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BISHOP HEFELE'S COUNCILS OF THE CHURCH.
A HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS OF THE CHURCH. From the Original Documents. By the Right Rev. C. J. HEFELE, D.D., Bishop of Rottenburg. In Five Volumes, demy 8vo, price 12s. each.
Vol. I. To A.D. 325.
Vol. II. A.D. 326 to 429.
Vol. III. A.D. 431 to 451.
Vol. IV. A.D. 451 to 680.
Vol. V. A.D. 626 to close of Second Council of Nicsea, 787. With Appendix and Indices.
' To all who have the slightest pretension to the name of scientific theologians, it must afford the greatest satisfaction to receive a new volume of Bishop Hefele's standard work on the Councils. It is quite unnecessary to commend this great and learned book. No one would think of studying the subject of the Councils without consulting it.' — Church Bdls.
'A thorough and fair compendium, put in a most accessible and intelligent form.' — Guardian.
A HISTORY
OF THE
COUNCILS OF THE CHURCH,
FROM THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS.
, . BY THE
EIGHT REV. CHARLES JOSEPH HEEELE, D.D.,
LATE BISHOP OF ROTTENBURG, FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF TUBINGEN.
VOLUME V.
A.D. 626 TO THE CLOSE OF THE SECOND COUNCIL OF NIC^A, A.D. 787.
STransIatco ftom trje (Herman, fcritty tfjc ^Ititfjor's approbation, anto ^ot'teti bg WILLIAM R. CLARK,
M.A., HON. LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.C.,
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN TRINITY COLLEGE, TORONTO ; HON. PROFESSOR IN HOBART COLLEGE, GENEVA, N.Y.
EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
1896.
PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB, FOR
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. TORONTO : THE WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORY.
V.5
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
IT is now more than a quarter of a century since the present Editor proposed the publication of an English translation of a part of Hefele's great History of the Councils to Mr. T. Clark (now Sir Thomas Clark, Bart.), who was at that time senior partner of the publishing firm which has done so much for the promotion of theological learning in Great Britain. Mr. Clark readily recognised the importance of the historical method in the study of theology, and the supreme place held by the Church Councils in the development of Christian doctrine; and, without any great hope of financial success, consented to publish the first volume. It is quite intelligible that this should have obtained the largest circulation ; but the sale of the later volumes leads to serious doubts as to the nature of the con temporaneous study of theology. It is true that most of our leading British scholars are acquainted with German, and that a French translation of the earlier volumes (only of the first edition, however) has been published. Still, it would appear that a great many who have some pretensions to be theo logians are contented with second or third rate authorities on these great subjects.
It is with much thankfulness that the Editor is now able to send forth the completion of the original design, by bring ing the work down to the close of the second Council of Nicaea, the last which has been recognised alike by East and West. In closing the work at this point, neither the Editor nor the Publishers wish to imply that the subsequent Councils are unworthy of study. There is no break in history, civil or religious ; and if any other translators or publishers should undertake to bring out the history of the
vi EDITOR'S PREFACE.
Mediaeval Councils, they will have the best wishes of those who have carried the work thus far. But it will be apparent that we have arrived at a convenient period for the sus pension of our own work.
It was pointed out in the Preface to the third volume, that the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies were not mere strifes of words, which the Church might have evaded without loss. The toleration of either of these heresies would have involved the surrender of the Nicene faith. Whether the Monothelite controversy was of equal importance may be a matter of doubt ; but at least it was not a mere logomachy. The contending parties knew perfectly well what they were fighting about ; and a careless reader who pro nounces the controversy to be either unmeaning or un intelligible, will be wiser if he takes a little more trouble to wrestle with the terms and phrases in dispute before he finally adopts this conclusion.
To many readers, the most interesting portion of this volume will be that which deals with the difficult case of Honorius, which caused some embarrassment to the Fathers of the Vatican Council. Whatever our own judgment may be in regard to the orthodoxy of Honorius, it can hardly be denied that Hefele has dealt quite fairly and consistently with the subject. The claim which he makes in the Preface which follows will be allowed by all careful readers of the volume.
Some critics of previous parts of the history have ex pressed surprise that the Editor has not more frequently annotated the statements of the Author. Such a temptation has frequently occurred ; but it was thought better, where no question of fact was involved, to leave the Author to speak for himself, his point of view being quite well understood. More over, we believe that history is the best controversialist. When we compare the letter of S. Leo to the fourth (Ecumenical Council with that of Pope Agatho to the sixth, it becomes quite clear that an explanation of the difference must be attempted from two opposite points of view.
The Iconoclastic Controversy is perhaps that part of the history in which the Author shows most of bias. A short
Vll
postscript has been added, giving some further particulars, and continuing the history of the conflict to its virtual con clusion in the Greek and Latin Churches ; but this also, as far as possible, in a purely historical spirit.
It is with much satisfaction that we have found room, in this volume, for the corrections which the Author introduced into the second edition of the first volume. The bishop com plained that this was not done in our own second edition ; but the reason was very simple : this was printed before the sheets kindly forwarded by the Author reached us. The reader will now possess the whole history, as far as it goes, with the latest corrections and improvements of the Author.
In conclusion, the Editor must acknowledge the generous recognition in many quarters of the work which has been accomplished. Those who have laboured on the translation have done their best to make it exact, accurate, and readable. The last two volumes have been brought out in the midst of many other engrossing occupations ; yet it is believed that few slips will be discovered. For any notice of these we shall be thankful, as in the past. In this connection we desire gratefully to acknowledge a very careful, learned, and just review of the fourth volume in the Church Times, and another, no less scholarly and helpful, in the New York Churchman.
The Editor again acknowledges the help of the same accomplished friend who assisted in previous volumes. For words and phrases within square brackets, the Editor alone is responsible.
And now our work is done ; and we commit it to the Church, with the sure hope that it will lead men to a better understanding of " the Faith once delivered to the saints," and so will help forward the time when we shall " all attain unto the unity of the faith, and unto the know ledge of the Son of God."
W. R C.
Advent, 1895.
NOTE ON INDICTION.
THE frequent designation of dates in this volume by the word Indiction seems to require a few words of explana tion. The word signifies primarily, a " declaration," and in particular, " a declaration or imposition of a tax," and finally, " a space of fifteen years." It appears in this sense for the first time about the middle of the fourth century, followed by a numeral from i. to xv. Originally it meant a " notice of a tax on real property," an assessment. From this it came to mean the year on which the tax was assessed, beginning September 1, the epoch of the imperial fiscal year. "It seems that in the provinces, after Constantine, if not earlier, the valuation of property was revised upon a census taken at the end of every fifteen years. From the strict observance of this fiscal revaluation there resulted a marked term of fifteen years, constantly recurrent, the Circle of Indictions, which became available for chronological purposes as a ' period of revolution ' of fifteen years, each beginning September 1 , which (except in the Spanish peninsula) continued to be used as a character of the year, irrespectively of all reference to taxation." See Diet, of Antiquities, s.v., where authorities are given. What is further necessary will be found in the text of the History.
viii
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
A MERE glance at the number of pages in this new edition (800 instead of 732) will show that it may be pro perly called an enlarged edition of this portion of the History of the Councils. Whether I am justified also in designating it as an improved edition, my respected readers will be in a position to judge after they have examined sections 284, 285, 289, 290, 296,1 298,1 314,1 324,1 360, 362, 366, 367, 368, 370, 374, 375, 378, 383, 384, 399, and 406- 408. Several ancient councils not previously known have now been inserted in their proper place, many new investiga tions have been made use of, many earlier mistakes and defects have been rectified. The most important alterations are introduced into the sections which refer to Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, and to Pope Honorius I. Occasion for the former was given by the recent investigations of H. Hahn, Diinzelmann, Oelsner, Alberdingk-Thijm, and others. With regard to the modifications made in reference to Pope Honorius, I have thought it fair to distinguish clearly every departure of the second edition from the first, which was in any way important. Even in the first edition, as well as in the Latin memorial [prepared for the Vatican Council], Causa Honorii Papce, I laid down as my conclusion : That Honorius thought in an orthodox sense, but unhappily, especially in his first letter to the Patriarch Sergius of Con stantinople, he had expressed himself in a Monothelite manner. This position I still hold firmly ; but I have also given repeated fresh consideration to the subject, and have weighed what others have more recently written ; so that I have now
1 Only these sections belong to the present volume of the English trans lation. The earlier ones belong to vol. iv. ; the later are not translated.
x AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
modified or entirely abandoned many details of my earlier statements ; and, especially with regard to the first letter of Honorius, I now form a more favourable judgment than before.
It remains incontestable that Honorius himself made use of the Monothelite expression una voluntas (in Christ), and that he disapproved the shibboleth of orthodoxy, Svo evepyeiai, (duce operationes), but he did both under a misunderstanding, since, at the beginning of the great dogmatic conflict, he had not clearly enough comprehended the two terms. That, in spite of the unhappy, heretically sounding expression, he thought in an orthodox sense, as already remarked, I main tained before ; but I must now add that, in several passages of both his letters, he did not endeavour to express the orthodox thought.
When, for example, in his first letter, he ascribes to Christ the Lex Mentis, he, in accordance with the Pauline manner of speech (Eom. vii. 23), which he followed, meant nothing else than the incorrupt human will of Christ, so that eo ispo he maintained two wills in Christ — this human will and also the divine.
If, nevertheless, Honorius would allow only unam volun- tatem in Christ, he understood by this the moral unity of the incorrupt human will with the divine will in Christ. No less do we find, even in the first letter of Honorius, indica tions that he himself assumed two energies or operationes in Christ (see below, p. 40); but he expresses himself much better on the subject in his second letter, when he writes : " The divine nature in Christ works that which is divine, and the human nature accomplishes that which is of the flesh," i.e., there are two energies or operationes to be distinguished in Christ. As, however, Hororius himself made use of the Monothelite expression una voluntas, and disapproved of the orthodox Bvo evkp<yei,ai, he seemed to support Monothelitism, and thereby actually helped to promote the heresy.
As in the first edition, so also now I hold firmly that neither the letters of Honorius nor the Acts of the sixth (Ecumenical Council, which condemned him, have been falsified; but also, notwithstanding the objections of the
XI
Koman Professor Pennacchi (see sec. 324), for whom personally I have a great respect, I still maintain the (Ecumenical char acter of those sessions which pronounced anathema on Honorius ; and I come to the conclusion, that the Council kept to the mere words of the letters of Honorius which they had before them, to the fact that he himself made use of the heretical term and disapproved of the orthodox phrase, and on this ground pronounced his sentence. In earlier times, tribunals generally troubled themselves much more with the mere facts than with psychological considerations. Moreover, it did not escape the sixth (Ecumenical Council, that some passages in the letters of Honorius were in contradiction to his apparent Monothelitism (see sec. 324). With greater accuracy than the Council, Pope Leo n. pointed out the fault of Honorius, showing that, instead of checking the heresy at its very beginning by a clear statement of the orthodox doctrine, he helped to promote it by neyligentia (cf. sec. 324).1
1 The rest of the Author's Preface has no reference to the present volume.
CONTENTS.
BOOK XVI.
THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSIES AND THE SIXTH (ECUMENICAL SYNOD.
CHAPTEE I.
THE OCCURRENCES BEFORE THE SIXTH (ECUMENICAL SYNOD.
PAGE
SEC. 291. Rise of the Monothelite Heresy, .... 1 ,, 292. Synod at Constantinople, A.D. 626, and Transactions at Hiera-
polis, A.D. 629 . . . . . 15
,, 293. Cyrus of Alexandria unites the Monophysites, . . IS
,, 294. Sophronius comes to the defence of Dyothelitism, . . 21 ,, 295. The seeming Juste Milieu of Sergius. He writes to Pope
Honorius, ....... 22
,, 296. First Letter of Pope Honorius in the Monothelite Affair, . 27 ,, 297. Synod at Jerusalem, A.D. 634, and Synodal Letter of the
Patriarch Sophronius, . . . . .41
,, 298. Second Letter of Honorius. His Orthodoxy, ... 49
,, 299. The Ecthesis of the Emperor Heraclius, A.D. 638, . . 61 ,, 300. Two Synods at Constantinople, A.D. 638 and 639. Adoption
of the Ecthesis, ...... 64
,, 301. Death of Pope Honorius. The Ecthesis is rejected at Rome, . 66
,, 302. The Synods of Orleans and Cyprus. Pope Theodore, . . 69
,, 303. Abbot Maximus and his Disputation with Pyrrhus, . . 73 ,, 304. African and Roman Synods for the Condemnation of Mono-
thelitism, ....... 89
,, 305. Paul of Constantinople writes to Pope Theodore, . . 93
,, 306. TheTypus, ....... 95
,, 307. Pope Martin i. and the Lateran Synod of A.D. 649, . . 97
xiii
XIV CONTENTS.
PAGE
SEC. 308. Letters of Pope Martini., . . . . .116
,, 309. Pope Martin I. becomes a Martyr for Dyothelitism, . . 118
,, 310. Abbot Maximus and his Disciples become Martyrs. The
Doctrine of Three Wills, . . . . .126
,, 311. Pope Vitalian, ....... 135
CHAPTEK II. THE SIXTH (ECUMENICAL SYNOD.
SEC. 312. The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus wishes for a Great Con ference of Easterns and Westerns, . . . .137
,, 313. Western Preparatory Synods, especially at Kome, A.D. 680, . 140 ,, 314. The Deputies from Rome and the Letters with which they
were furnished, . . . . . .142
,, 315. First Session of the Sixth Oecumenical Synod, . . 149
,, 316. From the Second to the Seventh Session, . . .153
,, 317. The Eighth Session, . . . . . .156
,, 318. Ninth and Tenth Sessions, . . . . .162
,, 319. Eleventh and Twelfth Sessions, . . . .164
,, 320. Thirteenth Session, . . . . . .166
,, 321. From the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Session, . . 169
,, 322. The Eighteenth Session, . . . . .173
,, 323. The Pope and the Emperor confirm the Sixth (Ecumenical
Synod, . . . . . . .178
,, 324. The Anathema on Pope Honorius, and the Genuineness of the
Acts of the Sixth Oecumenical Council, . . .181
BOOK XVII.
THE TIME FROM THE END OF THE SIXTH (ECUMENICAL COUNCIL TO THE BEGINNING OF THE DISPUTE RESPECTING IMAGES.
SEC. 325. The Synods between A.D. 680 and 692, . . . 206
,, 326. Examination of the Acts of the Sixth Oecumenical Council, . 219 ,, 327. The Quinisext or Trullan Synod, A.D. 692, . . .. 221
CONTENTS. XV
PAGE
SEC. 328. Judgment of Rome on the Trullan Canons, . . . 239
,, 329. The last Synods of the Seventh Century, . . . 242 ,, 330. The Western Synods in the First Quarter of the Eighth
Century, ....... 250
,, 331. In the East, Monothelitism is renewed and again suppressed, 257
BOOK XVIII.
THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT IMAGES AND THE SEVENTH (ECUMENICAL SYNOD.
CHAPTEK I.
HISTORY OF THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT IMAGES UP TO THE CONVOCATION OF THE SEVENTH (ECUMENICAL SYNOD.
SEC. 332. Origin of the Controversy about Images, . . . 260
,, 333. The first Synods in the Controversy about Images, . . 301
,, 334. John of Damascus, . . . . . .304
,, 335. The Emperor Constantine Copronymus, . . . 305
,, 336. The Mock-Synod at Constantinople, A.D. 754, . . 307
,, 337. Carrying out of the Synodal Decrees. Abbot Stephen, . 315
„ 338. The States of the Church threatened from the beginning by
the Greeks, ....... 317
,, 339. The Cruelties of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, . 318
,, 340. Three Patriarchs in the East are in favour of the Images, . 327
,, 341. The Franks and the Synod of Gentilly, A.D. 767, . . 330
,, 342. Contests for the Holy See, . . . . .331
,, 343. The Lateran Synod, A.D. 769, . . . . .333
„ 344. The Emperor Leo iv., . . . . . .338
CHAPTEK II.
THE SEVENTH (ECUMENICAL SYNOD AT NIC^EA, A.D. 787.
SEC. 345. The Empress Irene makes Preparations for the Convocation of
an (Ecumenical Synod, ..... 342
,, 346. The First Attempt at the holding of an (Ecumenical Synod
miscarries, ....... 357
XVI CONTENTS.
PAGE
SEC. 347. Convocation of the Synod of Nicrea, .... 359
,, 348. The First Session of Nicse, . . . . .362
,, 349. The Second Session, . . . . . .364
,, 350. The Third Session, . . . . . .365
,, 351. The Fourth Session, . . . . . .366
,, 352. The Fifth Session, . . . . . .370
,, 353. The Sixth Session, . . . . . .372
,, 354. The Seventh Session, . . . . . .373
,, 355. The Eighth Session, . . . . . .376
,, 356. The Canons of the Seventh (Ecumenical Synod, . . 377
,, 357. The rest of the Synodal Acts, . . . . .386
,, 358. Sketch of the Occurrences in the East until the beginning of
the Reign of Leo the Armenian, .... 391
POSTSCRIPT ON THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY, . . 394
APPENDIX.
Corrections and Additions to the First Volume of the History of the
Councils, taken from the Second German Edition. . . 401
Errata to Volume IV., . . . ... .451
Alphabetical List of the Synods, ..... 452
Index to Volume V.} . . . . . .463
HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
BOOK XVI.
THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSIES AND THE SIXTH (ECUMENICAL SYNOD.
CHAPTEE I.
THE OCCURRENCES BEFORE THE SIXTH (ECUMENICAL SYNOD.
SEC. 291. Rise of the Monothelite Heresy.
IN order to preserve entire the two natures in Christ, the divine and the human, the Nestorians had sacrificed the true unity of the Person. But in order, again, to save the latter, the permanent duality of the natures was given up by the Monophysites, and the proposition was maintained, that Christ was of two natures, but that after the union of these at the Incarnation we should speak only of one nature. In opposition to both these errors, it was necessary to maintain both the duality of the natures and the unity of the Person, and the one as strongly as the other ; and this was done by the Council of Chalcedon, by the doctrine, that both natures were united in the one Person of the Logos without confusion and without change, without severance and without separation (vol. iii. sec. 193).
The Council of Chalcedon had spoken only in general of
the two natures which are united in Christ, and a series of
new questions necessarily arose, when the two natures came
to be considered apart in their elements and in their powers,
v. — i
2 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
and an attempt was made to determine their special character in Christ. A standard for this inquiry was indeed given implicite in the words of the Council of Chalcedon : " The property of each nature remains " ; and in the passage of the celebrated dogmatic epistle of S. Leo to Flavian : " Agit enim utraque forma (nature) cum alterius communione, quod pro- prium est." But only a part of the orthodox understood how to draw the proper conclusions from this statement. The others did not penetrate into the sense of the words, and however often they repeated them, they remained for them a fruit, the shell of which they did not break so as to reach the kernel.
The question concerning the special character of the two particular elements and powers of the natures united in Christ was, chronologically, first raised by the Monophysites, in their controversies as to whether the lody of Christ had been corruptible, and whether His (human) soul had been ignorant of anything. For Monophysites who had let slip the human nature of Christ, it was obviously not admissible to inquire respecting the human soul of Christ, and the Agnoetoe were therefore excommunicated by their former associates, because the hypothesis of a^voew must lead, as a consequence, to the acceptance of the two natures. It was, however, natural that the orthodox should also take notice of the controversies of the Monophysites, and resolve them from their own point of view. From the question respecting the knowledge of Christ, how ever, there is only a step to that respecting His willing and working: and we can well understand that, apart from all exciting cause from without, and apart from all foreign aims, e.g., those which were eirenical, the dogmatic development would of itself have led to the question : " What is the relation between the divine and human wills in Christ ? " If an eirenic aim came in, and it was thought that, by a certain solution of this question, the long-wished-for union between the orthodox and the Monophysite might be brought about, the interest in this inquiry must naturally have been infinitely increased. But this influence of the practical element, on the other hand, destroyed the dispassion ateness and calm of the inquiry, and gave occasion to the
RISE OF THE MONOTHELITE HERESY. 3
Monothelite controversy, the course of which must now engage our attention.1
Heraclius, Byzantine Emperor since 610, soon after the first years of his reign, was forced to see how the Persians renewed the expeditions which they had begun under his predecessor Phocas ; how in repeated aggressions they seized and plundered many Eastern provinces of the Eoman Empire, laid waste Syria and Jerusalem, sold 90,000 Christians to Jews, bore the Patriarch Zacharias of Jerusalem into captivity, and plundered immense quantities of valuables, among them a part of the holy cross (A.D. 616). Soon afterwards (A.D. 619) they plundered Egypt, wasted Cappadocia, and besieged Chalcedon within sight of Constantinople. Heraclius wished to conclude a peace, but the Persian King Chosroes n. gave to the Greek ambassadors the insolent answer : " Your master must know that I will hear of no conditions, until he with his subjects shall abandon the crucified God and worship the Sun, the great God of the Persians." Heraclius, on this, took courage, and, concluding a peace with the Avari, etc., put him self at the head of a great army, and set out for the East against the Persians, on Easter Monday, 622, and, taking Armenia first, attacked them with success in their own country.2
1 We possess complete monographs on the Monothelite controversies — (1) from the learned French Dominican, Fra^ois Combefis, Historia hasresis Monothcletarum, sanct&quc in cam scxtae, synodi Adorum vindicise, in the second volume of his Auctuarium Novum, Paris 1648, fol., p. 1-198 ; (2) from the learned Maronite, Joseph Simon Assemani, in the 4th volume of his Bibliotliccn Juris Orientalis, Romae 1764 ; (3) from P. Jacob Ehmel (Benedictine of Brzevnov, and Pro-director of the theolog. faculty in the University of Prague), \indicise Concilii Ocumenici vi., prasmissa disscrtatione historica dc oriyinc, etc., Jteercsis Monothelitarum, Prag. 1777, Svo, 484 pp.; (4) Tamagnini, Historia Monotkelet. ; (5) Walch, KctzerMstorie, Bd. ix. S. 1-666.
