Monothelitism

Monothelitism (a Greek loanword meaning "one will") is a particular teaching about how the divine and human relate in the person of Jesus, known as a Christological doctrine, that began in Armenia and Syria in AD 633. Specifically, Monothelitism teaches that Jesus Christ had two natures but only one will. This is contrary to the orthodox interpretation of Christology, which teaches that Jesus Christ has two wills (human and divine) corresponding to his two natures. Monothelitism is a development of the Monophysite position in the Christological debates. It enjoyed considerable support in the 7th century before being rejected as heretical.

Historical overview

Monothelitism grew out of the christological controversies dealing with the question of whether Christ had one nature (divine/human) or two (divine and human). In these bitter and contentious debates, which often divided the eastern and western Christian churches, the Nestorians had emphasized two distinct natures in Christ, the Monophysites had insisted on one nature in which Christ's humanity were harmonized, and the Orthodox party ultimately prevailed with a formula which upheld the idea of "two natures" but rejected the Nestorian principle of considering the natures to be distinct from one another. The definition of Council of Chalcedon thus states that Jesus was one person with two natures but that these two natures are "without distinction or confusion."

In the short run, however, this formula proved inadequate to solve the problem, being considered far too "Nestorian" for many Monophysite churchmen. The churches, especially in the East, remained divided and various formulas were attempted by the eastern Emperors to reconcile with the Monophysites, resulting more often than not in even more division, especially with the West under the leadership of the papacy.

The Monothelite teaching emerged as another compromise position, in which the former Monophysites might agree that Jesus had two natures if it were also affirmed that his will was completely united with that of God, while some Chalcedonian Christians might agree that Jesus' will was always united with the will of God as long as it was affirmed that Christ also had two natures.

Perhaps at the suggestion of Emperor Heraclius (610–641), the Monothelite position was promulgated by Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople (patriarch 610–638). The Monothelite position gained favor in the Church for a time, and spread under Pope Honorius I (reigned 625–638).

Monothelitism was officially condemned at the Third Council of Constantinople (the Sixth Ecumenical Council, 680–681). The churches condemned at Constantinople include the Oriental Orthodox churches and the Maronite church, although they now deny that they ever held the Monothelite view, describing their own Christology as Miaphysite.

Details

Though not a trained theologian, Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, as the bishop of the capital city of the Eastern Roman Empire, held authority in the Christian churches rivaled only by that of the bishop of Rome. in a letter to Pope Honorius, Segius wrote that Emperor Heraclius came to Theodosiopolis (Erzeroum) in Armenia about 622 on a military matter. While there, a Monophysite leadernamed Paul made a speech before him in support of the Monophysite position, in which the emperor refuted the idea of one "nature" in Christ but admitted "one operation" in term of his will. Later on he inquired of Bishop Cyrus of Phasis whether his words were correct. Cyrus was uncertain, and at the emperor's order, wrote to Sergius in Constantinople, whom Heraclius greatly trusted, for advice. Sergius in reply sent him a letter in which several authorities were cited, including the late Pope Vigilius, for "one operation" and "one will." In June, 631, Cyrus was promoted by the emperor to the position of patriarch Alexandria.

Practically the whole of Egypt was at this time still Monophysite. Former emperors had made efforts for reunion, to little success. In the fifth century the compromise document known as the Henotikon of Emperor Zeno had resulted in the so-called Acacian schism between Rome and Constantinople and yet was rejected by many Monophysites, as well as the popes. In the sixth century, the condemnation of the Three Chapters had nearly caused a another schism between East and West without in the least placating the Monophysites.

In Alexandria, Cyrus was for the moment more successful. He obtained the acceptance by the Monophysites of a series of nine theological points, in which Christ's "one operation" of will was asserted along with the Chalcedonian "two natures" and "one composite hypostasis (person)." He thus effected the reunion of the Alexandrian church and nearly all of Egypt and northern Africa.

However, Saint Sophronius, a much venerated monk of Palestine, soon to become patriarch of Jerusalem who was in Alexandria at this time, strongly objected to the expression "one operation." He went to Constantinople, and urged Patriarch Sergius to the seventh of the nine "chapters" promoted by Cyrus withdrawn. Sergius was not willing to risk losing the African churches again by ordering this, but he did write to Cyrus that it would be well for the future to drop both expressions "one operation" and "two operations." He also advised referrin the question to the pope. Cyrus politely responded that Sergius was, in effect, declaring the emperor to be wrong.

In the letter to Pope Honorius, Sergius admitted that "one operation," though used by a few of the orthodox Church Fathers, is a strange expression, and might suggest a denial of the "unconfused union of two natures." But, he said, the idea of "two operations" is also dangerous, suggesting "two contrary wills, as though when the Word of God wished to fulfill 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."

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."

Honorius replied by praising Sergius for rejecting his "new expression" of "two operations," approving his recommendations and refraining from criticizing any of the propositions of Cyrus. He even goes so far as to state that "We acknowledge one Will of our Lord Jesus Christ." However, in another letter to Sergius the pope says he has informed Cyrus that the new expressions, "one operation" and "two operations" are to be dropped.

Late in 638 the Ecthesis of Heraclius was issued, composed by Sergius and authorized by the emperor. Sergius himself died on December 9 of that year, a few days after having celebrated a council in which the Ecthesis was acclaimed as "truly agreeing with the Apostolic teaching." Cyrus received the news of this council with great joy. The Ecthesis reaffirms the doctrines of five Ecumenical Councils, including Chalcedon, but adds a prohibition against speaking of either "one operation" or "two operations," at the same time affirming the "one will in Christ lest contrary wills should be held." Honorius, meanwhile had died on October 12 and was not in a position to confirm whether this statement conformed with his view.

