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Monothelitism
and Monothelites (681 A.D. onwards)
(Sometimes
written MONOTHELETES, from monotheletai, but the eta is
more naturally transliterated into late Latin by i.) A
heresy of the seventh century, condemned in the Sixth General Council.
It was essentially a modification of Monophysitism, propagated within
the Catholic Church in order to conciliate the Monophysites, in hopes
of reunion.
THE
THEOLOGICAL QUESTION
The
Monophysites were habitually represented by their Catholic opponents as
denying all reality to the human nature of Christ after the union. This
was perhaps a logical deduction from some of their language, but it was
far from being the real teaching of their chief doctors. Yet
at least it is certain that they made the unity of Christ (on which
they insisted against real and supposed Nestorianizers) imply only one
principle of intention and will, and only one kind of activity or
operation (energeia). Personality seemed to them to be
manifested in will and action; and they thought a single personality
must involve a single will and a single category of action. The Person
of Christ, being divino-human, must therefore involve one divino-human
will and one divino-human activity (see EUTYCHIANISM; MONOPHYSITES AND
MONOPHYSITISM).
A.
The two Wills. The
Catholic doctrine is simple, at all events in its main lines. The
faculty of willing is an integral part of human nature: therefore, our
Lord had a human will, since He took a perfect human nature. His Divine
will on the other hand is numerically one with that of the Father and
the Holy Ghost. It is therefore necessary to acknowledge two wills in
Christ. But
if the word will is taken to mean not the faculty but the
decision taken by the will (the will willed, not the will willing),
then it is true that the two wills always acted in harmony: there were
two wills willing and two acts, but one object, one will willed; in the
phrase of St. Maximus, there were duo thelemata though mia
gnome. The word will is also used to mean not a decision of
the will, but a mere velleity or wish, voluntas ut natura (thelesis)
as opposed to voluntas ut ratio (boulesis). These are but
two movements of the same faculty; both exist in Christ without any
imperfection, and the natural movement of His human will is perfectly
subject to its rational or free movement. Lastly, the sensitive
appetite is also sometimes entitled will. It is an integral part
of human nature, and therefore exists in the perfect human nature of
Jesus Christ, but without any of the imperfection induced by original
or actual sin: He can have no passions (in that sense of the word which
implies a revolt against the reason), no concupiscence, no “will
of the flesh”. Therefore this “lower will” is to be
denied in Christ, in so far as it is called a will, because it resists
the rational will (it was in this sense that Honorius was said by John
IV to have denied that Christ had a lower will); but it is to be
asserted in Him so far as it is called will, because it obeys the
rational will, and so is voluntas per participationem: in fact
in this latter sense the sensual appetite is less improperly called
will in Christ than in us, for quo perfectior est volens, eo magis
sensualitas in eo de voluntate habet. But the strict Sense of the
word will (votuntas, thelema) is always the
rational will, the free will. It is therefore correct to say that in
Christ there are but two wills: the Divine will, which is the Divine
nature, and the human rational will, which always acts in harmony with
and in free subjection to the Divine will. The denial of more than one
will in Christ by the heretics necessarily involved the incompleteness
of His human nature. They confounded the will as faculty with the
decision of the faculty. They argued that two wills must mean contrary
wills, which shows that they could not conceive of two distinct
faculties having the same object. Further, they saw rightly that the
Divine will is the ultimate governing principle, to hegemonikon,
but a free human will acting under its leadership seemed to them to be
otiose. Yet this omission prevents our Lord’s actions from being free,
from being human actions, from being meritorious, indeed makes His
human nature nothing but an irrational, irresponsible instrument of the
Divinity — a machine, of which the Divinity is the motive power. To
Severus our Lord’s knowledge was similarly of one kind — He had only
Divine knowledge and no human cognitive faculty. Such thoroughgoing
conclusions were not contemplated by the inventors of Monothelitism,
and Sergius merely denied two wills in order to assert that there was
no repugnance in Christ’s human nature to the promptings of the Divine,
and he certainly did not see the consequences of his own disastrous
teaching.
B.