" Theophanes, Chronographia, ad ann. mundi 6113, A. p. 613. ed. Bonn, vol. i. p. 466. Theophanes says that the Emperor celebrated Easter in Constan tinople, April 4, and set out with the army on the following day. But Easter fell upon April 4 in A.D. 622. It is known, besides, that the era which Theophanes follows is short by eight years, and every year begins with the first of September ; this year 613, therefore, begins with September 1, 621, and the Easter Monday of his year 613 is the Easter Monday of our year 622. Cf. Pagi, Critica in Annalcs JJaronii, ad ann. 621, n. 5, and Diss. dc Pcriodo (jfrscco- llomana, in vol. i. of the Critica, sec. 28 and p. xxxvii. Ideler, Compcnd. dcr Chronol. S. 448.
HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
Whilst he was in Armenia, as Sergius of Constantinople relates in his letter to Pope Honorius, " there came to him Paul, the leader of the Severians (Monophysites), and addressed to him a discourse in defence of his heresy, where upon the Emperor, who, by God's grace, was well versed in theological questions, opposed the heresy, and confronted the impious subtlety with the unadulterated dogmas of the Church, as their faithful champion. Among these he men tioned the fjila evepy€La of Christ, our true God, ie. that there were not in Christ two kinds of activities or operations to be distinguished, one divine and one human.1 This was the utterance of the Shibboleth of Monothelitism, consisting in this, that the human nature of Christ, united with the divine, possessed indeed all the proprietaries of manhood, as the Council of Chalcedon teaches, but that it does not ivork, but that all the operation and activity of Christ proceeds from the Logos, and that the human nature is only its instrument herein.
Pagi (ad ann. 622, n. 2 and 3) and Walch (Ketzerhist. Bd. ix. S. 19 and 103) have so represented the matter as to make it appear as though the doctrine of the pia, evepyeLa had not been uttered by the Emperor in opposition to Paul, but that Paul himself had given expression to it, and had won the Emperor to that side. This is incorrect, and is derived from an erroneous explanation of the authorities. Entirely without foundation, therefore, is the reproach brought by Walch (S. 103) against Combefis, who rightly understood the matter, and concluded from what happened that the formula of the pia evepyeia must have been known to the Emperor "before his interview with Paul, and this un doubtedly through Sergius.
Even later writers, e.g., Mosheim, not infrequently assert
1 Mansi, Coll. Condi, xi. p. 530 ; Hardouin, iii. p. 1311. Sergius only mentions generally that this took place when the Emperor stopped in Armenia on his expedition against the Persians. As, however, Heraclius, in his expedi tions against the Persians, was in Armenia both in 622 and 623, it is possible that this incident took place A.D. 623. But his stopping in Armenia in 622 lasted longer, and in the following year only a few days. Of. Theophanes, I.e. and A.D. 614, p. 471f. We cannot think of a later date than 622 or 623, for this incident necessarily occurred, as we shall soon see, before 626.
RISE OF THE MONOTHELITE HERESY. 5
that the doctrine of the /-u'a evepyeia was put forth for the first time on his arrival in Armenia, and that here we are to seek for the first beginning of Monothelitism. But, as Pagi long ago remarked (ad ann. 616, n. 6), the celebrated disputation of Maximus with Pyrrhus (see below, sec. 303) takes us several years further back, and shows that Sergius (since 610 patriarch of Constantinople) had given expression to this doctrine in letters before the year 619, and had secured patrons for it in several provinces. In that dis putation Pyrrhus maintained that the monk Sophronius (since 636 patriarch of Jerusalem) had very unseasonably begun the whole strife concerning the energies in Christ. Maximus, the champion of the orthodox doctrine, replied : " But tell me now, where was Sophronius (i.e. he was not until long afterwards on the stage of the conflict) when Sergius wrote to Bishop Theodore of Pharan (in Arabia), sent him the alleged letter of Mennas (of this later), tried to gain him over to the doctrine contained therein of one energy and one will (KOI evos &\ijfurn>9), and Theodore answered, agreeing ? Or where was he when Sergius at Theodosiopolis (Garin in Armenia) wrote to the Severian, Paul the one- eyed, and also sent to him the letter of Mennas and that of Theodore of Pharan ? Or where was he when Sergius wrote to George, named Arsas, the Paulianist,1 requesting that he would send him passages in proof of the pia evepyeta, that he might thereby reconcile them (the Severians) with the Church ? " This letter was received by Bishop (-TraTra?) John of Alexandria from the hand of Arsas. And when he was about to depose him (Arsas or Sergius) for this, he was prevented by the invasion of the Persians into Egpyt.2 It is known that Egypt was ravaged, A.D. 619, by the Persians, and that the patriarch, S. John Eleemosynarius of Alexandria, in consequence fled from hence to Cyprus, and died there in 620. Hence it is clear that Sergius had
1 A party of the Monophysites. Of. Walch, Ketzerhist. Bd. ix. S. 99.
- Mansi, t. x. p. 471 sq. Hardouin has not reprinted this Disputatio S. Maximi cum Pyrrho. It is found, however, in the Appendix to vol. viii. of the Annals of Baronius, in Mansi, I.e., and in S. Maximi, Opp. ed. Combefis, t. ii. p. 159 sqq.
O HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
entered into union with the Monophysite Arsas, on the subject of the pta evepyeia, before 619, and had intended, by the application of this formula, to bring about the union of the Monophy sites with the orthodox.
In what year Sergius had recourse to Theodore of Pharan is not mentioned by Maximus ; but it lies in the nature of the case that he first conferred with orthodox bishops on the admissibility of the p,ia evepyeta before he introduced the subject to the Monophysites. It was necessary that an approval should come first from the orthodox side, if Sergius was to hope for anything from his project of union. If, however, Theodore of Pharan had, at so early a period, given an affirmative answer to the question of Sergius respecting the admissibility of that formula, we can understand how his contemporary, Bishop Stephanus of Dor (in Palestine), who played an important part in the Monothelite controversy, could designate him as the first Monothelite.1 The sixth (Ecumenical Synod said, on the contrary : " Sergius was the first to write of this (the Monothelite) doctrine";2 and as, in fact, by his letter to Theodore of Pharan, he gave him an impulse towards this heresy, it can hardly be doubted that he first conceived the thought of turning the formula jiia evepyeia to the purposes of union. He says repeatedly that he found it used by Cyril of Alexandria, and in the letter of the former patriarch of Constantinople, Mennas (t552), to Pope Vigilius.3 He says that a whole collection of such passages occur later on ; but as Sergius has not adduced one of them, we must content ourselves with the supposition, that the most important of them were those to which Pyrrhus after wards appealed in his disputation with Maximus. At the head of them, as the banner of the Monothelites, stands the passage from Cyril (Tom. iv. In Joanncm) : " Christ set forth (rvyyevfj Si a^olv evepyeiav." 4 This certainly has a
1 In his Memorial to the Lateran Synod of the year 649 ; in Mansi, t. x. p. 894 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 711.
2 In the thirteenth session, in Mansi, t. xi. p. 555 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1331.
3 Mansi, t. xi. p. 526 and 530 ; Hardouin, t. iii. pp. 1310, 1314.
4 Several maintain that these words were interpolated by Timothy ^Elurus. See Maximi Opp. ed. Combefis, t. i. p. Iii.
KISE OF THE MONOTHELITE HEKESY. 7
Monothelite sound. But even Maximus showed (see below, sec. 303) that the great Alexandrian used these words in another sense and connection. " He was far removed," says he, " from ascribing only one <f>vcrt,Kr) evepyeia to the Godhead and manhood, for he teaches quite differently : ' No reason able person will maintain that the Creator and the creature have one and the same energy.3 Eather does he mean to show that the divine energy is one and the same whether without union with the manhood or in union with it, just as the energy of fire is one and the same whether in or without union with v\vj. S. Cyril, then, did not speak of one energy of the two natures in Christ, but said that the divine energy was one and the same, alike in the Incarnate Son as in the Father, and that Christ worked His miracles, not by an almighty command ( = divine energy), but asomatically ; for even after His Incarnation He is still o/toepyo? with the asomatically working Father ; but that He also worked them somatically by bodily touch (a<pfj)} and thus Si* ajjifyolv. The raising of the maiden and the healing of the blind, which took place through the word and the almighty will, was united with the healing which was accomplished somatically by touch. The divine energy did not do away with the human, but used it for its own manifestation. The stretching out of the hand, the mixing of the spittle and earth (at the healing of the blind), belonged to the evepyeia of the human nature of Christ, and in the miracle God was at the same time acting as man. Cyril did not, therefore, overlook the property of either nature, but saw the divine energy and the ^COTCKT] (i.e. bodily energy worked by the human soul) as united aa-vy^vTO)^ in the Incarnate Logos."
As a second witness for their doctrine, the Monothelites quoted repeatedly a passage from Dionysius the Areopagite (Epist. iv. ad Caium), and certainly this was also adduced in the letter of Mennas, although Sergius (Lc.) did not expressly refer to it. It is known that the Severians, at the Eeligious Conference, A.D. 633, for the first time brought forward the books of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, maintaining that there also only one nature of Christ was taught (see vol. iv. sec. 245). The Acts of that Conference do not show
8 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
to what passages in these books they appealed. If their contention was correct, and pseudo-Dionysius was a Monophy- site, he would naturally have taught only one energy in Christ. But in truth, pseudo-Dionysius expresses himself repeatedly in a sense opposed to Monophysitism. Thus he says (De divinis nominibus, c. 2, sec. 3) : " We must separate (distinguish), (a) the perfect unaltered human nature of Jesus, and (/3) the essential mysteries which are found in it " (i.e. the Godhead united with it) ; and ibid. sec. 6 : " The supernatural Logos takes His nature (human nature) entirely and truly from our nature." So, in sec. 10, he teaches : " The Godhead of Jesus, which transcends all, assumed the substance of our flesh, and God, who is over all, became man : without mixture or change He communi cated Himself to us. But even in His manhood His supernatural and transcendent nature shines forth ; and He was supernatural in our natural." And in the fourth letter to Caius : " You ask how Jesus, who is exalted over all in His nature, has come into the same order with all men. For not merely as Creator of man is He named man (the Areopagite thus teaches that all the names of His creatures belong to God), but because according to His whole nature He is a truly existing man. . . . The supernatural has assumed a nature from the nature of men ; but is never theless overflowing from a transcendent nature." As the Areopagite, in his theology, proceeded from the fundamental principle, " God is the true being of all things : He is in all creatures, and yet far above them, perfect in the imperfect, but also not completely in the perfect, but transcendent," in a similar, and yet again in another manner, he considered that Christ was true man, and yet far above man.
If in these passages he recognised the true human nature in Christ, so in that which immediately follows he passes on to the question respecting the evepyeua. " Therefore the transcendent, when He entered into the existent, became an existence above existence, and produced humanity above human nature. To this also testifies the Virgin, who bears supernaturally, and the otherwise yielding unsteady water, which bears the weight of material, earthly feet, and does
BISE OF THE MONOTHELITE HERESY. 9
not yield, but stands solid in supernatural power. We might adduce much besides by which we understand that that which is said of the manhood of Jesus has the power of transcendent negation. In brief, He was not man, as though He had not been man, but : From men He was exalted above men, and whilst far transcending them He truly became man. Moreover, Christ did not produce the divine as God, and the human as man ; but He has shown iis the divine-human operation of the Incarnate God " (ical TO \OITTOV ov Kara deov TO, dela Spdo'as, ov TCL avdp&TTiva a\\a av^pwOevros 6eov KOL Kaivr]V TLVCL €vep<yeiav r)p,iv TreTroXtrefyLtei^o?). In another passage, too (De div. nom. c. 2, sec. 6), Dionysius speaks of the " human divine-working," by which Christ had done and suffered all.
Superficially considered, these passages might be thought to teach that the two natures in Christ had only one common composite will, and that both together had only one operation. But in truth, Dionysius has in view only the concrete activities or functions of Christ during His earthly life, and says that they are not purely divine nor purely human, but divine-human. Earlier, before Christ, it was either God or man who worked ; there were only purely divine and purely human activities ; but now in Christ there is shown a new, wonderful manner of operation : the transcendent God works in a human manner, but so that at the same time the superhuman shines through, and the human is raised above itself. He walked, e.g., 011 the water, and this is, in the first place, a human action ; but the bearing up of His body by the water was divinely wrought. He was born — that is, human ; but of a Virgin — that is superhuman, and is divinely wrought. On the question, however, as to whether we are to recognise in the God-man a divine will identical with that of the Father, and, on the other hand, a human will to be distinguished from that, Dionysius gives no opinion.
In the same manner, S. Maximus, in his disputation with Pyrrhus, explains the celebrated passage of the Areopagite, and thus deprives the Monothelites of the right to appeal to
10 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
it. He asks whether Pyrrhus explains the /cawrj QeavSpitcrj evepyeia as something quantitatively or qualitatively new. Pyrrhus first thought it quantitatively new. Thereupon Maximus said : " Then we must assume a third nature, QeavSpiKrj in Christ, for a third energy (and it would be such, if it were quantitatively new) presupposes a third nature, since the element of proper essential activity belongs to the notion of nature. If, however, the new is qualitatively new, this cannot express pia Mpyeta, but the new mysterious way and manner of the human activities (energies) of Christ, which is a consequence of the mysterious union and peri- choresis (reciprocal movement) of the two natures in Christ.1 Indeed, proceeds Maximus, in the expression 0eav$pircrj evepyeia , as he adduces the (duality of the) natures numeri cally, at the same time also the duality of the energies is periphrastically (mediately) taught. For if we take away the two opposites (divine and human in Christ), there remains nothing between. And provided there were only a single energy in Christ, the QeavSpiicrj, then Christ, as God, would have a different energy from the Father, for that of the Father cannot possibly be divine-human." 2
As we have seen, Sergius also appealed, for his formula, IJLLO, Oeav&piKr) evepyeia, to a letter of his predecessor Mennas to Pope Vigilius ; but the examination of this at the sixth (Ecumenical Council (see below, sec. 321) made its spurious- ness more than probable (cf. vol. iv. sec. 267), and not a few have supposed that Sergius had himself manufactured this document, which no one knew of before.3 The introduction of unam operationem into two letters of Pope Vigilius could not have been accomplished at that time (see vol. iv. sees.
1 Another inaccurate explanation of the words of the Areopagite was attempted by Fr. v. Kerz, in his continuation of Stolberg's Geschichte d. Religion Jesu Christi (Bd. xxi. S. 389), when he says: " It is true that S. Dionysius speaks of a divine-human will, but this is no other than the human will, which, however, in all his actions, is ever . . . connected with the divine will, in everything subjects itself to it, and wills always only that which God wills ... so completely loses itself in the divine will, that both wills may figuratively be called only one will."
2 Mansi, t. x. p. 754. See below, sec. 303.
3 Cf. Walch, Ketzerhist. Bd. ix. S. 98.
EISE OF THE MONOTHELITE HERESY. 11
259 and 267), otherwise Sergius would certainly have also brought forward Pope Vigilius as a witness on his side. There is, however, no doubt that he thought in all serious ness that he had found, in the formula pia evepyeia, the precious means of bringing about the long-wished-for union ; and even if it were true, as Theophanes and those who followed him declared, that Sergius came from Jacobite, and so Monophysite parents,1 it would not therefore follow that he had intentionally and craftily put forth a formula in the interest of Monophysitism, which in its consequences should lead back to this heresy. On the contrary, it is very probable that, after he had made the supposed discovery, he immediately made the Emperor acquainted with it, and thus gave occasion for Heraclius' reference to the pta evepyeia in his intercourse with the Monophysite Paul in Armenia. Statesmanlike prudence demanded of the Emperor to make zealous use of that which appeared so valuable a means of union ; for, if the attempt succeeded, millions of minds which had been estranged by Monophysitism from the throne and the State Church would have been restored, chiefly in those pro vinces which the Emperor was now meditating to seize again, particularly Egypt, Syria, Armenia, and the countries adjoin ing the Caucasus. In Egypt the Melchitic party, that is, the orthodox and those who were well disposed to the Emperor, now numbered about 300,000 heads, whilst the Coptic, i.e. the National-Egyptian and Monophysite party, was between five and six millions strong.2 The proportions were similar among the Jacobites in Syria. No wonder if the Emperor, at the beginning of his campaign against the Persians, having in view the ecclesiastical reunion of the Oriental provinces, recommended the formula pta Mpyeuk He did so naturally with still greater urgency and energy after the successful termination of the campaign, and after he had, by the peace of the year 6 2 8, received back the lands which he had wrested from the Persians.
1 Theophanes, Chronogr., ad ann. mundi 6221, ed. Bonn, t. i. p. 506. Cf. Walch, I.e. S. 83, 84, 101.
2 Renaudot, Hist. Patriarcharum Alexandrinorum Jacobitarum, Paris 1713, p. 163 sq.
12 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
The next certain chronological point in the history of Monothelitism is the stay of the Emperor Heraclius in Lazia (Colchis), and his interview there with Cyrus, metropolitan of Phasis, A.D. 626. Theophanes says (p. 485) that Heraclius, in the year of the world 61 17, corresponding with September 1, 625—626, of our reckoning (see above, p. 3, note), had tarried for a considerable time in the country of Lazia, on a new expedition against the Persians. The same date, 626, for the interview with Cyrus, may be inferred from a passage of the thirteenth session of the sixth CEcumenical Council, where it is said that Cyrus had written to Sergius fifty-six years before.1 But an event still more important for the history of Monothelitism had preceded this of the year 626, as we learn from Cyrus himself, who in his letter to Sergius declares : " When I met the Emperor, I read the decree which he sent to Archbishop Arcadius of Cyprus against Paul, this head of the bishopless (aveincrKOTrwv). The orthodox doctrine is therein accurately set forth. As, however, I found that in this decree it is forbidden to speak of two energies of our Lord Jesus Christ after the union (of the two natures in Christ), I did not agree to this point, and appealed to the letter of Pope Leo, which expressly teaches two energies in mutual union.2 After we had further discussed this subject, I received the command to read your (Sergius') honoured letter, which, as was said, and as inspection showed, was a reply (avriypcKJiov) to that imperial decree (to Arcadius) ; for it also referred to that evil Paul and a copy of the decree against him, and approved of its contents. I received command in the first place to be silent, no longer to contradict, and to apply to you for further instruction on this point, that after the eV&xm of the two natures we should accept only ^iav rjyov/jievifcrjv evepyeiav." 3 Sergius repeats the same in his letter in answer to Cyrus, and then refers to
1 Mansi, t. xi. p. 558 sq. ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1335. Of. Pagi, ad ann. 626, n. 13.
2 He refers to the famous Epistola dogmatica of Leo to Flavian, in which (c. 4) he says : ' ' Agit ( = tvepyei] enim utraque forma cum alterius communione, quod proprium est." Of. vol. iii. sec. 176.
3 Mansi, t. xi. p. 559 sq. ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1338. Instead of/j.iav -rjyovfj.€viKr]v, the old Latin translator read plav tfyovv fj.ovadiK-rji', una et singularis operatio.
EISE OF THE MONOTHELITE HERESY. 13
Paul as chief of the Acephali,1 explaining for us more fully the aveTricrKOTrow in the letter of Cyrus, a matter which Walch (I.e. S. 25 and 105) has quite misunderstood.
From these communications we learn that the Emperor, after that vain attempt in Armenia to win the Monophysite Paul for the Church, issued a decree against him to Arch bishop Arcadius of Cyprus ; for no one doubts that it was aimed at Paul, since the Severians were only a division of the Acephali (opponents of the Henoticon), so that Paul might be designated sometimes with one and sometimes with the other of those names.
