§ 143. THE MONOPHTSITE C0NTK0VEESIE8. 767
So far we may without self-contradiction affirm botli the identity of the body of Christ before and after his resurrection, and its glorification after resurrection.'
The Severians were subdivided again, in respect to the question of Christ's omniscience, into Theodostans, and The- MISTIAN8, or Agnoet^.'' The Julianists were subdivided into Ktistolate^,* and Aktistetje,* according as they asserted or denied that the body of Christ was a created body. The most consistent Monophysite was the rhetorician Stephanus IS^iobea (about 550), who declared every attempt to distinguish between the divine and the human in Christ inadmissible, since they had become absolutely one in him.'' An abbot of Edessa, Bar Sudaili, extended this principle even to the creation, which he maintamed would at last be wholly absorbed in God. John Philoponus (about 530) increased the confusion ; starting with Monophysite principles, taking (})vaL<; iu a concrete instead of an abstract sense, and identifying it with viroaraai^, he distinguished in God three individuals, and so became involved in tritheism. This view he sought to justify by the Aristotelian categories of genus, species, and vndividuum^
' As was done by Augustine and Leo the Great. The latter affirms, Sermo 69, De resurrectione Domini, c. 4 : " Resurrectio Domini non finis camis, sed commutatio fuit, nee virtutis augmento consumpta substantia est. Qualitas transiit, non natura defecit; et factum est corpus impassibile, immortale, incorruptibile . . . nihil renjansit in came Christi infirmum, ut et ipsa sit per essentiam et non sit ipsa per gloriam." Comp. moreover, respecting the Aphthartodocetic controversy of the Monophysites, the remarks of Domer, ii. 159 ff. and of Ebrard, Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, i. 268 f.
' After their leader Themistius, deacon of Alexandria; also called by their opponents, Agnoet^, 'Ayi/oTjrai, because they taught that Christ in his condition of humiliation was not omniscient, but shared our ignorance of many things (comp. Luke ii. 52 ; Mark xiii. 32). Tliis view leads necessarily to dyophysitism, and accordingly was rejected by the strict Monophysites.
' KTiiTToA.aTpa(, or, from their founder, GajaniTvE. These viewed the body of Christ as created, ktkjtqv.
* 'AKr/tTTrjTa' These said that the body of Christ in itself was created, but tha< by its union xitl. the Logos it became increate, and theiefore also incorruptible.
* His adherents were condemned by the other Monophysites as Niobit^.
* His followers were called Philoponiaci, Tritheist^e. Philoponus, it may be remarked, was not the first promulgator of this error; but (as appears from Assem. Bibl orient, tom. i'. p. 327; comp. Hefele, ii. 555) the Monophysite John AgkiB*
768 THTBD PEEIOD. A.D. P> 1 1-590.
§ 144. The Three Chapters^ and the Fifth Ecumenical Gyu/n-
oil, A. D. 553.
Oomp., besides tho literature already cited, II. Xokis (R. C.) : Ilistoria Pelagiana et dissertatio de Synodo Quiuta cecumen. in qua Origenis et Th. Mopsuesteni Pelagiani erroris auctorum justa damnatio, et Aquilejense schisma descrlbitur, etc. Padua, 1673, fol., and Verona, 1729. John Garnieb (R. 0.): Dissert, do V. Synodo. Paris, 1075 (against Card. Noris). Hefele (R. C.) : vol. ii. 775-899.— The Greek Acta of the 5th council, with the exception of the 14 anathemas and some fragments, have been lost ; but there is extant an aj^pareutly contemporary Latin translation (in Mansi, torn. ix. 1G3 sqq.), respecting whose genuineness and completeness there has been much controversy (comp. Hefele, ii. p. 831 ff.).
The further fortuues of Mono]5]iysitisin are connected witli the emperor Justmian I. (527-565). This learned and unweariedly active ruler, ecclesiastically devout, but vain and ostentatious, aspu-ed, during his long and in some respects brilliant reign of nearly thirty years, to the united renown of a lawgiver and theologian, a conqueror and a champion of the true faith. He used to spend whole nights in prayer and fasting, and in theological studies and discussions ; he placed his tlu'one under the special protection of the Blessed Yirgin and the archangel Michael ; in his famous Code, and especially in the Novelles, he confirmed and enlarged the privileges of the clergy ; he adorned the capital and the provinces with costly temples and institutions of charit}' ; and he regarded it as his especial mission to reconcile licretics, to unite all parties of the church, and to establish tho genuine orthodoxy for all time to come. In all these undertakings he fancied himself the chief actor, though very commonly he was but the instniment of the empress, or of the court theologians and eunuch^ ; and his efforts to compel a general uniformity only increased the divisions in church and state.
Justinian was a great admirer of the decrees of Chalcedon,
nages, who ascribed to Chri.st only 07ie nature, but to each persou in the Godhead a sepanite nature, and on this account was banished by the emperor and excommunicated by the patriarch of Constantinople. Aiuong the more famous Tritheists wt Have also Stephen Gobarup, about 600.