The two operations
Operation
or energy, activity (energeia, operatio), is parallel to will,
in that there is but one activity of God, ad extra, common to
all the three Persons; whereas there are two operations of Christ, on
account of His two natures. The word energeia is not here
employed in the Aristotelean sense (actus, as opposed to potentia,
dynamis), for this would be practically identical with esse
(existentia), and it is an open question among Catholic
theologians whether there is one esse in Christ or two. Nor does
energeia here mean simply the action (as Vasquez,
followed by de Lugo and others, wrongly held) but the faculty of
action, including the act of the faculty. Petavius has no difficulty in
refuting Vasquez, by referring to the writers of the seventh century;
but he himself speaks of duo genera operationum as equivalent to
duo operationes, which introduces an unfortunate confusion
between energeia and praxeis or energemata, that
is between faculty of action and the multiple actions produced by the
faculty. This confusion of terms is frequent in modern theologians, and
occurs in the ancients, e.g. St. Sophronius. The actions of God are
innumerable in Creation and Providence, but His energeia is one,
for He has one nature of the three Persons. The various actions of the
incarnate Son proceed from two distinct and unconfused energeiai,
because He has two natures. All are the actions of one subject (agent
or principium quod), but are either divine or human according to
the nature (principium quo) from which they are elicited. The
Monophysites were therefore quite right in saying that all the actions,
human and divine, of the incarnate Son are to be referred to one agent,
who is the God-man; but they were wrong in inferring that consequently
His actions, both the human and the Divine, must all be called “theandric”
or “divino-human”, and must proceed from a single divino-human
energeia. St. Sophronius, and after him St. Maximus and St. John
Damascene, showed that the two energeia produce three classes of
actions, since actions are complex, and some are therefore mingled of
the human and the divine.
Though the
Monophysites in general spoke of “one theandric operation”,
yet a speech of St. Martin at the Lateran Council tells us that a
certain Colluthus would not go even so far as this, for he feared lest “theandric” might leave some operation to the human nature;
he preferred the word thekoprepes, Deo decibilis (Mansi, X, 982). The
denial of two operations, even more than the denial of two wills, makes
the human nature of Christ an inanimate instrument of the Divine will.
St. Thomas points out that though an instrument participates in the
action of the agent who uses it, yet even an inanimate instrument has
an activity of its own; much more the rational human nature of Christ
has an operation of its own under the higher motion it receives from
the divinity. But by means of this higher motion, the two natures act
in concert, according to the famous words of St. Leo’s Tome: “Agit
enim utraque forma cum alterius communione quod proprium est; Verbo
scilicet operante quod Verbi est, et carne exsequente quod carnis est.
Unum horum coruscat miraculis, aliud succumbit injuriis” (Ep. 28,
4). These words were quoted by Cyrus, Sergius, Sophronius, Honorius,
Maximus, etc., and played a large part in the controversy. This
intercommunication of the two operations follows from the Catholic
doctrine of the perichoresis, circuminsessio, of the two unconfused and
inseparable natures, as again St. Leo: “Exprimit quidem sub
distinctis actionibus veritatem suam utraque natura, sed neutra se ab
alterius connexione disjungit” (Serm. liv, 1). St. Sophronius (Mansi,
XI, 480 sqq.) and St. Maximus (Ep. 19) expressed this truth at the very
outset of the controversy as well as later; and it is insisted upon by
St. John Damascene. St. Thomas (III, Q. xix, a. 1) well explains it: “Motum participat operationem moventis, et movens utitur
operatione moti, et sic utrumque agit cum communicatione alterius”.
Krüger and others have doubted whether it could be said that the
question of two operations was already decided (as Loofs held), in
Justinian’s time. But it seems that St. Leo’s words, yet earlier, were
clear enough. The writings of Severus of Antioch assumed that his
Catholic opponents would uphold two operations, and an obscure monk in
the sixth century, Eustathius (De duabus naturis, P. G., LXXXVI, 909)
accepts the expression. Many of the numerous citations from the Greek
and Latin Fathers adduced at the Lateran Council and on other occasions
are inconclusive, but some of them are clear enough. Really learned
theologians like Sophronius and Maximus were not at a loss, though
Cyrus and Honorius were puzzled. The Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria
(580-607) had written against those who taught one will, but his work
was unknown to Cyrus and Sergius.
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HISTORY The origin of
the Monothelite controversy is thus related by Sergius in his letter to
Pope Honorius. When the Emperor Heraclius in the course of the war
which he began about 619, came to Theodosiopolis (Erzeroum) in Armenia
(about 622), a Monophysite named Paul, a leader of the Acephali, made a
speech before him in favour of his heresy. The emperor refuted him with
theological arguments, and incidentally made use of the expression “one operation” of Christ. Later on (about 626) he inquired
of Cyrus, Bishop of Phasis and metropolitan of the Lazi, whether his
words were correct. Cyrus was uncertain, and by the emperor’s order
wrote to Sergius the Patriarch of Constantinople, whom Heraclius
greatly trusted, for advice. Sergius in reply sent him a letter said to
have been written by Mennas of Constantinople to Pope Vigilius and
approved by the latter, in which several authorities were cited for one
operation and one will. This letter was afterwards declared to be a
forgery and was admitted to be such at the Sixth General Council.