If it is certain that the Emperor had an interview with the Monophysite leader Paul, in the year 622, during his longer stay in Armenia, in order to gain him over to the union, we may with probability suppose that at the same time the union of the Monophysite Armenians at large was attempted, and for this purpose the Synod of Garin or Theodosiopolis was held. We have already spoken of it (vol. iv. sec. 289), and remarked that it has generally been assigned to the year 622, but by Tschamtschean preferably to 627 or 629. Some chronological data are lacking; but we regard it as contemporaneous with the interview between the Emperor and Paul, held for the same purpose and at the same place.2 It cannot properly be objected that it would, in that case, be strange that nothing should be said at the Synod of Garin of the pta, evepyeia, when that was done at the interview with Paul. We reply, (a) our information respect ing that Synod is so scanty and imperfect, that we cannot with certainty infer from its silence that the Emperor did not there employ the new formula for the purposes of union. Besides, (b) it is possible that the Armenian Patriarch Esra consented to accept the Council of Chalcedon without the bait of the pia evepyeia. Finally, (o) it is clear that the omission to bring forward the formula pia evepyeia at Garin, in the later years 627, 629, or 632, would be still more strange than in 622, since the Emperor, in the course
1 Mansi, t. xi. p. 526 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1310.
2 Assemani, in his Biblioth. Juris Orient, t. iv. p. 12, takes a different view. He places the Synod of Garin in 632.
14 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
of time, gained increasing faith in its serviceableness, from the year 626 recommended it with increased energy (as we learn from the case of Cyrus of Phasis), and presented himself more and more decisively as patron of Monothelitism. By removing the Synod of Garin to the year 622 we clear up several difficulties, and it becomes easier in this way to con struct the early history of Monothelitism.
We know (vol. iv. sec. 289) that the Emperor also brought Greek bishops with him to the Union-Synod of Garin. But who could have been better suited for the purpose, and whom could the Emperor have thought more of, than the bishop of his principal city, Sergius, who had made a special study of the union, and believed that he had discovered a universal means of securing it. Now, that Sergius was present in Garin, we learn from the disputation of Maximus with Pyrrhus, where it is said : " Where was Sophronius when Sergius, at Theodosiopolis (i.e. Garin), wrote to the Severian Paul, the one-eyed, and also sent to him the letter of Mennas and that of Theodore of Pharan ? " (See above, p. 5). If, however, Sergius was at Garin, or in Armenia generally, in the train of the Emperor, it is natural to believe that he took part in the transactions with Paul, and suggested to the Emperor the idea of the pla evep<yeia. That, in his letter to Pope Honorius, he said nothing of his participation, and represented the matter as though the Emperor had independently, as a great theologian, invented the formula in question, was dictated by prudence in regard to Kome and also to the Emperor.
That Paul was from Cyprus we infer from the decree of the Emperor to Arcadius. If, however, we assume that the Synod of Garin falls at the same time as the transactions with Paul, this explains his presence in Armenia, — he too was invited to the Synod, — and thus too we can better understand the decree to Archbishop Arcadius of Cyprus. We know that there were Armenian, i.e. Monophysite, congregations in Cyprus.1 The union of the Armenian patriarch at Garin drew on, as a consequence, the union of the churches affiliated to him. This was opposed by Paul, the head of the
1 Le Quien, Oricm Christ, t. i. p. 1429. Walch, I.e. S. 106.
SYNOD AT CONSTANTINOPLE, A.D. 626. 15
Monophysites in Cyprus ; hence the imperial decree to Arcadius, and along with this the demand that, in his position as metropolitan, he would forward the union throughout all Cyprus by the application of the formula fjula evepyeia.
Whether Paul, the one-eyed, to whom Sergius wrote, is identical with this Paul of Cyprus, may remain undecided ; but it is quite possible that, after the Cypriote Paul had departed from the Emperor and left Cyprus without entering the union, Sergius made another attempt to gain him for the fjLLa evepyeia, and so for the union, by sending him the letters of Mennas and of Theodore of Pharan. The imperial decree to Arcadius would in that case have come after the failure and in support of this attempt. Sergius, however, had in the meantime departed from Armenia, and therefore could only in writing further communicate his view to the Emperor on this decree and on the stiff-necked Paul, probably before the actual publication of the decree.
SEC. 292. Synod at Constantinople, A.D. 626, and Transactions at Hierapolis, A.D. 629.
After the transactions with Paul, says Sergius in his letter to Pope Honorius, there passed some time before the Emperor met Cyrus of Phasis (A.D. 626) in the province of Lazia, and that took place which we have related above (p. 12). In accordance with his command, Cyrus in a letter asked Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, for further ex planation on the fjiLa dvepyeia, and we possess his deliberate answer given at a Synod in Constantinople,1 among the Acts of the sixth Council. The principal contents are as follows : 1. In the great holy Synods this subject of one or two energies was not at all touched, and we find no decision given on this subject. But several of the principal Fathers, particularly Cyril of Alexandria, have in several writings spoken of a pla £o>07rofco<? evepyeia Xpiarov. Mennas, also of Constantinople, addressed a letter to Pope Vigilius of Old
1 We are assured of this by the Libellu* Synodicus, in Mansi, t. x. p. 606 ; Hardouin, t. v. p. 1535.
16 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
Borne, in which he, in the same manner, taught ev TO rov XpucTTov OeXrjfjia /cal fjiiav ^woiroiov evepyeiav. I forward to you a copy of this \6yos of Mennas, and append to it several other patristic passages on this subject. As regards, how ever, the letter of the most holy Leo, and the passage : " A git utraque forma, " etc., of the many opponents of Severus (the Monophysite), who have appealed to this letter, the common pillar of orthodoxy, not one has found in it the doctrine of two energies. I will mention only one, Eulogius, bishop of Alexandria (f 608), who wrote a whole book in defence of this letter (extracts from it are found in Photius, Biblioth. cod. 226). I have also added this to the patristic testimonies mentioned. Generally, no one of the divinely enlightened teachers up to this time has spoken of two energies ; and it is quite necessary to follow the doctrines of the Fathers, not only in their meaning, but also to use the very same words as they did and in no way to alter any of them.1
Of this, his answer to Cyrus, Sergius also speaks in his letter to Pope Honorius, adding that he had sent to him the letter of Mennas, but had not expressed his own view, and from that time the question in regard to Energy had rested, until Cyrus had become patriarch of Alexandria.2
This last assertion is contradicted by the Greek historians Theophanes, Cedrenus, and Zonaras, and also by an old anonymous biography of Abbot Maximus, when they assign to the year 629 (according to the chronology of Theophanes, 621) a transaction which the Emperor Heraclius had at Hierapolis in Syria (Zonaras, by mistake, says Jerusalem) with the Jacobite Patriarch Athanasius, and at which he had held out to him the patriarchal chair of Antioch, if he would accept the Synod of Chalcedon. The sly Syrian had con sented, on the condition that he was accustomed to teach only one energy. The Emperor, to whom this expression was new, (?) had thereupon written to Sergius of Constantinople, and had immediately called Cyrus of Phasis to come to him ; and as the latter by word of mouth, and the former in writing, declared in favour of the pia cvepyeia, Heraclius gave his
1 Mansi, t. xi. p. 526 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1310.
2 Mansi, xi. p. 530 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1314.
SYNOD AT CONSTANTINOPLE, A.D. 626. 17
approval to this formula, and made Pope John of Eome acquainted with this, without, however, requesting his assent.1 That this narrative contains inaccuracies cannot be doubted. It is impossible that the formula fiia evepyeia should have been new to the Emperor in the year 629, and that he should have been under the necessity then, for the first time, of questioning Bishop Sergius on this subject. It is impossible that he should, for the first time, in the year 629, have asked Cyrus of Phasis his judgment on this formula, since three years before he had himself made Cyrus acquainted with it ; and it is a gross anachronism to make the Emperor address a question to Pope John in 629, since John did not come to the papal chair until 640. Forbes of Corse, a celebrated professor at the Scotch University of Aberdeen, supposed that the Jacobite Athanasius and the Severian Paul were one and the same person;2 but how would this agree with Pope John and the year 629, since Paul had already had his interview with the Emperor, A.D. 622 ? And it was not Paul who made the Emperor, but the latter who made Paul acquainted with the pia evepyeia] whilst, in the case of Athanasius, according to the account of Theo- phanes, it was the reverse. Pagi declares (ad ann. 629, n. 2-6) the whole account in regard to Athanasius to be erroneous; Walch, on the contrary (I.e. S. 80 and 89 ff.), makes it credible, from Oriental sources, that a Severian Bishop Athanasius certainly met the Emperor Heraclius, along with twelve other bishops, that they presented to him a memorial (confession),and were required under threats to accept the Synod of Chalcedon. This Athanasius, Walch thinks, was the same whom Sophronius, at a later period, excommunicated in his synodal letter. We may add that the year 629 appears quite suitable for a discussion in Hierapolis ; for, in
1 Theophanes, ad ann. mundi 6121, t. i. p. 506 ; Cedrcnus, Historiannn Compendium, ed. Bonn, t. i. p. 736 ; Zonaras, Annales, lib. xiv. c. 17, t. ii. p. 67, ed. Venet. 1729 ; Vita Maximi, in the edition of the works of S. Maximus by Combefis, t. i. p. vii. c. 7. Cf. Walch, Lc. S. 60 ff. The author of this Vita is, however, later than the sixth (Ecumenical Synod, to which he refers in c. 38. He may perhaps be later than Theophanes (t 818).
2 Instructioncs historico-Micologicae, lib. v. DC Monothclctis, c. 1, p. 222, ed. Amstelod. 1645.
V. — 2
18 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
fact, after Heraclius had made peace with the Persians, A.D. 628, and had got back the portion of the cross of Christ which had been carried off, as well as the provinces which had been seized by Chosroes, he spent a considerable time in the East, in the years 628 and 629, for the purpose of restoring order in those provinces.1
SEC. 293. Cyrus of Alexandria unites the Monophysites.
After the death of Joannes Eleemosynarius, the monk John, the author of a still extant biography of S. John Chry- sostom, was raised to the chair of Alexandria (A.D. 620), and had to endure much persecution during the Persian rule over Egypt, but survived until the recovery of the country by the Emperor Heraclius, A.D. 628. At his death, some years afterwards (630 or 631), the Emperor raised Cyrus of Phasis, of whom we have already heard, to the patriarchal chair of Alexandria, in order, as the biographer of S. Martin declares, to soil this city with Monothelitism.2 There were not only very many Monophysites here, but they were split into parties among themselves. We have already seen (vol. iii. sec. 208) that both the (frOaproXdrpai, (Severians) and the a(f>0aproSo- Kr\Tai (Julianists) had their own bishop in Alexandria ; the bishop of the former, about the middle of the sixth century, being Theodosius, that of the latter Gaianas. The former got the name of Theodosians from their bishop, and they were united by the new patriarch, Cyrus, on the basis of the pia evepyeia. On this subject he tells Sergius of Constantinople : " I notify you that all the clergy of the Theodosian party of this city, together with all the civil and military persons of distinction, and many thousands of the people, on the 3rd of June, took part with us, in the Holy Catholic Church, in the pure holy mysteries, led thereto chiefly by the grace of God, but also by the doctrine communicated to me by the Emperors,3
1 Pagi, ad ann. 627, n. 10 sqq., 627, 9, and 628, 2.
2 In Maximi Opp. ed. Combefis, t. i. c. ix. p. viii. On the chronology, cf. Pagi, ad ann. 630, n. 3.
3 He says " the Emperors," because, in the year 613, the Emperor Heraclius had caused his son, Heraclius Constantinus, then one year old, to be crowned Emperor.
CYEUS OF ALEXANDRIA UNITES THE MONOPHYSITES. 19
and by your divinely enlightened Holiness, ... at which not only in Alexandria, but also in the whole neighbourhood, yea even to the clouds and above the clouds, with the heavenly spirits, there is great joy. How this union was brought about, I have sent full information to the Emperor by the deacon John. I pray your Holiness, however, that, if in this matter I have committed any error, you will correct your humblest servant therein, for it is your own work." *•
The information appended respecting the union relates : " As Christ guides all to the true faith, we have, in the month Payni of the sixth Indictim (633), established the following (9 K6(f>a\aia) : 2 —
" 1. If anyone does not confess the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the consubstantial Trinity, the one Godhead in three persons, let him be anathema.
" 2. If anyone does not confess the one Logos of the Holy Trinity, eternally begotten by the Father, come down from heaven, made flesh by the Holy Ghost and our Lady, the holy God-bearer and ever Virgin Mary ; who was made man, suffered in His own flesh, died, was buried, and rose on the third day, — let him be anathema.
"3. If anyone does not confess that the sufferings as well as the wounds belong to one and the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, let him be anathema.
" 4. If anyone does not confess that, in consequence of the most intimate union, God the Logos, in the womb of the holy God-bearer, . . . has prepared for Himself a flesh con- substantial with ours, and animated by a reasonable soul, and this by physical and hypostatic union (cf. vol. ii. sees. 132, 158); and that from this union He has come forth as one, unmixed and inseparable, — let him be anathema.
"5. If anyone does not confess that the Ever Virgin Mary is in truth the God-bearer, in that she bore the Incarnate God, the Logos, let him be anathema.
1 Mansi, t. xi. p. 562 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1339,
2 The Greek original has iur\vl Ilavvl. As the Egyptian month Payni began with May 28, the old Latin version, which has Mensi Mail die quarta, is plainly wrong. Undoubtedly, foiMaii we should read Junii (see above, p. 12). The sixth Indictim indicates the year 633. Cf. Pagi, ad ami. 633, n. 3 ; Walch, I.e. S. 113 ; and Ideler, Comp&nd. der Chronol. S. 73.
20 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
"6. If anyone does not confess : From (!) two natures, one Christ, one Son, one incarnate nature of God the Logos, as S. Cyril taught, aV^e7TT<»9, az/a-XXotcoTw?, or one united Hypo- stasis (see vol. iv. sec. 270), which our Lord Jesus Christ is, one of the Trinity, let him be anathema.
"7. If anyone, in using the expression, The one Lord is known in two natures, does not confess that He is one of the Holy Trinity, i.e. the Logos eternally begotten by the Father, who was made man in the last times ; . . . but that He was eYe/oo9 Kal erepo?, and not one and. the same, as the wisest Cyril taught, perfect in Godhead and the same perfect in manhood, and therefore known in two natures as one and the same ; and (if anyone does not confess) that one and the same, on one side (/car' d\\o), and suffered, on the other, is incapable of suffering, i.e. suffered as man in the flesh, so far as He was man, but as God remained incapable of suffering in the body of His flesh ; and (if anyone does not confess, that this one and the same Christ and Son worked both the divine and the human ly ONE divine-human operation, as S. Dionysius teaches (teal TOV avTov eva XpiaTov /cal vlbv evepyovvra TCL OeoTpeTrr) teal dvOpcJ&Triva fiia QeavSpiicf) evepyeia Kara TOV ev a7/ot<? Aiovvcriov), . . . — let him be anathema.1
"8. If anyone does not anathematise Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches, etc., and all who opposed the twelve chapters of Cyril, and has not amended, let him be anathema.
"9. If anyone does not anathematise the writings of Theodoret, which he composed against the true faith and against Cyril, and also the alleged letter of Ibas, and Theodore of Mopsuestia with his writings, let him be anathema." 2
We can see what efforts Cyrus made to render this /ce(f)d\aiov acceptable to those who had previously been Monophysites, in that he anathematised every form of Nes- torianism in the sharpest manner; whilst he brought back those expressions so dear to the Monophysites, ex &vo ij, and fjuia (pvcns TOV 6eov Aoyov
1 This is the infamous /ce^aXcuof which openly put forth Monothelitism, and will hereafter frequently be referred to.
2 Mansi, t. xi. p. 563 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1339.
SOPHRONIUS COMES TO THE DEFENCE OF DYOTHELITISM. 21
after the example of Justinian (vol. iv. sec. 270), certainly adding those phrases which set aside Monophysitism. Theo- phanes professes to know that Cyrus, in combination with Theodore of Pharan, brought about that union (TTJV v$po{3a<j>f} evcoaw = watery union), whereby the Synod of Chalcedon was brought into such contempt, that the Theodosians boasted that " the Synod of Chalcedon has come to us, and not we to that." 1 To the same effect speak Cedrenus and the Vita Maximi.2 The Synodicon maintains that the union in ques tion was brought about at an Alexandrian Synod, A.D. 633.3 But Cyrus, Sergius, Maximus, the sixth (Ecumenical Synod, and all the ancients who refer to this union, are silent on the subject of a Synod.
As was natural, this intelligence from Alexandria pro duced great joy with Heraclius and Sergius, and we still possess a letter in reply from the latter to Cyrus, in which he highly commends him, and repeats the principal contents of the K€(j)d\at,a. The meaning of the seventh he expressed in the words : Kal TOV avrov eva XpiaTov evepyeiv TO, 0eorpe7rr) fcal avOpcoTTiva pia evepyela, Tracra yap Beta re Kal avOpanrivr) evepyeia e£ e^o? Kal TOV avrov creo-apKco/iLevov Aoyov 7rpor)p%€TO. This doctrine, Sergius falsely maintains, is contained in the well-known words of Leo : Agit utraque forma 4 (see p. 2).
SEC. 294. Sophronius comes to the defence of Dyothelitism.
About the same time when the union was accomplished in Alexandria, the saintly and learned monk Sophronius from Palestine was present there ; and Archbishop Cyrus, out of respect for him, permitted him to read the nine
1 Theophan. Chronogr. ed. Bonn, t. i. p. 507.
2 Cedren. Historiar. Compend. ed. Bonn, t. i. p. 736. Vita Maximi, c. 9, p. viii. of vol. i. of the Opp. S. Maximi, ed. Combefis. In this Vita the ex pression u5po/r?a0?7s, watery, is taken as identical with colourless. "Walch, on the contrary, thinks (I.e. S. 113 f.) that it means that the union lasted only for a short time, and on the seizure of Egypt by the Arabians became water again. In fact, the Monophysites again got the upper hand.
3 Mansi, t. x. p. 606 ; Hardouin, t. v. p. 1535.
4 This letter is found among the Acts of the Lateran Synod of 649, in Mansi, t. x. p. 971 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 778.
22 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
before their publication. Sophronius disapproved the doctrine of one energy, and thought that it was necessary to hold fast two energies. Cyrus, however, endeavoured to sustain his doctrine by patristic passages, and remarked on this, that the old Fathers, in order to win souls, had here and there yielded in the expression of doctrine, and at the present moment it was especially unsuitable to contend about words, since the salvation of the souls of myriads was at stake.
Sergius relates this in his letter to Pope Honorius, which we shall give presently. But Maximus adds that Sophronius fell at the feet of Cyrus, and adjured him with tears not to proclaim that article from the pulpit, since it was plainly Apollinarian (i.e. Monophysite, see vol. iii. sec. 170).1 That Sophronius immediately wrote on this subject also to Sergius of Constantinople is a mere supposition of Baronius ; 2 whilst, on the other hand, it is true that, not suspecting that Sergius was not only entangled in the new heresy, but its actual originator, Sophronius now came to Constantinople in order to find here support against Cyrus. He wanted to gain over Sergius, so that the expression pia evepyeia might be struck out of the instrument of union. As he brought letters with him from Cyrus, it appears as though the latter had made the proposal to Sophronius to appeal to the patriarch of Constantinople as umpire ; and there is no reason, that we know of, for finding with Walch (I.e. S. 117) the conduct of Cyrus especially noble, for he imposed upon his opponent, and, instead of directing him to an impartial umpire, sent him to the zealous supporter of his own party. If Cyrus gave Sophronius another letter to Sergius, besides the one mentioned above (p. 18), it has been lost.
SEC. 295. The seeming Juste Milieu of /Sergius. He writes to Pope Honorius.
Naturally Sophronius did not succeed in gaining over the Patriarch Sergius to himself and the doctrine of two
1 Epist. Maximi ad Petrum, in Anastasii Collectaneas in Galland. Biblioth. Patrum, t. xiii. p. 38 ; and Mansi, t. x. p. 691 ; Pagi, ad ann. 633, n. 3.
