RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Lindberg Monophysitism
tological controversies of the succeeding centuries. Convincing evidence of the pervading presence, in the subconscious theological thought
2. Con- of the Christian Church, of these differtroversies ing speculative tendencies concerning between the person of the Messiah and Logos Judaizing became manifest toward the end of the and Pla- second century, during the controversy tonizing caused by the first definite coordination Schools. of Christ as God with the indefinite
Mosaic monotheism of Old-Testament tradition. The Judaizing school of Christians seemingly taught more or less publicly that the Messiah was a man in whom divinity, or the Spirit of God, had dwelt during his earthly existence. Defending their doctrine from texts of the synoptic Gospels, they tended in their teaching toward the error of Ebionitism during their constant Christological controversy with the opposing Platonizing school of Christians. These latter taught, on the contrary, the preexistence and the eternity of the incarnate Logos. Defending their doctrine from texts of the Johannine Gospel, they tended, in their ditheism— as their Judaizing opponents declared—toward the error of Gnosticism and the docetic denial of the real humanity of Christ. Yet the Messianic teaching of the Judaizers themselves, although apparently truly accepting Christ as the Redeemer of men, continued to cling to that indefinite Mosaic monotheism from whose persistent presence throughout Asia Minor was developed later not only the definite heresy of dynamic Monarchianism (q.v.), which denied the essential divinity of Christ, or asserted it to be a power imparted to his humanity, but also the opposite, though related, heresy of modalistic Monarchianism, known also as that of Sabellius, and of the Patripassians, who admitted the divinity, but denied the personality, of Christ.
During the continuance of these first Christological controversies in the ante-conciliar Church, there were slowly and silently established two ecclesiastical schools of Scripture-study and theological teaching, Antioch and Alexandria (see ANTIOCH, ScHoon or; ALEXANDRIA, ScHoou or). The school of Antioch, influenced by the Jewish traditions of Syria, was literal, grammatical, and historic in its exegesis; yet this very literalistic interpretation,
applied to the synoptic Gospels, tended
3. Struggle constantly toward that characteristic between overemphasis of the humanity of Christ Antiochene which exposed its Christological teachand Alex- ing to the insidious Ebionitic influence andrine persisting in the doctrines of the dy-
Theology. namic and the modalistic Monarchian-
ists. The school of Alexandria, influenced by the Greek traditions of that famous center of philosophical speculation, was free, allegorical, and mystical in its exegesis. Thus its freer interpretation, the opposite in method of the rival school of Antioch, of the Johannine Gospel tended continually toward that characteristic overemphasis of the divinity of the incarnate Logos which exposed its Christological teaching to the influence of Gnostic docetism that denied or ignored the real humanity of Christ. Soon after the middle of the third century, the traditionally opposite tendencies of these
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two ecclesiastical schools came into conflict during the doctrinal dissensions caused by the teaching of Paul of Samosata (see MonarcHiAnism, IV., §§ 2— 3). He, while bishop of Antioch, was impelled to assert again the characteristic Antiochene overemphasis of the human nature of Christ in terms of a modified dynamic Monarchianism, in opposition to the traditional Alexandrine tendency of overemphasizing the divinity of the Logos, already developing in the words of the later Trinitarian teaching of the councils of the Church. The teaching of Paul was condemned as heretical by several successive synods assembled at, Antioch to compare his doctrine with that deduced from the traditional orthodox teaching of the several apostolic sees. What this traditional apostolic teaching of the Christian Church was during this ante-conciliar age is shown by the following ‘‘ Confession of Faith ”’ of the synod convened at Antioch in 251, the heads of which were Dionysius of Rome and Dionysius of Alexandria (qq.v.), while Gregory Thaumaturgus (q.v.) was also an important figure:
“We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, who was of God and the Father, who was begotten before the worlds of the Spirit, but in the end of days was born of a virgin in the flesh, is one compound person of heavenly deity and human flesh; and also in this, that he is man, wholly God and wholly man; wholly God and with a body, but not in this, that the flesh is God; and wholly man and with man, and with deity, but not in this, that the Deity is man. Sco also he is wholly to be worshiped, and with the body, but not in this, that the body is to be worshiped; wholly to be worshiped and with the Deity, but not in this, that the Deity is to be worshiped (apart from the body?); wholly increate and with a body, but not in this, that the body is inereate; wholly made and with the Deity; but not in this, that the Deity is made; wholly coessential with God, and with the body, but not in this, that the body is coessential with God; as not in this, that God is coessential with man; though with Deity in the flesh, he is coessential with us. For also when we say that he, being in the Spirit, is a partaker of the nature of God, we say not that he in the Spirit is a partaker of the nature of man. And again, when we declare him in the flesh a partaker of the nature of man, we declare him not in the flesh a partaker of the nature of God. For as in the Spirit, he is not connatural with us, because he is herein coessential with God; so in the flesh he is not connatural with God, because he is a partaker of our nature. Now these things we correct and approve, not the dividing of one person indivisible, but the unconfused peculiar confession of the flesh and of the Deity.” (B. H. Cowper, Syriac Miscellanies, pp. 40-41, London, 1861.)
This ante-conciliar Christological confession of faith evidently contains within itself the complete cause of the subsequent Chalcedonian controversy which resulted historically in the century-long charge against the primitive national churches of the East that they teach the Eutychian error, are Monophysites (see Hutyca1anisM; MonopuHysitss), and, therefore, are heretical in their Christology.
That same insidious Ebionitic influence, whose persistent presence in the differing doctrines of Monarchianism had caused the condemnation of Paul of Samosata, appeared again in the erroneous teaching of Arius (see ARIANISM), denying the eternal divinity of the Logos, which was condemned as heretical by the first ecumenical council of the Church, convened in 325 at Nica. Later in the same century, the Alexandrine Apollinaris of Laodicea (q.v.), one of the chief defenders of the Athanasian Logos doctrine accepted by the Council of Nica, began to teach
Monophysitism