Nothing more occurred, according to Sergius, until in June, 631, Cyrus
was promoted by the emperor to the See of Alexandria. The whole of
Egypt was then Monophysite, and it was constantly threatened by the
Saracens. Heraclius was doubtless very anxious to unite all to the
Catholic Church, for the country was greatly weakened by the
dissensions of the heretics among themselves, and by their bitterness
against the official religion. Former emperors had made efforts for
reunion, but in the fifth century the Henoticon of Zeno had been
condemned by the popes yet had not satisfied all the heretics, and in
the sixth century the condemnation of the Three Chapters had nearly
caused a schism between East and West without in the least placating
the Monophysites. Cyrus was for the moment more successful. Imagining,
no doubt, as all Catholics imagined, that Monophysitism involved the
assertion that the human nature of Christ was a nonentity after the
Union, he was delighted at the acceptance by the Monophysites of a
series of nine Capitula, in which the Chalcedonian “in two
natures” is asserted, the “one composite hypostasis”,
and physike kai kath hypostasin enosis, together with the adverbs
asygchytos, atreptos, analloiotos. St. Cyril, the great doctor of the
Monophysites, is cited; and all is satisfactory until in the seventh
proposition our Lord is spoken of as “working His Divine and His
human works by one theandric operation, according to the divine
Dionysius”. This famous expression of the Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite is taken by modern critics to show that he wrote under
Monophysite influences. But Cyrus believed it to be an orthodox
expression, used by Mennas, and approved by Pope Vigilius. He was
triumphant therefore at the reunion to the Church of a large number of
Theodosian Monophysites, so that, as Sergius phrases it, all the people
of Alexandria and nearly all Egypt, the Thebaid, and Libya had become
of one voice, and whereas formerly they would not hear even the name of
St. Leo and of the Council of Chalcedon, now they acclaimed them with a
loud voice in the holy mysteries. But the Monophysites saw more
clearly, and Anastasius of Mount Sinai tells us that they boasted “they had not communicated with Chalcedon, but Chalcedon with
them, by acknowledging one nature of Christ through one
operation”. St. Sophronius,
a much venerated monk of Palestine, soon to become Patriarch of
Jerusalem, was in Alexandria at this time. He strongly objected to the
expression “one operation”, and unconvinced by Cyrus’s
defence of it, he went to Constantinople, and urged on Sergius, upon
whose advice the expression had been used, that the seventh capitulum
must be withdrawn. Sergius thought this too hard, as it would destroy
the union so gloriously effected; but he was so far impressed that he
wrote to Cyrus that it would be well for the future to drop both
expressions “one operation” and “two operations”,
and he thought it necessary to refer the whole question to the pope.
(So far his own story.) This last proceeding must warn us not to judge
Sergius too harshly. It may be invention that he was born of
Monophysite parents (so Anastasius of Sinai); at all events he was an
opponent of the Monophysites, and he based his defence of “one
operation” on the citations of Fathers in the spurious letter of
his orthodox predecessor Mennas, which he believed to have had the
approval of Pope Vigilius. He was a politician who evidently knew
little theology. But he had more to answer for than he admits. Cyrus
had not really been doubtful at first. His letter to Sergius with great
politeness explains that he had said the emperor was wrong, and had
quoted the famous words of St. Leo’s Tome to Flavian: “Agit
utraque natura cum alterius communione quod proprium est” as
plainly defining two distinct but inseparable operations; Sergius was
responsible for leading him into error by sending him the letter of
Mennas. Further, St. Maximus tells us that Sergius had written to
Theodore of Pharan asking his opinion; Theodore agreed. (It is probable
that Stephen of Dora was mistaken in making Theodore a Monothelite
before Sergius.) He also worked upon the Severian Paul the one-eyed,
the same with whom Heraclius had disputed. He had requested George
Arsas, a Monophysite follower of Paul the Black of Antioch, to furnish
him with authorities for the “one operation”, saying in his
letter that he was ready to make a union on this basis. The Alexandrian
St. John the Almsgiver (609 or 619) had taken this letter from Arsas
with his own hand, and was only prevented by the irruption of the
Saracens (619) from using it to obtain the deposition of Sergius. In the letter
to Honorius, Sergius unwittingly develops another heresy. He admits
that “one operation”, though used by a few Fathers, is a
strange expression, and might suggest a denial of the unconfused union
of two natures. But the “two operations” are also dangerous,
by suggesting “two contrary wills, as though when the Word of God
wished to fulfil His saving Passion, His humanity resisted and
contradicted His will, and thus two contrary wills would be introduced,
which is impious, for it is impossible that in the same subject there
should be two wills at once, and contrary to one another as to the same
thing”. So far he is right; but he continues: “For the saving
doctrine of the holy Fathers clearly teaches that the intellectually
animated flesh of the Lord never performs its natural movement apart
