Monophysitism Past and Present Part 1

Monophysitism Past and Present.

by A. A. Luce.

CHAPTER I

THE METAPHYSICAL BASIS OF MONOPHYSITISM

Monophysitism was a Christological heresy of the fifth century. It was condemned by the church in the middle of that century at the council of Chalcedon. Surviving its condemnation it flourished in the East for several centuries. Its adherents formed themselves into a powerful church with orders and succession of their own. Although the monophysite church has long since lost all influence, it is still in being. The Coptic and Jacobite churches of Egypt and Mesopotamia, respectively, preserve to this day the doctrines and traditions of the primitive monophysites.

The history of the sect, however, does not concern us here. The writer's purpose is to review its doctrine. Monophysitism is a system of religious thought, and, as such, its importance is out of all proportion to the present or even the past position of the churches that professed it. Its significance lies in its universality. It is grounded in the nature of the human mind. It is found in West as well as East, to-day as well as in the early centuries of our era. Wherever men bring intellect to bear on the problem of Christ's being, the tendency to regard Him as monophysite is present.

An examination of the heresy is of practical value. Our subject-matter is not an oriental antique or a curiosity of the intellect, but a present-day problem of vital moment to the Faith. If we are concerned with a half-forgotten heresy, it is because a study of that heresy serves both as a preventive against error and as an introduction to the truth. The doctor studies disease to ascertain the conditions of health; pathological cases are often his surest guide to the normal; just so the study of heresy is the best guide to orthodox Christology.

It was in conflict with monophysitism that the church of the fifth century brought to completion her dogmatic utterances about Christ; and the individual thinker to-day can gain the surest grasp of true Christology by examining the monophysite perversion.

With this practical purpose in view, we now proceed to an a.n.a.lysis of the heresy. Monophysitism is a body of doctrine. It is a dogmatic system, in which the individual dogmata are controlled by a principle or dominant idea. As all the particular doctrines of monophysitism depend on this principle, and, as it is not properly a theological concept, but one borrowed from philosophy, we may call it "the metaphysical basis of monophysitism." An intelligent grasp of this basic principle is necessary to an appreciation of the whole system.

Accordingly, our first concern is to ascertain and exhibit this metaphysical basis. In subsequent chapters we shall a.n.a.lyse in detail the doctrines specifically monophysite and trace the Christological errors back to their source in metaphysic.

THE _A PRIORI_ AND _A POSTERIORI_ IN CHRISTOLOGY

The following considerations prove the necessity of this procedure.

Two methods of examining the being of Christ can be distinguished.

According to the one method the facts of His life are reviewed as they are presented in the New Testament, and a formula is then constructed to fit them. The other method starts from the concept of a mediator between G.o.d and man. It supposes that concept actualised, and asks the question, "Of what nature must such a mediator be?" These methods may be distinguished, but they cannot be separated. No one, however scientific, can come to a study of the life of Jesus with an absolutely open mind. Presuppositions are inevitable. Similarly, as the _a priori_ thinker develops his concept of a mediator, he compares the results of his thinking at every stage with the picture presented in the Gospel story, and that picture unavoidably modifies his deductions.

Both diphysite and monophysite used a combination of these two methods.

Each party took the recorded facts and interpreted them in accordance with their notion of what a mediator should be. Both parties studied the same facts; but the _a priori_ of their thought differed, and so their conclusions differed. In the realm of Christology this _a priori_ of thought is of paramount importance. Preconceived opinions inevitably colour our mental picture of Christ. Readers of the Gospel narrative find there the Christ they are prepared to find. On this well-recognised fact we base our contention that an examination of any Christological system must begin with the philosophy on which the system rests. That philosophy supplies the _a priori_, or the presupposition, or the metaphysical basis, whichever name we prefer.