2 Pagi, I.e. n. 4.
THE SEEMING c: JUSTE MILIEU " OF SERGIUS. 23
wills, yet he succeeded so far that Sergius would no longer allow the fiia evepyeua to be promulgated, so as not to destroy the peace of the Church, and in this direction he gave counsel and instruction to Cyrus of Alexandria, that, after the union had been established, he should no longer give permission to speak either of one or of two energies. At the same time he exacted from Sophronius the promise henceforth to be silent ; and they both separated in peace. We learn this more exactly from the letter which Sergius addressed to Pope Honorius soon after this incident, and immediately after the elevation of Sophronius to the see of Jerusalem (A.D. 633 or 634), and which is preserved for us in the Acts of the sixth (Ecumenical Council.1 This letter, from which we have already drawn so many details, after a very polite introduction, relates first what had taken place in Armenia between the Emperor Heraclius and the Severian Paul, and how then the Emperor had made mention of the pla evepyeia. " This conversation with Paul," he further remarks, " the Emperor referred to later on, in Lazia, in presence of Bishop Cyrus of Phasis, now occupant of the throne of Alexandria, and as the latter did not know whether one or two energies should be maintained, he asked us and requested that we would give him passages from the Fathers on the subject. This we did as well as we could, and sent him the (probably spurious) letter of Mennas to Pope Vigilius, which contains
1 In order to make out that the letters of Pope Honorius to Sergius were falsified, Bishop Bartholus of Feltre, in his Apologia pro Honorio I. (1750), has pronounced the letter of Sergius to Honorius to be totally corrupt. He has been recently opposed by Professor Pennacchi of Rome, although he is himself a zealous defender of Pope Honorius. Pennacchi declares most decidedly for the genuineness both of the letters of Honorius to Sergius and of that of Sergius to the Pope. Pennacchi's book, De Honorii I. Romani Pontificis causa in Concilia vi. ad Patres Concilii Vaticani, published in Rome, A.D. 1870, and sent to all the members of the Council, is the most important which has lately appeared in defence of Honorius (see below, sec. 154). The hypothesis of an essential falsification of these documents is, besides, so utterly unfounded, that any further discussion of it is unnecessary. It suffices to remark that the letters of Honorius were read aloud at the twelfth session of the sixth (Ecu menical Council, and at that time an official examination was made (by a deputy of Rome) as to whether the passages read were in enact agreement with the still extant originals ; and this was shown. See below, sec. 319. (Added to the second edition. )
24 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
such passages of the Fathers on one energy and one will (see p. 14), without, however, giving any judgment of our own. From this time the matter rested for a while.1
" A short time before this, however, Cyrus, now patriarch of Alexandria, sustained by God's grace and encouraged by the Emperor, summoned the adherents of Eutyches residing in Alexandria, Dioscurus, Severus, and Julian, to join the Catholic- Church. After many disputations and troubles, Cyrus, who displayed great prudence in the matter, at last gained his end, and then were dogmatic Ke$d\aia agreed upon between the two parties, on which all who called Dioscurus and Severus their ancestors united with the Holy Catholic Church. All Alexandria, almost all Egypt, the Thebaid, Lydia, and the other eparchies (provinces) of the Egyptian diocese (see vol. ii. sec. 98, c. 2), had now become one flock, and those who were formerly split into a number of heresies were, by G-od's grace and the zeal of Cyrus, one, confessing with one voice and in unity of Spirit the true dogmas of the Church.2 Among the famous Kephalaia was that of the pia evepyeia of Christ. Just at that time the most saintly monk Sophronius, now, as we hear, bishop of Jerusalem (we have not yet received his synodal letter), found himself at Alexandria with Cyrus, conversed with him on this union, and opposed the Kephalaion of the fiia evepyeta, maintaining that we should teach decidedly two energies of Christ. Cyrus showed utterances of the holy Fathers, in which the pia evepyeia is used (yes, but in another sense), and added that often also the holy Fathers had shown a God-pleasing pliancy (ol/covo^la) towards certain expressions, without surrendering anything of their orthodoxy ; and that now especially, when the salvation of so many myriads was at stake, there should be no contention over that Kephalaion, which could not endanger orthodoxy ; but Sophronius altogether disapproved of this pliancy, and on account of this affair came with letters from Cryus to us, conversed with us on the subject, and demanded
1 This is not true. Cyrus of Alexandria straightway adopted Monothelitism in his seventh Kephalaion. (Remark in the second edition. )
2 Sergius exaggerates, in order to make the Pope favourable. Not all the Monophysite parties, but only the Theodorians, had entered the union.
THE SEEMING "JUSTE MILIEU " OF SERGIUS. 25
that, after the union, the proposition respecting the pia evepyeia should be struck from the Kephalaia. This seemed to us hard. For how should it not be hard, very hard indeed, since by that means the union in Alexandria and all those eparchies would be destroyed, among those who hitherto had refused to hear anything either from the most holy Father Leo, or from the Synod of Chalcedon, but now speak of it with clear voice at the divine mysteries !
" After we had long discussed this with Sophronius, we requested him to bring forward passages from the Fathers which quite clearly and literally require the recognition of two energies in Christ. He could not do this.1 We, how ever, considering that controversies, and from these heresies might arise, regarded it as necessary to bring this superfluous dispute about words to silence, and wrote to the patriarch of Alexandria, that, after accomplishing the union, he should require no one to confess one or two energies, but that con fession should be made, as laid down by the holy and (Ecumenical Synods, that one and the same only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, worked (evepyelv) both the divine and the human, and that all Godlike and human energies went forth inseparably (dSiapercos) from one and the same Incarnate Logos and referred back to the same. The expression ^la faepyeta should not be employed, since, although it was used by some of the Fathers, it seemed strange to many, and offended their ears, since they enter tained the suspicion that it was used in order to do away with the two natures in Christ, a thing to be avoided. In like manner, to speak of two energies gives offence with many, because this expression occurs in none of the holy Fathers, and because there would follow from thence the doctrine of two contradictory wills (Oe\rjfj,ara) in 'Christ (a false inference ! ), as though the Logos had been willing to
1 Sophronius, perhaps at a later period, collected in a work now lost 600 patristic passages in favour of Dyothelitism, as Stephen of Dor testifies. Another collection of patristic passages for Dyothelitism by Maximus is still extant. S. Maximi Opp. ed. Combefis, t. ii. p. 154, and Combefis, Hist, hasres. Monothelet. Auduarium Novum, t. ii. p. 24. The sixth (Ecumenical Council (sess. 10) also collected a great number of patristic proofs for the Dyothelitic doctrine.
26 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
endure the suffering which brings us salvation, but the man hood had opposed it. This is impious, for it is impossible that one and the same subject should have two and, in one point, contradictory wills.
" The Fathers teach that the human nature of Christ has never, separately and of its own impulse (opfjurj), fulfilled its natural movement in opposition to the leading (vevpari) of the Logos which is united with it, but only when, and as, and in the measure in which the Logos willed it ; and, to put it plainly, as with man the body is guided by the reasonable soul, so in Christ the whole human nature is by the Godhead of the Logos ; it was #eo/aV?7T09, i.e. moved by God.1 . . . Finally, we decide that in future Sophronius shall speak neither of one nor of two energies, but shall content himself with the doctrine of the Fathers ; and the saintly man was therewith content, promised to keep to this, and only requested us to give him this statement in writing (i.e. the definition of the faith given by Sergius, contained in this letter), so that he might be able to show it to any who might inquire of him respecting the point in dispute. We granted him this willingly, and he departed again from Constantinople by ship. Shortly, however, the Emperor wrote from Edessa, requesting us to extract the patristic utterances contained in the letter of Mennas to Vigilius on the pia evepyeia, and ev 6e\7)/j,a, and send them to him. We did so. Yet, having regard to the alarm which had already been caused by this matter, we represented to the Emperor the difficulty of the subject, and recommended that there should be no more minute discussion of the question, but that we should abide by the known and the universally acknowledged doctrine of the Fathers, and confess that the one and the same only begotten Son of God worked both the divine and the human, and that from the one and the same Incarnate Word all divine and human energy proceeded indivisibly and inseparably (dpepicrTcos KOI
1 Sergius shows clearly, by this comparison, that he considered the human nature in Christ as purely passive without a will of its own. Our body is related passively to the soul, is simply guided by it, has no will of its own, and in the same way, Sergius says, is the human nature in Christ related to the divine. (Added to the second edition. )
LETTER OF POPE HONORIUS IN THE MONOTHEL1TE AFFAIR. 27
For this was taught by the God-bearing Pope Leo in the words : ' Agit utraque forma cum alterius com- munione, quod proprium est.' . . . We held it then as suitable and necessary to make your fraternal Holiness acquainted with this matter, enclosing copies of our letters to Cyrus and the Emperor, and we pray you to read all this, and to complete what you find defective, and to communicate to us your view of the subject in writing." :
We see that Sergius was willing to give up the open victory of his formula pia evepyeia ; but the error contained in it was not to be suppressed, and thus he managed that the opposite orthodox doctrine of two energies, Dyothelitism, should be set aside.2
SEC. 296. First Letter of Pope Honoring in the Monothelite
Affair.
Honorius, sprung from a distinguished family of Campania, after the death of Boniface v., ascended the Koman throne, October 27, 625. Abbot Jonas of Bobio, his contemporary, describes him as sagax animo, vigens consilio, doctrina clarus, dulcedine et humilitate pollens? He may have had all these fine qualities, and especially may have possessed a good
1 Mansi, t. xi. p. 530 sqq ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1311 sqq.
2 Sergius says, indeed, that there was to be no more speech either of one energy or of two in Christ ; but he does not at all accord an equal place to both expressions. The expression Svo tvtpyeiai, he maintains, has no patristic authorities whatever for it, whilst many Fathers had expressed themselves in favour of /*la frfyyeia, and the patriarch had collected many passages of this kind in his letter to Pope Vigilius. By the expression pia tvtpyeia great good fortune had happened to the Church (the union in Alexandria), and in the Kephalaia of union the /j.ta must remain (in spite of the silence), if the union was not to be again destroyed. The Emperor, he said, was also in favour of pia tvtpyeia. The expression Svo tvtpyeiai, however, would have very serious con sequences (relapse into Nestorianism). Accordingly, Sergius, when he at last recommended the avoiding of both expressions, yet wanted to insinuate to the Pope, that pia had much more in its favour, and must not be removed from the Kephalaia of union, whereas the Svo frtpyeiai was to be entirely rejected. One can see he was a Monothelite, and wanted to mislead the Pope. If the fj.ia tvtpy. was to remain in the Alexandrian Kephalaia, then Monothelitism was practically approved, and the whole talk about future silence deceptive. (Added in the second edition. )
3 In his Vita S. Bertulphi, in Baron. Annal. ad ann. 626, 39.
28 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
acquaintance with theology, and have fully understood the development of dogma up to this time ; but new questions now emerged, which at first, at least, he did not see through quite clearly, and certainly his friendliness and amiability (dulcedo and humilitas) towards others, especially towards the Emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople, contributed to land him in error.
The letter which he wrote in answer to Sergius is no longer extant in the Latin original ; but we still possess the Greek translation which was read at the sixth (Ecumenical Council, and then compared by a Eoman delegate with the Latin original then extant in the patriarchal archives at Constantinople, and found to be correct. From the Greek translation the two old Latin versions were made, which are printed in Mansi and Hardouin,1 and of which the first must have been prepared by the Eoman librarian Anastasius.2
The letter of Honorius is as follows : " Your letter, my brother, I have received, and have learnt from it that new controversies have been stirred up by a certain Sophronius, then a monk, now bishop of Jerusalem, against our brother Cyrus of Alexandria, who proclaimed to those returning from heresy one energy of our Lord Jesus Christ. This Sophronius afterwards visited you, brought forward the same complaint, and after much instruction requested that what he had heard from you might be imparted to him in writing. Of this letter of yours to Sophronius we have received from you a copy, and, after having read it, we commend you that your brotherliness has removed the new expression (fjuia evepyeia), which might give offence to the simple. For we must walk in that which we have learned. By the leading of God we came to the measure of the true faith, which the apostles of the truth have spread abroad by the light (Lout, rule) of the Holy Scriptures, confessing that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and man, worked the divine \vorks by means (/JiecriTevcrdo-ijs) of the manhood, which was hyposta tic- ally united to Him, the Logos, and that the same worked the human works, since the flesh was assumed by the God-
1 Mansi, t. xx. p. 538 sqq. ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1319 sqq., and p. 1593 sqq.
2 Walch, Ketzerhist. Bd. ix. S. 14.
LETTER OF POPE HONORIUS IN THE MONOTHELITE AFFAIR. 29
head in an unspeakable, unique manner, aSiaip&roos, arpeir- T&>9, do-vyxyrcos, reXetW And He who shone in the flesh, through His miracles, in perfect Godhead, is the same who worked (eveytfo-as, Lat. patitur) the conditions of the flesh in dishonourable suffering, perfect God and man. He is the one Mediator between God and men in two natures. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He is the Son of Man, who came down from heaven, and one and the same is the Lord of glory who was crucified, whilst we still confess that the Godhead is in no way subject to human suffering. And the flesh was not from heaven, but was taken from the holy God- bearer, for the Truth says in the Gospel of Himself : ' No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven ' (S. John iii. 13), teaching us clearly that the flesh which was susceptible of suffering was united with the Godhead in an unspeakable and unique manner ; on the one hand distinct and unmingled, on the other unseparated; so that the union must be wonderfully thought of under the continuance of both natures. In agreement with this, says the apostle (1 Cor. ii. 8), ' They crucified the Lord of Glory/ whilst yet the Godhead could neither be crucified nor suffer ; but on account of that unspeakable union we can say both, God has suffered, and the Manhood came down from heaven with the Godhead (S. John iii. 13). Whence, also, we confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ (o6ev KCLI ev 0e\rjfj.a 6/jio'\.oryov/JLev TOV Kvpiov ^Irjcrov Xpio-rov = unde et unam voluntatem fatemur Domini nostri Jesu Christi), since our (human) nature was plainly assumed by the Godhead, and this being faultless, as it was before the Fall. For Christ, coming in the form of sinful flesh, took away the sin of the world, and assuming the form of a servant, He is habitu inventus ut homo. As He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, so was He also born with out sin of the holy and immaculate Virgin, the God-bearer, without experiencing any contamination of the vitiata natura. The expression flesh is used in the Holy Scripture in a double sense, a good and a bad. Thus it is written (Gen. vi. 3) : ' My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh;' and the apostle says (1 Cor. xv. 50): 'Flesh and
30 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.' And again (Eom. vii. 23) : 'I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.' Many other passages must also be understood of the flesh in the bad sense. In the good sense, however, the expression is used by Isaiah (Ixvi. 23): 'All flesh shall come to Jerusalem to worship before Me/ So Job (xix. 26): 'In my flesh shall I see God;' and elsewhere (S. Luke iii. 6): 'All flesh shall see the salvation of God.'
" It is this, as we said, not the vitiata natura which was assumed by the Eedeemer, which would war against the law of His mind ; but He came to seek and to save that which was lost, i.e. the vitiata natura of the human race. In His members there was not another law (Eom. vii. 23), or a diversa vel contraria Salvatori voluntas, because He was born supra legem of human condition ; and if He says in the Holy Spirit : ' I came down from heaven not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me' (S. John vi. 38), and (S. Mark xiv. 36): 'Nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt,' and the like, these are not expressions of a voluntas diversa, but of the accommodation (oltcovo/jLias, dispensations) of the assumed manhood. For this is said for our sakes, that we, following His footsteps, should do not our own will, but that of the Father.
" We will now, entering upon the royal way, avoid the snares of the hunters right and left, in order that we dash not our foot against a stone. We will go in the path of our predecessors (i.e. hold fast to the old formulse and avoid the new). And if some who, so to speak, stammer, think to explain the matter better, and give themselves out as teachers, yet may we not make their statements to be Church dogmas, as, for example, that in Christ there is one energy or two, since neither the Gospels nor the letters of the apostles, nor yet the Synods, have laid this down. That the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son and the Word of God, by whom all things were made, the one and the same, perfectly works divine and human works, is shown quite clearly by the Holy Scriptures; but whether on account of
I
LETTER OF POPE HONORIUS IN THE MONOTHELITE AFFAIR. 31
the works of the Godhead and manhood (opera divinitatis et humanitatis) it is suitable to think and to speak of one or two energies (operationes) as present, we cannot tell, we leave that to the grammarians, who sell to boys the expressions invented by them, in order to attract them to themselves. For we have not learnt from the Bible that Christ and His Holy Spirit have one or two energies ; but that He works in manifold ways (TroXur/ooTrft)? evepyovvra). For it is written : ' If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His ' (Kom. viii. 9) ; and again : ' No one can say, Lord Jesus, but in the Holy Ghost; the gifts are diverse, but there is one Spirit ; and the offices are diverse, but there is one Lord ; and the operations are diverse, but it is one God that worketh all in all.' If, however, there are many diversities of operations, and God works them all in all the members of the great body, how much more does this prevail in the Head (of that mystical Body), Christ the Lord ? ... If the Spirit of Christ works in His members in many ways, how much more must we confess that, by Himself, the Mediator between God and man, He works most perfectly, and in manifold ways, through the communion of the two natures ? We, however, wish to think and to breathe according to the utterances of Holy Scripture, rejecting everything which, as a novelty in words, might cause uneasiness in the Church of God, so that those who are under age may not, taking offence at the expression two energies, hold us for Nestorians, and that (on the other side) we may not seem to simple ears to teach Eutychianism, when we clearly confess only one energy. We must be on our guard lestj after the evil weapons of those enemies are burnt, from their ashes new flames of scorching questions may be kindled. In simplicity and truth we will confess that the Lord Jesus Christ, one and the same, works in the divine and in the human nature. It is much better if the empty, idle, and paganising philosophers, who weigh out the natures, proudly raise their croaking against us, than that the people of Christ, simple and poor in spirit, should remain unsatisfied. No one can deceive the scholars of fishermen by philosophy They follow the doctrine of these (the
32 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
fishermen). All the arguments of cunning disputation are crushed in their nets. This will you also, my brother, proclaim with us, as we do it with one mind with you ; and we exhort you that you, fleeing from the new manner of speech of one energy or two, with us proclaim one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, true God, in two natures working the divine and human." l
We feel bound clearly to indicate every considerable departure of this second edition of our history from the first in causa ffonorii, that everyone may understand how we have previously judged, and what we now think on this subject. For this reason we repeat, first of all, the remarks with which we accompanied this letter of Honorius in the first edition : " We see that Honorius started from the dogma, — The two natures in Christ are hypostatically united in the one Person of the Logos. If, however, there is only one Person, then is there but one Worker present, and the one Christ and Lord works both the human and the divine works, the former by means of the human nature.
" Honorius did not grasp the subject aright at the very beginning. He ought to have put the question thus : From the one personality of Christ there follows necessarily only one energy and one will, or is energy and will more a matter of nature (than of person), and, in that case, has not the duality of natures in Christ also the duality of wills and operations as a consequence ? Now, this question he could have solved by a glance at the Trinity. In this there are three Persons, but not three wills, but one nature (essence) and, accordingly, only one will. But not considering this, he argues briefly, but inappropriately, ' Where there is only one Person there is only one Worker, and therefore only one will.' But however decidedly Honorius, from this premiss, maintains the ev OcXy/ma, he yet decidedly rejects the pta evepryeia. This one Worker, Christ, he says, works in many ways, and therefore we should teach neither filav nor Svo evepyetas, but evepyel TrdXvrpoTra)^. Honorius
1 Mansi, I.e. p. 538 sqq.; Hardouin, I.e. p. 1319 sqq. In the first edition the letter of Honorius was given somewhat less completely. But no passage of importance was omitted.
LETTER OF POPE HONORIUS IN THE MONOTHELITE AFFAIR. 33
has here misunderstood, or wished to misunderstand, the significance of the technical terms. He takes them as identical with the concrete workings, instead of with the ways of working.
" These expressions, /ua evepyeia and Bvo evepyeicu, he proceeds, are, moreover, approved neither by the Holy Scriptures nor by the Synods ; and they should be avoided, because their use produces new controversies. But why was there in Christ only one will ? Because, says Honorius, He assumed, not the human nature which was corrupted by the Fall, but the uncorrupted nature, as it was before the Fall. In the ordinary man there are certainly two wills — a will of the mind and a will of the members (Eom. vii. 23); but the latter is only a consequence of the Fall, and therefore could not exist in Christ. So far Honorius was quite on the right way ; but he did not accurately draw the inferences. He ought now to have said : Hence it follows that in Christ, since He was God and man at the same time, together with His divine will, which is eternally identical with that of the Father, only the incorrupt human will, which never opposes the divine will, could be assumed, and. not also the opposing will of the members.
" This would have been the natural and necessary inference ; but instead of drawing this, he leaves the incorrupt human will either entirely out of account, or more accurately, he identifies it with the divine will. Because the incorrupt human will of Christ is always subject and conformed to the divine, Honorius exchanged this moral unity of both with unity in general, or physical unity, with the latter of which we have here to do. Even the clear passages of Holy Scripture, in which Christ distinguishes His human will from that of the Father, could not decide him to recognise this human will. Exchanging difference for opposition, he thought it inadmissible to have two distinct wills in Christ, lest he should be forced to admit, in a heretical sense, two opposed and mutually contradictory wills in them." 1
To this criticism we will add what we remarked before,
1 Compare the author's treatise, Das Anathem uber Honorius, in the Tiibingen Theol. Quartalschrift, 1857, Heft i.
v-— 3
34 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
in the first edition, on the second letter of Honorius : l " He now says quite correctly, the divine nature in Christ works the divine, and the human nature performs that which is of the flesh, and we proclaim the two natures, which work unconfused, in the one Person of the only -begotten Son of God, that which is proper to them. In this Honorius pronounces the orthodox doctrine, and it would be quite incorrect to charge him with heresy." It is thus clear that we always were of the opinion that Honorius was quite orthodox in thought, but, especially in his first letter, he had unhappily expressed himself in a Monothelite fashion. The same fundamental thought we also placed at the head of our pamphlet composed during the Vatican Council in Eome : Causa Honorii Papce, the first sentence of which runs thus, Non ea res agitur utrum Honorius Papa in intimo corde suo heterodoxe senserit, nee ne. Still more clearly we explained ourselves there (p. 14): Eum (Honoriivrri) itaqiw in corde hceretice non sensisse, at tamen reapse terminum specifice orthodoxum (&vo evepyeiat) damnasse, et terminum specifice hcereticum (ev Oe\rjfj>a) sanci- msse.
