Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/52

 32 will. The relation of the divine to the human in Christ was thought to resemble that of the soul to the body, in such a way that the human nature was but a will-less passive instrument under the absolute control of the will which was divine.

This is the Monothelite heresy. It is a heresy of a disastrous kind, for it virtually denies the reality of the Incarnation. If the Son of God took a will-less human nature, then He did not take our human nature at all. For the will is essential to the perfection of our nature.

Now the Monothelite heresy was widely prevalent in the East: the real leader and chief promoter being Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople. Acting under his influence, Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria, published in 633 a document asserting the existence of only one will in Christ. This was earnestly opposed by Sophronius, afterwards Patriarch of Jerusalem, who entreated Cyrus to cancel the objectionable statement, and visited Sergius with a view to enlist his support. This he naturally failed to obtain. But Sergius, with more subtlety than frankness, being in fact alarmed at the sensation produced by the heresy in Catholic minds, proposed as a compromise that both the assertion of one energy in Christ, and the counter-assertion of two energies should be abandoned. Sophronius consented. Sergius then wrote his famous diplomatic letter to Honorius of Rome, giving his own version of the controversy, explaining that in the interests of peace it was desirable that both expressions should be discouraged. To speak of "one energy" in Christ seemed strange to many, and offended them because it seemed to deny the duality of nature in our Lord; while the expression "two energies" offended others, because it would follow that there were two contradictory wills in Christ. Sergius