from, and by its own impetus contrariwise to, the direction of the Word
of God hypostatically united to it, but only at the time and in the
manner and to the extent that the Word of God wishes,” just as our
body is moved by our rational soul. Here Sergius speaks of the natural
will of the flesh, and of the Divine will, but makes no mention of the
higher free will, which indeed is wholly subject to the Divine will. He
may indeed be understood to include this intellectual will in “the
intellectually animated flesh”, but his thought is not clear, and
his words simply express the heresy of one will. He concludes that it
is best simply to confess that “the only begotten Son of God, who
is truly both God and Man, works both the Divine and the human works,
and from one and the same incarnate Word of God proceed indivisibly and
inseparably both the Divine and the human operations as St. Leo
teaches: Agit enim utraque, etc.” If these words and the quotation
from St. Leo mean anything, they mean two operations; but Sergius’s
error lies precisely in deprecating this expression. It cannot be too
carefully borne in mind that theological accuracy is a matter of
definition, and definition is a matter of words. The prohibition of the
right words is always heresy, even though the author of the prohibition
has no heretical intention and is merely shortsighted or confused.
Honorius replied reproving Sophronius, and praising Sergius for
rejecting his “new expression” of “two operations”.
He approves the recommendations made by Sergius, and has no blame for
the capitula of Cyrus. In one point he goes further than either, for he
uses the words: “Wherefore we acknowledge one Will of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” We may easily believe the testimony of Abbot John
Symponus, who wrote the letter for Honorius, that he intended only to
deny a lower will of the flesh in Christ which contradicted His higher
will, and that he was not referring at all to His Divine will; but in
connexion with the letter of Sergius such an interpretation is scarcely
the more obvious one. It is clear that Honorius was not any more a
wilful heretic than was Sergius, but he was equally incorrect in his
decision, and his position made the mistake far more disastrous. In
another letter to Sergius he says he has informed Cyrus that the new
expressions, one and two operations, are to be dropped, their use being
most foolish. In one of the
last four months of 638 effect was given to the pope’s letter by the
issue of an “Exposition” composed by Sergius and authorized
by the emperor; it is known as the Ecthesis of Heraclius. Sergius died
9 Dec., a few days after having celebrated a council in which the
Ecthesis was acclaimed as “truly agreeing with the Apostolic
teaching”, words which seem to be a reference to its being founded
on the letter of Honorius. Cyrus received the news of this council with
great rejoicings. The Ecthesis itself is a complete profession of Faith
according to the five General Councils. Its peculiarity consists in
adding a prohibition of the expression one and two operations, and an
assertion of one will in Christ lest contrary wills should be held. The
letter of Honorius had been a grave document, but not a definition of
Faith binding on the whole Church. The Ecthesis was a definition. But
Honorius had no cognizance of it, for he had died on 12 Oct. The envoys
who came for the emperor’s confirmation of the new Pope Severinus
refused to recommend the Ecthesis to the latter, but promised to lay it
before him for judgment (see MAXIMUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE). Severinus, not
consecrated until May, 640, died two months later, but not without
having condemned the Ecthesis. John IV, who succeeded him in December,
lost no time in holding a synod to condemn it formally. When Heraclius,
who had merely intended to give effect to the teaching of Honorius,
heard that the document was rejected at Rome, he disowned it in a
letter to John IV, and laid the blame on Sergius. He died Feb., 641.
The pope wrote to the elder son of Heraclius, saying that the Ecthesis
would doubtless now be withdrawn, and apologizing for Pope Honorius,
who had not meant to teach one human will in Christ. St. Maximus
Confessor published a similar defence of Honorius, but neither of these
apologists says anything of the original error, the forbidding of the two operations, which was soon to become once more the principal
point of controversy. In fact on this point no defence of Honorius was
possible. But Pyrrhus, the new Patriarch of Constantinople, was a
supporter of the Ecthesis and confirmed it in a great council, which
St. Maximus, however, reproves as irregularly convoked. After the death
of Constantine and the exile of his brother Heracleonas, Pyrrhus
himself was exiled to Africa. Here he was persuaded in a famous
controversy with St. Maximus (q. v.) to renounce the appeal to Vigilius
and Honorius and to condemn the Ecthesis; he went to Rome and made his
submission to Pope Theodore, John IV having died (Oct., 642). Meanwhile
protests from the East were not wanting. St. Sophronius, who, after
becoming Patriarch of Jerusalem, died just before Sergius, had yet had
time to publish at his enthronization a formal defence of the dogma of
two operations and two wills, which was afterwards approved by the
sixth council. This remarkable document was the first full exposition
of the Catholic doctrine. It was sent to all the patriarchs, and St.
