Bright Wednesday, April 15,
2026
Ecumenists propose that
heretics and schismatics who have separated themselves from the Church have
somehow remained her members and that the Body has not been divided. However,
it is forbidden according to the Holy Fathers to allow those outside the Church
to receive the Mysteries. Any decision contrary to this is arbitrary and
violates the vow made by clergy to preserve the Mysteries from profanation.
Nonetheless Orthodox clergy are communing Monophysites (Coptic Orthodox and
others) without previously separating them from their heresy and uniting them
to the Church.
Actions and statements
throughout the world continue which contradict the decisions of the Holy
Fathers defining the true unity of the Church. The ecumenical prayer
performed in Iznik, Turkey on November 28th, 2025 by Orthodox, Roman Catholic,
Monophysite and Protestant participants is confusing for the faithful and mocks
the boundaries of the Church set by the Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils.
Recently in India, a greeting was sent to Monophysites by an Orthodox Patriarch
supporting them by claiming that their heretical church is the same Church our
Saviour spoke of when He said the gates of hell would not prevail against it.
These and similar gatherings and statements only add to the confusion and
scandal of the Faithful. Any attempt to clarify and defend the dogma of the
Church is dismissed as “Romantic theology”.
We offer below a thoughtful
essay in defense of the Orthodox position as encouragement for those who love
the Truth and hunger and thirst for righteousness’ sake.
+ Bishop Luke
Monophysite Heresies and Contemporary
Apologetics
By NGT
The Church is from heaven while
heresy is from the devil as proclaimed during the seventh council of Carthage
in 258[1].
The pernicious nature of heresy is so dangerous that it can be considered the
greatest threat to the faithful, and as such, the Church has instituted canons
and anathemas to protect them. Few things are as persistent and pernicious as
truth mixed with lies, and the persistence of ancient heresies is evident, as
the spiritual descendants of the heresiarchs still exist to this day. Setting
aside the never-ending hydra of heresy that is Protestantism, of particular
interest is the group of heretics historically known as Monophysites who
proclaim one incarnate nature of Christ. With the rise of the ecumenist
movement, all the historical enemies of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic
Church have combined their powers in what appears to be the heresy to end all
heresies: the destruction of the boundaries and all theological differences and
the mingling of all confessions into one heretical body where no one agrees on
anything except to not upset one another. This larger heresy is drawing in the
faithful, and recent movements are attempting to claim that those of the
Eastern Orthodox Church (Chalcedonian) are the same as Monophysites
(non-Chalcedonians). Because of some similar practices such as having a
liturgical form of worship, priesthood, sacraments, and iconography, these two
groups that have been at odds for over fifteen hundred years are claimed to be
one and the same. The orthodox confessions of the church fathers, the witness
of the martyrs, the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, and the anathemas are
ignored all for the sake of a false union with heretics whose Christology,
soteriology, anthropology, theology, and metaphysics are all different.
In this review of major
“theologians” of the monophysite heresy, it must be noted that although
Monophysitism is an umbrella term, and many of the “theologians” of the
heretical monophysite confessions have opposing formulas and beliefs, their one
unifying trait is that they all draw the same conclusion: Christ has one
incarnate nature. This contrasts with “dyophysitism”, the belief that Christ
has two natures. Chalcedonians (Orthodox), Nestorians (heretical), and a small
Origenist variation invented by Evagrius of Pontus (heretical)[2] are
all Dyophisites. The Orthodox Catholic Church will herein frequently be
referred to as Dyophysites, in order to clearly distinguish them from the
Monophysites.
The Monophysite heresy developed
historically and continues to persist. The original monophysite was Apollinaris
of Laodicea, the author of the mia physis formula: “Μίαν φύσιν
τοῦ Λόγου σέσαρκωμένην,”[3] translated
“One Nature of the Word Incarnate” which was condemned at the second Ecumenical
Council. His writings influenced Eutyches and Dioscorus, the original
non-Chalcedonian Heresiarchs who brought the heresy to the forefront and
provoked Chalcedon.
The Monophysites and many
contemporary religious scholars in the 20th century claim that
St. Cyril of Alexandria held monophysite beliefs, particularly because he used
the mia physis formula. An understanding of St. Cyril’s
Christology is an absolute necessity to see if any of the modern ecumenist and
Monophysite apologetics have any grounding. St. Cyril is claimed by both
Orthodox Dyophysites and Monophysites. A careful analysis of his Christology
will unravel much of the contemporary apologetics for the heresy of
Monophysitism.
The major heresiarchs of the
Monophysites are Eutyches of Constantinople, Dioscorus of Alexandria, Timothy
Ailuros, and Severus of Antioch. Each of these individuals are highly
influential in the monophysite confessions and have differences between their
Christological formulas. They formulate the bedrock of the heresy of
Monophysitism; what they all share in common is their collective rejection of
the Council of Chalcedon.
Contemporary apologetics of the
Monophysite heresy include two Joint Agreement Statements in the ecumenical
talks that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These are unique in that
Dyophysite academics helped concoct these agreements. The Dietmar W. Winkler's
“Miaphysitism a New Term for Use in the History of Dogma and in Ecumenical
Theology”, which advocated for the renaming of the contemporary Monophysites as
Miaphysites, an argument raised by Fr. Mebratu Gebru, an Ethiopian Monophysite
clergyman and scholar, and Pope Shenouda III's booklet on the single nature of
Christ are noteworthy monophysite apologetics. A sound understanding of the
historical development and contemporary manifestations of the monophysite
heresy are vital in understanding and refuting it.
Apollinaris of
Laodicea and Apollinarianism
1.1 A Brief Historical Account
of the Heresiarch and His Heresy
Apollinaris was a Bishop of the
Northern Syrian seaport of Laodicea in the fourth century, now known as
Latakia, Syria. He was born in Laodicea (c.310 AD–c.390 AD). His Father was
also named Apollinaris and was from Alexandria, he moved to Beirut and then to
Laodicea and became a priest and where he sired his son. Both Apollinaris the
elder and the younger were highly respected and learned scholars in the
Christian realm. Apollinaris the younger was in the Nicene camp during the
Arian controversy, and his learning earned him the friendship and respect of
many figures in the anti-Arian camp, such as St. Athanasius of Alexandria and
St. Basil the Great.
Towards the latter half of
Apollinaris’ life, he began to teach his infamous heresy; that the Incarnate
Logos had only one nature, a human body and an animal soul that lacked the
rational mind replaced with the divine Logos. Henry Chadwick explains this in
his work “The Early Church”:
In an extreme anti-Arian reaction
he asserted that Christ's human nature differed from that of other men in one
all-important respect: the divine Word or Logos replaced the natural mind. For
only so could one avoid thinking of Christ as a dual personality. Apollinaris
had a high sacramental theology, a sharp mind, and a pungent pen. But he could
not obscure the fact that he was denying the completeness and the genuineness
of Christ's humanity.[4]
St. Basil was alarmed at the
development and promulgation of Apollinaris’ teachings and informed Rome of his
doctrines. He requested they discipline him along with others in the Nicene
camps that were promulgating heresies. Apollinaris’ Christology was condemned
by the Pope of Rome and the Bishop of Alexandria around 377.[5] He
was ultimately condemned in the First council of Constantinople in 381 AD, but
the heresy persisted. In 388, emperor Theodosius outlawed Apollinarism in the
harshest form in the Eastern Empire after its having been formally outlawed in
the West and condemned by Rome. Yet, this heretical sect persisted until the
early fifth century, where the heretics eventually reconciled with the church
in Antioch.
There is evidence for
[Apollinarianism’s] survival into the fifth century – only in 425 were the
Apollinarians at Antioch officially reconciled under Bishop Theodotus – and it
seems certain that it provided fertile soil for the nurture of the Monophysitism
which was to trouble the church in that century.[6]
1.2 The Apollinarian Forgeries
As Apollinarianism was condemned
by imperial edict, his teachings were openly censured; many of the writings of
Apollinaris do not survive to this day. To navigate this censorship, followers
of Apollinaris wrote their doctrines and ascribed them to others creating what
is now known as the infamous Apollinarian forgeries. This caused much confusion
in the Christian world, as respected orthodox figures had their names
misattributed to heretical dogma:
Most of Apolinarius’s writings
have not survived, and most of those that have did so because they were falsely
attributed, presumably by the Apollinarians themselves, to “orthodox” writers.
. . And as such claimed as “orthodox” authorities in the fifth-century
Christological debates by both St. Cyril of Alexandria and his opponent
Eutyches. The Kata meros pistis (“Confession of Faith in Parts”) was attributed
to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus; De unione, De fide et incarnatione, and the first
letter to Dionysius, to Pope St. Julius of Rome; and the letter to Jovian, to
St. Athanasius. The spuriousness of these attributions became known, however,
after about 450.[7]
These works cited above are
critical texts that Monophysites initially used to support their heresy,
particularly Eutyches and Dioscorus. A more detailed breakdown of this
phenomenon is documented by Leontius of Byzantium’s Against the
forgeries of the Apollinarists in the sixth century. In this work, the
author cites various texts written by Apollinarian heretics and draws parallels
between their dogmatic claims and the misattributed Apollinarian forgeries.
1.3 Apollinaris’ Christology
Apollinarism is truly the father
of the non-Chalcedonian Monophysites. Apollinaris believed in the tri-partite
soul of man, and that Christ, as God, came down from heaven and incarnated in a
human body with an incomplete human soul. The Divine spirit of the Logos
replaced the rational mind of the human soul, creating a hybrid human of two
parts man and one part God, with only one person, nature, will and energy of
God alone present. The following succinctly outlines Apollinaris’s’
Christology:
He is not a human being but is
like a human being, since he is not coessential with humanity in his highest
part. For he would not have been born in the likeness of a human being unless,
like a human being, he was in fact an incarnate intellect.
If together with God, who is
intellect, there was also a human intellect in Christ, then the work of the
incarnation is not accomplished in him. But if the work of the incarnation is
not accomplished in the self-moved and undetermined intellect, then this work,
which is the destruction of sin, is accomplished in the flesh, which is moved
from without and energized by the divine Intellect. The self-moved intellect
within us shares in the destruction of sin insofar as it assimilates itself to
Christ.
Therefore, the human race is
saved not by the assumption of an intellect and of a whole human being but by
the assumption of flesh, whose nature it is to be ruled. What was needed was
unchangeable intellect which did not fall under the domination of the flesh on
account of its weakness of understanding but which adapted the flesh to itself
without force.[8]
Apollinaris believed that since
the human intellect has fallen, Christ could not have assumed human intellect,
because he would be subject to its fallen state, so instead he incarnated in a
human body with an animal soul and replaced the rational intellect with his
divine spirit.
In the following equation
Apollinaris explains the properties of the Incarnate Word (bold added for
emphasis):
The confession is that in him the
creature is in unity with the uncreated, while the uncreated is commingled with
the creature, so that one nature is constituted out of the parts
severally, and the Word contributes a special energy to the whole together
with the divine perfection. The same thing happens in the case of the ordinary
man, made up as he is of two incomplete parts which together fill out one
nature and are signified by one name; for at the same time the whole is called
"flesh" without the soul's being thereby stripped away. and the whole
is styled "soul" without the body's being stripped away (if, indeed,
it is something else alongside the soul)[9]
Apollinaris advocates that Christ
has one nature composed of both human and divine parts. Apollinaris mixes the
divine and human natures into one. He himself exclaims this very point: “O new
creation and divine mixture! God and flesh completed one and the same nature!”[10]
Apollinaris’ conception of divine
nature is the vital component of his mia physis formula. He
claims that:
[Christ] emptied himself after
the fashion of a slave. But in his divine essence he is unemptied and unaltered
and undiminished (for no alteration can affect the divine nature), neither is
he decreased or increased.[11]
His belief that Christ's divinity
is unalterable is consistent with Orthodox doctrine.
With no ambiguity Apollinaris
proclaims: “Christ is one, moved only by a divine will, just as we know his
activity is one, manifested in different marvels and sufferings of his one
nature, for he is believed to be God enfleshed.”[12] This
reveals that Apollinaris is the origin of the belief that Christ has only one
energy and one will.
1.4 The Logical conclusions of
Apollinaris’ Christology
Apollinaris’ single nature of
Christ is an amalgamation of human and divine components, but if the divine
nature cannot be altered, how can it mix into a single nature with created
human nature and not undergo change? The principle of mixing two natures is
described in detail by St. John Damascene:
One should know, moreover, that
whenever a compound nature is produced, the parts must be coincident and a new
thing made from other things. This new thing will not preserve the thing of
which it has been composed as such, but will change and alter them. Thus, when
the body has been made up from the four elements, a new thing has been made out
of other things, and this new thing is neither pure fire nor any of the other
elements, nor is it so called. It is the same with the mule, which is bred from
a horse and an ass, for it is neither a horse nor an ass, nor it is so called.
On the contrary, it is a new thing produced from others and which does not
preserve unconfused and unchanged either one of those things of which it is
composed[13]
When two natures are
combined into one, the original natures are lost, and a new nature is produced.
In such a formulation, the divinity would experience change due to the mixing
of natures. If the divinity experiences change, then Apollinaris contradicts
his own doctrine on the features of divinity, and the product of the mixing is
neither divine nor human. Within the Apollinarian framework, it logically
becomes a tertium quid (a third thing). This would result in
Christ being consubstantial with neither God nor man. This conclusion has
overarching consequences for the Trinity, as Christ would no longer be
consubstantial with the other two members, thus it would destroy the Triune God
and make Him into a Dyad. If the divinity is subject to change, Apollinaris’
Triune God cannot qualify as God.
The ultimate logical conclusion
of Apollinaris’ premise of the one nature of the Incarnate Logos is that Christ
only has a divine nature. Any other conclusion would imply that Christ is not
divine and is not God, and this is not what Apollinaris claims about divinity.
The logical consequences of created natures mixing into a new third nature
would not apply to divine nature, for divine nature defies all logical
categorization. The union of divine nature with human nature would result in
the absorption (or perhaps more fittingly, the destruction) of human nature.
Apollinaris’ Christ is consubstantial with God alone; there is nothing human
about Him.
If Christ is composed solely of
divinity, and Apollinaris advocates that He truly experienced death, then the
divinity died on the cross. Apollinaris has killed God. By killing God, he
introduces change within the divine nature and thus reveals that divinity is
not immutable and is subject to change. If the divinity can experience change
in its essence and is subject to death, it is by definition not God.
Apollinaris' mia physis formula ultimately destroys the
Trinity no matter how it is formulated.
If Christ is not consubstantial
with humanity, His resurrection from the dead has no effect on humanity. If
Christ has no human nature, he cannot have human attributes or accidents (non-essential
properties), which means He cannot have a human body or soul. Since He is not
human in any context, He cannot save humanity through His resurrection. This
destroys the salvation of man, for the universal resurrection of the dead is founded
on Christ’s redeeming and resurrecting common human nature by assuming humanity.
Apollinaris’ incarnation has no relevance for mankind. Apollinaris not only
kills God, he also kills man; dooming mankind to eternal perdition.
1.5 The Link Between
Apollinaris and St. Cyril of Alexandria
St. Cyril of Alexandria is the
only Orthodox Church Father to utilize the mia physis formula.
His use of the formula is the impetus for the conflict between the
Chalcedonians Dyophysites and the non-Chalcedonian Monophysites. St.
Cyril cites an Apollinarian forgery falsely attributed to St. Athanasius[14] twice
before the reconciliation of 433, revealing Apollinaris as the origin of the
formula, and the true forerunner to the Monophysites.
St. Cyril of Alexandria:
2.1 A Brief Introduction
Eutyches and Dioscorus and all
non-Chalcedonians after them claim to follow St. Cyril of Alexandria’s
Christology to justify remaining in their heresy. St. Cyril, born in Egypt (376
AD - 444 AD) was the Patriarch of Alexandria and is known for his pivotal role
in defeating the heresy of Nestorianism. St. Cyril began to directly oppose
Nestorius’ Christology in 428, and in his polemical battle against the
heresiarch, he employs a mia physis formula. This is why the
Monophysites claim they receive their Christology from St. Cyril, but there is
clear evidence that St. Cyril viewed the mia physis formula as
an expression of a dyophysite christology that emphasized the single person of
Christ. An examination of select entries of the Cyrillian corpus reveals that
his understanding of Christ is dyophysite, he makes this explicitly clear in
his comments about the Antiochene dyo physis formula, refusing
to call it heretical.
2.2 The Nestorian Controversy
Nestorius (386c. – 451C AD) was
the patriarch of Constantinople. He proposed that Christ was composed of two
persons or hypostases: the divine Logos, the Son of God, Who existed before the
ages and Jesus of Nazareth, the son of the Virgin Mary. He argued that the two
natures of Christ were separate, and thus the incarnation was in reality two
separate beings. Nestorius believed if the incarnation was composed of one
being, that meant mixing the divine and human natures, which is impossible.