We do not suggest that theologians have consciously adopted a metaphysical principle as the basis of their beliefs, and then have applied it to the special problem of Christology. That is a possible method but not the usual one. In most cases the philosophic basis remains in the background of consciousness; its existence is unrecognised and its influence undetected. If Christian thinkers took the trouble to a.n.a.lyse the basis of their beliefs about Christ, they would not halt, as they so often do, at the stage of monophysitism. If they laid bare to the foundations the structure of their faith, the danger of error would be reduced to a minimum. Viewed from the standpoint of timeless reason, monophysitism is based on a definite metaphysical idea. Not all monophysites have consciously adopted that basis; many, had they recognised its presence, would have rejected it.

But it was present as a tendency. A tendency may be neutralised by counteracting causes; but it has its effect, and sooner or later it will produce positive results.

THE THREE TYPICAL CHRISTOLOGIES

The same truth holds of the other Christological systems. A different metaphysical idea lies at the root of each. Nestorian, monophysite, catholic, these three were the main types of Christologian in the fifth century. Each studied Christ's life. After studying it, the Nestorian said of Him, "There are two persons here." "Not so," said the monophysite, "I see but one incarnate nature of G.o.d the Word." The catholic replied, "You are both wrong; there is one person in two natures." All three types deserve close study. The thinkers were devout and sincere, and, for the most part, able men. There is no question here of superficial uninformed thought, nor of moral obliquity. The disagreement was due not to their vision but to their view point, not to the object of their thought or the process of their thinking, but to their different presuppositions and starting points.

Presented in this way the monophysite and other Christological controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries become phases of the cosmic problem. They thus regain the dignity which is theirs by right, and which they lose in the ordinary church histories. The heat of pa.s.sion they aroused becomes intelligible. It was no battle about words. The stakes were high. The controversialists championed far-reaching principles with a decisive influence on the course of thought and conduct. Unfriendly critics usually portray the Christologians as narrow-minded and audacious. So, no doubt, they were, but they were not wrong-headed. If the matters in dispute between theist, deist, and pantheist are trivialities, then and then only can we regard the enterprise of the Christologians as chimerical and their achievements as futile. The different formulae represented att.i.tudes of mind fundamentally opposed. No peace between catholic and monophysite was possible. They had conflicting conceptions of ultimate truth.

DEPENDENCE OF CHRISTOLOGY ON PHILOSOPHY

We mentioned above the two other chief Christological systems, the Nestorian and the catholic. No a.n.a.lysis of monophysitism which omitted a reference to these systems would be complete. They were three nearly contemporary attempts to solve the same problem. The comparison is of special interest when, as here, fundamental principles are under examination. It demonstrates the closeness of the connection between the Christological and the cosmic problems. In each of the three cases we find that a school of philosophy corresponds to the school of theology, and that the philosopher's dominant idea about the cosmos decided the theologian's interpretation of Christ.

This connection between philosophy and Christology is of early date.

From the nature of both disciplines it had to be. Even in apostolic days the meaning of the incarnation was realised. Christ was apprehended as a being of more than national or terrestrial importance.

The Pauline and Johannine Christologies gave cosmic significance to His work, and so inevitably to His Person. Theologians made the tremendous surmise that Jesus of Nazareth was no other than the Logos of the Neo-Pythagoreans or the Wise One of the Stoics. That is to say, He stands not only between G.o.d and man, but between Creator and creation.

He is the embodiment of the cosmic relation. From early days, then, philosophy and religion were working at the same problem; their paths met at the one goal of the Ideal Person who satisfied both head and heart. The systematic Christology of the fifth century was, therefore, a completion of the work begun in the first.

THE CHRISTOLOGICAL AND THE COSMIC PROBLEMS

The essence of the Christological problem is the question as to the union of natures in Christ. Are there two natures divine and human in Him? Is each distinct from the other and from the person? Is the distinction conceptual or actual? The incarnation is a union. Is it a real union? If so, what did it unite? We have seen that such questions cannot be approached without presuppositions. What these presuppositions shall be is decided in the sphere of a wider problem.

This wider problem is known as the cosmic problem. The solution given to it prescribes the presuppositions of any attempt to solve the specialised problem. We shall proceed to sketch the cosmic problem, and to indicate the three main types of answers given to it. It will then be evident that these three answers find their respective counterparts in the Nestorian, monophysite and the catholic solutions of the Christological problem.