Sophronius humbly asked for corrections. His references to St. Leo are
interesting, especially his statement: “I accept all his letters
and teachings as proceeding from the mouth of Peter the Coryphæus, and
I kiss them and embrace them with all my soul”. Further on he
speaks of receiving St. Leo’s definitions as those of Peter, and St.
Cyril’s as those of Mark. He also made a large collection of
testimonies of the Fathers in favour of two operations and two wills.
He finally sent to Rome Stephen, Bishop of Dora, the first bishop of
the patriarchate, who has given us a moving description of the way in
which the saint led him to the holy place of Calvary and there charged
him, saying: “Thou shalt give an account to the God who was
crucified for us in this holy place, in His glorious and awful advent,
when He shall come to judge the living and the dead, if thou delay and
allow His Faith to be endangered, since, as thou knowest, I am myself
let, by reason of the invasion of the Saracens which is come upon us
for our sins. Swiftly pass, then, from end to end of the world, until
thou come to the Apostolic See, where are the foundations of the holy
doctrines. Not once, not twice, but many times, make clearly known to
all those holy men there all that has been done; and tire not instantly
urging and beseeching, until out of their apostolic wisdom they bring
forth judgment unto victory.” Urged by almost all the orthodox
bishops of the East, Stephen made his first journey to Rome. On the
death of St. Sophronius, his patriarchal see was invaded by the Bishop
of Joppa, a supporter of the Ecthesis. Another heretic sat in the See
of Antioch. At Alexandria the union with the Monophysites was
shortlived. In 640 the city fell into the hands of the Arabians under
Amru, and the unfortunate heretics have remained until today (save for
a few months in 646) under the rule of the infidel. Thus the whole of
the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria
were separated from Rome. Yet no doubt, except in Egypt, the great
number of the bishops and the whole of their flocks were orthodox and
had no wish to accept the Ecthesis. The bishops of
Cyprus, independent of any patriarch, held a synod 29 May, 643, against
the Ecthesis. They wrote to Pope Theodore a letter of entreaty: “Christ, our God, has instituted your Apostolic chair, O holy
head, as a God-fixed and immovable foundation. For thou, as truly spake
the Divine Word, art Peter, and upon thy foundation the pillars of the
Church are fixed, and to thee He committed the keys of the kingdom of
Heaven. He ordered thee to bind and loose with authority on earth and
in heaven. Thou art set as the destroyer of profane heresies, as Coryphæus
and leader of the orthodox and unsullied Faith. Despise not then,
Father, the Faith of our Fathers, tossed by waves and imperilled;
disperse the rule of the foolish with the light of thy divine
knowledge, O most holy. Destroy the blasphemies and insolence of the
new heretics with their novel expressions. For nothing is wanting to
your orthodox and pious definition and tradition for the augmentation
of the Faith amongst us. For we — O inspired one, you who hold
converse with the holy Apostles and sit with them — believe and
confess from of old since our very swaddling clothes, teaching
according to the holy and God-fearing Pope Leo, and declaring that ‘each nature works with the communion of the other what is proper to
it’”, etc. They declare themselves ready to be martyred rather
than forsake the doctrine of St. Leo: but their Archbishop Sergius,
when the persecution arose, was found on the side of the persecutors,
not of the martyrs. It is abundantly clear that St. Maximus and his
Constantinopolitan friends, St. Sophronius and the bishops of
Palestine, Sergius and his suffragans, had no notion that the Apostolic
See had been compromised by the letters of Honorius, but they look to
it as the only port of salvation. Similarly in 646 the bishops of
Africa and the adjoining islands held councils, in the name of which
the primates of Numidia, Byzacene and Mauritania sent a joint letter to
Pope Theodore, complaining of the Ecthesis: “No one can doubt that
there is in the Apostolic See a great and unfailing fountain pouring
forth waters for all Christians”, and so forth. They enclose
letters to the emperor and to the patriarch Paul, to be sent to
Constantinople by the pope. They are afraid to write directly, for the
former governor, Gregory (who had presided at the disputation of his
friend St. Maximus with Pyrrhus) had revolted and made himself emperor,
and had just been defeated; this was a blow to orthodoxy, which it
brought into discredit at Constantinople. Victor, elected primate of
Carthage after the letters were written, added one of his own. Paul the
patriarch whom the Emperor Constans had substituted for Pyrrhus, had
not been acknowledged by Pope Theodore, who demanded of him that
Pyrrhus should first be tried by a council before two representatives
of the Holy See. Paul’s reply is preserved: the views he exposes are
those of the Ecthesis, and he defends them by referring to Honorius and
Sergius. Theodore pronounced a sentence of deposition against him, and
Paul retaliated by destroying the Latin altar which belonged to the
Roman See in the palace of Placidia at Constantinople, in order that
the papal envoys might be unable to offer the Holy Sacrifice; he also
persecuted them, together with many orthodox laymen and priests, by
imprisonment, exile, or stripes. But Paul, in spite of this violence,
had no idea of resisting the definitions of Rome. Until now, Honorius
had not been disowned there, but defended. It was said that he had not
taught one will; but the prohibition in the Ecthesis of two operations
was but an enforcement of the course Honorius had approved, and nothing
had as yet, it seems, been officially published at Rome on this point.
