combine to form one wonderful whole.\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM IGNORES THE DUALITY IN CHRIST'S EXPERIENCE\n\nSuch in outline is Bergson's theory of the interpenetration of psychic\nstates.  If this psychology be adopted, the abstract character of the\ncatholic doctrine of Christ's being in large measure disappears.  It\nbecomes easy to conceive the interpenetration of two natures in one\nChrist.  Further, the Bergsonian psychology furnishes a standpoint from\nwhich criticism of monophysitism is easy.  Psychology at the\nmonophysite stage of thought conceives the moments of Christ's\nconsciousness in their mutual externality; they follow each other as do\nthe ticks of a clock.  They are discrete elements strung along on a\nhypothetical ego.  Christ's experience is conceived as unilinear.  All\nthat He did, suffered and thought is regarded as having taken place on\none and the same plane of experience.  This psychology has no room for\nanother plane of experience.  It has no room for a positive\nsub-consciousness.  Consequently that one plane must be the one divine\nnature, which, as the monophysites taught, absorbed the human.\n\nThe one-nature theory is not true to the facts.  It overlooks the\ncomplexity of Christ's experience.  His experiences lie on two\ndifferent planes.  He has different universes of thought, different\nactuating wills and sets of feelings.  Christ is not in one nature.\nThe phases of His consciousness are twofold.  His experiences fall\nnaturally into two groups.  While one group is in consciousness, the\nother is below the level of consciousness.  Now the human experiences,\nnow the divine, are uppermost.  Both are always present.  Life under\nsuch conditions is inconceivable, unless full recognition be accorded\nto the fact that conscious states interpermeate.  If each state fall\noutside the other, and consciousness be a chain of successive ideas or\nemotions, a twofold nature within the one experience is meaningless.\nThe view of conscious states as discrete leads inevitably to\ndeterminism.  The place of one state in the chain is conditioned by its\npredecessor.  There is no room for the spontaneity and the creative\npower which characterise conscious life.  Associationism cannot\ncountenance the unforeseen and incalculable.  So it is out of sympathy\nwith Christian psychology.  A function of the divine in Christ is to\nintroduce the element of the unforeseen and incalculable into His\nnormal and human experience.  The Bergsonian psychology thus supplies\nan intellectual basis for belief in the possibility of two natures in\nChrist.  When ideas are regarded as psychic entities whose essential\nproperty is mutual penetration, the ground is prepared for the catholic\nformula.  Where this truth is not recognised, there arises inevitably\nthe tendency to assert that Christ had and must have had but one\nuniform level of experience, and that assertion is the essence of\nmonophysitism.\n\n\n\nBERGSON'S THEORY OF DEEP-SEATED AND SUPERFICIAL STATES\n\nBergson's psychology throws further light on a central doctrine of\ncatholic Christology.  It not only makes conceivable, as we have shown\nabove, the co-existence of the two natures, but it lends support to the\nbelief in the independent reality of His personality.  Person and\nnature of Christology find their modern equivalents in the Bergsonian\n\"deep-seated\" and \"superficial\" states of consciousness.  Bergson draws\na sharp line of distinction between these two.  The deep-seated states\nconstitute the kernel of being.  They are the man's existence turned\ninwards.  They are independent, free, creative.  They are a unifying\nforce.  Always present, they only rarely make their presence felt.\nOnly at moments of deep experience do they interfere with the surface\nself.  The superficial states form the outward-regarding existence of\nman.  They represent consciousness relaxed into moments of clock-time,\nmoments more or less external to one another.  They are not truly free.\nThey are conditioned by the material environment.  Whatever be thought\nof the metaphysic of this system, recognition cannot be refused to that\npart of it which rests on the solid foundation of psychological fact.\nSelf-analysis discloses a two-fold experience in man.  The stream of\nhis life contains both current and undercurrent.  The current is\nnature, the under-current personality.\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM ANNULS THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN DIVINE PERSON AND DIVINE\nNATURE\n\nThis distinction is of paramount importance in Christology.  Diphysites\nhold fast to the distinction.  They maintain a human nature in Christ,\nbut they do not humanise His person.  The person cannot be humanised.\nIt remained divine after the incarnation, as it was before.  Though He\nbecame man, the depth of His being was unchanged.  The rain from heaven\nand the waters from the earthly spring mingle in one stream, but\nbeneath the surface the deep undercurrent of being flows on unchanged.\nThe monophysite in effect abandons this distinction.  This is where his\npsychology is most seriously at fault.  He confuses person and nature.\nDeep-seated and superficial states of soul are all one to him.  He does\nnot see the duality in the being of his fellow-men; so he cannot see it\nin the ideal man.  This is a consequence of monophysitism which has not\nattracted the attention of theologians, and which the monophysite\nhimself did not intend.  The doctrine that rules out the human nature\nof Christ rules out the divine nature also, by confusing it with the\npersonality.  The monophysite affirms the divine nature while denying\nthe human.  Such affirmation is purely verbal.  It is completely void\nof significance.  The contrast between the divine and human natures is\nneeded to throw personality into relief.  Take away the human nature,\nand that contrast disappears, and with it goes the distinction between\ndivine person and divine nature.  Then, instead of a transcendent\npersonality in whose portrait divine and human features are distinctly\nlimned, we have a blur.  Where God planned a unique though intelligible\npsychic harmony, we find a psychic medley.\n\n\n\nCONSCIOUSNESS OF PERSONALITY PRODUCED BY A VIOLENT CHANGE OF OCCUPATION\n\nThis assertion is justified by an appeal to human experience.  Men\nbecome sure of their own or of other people's personality by\nexperiencing strong contrasts of natures in themselves or by observing\nthem in others.  For instance, a sudden and violent change of\noccupation establishes personality as a distinct entity.  The civilian\nturns soldier.  Almost immediately all parts of his nature are\naffected.  He feels the development, as it were, of a second nature\nwithin him.  His faculties are transformed.  He enters a new universe\nof thought.  His range of knowledge narrows in one direction, widens in\nanother.  His volitional nature is altered.  His will narrows in scope,\nbut increases in intensity.  Nor does his emotional nature escape the\nchange.  Aesthetic values are reversed.  