Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/543

 MONOMOTAPA

489

MONOPHYSITES

the fifth and sixth centuries. Peculiar to the Latin Church is the monogram IHS XPS, which occurs in the sixth century Greek-Latin Codex Claramontanus, as an abbreviation of both Our Lord's Greek names. The Greeks also employed the letters IH as an abbre- viation for the name of Jesus, with a peculiar spnbolic meaning. According to the Epistle of pseudo-Barna- l>as the circumcision by Abraham of 318 men of his household had a mystic signification. The Greek let- ters I E T, used as numerals, amount to 318, and at the same time the first two of these letters are abbre- viations of the Name of Jesus, while the third repre- sents the cross (Pseudo-Barnabas, c. ix). The mean- ing was adopted by the Greek Church, and from them it was borrowed by the Latins. The familiar mono- gram I H S was first popularized by St. Bernardine of Siena in the early fifteenth century and later, with the addition of a cross over the central letter, by the Society of Jesus. (See I.H.S).

Ttrwhitt ia Diet. Christ. Antiq. (London, 1875-80), s. v. Monogram: Lowrie, Monuments of the Early Church (New York, 1901); Piper Hacck in Rcalencyk. f. prot. Theol.,B. vv. Monogramm Chrisli (Leipzig, 1903); Kraus in Real-encyklo- padie der chrisflichen Alterthiimer s. v. (Freiburg, 1886).

Maumce M. Hassktt.

Monomotapa. — Whatever be the etymological meaning of the word Moiiiimotapa, the origin of which is much disputed, it is certain, at any rate, that the Portuguese of the sixteenth century employed it to de- note the paramount chief of the Makaranga, a powerful South African tribe dwelling between the Zambesi and Limpopo rivers and extending westward from the In- dian Ocean probably as far as the twenty-fifth parallel of east longitude. "Some interest", says Mr. Theal, "is attached to this word Monomotapa, inasmuch as it was placed on maps of the day as if it were the name of a territorj', not the title of a ruler, and soon it was applied to the entire region from the Zambesi to the niouth of the Fish River. Cieographers, who knew nothing of the countrj', wrote the word upon their charts, and one copied another until the belief became general that a people far advanced in civilization, and governed by a mighty emperor, occupied the whole of southeastern Africa. . . . Such an empire never ex- isted. The foundation upon which imagination con- structed it is nothing more than a Bantu tribe." The empire of the Monomotapa was called Mokaranga. In the fifteenth centun.-, it was united and powerful, but, when the Portuguese arrived in L50.5, it was in a state of disruption, as the reigning Monomotapa, Ma- komba by name, had delegated his authority over the more distant parts of his dominions to members of his family who soon asserted their independence. The Makaranga still live scattered in different parts of Rhodesia over a territory which was once their own. In the matter of civilization they never had much to lose, but their warlike qualities have disappeared, so that the word Makaranga is used by their neighbours as a term of reproach and a synonym for coward. The word Mnnomolapa is no longer known among them. They are, at any rate, more intelligent and do(il(> than their neiglibours, while their features anti many of their customs point to an infusion of Semitic blood. The theory has lately obtained in sonii' i|uarlcrs, that they built the (Ircat Zimbabwe and other ruins .scat- tered over their country. It is far more probable. however, that these, as" well as the numerous roek- mines found in the gold area of Rhodesia and Portu- guese Fast Africa, were the work of some Semitic people who <]ccupicd the country as gold .seekers long before the arrival of the Bantu. The .Makaranga weri^ evangelized in l.'iGl by the \en. Father < Jonvalo da Sil- veira, S.J., who baptized the Monomotapa and many of hisi)eople. But within three months of his arrival the converted chief, instigated by some Mohammedan refugees from Mozambique, turned against th(!_ mis- sionary and had him strangled on IG March, l.'jfU.

JOAO Dos Santos. Ethiopia Oriental (Evora. 1009), tr. Theal in Records of South-Eastern A/rica, VII. printed for the Government of Cape Colony, 1901; Theal. Hist, and Ethnogr. ,of South Africa before 179S (London, 1907); Bent, The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (London, 1896); Hall. Prehistoric Rho- desia (London, 1909); Wilmot. Monomotapa (London, 1S!)(!).

.Iames Kendal.

Monophysites and Monophysitism. — The his- tory of this sect and of its ramifications has been sum- marized under Eutychianism (thenicknamesomewhat unfairly given by Catholic controversialists). The theology of Monophysitism has also been described under the same heading. Two points are discussed in the following article: fir.st, the literary activity of the Monophysites both in Greek and Syriac; secondly, the question whether they can be exculpated from material heresy in their Christology.

Literary History. — From many points of view the Monophysites are the most important of early heretics, and no heresy or related group of heresies until the sixteenth century has produced so vast and important a literature. A large portion of it is lost; some remains in manuscript, and of late years im- portant publications have brought much of this ma- terial to the light of day. Nearly all the Greek lit- erature has perished in its original form, but much of it survives in early Syriac translations, and the Syriac literature itself is extant in yet greater amount. The scientific, philosophical, and grammatical writ- ings of Monophysites must for the most part be passed over here. Ecclesiastical history and biography, as well as dogmatic and polemical writings will be de- scribed for the fifth and sixth centuries, together with a few of the chief works of the centuries immediately following.

Dioscurus (q. v.) has left us but a few fragments. The most important is in the "Hi.st. Misc.", Ill, i, from a letter written in exile at Gangra, in which the banished patriarch declares the reality and complete- ness of our Lord's Human Body, intending evidently to deny that he had approved the refusal of Eutychea to admit Christ's consubstantiality with us.

Timothy Jilurus (d. 477) who had been ordained priest by St. Cyril himself, and preserved a profound attachment to that saint, published an edition of some of his works. He accompanied Dioscurus to the Robber Council of Ephesus in 449, as he says him- self "together with my brother the blessed priest Anatolius" (the secretary of Dioscurus, promoted by him to the See of Constantinople). It is not neces- sary to infer that Timothy and Anatolius were brothers. When the death in exile of Dioscurus (September, 454) was known, Timothy assumed the leadership of those who did not acknowledge the or- thodox Patriarch Proterius, and demanded a new bishop. He had with him four or five deprived bishops. The riots which followed were renewed at the death of the Emperor Marcian, and Proterius was murdered. Even before this, Timothy had been consecrated patriarch by two bishops. Eusebius of Pelusium and the famous Peter the Iberian, Bishop of Maiuma, the latter not even an Egyptian. At Constantinople Anatolius was scarcely his enemy; the minister Aspar was i)robably his friend; but the ICmperor Leo certainly desired to acquiesci; in the ilem:inds for Timothy s deposition addressed to him by the orthodox bishops of Eg\'pt and by Pope St. Leo, and he punished the murderers of Proterius at once. Meanwhile /Elurus was expelling from their sees all bishops who accepted the Council of Chalce- don. It w:is not, however, till Anatolius was de!ul (3 .luly, 4.58) and had been succeeded by St. ( leiina- dius, that the Emjjeror put into effect the opinions he had elicited from :ill the bishops of the East in the "Encyclia", by exiling .fllurus first, to Gangra in Paphlagonia, and then in 400 to theCheronesus. Dur- ing the reign of Ba,sili8cus he was restored, at the end of 47.5, and Zeno spared his old age from molestation.