This fundamental position I must still retain, that Honorius at heart thought rightly, but expressed himself unhappily ; even if, in what follows, as a result of repeated new investigation of this subject, and having regard to what others have more recently written in defence of Pope Honorius, I now modify or abandon many details of my earlier statements, and, in particular, form a milder judgment of the first letter of Honorius.
That Honorius did in fact think in an orthodox sense is unmistakably plain from the following. In his first letter he placed himself exactly on the standpoint of the Council of Chalcedon and the Epistola dogmatica of Leo the Great, and starts quite correctly with the dogma : In Christ there are two natures, the divine and the human, hypostatically united in the divine Person of the Logos, and this aSiaiperw, arpeTrTws, acrvyxyTws. Christ is accordingly perfect God and perfect man (plene Deus et homo). This one Person, the Incarnate Logos, works both the divine and the human (there is only
1 The following, to the end of the paragraph, is added to the new edition.
LETTER OF POPE HONOEIUS IN THE MONOTHELITE AFFAIR. 35
one Worker), — the divine by mediation of the manhood, the human . . . without detracting from the Godhead (plena Deitate), and, on account of this ineffable union of the divine and human nature, we may say (per communionem idiomatum) : " God suffered," and " Man came down from heaven."
On this Chalcedonian standpoint Honorius wished to remain, and again to cover up in silence the questions which had recently been cast up, and which had disturbed the peace of the Church. Instead of solving these questions, as was possible, by correct inferences from the decisions in regard to the faith laid down at Chalcedon, Honorius wished to stifle them. It might have been well, perhaps, if he had succeeded in this ; but he did not succeed, and his attempt to put them down was injurious to him and to the Church. As with the Council of Chalcedon, he confessed so energetic ally the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ, and added that each of these had remained in its perfection (plene Deus et homo and plena divinitate, plena carne), also that the differences of the natures had remained, he ought to have inferred from this, that there were only two energies and two wills (the divine and the human) in Christ ; for a nature without will and energy is not a perfect one (plena), indeed, scarcely a nature at all. But this inference, which resulted from his premisses, he did not set forth clearly either in regard to the wills or the energies.
In the first respect (in regard to the wills), he seems even to maintain the opposite. Speaking of the ineffabilis conjunctio of the two natures, he proceeds : Unde (o6ev) et unam wluntatem fatemur Domini nostri Jesu Christi. It is this very unde which occasioned our saying in the first edition : " Honorius inferred that as there was only one who willed, therefore there was only one will " ; and " he laid the will on the side of the person instead of on the side of the nature" These statements we can no longer fully maintain ; on the contrary, even in the first letter of Honorius, the words opera divinitatis et humanitatis show that the humanitas and the divinitas, and thus each nature, works and wills. In the second letter of Honorius, as we shall see, the will is still more clearly placed on the side of the nature.
36 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
Let us now consider in what connection the unhappy sentence, Unde et unam voluntatem fatemur Domini nostri Jesu Christi, stands, which literally taken is quite Monothelite. Honorius intended to reply to the remark of Sergius, who had written : " The admission of two energies would also lead to the admission of two wills in Christ, of which the one is opposed to the other, since the Logos is willing to endure suffering, but the manhood opposes. This is, however, quite inaccurate, for in one subject there cannot be two contrarice voluntates." Entering upon this, Honorius says : Unam voluntatem fatemur Domini nostri Jesu Christi. This means at the first glance : " You are right, Sergius ; we cannot admit two wills in Christ." As reason, however, why we should admit only unam volun tatem in Christ, Honorius proceeds : " Christ did not assume the natura vitiata with its corrupt will (lex membrorum et carnis), but the uncorrupted human nature, as it was before the Fall." Quite correct. Hence follows, however, not una voluntas in Christa, but DU^E voluntates, the divine and the incorrupt human.
Honorius ought, partly agreeing with Sergius and partly correcting him, to have answered : (a) " You are quite right in saying that we must not ascribe two contrarias voluntates to Christ, for He did not assume the natura humana vitiata ; (&) but, nevertheless, there are in Christ two wills, the divine and the incorrupt human." Honorius in his answer neglected the latter side. The former he set forth in the words : " We acknowledge only one will in Christ, because He did not assume the vitiata natura. If he thus, to the ear, uttered the primary Monothelite proposition, yet it is clear from his own words that he in no way regarded the incorrupt will of human nature as lacking in Christ, if he did not expressly assume it. He says, e.g., " Christ did not assume the vitiata natura, quae repugnat legi mentis efus." He thus recognises in Christ the lex mentis ; and this, according to the Pauline usage (Eom. vii. 23), with which Honorius is in accord, is evidently nothing else than the incorrupt human will.
The Monothelites, however, clung simply to the phrase, unam voluntatem fatemur Domini nostri Jesu Christi, and the fact that the Pope gave utterance to this their primary
LETTER OF POPE HONORIUS IN THE MONOTHELITE AFFAIR. 37
proposition must have given essential assistance to their cause. Professor Pennacchi of Eome l has indeed denied (p. 282), in opposition to me, that the Monothelites might have appealed to Honorius for their doctrine of only one will in Christ ; but it comes out quite clearly from the disputation of Maximus with Pyrrhus, that the Monothelites adduced that passage in the first letter of Honorius as on their side (see below, sec. 303); and the Jesuit Schneemann says quite accurately, in his Studien uber die Honoriusfrage ; (Herder, Freiburg 1864, S. 16): "It is certain that the conduct of Honorius was at least a mischievous error, and gave the greatest assistance to the Monothelite heresy. Encouraged and supported by his letters, the Greek Emperors put forth the EctJiesis and the milder form of it, the Typus, and endeavoured to give effect to those decrees by force. . . . Nor can we say that the error of Honorius was quite excusable. If he had gone to work with more consideration and examina tion, the endeavour of the Monothelite patriarch could not have remained concealed from him ; and, in fact, Sophronius had sent envoys to Eome with this very purpose."
We shall shortly see that the second successor of Honorius, Pope John iv. (see sec. 298), tried to explain and justify this unam voluntatem, by saying that Honorius, in opposition to Sergius, had only to speak of the will of the human nature, and therefore quite correctly said, we recognise only one human will in Christ.2 As, however, we do not find this kind of defence satisfactory, as will be seen, we believe that we can in another way explain how Honorius was led to this now ominous phrase, unam voluntatem. With perfect right he denied that there could be two CONTRARY voluntates in Christ, and was convinced that the lex mentis in Christ was in constant harmony with his voluntas divina, that it was
1 De Honorii i. Romani Pontificis causa in Concilia vi. Dissertatio, Joseph! Pennachii, in Romana studiorum universitate historic ecclesiasticse professoris substituti (for the blind Professor Archbishop Tizzani). Ad Patres Concilii Vaticani Romae, 1870, 287 pp.
2 The una voluntas with Honorius is not, as is here maintained, the one incorrupt human will. Honorius understands by the una voluntate the moral unity of the incorrupt human will with the divine will in Christ. (Note in the second edition.)
38 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
always morally one with it, and this unitas moralis he wished to bring out clearly. His words, Uncle unam wluntatem f (demur Domini Jesu Christi, thus have the meaning : " On account of the ineffdbilis conjunctio of the two natures in Christ, there are in Him, not two mutually opposed wills, but only one will, taken morally ; i.e. only one will-tendency, one moral unity of will, since in Him the human incorrupt will was always in conformity with the divine, and was always harmonious with it."
That Honorius meant, in fact, by his unam wluntatem, to express this moral unity of will, is clearly seen from the words which immediately follow, in which he assigns the reason why there is only una wluntas in Christ, namely, that He had assumed only the faultless human nature, as it were, before the Fall. Thus falls away of itself what we thought ourselves justified in saying in the first edition (S. 138): " Honorius interchanged the moral unity of will with the physical" We added there : " Even the clear passages of Holy Scripture, in which Christ distinguishes His human will from that of the Father, could not decide him (Honorius) to recognise this human will." These are the passages : " I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me" (S. John vi. 38); and, Non quod Ego volo, sed quod Tu vis, Pater (S. Mark xiv. 36).
Honorius adduces these passages because an opponent might infer from them, that Christ Himself said that there was in Him a will contrary to the divine, and thus duas con- trarias voluntates. In opposition to this, Honorius remarks : Non sunt Jicec diversce ( = contrarice) wluntatis, sed dispensa- tionis humanitatis assumptce, i.e. " These passages do not refer to a will in Christ which is opposed to the divine, but to an accommodation of the human nature assumed. For our sakes has Christ thus spoken, to give us an example, that we, fol lowing in His footsteps, should ever subject our will to the divine." It is clear, then, that he thus denied in Christ only a human will which was opposed to the divine, but not the human will generally. But, it may be asked, what are we to understand by the words dispensationis (olKovofiia^) humanitatis assumptce. In the first edition (S. 135), we
LETTER OF POPE HONOEIUS IN THE MONOTHELITE AFFAIR. 39
translated : " (Christ spoke those words) from economy (accommodation) with respect to mankind, whose nature He assumed." How this is to be understood we did not explain, but Schneemann contests the accuracy of this translation, since under suscepta humanitas we are plainly to understand the singular human nature which Christ assumed,1 and, by comparison of patristic passages, arrived at the result : " The meaning of the incriminated words of Honorius is as follows : The passages of Holy Scripture in which the will of Christ is opposed to the will of the Father do not point to a will which is in opposition to the divine will, but to an accommodation of the human nature assumed ; i.e. to a quite voluntary condescension to our weakness, in consequence of which the assumed (human) nature of Christ had those volitions of sorrowfulness and fear in presence of the suffer ing willed by His Heavenly Father " (S. 46). And (S. 47) Honorius says : " Those affections in which Christ recoiled from suffering, and which He described, in the passages quoted, as acts of His will in opposition to the will of the Father, proceeded not from desire, were not in opposition to His divine will, because they were aroused by voluntary permission in His human nature." No less (S. 50): "The Saviour, according to Honorius, said these things, not on His own account, as if the movements of His will, which received their description and their expression in those words (the unwillingness to suffer, etc.), had followed of necessity from His human nature, but for our sakes, in order to give us an example, He assumed that fear and sorrowfulness, and spoke those words in which He submitted those movements of His will to the divine will." The accommodation consisted, then, in this, that the opposition of will to the suffering willed by the Father was not a natural necessity in Christ (because He assumed human nature), but that HE voluntarily condescended to our weakness, and allowed His human nature to receive those movements of will. I wUl not be answerable for this exposition of Schneemann's, and I find the same thought in the beautiful synodal letter of Sophronius of Jerusalem, which
1 Schneemann, S. J., Studien ilber die Honoriusfrage, Herder, Freiburg 1864, S. 47 f.
40 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
meets us in the following paragraph, and in which it is said, " He suffered, and acted, and worked as man, when HE Him self willed, and when He regarded it as useful for the onlookers, but not when the physical and carnal movements wished to be physically moved to activity," i.e. non ex diversa wluntate.
Thus we have again the result : Honorius denied only a will in Christ which opposed the divine, and was constrained by His own promises to recognise, along with the divine, the will of the uncorrupted human nature in Christ, which was ever in conformity with the divine. He did not, however, say this plainly, but instead, put forth the unhappy phrase with the Monothelitic sound, unam voluntatem fatemur in Domino.
In regard, then, to the question of the Energies, Honorius, at the beginning of his first letter, commends the Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople for having got rid of the new expression, pia evepyeia, " which might give offence to the simple." He disapproves, then, the Monothelite pia evepyeia, which of necessity seemed offensive, not merely to the " simple," but to all the orthodox. But he does not rise to seeing clearly that, from the orthodox point of view, the opposite Bvo evepyeiai should be taught ; but, on the contrary, towards the end of his first letter, advises them to use this expression just as little as the opposite fjula evepyeia. (Hortantes vos, ut unius vel gemince novce vocis inductum operationis voca- bulum aufugientes, etc.1) Here again we see that he had only to draw the proper inferences from his own words in order to discover the truth. From the fact that he held, with the Council of Chalcedon, two perfect natures in Christ, there follows of necessity the admission of two energies or opera- Hones. A nature without energy is a dead one, not a plena. Honorius, moreover, said, at the end of his letter : Christum in duabus naturis operatum (esse) divinitus et humanitus. And similarly, at the beginning of it : Coruscavit miraculis and •7775 crapKos ra? SiaOrjcreis rot? ove&icriAols rov
1 When we said, in the first edition, that he had forbidden the term Sto this is too strongly expressed. An actual prohibition was not put forth by Honorius.
SYNOD AT JERUSALEM, A.D. 634. 41
The Latin translation is weaker : Passiones et opprdbria patitur.
About the middle of the letter, however, we read : Opera divinitatis et humanitatis. What does this mean but that the divine nature in Christ worked, and also the human, i.e. that we are to admit two energies or operationes in Christ ? If Honorius, nevertheless, thinks that we should speak neither of one nor of two operations, this shows that, when he wrote the first letter, the expression so often employed afterwards, operatic and evepyeia, was not yet clear to him. This is evident also from his statement, that Christ works in many ways (TTOXUT^OTTOJ?). By evepyeia and operatio he under stands, then, the concrete workings of Christ, instead of the kinds of working. In the second letter, on the con trary, as we have seen (p. 33), he expresses himself quite correctly.
Moreover, when Honorius, in his first letter, wished to know that the phrase " one or two operations or energies " was avoided, he was influenced by his desire for the peace of the Church, and by the fear lest, under the una operatio, Monophysitism might be foisted upon the Church, or, under duce operationes, Nestorianism. And we must not, in fact, forget that, at the beginning of the Monothelite controversies, men were much less in a position to estimate correctly the range of the terms fila evepyeia and Svo ivtpyeuu than at a later period.
SEC. 297. Synod at Jerusalem, A.D. 634, and Synodal Letter of the Patriarch Sophronius}-
Now at last appeared the Epistola Synodica of the new patriarch, Sophronius of Jerusalem, whose long delay had already been blamed by Sergius (p. 24). This is almost the most important document in the whole Monothelite con troversy ; a great theological treatise, which expatiated on all the chief doctrines, especially the Trinity and the Incarnation, and richly discussed the doctrine of two energies in Christ. It brought out the nature of the subject, and Theophanes, as
1 This paragraph remains unaltered in the second edition.
42 HISTOKY OF THE COUNCILS.
well as the Vita S. Maximi, testifies 1 that of the portion on the principal subject, similar copies were sent to all the patriarchs. The copy which was sent to Sergius has come down to us among the Acts of the eleventh session of the sixth (Ecumenical Council.2 In agreement with Theophanes and the author of the Vita Maximi (ll.cc.), the Synodicon says, Sophronius, on ascending the throne, held a Synod in Jeru salem (634), and here the rejection of Monothelitism and the solemn proclamation of Dyothelitism were decreed.3 Walch 4 holds the opinion that, at that time, when Palestine was so grievously oppressed by the Saracens, Sophronius could hardly have held a Synod, and even although his epistle had been named in the sixth GEcumenical Council,5 this proves nothing, as it had been the fashion to call epistles written on a bishop's enthronisation (ov\\a^al evdpovia-Tiicai) by the name of o-vvoSi/cd® The learned man did not consider that at the consecration of each new bishop, especially of a patri arch, several bishops had to be present and take part, that on such occasions, and also at the consecration of new churches, it was customary to hold Synods, and an evOpovio-n/cov for this very reason was called a <TVVO§IKOV-
The letter of Sophronius begins with the assurance that, in his high position, he longed for his former peace and lowliness, and that he had undertaken the bishopric only when constrained or even tyrannically compelled. Therefore he commends himself to his colleagues, and prays that they will support him like fathers and brothers. It was an old custom that a bishop, at his entrance upon office, should lay his creed before the other bishops. This he also did, and they could examine his confession, and amend it where it was defective.
1 Theophanes, Chronogr., in the Bonn edition of the so-called Byzantines, t. i. p. 507 ; Vita Maximi, in Combefis' edition of the Opp. S. Maximi, t. i. p. ix. c. 11. Both, however, make the mistake of calling the Pope, John. Honorius lived until 638.
2 Mansi, t. xi. pp. 461-508 ; Hardouin, t. iii. pp. 1257-1296.
3 Libellus Synodicus, in Mansi, t. x. p. 607 ; Hardouin, t. v. p. 1535.
4 Ketzerhist. Bd. ix. S. 135.
5 Mansi, t. xi. p. 461; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1257. We may add that Sophronius himself calls his letter once <rv\\apat ffwoSucat, and again, yp&wa. avvoducdv. Mansi, I.e. p. 472 ; Hardouin, I.e. p. 1265.
6 Bingham, Origines, t. i. p. 171 sq.
SYNOD AT JERUSALEM, A.D. 634. 43
After this Introduction follows the kernel of the whole letter in the form of a Creed. The first passage treats of the Trinity without touching upon the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. The second part, which is much more complete, is dedicated to the doctrine of the Incarnation, and speaks, in the spirit of the Council of Chalcedon and of the Edict of Justinian against the Three Chapters (vol. iv. sec. 263), of a pia vTToaracris XpiaTov avvQeTos, repeats Cyril's ex pression, /xta </wcri5 rov ©eov Aoyov crecra/JKw/Ae'z'?/, and opposes Docetism, Nestorianism, and Monophysitism. After bringing out very clearly the unity of the person and the duality of the natures, Sophronius passes on thus to the new question : " Christ is ei> Kal &vo. He is ONE in hypostasis and person, but two in natures and in their natural properties. Of these HE is permanently one, and yet ceases not to be dual in nature. Therefore one and the same Christ and Son and only- begotten is recognised undivided in both natures, and HE worked ^uo-t/ow? the works of each nature (ovaia), according to the essential quality or natural property belonging to each nature,1 which would not have been possible if He possessed only one single or composite nature as well as one hypostasis. He who is one and the same could not then have perfectly performed the works of each nature. .For when did the Godhead without a body perform the works of the body (/JUG-^W? 1 Or when did a body, unconnected with the God head, perform works which belong essentially to the Godhead ? Emmanuel, however, who is one, and in this unity two, God and man, did in truth perform the works of each of the two natures : one and the same, as God the divine, as man the human. One and the same HE acts and speaks divinely and humanly. It is not one who worked the miracles, another who performed the human works and endured the sufferings, as Nestorius thought, but one and the same Christ and Son performed the divine and the human, but /car a\\o
1 Mansi has here, by a misprint, given a wrong text. The correct runs : Kal TO, erfyas 0i/<riKws oixrias elpyd^ero, Kara TT]V eKartpq. irpo<rov<rav ovcriuid-rj 71-016x77x01 1) Kal 0wn/cT> t'StoTT/ra. Hardouin, I.e. p. 1272 ; Mansi, I.e. p. 480. Rosier, in his Bibliothek der Kirchenvdter, Bd. x. S. 414, gives the inaccurate text of Mansi and a very incorrect translation.
44 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
Kal aAAo, as S. Cyril taught. In each of the two natures he had the power (egovo-lav, i.e. for natural working) unconfused, but also unseparated. In so far as He is eternal God, He performed the miracles ; but in so far as, in the last times, He became man, did He perform the humble and human works. As in Christ each nature possesses its property inviolable, so each form (nature) works, in communion with the other, what is proper to itself.1 The Logos works what belongs to the Logos, in communion with the body ; and the body accomplishes what belongs to the body,2 in union with the Logos, and yet in one hypostasis, far from any separation ; for not as separated did they (the two formce) work that which was proper to them, so that we cannot think of a separation of them (the formce). Therefore Nestorius has no cause for rejoicing ; for neither of the two natures worked by itself, and without communion with the other, that which is proper to it, and we do not teach, as he did, two working Christs and Sons, although we recognise two forms working in communion, each of which works according to its own natural property. Moreover, we say, there is one and the same Christ who has physically accomplished the lofty and the lowly according to the physical and essential quality of each of His two natures ; for the unchanged and unmingled natures were in no way deprived of those (special qualities and properties). Nor have Eutyches and Dioscurus reason for rejoicing, those teachers of the divine mingling ; for each nature has in communion with the other accomplished that which is proper to it, without separation and without inter change, preserving its distinction from the other. Therefore, as on the one side we teach that one and the same Christ and Son works both, so on the other side, by the proposi tion that each form works in communion with the other what is proper to itself, whilst there are in Christ two forms working naturally what is proper to them, so we, as orthodox Christians, indicate 110 separation, rejecting both the Eutychians and the Nestorians, who, although opposed
1 The words of Leo I. in his famous Epistola, ad Flavianum : " Agit enini utraque forma (natura) cum alterius comnmnione, quod proprium est."