He no longer feels pleasure\nand pain at the old objects.  Physical desires play a much larger part\nin his life, and he loses taste for intellectual pleasures.  The\nsoldier returns to civilian life and, as it were, with his civilian\nattire he resumes his former nature, and all his old thoughts and\nfeelings and impulses come flooding back.  Such an experience is of\nconsiderable psychological interest.  It exemplifies the\ninterpenetration of different states of thought and activity.  The\ncontrasts bring home to a man the fact that his spirit is a synthesis\nof heterogeneous elements.  They force him back on himself.  They rouse\nin him the dormant sense of personal being.  It is the apprehension of\nstrong contrast in his experience of himself, the apprehension of the\nplurality of his being, that accentuates the deep-lying unity.  The\nmore violent the change in the walks of life, the clearer becomes the\nconcept of the continuity.  Civilian or soldier, the man, the person is\nthe same.\n\nPersonality is thrown into relief not only by change of occupation, but\nalso by moral contrasts.  Conflicting passions, opposing motives and\ninternal debate serve to make a man realise himself.  Strong\npersonalities are often those in whom the conflict between good and\nevil is most acute.  It is the very opposition of natures which brings\nout the personal element into the full light of conscious recognition.\n\nWe must now examine human personality in greater detail; we must\nindicate its functions and show how it differs from human nature.  Only\nby coming to grips with this psychological problem is it possible to\nappreciate the points at issue in the Christological question and to\njudge between catholic and monophysite.\n\n\n\nKANT AND THE DUAL CHARACTER OF THE EGO\n\nKant distinguished the noumenal from the phenomenal ego.  The former he\nregarded as an idea, the latter as a reality in time.  The distinction\ncorresponds roughly to that between person and nature.  The phenomenal\nego is the nature of man.  It bears the brunt of the struggle of life.\nThe noumenal ego is the transcendent personality of the individual--an\nidea which pure reason necessarily forms and which practical reason\nestablishes.  Though the Kantian philosophy no longer carries\nconviction, it is interesting to see that Kant felt and admitted a\ndouble current in man's being.  He recognised that the superficial self\nis not the true being of the man.  It is not necessary, however, to go\nas far as Kant went.  We need not with him relegate the core of\npersonal being to the realm of idea.  Granted that personality is not\npart of our normal experience as nature is, there are times when the\ndepths of being are stirred.  Moments of crisis drive a man deeper than\nwill and thought and even feeling, and make him conscious of himself as\na psychic unity, permanent and of infinite value.  Personality normally\nremains in the recesses of the subconscious.  It is the hidden basis of\nlife.  It is active, though its activities are for the most part\nunderground.  It does not, however, lie altogether outside the ken of\nconsciousness.  It may be experienced; it is experienced when great\nemotion rends the surface fabric of the man and discloses the true self.\n\n\n\nHUMAN PERSONALITY AND HUMAN NATURE\n\nWhat is human personality?  It is a psychic entity whose most important\nfunction is to unify the parts of a man's nature.  It is the principle\nof unity and the instrument of unity.  A man's thought, will and\nfeeling are distinct and real entities.  His intelligence takes various\nforms from perception to abstract thought; it may be directed to\noutward things, to thoughts of things, or to pure idea.  He wills many\nthings, and wills them in different modes and with varying degrees of\nintensity.  A wide range of feeling is found in him, from physical to\nmental, from organic to ideal feeling.  His nature is tripartite.  Each\npart admits of variation in itself and in its interaction with the\nother parts.  Each of the three expresses the man at the moment.  No\none of the three gives the whole account of his being.  Nor do the\nthree taken together.  Though his nature is tripartite the man himself\ncannot be resolved into component parts.  He has his faculties and\nstates, but he is more than their sum.  He may lose himself in thought\nor activity, or abandon himself to feeling, but when he is fulfilling\nhis true function, when he is most himself, all parts of his nature are\nconcentrated to a point.  Partial activity of thought, will, or feeling\nis then replaced by activity of the personality.  Personality is the\nsynthetic unity of all parts of a man's nature.  It has the wonderful\npower of compressing to a point a medley of psychic elements.  Moods\nand memories, perceptions and ideas, wishes and purposes, it tensions\nthem all up, merges them and expresses them in characteristic acts\nrepresentative of the man.\n\nPersonality differs from nature also in respect of relation to\nenvironment.  It is relatively independent of circumstances.  Habit and\neducation mould the nature, but if they touch the person they do so\nonly indirectly.  The nature must be deeply affected before a change in\nthe person is registered.  Personality is not synonomous with inherited\ndisposition; but it bears a similar relation to nature as inherited\ndisposition does to acquired habit.  It is to nature what character is\nto action.  It is to nature what in Weismann's theory the germ plasm is\nto the somatic cell.  Changes in it are mediated by nature and are\nalmost imperceptible in a life time.\n\nAgain, nature is the superficies of the soul.  It is the part that\ncomes in contact with the world of things and people.  A man's nature\nis what he is for other people; what he is in and for himself alone is\npersonality.  There is a substance or self-existence of the psychic\nstates.  Thought, will and feeling have all and each an external\nreference.  The internal reference of the whole is the core of being.\nOur perception of personality in other people is a subtle thing.  In\nthe ordinary give and take of life we are not aware of it.  It is when\nwe realise the subject as a self-existent unity that we recognise\npersonality.  We judge a man's nature by his thought or will or\nfeelings as conveyed through the ordinary channels of communication.\nPersonality is felt.  It is a magnetism that influences, but remains\ninarticulate.\n\nPerson and nature differ also in respect of relation to the body.  The\nco-existence of heterogeneous natures in the same body is a fact of\nexperience.  Different universes of thought, different levels of will\nand feeling can be lodged in one organism.  The higher the development\nof the individual, the more clearly marked is the duality or plurality\nof nature.  It is otherwise with personality.  In normal cases no two\npersonalities can tenant the one body.  The unity of the organism is\nthe outward expression and guarantee of the unity of the person.  There\nare of course pathological cases which form exceptions to this rule.