Papal envoys promised to submit the Echthesis to [[Pope Severinus], but the new pople was not consecrated until May, 640 and died just two months later without having offered his opinion on the Ecthesis. Pope John IV, who succeeded him in December, quickly convened a synod which condemn it formally. Emperor Heraclius, thinking the Echthesis had promulgated the very of Pope Honorius, now disowned the Echthesis in a letter to John IV and laid the blame on Sergius.

When Heraclius died in February 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, he said, had not meant to teach one will in Christ. Saint Maximus the Confessor published a similar defense of Honorius.

However, the new patriarch of Constantinople, Pyrrhus, was a supporter of the Ecthesis and confirmed it in a major council. Sophronius, too, was succeeded in Jerusalem by a supporter of the Ecthesis, and another Monthelite bishop now sat in the See of Antioch. In Alexandria, the city fell into the hands of the Muslims under Amru in 640. Among the great cities of the empire, only Rome thus remained "orthodox," while whole Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria were Monothelite, the latter soon to become Muslim.

In May 643, the bishops of Cyprus, independent of any patriarch, held a synod against the Ecthesis entreating Pope Theodore for supported declaring themselves ready to be martyred rather than forsake the "orthodox" doctrine. In 646 certain bishops of Africa and the adjoining islands held councils and likwise wrote afterward to Theodore in solidarity.

The situation now deteriorated into violence. Emperor Constans, had exiled Patriarch Pyrrhus to Africa, and his successor, Paul, continued to support the Ecthesis. Pope Theodore, from Rome, pronounced a sentence of deposition against Paul, and the patriarch retaliated by destroying the Latin altar which belonged to the Roman See in the palace of Placidia at Constantinople. He also punished the papal representatives in Constantinople, as well as certain laymen who support the Roman position, together with certain orthodox laymen and priests, by imprisonment, exile, or whipping.

Paul, however, clearly believed himself to be in accord with two previous popes, Honorius and Vigilis; and he was not unwilling to compromise. He therefore persuaded the emperor to withdraw the Ecthesis and to substitute an orthodox confession of faith together with a disciplinary measure forbidding controversial expression regarding Christ's will. No blame was to attach to any who had used used such expressions in the past, but transgression of the new law would involve deposition for bishops and clerics, excommunication and expulsion for monks, loss of office and dignity for officials, fines for richer laymen, and corporal punishment and permanent exile for the poor. While not a Monothelite document, it forbid the "orthodox" idea of "two operations" equally with the "heretical idea of "one operation." Known as the Type of Constans it was enacted sometime between September 648 and September 649.

Pope Theodore died May 5, 649 and was succeeded in July by Pope Martin I. In October, Pope Martin held a great council at the Lateran, at which 105 bishops were present. In his opening address, the pope condemned the Ecthesis and the Type of Constans, along with the patriarchs Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paul. The council admitted the good intention of the Type (apparently so as to spare the emperor while condemning Paul), but declared the document heretical for forbidding the teaching of "two operations" and "two wills." It passed 20 twenty canons, the eighteenth of which anathematizes Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, the Ecthesis, and the Type. Honorius, who had caused so much trouble by seeming to endorse the "one will," however, escaped criticism. An encyclical letter was sent to churches and monasteries throughout the empire in the name of Pope Martin and the council.

The pope now commissioned to Bishop John of Philadelphia to appoint appoint orthodox bishops, priests, and deacons in the patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem. The pope also deposed Archbishop John of Thessalonica and declared the appointments of Macarius of Antioch and Peter of Alexandria to be null and void. Emperor Constans retaliated by having Martin kidnapped at Rome and taken as a prisoner to Constantinople. The pope still refused to accept either the Ecthesis or the Type, and after sufferings, he died a martyr in the Crimea in March 655. Other famous martyrs in the controversy include Maximus the Confessor (662), his disciple and fellow monk Anastasius (662), and another Anastasius who was a papal envoy (666).

Patriarch Paul of Constantinople himself was dying of natural causes, and had convinced the Emperor to spare the pope's life temporarily. At Paul's death, Pyrrhus was restored as patriarch of Constantinople. His successor Peter sent an ambiguous letter to Pope Eugenius, which made no mention of either one or two "operations," thus observing the prescription of the Type.

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 OF 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 toHonorius 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 POPE HONORIUS I). 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 heretics 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.

Meanwhile, Saint Sophronius as the patriarch of Jerusalem, although he had died just before Sergius, had published a formal defense of the dogma of "two operations" and "two wills," which was afterward approved by the Sixth Ecumenical Council. This document was the first full exposition of what thus became the Catholic doctrine.

Notable Figures in the Monothelite Debate

• Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople—a supporter of the monothelite position
• Bishop Cyrus of Alexandria—one of the originators of the monothelite position
• Pope Honorius I—Condemned at Constantinople for his failure to combat Monothelitism
• Pope Martin I—Martyred by Byzantine authorities for his condemnation of Monothelitism at the First Lateran Synod
• Maximus the Confessor—Martyred by Byzantine authorities for his condemnation of Monothelitism
• Pope Agatho—Condemned Monothelitsm at the Council of Constantinople

See also

• Monophysitism
• Chalcedonian
• Miaphysite
• Papal Oath (Liber Diurnus)

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Monothelitism and Monothelites

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Monothelitism  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Monothelitism"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.