MOXOTHELISM
512
MOXOTHELISM
kindred to that concerning his nature. The Slonoph- 3'sites were at that time a most powerful sect, and the movement, especially' in Egypt, threatened to as- sume a political character. In this difficulty the em- peror Ileraclius, hoping to reconcile the two parties, adopted the doctrine that tiiere was in Jesus the Christ, after the union of the two natures, only one divine- human energy and one •will (^fiovov Sf\»;/na) ; and when, in the course of a campaign against Persia, lie- radius passed through Armenia and Syria, he came to an understanding with the Monophysite leaders of the Sevcriuns and Jacobites, and induced Sergius (q. v.), tlio ortiiodox patriarch of Constantinople, to give his assent to the doctrine ofivS^iXijf^ia Kai ixui iv'tpyHU,OT of an tifpyeta ^tayCptKij. Mouothelism, it will be per- ceived, then, is nothing more nor less than a modifica- tion of Eutychianism (q. v.). It consisted in main- taining that, although Christ ha.s two natures, yet these natures possessed or are acted on bj' but a single will, the divine will superseding or supplying the place of a human will. It will be observed also that in this way the controversj- was removed from the province of pure metaphysics into the moral and practical spliere; and although the assertion of an independent nature with- out independent action was a contradictio in adjecto, it was yet hoped that the doctrine might be adopted by tiie Jlonophj'sites. The author of this doctrine was probabh' Sergius himself; he was, at least, its most active propagandist. The progress of the doc- trine was materially forwarded by tlie relation which, at the instance of Sergius, and under his representa- tions, pope Honorius (q. v.) was induced to maintain regarding the question. The Monophj'site Cyrus, wliom the emperor had i)romotcd from the episcopate of Phasis to the patriarchate of Alexandria, proni])tly called a synod (A.D. G33), which bj' the seventh canon of its decrees solemnly approved of the mouothelite doctrine (in the words tvv avrvv iva Xpiaruv Kai viiv ivtpyovvTu Tu SriQ-pnrti Kai av^pwmva fii^ Btavcpi- Kt) ivtpy(i(f, Mansi, Condi, xi, 565), thereby hoping to effect permanently a union between the different par- tics (Mansi, C'oncil. xi, 5G4 sq. ; Letters of Ci/rns, ibid. 5G1). As Cyrus was the principal mover in this at- tempt, he has been generally esteemed the founder of the Monothelites. The work of the council certainlj' proved salutary, at least for a time. By bringing the doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon nearer to the Eu- tychian system, numbers of the Eutychians, who were dispersed tliroughout Egypt, Armenia, and other re- mote provinces, returned to the bosom of the Church. The only dissenting leader proved a certain Sophro- nius, a monk of Palestine, who from the first opposed the decree, of the Alexandrian Synod with violence, and when elevated to the vacant patriarchate of Jeru- salem (G35) was thus afforded ecclesiastical position and power, and now came forward to contest the ques- tion, notwithstanding that the patriarch of Constanti- nople approved of the Alexandrian decision, and the pope at Home offered no remonstrance. Sophronius (q. V.) endeavored to show that this doctrine was in- admissible, since the doctrine of two natures set forth by the Sjnod of Chalcedon (q. v.) necessarily implied that of two wills (see Sophronii Epistola Si/nodica, which is given in Mansi, xi, 4G1). He finally' sum- moned a coimcil, and condenmed monothelism as a branch of the Eutycliian heresy. In order to termi- nate, if possible, the commotions to which this division was giving rise, the emperor Ileraclius in 638 issued an edict, "VjK^inu- (so named because it contained an exposition of the faith), in which he confirmed the agreement made by the patriarchs for the preserva- tion of ecclesiastical union, and in which all contro- versies upon the question wlictlier in Christ there was a double operation were jjrohibited, thougli tlie doc- trine of a unity of will was inculcated. A consider- alile numlier of the Eastern bishops declared tlieir assent to the Ecthesis, and above all Pyrrhus, who