Thus, Nestorius advocated for the term “Christotokos” (Christ Bearer) instead
of “Theotokos” (God Bearer) for the virgin Mary, as according to him she gave
birth to Jesus of Nazareth, not the Logos which indwelled him. Nestorius
believed that the two persons in the Incarnation were united in “respect’ and
“honor” alone, thus allowing Nestorius to worship the Incarnation without being
idolatrous. This heretical form of dyophysitism was condemned by the third
Ecumenical Council held at Ephesus in 431.
Towards the beginning of the
Nestorian controversy, St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote refutations of Nestorius’
Christological heresy. What is noteworthy of the early years of St. Cyril’s
writings against Nestorius is the complete absence of the mia physis formula.
This formula did not appear in St. Cyril’s corpus until his work Five
Tomes Against Nestorius (Contra Nestorius) written in 430 AD It
is important to examine St. Cyril’s conception of Christ’s natures in works
before and after Contra Nestorius to determine whether his
Christology is monophysite or dyophysite.
2.3 Commentary on Christ’s
Natures Unrelated to the Nestorian Conflict
To attest that Christ has both a
divine and human nature makes one a dyophysite. In his biblical commentary, St.
Cyril refers to Christ’s humanity as a nature several times; sometimes as His
individual nature, or humanity’s common nature of which He partakes. The latter
point reveals that St. Cyril’s is a realist[15] in
his metaphysics.
In St. Cyril’s commentary on
Leviticus, he explains the significance of the two doves given for sacrifice in
the Old Testament law. Here, he likens the duality and purity of the doves to
Christ’s two natures, divine and human. He is cautious to warn the reader that
although Christ has two natures, there are not two Christs, but only one
person:
Now the birds were clean. For the
Lord is truly clean and undefiled, knowing no sin. Even though it says there
were two birds, however, we are certainly not saying that we understand there
to be two Christs. This matter brings us to a learned and necessary
consideration. For the Only-Begotten, although he was God by nature, bore the
flesh of the holy Virgin, and was indeed composed, as it were, of two, by which
I mean his heavenly nature and his human nature, in a way that is ineffable and
beyond understanding. Notwithstanding, the Lord Jesus Christ is one. The
account, then, in these two birds gives consideration to the coming together of
two into one.[16]
This is not an anomaly in his
thinking, for he repeats this idea of Christ having two natures a few pages
later in the same work:
For it prescribes that two living
birds which are clean should be taken, so that through these birds you may
understand both the heavenly man and God at the same time, these being in fact
two natures, distinct with regard to the properties proper to each one.[17]
Here, he is not only saying
Christ has two natures, but explains that each nature has properties that are
tied to the natures. The logical conclusion of this idea is that Christ after
the incarnation has energies and wills proper to each nature, in other words,
two energies and two wills.
In his commentary on the Gospel
of John, St. Cyril makes direct references to Christ sharing in the whole of
human nature to redeem and save mankind. These refer to the common nature of
humanity that Christ assumed for the salvation of man:
Therefore, the renewing Spirit,
that is, the Holy Spirit, has been given to us. He is the cause of eternal life
after the glorification of Christ, that is, after the resurrection. That is
when he burst the bonds of death, showed himself superior to all decay and
returned to life, having our whole nature in himself in that he was a human
being and one of us.[18]
Once again, St. Cyril elaborates
on this notion of a common nature within Christ that makes Him fully human and
consubstantial with the rest of humanity. Thus, the saving work of the
incarnation is revealed in Christ God, the second Adam:
If we examine as well as we can
the account of the mystery concerning him, we will see that he died not merely
for himself and not strictly for his own sake, but it was for all humanity that
he suffered and that he carried out both the suffering itself and the
resurrection that followed. He died according to the flesh, making his own life
the counterweight to the life of all, and he who is worth everyone put together
fulfilled in himself the force of the ancient curse. And he rose again from the
dead to imperishable and unending life, raising our whole nature in himself.[19]
Christ’s having two natures,
fully God and fully man, allows Him to suffer and die on the cross, for while
His divinity is impassible, his humanity is passible. As such, the divinity is
intact and resurrects His humanity, and all of mankind is elevated with it; for
Christ’s human nature is a universal, common human nature that truly exists.
All humanity participates in this common nature that has been sanctified and
raised in Christ’s resurrection.
2.4 Anti-Nestorian Writings
Prior to Contra Nestorium
In St. Cyril’s Festive Letter 17,
written in 428AD, the first year of the Nestorian Controversy, St. Cyril
explains his Christology, emphasizing that Christ has a human nature but is
regarded as one being. He mentions that Christ’s two natures are not alike,
even after the union, which occurred at incarnation. If there is a difference
between the natures, that means they can both be numbered, which means there
are two natures, even after they are united in Christ:
It is thus that we say, too, that
he is worshiped both by ourselves and by the holy angels: not that we lower him
to a bare humanity—that would be senseless—but we follow sacred Scripture both
in binding into unity with our nature the Word sprung from God, and
interweaving into something that is one that which is from both, in order that
he may not be regarded simply as a human being who has borne God, but rather as
God who has become a human being, and who, in the economic union, that with his
own flesh, has put on the birth from the holy Virgin. The sole Christ and sole
Lord may be regarded thus and not otherwise, not as being divided into part
human being and part God after the ineffable interweaving; even if the nature
of those which have come together into a union is regarded as different, he is
received and regarded as being only one Son.[20]
Later, in the same letter, St.
Cyril employs the concept of separating the natures in thought alone as being
harmless, for it allows two distinct natures to be identified:
It is as with the most precious
stones, where some beams of light elucidate the depths when they flash upon
them, and if one wished to separate the mixture by thought, one would consider
the stone in itself as one thing, and the light swimming therein as another,
even though the subject which is from the two is regarded as one. But the act
of cutting will quite destroy the principle governing the stone, separating as
it does the things gathered into union, with ugliness resulting. And thus we
say it is with Christ: divinity and humanity have come together ineffably, in a
way that no one can conceive or speak of, into what is henceforth regarded as
one, so that he is regarded at once as both a human being as we are, and God
who is above us. Thus he is both only-begotten and firstborn.[21]
He uses the analogy of a stone or
a gem, shining and reflecting light: the gem and the light are separated in
thought, for they are two different properties tied to the same object. Cutting
the two aspects from each other in reality destroys the principle understanding
of the object, for the stone and its reflective properties are tied to the same
object. They do not have individual existence without one another. Remove the
luster of the gem and it becomes ugly, remove the gem from the luster and there
is no basis for the luster to exist. Both properties truly exist, just as both
of Christ’s natures truly exist; the “in thought alone” is not applied to the
existence of each of Christ’s natures, but only to the separation. For
separating the natures leads to Nestorius’ error, in which the natures
necessarily become two separate beings.
St. Cyril’s Second Letter to
Nestorius was canonized in both the third and fourth Ecumenical Councils. Here,
St. Cyril mentions that Christ has two natures that are united yet remain
distinct. He also introduces the concept of a “hypostatic union” in this
letter. This term categorizes the concept of the unity of two natures in the
one Christ, a single hypostasis:
We say rather that the Word by
having united to himself hypostatically flesh animated by a rational soul,
inexplicably and incomprehensibly became man. He has been called the Son of
man, not according to desire alone or goodwill, nor by the assumption of a
person only. We say that, although the natures are different which were brought
together to a true unity, there is one Christ and Son from both. The
differences of the natures are not destroyed through the union, but rather the
divinity and humanity formed for us one Lord Jesus Christ and one Son through
the incomprehensible and ineffable combination to a unity.[22]
St. Cyril consistently and
unambiguously argues that Christ has two natures that are not alike refuting
Nestorius who advocates for two natures in Christ.
2.5 Contra Nestorium and
the appearance of the Mia Physis Formula
In 430AD, St. Cyril wrote Contra
Nestorium, a treatise arguing against the heresies of Nestorius divided
into five books. In book two of this work, St. Cyril presents a mia
physis formula for the first time in his corpus, and this is its only
appearance in Contra Nestorium. Alongside the mia physis formula
is a brief explanation of what St. Cyril means by it:
For the Incarnate Nature of
the Word Himself is after the Union now conceived of as One, just as will
reasonably be conceived in regard to ourselves too, for man is really One,
compounded of unlike things, soul I mean and body. But it is necessary now too
to notify that we say that the Body united to God the Word is ensouled with a
reasonable Soul. And I will for profit's sake add this too: other than the Word
out of God is the flesh, in regard to its proper nature, other again
Essentially the Nature of the Word Itself. But even though the things named be
conceived of as diverse and sundered in diverseness of nature, yet is Christ
conceived of as One out of both, the Godhead and manhood having come together
one to another in true union.[23]
For St. Cyril, “one incarnate
nature of the Word” is analogous to a human nature that is composed of two
separate natures. The nature of the human body is distinct from the nature of
the human soul, but they compose a single nature despite their differences. The
quote ends with the emphasis that Christ is One out of both natures. It is
important to note that with the appearance of this formula, St. Cyril is not
denying that Christ is composed of two diverse natures and is not declaring
either of them to exist in thought or contemplation alone, and he says that
these natures are distinct. One can see that this mia physis formula
is surrounded and explained by dyophysite terminology and concepts, and remains
in line with the previous quotes examined from earlier Cyrillian works.
What is also noteworthy
about Contra Nestorium in light of the appearance of St.
Cyril’s mia physis formula is that throughout the work, St.
Cyril never attacks Nestorius for saying that Christ has two natures.[24] His
primary concern with Nestorius is the separation of the natures and the
subsequent division in the person of Christ:
“Therefore confess One, not
dividing the natures, at the same time knowing and holding, that of the flesh
the count is one; of the Godhead again, that which beseems It alone: for we say
that the flesh of the Word by no means became Godhead, but rather Divine, as
being His own.”[25]
St. Cyril’s use of the mia
physis formula will be examined in greater detail after reviewing at
the letter of reconciliation that was written in 433AD, as he does not use it
again until after writing that letter.
2.6 The Reconciliation Formula
Between St. Cyril and John of Antioch
After the council of Ephesus
concluded, there were tensions between Alexandria and Antioch, surrounding St.
Cyril’s use of the mia physis phrase. This phrase originated
from Apollinaris, and he was condemned as a heretic. Seeking peace, Bishop John
of Antioch sent Cyril a Christological formula that confessed Christ to have
two natures, asking St. Cyril to accept this formula as a sign that they share
the same Christology. St. Cyril accepted this formula, sending it back to him
in his reply as a recital and sign of agreement. The recital of the confession
reads thus (bold added for emphasis):
Therefore we confess that our
Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is perfect God and perfect
man, of a rational soul and body, begotten before ages from the Father
according to his divinity and that in recent ages he himself for us and for our
salvation was born from the Virgin Mary according to his humanity,
consubstantial to the Father himself according to divinity and consubstantial
to us according to his humanity, for a union was made of his two
natures. Accordingly we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. With
this understanding of a union without fusion we confess that the Holy
Virgin is the Mother of God, because God the Word was made flesh and was made
man, and from his very conception he united to himself a temple taken from her.
And we know that theologians regard some of the evangelical and apostolic
sayings regarding the Lord as common, that is, as pertaining to one person, and
that theologians divide others of the sayings as pertaining to two
natures, and refer those proper to God to the divinity of Christ, but the
lowly ones to his humanity.[26]
Here St. Cyril confesses that
Christ is consubstantial with God and man, that both his divinity and humanity
are natures, that both had been united without fusion (mixing) and that Christ
is a single person. Lastly, St. Cyril confesses that some of the sayings in the
scriptures pertaining to the one person of Christ, and others to either His
divinity or His humanity. This does not contradict any of St. Cyril’s previous
Christological quotes. St. Cyril always confessed that Christ had a human
nature that was distinct from His divine nature.
Up until the reconciliation
formula, St. Cyril only employed the mia physis formula in his
writing once. He additionally provided two citations from an Apollinarian
forgery without comment. In all, he utilized the formula only three times prior
to his agreement to the dyophysite reconciliation formula. It is clear then, that
the mia physis formula is not a significant element in St.
Cyril’s Christology.[27]
2.7 Cyril’s Letters After the
Reconciliation Formula.
After agreeing to the
reconciliation formula, St. Cyril had discussions with others in his own camp
who questioned whether they were making compromises with the dyo physis formula.
In these exchanges, St. Cyril explains where the differences lie between
the mia physis formula against the dyo physis formula,
the concession that the reconciliation formula was intended to make, and the
common rejection of Nestorius.
In St. Cyril’s letter to Bishop
Acacius of Melitene, he explains that his primary Christological concern with
Nestorius is not that Christ has two natures, but rather that the natures are
said to be divided and thus split Christ into two separate people. He
emphasizes that the Alexandrians (his camp) never had a problem distinguishing
the two natures as different, provided they are united. He then illustrates the
differences between the natures with the sayings in scripture, in which sayings
on Christ’s person refer to either His divinity or His humanity:
But perhaps those on the opposite
side might say: Behold, those who fashion the confession of the true faith
clearly name two natures, but maintain that the expressions of those inspired
by God are divided according to the difference of the two natures. Then, how
are these assertions not opposite to yours? For you do not allow the
attributing of expressions to two persons, that is, to two hupostaseis. But, my
dear friends, I would say, I have written in the propositions: If anyone
attributes to two persons, that is, to two hupostaseis, the sayings and
ascribes some to a man considered separately from the Word of God, and ascribes
others, as proper to God, only to the Word of God the Father, let him be
condemned. But in no way have we removed the distinctions between the sayings,
even if we have made a worthless thing of separating them as attributed to the
Son considered apart as the Word of God the Father, and to the Son again
considered apart as a man from a woman.[28]
In the same letter, he reveals
his preference for his mia physis formula, as it emphasizes
the single person of Christ. He does admit that while he does not like
the dyo physis formula, it is clear that the Antiochenes are
not Nestorians as they have agreed to condemn and anathematize Nestorius, so
logically they cannot share his beliefs:
“It is completely incredible that
they intend to say that he is one and yet divide the one into two. They have
not come to such a state of insanity that they themselves would reinstate the
transgressors by imprudently rebuilding what they rightly had torn down. If
they agree with the opinions of Nestorius, how do they anathematize them as
profane and loathsome?”[29]
In his Memorandum to Eulogius,
the priest, St. Cyril explicitly defends Nestorius’ references to Christ having
two natures and clarifies that not everything a heretics says is heretical. He
does this to display that the Antiochenes using a dyophysite formula is
acceptable:
But it is necessary to say the
following to those who are accusing me, namely, that it is not necessary to
flee and avoid everything which heretics say, for they confess many of the
things which we confess. For example, when the Arians say that the Father is
the creator and Lord of all, does it follow that we avoid such confessions?
Thus also is the case of Nestorius even if he says there are two natures
signifying the difference of the flesh and the Word of God, for the nature of
the Word is one nature and the nature of his flesh is another, but Nestorius
does not any longer confess the union as we do.[30]
He then contrasts the
acknowledgement of two natures in Christ with his own mia physis formula,
once again drawing a parallel between the two natures found in man. Note that
he never says that the difference of the natures is “in contemplation or
thought alone”, merely that they are known by reason and speculation. The word
“alone” is conspicuously absent. This is his primary explanatory tool for
his mia physis formula and his goal is to display that while
the Antiochene and the Alexandrians are emphasizing different aspects of
Christ, they are confessing the same Christology:
For we, when asserting their
union, confess one Christ, one Son, the one and same Lord, and finally we
confess the one incarnate phusis of God. It is possible to say
something such as this about any ordinary man, for he is of different natures,
both of the body, I say, and of the soul. Both reason and speculation know the
difference, but when combined then we get one human phusis. Hence
knowing the difference of the natures is not cutting the one Christ into two.[31]
Later in the same letter, St.