2 Sophronius here takes ercD/m as identical with cra/>£ = human nature.
SYNOD AT JERUSALEM, A.D. 634. 45
to each other, yet take common part in the impious war against us.
" Not regarding these, we recognise the 'special energy of each nature, and a physical energy which belongs to their essence, and which has communion with the other, which proceeds unseparated from each essence and nature according to the physical and essential quality which dwells in it, and at the same time takes with it the unseparated and unmingled energy of the other nature (is united with it). This makes the distinction of energies in Christ, as the existence of the natures makes the distinction of natures. For the Godhead and the manhood are not identical in their natural quality, although they are united in one hypos tasis in an ineffable manner, ... for God the Logos is the Word of God, and not flesh, although He has also logically (through the reason) assumed living flesh, and united it with Himself by hypo- statical and physical eWcri? (in the sense of Cyril. Cf . vol. iv . sec. 263); and the flesh is logically made alive, but it is not Logos, although it is the flesh of God the Logos. Therefore they have not, even after the hypostatic union, the same energy un- distinguishable the one from the other ; and we do not confess one only natural energy, belonging to the essence and quite un distinguished in both, so that we may not press the two natures into one essence (ova La) and one nature, as the Acephali do.
" As, then, we ascribe an energy of its own to each of the two natures which are united unmingled in Christ, in order not to mingle the two natures which are united but not mingled, since the natures are known by their energies, and by them alone, and the difference of the natures from the difference of the energies, as those who have understanding in these things declare ; so we maintain all the speech and energy (activity, action) of Christ, whether divine and heavenly or human and earthly, proceed from one and the same Christ and Son, from the one compound (avvOeros) and unique hypostasis which is the Incarnate Logos of God, who brings forth (frvo-ircw from Himself both energies unseparated and unmixed according to (fcara) His natures. According to His divine nature, by which HE is ofioovaios with the Father, (He brings forth) the divine and ineffable energy ; according to His human nature, by which
46 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
He became O^OOVO-LOS with us man — the human and earthly ; and the energy is ever in accordance with the nature to which (belongs. . . . • By this, that one and the same Christ and Son works both, HE (Christ) opposes Nestorianism ; but by this, that the properties of each nature remained unmingled, and He (Christ) produced the two energies of the two natures equally, . . . He has set aside Eutychianism. Therefore, born in the same manner as we, He is fed with milk, grows, passes through the bodily changes of age up to manhood, felt hunger and thirst like us, and like us grew weary by walking. for He put forth the same energy in walking as we do, which is an avOpwirivws evepyovfJLevrj, and, going forth in accordance with human nature, was a proof of His human nature. He went then, like us, from one place to another, as He had truly become man ; and as He possessed our nature without diminution, He likewise participated in the outline (form) of the body, and had a form similar to ours. This is the bodily form to which HE was shaped in His mother's womb, and which He will for ever preserve inviolate. There fore HE ate when HE was hungry, drank when HE was thirsty, and drank like a man ; therefore He was, when a child, carried in the arms of the Virgin and lay on His mother's bosom. Therefore He sat down when He was weary, and slept when He had need of sleep ; experienced pain when He was struck, suffered from scourging, and endured pains of the body when He was nailed by His hands and feet to the cross ; for He gave and granted to the human nature, when HE would, time to work (evepyelv) and to suffer, which is proper to it, that His incarna tion should not be regarded as mere appearance. Not unwillingly or by constraint did He undertake this, although He let it come to Him physically and humanly, and worked and acted in human movements. Such a shocking opinion be far from us ! For HE who endured such sufferings in the flesh was God, who redeemed us by His sufferings, and thereby procured for us deliverance from suffering. And He suffered and acted and worked humanly, when HE Himself willed, and when He regarded it as profitable for the onlookers ; and not when the natural and carnal movements willed to be naturally moved to operation; although His impious enemies sought to accomplish their malice
SYNOD AT JERUSALEM, A.D. 634. 47
— (He suffered only when HE willed). He had assumed a passible and mortal and perishable body, which was subject to natural and sinless feelings, and to this He appointed that, in accordance with its nature, it should suffer and labour until the resurrection from the dead. For then He released our passible and mortal and perishable part, and granted us deliverance from this. So HE voluntarily manifested the humble and human as (frvaifcw, yet .remaining God in this. He was for Himself ruler over His human sufferings and actions, and not merely ruler, lut also Lord over them, although He had become physically flesh in a passible nature. Therefore was His humanity superior to man, not as though His nature was not human, but in so far as He had voluntarily become man, and as man had undertaken sufferings, and not by compulsion and of necessity and against His will, as is the case with us, but when and how far He willed. To those who prepared sufferings for Him He gave permission, and He yielded approval to the physically worked sufferings. His divine acts, however, the glorious and exalted, which far transcend our poverty, namely, the miracles and signs, wonder-rousing works, e.g., the conception without seed, the leaping of John in his mother's womb, the birth without fraction, the inviolate virginity, the heavenly message to the shepherds, the an nouncement by the star to the magi, the knowledge without having learnt (S. John vii. 15), the change of the water into wine, the strengthening of the lame, the healing of the blind, etc., etc., the sudden feeding of the hungry, the stilling of the wind and the sea, the bodily walking on the waters, the expul sion of unclean spirits, the sudden convulsion of the elements, the self-opening of the graves, the rising from the dead after three days, unhindered going forth from the watched grave in spite of stone and seal, the entering through closed doors, the miraculous and corporeal ascent into heaven, and all of the same character, which is above our understanding and above our words, and transcends all human thought, all these things were recognisable proofs of the divine being and nature of God the Logos, if they were performed by flesh and body, and not without the body quickened by reason. . . . He who, in hypostasis, is the one and unseparated Son with two
48 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
natures, by the one worked the divine signs, by the other undertook the lower, and therefore, say those who are taught of God : If you hear opposing expressions on the one Son, distribute them according to the natures ; the great and divine ascribe to the divine nature, the low and the human to the human. . . . Further, they say, in regard to the Son : All energy belongs to the ONE Son ; but to which nature that which is wrought is proper must le learnt ly the understanding. Very finely do they teach that we must confess one Emmanuel, for so is the Incarnate Logos named ; and this one (and not an aXXo? KOI aXXo?) works all, the high and the low, without excep tion, ... all words and deeds (energies) belong to one and the same, although the one are Godlike, others manlike ; and, again, others have an intermediate character, and have the Godlike and the manlike together. Of this kind is that KOLvrf (icaivr)) /cal QeavSpiKrj evepyeia of Dionysius the Areo- pagite, which is not one, but of two kinds, so far as it has at once the Godlike and the human, and, by a compound naming of the one and of the other nature and essence, completely discloses each of the two energies."
The third division of the letter of Sophronius refers to the creation of the world : " The Father made all things through the Son in the Holy Spirit. The sensuous creatures have an end, the intellectual and supersensuous do not die ; yet are they not by nature immortal, but through grace, as the souls of men and the angels." Then the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls is rejected, and this and other errors of Origen condemned, especially the doctrine of the aTro/caTa- crrao-is, against which Sophronius quotes the doctrine of the Church on the end of the world, on the future life, on hell and heaven. Further, he declares his adhesion to the five (Ecumenical Councils and their declarations of faith ; also, that he recognises all the writings of Cyril, especially those against Nestorius, his synodal letters with the twelve anathematisms ; also, his letter of union (see vol. iii. sec. 157), and the writings of the Orientals agreeing therewith ; further, the letter of Leo to Flavian, and all his letters ; generally, he says he accepts all that the Church accepts, and rejects all that she rejects. In particular, he pronounces anathema on Simon
SECOND LETTER OF HONORIUS. HIS ORTHODOXY. 49
Magus, etc., etc., mentioning by name a great number of heretics and heresies from the earliest times up to the different Monophysite sects and their latest leaders. At the close, he prays his colleagues again to correct what is defective in this synodal letter of his, which he will very thankfully receive, and commends to their prayers, himself, his Church, and the Emperors, to whom he wishes victory, especially over the Saracens, who at this time so grievously afflict and threaten the Eoman Empire.1
SEC. 298. Second Letter of Honorius. His Orthodoxy.
What results the synodal letter of Sophronius produced is unknown. We only know that Sergius, as one of the speakers at the sixth (Ecumenical Council asserts, did not receive it; and if Walch (Ketzerhist. Bd. ix. S. 137),2 in oppo sition to Combefis, maintains that none of the ancients knew anything of this, he has overlooked the passage in question in the synodal Acts just mentioned. Moreover, he is wrong in thinking that Sergius made another attempt to avert the threatening storm, and therefore turned to Cyrus and Honorius. In favour of this he appeals to two still extant fragments of a letter from Pope Honorius to Sergius, pre served among the Acts of the thirteenth session of the sixth (Ecumenical Council ; 3 but these only show that the Pope, and not Sergius, made repeated attempts to secure peace.
The first fragment from the letter of the Pope says : '* We have also written to Cyrus of Alexandria, that the newly invented expression may be rejected, one or two energies, . . . for those who use such expressions, what else do they want than the term : Copying one or two natures, so to introduce one or two energies. In respect to the natures, the doctrine of the Bible is clear ; but it is quite idle to ascribe one or two energies to the Mediator between God and man."
The second fragment, at the close of the letter, runs :
1 On the life of Sophronius, cf. the article in the Kirclicnlcxicon of Wetzer and Welte, s.v.
2 Sess. 10 in Mansi, t. xi. p. 455 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1251.
3 Mansi, I.e. p. 579 ; Hardouin, I.e. p. 1351.
v.— 4
50 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
" This we wished to bring to the knowledge of your fraternity by this letter. Moreover, with regard to the ecclesiastical dogma, and what we ought to hold and teach, on account of the simplicity of men and to avoid controversies, we must, as I have already said, assert neither one nor two energies in the Mediator between God and men, but must confess that both natures are naturally united in the one Christ, that each in communion with the other worked and acted (pperantes atque operatrices ; Greek, evepyovcras KCU irpaKTiicds) ; the divine works the divine, and the human performs that which is of the flesh (these are the well-known words of Leo I.), with out separation and without mixture, and without the nature of God being changed into the manhood, or the human nature into the Godhead. For one and the same is lowly and exalted, equal to the Father and inferior to the Father . . . Thus keeping away, as I said, from the vexation of new expressions, we must not maintain or proclaim either one or two energies, but, instead of one energy which some maintain, we must confess that the one Christ, the Lord, truly works in both natures ; and instead of the two energies they should prefer to proclaim with us the two natures, i.e. the Godhead and the assumed manhood, which work what is proper to them (evepyovcras ra tSta, propria operantes) in the one Person of the only-begotten Son of God, unmingled and unseparated and unchanged. This we will make known to your brotherly Holiness, that we may harmonise in the one doctrine of the faith. We also wrote to our brethren the Bishops Cyrus and Sophronius, that they may not persist in the new expressions of one or two energies, but proclaim with us the one Christ, the divine and the human by means of both natures (we did this), although we had already emphatically impressed upon the envoys whom Sophronius sent to us, that he should not persist in the expression two energies, and they promised it to us fully on the condition that Cyrus would also desist from proclaiming fila evepyeia."
On this point we remarked in the first edition (S. 147): " If we compare this second letter with the first, we find (a) before all, the like sharp accentuating of the leading pro position : Notwithstanding the duality of the natures in
SECOND LETTER OF HONORIUS. HIS ORTHODOXY. 51
Christ, there is yet only one Worker, the Lord Jesus Christ, who works the divine and human by means of both natures. There, as here, the willing and working are incorrectly regarded as proceeding from the Person and not from the nature. That we do not now maintain this latter assertion we have already remarked ; and even if the first letter does not justify the assumption that Honorius, from the correct premiss, there is only one Worker, drew the false inference, therefore there is only one will, for the will lies on the side of the person, not of the nature ; the second letter certainly shows more clearly that Honorius, too, sought the will on the side of the nature. We said, therefore, even in the first edition, (5) " In this second letter, however, Honorius deserts this error (with which we charged him), whether the beauti ful and clear explanation of Sophronius helped him to this, or a deeper consideration of the classical words of Leo I., to which he had recourse (agit utraque forma cum alterius com- munione, quod proprium est\ led him to it.
" Setting aside the unsavoury iro\v rpoTrax; evepyel (of the first letter), he now says quite correctly : We confess that the two natures are naturally united in the one Christ, that each works and acts in communion with the other, — the divine nature in Christ works the divine, and the human performs that which is of the flesh ; and, " We proclaim the two natures which work unmingled in the one Person of the only- begotten Son of God that which is proper to them (vropria operantes). In this Honorius pronounced the orthodox doctrine, and it would be quite wrong to charge him with heresy."
Thus we wrote even in the first edition. We now add that Honorius in this passage declares for two natures in Christ, and to each of the two natures he ascribes its own evepyetv, and therewith also a will. He there speaks of the two natures as evepyovaas KCLI ^patented? and propria operantes. But we must with all this repeat what we said in the first edition : In contradiction to these his own utterances, Honorius yet demands again the avoidance of the orthodox phrase, Svo evepyeiai. After himself saying, " Both natures work what is proper to them," it was inconsistent to disapprove of the phrase, two energies.
52 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
The most offensive thing in the first letter of Honorius, the expression ev OeXij^a, is no longer expected in the frag ment of the second letter.1
A defence of Honorius was undertaken, A.D. 641, by his second successor, Pope John iv., in a letter to the Emperor Constantine (son of Heraclius), entitled Apologia pro Honorio Papa. When Pope John learnt that the Patriarch Pyrrhus of Constantinople appealed to Honorius in defence of the doctrine of one will, he wrote to the Emperor: "The whole West is scandalised by our brother, the Patriarch Pyrrhus, pro claiming, in his letters which are circulated in all directions, novelties which are contrary to the rule of faith, and referring to our predecessor, Pope Honorius of blessed memory, as of his opinion, which was entirely foreign to the mind of the Catholic Father (quod a mente Catlwlici patris erat penitus alienum). The Patriarch Sergius communicated to the said Roman bishop that some maintained two contrarias voluntates in Christ. When the Pope learnt this, he answered him : As our Redeemer is monadicus unus, so was HE miraculously conceived and born above all human way and manner. He (Honorius) taught that HE was as well perfect God as per fect man, bom without sin, in order to renew the noble origin (originem) which had been lost by sin. As second Adam, there was in Him no sin, either by birth or through inter course with men. For when the Word was made flesh, and assumed all that was ours, He did not take on the vitium reatus which springs from the propagation of sin. He assumed, from the inviolate Virgin Mary, the likeness of our flesh, but not of sin. Therefore had Christ, as the first Adam, only one natural will of His humanity, not two con-
1 In the first edition we added : " Whether it (the tv tfA^a) found place at all in the latter (the second letter) cannot be decided. In any case, Honorius did not recall it (better, does not explain it in its right sense), and therefore the Monothelites had, formally at least, full right to appeal to him as their patron and defender. And herein lies his second fault. When, on the one side (negatively), he forbade the correct expression of the orthodox doctrine (dtio ep^pyetcu), so, on the other side (positively), he pronounced the terminus kchnicus of the heresy. And yet even on this point his thought was not heretical, but only obscure, as we showed above, and he only failed to draw the right inference from his own premiss. This remark in the first edition finds its connection, as far as that is necessary, in what is said above (pp. 36, 41, 44, n. 1).
SECOND LETTER OF HONOR1US. HIS ORTHODOXY. 53
trarias voluntates, as we who are born of the sin of Adam, ... In such wise our predecessor Honorius answered Sergius, that there were not in the Redeemer two contrarice voluntates, i.e. also a voluntas in membris, as HE had assumed nothing of the sin of the first man. The Eedeemer did indeed assume our nature, but not the culpa criminis. Let, then, no unintelligent critic blame Honorius, that he speaks only of the human and not also of the divine nature, but let him know that he answered that concerning which the patriarch inquired. Where the wound is, there the healing is applied. Even the apostle has sometimes brought forward the divine, and sometimes the human nature of Christ alone." l
As second defender of Honorius, the Roman abbot, Joannes Symponus, is brought forward, and first by S. Maximus in his disputation with the Patriarch Pyrrhus of Constantinople (see below, sec. 303). Honorius had made use of Joannes in the composition of his letter. When Pyrrhus offered the objection : " What have you to answer for Honorius, who quite plainly traced out to my predecessor one will in Christ ? " Maximus answered : " Who is the trust worthy interpreter of this letter, he who composed it in the name of Honorius, or those who spoke in Constantinople what was according to their own mind ? " To which Pyrrhus replied : " He who composed it." Then Maximus : " He, then, has expressed himself on the subject, in the letter to the Emperor Constantine, which he prepared by commission of Pope John IV. (the reference is to the above letter, the contents of which are repeated here substantially, although not verbally), as follows : We have (in that letter) maintained one will in Christ, not of the Godhead and manhood together, for we spoke of the one will of the manhood alone. Since Sergius had written that some were teaching two contradic tory wills in Christ, we answered, that Christ had not two mutually contradictory wills, of the flesh and of the Spirit, like us men after the Fall, but only one will, which (fivcri/cox; His manhood. If, however, any one would say :
1 In Anastasii Collectanea, in Galland. Biblioth. PP. t. xiii. p. 32 sq., and Mansi, t. x. p. 682 sq. The Apologia of John iv. is here quoted somewhat more fully than in the first edition.
54 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
" Why have you, treating of the manhood of Christ, been quite silent respecting His Godhead ? " We reply : " In the first place, Honorius answered that about which Sergius inquired ; and, in the second place, as in everything so also here, we have kept to the custom of Holy Scripture, which sometimes speaks of the Godhead, and sometimes of the manhood alone." *
We have already pointed out, in passing, that there is here not a second Apologia pro Honorio, but only that of Pope John iv., since the Abbot Joannes Symponus had also composed the letter of John iv. to the Emperor (Apologia pro Honorio), as he was also the composer of the letters of Honorius to Sergius. What Maximus here makes the Abbot Joannes say, is nothing else than what this abbot had conceived by commission of Pope John iv., and what we therefore have adduced as Apologia of John iv. The thoughts are the same, only that Maximus quoted ex memoria, and not with perfect verbal accuracy (this remark is wanting in the first edition).
If we said in the first edition, " This interpretation of the letter of Honorius given by Pope John and Abbot John appears to us suavior quam verior" we can even now not regard it as quite admissible. We allow that Honorius spoke of the una voluntas in such a manner that he excluded only a corrupt human will in Christ ; and it is also correct to say, as does Pope John iv., that the whole West understood the letter of Honorius in an orthodox sense. But that is not correct, which is made so prominent in this apology, that, in answering Sergius, he had only of the manhood of Christ to speak, and had no occasion to speak of anything else than of the human will of Christ. The apology says : " It should be known that he answered that which Sergius asked." But Sergius did in no way ask whether we should admit in Christ, along with the natural human will, also that of the natura vitiata or the lex membrorum. He asked nothing at all on this subject, but quite definitely maintained " that in Christ there can be only one will " ; for two wills Sergius regarded only as contrarias. Nor is it correct to say that Honorius, as the apology declares, wrote : " Christ, as the first Adam, had
1 S. Maximi Dlsput. cum Pyrrho, in Mansi, t. x. p. 739 sq.
SECOND LETTER OF HONORIUS. HIS ORTHODOXY. 55
only ONE natural will of His MANHOOD." The words " of His manhood " are an addition of the apologists. The corre sponding words in Maximus, " one will which ^UOYACW? ^apafcrrjpi^ei His manhood," are likewise not found in the letter of Honorius. If Honorius had really, as the apologist says, " applied the healing where the wound was " ; if he had answered correctly what Sergius laid before him, he must have said, " There are certainly not in Christ two contrarice wluntates, because HE did not assume the vitiata natura humana ; but also, not merely one will, but along with the divine stands the uncorrupted human will, which is always in conformity with the divine. That would have been the correct reply to the false assertion of Sergius.1
The celebrated Abbot Maximus, of whom we shall speak more at large further on, has also defended Honorius in his tome to the Priest Maximus, and, in a manner similar to our own, has drawn from his own words the conclusion, that he had himself recognised two wills in Christ, the divine and the incorrupt human. Maximus, however, added : " The excellent Abbot Anastasius, returning from Eome, related that he had spoken with and inquired of the most dis tinguished priests of that great Church, in detail, on the e£ avT&v rypafalaav €7rio-To\r)v to Sergius,2 Why and in what way one will in Christ had been asserted in that letter. Anastasius found them troubled and apologetic on the subject (aaxdXXovras eV rovrw KCLI diroXoyovfjievovs). Besides, he spoke with the Abbot Joannes Symponus, who had prepared that letter in Latin by command of Honorius. He asserted : ' Quod nullo modo mentioriem in ea per numerum fecerit omnis omnimodae voluntatis ' ; " i.e. that there was not a numerical unity of will in Christ asserted in the letter, but this had been done by those who had translated the letter into Greek. It was not the human will generally, but only
1 This estimate of the apology agrees substantially with that in the first edition ; but, as I believe, is more exact. That which follows up to p. 57, " In this manner," etc., is almost entirely new.
