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 EUTYGHIANISM

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EUTYGHIANISM

to have long survived. His monastery, at Constanti- nople, was put under the supervision of Julian of Cos as visitor, that prelate being still the papal represen- tative at Constantinople.

The principal authorities for the life of Eutyches are The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon and The Letters of St. Leo. See also under Eutvchianism.

John Chapman.

Eutychianism and Monophysitism are usually identified as a single heresy. But as some Monophy- sites condemned Eutyches, the name Eviychian is given by some writers to only the more extreme of these sectaries, or even only to those in Armenia. It seems best to use the words indifferently, as no party of the sect looked to Eutyches as a founder or a leader, and Eutychian is but a nickname for all those who, like Eutyches, rejected the orthodo.x e.xpression "two na- tures" of Christ. The tenet "one nature" was com- mon to all Monophysites and Eutycliians, and they affected to call Catholics Diphysites or Dyophysites. The error took its rise in a reaction against Nestorian- ism, which taught that in Christ there is a human hy- postasis or person as well as a Divine. This was inter- preted to imply a want of reality in the union of the Word with the assumed Humanity, and even to result in two Christs, two Sons, though this was far from the intention of Nestorius himself in giving liis incorrect explanation of the union. He was ready to admit one Trpbawirov, but not one hypostasis, a " prosopic " union, though not a " hypostatic " union, which is the Catho- lic expression. He so far exaggerated the distinction of the Humanity from the Divine Person Who assumed it, that he denied that the Blessed Virgin could be called Mother of God, ©foT^ras. His views were for a time interpreted in a benign sense by Theodoret, and also by John, Bishop of Antioch, but they all eventu- ally concurred in his condemnation, when he showed his heretical spirit by refusing all submission and ex- planation. His great antagonist, St. Cyril of Alexan- dria, was at first vehemently attacked by Theodoret, John, and their party, as denying the completeness of the Sacred Humanity after the manner of the heretic Apollinarius.

The fiery Cyril curbed his natural impetuosity; mu- tual explanations followed; and in 434, three years after the Council of Ephesus which had condemned Nestorius, peace was made between Alexandria and Antioch. Cyril proclaimed it in a letter to John beginning Lirtentur cceli, in which he clearly con- demned beforehand the Monothelite, if not the Mono- physite, views which were to be unfortunately based on certain ambiguities in his earlier expressions. If he did not arrive quite at the exactness of the language in which St. Leo was soon to formulate the doctrine of the Church, yet the following words, drawn up by the Antiochian party and fully accepted by Cyril in his letter, are clear enough: " before the worlds begotten of the Father according to the Godhead, but m the last days and for our salvation of the Virgin Mary ac- cording to the Manhood; consubstantial with the Father in the Godhead, consubstantial with us in the Manhood; for a union of two natures took place, wherefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to the understanding of this unconfused union, we confess the Blessed Virgin to be Theotokos, because the Word of God was incarnate and made man, and through her conception united to Himself the temple He received from her. And we are aware that the words of the Gospels, and of the Apo.stles, concerning the Lord are, by theologians, looked upon some as applying in common [to the two natures] as belonging to the one Person; others as attributed to one of the two natures; and that they tell us by tradi- tion, that some are of divine import, to suit the Divin- ity of Christ, others of humble nature belonging to His humanity." In this "creed of the union" between .John and Cyril, it is at least implied that the two nar

tures remain after the union (against Monophysitism), and it is quite clearly enunciated that some expres- sions belong to the Person, others to each of the Na- tures, as, e. g., it was later defined that activities (if^pyeiai.) and will are of the Natures (against Mono- thelites), while Sonship (against the Adoptionists), is of the Person. There is no doubt that Cyril would have understood rightly and have accepted (even apart from papa! authority) the famous words of St. Leo's tome: " Agit enim utraque forma cum alterius communione quod proprium est " (Ep. xxviii, 4). The famous formula of St. Cyril m'" i<ris toO 9eoO A6yov ceffapKuiiivTi, " one nature mcarnate of God the Word " (or "of the Word of God"), derived from a treatise which Cyril believed to be by St. Athanasius, the greatest of his predecessors, was intended by him in a right sense, and has been formally atlopted by the Church. In the eighth canon of the Fifth General Council, those are anathematized who say " one Na- ture incarnate of God the Word ", unless they " accept it as the Fathers taught, that by a hypostatic union of the Divine nature and the human, one Christ was ef- fected'. In the Lateran Council of 649, we find: "Si quis secundum sanctos Patres non confitetur propria et secundum veritatem unam naturam Dei verbi in- carnatam . . . anathema sit." Nevertheless this formula, frequently used by Cyril (in Epp. i, ii, Ad Successum; Contra Nest, ii; Ad Eulogium, etc.; see Petavius "De Incarn.", IV, 61, was the starting-point of the Monophysites, some of whom understood it rightly, whereas others pushed it into a denial of the reality of the human nature, while all equally used it as a proof that the formula "two natures" must be rejected as heretical, and therefore also the letter of St. Leo and the decree of Chalcedon.

The word ^wis was ambiguous. Just as the earlier writings of Theodoret against Cyril contained passages which naturally permitted a Nestorian interpretation, — they were in this sense condemned by the Fifth Gen- eral Council — so the earlier writings of Cyril against Nestorius gave colour to the charges of ApoUinarian- ism brought against him by Theodoret, John, Ibas, and their party. The word ;r6(r7-airis, as St. Jerome rightly declared, was the equivalent of oiala in the mouths of all philosophers, yet it was eventually used theologically, from Didymus onwards, as the equiva- lent of the Latin persotia, that is, a subsistent essence. Similarly 0wis was an especially Alexandrian word for oinrla and UTrio-Tatris, and was naturally used of a subsistent oiala, not of abstract omta, Ijoth by Cyril often (as in the formula in question), and by the more moderate Monophysites. The CjTiUian formula, in its genesis and in its rationale, has been explained by Newman in an essay of astounding learning and per- fect clearness (Tracts Theol. and Eccl., iv, 1874). He points out that the word vTr66<ns was not applied, as a rule, in the fourth century, to the Hu- manity of Christ, because that Humanity is not " nat- ural " in the sense of " wholly like to our nature ", since it is sinless, and free from all the imperfections which arise from original sin (not pura natura but In- tegra natiira), it has no human personahty of its own, and it is ineffably graced and glorified by its union with the Word. From this point of view it is clear that Christ is not so fully " consubstantial with us" as He is "consubstantial with the Father". Yet again,