Cyril explains why the reconciliation formula was necessary; for the
Antiochenes were accusing the Alexandrians of being Apollinarians, by mixing or
fusing the natures into one. Here, St. Cyril makes it explicit that he picked
up the mia physis formula from an Apollinarian forgery
attributed to St. Athanasius. This justifies the Antiochene suspicion of
Apollinarianism, and St. Cyril’s explicit acceptance of the dyo physis formula
was enough to alleviate their fears. St. Cyril once again stands his
ground and emphasizes that the concession is not dividing Christ into two
persons, but only that they are not mixing or confusing the natures of Christ:
But since all the bishops from
the East think that we, who are orthodox, follow the opinions of Apollinaris
and think that a mixture or a confusion took place, for such are the words
which they have used, as if the Word of God had changed over into the nature of
flesh, and his flesh had turned into the nature of divinity, we have yielded to
them, not so far as to divide into two the one Son, far from it, but only to
confess that neither a mixture nor a confusion took place, but the flesh was
flesh as taken from a woman, and the Word as begotten of the Father was the
Word, yet the Christ, Son and Lord, is one according to the saying of John,
"The Word was made flesh," and to prepare them to pay heed to the
reading of the letter of our blessed father, Athanasius.[32]
Lastly, in his letter to Bishop
to Succensus, he makes it very explicit that saying that Christ is of two
natures does not harm the union. He applies the dyophysite terminology to
his mia physis formula, clearly showing that according to his
interpretation they are not opposed to one another:
Therefore, whenever we have these
thoughts in no way do we harm the joining into a unity by saying that he was of
two natures, but after the union we do not separate the natures from one
another, nor do we cut the one and indivisible Son into two sons, but we say
that there is one Son, and as the holy Fathers have said, that there is
one phusis of the Word [of God] made flesh.[33]
2.8 St. Cyril’s Mia
Physis Formula
A proper understanding of St.
Cyril’s mia physis formula can only be reached by considering
all of his aforecited statements together. It is clear that the word “nature”
in his mia physis formula does not actually mean “nature” in
the traditional sense, as in, a secondary substance according to Aristotelian
terminology. This oddity in expressing a dyophysite position through a
miaphysite phrase is the result of St. Cyril unknowingly lifting this formula
from a heretic and repurposing it to apply to a dyophysite Christology. As
such, Hans Van Loon who performed an extensive review of St. Cyril’s
Christology summarizes how the mia physis formula does not fit
with the rest of St. Cyril’s metaphysics; it is an anomaly and is hardly the
epitome of his Christology. He summarizes the true meaning of nature in St.
Cyril’s mia physis formula to mean a reality composed of two
natures:
The analogy suggests that the one
nature of the incarnate Word also is a composition of two individual natures,
the divine nature of the Word and the nature of his flesh. Since this
composition is unique, and it is not one exemplar of a series of individuals
that share a common nature, it cannot itself be called an individual nature.
Cyril’s use of the word φύσις for it is an anomaly, which does not fit well
within his metaphysics . . . He will have been induced to use it by the
Apollinarian forgeries, which he took to be genuine works of Athanasius and
other Church Fathers. The meaning of the word φύσις in the μία φύσις formula is
not simply that of a separate reality, since as the composition of two
individual natures it includes the essences of these components. It is thus not
synonymous with ὑπόστασις in the ‘one hypostasis’ formula. The meaning of φύσις
in the formula cannot be given by a particular term, but can only be described
by phrases like ‘a separate reality which is the composition of two individual
natures’.[34]
The difference between St. Cyril
and the non-Chalcedonian Monophysites is that St. Cyril allows the natures to
be distinct and numbered, while the Monophysites do not, hence their rejection
of Chalcedon. Monophysitism has many different formulas, but they all lead to
one to deny that Christ has two natures that can be numbered after the union.
St. Cyril never had a problem distinguishing and numbering the natures. Future
polemics that develop between the Orthodox Dyophysites and the Monophysites
center around the phrasing “from two natures” and “in two natures” but it is
ultimately a distraction, as they both can mean the same thing if one allows
the natures to be distinct (numbered) but not separated after the union. That
is why the Fourth Ecumenical Council condoned the phrase “in two natures” and
the Fifth Ecumenical Council “from two natures”.
It is abundantly clear that St.
Cyril’s Christology is dyophysite. Dyophysite language appears in his writings
before and after Contra Nestorium. St. Cyril agrees to the reconciliation
formula even after adopting the mia physis formula, demonstrating
that his Dyophysite position never changed. When explaining the purpose of the
formula of reconciliation to those in his camp in Alexandria, he repeatedly
says that believing in two natures in Christ is acceptable as long as they are
not separated into two different people, and explicitly says that the
Antiochenes do not repeat the sin of Nestorius. The only conclusion one can
drawn from this is that St. Cyril was always a dyophysite and that although his
terminology corrupted by an Apollinarian forgery, he was not so stubborn as to
allow this terminology divide him from others in the church. He possessed
humility and was willing to concede the truth, to which he always adhered, both
before and after his use of the mia physis formula.
Eutyches of Constantinople and
Dioscorus of Alexandria
3.1 A Brief Historical
Overview of these Heresiarchs
Eutyches and Dioscorus are
ostensibly the two people who are the originators of the non-Chalcedonian
monophysite heresy, but they contribute little to the heresy by way of
substantive theology. Eutyches was the first to publicly promote his version of
what was apparently a misunderstanding of St. Cyril’s mia physis formula
and refused to recant it under any circumstances. Dioscorus’ Christology was
never formally examined at a Council; his significance is that he supported
Eutyches’ heresy and had the imperial support to defend it. These two figures
put forward a primitive form of non-Chalcedonian Monophysitism and serve as a
bridge between Apollinarianism and the later, more complex non-Chalcedonian
“theologians”. While contemporary Monophysites honor Dioscorus as a saint, they
consider Eutyches a heretic. The Orthodox church rightly identifies their
beliefs as the same supported by the Sixth Ecumenical Council which condemned
the two of them together, calling Dioscorus “hated of God”.
In the mid fifth century,
Eutyches (375AD – 454AD), the abbot of a monastery comprised of around three
hundred monks in Constantinople was promoting heretical beliefs about the
nature of Christ, contradicting the 433 formula of reconciliation. He was
summoned to a trial by ecclesiastical authorities presided over by St. Flavian,
Patriarch of Constantinople. When pressed to give a defense of his beliefs,
Eutyches cited the Apollinarian forgeries (they had not yet been revealed as
spurious) as the primary reason not to recant his beliefs:
Above all, he believed that his
views were founded firmly on the opinions of the Fathers including Pope Julius,
Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus and Cyril. In failing to realise that the
‘papal letters’ that he so confidently produced were really Apollinarian
forgeries he was no worse advised than most of his contemporaries, including
Cyril. His please [sic], however, that ‘his Fathers of Rome and Alexandria’ did
not enjoin him to speak of two natures was not accepted, and after the failure
of considerable efforts by Florentius and the assembled clerics to get him to
accept the two-nature formula he was condemned to deposition and loss of
priestly status. In a letter to Leo, Flavian characterized his teaching as that
of an Apollinarian and of a Valentinian Gnostic.[35]
Eutyches was condemned but
appealed the decision to various bishops and emperor Theodosius II, who
assigned Dioscorus (died 454 AD) to deal with the matter, then the patriarch of
Alexandria. Dioscorus was formerly St. Cyril’s archdeacon and was his direct
successor as patriarch of Alexandria. It is notable that Dioscorus persecuted
St. Cyril’s family members and seized their inheritance, apparently due to St.
Cyril’s adoption of the reconciliation formula. He viewed this adoption as a
betrayal of Alexandrian interests against Antioch. It is ironic that
Monophysites claim St. Cyril as a saint, but this heresiarch who persecuted his
family is considered their primary confessor, donned with the monstrous title
of “Dioscorus the Great”. Theophanes the Confessor recounts the incident as
follows:
But in Alexandria Dioskoros had
from the very beginning set about ruining Cyril's family and plundering their
property and deposed without cause his nephew Athanasios who was a presbyter,
and entirely confiscated his goods.2 He behaved in this way out of opposition
to Cyril's orthodoxy, being himself a heretic and holding the views of Origen
from his earliest youth. And he was at loggerheads with Flavian because Flavian
had provided some small support for the family of the blessed Cyril.[36]
Dioscorus held the council of
Ephesus II to exonerate Eutyches, depose bishops whom he considered rivals of
the mia physis formula and had the deposed bishops beaten,
forcing the papal legate to flee. He replaced the deposed bishops with those he
thought would align with his own political interests. St. Flavian was assaulted
by soldiers on Dioscorus’ command, and he died a few days later on the road to
exile most likely due to his injuries. The impact of the robber synod was
monumental; in a single synod, Dioscorus had almost completely taken over the
East, with Eutyches’ mia physis formula at the helm and with
the imperial backing of Theodosius II.[37]
With the passing of Emperor
Theodosius II in 449, his replacement, Marcian, called the council of
Chalcedon. With Theodosius gone, Dioscorus had lost his imperial protection,
and his conduct in the robber synod was too egregious for the Christian world to
ignore. His position had dramatically worsened, and without Dioscorus’ might,
Eutyches would in turn lose his protection. At the Council of Chalcedon,
Eutyches was once again deposed and now exiled for the heresy that he had
maintained at each of the synods. Dioscorus was also deposed and exiled for his
egregious administrative abuses at Ephesus II and for failing to appear during
the third session to defend himself against accusations of heresy and canonical
misconduct. The hierarchs deposed during Ephesus II were reinstated and St.
Leo’s Tome was read and proclaimed to be Orthodox, solidifying the dyo
physis formula as the orthodox standard.
3.2 The Christology of
Eutyches and Dioscorus
The primary beliefs of Eutyches
and Dioscorus are best described as a modified, less articulate variation of
Apollinarianism comprised of two primary tenants: first that Christ was
comprised of two natures ‘before the union’ but after the incarnation He is
comprised of one nature; second that He is not consubstantial with human beings
after the union. It was for these statements that Eutyches was tired at the
Council of Constantinople in 448, and he refused to anathematize these beliefs.
Eutyches himself said at at the council: “‘I acknowledge that our Lord came
into being from two natures before the union; but after the union I acknowledge
one nature.”[38] When
reading the minutes in Ephesus II, Dioscorus responded “We all agree with
this.”[39]
It is necessary to provide the
context of the Council of Constantinople of 448 to understand the key
statements for which Eutyches was condemned. This council was convened
specifically to put Eutyches on trial for his monophysite beliefs, but he
refused to attend the council for the first six sessions. After being compelled
to appear at the seventh and final session, Eutyches was evasive in answering
questions about the specifics of his beliefs. He clearly did not want his
beliefs put on trial and sought to escape as quickly as possible while saying
as little as possible. His concessions were flipant and noncommital and
ultimatley did not satisfy the council. When Eutyches was pressed on whether he
believed Christ is consubstantial with humanity, he responded:
“Since I acknowledge my God and
my Lord as Lord of heaven and earth, I have not until today allowed myself to
inquire into his nature. But although up till now I have not described him as
consubstantial with us, I now acknowledge it.”[40]
From his statement it is clear
that he was being forced to admit a belief to which he did not adhere, and the
council took note of this insincere repentance. When the council grew weary of
these insincere responses, they pressed him to anathematize his beliefs that
Christ is not consubstantial with humanity. Eutyches refused, saying (bold
added for emphasis):
I have said to your sacredness
that I did not say this before; but now, since your sacredness teaches it, I
say it and follow the fathers. But I have not found it clearly stated in the
scriptures, nor did all the fathers say it. If I anathematize, woe is
me, because I anathematize my fathers.[41]
This double-speak is identified
as a refusal to recant and the council condemned him.
Dioscorus’ reason for deposing
Flavian and reinstating Eutyches along with his views on the miaphysite and
dyophysite formulas reveal his true position:
Clearly Flavian was deposed for
this reason, that he spoke of two natures after the union. But I have
quotations from the holy fathers Athanasius, Gregory and Cyril saying in
numerous passages that one should not speak of two natures after the union but one
incarnate nature of the Word. I am being cast out together with the fathers. I
stand by the doctrines of the fathers, and do not transgress in any respect.
And I have these quotations not indiscriminately or in a haphazard form but in
books.[42]
Like Eutyches, he cites the
Apollinarian forgeries for his belief in the miaphysite formula, ignoring the
Formula of Reconciliation. In essence, by disregarding the reconcilation
formula, he was anathematizing St. Cyril. Lastly, he specifies the conditions
under which he would accept the word “two” in any Christological formula: “I
accept “from two [natures]”; I do not accept “two”. I am compelled to speak
brashly: my soul is at stake.”[43]
Dioscorus does not give a
detailed defense of his beliefs at Chalcedon because he refuses to show up to
the third session where he is accused of heresy for supporting Eutyches, so he
is condemned by default for canonical violations instead. Monophysites hold
today that he had different beliefs than Eutyches. According to them, the
entire controversy began with Dioscorus’ rehabilitation of the heretic Eutyches
who’s beliefs the Monophysites claim Dioscorus did not share, and that
Dioscorus then rejected the Council of Chalcedon alongside said Eutyches. This
is not a convincing argument that Eutyches and Dioscorus have different
Christologies. Contemporary Monophysites attribute Timothy Ailuros’ Christology
to Dioscorus, which is no different from Eutyches in its logical conclusions,
thus the point is moot and his condemnation at the fourth and sixth Ecumenical
Councils is justified.[44] Contemporary
ecumenist scholars attempt to focus on his deposition due to strictly canonical
violations to argue that he was not a heretic, disregarding the sixth
Ecumenical Council’s condemnation of him as a heretic. On is not dubbed “hated
of God” for canonical violations. This argument is best answered by Leontius of
Jerusalem:
Again they ask, ‘Why do you not
accept Dioscoros if—as Anatolios of Constantinople avers— he was not deposed
for reasons of faith?’ We respond in truth he was not deposed for reasons of
faith. For this is why he did not come to the Synod, that his affairs might not
be subjected to inquiry; but if he had come and an inquiry had taken place, he
would have been deposed as a heretic, for this is what he was. Since he did not
come after being summoned three times and they made this a reason for his
deposition, this is why Anatolios said that he was not deposed for reasons of
faith.[45]
3.3 The Logical Conclusions of
Eutyches and Dioscorus’ Christology
The primary question presented by
Eutyches’s Monophysitism is: If there were two natures before the union and one
after it, when did the union take place? One would imagine that the union took
place at conception. So using Eutyches’ logic, at what point was Christ’s
humanity independent of His divinity? Was the body soulless, similar to what
Apollinaris’ Christology proposes? Did the human nature also have its own
hypostasis just as divine nature had its own hypostasis? If it did, what became
of it when the two natures become one? Logically, one must conclude that there
is only one nature before “the union” (incarnation) for Christ as the Logos was
not incarnate and only had the divine nature that He shared with the other two
Members of the Holy Trinity. It does not make sense to say he came from two
before the union and one after in the context of a mia physis formula.
According to Eutyches own words,
when the union took place, he did not believe that Christ was consubstantial
with humanity. So the end result is exactly the same as Apollinarianism. Christ
dies in His divinity on the cross, making His divinity passible and subject to
change. Eutyches and Dioscorus have killed God once again. Since Christ is not
consubstantial with humanity, humanity derives no benefit from His death and
His resurrection, thus killing man. So, humanity is left bereft of salvation
and redemption and is once again doomed to eternal perdition.
We can see that St. Flavian
diagnosed Eutyches’ heresy accurately: He held the beliefs of Apollinaris and
Valentines[46].
The conclusions are exactly same. Truly, Apollinarianism and Eutychianism are
the same heresy, and can both be classified under the same umbrella term:
Monophysitism.
4.1 Timothy Ailuros
Timothy Ailuros,[47] or
“the Cat” (died 477 AD) is the link between Dioscorus and Severus of Antioch,
his writings and rhetoric are the beginning of the development of thought
behind monophysite Christology. It is Timothy who begins to contrast his belief
against other Monophysites and thus the plurality of monophysite Christology
begins. Severus of Antioch eventually triumph among the different formulas,
being the most philosophically advanced; his beliefs directly build upon
Timothy’s.
Timothy Ailuros was a hieromonk
who was present at Ephesus II. He was consecrated a bishop secretly by two
anti-Chalcedonian bishops when Holy Martyr Proterius became Patriarch of
Alexandria after Chalcedon deposed and exiled Dioscorus. With the death of
Emperor Marcian, the Non-Chalcedonians of Alexandria rioted and killed
Patriarch Proterius in a baptistry then dragged his remains across the city
streets. Timothy was credited for instigating the riot, and it is reported that
the Egyptian bishops did not express any regret at the death of Patriarch
Proterius.[48] Timothy
was exiled and invited back to Alexandria several times, at some points being
regarded as a legitimate patriarch of Alexandria by his contemporary
Non-Chalcedonian heretics. He is venerated as a saint by the Monophysites
titled “Timothy II”.
4.2 Timothy Ailuros’ Christology
Timothy Ailuros distinguishes
himself by one major change to the configuration of the mia physis formula:
he believed that Christ is consubstantial with both God and Man; perfect God
and perfect man. This contrasts against to the followers of Eutyches’ doctrine,
who did not believe Christ was consubstantial with humanity:
“On the fact that one must assert
as one our Lord and God Jesus Christ with his flesh and must assign everything
to him, what is divine and what is human, and that he became consubstantial
with us according to the body but also remained God, and that it is godless to
separate him into two [natures].”[49]
However, it becomes clear upon
closer examination that Timothy does not know how he can logically claim that
Christ is consubstantial with both God and Man while retaining a single nature.