As man's intellectual powers mature, two supreme generalisations force themselves on his consciousness. He conceives his experience as a whole and calls it the world; he conceives the basis of his experience as a whole and calls it G.o.d. To some minds the world, to some minds G.o.d, is the greater reality; but both concepts are present in varying proportions wherever thought becomes self-conscious. Here we have in its lowest terms the material for the ontological question, the first and the last problem of philosophy. G.o.d and the world, at first dimly conceived and scarcely differentiated, gradually separate and take shape in the mind as distinct ent.i.ties. The concepts become principles, fixed by language and mental imagery. The gulf between them widens until they stand at opposite poles of thought. In their isolation they const.i.tute a standing challenge to the mind of man. If he thinks the world in terms of time, he must postulate a creator. If he thinks the world out of time, he is forced to conceive a ground of the world's being. The world cannot be thought without G.o.d nor G.o.d without the world. The one necessitates the other. Yet when the thinker tries to define the terms, he can at first only do so by negatives. The world is what G.o.d is not, and G.o.d is what the world is not. The two primary concepts thus attract and repel each other. The mind's first task is to grasp them in their difference. It cannot rest there, but must proceed to attempt to reunite them and grasp them in their unity. Thus the main problem of philosophy is to conceive and find expression for the relation between G.o.d and the world.

Christology attacks essentially the same problem. Christology is an attempt to define the relation between G.o.d and the world in terms of personality.

This relation has been conceived in three modes. According to the level of thought reached, or, as led by their disposition and education, men have made their choice between three mediating concepts.

Hence derive three divergent types of thought and three outlooks on life fundamentally opposed. We shall take them in their logical sequence for convenience of treatment. The historical connection is of no importance for our present purpose, but it is noteworthy that the time order both of the schools of philosophy and of the corresponding Christological systems follows approximately the logical order.

THE FIRST SOLUTION OF THE COSMIC PROBLEM--DUALISM

The first attempted solution of the cosmic problem is best expressed in the concept "co-existence." G.o.d _and_ the world co-exist. G.o.d is, and the world is; their relation is expressed by an "and." "G.o.d and the world" is the truth, all that man can and need know. This solution is verbal. It leaves the problem more or less as it finds it. The two principles remain ultimates; neither is reduced to the other. G.o.d still stands outside the world and the world outside G.o.d. Neither can explain the other. This dualism is the lowest stage of ontological thought. The thinker sees the problem, only to turn away from it. He surmises that there is some relation between the two; but he cannot define it, and it remains ineffectual. This was Plato's early standpoint. He established the idea as the truth of the thing, but he failed to find expression for the relation between idea and ideate. He took refuge in symbolical language, and spoke of the thing as a "copy"

of the idea or as a "partic.i.p.ant" in it. But as there was no causation on the one side or dependence on the other side, all that the earlier Platonic philosophy achieved was in its ideal world to duplicate the real. Plato's heaven simply co-exists with the world, and the relation between them is merely verbal.

This metaphysical idea survived Plato and Plato's system, and pa.s.sed into common currency. It found and still finds expression in numerous speculative and practical systems. In religious ontology we find it in deism. According to the deist there was once at a definite point of time a relation between G.o.d and the world, the relation of creation.

But, creation finished, the relation ceased. In other words, G.o.d created the world, and then withdrew into Himself, leaving the world to work out its own salvation. The deist believes in G.o.d; but his is a self-contained G.o.d, who does not interfere in the course of things or continue creating. Such a conception of G.o.d is useless for religious purposes, because it represents Him as out of all relation with the world.

CHRISTOLOGICAL DUALISM--NESTORIANISM

The Christological counterpart of dualism and of deism is Nestorianism.

The Nestorians halt at the lowest stage of Christological thought.

They admit Christ to be the meeting-point of G.o.d and man, but they nullify the admission by introducing dualism into the person of Christ.