Paul, somewhat naturally, thought it would be sufficient if he dropped
the teaching of one will, and prohibited all reference to one will or
two wills as well as to one operation or two operations; it could
hardly be urged that this was not in accordance with the teaching of
Pope Honorius. It would be a measure of peace, and East and West would
be again united. Paul therefore persuaded the emperor to withdraw the
Ecthesis, and to substitute for that elaborate confession of Faith a
mere disciplinary measure forbidding all four expressions under the
severest penalties; none of the emperor’s orthodox subjects have any
longer permission to quarrel over them, but no blame is to attach to
any who may have used either alternative in the past. Transgression of
this law is to involve deposition for bishops and clerics,
excommunication and expulsion for monks, loss of office and dignity for
officials, fines for richer laymen, corporal punishment and permanent
exile for the poorer. By this cruel law heresy is to be blameless and
orthodoxy forbidden. It is known as the Type of Constans. It is not a
Monothelite document, for it forbids that heresy just as much as the
Catholic Faith. Its date falls between Sept. 648 and Sept. 649. Pope
Theodore died 5 May of the latter year, and was succeeded in July by
St. Martin I. In October St. Martin held a great council at the
Lateran, at which 105 bishops were present. The pope’s opening speech
gives a history of the heresy, and condemns the Ecthesis, Cyrus,
Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and the Type. John IV had spoken of Sergius
with respect; and Martin does not mention Honorius, for it was
obviously impossible to defend him if the Type was to be condemned as
heresy. Stephen of Dora, then on his third visit to Rome, presented a
long memorial, full of devotion to the Apostolic See. A deputation
followed, of 37 Greek abbots residing in or near Rome, who had
apparently fled before the Saracens from their various homes in
Jerusalem, Africa, Armenia, Cilicia, etc. They demanded the
condemnation of Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Cyrus and the
anathematizing of the Type by the Apostolic and head See. The heretical
documents read were part of a letter of Theodore of Pharan, the seventh
proposition of Cyrus, the letter of Sergius to Cyrus, excerpts from the
synods held by Sergius and Pyrrhus (who had now repented of his
repentance), and the approval of the Ecthesis by Cyrus. The letter of
Sergius to Honorius was not read, nor was anything said about the
correspondence of the latter with Sergius. St. Martin summed up; then
the letter of Paul to Pope Theodore and the Type were read. The council
admitted the good intention of the latter document (so as to spare the
emperor while condemning Paul), but declared it heretical for
forbidding the teaching of two operations and two wills. Numerous
excerpts from the Fathers and from Monophysite writers were read, and
twenty canons were agreed to, the eighteenth of which condemns Theodore
of Pharan, Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, the Ecthesis, and the Type,
under anathema. A letter to the emperor was signed by all. An
encyclical letter was sent throughout the Church in the name of St.
Martin and the council, addressed to all bishops, priests, deacons,
abbots, monks, ascetics, and to the entire sacred fulness of the
Catholic Church. This was a final and complete condemnation of the
Constantinopolitan policy. Rome had spoken ex cathedra. Stephen of Dora
had been before appointed papal vicar in the East, but he had by error
been informed only of his duty to depose heretical bishops, and not
that he was authorized to substitute orthodox bishops in their place.