2 Pennacchi (p. 113 sq.) understood Q avruv = VTT* avr&v, and assumed that the Roman priests had drawn up at a Synod the letter of Honorius to Sergius. But ^ avruv can mean no more than, "the letter written from Rome to Sergius."
56 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
the corrupt will in Christ that was denied.1 It is quite possible that the Monoth elites, in their translations and copies of the letter of Honorius, introduced slight altera tions, so as to give a complete Monothelite significance to the phrase, unam vohmtatem, etc. But the Greek text which we have still before us cannot be regarded as falsified ; for, when this Greek translation was read aloud in the twelfth session of the sixth (Ecumenical Council, it was compared by the Eoman deputy, Bishop John of Portus, with the Latin original which lay in the patriarchal archives at Constanti nople, and was found correct.2 Moreover, the successors of Honorius in the Eoman see never contested the genuineness of these letters, although they knew that the Monothelites appealed to them, and that the sixth (Ecumenical Synod wanted to pronounce, and did pronounce, an anathema upon Honorius on account of these letters.3
Thus there remains for us the result : The two letters of Pope Honorius, as we now possess them, are unfalsified, and show that Honorius, of the two Monothelite terms ey OeX^fjLa and fjiia evepyeia, himself used (in his first letter) the former ; but the latter, and also the orthodox expression Bvo evepyeicu, he did not wish to be used. If, in his second letter, he repeated the latter (the disapproval of the expression $vo evepyeiai,), yet here he himself recognised two natural energies in Christ, and in both letters he so expresesd himself, that it must be admitted that he did not deny the human will generally, but only the corrupt human will in Christ ; but although orthodox in his thought, he did not sufficiently see through the Monothelite tendency of Sergius, and expressed himself in such a way as to be misunderstood, so that his letters, especially the first, seemed to confirm Monothelitism, and thereby practically helped onward the heresy.4
1 S. Maximi Tomus ad Maximum Presbyt. , in Migne, Patres Grseci, t. 91, p. 243 ; in Mansi, t. x. p. 689 sq., there is only a Latin translation.
2 Mansi, t. xi. p. 547 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 1326 ; cf. below, sec. 319 at the close.
3 The genuineness of the letters of Honorius was fully defended by Pennacchi (I.e. pp. 75-112). At the same time, he found them quite blameless. (See above, sec. 295.)
4 In establishing this result also there is some deviation from the first edition. In that it is said : " Thus there remains for us the result: The two
SECOND LETTER OF HONORIUS. HIS ORTHODOXY. 57
In this manner is settled the question respecting the orthodoxy of Pope Honorius ; l and we hold, therefore, the middle path between those who place him on the same grade with Sergius of Constantinople and Cyrus of Alexandria, and number him with the Monothelites,2 and those who, allowing no spot in him, have fallen into the misfortune of nimium probantes, so that they would prefer to deny the genuineness of the Acts of the sixth (Ecumenical Council and of several other documents,3 or even to ascribe to the sixth Council an error in facto dogmatical In opposition to the latter, the
letters of Honorius, as we now have them, are unfalsified, and do not bear the interpretatio suavis which it is wished to give them. They show that, of the two heterodox terms 'ev dtX-rjfj-a and ^La tvtpyeia, Honorius actually used the former, and placed the latter on the same line with the watchword of orthodoxy, 5tio tvtpyetai, and rejected both. They show also, however, that the fundamental conviction of Honorius, the foundation of his argument, and at the same time himself, was orthodox in heart, and his error consisted only in an incorrect representation of the dogma, and in a defect of logical consistency.
1 Similar is the judgment of an anonymous writer in the Katholik (1863, S. 689 f. ), thus : ' ' The fault of Honorius consisted in this, that he did not discover the tricks of Sergius, which he ought to have suspected ; that he did not sharply define and sanction the true meaning of the expression, "two energies" ; that he placed this expression on the same line with that of "one energy" ; that he treated the whole question in a superficial manner, as a mere strife of words ; and finally, that, with the greatest want of prudence, he spoke of one will in a manner which, if it admitted of a good meaning, yet under the prevailing circumstances might easily be mistaken, and give occasion for great errors. He played with the fire which others had kindled ; and thus made the fire stronger, and shared the blame of the inventors and adherents of the heresy, although he did not himself share their error." Added to second edition.
2 So most of the Gallicans, e.g. Richer, Hist. Condi, generalium, lib. i. c. x. p. 567 sqq. ed. Colon. 1683 ; Dupin, Nouvelle Bibliotheque, etc., t. vi. p. 69, ed. Mons. 1692. Bossuet, Defensio Dedarat. cleri Gallicani, t. ii. p. 190 ; and Protestants, e.g. Walch, Ketzerhist. Bd. ix. S. 125 ; Bower, History of the Popes, "Honorius." Forbes, Instructiones Historico-theolog. p. 240; Dorner, Lehre v. d. Person Christi, Bd. ii. pt. i. S. 218 [Eng. trans., T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh]. Even the cardinal of Lucerne formed so harsh a judgment on Honorius in his work, Sur la declaration de Vassemllee du derge de France en 1682, Paris 1821, in Palma, Prselectimes hist, cedes., Romse 1839, t. ii. pt. i. p. 106 sqq.
3 So especially Pighius (Diatriba de Actis vi. et vii. Concil.} and Baronius (ad ann. 633, 34 sq., and 681, 29 sqq.).
4 So, quite recently, Pennacchi ; earlier, Cardinal Tunecremata (lib. ii. De Ecclesia, c. 93), Bellarmino (lib. iv. De Rom. Pontif. c. 2), and the learned Maronite, Joseph Simon Assemani (Biblioth. Juris Orient, t. iv. p. 113 sqq.). The latter thinks the sixth (Ecumenical Council certainly regarded Honorius as a heretic, and anathematised him as such, but that the points which spoke in his defence, particularly the apologies already mentioned of John iv. and of
58 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
appellants (Jansenists) came forward with the argument : If you maintain that the sixth (Ecumenical Council fell into an error facti, we may maintain the same also in regard to Pope Clement xi. and his Constitution Unigenitus. But there is a great difference between the appellants and those apologists of Honorius. The latter proposed (a) their view out of reverence of the holy see, and (b) from this pro ceeded to the view that the letters of Honorius, or even the letter of Sergius, which Honorius answered, were afterwards falsified, and in false copies were laid before the sixth (Ecumenical Synod, so that this formed a quite correct judgment in rejecting the (certainly pseudo-) Honorius.1 Or (c) they contested, like Pennacchi, the (Ecumenical character of the sentence of the sixth Council against Honorius. See below, sec. 324.
The middle path, which we hold to be the right one, and have explained above, is, however, essentially different from that which Gamier supposed he had discovered,2 and on which so many distinguished theologians and scholars followed him. According to this, it is conceded that the sixth (Ecumenical Synod did really and properly anathematise the letters of Honorius, but not as containing anything heretical, for they were entirely free from this, but only ob imprudentem silentii ceconomiam, because Honorius, by requiring this silence, had given powerful assistance to the heresy.3 In opposition to this we maintain, (a) Honorius gave assistance to the heresy, not merely by requiring silence, but much more by the unhappy expression, unde unam voluntatem fatemur Domini nostri Jesu Cliristi, as well as by his disapproval of
Abbot John, had not been known to the Synod. That the better instructed Pope Leo n., on the contrary, had not completely approved of the anathema of the Synod on Honorius, but had anathematised him, not on the ground of heresy, but of negligence. See below, sec. 324. The judgments of the different savants on Honorius, his guilt or innocence, are collected pretty completely by Schneemann in his Studien iiber die Honoriusfrage, Herder, Freiburg 1864, S. 25 ff.
1 Of. Chmel, O.S.B. Prof. Prag., Vindicise Concilii (Ecumenici vi., Pragse 1777, p. 441 sqq., 456 sqq.
2 Gamier, De Honorii et Concilii vi. Causa in the Appendix of the Liber diurnus Romanorum pontificum.
3 From here to the end of the paragraph added to the second edition.
SECOND LETTER OF HONORIUS. HIS ORTHODOXY. 59
the orthodox term &vo eidpyeuu. The Monothelites rested upon this, and not upon the silence enjoined. (&) At the same time, the letters of Honorius, especially the first, are not so entirely without fault as this hypothesis assumes ; they contain, at least in their literal meaning, erroneous teaching, (c) Finally, we shall see (sec. 324) that the sixth (Ecumenical Synod pronounced anathema on Honorius by no means merely on account of an imprudens silentii oeconomia.
Gfrorer (KirchengeschicfUe, Bd. iii. pt. i. S. 54) supposed that the letters of Honorius were the stipulated return for the great complacency shown to him not long before by the Emperor Heraclius. None of the previous Popes, not even Gregory the Great, had succeeded, in spite of repeated efforts, in uniting again with Eome the metropolitan see of Aquileia- Grado, with its ecclesiastical province, which had been in a state of schism since the controversy of the Three Chapters. But Honorius, more fortunate than his predecessors, had carried through the great work, had expelled Fortunatus, the schismatical archbishop of Grado, and had placed Primo- genius, " a partisan of Eome," on the metropolitan chair of Istria — by means of armed assistance from the Greek exarch. " Can it be doubted for a moment," exclaims Gfrorer, " that the subjection of the Istrian Church under the see of Peter was the price for which Honorius entered the Monothelite league ? One hand washes the other."
I cannot bestow upon this hypothesis the commendation which it has received from Kurtz in his Manual of Church History (1853, Bd. i. S. 181). Apart from the fact that Primogenius is very inaptly named a partisan of Rome (he was a subdeacon of the Roman Church), the substructure of Gfrorer' s edifice is untenable ; for it is not correct to say that none of the Popes before Honorius had succeeded in uniting the see of Grado. Such a union, in fact, took place in the year 607. The see of Aquileia-Grado received in Candidian an orthodox metropolitan ; and all the bishops of this ecclesiastical province, whose sees lay in the imperial terri tory, forsook the schism.1 What, then, happened under Pope
1 When the Longobardi conquered Upper Italy, the metropolitan chair of Aquileia was removed to Grado, as this city, strong by reason of its marshes
60 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
Honorius ? The schismatic Fortunatus had, with the help of the Longobardi, possessed himself of the see of Grado, and en deavoured to renew the schism. His suffragans were indignant at this, and the imperial governor (exarch) at Eavenna also threatened him, so that Fortunatus found it well to flee into the country of the Longobardi, first stealing the treasure of the Church (629 or 630). Pope Honorius now placed the Roman subdeacon Primogenius in the see of G-rado, and demanded of the Longobardi, vainly, indeed, the surrender of those valuables of the Church of Grado. We still possess1 his letter on this subject to the bishops of Istria, at the close of which the passage occurs which Baronius misunderstood : " In similar cases the fathers of the Cliristianissima respublica would do the like," i.e. give up stolen goods that had been brought into their country. Baronius thought that by Christianissima respublica Venice was to be understood ; but Muratori, long ago, correctly remarked (History of Italy, vol. iv.) that quite commonly this expression is used to designate the Roman Empire. From what has been said, however, it is clear that the union of the see of Grado and its suffragans was earlier than the time of Pope Honorius, and that under him only a temporary disturbance of the union was ended. This disturbance, in itself untenable through the opposition of the suffragans, did not need to be bribed with the blood- money of the consent to heresy.
We have already seen, to some extent, from the apology of John IV., what judgment was formed of Honorius at Rome. In agreement with this, Martin i. and his Lateran Synod, A.D. 649, and so Pope Agatho and his Synod in 680, did not reckon Honorius among the Monothelites, but rather held his memory in honour, and expressed themselves as though all previous Popes had been opponents of the heresy. We shall
could not be seized by the Longobardi ; and the metropolitans now took the title of "Aquileia at Grado." Of the cities belonging to this ecclesiastical province, however, some remained in the power of the Emperor ; others had been seized by the Longobardi. The bishops in the Longobardian territory would not enter the union in the year 607 ; and then appointed for themselves a special ecclesiastical head with the title of "Patriarch of Aquileia."
1 Mansi, t. x. p. 577 ; Baron, ad ann. 630, 14.
ECTHESIS OF THE EMPEROR HERACLIUS, A.D. 638. 61
see more fully (sec. 324) how they spoke of Honorius in Eome after the sixth (Ecumenical Council.
On the question : Whether the two letters of Honorius were put forth ex cathedra, as it is called, or not, the views among his defenders are very different. Pennacchi maintains that they were put forth auctoritate apostolica (I.e. p. 169 sqq.), whilst Schneemann (I.e. S. 63) holds the opposite opinion. For my own part, I confess myself here on the side of Pennacchi, since Honorius intended to give first to the Church af Constantinople, and implicite to the whole Church, an instruction on doctrine and faith ; and in his second letter he even uses the expression : Ceterum, quantum ad DOGMA ECCLESIASTTCUM pertinet, . . . non itnam vel duas operationes in mediatore Dei et hominum definire debemus.1
SEC. 299. The Ecthesis of the Emperor Heraclius, A.D. 638.
The answer of Constantinople to the synodal letter of Sophronius was the Ecthesis (setting forth of the faith) of the Emperor Heraclius. The successor of Sergius, Pyrrhus, patriarch of Constantinople, says on this subject in his disputation with Maximus : " The unseasonable letter of Sophronius has rendered it necessary for us (in Constanti nople), against our will, so to act," i e. to put forth the Ecthesis.2 That Sergius was its composer is uncontested, and is by the Emperor Heraclius himself declared. In order to separate the discontent of the Westerns, on account of the Ecthesis, from his person, he wrote in the beginning of the year 641 to Pope John IV. : "The Ecthesis is not mine, and I have not recommended its promulgation, but the Patriarch Sergius drew it up five years ago, and on my return from the East petitioned me to publish it with my subscription."3
For the authorship of Sergius, moreover, there is the testimony of the great inner relationship between the Ecthesis and his letter to Pope Honorius (see above, p. 22).
1 Added to the second edition. - Mansi, t. x. p. 741.
3 This fragment of a letter is found in the Collatio inter Maximum et socium cjus coram principibi(S, Mansi, t. xi. p. 9.
62 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
Maximus professes to know that Sergius and his friends had obtained the publication of the Ecthesis by means of presents to the Emperor;1 and the biographer of S. Maximus appears to indicate that the consent to the marriage of the Emperor with his niece Martina was the price at which the patriarch bought the Ecthesis.2 But this uncanonical marriage was con cluded in the year 616. When Walch adds (Ketzerhist. Bd. ix. S. 142), it was designated by Sergius as incest, it is certainly true that the patriarch disapproved of it ; but it is still un deniable that he showed himself weak, and crowned Martina.3 That the Ecthesis was drawn up in the course of the twelfth year of indiction was declared by Pope Martin i. at the Lateran Synod of the year 649.4 That twelfth year of indiction began with September 1, 638 ; and as Sergius died in the December of the same year, the Ecthesis must necessarily be placed between September and December 638, and not in the year 639. Pagi showed this (ad ann. 639,n. 2 and 8) in opposition to Baronius. It is preserved for us in the third secretarius (session) of the Lateran Synod already mentioned,5 bears the form of a creed, explains first the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, then passes on to the Incarnation, treats this in the sense of Chalcedon, and then proceeds to the principal subject, namely, (a) the prohibition of the expressions pla and Bvo evepyewu, because both were ex plained in a heretical sense, and (/3) asserting one single will (6e\v]^a) in Christ. The principal passages run : " In regard to the mystery of the Person of Christ is the evcoais Kara avv- Oevw (see vol. iv. sec. 263) to be confessed without crv^vai^ and Sialpeo-is. It preserves the property of each of the two natures, but shows one hypostasis and one person of God the Logos with (united with) the reasonably quickened flesh ; whereby not a Quaternity is introduced instead of a Trinity, since there is not a fourth Person added to the Trinity, but the eternal Logos thereof has become flesh. And not
1 Mansi, t. x. p. 691.
2 In Maximi Opp. t. i. p. ix. c. 12.
3 Niceph. Breviar. de rebus post Mauridum gestis, ed. Bonn, pp. 16, 17 ; Theophanes, I.e. p. 463.
4 Mansi, t. x. p. 873 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 695.
5 Mansi, t. x. p. 991 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 791.
ECTHESIS OF THE EMPEROR HERACLIUS, A.D. 638. 63
another was HE who worked miracles, and another who endured sufferings, but we acknowledge one and the same Son, who is at the same time God and man, one hypostasis, one person, suffering in the flesh, impassible in the Godhead ; to Him and the same belong the miracles and the sufferings, which HE voluntarily endured in the flesh. . . .
" All divine and human energy we ascribe to one and the same Incarnate Logos, and render one worship to Him, who, for our sake, was voluntarily and truly crucified in the flesh, and rose from the dead, etc. ; and we do not at all allow that any one should maintain or teach one or two energies of the Incarnate Lord, but demand that there should be confessed, as the holy and (Ecumenical Synods have handed it down, that one and the same only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, works both the divine and the human, and that all Godlike and manlike energy proceeds from one and the same Incarnate God the Logos without mixture and without separation, and refers back to one and the same. Because the expression, one energy, although some of the Fathers use it, yet sounds strange to the ears of some, and disquiets them, since they are made suspicious lest it should be used in order to set aside the two natures which are hypostatically united in Christ ; and (since) in the same way many take offence at the expression, two energies, since it is not used by any of the holy Fathers, and then we should be obliged, as a consequence, to teach two mutually contradictory wills, as if God the Logos, aiming at our salvation, was willing to endure suffering, but His manhood had opposed itself to this His will, which is impious and foreign to the Christian dogma — when even the wicked Nestorius, although he, divid ing the Incarnation, introduced two Sons, did not venture to maintain two wills of the same, but, on the contrary, taught the like willing of the two persons assumed by him ; how can, then, the orthodox, who worship only one Son and Lord, admit in Him two, and those mutually opposed wills ? — therefore must we, following the Fathers in everything and so also in this, con fess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ, the true God, so that at no time His rationally quickened flesh was separated, and, of its own impulse (opprj), in opposition to the suggestion of God
64 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
the Logos, hypostatically united with it, fulfilled its natural motion (that of the flesh), but only at the time and in the manner and in the measure in which the Word willed. These dogmas of piety have been handed down to us by those who from the beginning have themselves seen the Word, and have been with Him, serving Him ; and also by their disciples and successors and all later God-enlightened teachers of the Church, or, which is the same, the five holy and (Ecumenical Synods, etc. And we ordain that all Christians shall thus think and teach, without adding or taking away anything."
We see that the Ecthesis, in its contents, agrees with the letter of Sergius to Honorius ; and the patriarch of Constanti nople did not, therefore, first come to these views in opposi tion to the Synodica of Sophronius, but had done so a considerable time before its appearance. On the contrary, the agreement of the Ecthesis with the two letters of Honorius is only apparent. The latter certainly also dis approves of the expressions pla and 8uo evepyeiai ; l but he stumbles only at the word, not at the thing ; for in his second letter he says himself : " The divine nature works in Christ the divine, and the human accomplishes the human." He thus teaches, in fact, two energies, although he objects to the employment of the term. And so his phrase, Unam voluntatem fatemur is, in its meaning, essentially different from the like-sounding thesis of the Ecthesis (see above, p. 35).
SEC. 300. Two Synods at Constantinople, A.D. 638 and 639. Adoption of the Ecthesis.
It was naturally the wish of the Emperor that the Ecthesis should be universally received, and there was a prospect of this, especially as Sophronius, the chief represent ative of Dyothelitism, was prevented from taking part in the controversy on account of the siege acd capture of Jerusalem by the Arabs, A.D. 637, and died before the appearance of the Ecthesis, and his chair had come into the hands of the Monothelite Bishop Sergius of Joppa.2 It was also hoped that
1 From here to the end of the paragraph altered in the second edition.
2 Of. Pagi, adann. 636, n. 2 and 3 ; Baron, ad aim. 636, n. 4, and 643, n. 12.
TWO SYNODS AT CONSTANTINOPLE, A.D. 638 AND 639. 65
the other patriarchs would assent. Macedonius of Antioch, whom we have not hitherto met, was uncanonically appointed and consecrated by Sergius. His episcopal city, threatened, and in the year 638 actually taken by the Arabs, he had not entered, but had remained in Constantinople, and had here taken his stand on the Monothelite side.1 Sergius, however, held, in the last months of A.D. 638, a Synod at Constantinople (perhaps Mqpafoa), which approved the Ecthesis, as har monising with the apostolic doctrine, and ordered its universal acceptance, threatening that, if any one should, in future, teach one or two energies, if he were a bishop or cleric, he should be deposed ; if a monk or a layman, he should be excluded from the holy communion, until he amended.2 Soon afterwards Sergius died, in the December of the same year. His suc cessor, Pyrrhus, who ascended the throne in January 639, was a Monothelite, and held also a Synod at Constantinople in the year 639, which not only confirmed the Ecthesis anew, but provided that even the absent bishops should be required to accept it.3
In Alexandria, Cyrus with great joy read the Ecthesis which the patriarch of Constantinople had sent to him accompanied by a letter, and had hymns sung, because God had sent His people so wise an Emperor, as he relates in his still extant answer to Sergius.4
1 Of. Walch, Ketzerhist. Bd. ix. S. 86 and 143 ; Baron, ad ann. 649, n. 64.
2 Fragments of this Synod are preserved in the Secret, iii. of the Lateran Synod of the year 649, Mansi, t. x. p. 999 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 798. Of. Pagi, ad ann. 639, 8.