Here he insists that Christ never underwent any change in his incarnation:
“He is not that which he was not
through a metamorphosis or a transformation (conversion); rather, he remained
entirely God, consubstantial with the Father who begot him; because of the
oikonomia [God’s free arrangement of salvation] and not because of his nature,
he became human for us and our salvation.”[50]
Christ has one nature, and yet is
consubstantial with both God and man, through oikonomia, which is
to say, Timothy does not know how to define Christ’s humanity if not nature.
Here we see how Timothy interprets the word nature:
“There is no nature that is not
also hypostasis and no hypostasis that is not person (prosopon). Thus, if there
are two natures, there are also with all necessity
two persons and even two Christs, as the
new teachers proclaim.”[51]
Nature is the same as hypostasis
and is the same as a person. This explains why Timothy does not advocate for
two natures: because he believes it would mean two hypostases, but no
explanation is provided for Christ’s consubstantiality with man.
This reveals that Timothy does
not believe in a distinction between primary and secondary substances. His
metaphysics are different from that of St. Cyril, because St. Cyril did not
collapse primary substances (person) into secondary substances (nature);
otherwise, he would have never agreed with the reconciliation formula. This
also makes Timothy an implicit nominalist, for there is no avenue for
universals to exist separate from particulars.
Timothy does not understand the
consequences of advocating for a single nature, while also arguing that he is
doubly consubstantial with God and Man. Timothy declares that Christ did not
die in His divinity, despite only having a divine nature:
It is impossible to call the
life-giving flesh of our Lord the second nature of the God Logos or his second
essence. Indeed, it is written that he who was crucified, the Lord of glory
[cf. 1 Cor 2,8], suffered in his flesh. No one can say that the Lord of glory
suffered in his nature or essence [i.e., in his divinity]. But if the God Logos
appropriated himself another nature, that is, united himself with a perfect
human being, and if Christ is of two natures, as he seems to be for those who
speak of two natures, then it follows that they say that he suffered in his
nature [i.e., in his divinity] – which is a godless assertion – and that they
assert that the divine nature is capable of suffering. For the nature of Christ
is only divinity, which also became flesh without transformation for our
salvation and so that he might appear in the flesh, according to the scriptures
[cf. 1 Tim 3,16b].[52]
This analysis would be incomplete
without Timothy’s explicit condemnation of the 433-agreement formula of
reconciliation accepted by St. Cyril. It seems that the difference in
metaphysics is lost on Timothy as his condemnation assumes that St. Cyril betrayed
the faith by confessing Christ had two natures; implying he was Nestorian. At
least Timothy Ailuros tells the truth and says St. Cyril spoke of Christ having
two natures; contemporary Monophysites simply lie about it. How they venerate
both St. Cyril and Timothy is beyond reason; if they were consistent, they
would follow Timothy’s lead and admit St. Cyril professed two natures in
Christ:
“Cyril is the Bishop of
Alexandria; for this man, having excellently articulated the wise proclamation
of Orthodoxy, showed himself to be fickle and is to be censured for teaching
contrary doctrine: after previously proposing that we should speak of one nature
of God the Word, he destroyed the dogma that he had formulated and is caught
professing two natures in Christ.”[53]
4.3 The Logical Conclusions of
Timothy Ailuros’ Christology
The logical conclusions of
Timothy’s assertion that Christ has only one divine nature reveal the
inconsistancies in his thinking. If Christ only has a divine nature, than he
only consubstantial with God, not man. If Christ does not have a human nature,
nothing about Him is human. Timothy’s claim of Christ’s humanity existing due
to "oikonomia" is irrelevant as this oikonomia is
not grounded in a human nature, so it is not human. One must be
able to elaborate the ontological status of such an “oikonomia” and
ground it in human nature, but that would make Timothy a Dyophysite, so he
refuses.
Following this logic, Christ
indeed must have suffered in His Divinity because there is no human nature to
suffer. So once again Christ’s divinity undergoes change because His divinity
dies, and when one kills God, God undergoes change. By the same logic, since
there is no human nature present in Him, humanity is not redeemed, because He
has not assumed anything human. Timothy Ailuros’ mia physis formula
has the same conclusions as Apollinarianism.
There is also in his thinking the
introduction of nominalism, for Timothy equates nature with person; he does not
believe a person to be distinct from his nature, and thus one person can only
have one nature. If the concept of person is collapsed into nature, then Christ
would be consubstantial with no one, be it the other Members of the Holy
Trinity or humanity. Without a metaphysic of realism, no particular has
anything in common with any other particular. So even if Christ had a human
nature under this scheme, He still would not be consubstantial with humanity
and humanity would thus be doomed. This also introduces a tritheism into the
trinity (three separate gods). He claims that one person has one nature and any
other arrangement is impossible; this means each individual member of the
Trinity would have His own unique nature. If They do not share the same nature,
they are three gods. This problem becomes more prominent when Severus of
Antioch adopts these metaphysical terms in his own system and John Philoponus
builds upon it.
5.1 Severus of Antioch’s
Christology
Severus of Antioch, a Greek
native born in Sozopolis of Pisidia (465AD-538AD), was the former patriarch of
Alexandria until he was dethroned by St. Justinian the Great. Severus is the
primary theologian of the non-Chalcedonian Monophysites. He is venerated by the
Monophysites as a saint but the Orthodox condemned him at the sixth Ecumenical
Council. He used Aristotelian philosophical terms (incorrectly) to explain
his mia physis formula and argued against Chalcedon.
Severus defined “hypostasis” as “particularity”,
and “essence” as “generality” (universal); thus, being and nature become
interchangeable, so the key to understanding Severus is to categorize his
subjects as particular and general:
But now also we will come to what
is required, and, we will again say, that ‘essence’ signifies a generality, and
‘hypostasis’ a particularity, but ‘being’ and ‘nature’ introduce sometimes a
general signification, sometimes a partial or particular one. This is stated on
account of the varying use that is found in the holy fathers: for you knew both
that ‘essence' is sometimes employed in the particular signification of
‘hypostasis ‘, and occasionally also ‘hypostasis’ is found employed in place of
‘essence’. For this reason we decline to use such a signification as being
unscientific.[54]
In what follows Severus uses
these terms to define Peter and Paul as particularities in a larger essence (or
genus):
The set of properties of Peter is
one; the fact that he is from the little village of Beth-Saida, the son of
John, the brother of Andrew, and a fisherman of skill, and after these things,
an apostle, and because of the orthodoxy and firmness of his faith had been
newly named 'Rock' by Christ. But another is the set of properties of Paul, the
fact that he is from Cilicia, that he used to be a Pharisee, that he was taught
and learned the law of the fathers at the feet of Gamaliel, and that after
having persecuted, he preached the Gospel ... and all these other things that
are written concerning him in a history. In the same way hypostasis does not
deny genus or ousia or abolish it, but it sets apart and limits in particular
icons the one who subsists. For in ousia and in genus Peter is a man as is
Paul; but in propriety he is distinguished from Paul.[55]
There are two different kinds of
hypostases (particulars) for Severus; self-subsistent hypostases and
non-self-subsistent hypostases. As Severus puts it: “A self-subsistent
hypostasis is a 'hypostasis existing in individual subsistence'; a
non-self-subsistent hypostasis is a 'hypostasis that does not exist in
individual subsistence'.”[56] Roberta
Bondi, author of Three Monophysite Christologies illustrates
these points by using Peter and Paul as an example; Peter is a composite
hypostasis, composed of a body (first hypostasis) and a soul (second
hypostasis). The union of these two hypostases creates a self-subsistent
hypostasis in the form of Peter. The body is non-self-subsisting, and the soul
could be considered non-self-subsistent or self-subsistent (Severus considered
both non-self-subsistent)[57].
A self-subsistent hypostasis can be simple (composed of one self-subsistent
hypostasis, such as God the Father or the Holy Spirit) or composite (made up of
a “union” of multiple hypostases). Composite hypostases can be made of a union
of non-self-subsistent hypostases with self-subsistent hypostases or multiple
non-self-subsisting hypostases.
For Severus, ‘prosopon’ always
refers to a self-subsistent hypostasis that bears a name and has a ‘history’;
examples include Peter, Paul and Christ. Non-self-subsistent hypostases are not
called prosopon by Severus.[58]Generally,
when Severus uses the word ‘nature’ he means “self-subsistent hypostasis”,
which is why he fought so vociferously against Chalcedon; he believed Chalcedon
was advocating for the Nestorian position of two prosopon in Christ with
the dyo physis formula.[59] Energy
(operation) and will are proper to prosopon (self-subsistent hypostasis). With
this scheme, hypostasis, nature and prosopon can be synonyms. This alone should
display the deficiency of Severus’ terminology and justify the Antiochene terms
solidified in the council of Chalcedon. St. Maximos the Confessor is right to
criticize Severus for his terminology, “Severus knavishly says that hypostasis
is the same as nature.”[60] As
discussed previously the originator of this terminology was Timothy Ailuros.
Severus believes universals are
merely an aggregate of particulars; universals have no unique existence in and
of themselves, thus making him a nominalist. The “hypostatic union” that
composes his formula for Christ’s prosopon also confirms this, as he argues
that the hypostatic union that makes up Christ is a union of particulars and
not of universals:
“Accordingly, we say that from it
and the hypostasis of God the Word the ineffable union was made: for the whole
of the Godhead and the whole of humanity in general were not joined in a
natural union, but special hypostases.”[61]
This is the consequence of
collapsing primary substance into secondary substance: it makes one a
nominalist by necessity. As the Chalcedonian formula is two universal natures
bound in one person, this indicates that Severus had both a different metaphysic
and theology than St. Cyril and the Chalcedonians.
Prosopic unions and hypostaic or
natural unions differ from one another, distinguishing these two exposes
Severus’ Christological formula. In a prosopic union, taking Peter and Paul as
an example, the prosopon remains countable even after the union. To be
comprised of countable entities is characteristic of self-subsistent
hypostases. As stated previously, each prosopon has its respective will and
energy. Bondi points out that this is another reason Severus objects to the
Tome of St. Leo “The two distinct operations of the two natures of Christ
within the union are to Severus one of the more obnoxious features of the Tome
of Leo.[62]”
Lastly, the prosopic union can be disbanded and is not an “iconic union” with
the other, these are called by Severus “partnership” “union of brotherhood” and
“conjunction in honor” or merely “presence”[63].
Accordingto Severus’ thinking the
union that makes up Christ’s divinity and humanity is a hypostatic union–the
Orthodox use this term as well, but according to Severus, Christ’s prosopon is
a composite self-subsistence hypostasis composed of a non-self-subsistence
hypostasis with a self-subsistent hypostasis.
... the peculiarity of the
natural union is that the hypostases are in composition and are perfect without
diminution, but refuse to continue an individual existence so as to be numbered
as two, and to have its own prosopon impressed upon each of them, which a
conjunction in honour cannot possibly do.[64]
Specifically for Christ,
according to Severus, His divinity is a self-subsistence hypostasis, but his
humanity is non-self-subsistence hypostasis. Christ’s divinity is a simple
self-subsistence hypostasis while His humanity is a composite non-self-subsistence
hypostasis. This is the justification for Severus’ formula that the Incarnate
Word has one nature, one hypostasis and one prosopon. One must note how the
prosopon of Peter is composed of two non-self-subsistence hypostases (body and
soul) to create a self-subsistence hypostasis, but Christ’s humanity which is
supposed to be identical to Peter’s does not create a self-subsistence
hypostasis. This would indicate that something about Christ’s human hypostasis
is not the same as other humans, something that Severus does not and cannot
address. The lack of universals displays its weakness in this formula.
In his mia physis formula,
Severus attributes one operation (energy) to Christ, which is logically
consistent with his system as only a self-subsistence hypostasis can generate
energy, and his mia physis Christ only has one of them:
Thus one also sees Immanuel [as
one sees the builder] for the one who acts is one-this is the Word of God
Incarnate-and the operation is one efficient cause, but the things done are
different . . . Thus let no man separate the Word from the flesh, and thus he
cannot divide or separate the operations.[65]
Likewise, Severus also attributes
one will to Christ, which is logical for the same reason:
The teacher of divine dogmas
[Athanasius] has characterised very well the request (of Christ) to avert
suffering as ‘will’; in this way he shows that it occurs for us against the
inclination and will to have fear and trembling in the face of danger, but Christ
took this over voluntarily. Thus there was really a will (as intention)
present, no involuntary suffering. He [Athanasius] immediately showed that he
acknowledges the one Christ from two and does not divide up into two wills what
belongs to one and the same, namely the incarnate God, by adding this after the
passage cited: ’He suffers from weakness, but He lives from the power of God’
(2 Corinthians 13.4). The power of God is, however, the Son Who suffered from
weakness, that is from union with the flesh, as a human being He prayed to be
freed from suffering; He lives, however, through His power.[66]
Christ has the appearance of two
wills and two energies, but He actually has only one will and one energy tied
to His divine prosopon. What appears to be human energy and will are nothing
but a convincing illusion. Similar to his heretical predecessors, Eutyches,
Dioscorus and Timothy Ailuros, Severus stresses that all of Christ’s properties
are “out of two natures” and not “in two natures”. This means, while Christ is
composite, he has only one self-subsistence hypostasis out of the union, which
is His divinity, and all His properties, will, and energy come from that
self-subsistence hypostasis:
Therefore when we anathematize
those who say Emmanuel has two natures after the union, and (speak of the)
activities and properties of these, we are not saying this as subjecting to
anathema the fact of speaking of, or naming, natures, or activities or properties,
but speaking of two natures after the union, and because consequently (those
natures) attract their own activities and properties which are divided along
with the natures completely and in everything.[67]
Severus completely disregards St.
Cyril’s acceptance of the reconciliation formula of 433 thus continues the
trend of disobeying the holy man he claims to follow, in lockstep with his
heretical predecessors, Eutyches, Dioscorus and Timothy Ailuros. Severus
admits this himself: “The formulae used by the Holy Fathers concerning two
Natures united in Christ should be set aside, even if they by Cyril’s”[68] The
most influential and sophisticated monophysite heretic must publicly disregard
Cyril’s dyophysite formula, revealing that their supposed devotion to the saint
is a lie. Like Timothy Ailuros, Severus admits that St. Cyril used the
dyophysite formula, while modern Monophysites deny that he did.
5.2 The Logical Conclusions of
Severus’ Christology
The first problem with
Severu’s mia physis formula is the emphasis that Christ has
only one nature. If there is a distinction within Christ that is real, then
logically, it must be enumerated. Divinity and humanity are different natures;
they cannot be considered one because of their differences. The lack of
division in the product of Christ’s hypostatic union under Severus implies one
of the natures vanishes. Leontius of Jerusalem points out the logical error of
this insistence on one nature:
Furthermore, difference is
difference between certain things. The definition of difference, after all,
belongs to things involved in some difference, and not to things understood in
and of themselves. Since you’re people who speak of a difference, then, you’d
grant that there also are things that differ in Christ. As for how many of
these there are, you’d have to say there are at least two. If you were driven
to say what these differing things are, you would, as I see it, identify
divinity and humanity. If you were cross-examined about which of the classes of
beings you recognize these as belonging to, and if they’re not qualities, or
quantities, or states, or something of that kind, you’d have to confess that
they are, without question, substances. It follows that you do speak of two
substances because of the difference in Christ.[69]
Another problem is determining
whether Christ’s one nature is created or uncreated. These two attributes are
opposed to one another, and a nature cannot be both at the same time. If
Christ’s nature is uncreated, he cannot be man. If it is created, he cannot be
God. Leonius of Jerusalem also argued this point:
Everything that exists is either
created or uncreated, for ‘even those who invent goat-stags aren’t going to
grant that there’s a mean between them’[70],
as the father says. If, then, there’s one nature of Christ, and if it really is
uncreated, what’s the nature from the Holy Virgin? If, on the other hand,
Christ’s one nature is created, what’s the nature that’s consubstantial with
the uncreated Father? Likewise, if this one nature is ungenerated, and if it’s
independent of time, what’s the nature that’s born of a virgin, and what’s this
entity which, when the fullness of time arrived, existed in later times? If
there was a temporal hour of birth, too, what nature is it through which all
things came to be, and through which the Father made the ages? How is Christ,
who has no beginning for His life nor end of His days, said in the same text to
be made like Melchizedek? What’s one and the same in relation to something
won’t admit the predicates of its opposites in the same respect, as is often
said.[71]
The only logical explanation for
Christ being a composite hypostasis composed of an uncreated and created nature
is to say that he has two natures, and has faculties proper to each nature,
meaning two wills and two energies. This dilemma is answered by the
Chalcedonian formula, where there is a distinction between hypostasis and
nature, Christ having two natures and a single divine hypostasis that the
natures are rooted in without confusion.
