Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/130

104 dreary Monophysite controversy which circled round this position we do not see on the surface of it sufficient cause for all the heat it developed, all the dust it raised. Here was a fine point of theology, so difficult to determine that only an expert could state it correctly, and yet it divided cities into furious factions with howling mobs and fatal riots. It is not enough to lay down the cynical principle that the heat of a controversy varies directly with the smallness of the difference between the contending parties—although there are not wanting instances apparently confirming it—as in the quarrel between the "Old Lights" and the "New Lights" among the Presbyterians of Scotland. The long-drawn Monophysite controversy threatened the disintegration of the Church and endangered the peace of the empire; in fact it did actually effect the disintegration of the Church by breaking off huge fragments that have remained down to the present day in separation from the Greek communion, which arrogates to itself the title of orthodox. Surely there must be some sufficient cause for so obstinate a schism.

Among men earnest in their religious faith no doubt the charm of the Monophysite doctrine was found in the honour it appeared to give to Christ. This view was most vehemently maintained by the monks of the Egyptian deserts, men who were at once grossly ignorant and passionately in earnest, of the stuff that fanatics are made of, prototypes and in part ancestors of the modern dervishes. The immediate motive of the movement into which these half savage monks threw themselves with such fiery enthusiasm was antagonism to Nestorianism. It was represented to them by Dioscurus that the council of Chalcedon favoured that heresy—which had been condemned at the council of Ephesus; it was even rumoured that Nestorius had been invited to Chalcedon and had only been prevented from attending by his timely death on the way thither. Then the Nestorians were regarded with horror as men who divided Christ into two persons, who really denied the incarnation, and who were virtually