They set out to find the solution of the cosmic problem in Christ; they endeavour to express the relation between G.o.d and the world in terms of His personality. They bring the two concepts together, but they do not weld them. Faith and courage fail them at the critical moment. They subst.i.tute an a.s.sociation for a union. They leave G.o.d and man co-existing in Christ, but not united there.

Nestorianism is a halfway house on the road from Arianism to Christianity. It is a weak compromise. The deity in Christ is admitted, but its unity with humanity denied. The divine remains external to the human nature. According to the doctrine ascribed to Nestorius two persons, the son of G.o.d and the son of Mary, at the Baptism were mysteriously a.s.sociated. The union consists partly in ident.i.ty of name, partly in the gradual deepening of the a.s.sociation.

As Jesus grew in spiritual power and knowledge and obedience to the divine will, the union which at first was relative gradually deepened towards an absolute union. Divinity was not His birthright, but acquired. Thus throughout His life the two personalities remained external to one another. The divine worked miracles; the human suffered. The Nestorian could pride himself on having preserved the reality of the divine and the reality of the human; he could wors.h.i.+p the one and imitate the other. But his system was non-Christian, because it excludes the element of mediation. A dual personality could never make atonement or redeem humanity. G.o.d and man in Christ were brought into nominal contact, but there was provided no channel by which the divine virtue might pa.s.s into the human. The Nestorian remains content with his solution, because the background of his thought is dualist. The thinker's att.i.tude to the cosmic problem decides his att.i.tude to the Christological problem. Content to couple G.o.d and the world by an "and," he similarly couples by an "and" the Logos and Jesus Christ. Dividing G.o.d from the world, he divides Christ. Abandoning metaphysical relation between the cosmic principles, he despairs of finding, or, rather, has no motive for seeking a personal relation between G.o.d and man in the being of Christ.

SECOND SOLUTION OF THE COSMIC PROBLEM--MONISM

The second solution given to the cosmic problem is of special importance for our thesis. It had a direct influence on monophysitism, and may be regarded as supplying the metaphysical basis for that heresy. It represents an advance to a higher stage of thought, just as monophysitism, which depends on it, is an advance on Nestorianism, and has always been regarded as a more venial heresy.

The mind finding no satisfaction in dualism advances to monism. The spectacle of two unrelated ultimate principles impels it to seek and, if necessary, to invent some mode of reconciling them. Explain it as we may, the craving for unity, for synthesis, for mediation is radical in human thought. The mind cannot rest at anything short of it. G.o.d and the world, held asunder conceptually or only nominally united, const.i.tute a contradiction _in excelsis_, and, as such, provide an irresistible motive for further and deeper thought.

As is natural, the swing of the pendulum carries the mind to the opposite extreme. Co-existence failing to supply the required solution, the key is sought in ident.i.ty. G.o.d and the world are thought as identical. The terms are connected by the copula. G.o.d _is_ the world, and the world _is_ G.o.d. This is the truth of being, for the monist. The two principles are merged in one, and the contradiction solved by an a.s.sertion of the ident.i.ty of the contradictories. Monism takes two forms. It may be either materialist or spiritual. One term must be selected as the reality, and the other written off as an illusion. If the thinker's bent of mind be scientific, he is disposed to make the material world the only objective reality, and G.o.d becomes simply a working hypothesis or a creation of the subjective mind. It would be beside our purpose to do more than mention this phase of monism. Spiritual monism, however, requires lengthier treatment; it is of vital importance to our subject. In this case the mind takes sides with G.o.d as against the world. G.o.d is the reality and the world the illusion. The world is G.o.d, in spite of appearances to the contrary.

As world it has no substantive reality; it has no existence for self.

It is the shadow of G.o.d, an emanation from Him, or an aspect of Him.

Like dualism, monism is only a sham solution of the cosmic problem. It fails to keep prominent the idea of relation. A relation must relate.

If its terms are merged, the relation falls to the ground. A relation must be such that, while the terms are unified, they are preserved as realities. It must both unify and keep distinct. To abandon either G.o.d or the world is a counsel of despair. To detract from the reality of either is treason to fact and tantamount to a shelving of the cosmic problem.