Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/775

MONONGALIA with the Allegheny to form the Ohio at Pitts- burgh ; length, exclusive of branches, about 150 m., or including the Tygart's Valley river or East fork (which rises in Eandolph co., W. Va.), 300 m. At its mouth the width is nearly 400 yards. It is navigable for large boats to Brownsville, Pa., 60 m. from its mouth, and for small boats to Fairmont, W. Va., at its head. MOGALIA, a K county of West Virginia, bordering on Pennsylvania, and intersected by Monongahela and Cheat rivers ; area, about 500 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 13,547, of whom 231 were colored. The surface is uneven, being mountainous toward the east, where it is crossed by Laurel hill, an extreme western ridge of the Alleghanies; the soil is fertile. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad passes through the S. W. part. The chief productions in 1870 were 111,805 bushels of wheat, 301,328 of Indian corn, 148,072 of oats, 23,772 of pota- toes, 55,856 Ibs. of wool, 345,573 of butter, and 12,030 tons of hay. There were 4,238 horses, 8,110 cattle, 17,371 sheep, and 7,324 swine; 7 flour, 3 lumber, and 2 woollen mills, and 8 tanneries'. Capital, Morgantown. MONOPHYSITES (Gr. povo^valTai, from pfooc, single, and <j>voic, nature), the followers of Eu- tyches, who maintained that in Christ there is " only one nature, that of the incarnate word," his human nature having been absorbed by the divine. Eutyches had been led to maintain the mixture or confounding of the divine and hu- man natures in Christ, against Nestorius, who taught that "the divine nature was not incar- nate in Jesus, but only attendant on him, be- ing superadded to his already formed human nature." Eutyches was warmly supported by the monasteries of Constantinople, and by those of Egypt, headed by Dioscurus, bishop of Alex- andria. His opinion, condemned in 448 at Constantinople, was reaffirmed by the "robber synod " of Ephesus in 449, through the in- fluence of Dioscurus and his partisans, aided by the abbot Barsumas and his Syrian monks, but especially through the active support of the emperor Theodosius II. This decision was reversed in 451 by the general council of Chal- cedon, which decreed that after the incarnation, the one and same Christ subsists in both natures without mixture, change, division, or separation. This decision, which the Euty- chians termed sheer Nestorianism, only made them more tenacious of their doctrine. Hence they were called Monophysites by their op- ponents, who in turn were denominated indis- criminately Diophysites or Nestorians. The great patriarchal sees of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch, chiefly by means of the numerous monasteries of monks tainted with Eutychian- ism, fell into the possession of the Monophy- sites, and these cities, with their dependent churches, were for a long time scenes of the most scandalous and sanguinary violence. The perpetual interference of the Greek emperors in theological disputes, as it had not a little helped the growth of the Nestorian and Euty- MONOPHYSITES 757 chian heresies, contributed also to perpetuate the division between the orthodox and the Monophysites. The usurper Basiliscus in 476 was the first emperor to issue doctrinal edicts obligatory on all upholding Monophysitism. In 477 the emperor Zeno gave his support to the Catholics, and in 482 he published a doc- trinal compromise called Henoticon, which was condemned at Eome and rejected by both parties. Every attempt at reunion thencefor- ward made by the imperial authority only served to widen the breach. The emperors Justin and Justinian employed alternately, without success, measures of conciliation and severity. While Justinian tried to win the Catholics by proscribing the writings of Origen favorable to the Monophysites, he irritated them by condemning what is known as the " three chapters," namely, passages from three Antiochian church teachers, tainted with Nes- torianism, but justified at Chalcedon. At the same time Justinian's wife Theodora was a most ardent propagandist of Monophysitism. The general council of Constantinople, con- vened in 553 by that emperor, created irremedi- able division, on the one hand by the condem- nation of the Monophysite tenets, and on the other by the violence done to Pope Vigilius, and the condemnation of the " three chapters." The Monophysites, in the mean while, had fall- en out among themselves ; some (the Seve- rians) maintaining the corruptibility, others (the Julianists) the incorruptibility of the body of Christ. By adopting the latter doctrine Justinian made (in 564) a last attempt to draw over the Monophysites, but with no other result than to cause a new split among the Catholic bishops. Under his successor the ef- forts to make the Monophysites accept the de- crees of Chalcedon were given up, and they organized as an independent body. The zeal of Jacobus Baradaeus, who in 541 was ordained bishop of Edessa, gave them in Syria and Meso- potamia a permanent organization, with a pa- triarch, claiming to be the legitimate successor of the Antiochian patriarchs, at their head. They also received from him the name Jacob- ites, by which they were thenceforth commonly called. (See JACOBITES.) As early as 527, the bishops of Armenia rejected at a national synod, under the presidency of their patriarch Nerses, the decrees of Chalcedon, and organized on a Monophysitic basis an independent church. (See ARMENIAN CHURCH.) In Egypt nearly all the churches adopted Monophysitism ; the few adherents of the imperial decrees were called Melchites (*. ., royalists), while the Monophy- sites received the name of Coptic (i. e., Egyptian) Christians. (See COPTS.) With this latter branch of Monophysitism the Abyssinian church is in organic connection. Some smaller branches of these four Monophysitic churches spread in other parts of western and in central Asia, but without attaining to any importance. The his- tory of the Monophysites is most amply treated of by Walch, in his KetzerMstorie, vols. vi.,