This is displayed in one of
Severus’ disputes with another monophysite, Julian of Halicarnassus, who held
an apthartodocetist belief about the nature of Christ. He called Severus a
secret dyophysite, because Severus argued that Christ had genuine human accidents,
(i.e. properties) all the while Severus maintained that Christ did not have a
human nature. Julian was correct to call Severus out on this inconsistency, for
Christ cannot have any human properties if he has only one nature that is
contrary to created things:
For the false accusers,
attempting to introduce the abominable and polluted teachings of Nestorius, and
seeking by every means to set up division by making judgement about the duality
of the properties set corruptibility and passibility and mortality against
incorruptibility and impassibility and immortality; and they lead him who is
into two Christs and two Sons, since they falsify the inexpressible and
incomprehensible union.[72]
Severus wanted to have the
consequences of dyophysite Christology while not submitting to a dyophysite
formula. Julian’s Apthartdocetist belief in Christ was that His divine and
human nature were one and the same, so Christ only appeared to suffer and die.
While this is obviously heretical and has problematic soteriological and
anthropological implications, it is far more logically consistent than
Severus’s mia physis formula.
Severus falls into yet another
heretical trap along with Timothy Ailuros: he ties nature to person. Just as
with Timothy, Severus’ metaphysics logically imply that the Trinity has three
natures. If the Trinity has three natures, then the Trinity loses its
unifying principle and becomes three gods. Severus implies that there is a real
distinction between the three hypostases of the Trinity when he said the
entirety of the Trinity is not present within the incarnation. Thus,
Severus’ mia physis formula turns him into a tri-theist, and
the Monophysite Philosopher John Philoponus took Severus metaphysics and came
to this very same conclusion and advocated for it.
The same principle also makes
mankind’s salvation impossible even if Christ had a human nature under Severus’
system. In a nominalist framework, universals only look like they are composed
of particulars that share a common essence, but universals do not actually
exist. There is no such thing as a common human nature (or common nature of
anything for that matter). This proves that one cannot be a nominalist and a
Christian, for nominalist presuppositions destroy Orthodox Christology.
Just like Timothy, Severus has a completely different metaphysic from St. Cyril
of Alexandria and the Chalcedonians.
How connected is Severus’
Monophysitism to Apollinaris’ heresy? Can one argue that God experienced change
in this scheme? While there are many violations of logic in Severus’ formula,
if one takes his words at face value and believes that Christ has only one
divine nature, then one must conclude that Christ died in His divinity. This is
the result of collapsing nature into hypostasis instead of distinguishing
between the two. So logically, under Severus’ theology Christ’s divinity died
on the cross and experienced change. Likewise, the redemption of man cannot
occur with this arrangement, either because of the single divine nature, the
incomplete non-self-subsistence humanity that Severus’ Christ possesses that
cannot be numerated and which humanity does not have, or because Severus is a
nominalist and universals don’t exist; thus, there is no way for the redemption
to be communicated to humanity. Despite Severus’ efforts to rehabilitate and
provide metaphysical justification for Monophysitism by expanding upon Timothy
Ailuros’s broken Christology, the key errors present in Apollinarianism remain.
He had only succeeded in creating nonsensical terminology in order to justify
his “godless and most abominable heresy.”[73]
6.1 First and Second Agreed
Statement Between the Orthodox and Monophysites from the Joint Commission of
Theological Dialogue.
In 1989 and 1990 there were two
meetings between academic “theologians” belonging to the Orthodox Church and
the Monophysite confessions. Monophysites rebranded their ancient heresy in
1965 using the misnomer “Oriental Orthodox.” Eager to overturn the Ecumenical
Councils and defile the memory of the saints, Eastern Orthodox academics looked
to find “common theological ground” with enemies of the church that have been
repeatedly condemned for over a millennium.
6.2 A False Start: The Mia
Physis Formula as Common Ground
In the first meeting in 1989, the
participants stated that the basis of their shared belief comes from mia
physisformula that St. Cyril used, “mia physis (hypostasis) tou
Theou Logou sesarkomene”[74]. There
are several problems with this starting point for reconciliation: the mia
physis formula does not come from St. Cyril, it comes from
Apollinaris, and both confessions are now aware of this. Additionally, the
formula is not central to St. Cyril’s Christology, showing up late in his
career, and he wrote it only one time to combat Nestorius. The meaning of this
formula was unclear even when St. Cyril made use of it, where “physis”
does not actually mean “nature” in the traditional sense (secondary substance),
and they acknowledge this by inserting the word “hypostasis” in parentheses
after physis. They fail to provide a definition of terms, for the
Orthodox and the Monophysites share neither the same terminology, nor the same
metaphysics. Contemporary Monophysites use Severus’ Christology as the basis of
their beliefs, and he is a nominalist, while St. Cyril is a realist.
Furthermore, hypostasis in contemporary Orthodox terminology is akin to a
“primary substance” and nature is a “secondary substance” in Aristotelian
terms, but this distinction is absent for Severus, both terms are equivocal.
The entire basis of the disputes between the Orthodox and the Monophysites is
the interpretation of this mia physis formula from St. Cyril
and they declare that the formula is the basis for common ground absent any
discussion of its interpretation.
Furthermore, the Orthodox church
already has an official interpretation of the “one incarnate nature of the
Word” in the eighth canon of the eighth session of the fifth Ecumenical
Council. It is worth reproducing this canon in full (bold added for emphasis):
If anyone professing that the
union took place from the two natures of Godhead and manhood or saying ‘one
incarnate nature of God the Word’ does not so take it, as the holy fathers
taught, to mean that from the divine and the human natures, after the hypostatic
union, one Christ was constituted, but attempts from these statements
to introduce one nature or essence of the Godhead and flesh of Christ, let him
be anathema. For when we say that the only-begotten Word was united to the
flesh hypostatically we do not assert that there occurred some mingling
of the natures with each other, but we understand that the Word was united to
the flesh with each of them remaining instead what is. Consequently
there is but one Christ God and man, the same consubstantial with the Father in
respect of the Godhead and the same consubstantial with us in respect of the
manhood; for both those who divide or cleave into parts and those who merge the
mystery of the divine dispensation of Christ are equally rejected and
anathematized by the church of God.[75]
Thus, the Orthodox interpretation
explicitly anathematizes the Monophysites, and the interpretation of St.
Cyril’s mia physis formula is not up for debate by the
Orthodox. The question is already answered, the starting point for this “agreed
statement” relies on ignoring this canon from the fifth Ecumenical Council,
which is a violation of the dogmatic Christology of the Orthodox Church. To
rephrase the issue here, they are stating that their ground for mutual
agreement is the very issue that initiated the separation.
6.3 Betraying Orthodox
Christology
This terminological confusion
continues throughout the paper. They speak of “one composite (sythetos)
hypostasis”[76] in
Christ and they go to great lengths to clarify that this does not mean they are
saying Christ is two persons. In Severan terms, a composite hypostasis can mean
“nature” and the terminology used in the rest of the paper point to this as the
intended meaning. For example, it says “the natures being distinguished from
each other in contemplation (theoria) only.”[77] This
is in contrast with St. Cyril’s use of “in contemplation only” with the two
natures in Christ. He said one can divide the natures in
thought alone; he never said one can differentiate between
them in thought alone.[78] This
is a very subtle deception that has massive repercussions, as it confesses a
single nature in Christ. With this statement, the “Orthodox” academics
responsible for this document have relinquished their Orthodox Dyophysite
Christology and have confessed Monophysitism.[79] They
are condemned according to both the fourth and fifth Ecumenical Councils and
would need to confess their apostasy, repent, and return to the Church. More on
this later, as it shows up again in the Second Agreed Statement in a more
egregious form.
There is a paragraph that
mentions that Christ’s divinity and humanity have wills and energies proper to
one another; it is said in a rather round-about manner:
This is the mystery of the
hypostatic union we confess in humble adoration - the real union of the divine
with the human, with all the properties and functions of the uncreated divine
nature, including natural will and natural energy, inseparably and unconfusedly
united with the created human nature with all its properties and functions,
including natural will and natural energy. It is the Logos Incarnate who is the
subject of all the willing and acting of Jesus Christ.[80]
What is noticeable here is there
are no numberings of the wills or the energies. Does Christ have one will, or
two? This document doesn’t bother to number them, and it cannot, because that
is where key Christological differences exist between the two camps. Just as
the number of ontological natures is not explicitly mentioned, nor the meaning
of hypostasis and nature, the modus operandi of this paper is to obscure the
key issues separating both confessions.
Next, they state that both
confessions condemn the Nestorian and the Eutychian heresies, and that neither
shares in the beliefs of those two heretics. Dioscorus and Severus are
conscpicously absent from this discussion. Both of them fall under the anathemas
of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh Ecumenical Councils; yet their heresy
is not even examined by the comittee.
6.4 The Second Agreed
Statement: Blaspheming St. Cyril
The second agreed statement
repeats these same vague, undefined Christological comments and throws in some
commentary on the Ecumenical Councils. They once again explicitly ignore the
Fifth Ecumenical Council and pretend that all who interpret that St. Cyril’s mia
physis formula results in a single nature of Christ after the union
have not been condemned. They accomplish this by saying:
The Orthodox agree that the
Oriental Orthodox will continue to maintain their traditional Cyrillian
terminology of “one nature of the incarnate Logos” (“mia fusij tou qeou Logou
sesarkwmenh”), since they acknowledge the double consubstantiality of the Logos
which Eutyches denied. The Orthodox also use this terminology. The Oriental
Orthodox agree that the Orthodox are justified in their use of the two-natures
formula, since they acknowledge that the distinction is “in thought alone” (th
qewria monh). Cyril interpreted correctly this use in his letter to John of
Antioch and his letters to Acacius of Melitene (PG 77, 184–201), to Eulogius
(PG 77, 224–228) and to Succensus (PG 77, 228–245).[81]
Here, the comitee staunchly
persist in their misuse of “in thought alone” regarding the differences between
the natures in Christ, but now they falsely attribute it to St. Cyril and
reference some of his letters written after the reconciliation formula was
accepted. A review of citations from the said letters inlcuding the
aformenetioned citation from the letter to Eulogius.[82] will
reveal the shameless mendacity of this document. There is only one passage in
the letter to John of Antioch that discusses the differences in the natures of
Christ. Quite fittingly, after St. Cyril mentions the difference between
natures without any reference of “in thought alone”, he laments to St. John of
Antioch that people are attributing to him false beliefs of mixing or confusing
the natures of Christ. The irony is that well over fifteen hundred years later,
people are still attributing the same false beliefs to him (bold added for
emphasis):
For the Lord Jesus Christ is
one, even if the difference of the natures, from which we state the
ineffable union has been made is not ignored. Let your holiness deign to
control the mouths of those saying that a mixture or confusion or blending of
God the Word with the flesh took place, for it is likely that some are babbling
these ideas also about me, as if I have thought or said them.[83]
In his letter to Acacius of
Melitine St. Cyril discusses the differences between the natures and does not
use the phrase in contemplation alone, but says they are not the
same in natural quality. (bold added for emphasis):
But the brethren at Antioch,
understanding in simple thoughts only those from which Christ is understood to
be, have maintained a difference of natures, because, as I said,
divinity and humanity are not the same in natural quality, but
proclaimed one Son and Christ and Lord as being truly one; they say his
person is one, and in no manner do they separate what has been united. [84]
In St. Cyril’s letter to Eulogius
regarding the differences of the natures, once again in thought
alone is absent, but rather he refers to a difference according
to nature. What is more incriminating is that he clarifies that it is two
natures coming together and not one. (bold added for emphasis):
And let those accusing me not be
ignorant of this, namely, that when there is mention of a union, it does not
signify the coming together of one thing, but of either two or more
which are also different from each other according to nature. If,
then, we speak of a union we are confessing a union of flesh animated with a
rational soul and the Word, and those who speak of two natures are thinking
thus also.[85]
In St. Cyril’s first letter to
Succensus,the phrase in thought alone finally makes an
appearance applied to the presence of two natures in Christ. There is no
specification as to whether this applies to the differences between the natures
or the division between the natures. However, capturing the quote in full context,
St. Cyril uses his favorite example of two natures composing man as an analogy.
He does not say that man’s natures are different only in thought, but rather,
that having two natures does not make man two separate persons. Taking this
quote along with the earlier presented quotes reveals the true position of St.
Cyril; the differences between the natures is in reality and has ontological
presence (bold added for emphasis):
“Therefore, as far as
concerns our understanding and only the contemplation by the eyes
of the soul in what manner the only begotten became man, we say that
there are two natures which are united, but that Christ the Son and Lord is
one, the Word of God the Father made man and incarnate. And, if it seems best,
let us accept as an example the composition in our own selves by which we are
men. For we are composed of soul and body and we see two natures,
the one being the nature of the body and the other the nature of the soul, but
there is one from both in unity, a man. And because man is composed of
two natures, this does not make two men be one, but one and the same man
through the composition, as I said, of soul and body.”[86]
In St. Cyril’s second
letter to Succensus, thought is brought up regarding differences in the
natures; however, one must discern that the phrase “alone” is missing here.
What is being said is that men are drawn in thought to the fact that Christ has
two different natures that have been united. This passage does not mean that
differences between the natures exist in thought alone (bold
added for emphasis).
“But although the body united to
him is not consubstantial to the Word begotten of God the Father, even though
it is united with a rational soul, still our thought certainly presents
to our mind the difference of the two natures which have been united, and
yet we confess one Son, Christ and Lord, since the Word was made flesh. And
whenever we say flesh, we are saying man.”[87]
Lastly, in the same letter, St.
Cyril emphasizes that the differences between the natures are quite
substantive. He specifies that the differences between the natures are more
than simply speculative, but in “every manner separately into diversity”. Then
he uses the example of a human being and his two natures, using in
thought to divide the human being making the
difference between the natures more identifibale to our minds. Once again,
Cyril does not say man is not composed of two natures, but rather, he is one
despite the differences of the natures and uses that example to illustrate that
natures in Christ (bold added for emphasis):
“But they have ignored the
fact that those things which are usually distinguished not just according to
speculation, completely and specifically differ from one another in every
manner separately into diversity. Let a man like unto us be an example
for us again. For we know that there are two natures in him, one
the nature of the soul and the other the nature of the body. But when
we divide him merely in thought and conceive the difference in subtle
speculations or the presentations of thought to the mind, we do not
posit the natures one apart from the other, nor indeed do we at all impute to
them virtual existence through the division, but we conceive of them as the
natures of one man, so that the two no longer are two, but through them both
the one living being is produced.”[88]
This concludes the exhaustive
review of St. Cyril’s passages on the differences between the natures in Christ
in all letters the Joint Commission cited. There is not a single example of the
differences being in thought “alone”; and several examples of him saying they
are different by nature and more than just speculation.[89] As
proven earlier St. Cyril is an Orthodox Dyophysite, one can only consider him a
monophysite by taking him out of context and falsifying his position as the
Joint Commission does here. Non-Chalcedonian Monophysites have always lied
about St. Cyril’s beliefs, but here we see that “Orthodox” representatives
follow suit, falling under the very anathemas of the councils to which they
turn a blind eye. By specifically attributing the in thought alone fallacy
to Cyril, they add the crime of slandering and blaspheming a saint to their
concession to heresy in the previous agreement.
6.5 A Betrayal with No Profit
The next paragraph in this
document is quite revealing. It states that both confessions agree to the first
three Ecumenical Councils. The “Orthodox” participats state that the earlier
concessions to the Monophysite heresy allow them to reinterpret the fourth,
fifth, sixth and seventh Ecumenical Councils in a way that the Monophysites can
accept. The Monophysites disagree, then they say they respond to the
reinterpretation of the Ecumenical Councils “positively”, while still not
accepting them.
Both families accept the first
three Ecumenical Councils, which form our common heritage. In relation to the
four later Councils of the Orthodox Church, the Orthodox state that for them
the above points 1-7 are the teachings also of the four later Councils of the
Orthodox Church, while the Oriental Orthodox consider this statement of the
Orthodox as their interpretation. With this understanding, the Oriental
Orthodox respond to it positively.[90]
The “Eastern Orthodox” Academicss
apostatized from the faith in an attempt to re-interpret the Ecumenical
Councils so that the ancient heretics would accept them, and the heretics still
reject them. This is informative, as it shows that despite agreeing with these
joint statements, their refusal to accept the councils means they know the
Orthodox Dyophysites and the Monophysites do not share the same beliefs. In
this they unintentionally reveal the truth. They seem to know that the
“Orthodox” academics they are conversing with are telling lies about the
Orthodox faith.