The pope now gave this commission to John, Bishop of Philadelphia in
Palestine, who was ordered to appoint bishops, priests, and deacons in
the patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem. Martin also sent letters to
these patriarchates, and to Peter, who seems to have been governor,
asking him to support his vicar; this Peter was a friend and
correspondent of St. Maximus. The pope deposed John, Archbishop of
Thessalonica, and declared the appointments of Macarius of Antioch and
Peter of Alexandria to be null and void. Constans retaliated by having
St. Martin kidnapped at Rome, and taken a prisoner to Constantinople.
The saint refused to accept the Ecthesis, and after sufferings, many of
which he has himself related in a touching document, he died a martyr
in the Crimea in March, 655 (see POPE MARTIN I). St. Maximus (662), his
disciple the monk Anastasius (also 662), and another Anastasius, a
papal envoy (666), died of ill-treatment, martyrs to their orthodoxy
and devotion to the Apostolic See. While St.
Martin was being insulted and tortured at Constantinople, the patriarch
Paul was dying. “Alas, this will increase the severity of my
judgment”, he exclaimed to the emperor, who paid him a visit; and
Constans was induced to spare the pope’s life for the moment. At Paul’s
death Pyrrhus was restored. His successor Peter sent an ambiguous
letter to Pope Eugenius, which made no mention of two operations, thus
observing the prescription of the Type. The Roman people raised a riot
when it was read in Sta. Maria Maggiore, and would not permit the pope
to continue his Mass until he promised to reject the letter. Constans
sent a letter to the pope by one Gregory, with a gift to St. Peter. It
was rumoured at Constantinople that the pope’s envoys would accept a
declaration of “one and two wills” (two because of the
natures, one on account of the union). St. Maximus refused to believe
the report. In fact Peter wrote to Pope Vitalian (657-672) professing “one and two wills and operations” and adding mutilated
quotations from the Fathers; but the explanation was thought
unsatisfactory, presumably because it was only an excuse for upholding
the Type. In 663 Constans came to Rome, intending to make it his
residence, on account of his unpopularity at Constantinople, for
besides putting the pope to death and proscribing the orthodox faith,
he had murdered his brother Theodosius. The pope received him with all
due honour, and Constans, who had refused to confirm the elections of
Martin and Eugenius, ordered the name of Vitalian to be inscribed on
the diptychs of Constantinople. No mention seems to have been made of
the Type. But Constans did not find Rome agreeable. After spoiling the
churches, he retired to Sicily, where he oppressed the people. He was
murdered in his bath in 668. Vitalian vigorously opposed rebellion in
Sicily, and Constantine Pogonatus, the new emperor, found the island at
peace on his arrival. It does not seem that he took any interest in the
Type, which was doubtless not enforced, though not abolished, for he
was fully occupied with his wars against the Saracens until 678, when
he determined to summon a general council to end what he regarded as a
quarrel between the Sees of Rome and Constantinople. He wrote in this
sense to Pope Donus (676-78), who was already dead. His successor St.
Agatho thereupon assembled a synod at Rome and ordered others to be
held in the West. A delay of two years was thus caused, and the
heretical patriarchs Theodore of Constantinople and Macarius of Antioch
assured the emperor that the pope despised the Easterns and their
monarch, and they tried, but unsuccessfully, to get the name of
Vitalian removed from the diptychs. The emperor asked for three
representatives at least to be sent from Rome, with twelve archbishops
or bishops from the West and four monks from each of the Greek
monasteries in the West, perhaps as interpreters. He also sent Theodore
into exile, probably because he was an obstacle to reunion. The first
session of the Sixth Œcumenical Council took place at Constantinople
(7 Nov., 680), Constantine Pogonatus presiding and having on his left,
in the place of honour, the papal legates. Macarius of Antioch was the
only prelate who stood up for Monothelitism, and he was in due course
condemned as a heretic (see MACARIUS or ANTIOCH). The letters of St.
Agatho and of the Roman Council insisted on the decisions of the
Lateran Council, and repeatedly affirmed the inerrancy of the Apostolic
See. These documents were acclaimed by the council, and accepted by
George, the new Patriarch of Constantinople and his suffragans.
Macarius had appealed to Honorius; and after his condemnation a packet
which he had delivered to the emperor was opened, and in it were found
the letters of Sergius to Honorius and of Honorius to Sergius. As these
were at best similar to the Type, already declared heretical, it was
unavoidable that they should be condemned. The fifth council had set
the example of condemning dead writers, who had died in Catholic
communion, but George suggested that his dead predecessors might be
spared, and only their teaching anathematized. The legates might have
saved the name of Honorius also had they agreed to this, but they
evidently had directions from Rome to make no objection to his
condemnation if it seemed necessary. The final dogmatic decree contains
the decisions of the five preceding general councils, condemns the
Ecthesis and the Type, and heretics by name, including Honorius, and “greets with uplifted hands” the letters of Pope Agatho and
his council (see HONORIUS I, Pope). The address to the emperor, signed
by all the bishops, declares that they have followed Agatho, and he the
Apostolic teaching. “With us fought the prince of the Apostles,
for to assist us we had his imitator and the successor to his chair.
