logical) school of Severus of Antioch (p. 197). As in the case of all Eastern Churches, their heresy is seen most plainly, not directly by metaphysical statements concerning nature and person (for among their ill-educated clergy we cannot expect to find clear ideas on such difficult points), but implicitly by their attitude towards historic facts. They reject and abhor the Council of Chalcedon. They detest the Dogmatic Letter of St. Leo I. They maintain that this and the council renewed the impious heresy of Nestorius. They declare that Catholics and Orthodox are heretics, because we accept the Dyophysite errors of Chalcedon. They venerate the memory of the leading Monophysites — Dioscor, Timothy the Cat, Severus, as saints and champions of the true faith taught by St. Cyril of Alexandria. A man who holds these views is a Monophysite. As long as they had a literature they argued against what was defined at Chalcedon. In the 13th century a Coptic divine, Ibn-naṣal, wrote a treatise, Collection of the Principles of Faith, in which he argues against Pagans, Jews, Nestorians and Melkites.[1] Indifferent outsiders, such as Maḳrīzī, understand and explain the difference between three kinds of Christians, Nestorians, Melkites and Copts, quite accurately.[2] Lastly, the present authorized Coptic catechism contains plain Monophysism. It teaches that our Lord "became one only person, one only distinct substance, one only nature, with one will, and one operation."[3] Indeed, in spite of the modern craze for denying that heretical bodies really hold the heresy of which they are accused, I have not yet found anyone who claims that the Copts are not Monophysites. That may come. The people who so hotly maintain that Nestorians are not Nestorians may quite as well take up the defence of Monophysites.[4] This then is plain. Ignorant sympathizers with this ancient and venerable Church, who see no reason why Anglicans should not join in communion
- ↑ Renaudot: Hist. Patr. Alex. p. 585.
- ↑ Al-Maḳrīzī: Hist. of the Copts, ed. cit. p. 83.
- ↑ Tanwīr almubtada'īn fī ta'līm ad-dīn (The Blossoming of the Beginner in the Study of Religion), by the Hegumenos Filuthā'us. New edition at the Press of Tufīḳ at Cairo, 1629 (æra mart.) = 1912 A.D., p. 23.
- ↑ This has already happened in the case of the Armenians (p. 425, n. 3).