By stating that they respond to
it “positively”, the Monophysites seem to say that they do not care whether
both confessions accept the same councils. They are not interested in the
truth; they only want to stop being called heretics by the Orthodox. If the
truth mattered to them, they would never tolerate having separate lists of
accepted councils, and they would stop claiming St. Cyril as a Monophysite.
Sharing the same councils means both confessions share the same dogmatic faith
which is essential to any real union.
6.6 The Intrinsic Link of the
Ecumenical Councils
There is an additional paragraph
from the Second Agreed Statement that directly follows the above quoted
paragraph. The Monophysites comment that they accept the basic theological
premise of the seventh Ecumenical Council; however, they maintain that they do
not accept it regardless. The paragraph is worth reproducing in full:
“In relation to the teaching of
the Seventh Ecumenical Council of the Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox
agree that the theology and practice of the veneration of icons taught by that
Council are in basic agreement with the teaching and practice of the Oriental
Orthodox from ancient times, long before the convening of the Council, and that
we have no disagreement in this regard.”[91]
Out of the four Ecumenical
Councils they reject, they only comment on the final one; their silence on the
others speaks volumes. What goes unstated in this passage is that the first
three councils they reject explicitly condemn their beliefs. The reason why
they accept the general theology of the seventh Ecumenical Council but refuse
to adopt it is because it ratifies the condemnation of their heresiarchs,
Dioscorus and Severus, and of the Monothelite and Monoenergist doctrines. This
is the true reason why the Monophysites reject all the Ecumenical Councils
despite the lies of the “Orthodox” academics, because each council explicitly
condemns their beliefs and their heresiarchs. No amount of lying and
obfuscation could ever reinterpret the councils that were designed to be
explicit and precise in teaching Orthodox doctrine. The Joint Commission’s task
was always doomed to fail for the Ecumenical Councils were never shy about
anathematizing Monophysites. Eucharistic communion can only occur with the
acceptance and practice of all Ecumenical Councils of the Orthodox Church. The
following is a quote from the seventh Ecumenical Council condemning the
Monophysites and their beliefs:
Along with these synods, we also
confess the two natures of the one who became incarnate for our sake from the
God-bearer without blemish, Mary the ever-virgin,
recognizing that he is perfect God and perfect man, as the synod at {4}Chalcedon
also proclaimed, when it drove from the divine precinct the foul-mouthed Eutyches and Dioscorus. We
reject along with them Severus Peter and their interconnected
band with their many blasphemies, in whose company we anathematize the mythical
speculations of Origen, Evagrius and Didymus, as
did the fifth synod, that assembled at {5}Constantinople. Further we
declare that there are two wills and principles of action, in accordance with
what is proper to each of the natures in Christ, in the way that the sixth
synod, that at {6}Constantinople, proclaimed, when it also publicly
rejected Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, those
uninterested in true holiness, and their likeminded followers.[92]
6.7 The Destruction of
Orthodox Ecclesiology and Faith
The document should have ended
there and the project declared a failure if the members of the Joint Commission
were honest, but instead it continues to proclaim that both confessions have
shared the same beliefs from the beginning (despite refusing to accept each
other’s dogmatic councils). Then the document advocates that both confessions
lift the mutual anathemas against each others’ fathers and councils. Words fail
to capture the audacity of this three-page document that attempts to obscure
the truth of a schism that is fifteen hundred years old, while simultaneously
blaspheming and slandering a saint, and lastly obliterating the tradition and
ecclesiastical structure of the Orthodox Church.
These two documents are the basis
for all ecumenical dialogue between the two confessions and it is woefully
obvious that they have no depth. All the Christological points made in the
first agreement are repeated in the second agreement without elaboration, and
the second agreement all but states that the councils are meaningless. If that
is the case, then the anathemas placed on each confession are also equally
meaningless, there is logically no need to lift them. According to the Joint
Commission, Christology does not matter, the councils do not matter, the saints
do not matter, the anathemas do not matter. The hieromartyrs do not matter; it
must be stated here that the Orthodox have three patriarchs from three
different sees martyred at the hands of Monophysites, and in these joint
statements, they are not even mentioned.[93] The
confessors of the faith, St. Martin Pope of Rome and St. Maximus the Confessor
are trampled upon and their memory dishonored by these farcical theological
treatises. These documents are a betrayal of the Orthodox faith, and they
cannot be the basis of any sound theological discussion; they exist to prevent
such a discussion from occurring.
7.1 Dietmar Winkler’s Advocacy
of the Term “Miaphysitism”
Dietmar W. Winkler wrote an
article in 1997 advocating that contemporary Monophysites be refered to as
“Miaphysites” after the mia physis formula, citing theological
and ecumenical research as the justification that the Christian world
mischaracterized the beliefs of Severus of Antioch.
7.2 Like is categorized with
Like
Winkler provides a historical
account of the Nestorian controversy, the council of Chalcedon and its
aftermath. After the Council of Chalcedon, the Byzantine emperors made various
attempts to pacify the Monophysites who were feuding with the orthodox, and
amongst themselves as they had competing variations of their own heresy. The
author corectly explains that the term monophysite is an umbrella term that
houses a group of beliefs. “During this period extreme Monophysite positions
split from the miaphysite movement: Eutychians/Phantasiasts,
Akephaloi/Aposchistai, Aphartodocetae (Julian of Halicarnassus).”[94] What
can be added to this list are the Tritheists that emerge from John Philoponus
taking Severus’ Christology to its logical conclusion.
This raises the question: if the
branches that broke away from Severus’ group are “extreme Monophysites”
wouldn’t that make Severus’ group “moderate Monophysites”? Logically, this must
be the case, for if there is an extreme, there must be a moderate. In this one
short passage, Winkler unwittingly makes an admission that refutes his entire
case to rebrand these ancient heretics, implicitly admitting the Severans to be
“Monophysites”. Similar to the Joint Commission of Theological Dialogue that
produced the Agreed Statements, Winkler is only interested in rebranding the
Severan Monophysites to distance them from their historical identity as
heretics.
7.3 A List of Monophysite
Formulas and their Logical Conclusion
Winkler mentions that the term
monophysite arose in the seventh century to classify the non-Chalcedonians, but
he contends that this term is “technically incorrect and misleading”. He
produces a list of Monophysite formulas:
- The divinity and the humanity are mixed into a
tertium quid (third entity);
- The humanity is the principle of the union and the
divinity is absorbed into it;
- The divinity is the principle of the union and the
humanity is absorbed into it;
- There is one united nature with the dynamic continued
existence of the divinity and the humanity.[95]
He then comments that the third
point is considered monophysitism, the first two points follow the same logic
but the fourth point should not be called monophysitism. He cites several
scholars to support his opinion, in particular Joseph Lebon who wrongly argued
that Severus’ Christology is the same as St. Cyril of Alexandria. This
assertion displays the contemporary conception of what is often cited as the
belief of Severus and contemporary Monophysites, and therefore, provides the
opportunity for theological reflection.
Uncreated and created natures
cannot be mixed, due to the properties of divine nature being unchangeable.[96]Point
four is a claim that the two natures become one but do not mix, which is
logically impossible; either they are two different natures or they become one
and mix.[97] Logically,
point one and point four both inevitably lead to point three. This is to say
that all monophysite heresies logically lead to point three: the divine nature
absorbs (or destroys) the human nature. What is strange about Winkler's
commentary on Severus is that he implies Severus believes in point four, but
Severus admits he believes in point three, which would classify him as a
Monophysite even by Winkler’s standards. When accused of mixing the natures
later in his career, Severus said that Christ’s humanity exists “in thought
alone”[98];
that is to say, it does not truly exist, so he made a distinction without a
difference. It is noteworthy that contemporary Monophysites claim to believe in
point 4, diverging from Severus, but Winkler himself does not clarify this in
his paper.
The Monophysites received their
historical moniker because the heresy is a many headed hydra with all heads
sharing the same root and leading to the same logical conclusions. The fact
that believing in one incarnate nature of Christ leads to at least six
different heretical groups that cannot agree with one another points out its
incoherency. Severan Monophysitism does not even have the privilege of being
the most logically consistent of the family of heresies, that title would most
likely belong to either the Aphartodocetae, or the Tritheists. It is for this
reason all should staunchly reject rebranding contemporary Monophysites as
Miaphysites. Likewise, titling them “Oriental Orthodox” should be rejected.
They are heretics, not Orthodox.
8.1 “In Two Natures” Within
Patristics Prior to Chalcedon.
Fr. Mebratu Kiros Gebru, PhD, is
a Monophysite priest in the Ethiopian Tewahedo Confession. He wrote his
master’s thesis explaining contemporary Monophysite Christology, called Miaphysite
Christology: an Ethiopian perspective. In his book, Gebru gives a
historical and theological overview of the development of Ethiopia’s
Christology up until the current day and ends his book by encouraging the
ecumenical talks between the Eastern Orthodox and the Monophysite confessions
that have been criticized above. Gebru’s book reveals that Ethiopian’s
Christology is essentially the same as Severus’, with the exception that they
claim Christ’s single nature encompasses both his divine and human natures
while remaining one (point four in Winkler’s list of Monophysite formulas)[99].
Both positions have been covered already, but Gebru provides one new argument
that is worthy of refutation.
Gebru presents the opinion of
Admasu Jembere, author of a Balance of Faith that the term “in
two natures” was never stated by the church fathers before the Council of
Chalcedon. This is the justification for why the Ethiopian Monophysits view the
concessions from the Orthodox as a positive development but still refuse to accept
the council of Chalcedon itself:
In his logical and theologically
sound comment on the definition of the council of Chalcedon, the Ethiopian
scholar Jembere asserts that most of the points in the definition are
biblically justified, and they agree with the teachings of our fathers as the
definition claims. But the phrase “in two natures” cannot be found in any
writings of the fathers prior to Chalcedon, so that it is not acceptable to the
EOTC.[100]
This claim is easily refuted. It
presents the opportunity to show that universal character of the dyophysite
formula within the Orthodox Church. The first use of the term “in two natures”
is by St. Vincent of Lerins, who died in 444 AD. Very fittingly, he is writing
against Apollinaris in the quoted passage. Note that substance is synonymous
with nature (Bold added for emphasis):
For, denying that there
are two substances in Christ, one divine, the other human, one
from the Father, the other from his mother, he holds that the very nature
of the Word was divided, as though one part of it remained in God, the
other was converted into flesh: so that whereas the truth says
that of two substances there is oneChrist, he affirms, contrary to
the truth, that of the one divinity of Christ there have become
two substances.[101]
This refutes Gebru and Jembere’s
position. In his Oration 38 St. Gregory the Theologian, who reposed in late
fourth century, explicitly states that Christ has two natures:
Conceived by the
Virgin, Luke 1:35 who first in body and soul was
purified by the Holy Ghost (for it was needful both that Childbearing
should be honoured, and that Virginity should receive a higher honour), He
came forth then as God with that which He had assumed, One Person in
two Natures, Flesh and Spirit, of which the latter deified the former.[102]
St. Ambrose of Milan, a saint who
was quoted in the Council of Ephesus I, accepted by the Monophysites
says:
Let us take heed to the
distinction of the Godhead from the flesh. In each there speaks one and the
same Son of God, for each nature is present in Him; yet while
it is the same Person Who speaks, He speaks not always in the same
manner. Behold in Him, now the glory of God, now the
affections of man. As God He speaks the things of God, because He is
the Word; as man He speaks the things of man, because He speaks in
my nature.[103]
In his work against Nestorius,
St. John Cassian, who reposed in 435 AD, writes of Christ being in two natures
(Bold added for emphasis):
For it was not God the Father who
was made man, nor the Holy Ghost, but the Only Begotten of the Father; and so
we must hold that there is one Person of the Flesh and the Word: so as
faithfully and without any doubt to believe that one and the same Son of God,
who can never be divided, existing in two natures (who was
also spoken of as a "giant" ) in the days of His Flesh truly took
upon Him all that belongs to man, and ever truly had as His own what belongs to
God: since even though He was crucified in weakness, yet He liveth by the power
of God.[104]
Lastly, St. Augustine of Hippo,
another pre-Chalcedonian Father, says:
“Let us then love Him,
for He is sweet. Taste and see that the Lord is sweet. He is to be
feared, but to be loved still more. He is Man and God; the One Christ is
Man and God; as one man is soul and body: but God and Man are
not two Persons. In Christ indeed there are two
substances, God and Man; but one Person, that the Trinity
may remain, and that there be not a quaternity introduced by the addition of
the human nature.[105]
The dyophysite doctrine and the
terms “in two natures” is present in prominent Church fathers in both the East
and the West before Chalcedon; it is the Orthodox Christology. As stated
earlier, the distinction between “from two” and “in two” for the Orthodox
church has become redundant, for both terms are acceptable as long as they are
used in a dyophysite context. Now that Gerebu and Jembere’s argument has been
thoroughly refuted, there should be no obstacle to prevent Ethiopian
Monophysites from accepting Chalcedon. Sadly, evidence, logic, and sound
Christology are not what keep the Monophysites in their heresy; it is merely
stubbornness.
9.1 Pope Shenouda III’s
Defense of the Mia Physis Formula
Pope Shenouda III (1923AD–2012AD)
was the international head of the Coptic Monophysite Community. Located in
Egypt, he wrote many pamphlets as an authoritative figure for the monophysite
Coptic heresy. In his pamphlet The one nature of Christ he
provides several unique arguments that are worthy of refutation.
9.2 The Misattributed Origins
of the Mia Physis Formula
In his introduction into the
topic, Pope Shenouda claims that the mia physis formula
finds its origin in St. Athanasius. (Bold lines are from the original
publication):
As a result of the unity of
both natures-the Divine and the human- inside the Virgin's womb, one naturewas formed
out of both: "The One Nature of God the Incarnate Logos" as St. Cyril
called it. The Holy Church did not find an expression more reliable, deep and
precise than that which was used by St. Cyril the Great, and which St.
Athanasius the Apostolic used before him. Both of them were true leaders in the
theological field worldwide.[106]
This is a surprising claim from
Shenouda, as it is well accepted by theological scholars and even contemporary
Monophysites that the works attributed to St. Athanasius featuring the mia
physis formula are Apollinarian forgeries. Pope Shenouda’s statement
is either grossly negligent or an outright lie.
9.3 Neo-Severanism; a New Take
on an Old Heresy
Next, Pope Shenouda explains the
contemporary mia physis equation the Coptic Monophysites who
advocate for one nature that is both divine and human referencing St.
Athanasius’ book, The Incarnation of the Word.
This misinterpretation continued along history as though
we believed in one nature of Christ and denied the other nature. We
wonder which of the two natures the Church
of Alexandria denies? Is it the Divine nature? Certainly not, for our
Church was the most fervent defender against the Arian heresy in the Council of
Nicea, held in the year 325 AD, as well as before and after that. Or is it The
Lord's human nature that the Church of Alexandria denies? St. Athanasius of
Alexandria resolved this entirely in the oldest and greatest book on this
subject The Incarnation of the Word, The expression
"One Nature" does not indicate the Divine nature alone nor the human
nature alone, but it indicates the unity of both natures into One Nature which
is "The Nature of the Incarnate Logos".[107]
It is curious that this work by
St. Athanasius’ is referenced by name because St. Athanasius does not use
the mia physisformula in it (he never used it at all in any of his
writings). Furthermore, the quoted phrase “The Nature of the Incarnate Logos”
does not appear in the book either. He is apparently providing a false citation
(Pope Shenouda actually does not provide a single proper citation in this
work).
As stated previously, Severus of
Antioch advocated for a single divine nature, not for a mix of two natures. The
answer to Pope Shenouda’s rhetorical question is that the Monophysite mia
physis is the divine, since if the two natures were combined into one,
only the divine would remain as it is impassible while the created nature is
passable.[108]
In their attempt to develop
Severus’ Christology, contemporary Monophysites have made an equation that is
even less logically coherent than his. This was probably concocted in response
to criticism that Severus’ Christology lacked a justification for Christ having
human properties while lacking a human nature. The only thing this new formula
produces is another logical error, and Christ still does not have a
justification for having human properties. It would be appropriate to call
this mia physis formula a type of “Neo-Severan” formula, since
everything else the modern Monophysites believe is the same as Severus.