\nSuch cases, however, only serve to emphasise the distinction between\nperson and nature.  In cases of dual personality the occupancy of the\none body is not simultaneous.  Jekyll alternates with Hyde.  Dual\npersonality is a totally different phenomenon from duality of nature.\nDuality of nature is relatively superficial.  In dual personality the\ndivergence in mental and moral outlook is so radical that\nresponsibility for the acts of the one entity cannot attach to the\nother entity.\n\nPersonality then is the synthetic principle in man's being.  Psychology\nreveals it as unifying the parts of a man's soul and welding into an\nindivisible whole the various elements of conscious and subconscious\nexperience.  The student of Christology welcomes this account of\npersonality, but he requires more.  He seeks a parallel for the union\nof two whole and perfect natures.  He demands some reason for holding\nthe central dogma of the incarnation to be intelligible and probable.\nThe next step in the argument accordingly is to ask, \"Why limit the\nsynthetic power of personality?\"  If personality can synthesise parts\nof a nature, why should it not also synthesise natures?  If human\npersonality can unify such heterogeneous psychic elements as thought,\nwill and feeling, and present them as a harmonious whole, is it not\ncredible that divine personality should carry the synthesis a step\nfurther and harmonise in one being the thoughts, wills and feelings of\nGod and man?  The hypostatic union of natures in Christ is a phenomenon\nnot psychologically improbable, and one which can be paralleled from\nhuman experience.  There is in man what is tantamount to a conjunction\nof the two natures.  Man is rather diphysite than monophysite.  We\npointed out above the extensive modifications that can be produced in a\nman's nature by environment.  There is in him a deeper duality which we\ncan only characterise as an association of divine and human.  Man is an\ninhabitant of the earth, of earthly descent and finite destiny; yet the\ndivine is not totally foreign to him.  He has hopes of heaven, moments\nof supraconsciousness, at times vision, resolve and emotion that are\nsupra-normal.  The divine is an element in him.  It is more than an\naspect of his nature.  Its influence operates often in opposition to\nthe human element.  He is, as Bergson puts it, at the meeting-point of\nthe upward and the downward currents.  He can know God, can do the will\nof God, can be filled with the love of God.  Here are the three factors\nof his nature, raised to a higher power.  His experience may lie and\noften does lie on two planes.  He is \"double lived in regions new.\"\n\nIn applying this human analogy to the ideal man caution is necessary.\nThe duality of natures is a fact in both cases, but there is one\nessential difference.  The personal substratum of the natures in one\ncase is human, in the other case divine.  In man the divine element is\npart of his nature, but not part of his person.  The ego remains human\nthrough all spiritual development.  \"The best of saints is a saint at\nthe best.\"  The secondary element in him is a fact, but it is part of\nhis nature, not of his person.  It is otherwise in the case of Christ.\nHe came from the ideal world and returned there.  The background of his\nexperience was and is divine.  The secondary element in Him was the\nhuman, the primary the divine.  He shared man's experience and shared\nit really, but it did not form part of the core of His being.  When He\nthought or willed or felt as a man, it was a _kenosis_, a limiting of\nhis natural mode of self-expression.  Divine and human are both present\nin the experience of Christ and of mankind, but with this\ndifference--man rises to the divine; Christ condescended to the human.\n\n\n\nVALUE OF BERGSON'S PSYCHOLOGY TO ORTHODOX CHRISTOLOGY\n\nPerson and nature are then real and distinct psychic entities.  They\nare real alike in God and man.  The distinction between them is not\nartificial or verbal; it is perhaps elusive, but it is genuine and\ncapable of proof from experience.  The synthetic faculty of personality\nmanifests itself in uniting without confusing, first, parts of the\nnature, second, entire natures.  These theses supply what is requisite\nfor an intelligent appreciation of Christology.  Without them\nChristology is a battle of shadows; with them it becomes a practical\nproblem of first importance for religious minds.  The psychology which\njustifies orthodox Christology is that which proclaims the\ninterpenetration of psychic states, and which distinguishes between the\nsurface states of a relaxed consciousness, and the deep-seated states\nwhich are ever present, but of which we are conscious only at moments\nof tension.\n\nThe catholic mind conceives the person of Christ as an eternal\nself-existent synthetic unity that has combined in an indissoluble\nunion the natures of God and man.  Human parallels make intelligible\nthe co-existence of the two natures in the one person and the one body.\nWhat is normal in man is surely possible in the ideal man.  Heretical\nChristologies err in their psychology.  In Nestorian Christology Christ\nis presented as a dual personality, an abnormal association in one body\nof two distinct self-existent beings.  Thus a pathological case would\nbe elevated to the rank of mankind's ideal.  The monophysite psychology\nplunges men into the opposite error.  An undiscriminating craving for\nunity among the phenomena of psychic life prevents any recognition of\nthe dual character of experience.  Monophysitism is blind to the\ndifference between person and nature because it places all psychic\nexperiences on the one level.  Determined to find unity in its ideal,\nit seeks an inappropriate unity, the mathematical unity, the unity that\nexcludes plurality.  To the monophysite the major part of the gospels\nis a sealed book, because the major part of the facts there recorded\nabout Christ could not possibly have happened to a one-natured Christ.\nHis human knowledge, normal, limited, progressive, His human will,\nnatural, adequate to the human, inadequate to the superhuman task, his\nhuman feelings, his body consubstantial with ours are to the\nmonophysite merely shadows or symbols or aspects of something greater.\nThey are dwarfed into nothingness.  They are lost in the divine\nomniscience, omnipotence and transcendent love.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nMONOPHYSITISM IN THE PRESENT DAY\n\n\"To believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ\" is an\nideal that the thoughtful Christian strives to attain.  He expects to\nfind the solution of high moral and speculative problems in that union\nof divine and human.  The right faith is not easily reached.  It is an\nelusive prize.  There are conditions moral and intellectual attaching\nto its possession.  The moral conditions may take a lifetime to fulfil.\nEven on its intellectual side faith is a long process.  No sudden\nmental grasp of the whole truth can be attained.  It dawns on the mind\ngradually.  