The ancient city of Rome proffered you a divinely written confession
and caused the daylight of dogmas to rise by the Western parchment. And
the ink shone, and by Agatho, Peter spoke; and you, the autocrat king,
voted with the Almighty who reigns with you.” A letter to the pope
was also signed by all the Fathers. The emperor gave effect to the
decree in a lengthy edict, in which he echoes the decisions of the
council, adding: “These are the teachings of the voices of the
Gospels and the Apostles, these are the doctrines of the holy synods
and of the elect and patristic tongues; these have been preserved
untainted by Peter, the rock of the faith, the head of the Apostles; in
this faith we live and reign.” The emperor’s letter to the pope is
full of Such expressions; as for example: “Glory be to God, Who
does wondrous things, Who has kept safe the Faith among you unharmed.
For how should He not do so in that rock on which He founded His
Church, and prophesied that the gates of hell, all the ambushes of
heretics, should not prevail against it? From it, as from the vault of
heaven, the word of the true confession flashed forth,” etc. But
St. Agatho, a worker of many miracles, was dead, and did not receive
the letter, so that it fell to St. Leo II to confirm the council. Thus
was the East united again to the West after an incomplete but
deplorable schism. It would seem
that in 687 Justinian II believed that the sixth council was not fully
enforced, for he wrote to Pope Conon that he had assembled the papal
envoys, the patriarchs, metropolitans, bishops, the senate and civil
officials and representatives of his various armies, and made them sign
the original acts which had recently been discovered. In 711 the throne
was seized by Philippicus Bardanes, who had been the pupil of Abbot
Stephen, the disciple “or rather leader” of Macarius of
Antioch. He restored to the diptychs Sergius, Honorius, and the other
hereties condemned by the council; he burned the acts (but privately,
in the palace), he deposed the Patriarch Cyrus, and exiled some persons
who refused to subscribe a rejection of the council. He fell, 4 June,
713, and orthodoxy was restored by Anastasius II (713-15). Pope
Constantine had refused to recognize Bardanes. The intruded patriarch,
John VI, wrote him a long letter of apology, explaining that he had
submitted to Bardanes to prevent worse evils, and asserting in many
words the headship of Rome over the universal Church. This was the last
of Monothelitism.
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The chief ancient authorities for our knowledge of the
Monothelites are the acts of the Lateran synod and of the sixth council,
the works of ST. MAXIMUS CONFESSOR and ANASTASIUS SINAITA, and the Collectanea
of ANASTASIUS BIBLIOTHECARIUS. Of modern works only a few need be
specially mentioned: COMBÉFIS, Auctarium novum, II (Historia
Monothelitarum et Dissertatio apol. pro actis VI synodi (Paris, 1648);
PETAVIUS, De Incarnatione, VIII, IX; HEFELE, Hist. of Councils,
V (Eng. tr.); BARDENHEWER, Ungedruckle Excerpte aus einer Schrift des
Patriarchen Eulogius von Alexandria (in Theolog. Quartalschrift,
1896, no. 78); OWSEPIAN, Die Entstehungsgeschichte des Monotheletismus
nach ihren Quellen geprüft (Leipzig, 1897). See also HONORIUS I,
POPE, and MAXIMUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
Compiled by John Chapman
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Arianism - through the centuries
Arius’ doctrines have been reinforced by numerous attempts by other Theologians’, Bishops’ and an Archbishop’s attempts to argue along similar grounds resulting the heresies of Apollinarianism (Apollinarius: c310 - c390), Nestorianism (428 A.D. - 14th Century), Monophysitism (451 A.D., 6th century onwards, see also Eutychianism), Monothelitism (681 A.D. onwards) and most recently in 18th century Britain when there was a strong Arian movement especially within the Church of England; its leading exponents, William Whiston and Samuel Clarke, were among the prominent scientists of the day and disciples of Sir Isaac Newton in both their scientific and their theological views. Accepting scripture as embodying divinely give truth, but interpreting it not so mush with the aid of tradition as with that of the reason, characteristic of the emerging scientific age, they found themselves impelled in a broadly Arian direction. A further examination of some of the key principles of the modern Arian Catholic Tradition can be viewed by clicking on: Arian Catholic Lore & Philosophy ...
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