9.4 St. Cyril Defends Orthodox
Dyophysitism Against Pope Shenouda
Pope Shenouda invokes St. Cyril
of Alexandria and claims “St. Cyril the Great taught us not to talk about
two natures after their unity.”[109] This
statement is incorrect; quotes from St. Cyril after the reconciliation that
explicitly refute this claim have already been provided.[110] Additionally,
in St. Cyril’s On Orthodoxy to Theodosiusdescribing to the emperor
the basic problem of Nestorianism, he explicitly refuses to say that one cannot
distinguish the two natures, only that one cannot separate the two. This was
written in 430, before the reconciliation formula:
So there is no way there can be
any division, especially if it involves talking of “two” after the union or
thinking of each separately. It is appropriate for one’s mind to sense a
distinction between the natures (after all, human and divine natures are not
identical), but at the same time as this acknowledgment, the mind must also
accept the concurrence of the two into a unity. So, it was as God that he
issued from God the Father, and as man that he issued from the Virgin.[111]
Next, Pope Shenouda attacks the
council of Chalcedon with the classic Monophysite claim that it was Nestorian
and divides Christ into two persons.
In spite of the fact that the
Council of Ephesus had excommunicated Nestorus, the Nestorian roots extended to
influence the council of Chalcedon where the trend to separate the two natures
became so apparent that it was said that Christ is two persons, a God and a
human being; the one works miracles and the other accepts insults and
humiliation.[112]
What is curious is the
naked claim that Chalcedon accepted that there are two persons in Christ while
the Chalcedonian definition of faith explicitly condemns Nestorius and the
belief that Christ is two persons. In the definition of faith, it declares:
And because of those who attempt
to destroy the mystery of the dispensation, shamelessly blathering that he who
was born of the Holy Virgin Mary is a mere human being, the council has
accepted as in keeping [with these creeds] the conciliar letters of the blessed
Cyril, then shepherd of the church of Alexandria, to Nestorius and to those of
the Orient, for the refutation of the madness of Nestorius and for the
instruction of those who with pious zeal seek the meaning of the saving creed.[113]
Regarding the doctrine of two
persons, Chalcedon declares: “For the council sets itself against those who
attempt to dissolve the mystery of the dispensation into a duality of sons”[114].
If Chalcedon explicitly rejects the heresiarch and the heresy itself, how can
the Council be Nestorian? Pope Shenouda and the rest of the Monophysites make
this claim because their metaphysics are derived from Severus of Antioch, who
collapses nature, person, and hypostasis into a “particular”. They all mean the
same thing. To properly analyze the Chalcedonian definition would require them
to address and attack the Orthodox Church’s metaphysics.
St. Cyril adheres to Orthodox
metaphysics while the Monophysites do not, yet they claim him as their father.
If he had their Severan metaphysics, he would have been in one accord with the
Monophysites and never agreed that the Antiochenes were not Nestorian. This
entire controversy could have been avoided if they simply followed the words of
St. Cyril when he asked Bishop Acacius of Melitene how the Antiochenes shared
Nestorius’ heresy when they anathematized him.[115] To
further reinforce his point, St. Cyril repeats this clarification that the
Antiochenes are not Nestorians for believing in two natures in his letter to
priest Eulogist. This clearly displays that St. Cyril’s terminology is at odds
with Severus; for St. Cyril, person does not equate to nature:
Yet once we confess the union,
those things which have been united are no longer separate from each other, but
then there is one Son, and his phusis is one as the Word made
flesh. The bishops from the East confess these doctrines, even though they are
somewhat obscure concerning the expression. For since they confess that the
only begotten Word begotten of God the Father was himself also begotten of a
woman according to flesh, that the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God, that his
person is one, and that there are not two sons, or two christs, but one, how do
they agree with the teachings of Nestorius?[116]
9.5 The Category Error:
Confusing Substance with Accidents
Pope Shenouda then gives an
analogy of two natures combining into one. Here, he uses the concept of using
fire to heat iron, so that both natures combine into one. He says that this
analogy is used by St. Cyril and Dioscorus, but he does not give a citation:
St. Cyril the Great used this
analogy and so did St. Dioscorus. In the case of ignited iron, we do not say
that there are two natures: iron and fire, but we say iron united with fire.
Similarly, we speak about the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Incarnate
God, and we do not say "God and man". In the union of iron with fire,
the iron is not changed into fire nor fire into iron. Both are united without
mingling, confusion or alteration. Although this situation is not permanent in
the case of iron, and here is the point of disagreement, but we only want to
say that once iron is ignited with fire, it continues to retain all the
properties of iron and all the properties of fire.[117]
This is a particularly
interesting analogy, as both the subjects and their natures remain numbered in
their union. The fire heats the iron, and the iron’s accidents are changed
accordingly, but at no point does either of them lose their distinction, as the
Monophysites argue in the case of their mia physis formula. In
a strange oversight by Pope Shenouda, he uses this example once again to
illustrate how Christ does not die in his divinity. This time around, he
actually acknowledges that there are two natures present, but in the previous
analogy, he said there was only one:
The holy fathers explained this
point through the aforementioned clear example of the red-hot iron, it is the
analogy equated for the Divine Nature which became united with the human
nature. They explained that when the blacksmith strikes the red-hot iron, the
hammer is actually striking both the iron and the fire united with it. The iron
alone bends (suffers) whilst the fire is untouched though it bends with the
iron.[118]
If the hammer hits the iron and
not the fire, they neither share the same nature nor are they the same object.
The fire does not bend when it is struck with a hammer; heated iron is the only
thing that bends, the temperature of the iron changing as well as its shape and
color are accidents of the iron, they are only augmented by the presence of the
fire. They are not tied to the fire by nature. This is a category error; he is
confusing the accidents of the iron affected by the fire, with the fire itself.
There are two objects with distinct natures and accidents present; this example
Pope Shenouda presents applies to a dyo physis interpretation
of Christ, for He has two natures that are united, but not turned into a single
nature.
9.6 The Differences Between
Christ’s Uncreated and Created Natures
Next, Pope Shenouda presents his
strongest argument: if man is a composite hypostasis, constituted of two
opposing natures and are considered one nature, why would Dyophysites not grant
the same logic to Christ and his two opposing natures?
Hence, if we accept the idea of the unity between the soul and the body in one nature, why do we not accept the unity of the Divine
and the human into one Nature?! If we go into details we would find ourselves
before three natures in Christ!!! the Divinity, the soul and the body, and each
of them has its distinct entity and essence... Of course, this is unacceptable
on both sides. When we accept the union of the soul and the body in one nature
in Christ, and when we use the expression theologically, it becomes easier for
us to use the expression “One Nature of Christ" or "One Nature of
God, the Incarnate Logos".[119]
This is a sophisticated
metaphysical and anthropological question: for man indeed has two natures
within him, and Christ is likewise in some sense, composed of the three natures
that Pope Shenouda claims. He has the uncreated divine nature, as well as the
created natures of the human body and the human soul, the latter two are
considered one. St. John of Damascus specifies that when discussing the
collective man’s nature shared by the human race, he is said to have one
nature. However, when speaking of an individual person, it is not appropriate
to say that he is composed of a single nature, for the body and the soul are
not alike in composition. He clarifies that the unlike natures in man are
proven upon his death.
It is possible, however, for one
compound hypostasis to be made from diverse natures, which is how man is made
up of body and soul. Now, even though men are said to have one nature, the
individual man is not said to be of one nature. This is because, on the one
hand, the one nature of man is said to be compound, since all the compound
hypostases of men come under one species; whereas, on the other hand, the
individual man is not said to be of one nature, since each human hypostasis is
made up of two natures-soul and body, I mean-which it preserves unconfused in
itself, to which fact the separation caused by death bears witness.[120]
In one aspect, Christ is said to
have two natures due to sharing a common human nature of mankind. Mankind is
specifically designed to have a compound hypostasis, and when numbering Christ
among humanity, for He is consubstantial with humanity, His human nature is
accounted for as one. For mankind’s body does not make for a hypostasis,
neither does mankind’s soul, but both natures are enhypostata; this means they
are not meant to be separate and cannot subsist alone. It is due to the two
natures status of enhypostata that they are considered one proper nature only
when they are conjoined. St. John of Damascus describes this:
. . .[enhypostaton] is that which
is compound with another thing differing in substance to make up one particular
whole and constitute one compound hypostasis. Thus, man is made up of soul and
body, while neither the soul alone nor the body alone is called a hypostasis,
but both are called enhypostata. That which consists of both is the hypostasis
of both, for in the proper sense hypostasis is that which subsists of itself by
its own subsistence, and such this is called.[121]
Alternatively, Christ’s divinity
is simple and constitutes a hypostasis in and of itself; it is a simple
complete nature that makes up the hypostasis of the second member of the God
head. The two natures (the simple divine nature and the compound human nature)
are found in the Incarnation. This is further delineated by the fact that
one nature is uncreated, and the other is created. What makes Christ’s human
divinity unique is that it was never fully hypostatic on its own, for the
hypostasis of the Logos assumed the created human nature, making that nature
enhypostatic, as St. John Damascene describes:
“Again, that nature is called
enhypostaton which has been assumed by another hypostasis and in this has its
existence. Thus, the body of the Lord, since it never subsisted of itself, not
even for an instant, is not a hypostasis, but an enhypostaton. And this is
because it was assumed by the hypostasis of God the Word and this subsisted,
and did and does have this for a hypostasis.”[122]
Because of Christ’s unique
arrangement, being an uncreated hypostasis that assumes another nature that is
opposed to His own, it is both inappropriate and incorrect to combine His
opposing natures into one. Combining the two into one would force a change;
that change would inevitably destroy the human nature because of the
impossibility of divinity experiencing change, while created nature cannot
withstand the endless abyss of divinity. The human body and soul are designed
to be parts of a whole, but they are not designed to combine with divine
nature; for divine nature is a whole in and of itself. That is why the Orthodox
do not refer to Christ as having three natures (although technically that is in
a certain respect true) and that is why the mia physis formula
is rejected.
9.7 The Separate Sayings of
Christ
Pope Shenouda uses the compound
human nature to further elaborate upon his mia physis formula.
He describes how when a person performs certain actions, one does not separate
the body and the soul from one another. He then argues that just as men do not
separate the soul from the body in their sayings, one should not separate the
divinity from the humanity in Christ.
Hence, if we accept the idea of
the unity between the soul and the body in one nature, why do we not accept the
unity of the Divine and the human into one Nature?!Although man is formed of
these two natures, we never say that He is two, but one person. All man's acts
are attributed to this one nature and not to the soul alone or to the body
alone. Thus when we want to say that a certain individual ate, or became
hungry, or slept, or felt pain, we do not say that it is his body which ate, or
became hungry, or got tired or slept or felt pain. All man's acts are
attributed to him as a whole and not only to his body. Similarly, all the acts
of Christ were attributed to Him as a whole and not to His Divine nature alone
(independently) or to His human nature alone.[123]
This analogy fails on both
fronts: while most actions are attributed to a whole man, there are times where
it is appropriate to divide between the body and the soul and attribute an
action or passion to one specific nature of man. Human beings often make
references to one of their two natures being affected by an incident, for
example, one might perform stretches and light exercise and say that his body
has been “warmed up”. One might catch an illness and complain that his entire
body is aching. Conversly, one might return from a pilgrimage and say that his
soul feels refreshed. One might perform or witness a terrible sin and complain
that his soul has been wounded. These sayings reveal a truth; that man is a
composite being, made of two different natures.
The same follows for Christ, and
St. Cyril himself says this refering to this phenomenon as the “difference of
the sayings”. He specifies that the scriptures make various claims about
Christ, and some of the claims refer to Christ’s divinity, others to His
humanity, and others are proper to both. He condones this practice as long as
it is not used as a pretext for separating Christ’s natures from one another
and spliting Him into two persons. References on this topic have already been
provided.[124] St.
Cyril specifically illustrates this point in his defense for the
Antiochene dyo physis formula in his letter to Acacius, Bishop
of Melitene:
Neither do [the Antiochians]
admit the natural division as the author of the wretched inventions was pleased
to think, but they strongly maintain that only the sayings concerning the Lord
are separated, not that they say that some of them separately are proper to the
Son, the Word of God the Father, and others are proper to another son again,
the one from a woman, but they say that some are proper to his divinity and
others again are proper to his humanity . For the same one is God and man. But
they say that there are others which have been made common in a certain way
and, as it were, look toward both, I mean both the divinity and the humanity.
What I am saying is the same as this.[125]
It is permissible to talk about
the separate natures of a human being just as it is for Christ, provided in
both cases the natures are not divided into separate persons.
9.8 The Neo-Severan Mia
Physis Formula and Apollinarianism
Pope Shenouda then makes his
defense of his mia physis formula, emphasizing that both
natures in Christ keep their properties but are combined into one. Note that
his Severan metaphysics is laid bare as he identifies the “nature” as an
“entity”.
It is One Nature (one entity) but has all the properties of
two natures: It has all the properties of the Divine
nature and all those of the human nature. In this One Nature, the. body was not
transmuted to the Divine nature but remained as a body, the body of God the
Logos. The Logos, also was not transmuted to be a human nature but remained as
it is the Divine nature though united with a body. His Divine nature is not
susceptible to death while His human nature is liable to die. Both the Divine
and the human natures united in essence in the Hypostasis and in nature without
separation.[126]
While this Neo-Severan equation
has already been criticized for its logical impossibility, this is a good
opportunity to check its equation against the two classic errors of
Apollinarianism: The killing of divine nature and destroying man’s salvation.
If there is only one Nature of Christ, and He truly experienced death, then
both natures experienced death as they are one. This is confirmed since Pope
Shenouda expresses: “No separation occurred between the Divine nature and
the human nature at Christ's death”. If
a person pours wine and water into the same cup and then pours that cup onto
the ground, the combined liquids both hit the ground because they are combined
into one. In his defense of this concept, Pope Shenouda cannot explain how the
divinity of Christ does not die with the humanity, because they are one and the
same nature in the mia physis formula. The contemporary
Monophysites once again kill God. If the divinity dies, it is not impassable
and it cannot save humanity. While there is some minor development of the
Severan doctrine for the Monophysites, they have not and cannot escape the two
basic errors of the heresy of Apollinarianism.
He then makes an incorrect
statement about the nature of a union:
“We are not dealing here with two
natures: God and a man, for this expression signifies two and not one, and the
term "Two" does not ever denote unity. A Union, actually, cannot be
separated into two.”
This is contradicted by St. Cyril
when he specifies that a union must be made of two or more and is not the
coming together of one thing.[127]
9.9 The Attack on St. Leo’s
Tome
Lastly, Pope Shenouda makes the
claim that the dyo physis formula originates from Chalcedon,
and attacks St. Leo’s tome, accusing him of Nestorianism. It would be negligent
to not mention the hatred Monophysites have for St. Leo the Great, Pope of
Rome. He is an`athematized by their heretical confession, and they hold him in
contempt in contemporary times. He was a vociferous opponent of Dioscorus for
his actions at Ephesus II. Pope Shenouda’s critique of the Tome of Leo is as
follows:
It is very dangerous, for our
salvation, to separate between the two natures. Perhaps some would say 'who
declared such separation? Is it not the Council of Chalcedon that declared the
belief in two united natures?! Yes, it did but the Tome of Leo says also that
Christ is two: God and man, the One astonished us with miracles and the other
received disgrace and suffering!
Previously, a collection of five
saints, both from the East and West that mention two natures in Christ before
Chalcedon have been referenced.[128] As
for the Tome of Leo, Pope Shenounda must be referring to the two types of
natures that Leo references in his Tome, where he refers to the natures as
“form”:
Accordingly He who while
remaining in the form of GOD made man, was also made man in the form of a
slave. For both natures retain their own proper character without loss: and as
the form of GOD did not do away with the form of a slave, so the form of a slave
did not impair the form of GOD.[129]
And further with the sentence:
“One of them sparkles with miracles, the other succumbs to injuries.”[130] These
comments are in line with what St. Cyril describes as “the saying” meaning
certain sayings apply to either one of Christ’s natures, or both.[131]
Perhaps his accusation against
St. Leo would have some merit if St. Leo did not explicitly say that Christ was
a single person; however, St. Leo makes this point explicitly at least twice.
“For it must again and again be repeated that one and the same is truly Son of
GOD and truly son of man.”[132] And
even more explicitly in the following line:
“For although in the LORD Jesus
Christ GOD and man is one person, yet the source of the degradation, which is
shared by both, is one, and the source of the glory, which is shared by both,
is another.”[133]
What is most startling about this
critique is how similar the language St. Leo uses for his tome is to St. Paul’s
description of Christ’s two natures in his epistle to the Phillipians. It is
abundantly clear that is where St. Leo took inspiration for his use of the word
“form”. The basis for the dyophysite formula is divine scripture and this fact
reveals how distant the Monophysites and Pope Shenouda III are from the true
faith (Bold added for emphasis).