The discipline of faith in the incarnation consists in a\ngradual and laborious advance from stage to stage.  The various stages\nare half-truths or inadequate conceptions of Christ.  They are\nobjectified in the Christological heresies.  These heresies arrange\nthemselves in a sequence so strict and so logical that one could almost\nsay that they are deducible _a priori_ from the concept \"divine-human.\"\nCertainly the subjective fancies of the heresiarchs do not provide the\nwhole account.  There is something of the universal in these heresies.\nThey are in the main current of religious thought.  As the chief\nhistoric systems of philosophy repeat themselves in each generation and\nin the intellectual development of individual thinkers, so do the\nChristological heresies recur.  There is considerable truth in Hegel's\ncontentions that the development of a man's mind is one with that of\nthe general consciousness, that the individual reason is a miniature of\nthe universal reason, that in fact the history of a philosopher's\nthinking is an abstract of the history of philosophy.  The same holds\ngood in the field of religious thought.  Without much artificiality,\nwithout forcing the facts, a rational scheme of the Christological\nheresies might be drawn up.  They might be pictorially represented as\nthe rungs of a ladder, which the truth-seeking mind scales rung by\nrung, pausing at the lower phases of Christological thought, and then\nresuming the ascent till the highest truth is attained.  The instrument\nof thought is much the same in all centuries; the objects of thought\nvary very little; so it is intelligible that the products of\nspeculative and religious thought should remain the same to-day as in\nthe fifth century.\n\n\n\nTHE EXISTENCE OF MODERN MONOPHYSITISM\n\nIs there such a thing as modern monophysitism?  To this question the\npreceding paragraph supplies the answer, \"There must be.\"  Heretical\ntendencies will be found in the Christian community in every\ngeneration, and the religious thought of individual Christians will\npass through heretical phases.  Such heresy is rather an intellectual\nthan a moral fault; but the possibility of being the heirs, without\nknowing it, of the opinions of Nestorius and Eutyches throws on\nthinkers to-day the responsibility of examining their Christological\nbeliefs and of testing them by the canon of orthodoxy.  Not a few\nleaders of religious thought, in intention orthodox, in fact remain\nmonophysites, through inability to analyse their beliefs or through a\nfalse sense of security, founded on the opinion that the age of heresy\nis past.\n\nIt is commonly supposed that belief in the deity of Christ constitutes\nChristianity.  That supposition is wrong.  Arius was not the only\nheresiarch.  To transcend the Arian standpoint is only the first step\nin the long discipline of faith.  There are other heresies, other\nhalf-truths scarcely less pernicious than the Arian.  The recognition\nof Christ as God represents a great intellectual and moral advance, and\nis the first essential step in religion; but to rest content with the\ntaking of that step is to remain on the lowest rung of the ladder of\nfaith.  It is little use to form a lofty conception of Christ, if in\ndoing so we insulate Him from the world of things and souls.  That is\nwhat monophysitism does, and because disguised monophysitism is\nprevalent in the church to-day, Christianity's grip is weak and the\nfire of devotion low.\n\nWe may picture faith as a battlefield.  Doubt is the enemy entrenched\nin depth.  Arianism holds the first line of trenches.  Echeloned behind\nArianism are the other heresies in a network of fortified redoubts,\nstrong points and support trenches.  The church militant must make the\nfurthest line her objective.  If her advance stays at an intermediate\npoint, she is exposed to cross-fire from the support trenches of the\nsubsidiary heresies.  The ground gained by the first assault proves\nuntenable.  The position won can only be secured by pushing home the\nattack to the final objective and consolidating her line there in the\nmight of full catholic doctrine.\n\nA thorough and systematic advance of this sort was made by the orthodox\nChristologians of the fifth century.  The campaign was fought and won\nthen.  It has, however, to be fought anew in each generation and in the\nexperience of individual thinkers.  Monophysitism is commonly regarded\nas a vagary of oriental thought, killed once and for all by a church\ncouncil in the fifth century.  That is a superficial view.\nMonophysitism is a hydra growth, and no Hercules can be found to\nexterminate it.  It reappears in each succeeding age, in West as well\nas East.  The structure of the human intellect is such that, whenever\nmen begin to investigate the being of Christ, the tendency to regard\nHim as one-natured is present.  The church of the fifth century exposed\nthat doctrine; it was beyond her power to kill it.\n\n\n\nREASONS FOR THE PREVALENCE OF MONOPHYSITISM\n\nMonophysitism is in our midst undetected to-day.  It is not hard to\naccount for its prevalence.  The clergy are for the most part unable to\nexpound Christology, and the laity are impatient of exposition.\nAnything savouring of precise theology is at a discount.  So pulpit and\npew conspire to foster the growth of the tares.  The \"Athanasian\" creed\nis in disrepute, and its statement of dogmatic Christology is involved\nin the discredit attaching to the damnatory clauses.  The clergy are\nperhaps rather glad to leave the subject alone.  They know it is a\ndifficult subject, and they are afraid of burning their fingers.  The\nlaity rarely hear any reference to the two natures of Christ.  If they\ndo, they are not interested; they do not think that the question makes\nany difference to faith or practice.  The whole extent of the\nChristological knowledge possessed by the average churchman is\ncomprised in the formula, \"Christ is God and man.\"  He cannot apply the\nformula nor reconcile it with common sense.  He occasionally hears from\nthe pulpit the phrase \"God-man\"; but it is a mere phrase to him; it is\nnot translated for him into a language that he can understand.  So he\nregisters the doctrine mentally as an impenetrable mystery and gives it\nno further attention, or perhaps turns away in disgust from the system\nwhose central figure is so unintelligibly presented by its authorised\nexponents.  The bare statement that Christ is God and man, though true,\nis not adequate.  It carries no conviction to thinking minds to-day.\nThe full definition of the council of Chalcedon should be published\nbroadcast, and so studied by theologians in the light of modern\npsychology that they can present it as a reasonable dogma, intelligible\nto-day and touching modern life.\n\nIn the absence of such teaching the spread of false, unbalanced or\ninadequate conceptions of what Christ was and of what He is is\ninevitable.  Our concern here is to exhibit those of a monophysite\ncharacter.  Monophysite tendencies of the present day may be grouped\naccording as they affect Christ's being or His work or Christian\npractice.  