RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Monothelites
cil of 692 accepted the acts of the first. One emperor, Philippicus Bardanes (711-713), attempted to reestablish Monothelitism, but unsuccessfully.
The Monothelite discussion may be considered a sequence of the Monophysite controversy. An important point, however, to notice is that correct diphysite opinion had not previously led to diothelite consequences. Sergius in his letter to Cyrus of Phasis makes a good deal of this
6. Basis in fact and insists that no evidence for Patristic the expression " two energies " can be
Dogmatics, found in earlier teachers. Although this statement is not true, as several authorities used it (Eustathius, MPG, lxxxvi. 1, 909 B; Justinian, ib. 1149 A), yet Sergius was correct in pointing out the lack of recognized patristic examples. His case is still better as concerns the use of the term " two wills." Apparently it had not been a matter of debate to any considerable extent; Eulogius of Alexandria is the only writer who made the question the subject of polemical discussion {MPG, lxxxvi. 2, 2939-44). Interest in it seems to have been limited to Alexandria. Sergius was not aware of the existence of this work of Eulogius and it escaped the notice even of Photius. It can not be said that the monergistic question was decided in the time of Justinian along lines identical with those of its latest settlement. It is true, though, that the Leonine teaching concerning the dual nature logically admits of two natural energies. Indeed Sergius may be accused of quibbling when he appeals to Leo for support, since that pope had never used the expression " two energies." It must be allowed, though, that the point of departure for the monergistic view was in no way unorthodox. It is fair to contend that as from the moment of the Incarnation the personal center in which the human nature subsists and grows is the person of the Logos, all that Christ says or does can be ascribed to the one energy of the God-man. Good patristic precedent is found for this position, especially the passage appealed to by Sergius and his supporters from Dionysius, where the expression " one theandric energy" is used {MPG, iii. 1072C), and the passage from Cyril, where, in commenting on Luke viii. 54, he had spoken of Christ's " showing through both, namely, the commanding word and the touch with the hand, one correlated energy" {MPG, lxxiii. 577C). The idea of the monergists was that there is one sole source for all the actions of the God-man, that is, the divine nature. The impulses of this source are carried out through the rational human soul and through the human body. The acts and activities of Christ, they claimed, do not have their origin in the human nature, as this does not subsist for itself. There is one energy, its creator God, its instrument humanity; there is one will and that divine. Sergius could claim orthodoxy for his statement that the body of the Lord, endowed with soul and spirit, carried out its natural motions according to the measure of the divine will. And he could say that as man's body is controlled by his rational soul, so with Christ the whole complex of his human nature is always under the control of the Godhead.
The objections to the unity of the " energy " are concerned with the involved necessity that the distinctively human element with its self-determined activity would be done away; human nature would be reduced to a dead organ, without soul, or, at
least, without reason. On this account
7. Relation the Monothelites were affirmed to be
to New- followers of Apollinaris. On account
Testament of the obscurities and ambiguities in-
Statements. volved in the term " energy," Sergius
and his school abandoned its use, and concentrated their attention on the kernel of the whole question, the unity of the will. For two wills seem to call for two willing subjects. When passages like Matt. xxvi. 39, with their contrast of the human and divine will, were appealed to, they argued against the two-will theory on the basis that with the appropriation of human nature through the personal Logos, a will that makes itself known in the personal subject of the God-man, in distinction from his divine will, must be due to an undivine direction in the nature which has been assumed. They appealed to Gregory of Nyssa's statement {Oratio ii., De filio) " for his act of will is in no way contrary to God, it is wholly from God." They insisted on the impossibility of two mutually distinct wills even if they had the same content, and quoted the dictum of Macarius: " For it is impossible that there be in one and the same Christ, our God, two wills together and at the same time contrary, even if they are alike." More ancient patristic authorities in their comments on this passage of St. Matthew treat it as if the God-man, in conditioning himself to a human will, assumed as it were voluntarily a special character in this as a distinct act of salvation. The Monothelites made use of this explanation, for they did not deny a human operation, they only affirm that it was called forth by the divine will. Accordingly, in relation to the divine energy, the human manifestation of it is passive rather than active. When Gregory of Nyssa {MPG, xlvi. 616D), speaking of Christ, says, the soul wills, he means, according, to Monothelite explanation, that the willing of the soul takes place through the divine willing of the Godhead, which is personally united with it. It is, therefore, divine willing in human form. The Monothelite conception, therefore, was not far removed from the position of the Church on the teaching of the incarnation. Even Maximus himself, after the term " one energy" had been abandoned, made no essential objection to the standpoint of Pyrrhus. But through the efforts of Maximus, the logical consequences of the Chalcedonian decrees were drawn. The will was treated as an essential and characteristic part of human nature. He who denies the human will in Christ, denies the human soul in him. If Christ did not take a human will, but only adopted one, he placed himself in the relation of a willing human subject; the taking of all the other characteristics of humanity must be placed in the same class and the whole incarnation becomes docetic. Yet the opponents of Monothelitism were careful not to allow to Christ a gnomic will, that is, he did not decide for the good through weighing arguments for and against it; unity of the human nature with the
Monothelites Montanus