5 Let this
mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being
in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made
Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming
in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in
appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the
point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore
God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above
every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the
earth, 11 and that every tongue
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father.[134]
Pope Shenouda III’s booklet on
the mia physis formula provides valuable insight into
contemporary apologetics for the Monophysites. One can see that the
Monophysites have not developed past Severus in any meaningful way. The only
change they have made to his faulty Christology was for the worse, being less
logically consistent than his already faulty beliefs. If there was ever going
to be a reconciliation between the Monophysites and the Orthodox, it should be
through the entire corpus of St. Cyril of Alexandria. If they followed his
words, they would come to share his beliefs that the Orthodox Dyophysites are
not Nestorian, and thus Chalcedon is not Nestorian. They would understand that
Dioscorus of Alexandria, Timothy Ailuros, and Severus of Antioch never shared
his beliefs, and their condemnation is justified. They could humbly admit that
they were wrong to turn their back on St. Cyril and come under the omophorion
of the Orthodox Catholic Church in repentance, where they would be received
with joy. For Orthodox Christians to lie to their faces and to pretend that
they share the faith of St. Cyril is an act of hatred, while telling them the
truth is an act of love.
Conclusion
All configurations of the mia
physis formula involving divinity ultimately lead to Christ having
only a divine nature. Any claims to the contrary contradict the immutability of
divinity that all Monophysites claim to believe. This concludes in Christ dying
in His divinity on the cross which destroys the concept of divinity no matter
what route the mia physis formula takes. If it is not rooted
in dyophysitism, it kills God. Since all monophysite formulas have an
exclusively divine nature, the resurrection has no effect on man, leaving man
bereft of salvation and doomed for all eternity. Eutyches and Dioscorus posited
that Christ is from two natures but not in two natures, which leads to a
strange and undefined status for Christ’s humanity, implying it existed before
His incarnation. Timothy Ailuros and Severus posited that Christ has human
accidents but has no human nature, which is a logical contradiction. Timothy
and Severus were also nominalists, which means Christ does not share a nature
with any other particular, destroying the possibility of man’s salvation and
turning the Trinity into three separate gods. The non-Chalcedonian Monophysites
claim to follow St. Cyril but they rejected his acceptance of the
reconciliation formula. Lastly, Monophysites have a history of maintaining
their influence through violence and murder.
The history of the monophysite
heresy is a complex one, with several different heretics with their own
compositions and arrangements for what amounts to the same heresy that began
with Apollinaris of Laodicea. Although every single monophysite formula has not
been discussed, it should be clear that one cannot escape the errors of
Apollinaris no matter how one arranges the mia physis formula
if it is not compatible with the dyo physis formula. It was
never an adherence to philosophical reasoning and logic that kept the
Monophysites from true faith, it was rank stubbornness most likely rooted in
ethnic pride. How else does one justify making Dioscorus a “saint” after he
murdered St. Flavian, patriarch of Constantinople? Where is the Christian
sanctity in murdering one’s theological opponents, especially for someone who
is supposed to be an archpastor?
This historical and doctrinal
examination justifies the decisions of the fourth, fifth and sixth Ecumenical
Councils revealing the sound logic behind the doctrinal truth of the Orthodox
Church’s dogmatic teachings. St. John Damascene said the monophysite
accusations against Chalcedon are “clumsy and stupid”[135],
as their Christology proves. The contemporary ecumenical movement only
serves to attempt to obfuscate the differences between the monophysite heresy
and the true dyophysite Orthodox faith, presenting half-truths and pernicious
subtle lies to cover up the outrageous errors that date back as far as the
fourth century, before the council of Chalcedon.
Worst of all, they blaspheme and
tarnish the good name of St. Cyril of Alexandria, falsely attributing to him
beliefs that he went to great lengths to prove he never held. If one is
credulous of the decisions of the councils, then the saints, the hieromartyrs,
and the confessors that combated this heresy are the most reliable guides to
the truth; they did not care for worldly praise and power, and they suffered
for Christ’s sake. They also accepted all the councils that the Monophysite
rejected, which is proof of those councils’ validity. All would do well to
follow the example of the saints, and all should denounce “orthodox” academics
who contradict the holy saints and the holy councils. The stubbornness and
illogical reasoning of the monophysite heretics and their supporters gives
credence to St. Cyril’s proclamation that heretics are worse than pagans, and
his criticism suits no better a target than those who falsely claim they are
his disciples:
[T]hey who have become inventors
of unholy heresies, profane and apostate and enlarging their unbridled mouth
against the Divine glory and uttering things perverted, will be caught as
having of their folly slipped into charges not slighter than those of the
infatuation of the Greeks or haply into charges even surpassing theirs. For it
were better for them not to have known the way of truth than having known it to
turn back from the holy commandment given to them: for the true proverb hath
come to them, The dog returned to his own vomit, and, The washed sow to the
wallowing in the mire.
“For they parted amongst
themselves the charges of blasphemy against Christ and like fierce and bitter
wolves they waste the flocks for which Christ died, and despoil what is His,
multiplying to themselves that which is not theirs, as it is written, and weighting
their yoke heavily, of whom may be said with much reason, They went out from us
but they were not of us.[136]
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[1] Roberts, A., and J. Donaldson. THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY the
ANTE-NICENE FATHERS VOLUME 5.1164
[2] Leo Donald Davis. The First Seven Councils (325-787): Their
History and Theology. Wilmington, Del.: M. Glazier, 1987. 247.
[3] Lietzmann, Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule (1904), Ad
Iovianum, 1, 250
[4] Chadwick, Henry. The Early Church. Penguin, 1993. p.148
[5] Of, Gregory, and Robin Orton. Anti-Apollinarian Writings. The
Catholic University Of America Press, 2015. 18-19.
[6] Anti-Apollinarian Writings, 27
[7] Anti-Apollinarian Writings, 4
[8] Apollinaris of Ladoacia. Richard Alfred Norris. The
Christological Controversy. Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2013. On The Union
In Christ of the Body with the Godhead by Apollinaris of Laodicea. 109
[9] Ibid.104.
[10] Ibid. 108.
[11] Ibid. 104
[12] The Christological Controversy. 110
[13] John Damascene. Of, John, and Frederic Hathaway
Chase. Writings (the Fathers of the Church, Volume 37). Catholic
University Of America Press, 1958. 105.
[14] Apollinarius’s Letter to Jovian
[15] Realism professes that universals have ontological being. This is
in contrast to nominalism, which professes that universals exist in
contemplation only.
[16] Saint, Cyril,. Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Volume 2 :
Exodus through Deuteronomy. The Catholic University Of America Press,
2019. 143-4
[17] Ibid. 156-7
[18] Cyril, et al. Ancient Christian Texts: Commentary on John:
Volume 1. Intervarsity Press, 2013. 310.
[19] Saint, Cyril, et al. Commentary on John. Volume 2. Ivp
Academic, 2015. 135.
[20] Saint, Cyril, et al. Festal Letters 13-30. Catholic
University Of America Press, 2013. Festive Letter 17. 62-3.
[21] Ibid. 63
[22] Saint, Cyril, and John I. Mcenerney. St. Cyril of
Alexandria: Letters 1-50. Catholic University Of America Press, 1987.
Letter 4. 39.
[23] “Cyril of Alexandria, Five Tomes against Nestorius (1881) Book 2.
Pp.38-80.”Tertullian.org, 2025
[24] Hans Van Loon. The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of
Alexandria. Brill, 2009. 382.
[25] Cyril, Five Tomes. Book 2.
[26] Saint, Cyril, and John I. Mcenerney. St. Cyril of
Alexandria: Letters 1-50. Catholic University Of America Press, 1987.
Letter 39. 149.
[27] Hans Van Loon. Dyophysite Christology. 523-524
[28] St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1-50. Letter 40. 161.
[29] St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1-50. Letter 40. 165.
[30] St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1-50. Letter 44. 186.
[31] St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1-50. Letter 44. 186-7.
[32] St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1-50. Letter 44. 187.
[33] St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1-50. Letter 45. 193.
[34] Hans Van Loon. Dyophysite Christology. 389-390.
[35] W H C Frend. The Rise of the Monophysite Movement: Chapters
in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries. James Clarke
& Co, 2008. 33
[36] Theophanes, The Confessor, and Harry Turtledove. The
Chronicle of Theophanes: Anni Mundi, 6095-6305 (A.D. 602-813). University
Of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. 154
[37] The Rise of the Monophysite Movement, 43.
[38] Price, Richard, and Michael Gaddis. The Acts of the Council of
Chalcedon. 2005. 222.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. 221.
[41] Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. 223
[42] Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. 190
[43] Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. 194
[44] Since Timothy Ailuros’s metaphysics introduce nominalism and
tritheism in the monophysite heresy, it would arguably mean his formula is more
problematic than Eutyches’. That might make Dioscorus even worse than Eutyches
if the Monophysites are taken at their word. Either way, Dioscorus is a
condemned heretic.
[45] De Sectis 6 (PG 86.1:1233B-1237D); critical
edition in Franz Diekamp (ed.), Doctrina Patrum de
Incarnatione
Verbi: Ein griechisches Florilegium aus der Wende des 7. und 8. Jahrhunderts, 2nd ed. (Münster:
Aschendorff,
1981), 177-179.
[46] According to Richard Price and Michael Gaddis in the Acts of the
Council of Chalcedon, Valentinus denied Christ is a physical body. Essentially
a type of gnostic dualism.
[47] from the Greek Αἴλουρος,
[48] Alois Grillmeier, and Theresia Hainthaler. Christ in Christian
Tradition. Vol. 2,4. Mowbray, 1965., 11
[49] Christ in Christian Tradition, Vol. 2,4. 13
[50] Christ in Christian Tradition, Vol. 2,4. 32
[51] Christ in Christian Tradition, Vol. 2,4. 33
[52] Christ in Christian Tradition, Vol. 2,4. 32
[53] Orthodox Life, Vol. 46, No 6, 1996. The Non-Chalcedonian Heresy.
P.42. Epistle to Kalonumos, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. LXXXVI, Col. 276
[54] “Severus of Antioch: A Collection of Letters from Numerous Syriac
Manuscripts (1915). Letters 1-61.” Tertullian.org, 2025, letter 5.
[55] Bondi, Roberta C. Three Monophysite Christologies.
Oxford University Press, USA, 1976. 11
[56] Ibid. 10
[57] Ibid. 10
[58] Ibid. 11
[59] Ibid. 12
[60] Orthodox Life, Vol 47, No. 1, 1997, p. 30; Patrologia
Graeca, Vol XCI, Col. 40A.
[61] Severus of Antioch: A Collection of Letters, Letter 2
[62] Three Monophysite Christologies. 13.
[63] Ibid. 13
[64] Ibid. 14
[65] Ibid. 31
[66] Aloys Grillmeier and Theresia Heinthaler, Christ in Christian
Tradition: Volume 2, Part 2 (Louiseville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1995), 167
[67] Iain R. Torrance, Christology after Chalcedon (Canterbury Press,
1988), 151.
[68] Patrologia Graeca, Vol. LXXXIX, Col. 103D., Saint Anastasios
of Sinai preserves this quote of Severos in his works; quoted in The
Non-Chalcedonian Heretics, p.41 in Orthodox Life Vol 46, No. 6.
[69] Leontius Hierosolymitanus and Gray Patrick T R., Leontius of
Jerusalem: Against the Monophysites: Testimonies of the Saints and Aporiae
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 179.
[70] St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31
[71] Leontius of Jerusalem and Gray Patrick T R., Leontius of Jerusalem:
Against the Monophysites: Testimonies of the Saints and Aporiae (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 177.
[72] Pauline Allen and Robert Hayward, Severus of Antioch (London:
Routledge, 2004), 102
[73] Of, John, and Frederic Henry Chase. Writings. Ex
Fontibus Co, 2015. P. 139, On Heresies by St. John Damascene.
[74] “First Agreed Statement (1989) – Ecumenical Patriarchate Permanent
Delegation to the World Council of Churches.”
[75] Price, Richard. The Acts of the Council of Constantinople
of 553: Sessions VI- VIII, Vigilius Constituta, Appendices, Maps, Glossary,
Bibliography, Indices. 2009. 122-123.
[76] First Agreed Statement (1989).
[77] Ibid.
[78] See note 22.
[79] Professor Vlassios Phidas and Prof. Fr. John Romanides; other than
Vlassios and Romanides, the authors of this paper did not produce their full
names, therefore, cannot be identified. .
[80] First Agreed Statement (1989)
[81] “Second Agreed Statement (1990) – Ecumenical Patriarchate Permanent
Delegation to the World Council of Churches.”
[82] See note 31
[83] St. Cyril, Letters 1-50. Letter 39. 151.
[84] St. Cyril, Letters 1-50. Letter 40. 162.
[85] St. Cyril, Letters 1-50. Letter 44. 187.
[86] St. Cyril, Letters 1-50. Letter 45. 193.
[87] St. Cyril, Letters 1-50. Letter 46. 199.
[88] St. Cyril, Letters 1-50. Letter 46. 203.
[89] Cf. Hans Van Loon. The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of
Alexandria. Brill, 2009. Loon goes to great lengths to prove this point
within his book. His conclusions on EO and Monophysite ecumenical dialogues
based on a false understanding of St. Cyril’s mia physis formula
are summarized in 577.
[90] “Second Agreed Statement (1990) – Ecumenical Patriarchate Permanent
Delegation to the World Council of Churches.”
[91] Ibid.
[92] “Second Council of Nicaea – 787 A.D.
[93] Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople, Patriarch Proterius of
Alexandria and Patriarch Stephen II of Antioch (+479). Bishop Stephen is
venerated in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad on April 25 (o.s.)
[94] Winkler, Dietmar W. “Miaphysitism a New Term for Use in the History
of Dogma and in Ecumenical Theology.” Gorgias Press EBooks, Gorgias
Press, Dec. 2012, 36.
[95] Ibid. 37
[96] See section 1.4.
[97] See section 5.2
[98] Allen, Pauline, et al. Severus of Antioch. London; New
York, Routledge, 2004. 34, 36.
[99] See section 7.3.
[100] Mebratu Kiros Gebru. Miaphysite Christology. Gorgias PressLlc,
2010. 94-5.
[101] Commonitorium (Vincent of Lerins). 12.34.
[102] “Oration 38 (Gregory Nazianzen). 13.
[103] “Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book II (Ambrose). 77.
[104] Cassian, John. SEVEN BOOKS on the INCARNATION of the LORD,
against NESTORIUS. 1.5.
[105] Sermon 80 on the New Testament (Augustine).3.
[106] Shenouda, Alexandria Patriarch. The Nature of Christ.
Putty Coptic Orthodox St Shenouda Monastery, 1997. 8.
[107] Ibid. 9.
[108] See section 1.4
[109] Shenouda. Nature. 1997. 10.
[110] See notes 30 and 31.
[111] Saint, Cyril, and Daniel King. Three Christological
Treatises. The Catholic University Of America Press, 2014. 59-60.
[112] Shenouda. Nature. 1997. 13.
[113] Price, Richard. The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. 1,
General Introduction, Documents before the Council, Session I. Liverpool Univ.
Press, 2010. Vol 2. 203.
[114] Ibid.
[115] See note 29.
[116] St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1-50. Letter 44. 187-8
[117] Shenouda. Nature. 1997. 16.
[118] Ibid. 27.
[119] Ibid. 17.
[120] Of, John, and Frederic Hathaway Chase. Writings (the
Fathers of the Church, Volume 37). Catholic University Of America Press,
1958. The Philosophical Chapters. Ch41. 66.
[121] John Damascene, Writings. 1958. 68-9.
[122] Ibid. 69.
[123] Shenouda. Nature. 1997. 18.
[124] See notes 26 and 28.
[125] St. Cyril, Letters 1-50. Letter 40. 162-3.
[126] Shenouda. Nature. 1997. 23.
[127] See note 85.
[128] See section 8.1
[129] The Tome of Leo. (Letter of Leo to Flavian. Letter 28)
Earlychurchtexts.com, 2025, 3.
[130] Ibid. 4.
[131] See section 9.7
[132] Tome of Leo. 4
[133] Ibid.
[134] Philippians 2: 5-11 (NKJV)
[135] Of, John, and Frederic Henry Chase. Writings. Ex
Fontibus Co, 2015. 139
[136] Cyril of Alexandria, That Christ is One by way of Dispute
with Hermias (c. 431), trans. P. E. Pusey in A Library
of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Anterior to the Division of the East
and West, Translated by Members of the English Church. Volume 47 (Oxford:
James Parker, 1881), 238.
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