We propose to take them in that order.\n\n\n\nMODERN PRESENTATIONS OF CHRIST ESOTERIC AND DEFICIENT IN PERSONAL APPEAL\n\nMonophysitism in respect of Christ's being shows itself to-day in\nnegative rather than positive ways.  To its subtle influence is\ntraceable the capital defect of modern presentations of Christ, namely,\nthat they make no appeal to the outsider.  Christ is proclaimed as the\nsolution of moral, social and industrial problems.  As a rule in such\ncases the name \"Christ\" is used as a synonym for Christian principles.\nSuch appeals are addressed to the head; they do not touch the heart and\nfire the imagination; they do not kindle that personal devotion to the\nMan Christ Jesus which has always been the dynamic of the faith.  The\nhistoric Christ is not presented in a way that would appeal to the\nunconvinced.  Christian teaching is becoming more and more esoteric.\nIn the language of Christology, a diphysite Christ is not preached.\nHis human nature is kept in the background.  It is not portrayed in\narresting colours.  If the apostles and apostolic men had preached the\nimpersonal redeemer of modern religious thought, they would never have\nwon the world for Christ.  Their imaginations and lives were fired by\ncontact with a Man of flesh and blood.  So they presented a Christ\nwhose true humanity appealed to His fellow-men.  They showed the gospel\npicture to an unbelieving world, and the world responded to its appeal.\n\nIt is not easy to bridge the centuries and regain the apostles'\nstandpoint, but until it is done the church's message will lack\ninspiration.  The phrase \"the historic Christ\" is commonly used, as if\nit covered the whole ground.  It is certainly serviceable as a protest\nagainst a bare logos theory of the incarnation, but in itself it is not\nadequate.  What requires emphasis is the humanity of the historic\nChrist.  Many Christian teachers purposely withhold this emphasis from\nfear of playing into the hands of Arians and Nestorians.  No doubt if\npressed they would give intellectual assent to the dogma of the two\nnatures, but they shrink from following it out to its consequences.\nThere is a widespread feeling that it is irreverent to dwell on the\nfact that Christ was a real man.  A firm grasp of catholic Christology\nin its entirety is the cure for this squeamishness.  To obscure the\nfact of His Manhood is not the true reply to a denial of His Deity.  A\ntrue presentation of Christ must give full weight to the facts that He\nhad a human body, human mind, human feelings and human will, that His\nbody was in space normally subject to physical law, that His\nconsciousness and subconsciousness conformed to psychic law.  Wherever\na denial of these facts is found, there is monophysitism.  Wherever\nthey are obscured or neglected, there are monophysite tendencies.\n\n\n\nINDIFFERENCE TO CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS--A CLASSICAL COMPARISON\n\nFailure to appreciate the real humanity of Christ's life results in\ncomparative indifference to the tragedy of His death.  Monophysitism in\nundermining belief in the reality of Christ's manhood is weakening\nsympathy with His sufferings.  Calvary like Bethlehem has lost much of\nits appeal.  A classical comparison will illustrate this fact.  Plato's\naccount of Socrates' last hour in the prison and of his drinking the\nhemlock is, I imagine, to many educated men far more moving than the\nstory of the Passion and Death of Christ.  There is a curious\nsimilarity in the two tragedies that invites attention and comparison.\nBoth sufferers were heroes and moral reformers, the victims of mistaken\nzeal on the part of religious authority.  Socrates died in a ripe age\nwith his life work accomplished.  Jesus was cut off in His prime.\nSocrates' last hours were tranquil and his passing quick and easy.\nJesus after shame and torture died a lingering death.  The dysthanasia\nof Jesus should, one would opine, make a stronger appeal to men's\nsympathies than does the euthanasia of Socrates.  Yet on the whole the\nreverse is the case.  The difference in the respective styles of the\ntwo narratives does not give the whole explanation.  It is true that\nthe Phaedo is a work of fine art while the gospel story is a plain\nstatement of fact.  The reason, however, for the difference in appeal\ngoes deeper than literary style.  The reader of the Phaedo puts himself\ninto the place of Socrates and suffers with him.  As we read the\nPassion of Christ there rises a barrier between us and the divine\nsufferer.  Unconsciously we say to ourselves, \"Christ suffered, of\ncourse, but He did not suffer as we should have suffered in His place.\nHis were not the real sufferings of a real man.\"\n\nIf the passion of Christ and that of Socrates were weighed in the same\nbalances, there would be less indifference to-day to the gospel story.\nWere Christ the Man realised as such, visualised, as other great men of\nhistory are visualised, among his followers, the hero worship that\ninspired the early church would revive.  What makes Christians\nindifferent to Christ's sufferings is not the lapse of centuries nor\nweakness of imagination but a subconscious monophysitism.  There is to\nmost minds a haze of unreality overhanging the accounts of His life and\ndeath.  They forget that He shared human experience to the full.  They\nthink of Him as doing things _rheidios_ like the Homeric gods.  In\npoint of fact, His great results were achieved only after long\nlaborious exertion.  His was a life of strenuous human activity,\nphysical and mental.  Even His miracles were accompanied by a physical\nthrob of sympathy; virtue went out of Him.  Redemption made it\nnecessary.  Enthusiastic devotion to a person must be grounded in\ncommunity of experience.  It is the human touches in the drama of\nChrist's life that make the most powerful appeal to mankind.  Yet the\nhuman element is obscured, as a rule, in modern presentations of the\ngospel.  For spiritual minds it is comparatively easy to apprehend a\ndivine Christ.  To apprehend a human Christ makes a larger call on\ntheir imagination and their sympathy.  Spiritual men are naturally\nmonophysite in their thinking.  They shrink from the mental effort that\ndiphysitism demands.  Their attention is focussed on Christ's\nsuperiority to human limitations.  They scarcely see the miracle of the\nhuman, and thus they miss the import of the divine miracle.  In the\natmosphere of monophysitism mysticism thrives, but devotion decays.  We\nmay instance the almost total disappearance of the crusading spirit.\nThe Christ to whom our thoughts usually turn is an omnipresent ideal\nwith no historical or local associations.  His birth-place and His\ncountry evoke only a lukewarm sentiment.  The church's year is\nneglected.  The historical facts of Christ's life are often regarded as\nof only minor importance.  Piety used to consist in personal loyalty to\nthe Founder of a universal religion; it is now considered synonymous\nwith obedience to the \"golden rule.