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 EUTYCHIANISM

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EUTYCHIANISM

he consistently anathematized Eutyches for his denial that Christ is consubstantial with us.

5. In the next generation Severus, Bishop of Antioch (511-39), was the great Monophysite leader. In his earlier days he rejected the Henoticon of Zeno, but when a patriarch he accepted it. His contemporaries accused him of contradicting himself in the attempt, it seems, to be comprehensive. He did not, however, conciliate the Incorrupticola;, but maintained the cor- ruptibility of the Body of Christ. He seems to have admitted the expression ix Svo <pva-ewv. Chalcedon and Pope Leo he treated as Nestorian, as ^lurus did, on the grountl that two natures mean two persons. He did not allow the Humanity to be a distinct monad ; but this is no more than the view of many modern Catholic theologians that it has no esse of its own. (So St. Thomas, III, Q. xvii, a. 2; see Janssens, De Deo- homine, pars prior, p. 607, Freiburg, 1901.) It need not be understood that by thus making a composite hypostasis Severus renounced the CjTillian doctrine of the unchanged nature of the Word after the uncon- fused union. Where he is most certainly heretical is in his conception of one nature not Divine (so Cyril and jElurus) but theandric, and thus a composition, though not a mixture — ipvins ffeavdpiK^. To this one nature are attributed all the activities of Christ, and they are called "theandric" (ivipyeiai. BeavSpixal), instead of being separated into Divine activities and human activities as by the Catholic doctrine. The undivided Word, he said, must have an undivided activity. Thus even if Severus could be defended from the charge of strict Monophj'sitism, in that he affirmed the full reality of the Human Nature of Christ, though he refused to it the name of nature, yet at least he appears as a dogmatic Monothelite. This is the more clear, in that on the crucial question of one or two wills, he pronounces for one theandric will. On the other hand utterances of Severus which make Christ's sufferings voluntarily permitted, rather than naturally necessitated by the treatment inflicted on His Body, might perhaps be defended by the consid- eration that from the union and consequent Beatific Vision in the Soul of Christ, would congruously ensue a beatification of the Soul and a spiritualizing of the Body, as was actually the case after the Resurrection; from this point of view it is true that the pajsibility of the Humanity is voluntary (that is, decreed by the Divine will) and not due to it in the state which is connatural to it after the union; although the Human Nature is of its own nature passible apart from the union (St. Thomas, III, Q. xiv, a. 1, ad 2). It is im- portant to recollect that the same distinction has to be made in considering whether the Body of Christ is to be called corruptible or incorruptible, and conse- quently whether Catholic doctrine on this point is in favour of Severus or of his adversary Julian. The words of St. Thomas may be borne in mind: " Corrup- tio et mors non competit Christo ratione suppositi, secundum quod attenditur unitas, sed ratione natura?. secundum quam invenitur differentia mortis et vitse" (III, Q. 1. a. S, ad 2). As the Monophysites discussed the question ratinnr suppositi (since they took nature to mean hypostasis, and to imply a supposilnm) they were bound to consider the Body of Christ incorrupti- ble. We must therefore consider the Julianists more consistent than the Severians.

6. Julian, Bishop of Halicarnassus, was the leader of those who held the incorruptibility, as Severus was of those who hel0apTo\iTpai or Corrupticola>, and the latter retorted by entitling the Julian.s 'A^SoproSoic^Tai and I'hantasiasts. as renewing the Docetic heresies of the second century. In b'.VI. the two parties elected rival patriarchs of Alexandria,

Theodosius and Gaianas, after whom the Corruptico- Ieb were kno\\Ti as Theodosians, and the Incorrupti- colse as Gaianites. Julian considered, with some show of reason, that the doctrine of Severus necessitated the admission of two natures, and he was unjustly accused of Docetism and JIaniclKeanism, for he taught the reality of the Humanity of Clirist, and made it incor- ruptible not jormalitcr qua human, but as united to the \\'ord. His followers, however, split upon this question. One party admitted a potential corrupti- bility. Another party taught an absolute incorrupti- bility Kara iravra Tpbirov, as flowing from the union itself. A third sect declared that by the union the Humanity oljtained the prerogative of being uncreate; they were called Actisteta-, and replied by denominat- ing their opponents "Ctistolaters", or worshippers of a creature. Heresies, after the analogy of low forms of physical life, tend to propagate by division. So Monophysitism showed its nature, once it was sepa- rated from the Catholic body. The Emperor Justin- ian, in 565, adopted the incorruptibilist view, and made it a law for all bishops. The troubles that arose in consequence, both in East and West, were calmed by his death in November of that year.

7. The famous Philoxenus or Xenaias (d. soon after 51S), Bishop of Mabug (Mabbogh, Mambuce, or Hier- apolis in Syria Euphratensis), is best known to-day by his SjTiac version of the N. T., which was revised by Thomas of Harkel, and is known as the Harkleian or Philoxenian text. It is unfair of Hefele (Councils, tr. Ill, 459-60) to treat him as almost a Docetist. From what can be learned of his doctrines they were very like those of Severus and of iElurus. He was a Mono- physite in words and a Monothelite in reality, for he taught that Christ had one will, an error which it was almost impossible for any Monophysite to avoid. But this p-la (pva-is avvDeros was no doulit meant by him as equivalent to the hi/postasis composita taught by St. Thomas. As Philoxenus taught that Christ's sufferings were by choice, he must be placed on the side of the Julianists. He was carefid to deny all confusion in the union, and all transformation of the Word.

8. Peter Fullo, Patriarch of Antioch (471-SS), is chiefly famed in the realm of dogma for his addition to the Trisagion or Tersanctus, " Agios o Theos, Agios Ischyros, Agios Athanatos", of the words "who wast crucified for us". This is plain Patripassianism, so far as words go. It was employed by Peter as a test, and he excommunicated all who refused it. There is no possiliility of explaining away this assertion of the suffering of the Divine Nature by the communicatio idiomatum, for it is not rnerely the Divine Nature (in the sense of hypostasis) of the Son which is said to have been crucifieil, but the words are attached to a three- fold invocation of the Trinity. Peter may therefore be considered as a full-blooded Monophysite, who car- ried the heresy to its extreme, so that it involved error as to the Trinity (Sabellianism) as well as with regard to the Incarnation. He did not admit the adtlition of the words " Christ our King" which his orthodox rival Calandio adtled to his formula. Some Scj-thian monks of Constantinople, led by John Maxentius, be- fore the reconciliation with the West in 519, upheld the formula " one of the Trinity was crucified " as a test to exclude the heresy of Peter Fullo on the one hand and Ncstorianism on the other. They were or- thodox adherents of the Council of Chalcedon. Pope Hormisdas thought very badly of the monks, and would do nothing in approval of their formula. But it was approved by John 11, in 531, and imposed under anathema by the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, which closed the so-called " Theopaschite " con- troversy.

9. We have further to catalogue a number of sub- divisions of Monophysitism which pullulated in the sixth century. The .\gnoet;e were CorrupticoUe, who denied completeness of knowledge to the Human