tion of the heretical idea.[1] It is true that it has often been called Eutychianism (a Monophysite being a "Eutychian") after Eutyches (p. 167). But he was only one of many Monophysites, not by any means the inventor of the theory or leader of the party.[2] He acquired some fame by bringing the heresy to or by agitating for it at Constantinople, but he was not really its founder.
Monophysism, then, is simply the extreme opposite of Nestorianism. As soon as Nestorius began to divide Christ into two persons, there were among his opponents those who insisted on the unity of our Lord to such a degree that they confused his humanity with his divinity as one thing. They declared him so much one person that he had but one nature. In him the humanity was absorbed in the divinity, as a drop of wine would be in an ocean of water. There is nothing to distinguish in Christ; in all things, personality, hypostasis, even nature (φύσις), he is one. But then the more moderate people began to see a danger on that side too. If in Christ the humanity were absorbed in the divinity, then he would have no real human nature, would not really be man. These vehement opponents of Nestorius were falling into the old Apollinarist heresy and so justifying the constant accusation of Nestorians;[3] they were becoming Docetes—the still older heresy which made our Lord's humanity, his birth, life, and death, a mere appearance and a useless mystification. As soon as that was realized, as soon as the extreme deniers of Nestorianism began really to maintain this idea, Monophysism had begun.[4] It was to have a long and stormy career.
- ↑ Μονοφυσισμός, μονοφυσίτης, from μονὴ φύσις, "one nature."
- ↑ If it were necessary to name one man as leader it would be rather Dioscor of Alexandria (p. 165).
- ↑ Throughout this controversy the Nestorians accused all their opponents of being Apollinarists (see p. 59).
- ↑ Both the opposed heresies admitted the same false premise, that person (ὑπόστασις) and nature (φύσις) are the same thing. Nestorians said that our Lord has two natures, therefore he is two persons; Monophysites answered that he is certainly one person, therefore he has one nature. Both antecedents are right; the consequents, assuming the false supposition, are wrong. The good of these heresies is that the Church by them was obliged to realize more clearly the simple truth she had always held (that one Jesus Christ is both God and man), and so to conceive the essential difference between nature and person.