\"\n\n\n\nTO ATTRIBUTE OMNISCIENCE TO CHRIST'S HUMAN NATURE IS MONOPHYSITISM\n\nWithin recent times the question as to the limitation of Christ's\nknowledge was hotly debated.  That debate showed how much uncertainty\non Christological questions exists and how strong monophysite opinion\nstill is.  In spite of Christ's own _dicta_, in spite of the dogma of\ntwo natures, denial of the limitation was widespread and persistent.\nTo many devout minds it seems impious to speak of Christ's ignorance.\nThis is a case in which the Chalcedonian definition is an invaluable\nguide.  If one brings to an examination of Christ's nature the\npreconceived notion of His omniscience, the doctrine of the limitation\nof His knowledge seems an outrage on belief; but if one approaches the\nquestion with the orthodox formula in mind, one is prepared to find\nthat His cognitive faculties were perfectly human and humanly perfect.\nSo we find it.  His knowledge and His faculties of knowledge on the\nlower plane of His experience were essentially the same as ours.  He\nthought in our categories.  He used our organon, perfect of its kind,\nbut still a human organon.  As man, inevitably, He had thoughts\nuncognised; and such a mental state we call \"ignorance.\"  His mind\npassed through stages of development as ours does.  Education widened\nHis horizon, strengthened His faculties, and increased His knowledge.\nAdvance in knowledge implies a prior state of relative ignorance.  The\nword \"ignorance\" as applied to Christ sounds very terrible; but\ninvestigation of its meaning robs it of its terrors.  We use the word\nin two senses.  On the one hand it may mean the absence of a thought,\nits absolute non-presence in consciousness.  On the other it may mean\nthought unrelated to experience, one whose implications are not or\ncannot be fully deduced, in fact, the incomplete cognition of an idea.\nIn neither case does it involve imperfection in the instrument or moral\nfault.  On the contrary ignorance is a mark of the normal in cognition.\nIf ignorance and limitation of knowledge were not found in Christ, we\nshould be forced to agree with Apollinaris that the divine Logos had\nsuperseded His human intellect.\n\nIgnorance in so far as it is a positive attribute is far from being a\nmark of imperfection.  It is a true paradox that ignorance like\nobliviscence forms part of the process of human cognising.  Probably in\nthe truth of things memory is of the essence of mind.  Thoughts\nnaturally and spontaneously reproduce themselves.  The past of\nexperience tends automatically to carry forward into the present.  The\nfunction of the brain then, or of a mental faculty intimately\nco-operating with the brain is to discriminate, to sift and select, to\nprolong into present consciousness what is of importance for action and\nto relegate the irrelevant to partial or total oblivion.  From this\npsychological standpoint ignorance and obliviscence are seen to be\nachievements of the intellect.  The presence of all facts in a human\nconsciousness is unthinkable.  If it were possible, it would paralyse\naction.  If we exempt Christ from the law of ignorance and\nobliviscence, we _ipso facto_ dehumanise his cognition.  When we say\nthat Jesus was ignorant of much scientific truth, or that his\nprescience was limited, we do not compromise His dignity.  We simply\nassert the naturalness of His intellect and the true humanity of that\nelement of His nature.  To do otherwise, to claim omniscience for His\nhuman intellect is gross monophysitism.  His knowledge was deeper,\nsurer, more penetrating than ours, because the light of His divine\nintuition streamed through the veil of sense and illumined the lower\nphases of intelligence.  This is an instance of the _communicatio\nidiomatum_.  The properties of the two natures act and react upon one\nanother.  But we must make the distinction of natures our\nstarting-point, or fusion will take place.  There must be _idiomata_\nfirst, or the _communicatio_ is meaningless.\n\n\n\nTHE PRESENT EXISTENCE OF CHRIST'S HUMAN NATURE\n\nThe view taken of the Christ of the past necessarily affects belief in\nthe Christ of the present.  It is scarcely possible to realise the\npresent existence of a human Christ, unless the fact of His actual\nhuman existence in the first century of our era be grasped.  If He had\nbut one nature on earth, He has but one nature now in heaven.  If the\nhistoric Christ was monophysite, so also is the Christ to whom we pray.\nIn this consequence consists the seriousness of modern monophysitism.\nThe present reality of His human nature is to-day even among His\nfollowers doubted, obscured, or forgotten.  Christ is to many spiritual\nminds merely an ideal personality, a summary of their own ethical\nideals.  They perhaps regard Him as a disembodied spirit or mysterious\ninfluence.  They rarely attain the catholic standpoint and see the\nhuman nature as a psychic entity actually existent to-day.  At any rate\nthe doctrine is not thought out to its consequences.  The \"perpetual\nintercession\" is, it is feared, little more than a phrase.  That Christ\nas man still intercedes for men is a verity not understood and only\nhalf appreciated.  Yet the official doctrine of orthodoxy teaches that\nthere is a full and true continuity of existence between the Christ of\nGalilee and the Christ to whom we pray.  The Church teaches that there\nis somewhere, in some transcendent form of existence, a being with\nperfect human mind, whose will in strength and scope is perfectly\nproportioned to His knowledge, whose feelings are in perfect mutual\nharmony, whose psychic nature finds outward expression in a glorified\nbody; that this perfect being once walked this earth, and yet had and\nhas the ground of His being in a divine personality.  Such a Christ the\nlatent monophysitism of our thinking hides from our view.\n\n\n\nTHE DOCTRINE OF SUBJECTIVE REDEMPTION DUE TO MONOPHYSITISM\n\nThe doctrines of Christ's person and of His work are intimately\nassociated.  What He did depended on what He was.  Christology and\nSoteriology act and react upon each other.  If Christology is crippled,\nSoteriology goes lame.  Christ takes His stand in the centre of the\ncosmic process in virtue of His unique being.  In that He unites deity\nand humanity in His own person, He brought redemption within the reach\nof mankind.  His redemption of humanity was as definite a fact as His\nassumption of human nature.  Both to the Christian are objective\nhistorical facts; if either of them falls to the ground, so does the\nother; and with that collapse goes the purpose of creation and\nhumanity's hope.  A docetic interpretation of the human nature entails\na docetic view of redemption.  Monophysitism, as we have seen, casts\ndoubts upon the reality of the sufferings and humanity of Christ; in so\ndoing it compromises the work He accomplished.  Atonement ceases to be\na cosmic transaction completed on Calvary, and becomes a subjective\nprocess.  Redemption is made into an attitude, or rather a change of\nattitude, on the part of the individual.  That Christ wrought a power\nand hope for man which man could not achieve for himself is not a\nfamiliar doctrine to-day.  