succeeded Sergius in the see of Constantinople. A similar acceptance was obtained from the metropolis of the Eastern Church ; but at Rome the Ecthesis was differently received. John IV assembled a council, in which that exposition was condemned. See Ecthe- sis. Neither was the mouothelite system maintained in the Eastern Church any longer than during the life of Heraclius. In G48 the emperor Constans II issued the TvTroc, i. e. an edict, by which the Ecthesis was suppressed, and the contending j)arties were prohibited from resuming their discussions on the doctrine ia question (see Mansi, x, 992, 1029 sq. ; Neander, Church Hist. [Torrey] iii, 186-192). Pope Honorius, as we have seen, appeared in favor of the union, and was probably himself inclined to monophysitism ; but his successors, Severinus and John IV, tliought and felt differently. The latter condenmed the doctrine of the Monothelites, and Theodore excommunicated Paul, patriarch of Constantinople, till the doctrine of two wills and two energies was at last adopted at tlie first synod of the Lateran, held under Martin I, bishop of Komc, in the year 649 (see Mansi, x, 863 sq.). "Si quis secundum scelerosos hrereticos cum una volun- tate et una operatione, qua; ab hicreticis impiis confite- tur, et duas voluntatcs, pariterque et ojierationes, hoc est, divinam et humanam, qua; in ipso Christo Deo in unitate salvantur, et a Sanctis patribus orthodoxe in ipso pra;dicantur, denegat et respuit, condemnatus sit" (see Gieseler, c. 1, § 128, note 11 ; ^liinscher v. Colla, ii, 78 sq.). The emperor was so indignant at this dar- ing of Martin that he had him secured, carried to Con- stantinople, there treated for a time as a criminal, and then banished him to the Crimea, where he died in 655, to be numbered among the martj-rs of tiie West- ern and the confessors of the Eastern Church. His great intellectual supi>orter at the council had been a Greek abbot named 3Iaximus, and he, too, underwent a long persecution, being scourged, having his tongue cut out, and at last dying a death little short of mar- tyrdom just as he had" reached his place of exile, A.D. 6G2. The final and authoritative condemnation of the monothelite dogma took place at the sixth general council, held at Constantinople in the j-ear 680, where it was decided that there are in Christ "two natural wills and two natural operations, without division, without conversion or change, with nothing like an- tagonism, and nothing like confusion, but at the same time the human will of Christ could not come into col- lision with his divine will, but is in all things subject , to it." An anathema was also pronounced on Theo- I dore, Sergius, Honorius, and all who had maintained the heresy-, this anathema being confirmed by Leo II, I who wrote to the emperor respecting his own prede- I cessor in the see of Rome: " Anatliematizamus . . . necnon ct Ilonorium qui banc a])0st()licam ecdesiam non apostolica' traditicmis doctrina lustravit, scd pro- fana proditione immaculatam subvertere conatus est" (Mansi, Concil. xi, 631-G37, 731). This anathema of pope Honorius was repeated bj' liis successors for three [centuries. See lloxoitirs; Infai.libiuty. The council (also called the First Trullan) was summoned bj' Constantinus Pogonatus. The decision of the synod was based upon the ejjistle of Agatho, tlie Roman bishop, which was itself founded upon the canons of the above-mentioned Lateran synod (Agathonis Ep. ad [mperatores, in ^lansi, xi, 233 sq.). Baur says of this controversy {Dngmengesch. p. 211) : "Its elements on the side of the Jlonothelites were the unity of the person or suliject, from whose one will (the divine will of the incarnate Logos) all must proceed, since two wills also presuppose two personal sulijects (the chief argument of bishop Theodore of Cara, in Mansi, xi, 567); on the side of the Dyothelites, the point was the fact of two natures, since two natures cannot lie con- ceived without two natural wills, and two natural modes of operation. Hdw far now two wills can be without two persons willing was the point from which