Pain, not sin, is the great modern problem.\nThe Cross is made to stand for sympathy, not for satisfaction.\nSalvation, achieved at a definite moment of history and conferred on\nbelievers of subsequent generations, rests for its foundations on the\nobjective assumption of human nature by a divine person.  If the\nfoundations be undermined, as monophysitism undermines them, the\nsuperstructure crumbles.  Redemption becomes improvement by effort and\nself-help, or a constant endeavour after a private ideal of conduct.\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM LIMITS THE SCOPE OF REDEMPTION\n\nMonophysitism shows itself also in the modern tendency to narrow the\nscope of redemption.  Partial salvation is offered as a substitute for\nthe salvation of the entire man.  This tendency is a natural result of\nnarrowing the import of the incarnation.  It runs counter to orthodox\nChristology and the derivate doctrines.  A divine economy is traceable\nin God's dealings with men; there is nothing purposeless, nothing\notiose in God's dispensation.  The Church's invariable answer to the\nApollinarians was grounded in belief in this economy.  She argued that\nChrist could not redeem what He did not assume, and, conversely, that\nwhat He assumed He redeemed.  He assumed human nature in its entirety,\nthought, will, feeling and body; therefore not one of those elements of\nhuman nature lies outside the scope of redemption.  Monophysitism\nexcludes some or all of those elements from the being of the incarnate\nChrist, and by so doing deprives the corresponding elements in man's\nnature of their rightful share in the benefit of redemption.\n\nThe feeling that some parts of human nature are more fitted to survive\nthan others is wide-spread to-day.  It is found within as well as\nwithout the Church.  We constantly read of the \"survival factor.\"  The\nterm implies the belief that at death part of the man's nature survives\nand part perishes.  There is, however, no general agreement as to which\npart constitutes the \"survival factor.\"  The intellectualist pins his\nfaith to the immortality of the reason.  He is content to let death\ndeprive him of everything except the logical faculty.  For the aesthete\nbeauty alone is eternal, and his hope for the future lies in the\ncontinuance of his aesthetic sense.  The materialist sees permanence\nonly in the indestructibility of the ultimate physical constituents of\nhis body.  The epigenesis of a spiritual body lies outside his horizon.\nThe volitionist finds all the value of life in the moral nature.  For\nhim the good will persists when all else is resolved into nothingness.\nCharacter alone, he says, survives the shock of death.  All these\nlimited views of survival are symptoms of monophysite ways of thinking.\nThe Christian, on the contrary, holds that what is redeemed _eo ipso_\nsurvives.  Whatever else is involved in redemption persistence\ncertainly is included.  Monophysitism stands for a partial redemption;\nbut to the orthodox who believe that Christ assumed human nature in its\nentirety, each part and the whole are of infinite value.  He holds that\nthe strengthening, purifying, and perfecting that salvation brings\napply to the psychic and the physical natures, that no part is exempt,\nthat neither intellect nor will nor feeling ceases with death, that the\nrange of reason will be increased, and its operation made more sure,\nthat lofty and sustained endeavour will replace the transient energy of\nthe earthly will, that feeling will be enhanced, harmonised, and\npurified, that a spiritual body continuous with the body of the flesh\nwill express man's heavenly experience.  These high far-reaching hopes\nrest on the doctrines of catholic Christology.  Christ assumed our\nnature complete in body and psychic parts.  He did so with a purpose,\nand that purpose could be none other than the redemption of the body\nand of all the psychic elements.  To the mystic, body and human\nactivities may seem only transient and unworthy of a place in heaven.\nSuch is false spirituality.  It is contrary to the tenor of catholic\nteaching.  The incarnation brought divine and human together on earth.\nThe resurrection fixed their union.  The ascension gave humanity an\neternal place among eternal things.\n\n\n\nMONOPHYSITISM SHOWN IN THE MODERN TENDENCY TO MAKE THE DEATH OF CHRIST\nA SECONDARY FACTOR IN THE SCHEME OF REDEMPTION\n\nWe have seen above that monophysitism discredits the reality of\nChrist's sufferings.  Dogmatic reasons apart, the monophysite is\nmotived by a repugnance to physical pain and by a wish to exclude it\nfrom the experience of the human ideal.  To this motive we can trace\nthe modern tendency to transfer the doctrinal centre of gravity from\nthe Passion to the incarnation.  The Passion and Death used to occupy\nthe first place in the thoughts of Christians and formed the foundation\nfor all theories of atonement.  The incarnation was regarded as, for\nthe purposes of dogma, subsidiary.  Within recent times the position\nhas been reversed.  The main stress falls now on the incarnation.  The\nPassion seems of secondary importance, if, as modern theology often\nteaches, all purposes of redemption were secured prior to it.  In thus\nchanging the venue of redemption modern theology is wrong.  The mistake\nis prompted largely, so it seems to the writer, by monophysitism latent\nin modern religious thought; at any rate strict adherence to the\ncatholic doctrine of two natures would have prevented it.  The human\nnature that Christ assumed had to be perfected through suffering;\notherwise it could not attain that universality and representative\ncharacter which enabled it to become the medium of universal salvation.\nIf it had been enough for the divine spirit to mingle with men, to show\nthem a pattern life, and to touch them to higher things, an apparition\nwould have been adequate, and no community of suffering would have been\nnecessary.  Since Christ not only appeared as man, but experienced in\nHis flesh all man's experiences, death which is the climax of human\nexperience fell to His lot and set the seal to the divine enterprise.\nSince He who died was the flesh and blood embodiment of the cosmic\nrelation.  His death has cosmic significance.  The doctrinal edifice in\nwhich Calvary is of ornamental and not of structural value has\nmonophysitism for its foundation.\n\n\n\nHISTORICAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY OBSCURED\n\nChrist's mission is misunderstood to-day as well as His cosmic work.\nIn certain religious quarters where zeal is not balanced by learning,\nHis mission as the founder of a religious society is forgotten.  To\nthose who are deficient in historic sense the continuity of the Church\ndown the centuries seems unimportant, and institutional religion a\nhindrance rather than a help to the spiritual life of the individual\nChristian.  Pietism of this kind has always been present in the church;\nto-day it is prevalent.  It nominally associates its piety with the\nhistoric Christ, but actually it worships an ideal constructed by its\nown ethical imagination.  Such pietists spiritualise the faith.  The\nfacts of the historic creed are to them little more than symbols of\nreligious truth.  Spiritual resurrection, spiritual ascension are the\nonly miracles for them.  This tendency to spiritualise everything is a\nphase of monophysitism.  It results from losing sight of the person of\nthe historic Christ, and resolving His assumption of human nature into\nthe assumption of a title.\n\n\n\nCHRISTOLOGY A DETERMINANT OF SACRAMENTAL THOUGHT\n\nErrors in sacramental teaching necessarily accompany misconceptions of\nthe person of Christ.  The incarnation is a cosmic sacrament, the\nmeeting-point of divine and human, and the sacraments of the church are\ntypes of the vaster mystery.  In both type and antitype it is all\nimportant to give due weight to divine and human, and not to exalt one\nelement at the expense of the other.  Those who undervalue the human\nnature of Christ are disposed to undervalue the outward sign in the\nsacraments.  Not appreciating the hypostatic union of divine with\nhuman, they misunderstand the sacramental union of the same elements.\nBlind to the significance of Christ's humanity in the economy of\nredemption, they fail to see how matter can be the channel of\nsacramental grace.  Yet the discipline of faith is the same in both\ncases.  The Christian enterprise is not merely to believe in the\ndivine, but to believe in the divine manifested in the human.\n\nThere are two divergent, almost opposing, schools of sacramental\nteaching, both of which have inherited the spirit of monophysitism.\nBoth are instances of sacramental monism.  First, there are those who\nidentify the outward signs and the inward grace; second, those to whom\nthe inward grace is everything and the outward sign nothing.  Both\nschools of thought destroy the nature of a sacrament.  The radical\nerror of both consists in undervaluing the human and material.  In the\nfirst case the error takes the form of the transubstantiation doctrine,\nwhich is exactly parallel to the extreme form of Eutychianism.\nAccording to Eutyches, the human nature of Christ was absorbed into the\ndivine and lost there; the truth of His being was the divine\npersonality; the human element was only an appearance.  Similarly the\ntransubstantiation theory conceives the mutation of the _substance_ of\nthe material elements and the loss of their proper nature; the\nappearance of reality that the _accidents_ possess is an illusion of\nthe senses.  We may note in passing that the opposite error to\ntransubstantiation finds its Christological parallel in Nestorianism.\nSocinianism which separates symbol from sacramental grace is\nsacramental dualism, as Nestorianism is Christological dualism.  Both\nabandon a vital unity of divine and human.  The pietistic or mystical\nview of the sacraments does so too, but in a different way.  This\nsecond form of sacramental monism has much in common with the doctrine\nof one nature.  To the pietist the divine seems all important, and the\nmaterial no help, but rather a hindrance to the spiritual life.  The\nfaith of the individual to him is the seat of the efficacy of the\nsacraments; he regards matter as unreal if not sinful, and in either\ncase unworthy to be a channel of divine grace.  Echo after echo of\nmonophysite thought can be caught here.  The surest way to combat\nsacramental errors on both sides is a clear and definite statement of\nthe catholic doctrine of Christology.\n\n\n\nNEED OF A MENTAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE HUMAN NATURE OF CHRIST\n\nAs the interval of time widens, separating Christians from the human\nlife of their God, the more urgent becomes the obligation to put forth\na constructive effort of the historical imagination.  The attempt to\nkeep that memory green grows harder and harder as the centuries pass;\nbut Christians must make it; otherwise the historical character of\ntheir religion will perish.  There need be no fear that the interests\nof spiritual religion will suffer.  Amongst moderns the danger of\nidealising the human is greater than that of humanising the divine.  An\nintelligent appreciation of Christ's human life draws out love and\nkindles reverence towards the divine personality who condescended to\nthe level of mankind.  We may point by way of illustration to the\neffect of biblical criticism.  Christians of a previous generation\ndreaded the touch of criticism.  They thought it profanation.  They\nrefused to admit any human element in the bible.  Criticism, however,\nhad its way.  Bibliolatry had to go.  The result is that the bible is a\nliving book to us to-day.  In spite of the fears of the devout there\nwas little to lose and much to gain by recognising the human element in\nthe bible.  As with the written word, so with the living Word.  Without\na recognition of the human element in His being, a full assimilation of\nHis teaching and an intimate perception of His real presence are\nunattainable.  If this recognition be accorded, the great past will\nlive again in the present.  Hostile critics study the life and\ncharacter of Christ and the records of them with a view to proving that\nHe was merely man.  Believers may adopt their method with a different\nobject.  They may undertake the same study in order to comprehend the\nwonder of the Man, and so rise to some conception of the wonder of the\nGod.  The gospels are read mainly as a handbook of devotion; they\nshould be studied as the biography of a hero.  The face-value of its\nincidents is often neglected, while the reader seeks allegorical and\nmystical interpretations.  To form a mental picture of Christ in His\nenvironment, to read ourselves back into His world and then into His\nways of thought, such efforts are more than ever needed to-day, and\nthey are more than ever absent.  Historic sense and imagination should\nbe allowed to play upon the recorded acts and sayings of Jesus, until a\ngreat temple to His memory rises in the high places of the mind,\ndominating thence the whole intellectual and moral life.  Such an\nenterprise would infuse life and meaning into the Christological\nformula, and would effect, so to speak, a reconstruction of the human\nnature of the historic Christ.  The Christian's attitude towards the\nMan Christ Jesus is the \"acid test\" of the sincerity of his faith.  No\none can bring intellectual difficulties to a being to whom cognising\nwas a foreign process, nor moral difficulties to one who knew no\nconflict of wills, nor sorrows to one \"all breathing human passion far\nabove.\"  If we picture the ideal of all mankind as thinking our\nthoughts, willing as we will, feeling as we feel, we are united to Him\nby an intellectual, moral and emotional bond of sympathy.  Such a\nthreefold cord is not quickly broken.  Communion with such a Being\nleads the worshipper to the heart of the Christian religion.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.","title":"Monophysitism Past and Present: A Study in Christology","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":30614}