3 Fragments of this in Mansi, t. x. p. 1002 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 799. Of. Pagi, ad ann. 639, 8.
4 Preserved in Secret, iii. of the Lateran Synod, Mansi, t. x. p. 1003 ; Hardouin, t. iii. 803. We learn from this that the imperial official (magistcr militum) Eustachius, who had been sent with the Ecthesis to Italy to the Exarch Isaac, so that the latter should obtain the subscription of Severinus, travelled by way of Alexandria, and communicated to Cyrus a transcript of that imperial copy for Isaac. "Walch (I.e. S. 144) brought up the question, why the Emperor had not himself sent the Ecthesis to Cyrus, and supposes that Alexandria had been seized by the Saracens, so that Cyrus wras no longer a subject of Heraclius. On the other hand, the hierarchical union of Alexandria with the patriarch of Constantinople had continued, and therefore Sergius had written to Cyrus. — This hypothesis is unfounded. It is true that the Arabs had invaded Egypt by the year 634, but Alexandria was first seized by them in
v.— 5
66 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
SEC. 301. Death of Pope Honorius. The Ecthesis is rejected at Eome.
When the copy of the Ecthesis sent to Italy arrived there, Pope Honorius had already died, in October 638. We must even conclude, from the letter of Cyrus to Sergius just referred to, that the intelligence of the death of Honorius and the election of Severinus had come to Constantinople before the sending out of the Ecthesis. The election of Severinus took place soon after the death of Honorius, and the representative of the imperial exarch Isaac seized the opportunity of taking possession of the papal Lateran palace, in order to plunder it. The newly elected Pope and others in vain offered opposition ; Isaac now himself came to Eome, had all the gold and valuables removed from the palace, and shared them with the Emperor.1 In order to obtain the imperial confirmation of the election which had been made, the Eoman clergy sent several representatives to Constan tinople. They were detained there for a considerable time, and at last received the declaration that the confirmation of the new Pope was not to be obtained, unless they promised to persuade him to the acceptance of the dogmatic document (the Ecthesis), which was handed to them. In order to draw themselves out of the snare, they pretended to agree, and promised to inform the Pope of this demand, and to bring him that document. The imperial confirmation of the elec tion was now drawn up, and an order given for the conse cration of Severinus.2 It took place May 28, 640 ; but the Pope died two. months and four days afterwards, after he had rejected Monothelitism, and had, as is supposed, held a
the year 641 (Pagi, ad ann. 639, n. 11, and 641, n. 13), and a glance at the end of the letter from Cyrus shows that Alexandria Avas then still in possession of the Emperor, and not long before had been delivered out of danger. Besides, Walch might have known from Nicephorus] (Breviar. I.e., ed. Bonn, p. 30), that, soon afterwards, Cyrus was summoned by the Emperor Heraclius to Constantinople, and deposed (thus treated as a subject), because he was suspected of an understanding with the Saracens. The succeeding Emperor reinstated him.
1 Baron, ad ann. 638, n. 6 ; Pagi, ad ann. 638, n. 5.
2 Epist. Maximi ad Thalassium, in Anastasii Collectanea in Galland. Biblioth. PP. t. xiii. p. 42 ; and Mansi, t. x. p. 677.
DEATH OF POPE HONOEIUS. 67
Eoman Synod for this purpose, A.D. 640.1 What is certain is, that his successor, John iv., who was consecrated December 24, 640, soon after his elevation, and even before the death of the Emperor Heraclius (f February 11, 641), at a Eoman Synod, pronounced anathema on Monothelitism. The Acts of this Synod have not come down to us, but Theophanes and the Synodicon speak of it.2 The latter professes to know that their anathema was pronounced upon Sergius, Cyrus, and Pyrrhus, at Eome. As, however, Pope John iv., in a some what more recent letter to the Emperor, refers to the departed Sergius with the words venerandce memorial episcopus, and in the same way the succeeding Pope, Theodore, calls Pyrrhus sanctissimus, we must assume that the Synod pro nounced anathema on the heresy, and not on certain persons. Pope John IV. is said (by the Synodicon) to have ac quainted the two sons of the Emperor, David and Heraclius, with the decision of this Eoman Synod, and sent them a statement (TITTTO?) of the orthodox doctrine. It seems to me that this must mean the letter to be next described, which the Pope, after the death of the Emperor Heraclius, addressed to his sons. The Synodicon also says that " he sent this later" On the other hand, he gave the Patriarch Pyrrhus of Constantinople immediate notice of his sentence against the Ecthesis, and thereby occasioned the Emperor Heraclius to shift the fault of its composition from himself on to the departed Sergius, in that letter to which we referred above (p. 61). Soon afterwards the Emperor Heraclius died of dropsy, February 1 1 , 641 (Pagi, ad ann. 641, 2), and there succeeded him, in accord ance with his arrangement, his two eldest sons, Heraclius Constantinus (from his first marriage), and Heraclius the
1 That Pope Severinus rejected the Ecthesis is declared by the Professio which several of his successors had to make at their consecration, as follows : " Profitemur etiam cuncta decreta pontificum Apostolicse sedis, i.e. sanctae recordationis Severini, Joannis, Theodori, atque Martini custodire, qui adversus novas qusestiones in urbe regia exortas . . . cuncta zizaniorum scandala ampu- tasse noscuntur, profitentes juxta duarum naturarum motum ita et duas naturales operationes, et qusecunque damnaverunt, sub aiiathemate danmanms." From this Pagi (ann. 639, 3-5) would conclude that Pope Severinus rejected Mono thelitism at a Synod.
2 Theophanes, Chronogr aphid, ed. Bonn, t; i. p. 508 ; Libellus Synodicus in Mansi, t. x. 607; Hardouin, t. v. p. 1538.
68 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
younger, or Heracleonas (from his second marriage). Both were required to do honour to Martina, the mother of the latter, as mother of both.1
When Pope John iv. received intelligence of this change in the throne, he sent a letter of some length, which is still extant, to the two young Emperors, in order to explain to them the true doctrine on the energies and wills in Christ, and, at the same time, to vindicate the orthodoxy of his predecessor, Honorius. Pyrrhus of Constantinople, he says in this letter, circulated, as he heard, in the whole of the East, a letter in which new doctrine was taught and maintained. Pope Honorius had also been said to be of the same view. After John iv. had opposed this, and had sought to vindicate Honorius in the manner explained above (p. 52), he proceeds: " The doctrine of one will is heretical. Ask only the de fenders of this doctrine, which this one will is, whether the human or the divine ? " If they say the divine, they are contradicted by the true manhood of Christ, and they fall into Manichaeism. If, however, they maintain that the one will of Christ is human, they will be condemned with Photinus and the Ebionites as deniers of the Godhead of Christ ; if, again, they adopt a mingled will, they at the same time mingle the natures, and with the expression una operatic they, like Eutyches and the Severians, say, unam naturam Christi operari. I have learned, he says in conclusion, that the bishops have been required to subscribe a document with new doc trines (certainly the Ecthesis), to the prejudice of the Epistola of Leo and the Synod of Chalcedon ; but the Emperors will certainly have this foisted-in document torn away, and restrain the innovators, for the report of this has troubled the West and the faithful of the chief city.2
What impression this letter made we know not, but Zonaras rightly maintains3 that the Emperor Heraclius Con- stantinus was orthodox, and had not inherited his father's
1 Nicephor. Brcviar. I.e. p. 31.
2 In Anastasii Collcctan., in Galland. t. xiii. p. 32 sqq., and Mansi, t. x. p. 682 sqq.
:i Zonarse Annettes, lib. xv. c. 18, p. 68, ed. Venet. 1729 ; Pagi, ad aim. 641, 3.
THE SYNODS OF ORLEANS AND CYPRUS. POPE THEODORE. 69
error, and this must have had important consequences, if he had not died seven months afterwards. It was believed that his stepmother Martina had him poisoned, in order to obtain the empire exclusively for her own son, Heracleonas. The Patriarch Pyrrhus is also said to have been implicated in this crime.1 But Heracleonas was himself, after six months, over thrown by a revolution, his nose and his mother Martina's tongue being cut off, and both exiled. The Patriarch Pyrrhus fled to Africa, and the throne was taken by Constans IL, named also Constantinus, the son of Heraclius Constantinus, a grand son of the elder Heraclius, who soon gave a friendly answer to the letter of the Pope to his father, mentioned above, with the assurance that he was orthodox, and that he had ordered the condemned document to be removed.2
SEC. 302. The Synods of Orleans and Cyprus. Pope Theodore.
Pope John iv. had rightly asserted that the West rejected the Monothelite view. Outside Italy this was now shown already in France and Africa, whilst other provinces of the West, e.g. Spain, took notice later of the new heresy. In France it was rejected by a Synod at Orleans even before the year 640. A foreigner, pulsus a partibus transmarinis? had come to the city of Autun, and had endeavoured to dis seminate the Monothelite doctrine. When this came to the ears of S. Eligius, then master of the mint at the Frankish Court at Paris, he discussed the subject with his friend S. Audoenus and other orthodox men, and procured the summoning of a Synod at Orleans by King Chlodwig n. Like a serpent, the heretic, for a considerable time, was able to escape from the arguments of the orthodox, until, to the general joy, Bishop Salvius overcame him and convicted him.
1 Cf., on the other side, Walch, Bd. ix. S. 187 f. and 193.
2 For this we have not merely the authority of the less trustworthy Eutychius (archbishop of Alexandria in the 10th century) in his Annales Ecclcsiie Alexandrine, but it is mentioned also by Pope Theodore in his letter, hereafter to be noticed, to the Patriarch Paul of Constantinople. Cf. Pagi, ad aim. 641, 4.
3 The very inaccurate Acta Audceni in Surius, ad 24 Augusti, profess to know that this foreigner had been banished from Asia.
70 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
Upon this the sentence of the bishops against him was pub lished in all the cities, and he was banished from Gaul. Thus relates S. Audoenus (Ouen), in the biography of his friend Eligius (in Surius, ad December 1) ; and as, according to his" account, all this happened before Eligius became bishop of Noyon, and Audoenus archbishop of Eouen (both were consecrated May 21, 640), the Synod, with respect to the date of which so many mistakes have been made, must be placed before the year 640, probably in 638 or 639.1
John IV. died in Borne, October 11, 642, and his suc cessor, Theodore i., like him, opposed decidedly the heresy, without allowing himself to be imposed upon by Greek cunning. The new Patriarch, Paul of Constantinople, raised to the throne after the banishment of Pyrrhus, had recourse to Eome in order to obtain recognition of his election. His letter is lost, but we still possess the answer of Pope Theodore, and see from this that Paul wished the Eomans to believe that he was different and better and more orthodox than the banished Pyrrhus, whilst practically the Ecthesis remained in force in the East, and the promise given by the Emperor, to have it everywhere suppressed, had not been fulfilled. The Pope writes : " We inform you that we have received the synodal letter of your fraternity. It appears from this that you have entered upon the episcopal office with a mingled feeling of fear and hope, and rightly, for that is a great burden. . . . That which Pyrrhus under took against the true faith is deprived of power, as well by the declaration of the apostolic see under our predecessor as by command of the Emperor (in having the Ecthesis sup pressed). Why, then, has not your fraternity removed that document which was posted up at public places, since it is now quashed ? If you say yourself that the undertaking of Pyrrhus is to be rejected, why, then, have you not removed this paper from the wall ? No one ever honours that which he abhors. But if you, which God forbid, receive this document, why have you been silent on this subject in
1 Cf. Pagi, ad aim. 640, n. 13 and 14 ; Mansi, t. x. p. 759 sq. ; Rivet, in the Histoire litUraire de la France, t. ix. p. 7. On S. Audoen, cf. Engling, Der hi. Audoenus, Luxemburg 1867.
THE SYNODS OF ORLEANS AND CYPRUS. POPE THEODORE. 71
your synodal letter ? . . . Moreover, we wondered that the bishops who consecrated your fraternity called Pyrrhus sanctissimus, and remarked that he had resigned the Church of Constantinople because the people hated him and rose up against him. We thought, therefore, that we should postpone the granting of your request (the confirmation) until Pyrrhus has been formally deposed. For hatred and a riot of the populace cannot deprive one of his bishopric. He ought to have been punished canonically, if your consecration was to be faultless and valid. , . . You must, therefore, hold an assembly of bishops, in order to examine his affair, and our archdeacon Serious, as well as our deputy and deacon Martin, will be our representatives there. Pyrrhus need not himself be personally present, as his fault and his heretical writings are universally known ; and for these he may certainly be condemned. For he heaped praise upon Heraclius, who ana thematised the orthodox doctrine, subscribed his sophistical edict (the Ecthesis), seduced other bishops to the same, and allowed that document to be posted up to the disparagement of the Council of Chalcedon. ... In case, however, your fraternity should apprehend that the adherents of Pyrrhus might hinder such a judgment in Constantinople, we have petitioned the Emperor by letter to send Pyrrhus to Rome, that he may be judged here by a Synod. A number of con tentions may spring up on account of your elevation, unless they are cut at the roots by the canonical sickle. . . . That document, however (the Ecthesis), we declare, with all our powers, as invalid and anathematised, and we abide by the old doctrine. . . . Your fraternity, in agreement with us, will teach and proclaim the same by word and deed." 1
A second letter which Pope Theodore sent at the same time to Constantinople bears, in Anastasius, the superscrip tion Exemplar propositions, and it is nowhere said or indicated for whom it was destined. But from the expression Prater- nitatis vestrce, which is in the context, we must conclude that it had been addressed to bishops, or at least to clergy, — perhaps to the clergy of Constantinople, or to the bishops present
1 Extant only in Latin in Anastasii Collectanea, in Galland. t. xiii. p. 39 ; Mansi, t. x. p. 702. Cf. Pagi, ad aim. 643, n. 4.
72 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
there. Possibly it was an Encyclical to all the bishops of the East, and it contains the demand, that what Pyrrhus had done in opposition to the Chalcedonian Council should be rejected, even as the Pope abhorred his rash innovation, and anathe matised the document which was posted up in public places.1
Finally, the Pope wrote also to the bishops who had con secrated Paul. He rejoices that he has come in the place of Pyrrhus, but he cannot conceal that the latter ought to have been deposed in a canonical manner, so that objections should not afterwards arise, and divisions be occasioned. And, in fact, good grounds would be alleged for his canonical deposition, inasmuch as he commended Heraclius, who yet anathematised the Catholic faith, confirmed the sophistical heterodox document, led astray other bishops to subscribe it, and posted it up in public. What should now be done was contained in the letter to Paul.2
As a consequence of this energetic action, the metropolitan Sergius of Cyprus, in his own name and in that of his brethren, as it appears, despatched to the Pope a letter resolved upon at a Cyprian Synod (of May 29, 643), to the effect that his, the Pope's, orthodox ordinance left nothing to desire ; that the Cyprian bishops acknowledge with Leo : Agit utraque forma cum alterius communione, quod proprium est, and that they, supported by the Pope, were ready to endure martyrdom in behalf of the orthodox faith. On the other hand, all that had been written in opposition to the Council of Chalcedon, to the letter of Leo, and to the wisdom of the present Pope, should be annulled. Hitherto they had been silent, as their former metropolitan, Arcadius of blessed memory, who was quite orthodox (see p. 1 2 f.), was in hope that those who had erred would still come to a better mind ; but now they must no longer look on while tares were being sown. " This," says the metropolitan at the close, " is the mind of the holy Synod assembled around me (r^? icaO* r^as iepas (rwoSov. ... I and all who are with me greet you in the Lord." 3
1 Galland. I.e. p. 41 ; Mansi, I.e. p. 705. 2 Galland. and Mansi, II. cc.
3 Preserved among the Acts of the Lateran Synod of A.D. 649. Mansi, t. x. p. 914 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 730.
ABBOT MAXIMUS AND HIS DISPUTATION WITH PYRRHUS. 73
SEC. 303. Abbot Maximus and his Disputation with Pyrrhus.
In the meantime the Abbot Maximus, who was hence forth to be the most valorous champion, and even a martyr for the cause of Dyothelitism, indignant at the progress of the heresy in the East, had left Constantinople in order to go to Rome. Although the name of this remarkable man has already been frequently mentioned, still it is yet in place to recall the earlier events of his life. Born about the year 580 of an old and distinguished family of Constantinople, he had by his remarkable talents and bearing attracted the atten tion of the Emperor Heraclius, and became his chief secretary, a man of influence and consideration. But in the year 630 he forsook the path of worldly honours, and became a monk in the convent at Chrysopolis (now Scutari), on the opposite shore from Constantinople, as it is thought, both from love of solitude and from dissatisfaction with the position which his master took in the Monothelite controversy. When Sophronius first came forward (A.D. 633) against the new heresy in Alexandria, Maximus was in his company, as he says himself in his letter to Peter.1 The incompleteness of the Vita Maximi, written by one of his admirers,2 leaves it doubtful whether he was abbot at that time. It does not mention this first journey to Africa, and speaks only of the second, which drew after it the disputation with Pyrrhus, A.D. 645, and the holding of several African Synods, A.D. 646. On the authority of the Chronicle of Nicephorus (Pagi, ad ann. 642, 1), it is believed that the Patriarch Pyrrhus was formerly abbot of Chrysopolis, and so the predecessor of Maximus, so that when Pyrrhus in the year 639 ascended the patriarchal throne, Maximus became his successor as abbot.3 But apart from the fact that the Vita Maximi (c. 5) speaks of his predecesor in such a manner that we can see he has died, and refers to him in the most respectful manner, which it would not have done in reference to Pyrrhus, — apart from this, Pyrrhus says expressly, at the beginning of his dis-
1 Anastasii Collectanea, in Galland. t. xiii. p. 38 ; Mansi, t. x. p. 691.
2 Prefixed to Combefis' edition of the works of S. Maximus.
3 Thus Walch, KetzerMst. Bd. ix. S. 195.
7-4 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
putation with Maximus, that " previously he had not known him by sight." Pyrrhus, then, could not have been the abbot of Maximus nor his predecessor in the rule of the convent.
When the Monothelite heresy spread more and more in Constantinople, Maximus resolved to betake himself to Borne, and on the way thither came for the second time to Africa. During a protracted residence there he had much intercourse with the bishops of those parts, and also found a patron in the imperial viceroy, Gregory,1 and gave general warnings against the Monothelite heresy. To this time also belongs .the remarkable disputation between Maximus and the deposed and banished Patriarch Pyrrhus of Constantinople, which, according to the superscription, took place somewhere in Africa, in July 645, in presence of the imperial viceroy and many bishops. The complete Acts have come down to us,2 and contain a very complete discussion both of the orthodox Dyothelite doctrine and of the objections from the other side. Maximus showed in this much dialectical ability and great superiority to Pyrrhus, whom at times he treated with scant courtesy.
Pyrrhus opened the discussion with the words : " What have I, or what has my predecessor (the Patriarch Sergius), done to you that you everywhere decry us as heretics ? Who has honoured you more than we, although we did not know you by sight ? " Maximus replied : " The latter is correct ; but since you have violated the Christian dogma, I was forced to place your favour behind the truth. ... The doctrine of one will is contrary to Christianity ; for what is more impious than to maintain that the same will by which all things were created, after the Incarnation, longed for food and drink ? " Pyrrhus : " If Christ is only one person, this one so willed ; thus there is only one will." M. " That is confusion. In truth, the one Christ ' is God and man at the
1 It is believed that Gregory was identical with that George with whom Maximus corresponded, and whom he greatly commended. Cf. Walch, I.e. S. 190.
2 Printed in S. Maximi Opera, ed. Combefis, t. ii. p. 159 sqq. ; ed. Migne, Paris 1860, t. i. p. 287 sqq. Also in Mansi, t. x. p. 709-760 (misplaced by a misprint), and in the Appendix to vol. viii. of Baronius.
ABBOT MAXIMUS AND HIS DISPUTATION WITH PYRRHUS. 75
same time. If, however, He is both, then HE willed as God and as man, and, particularly, that which was suitable to the particular nature ; no nature dispensed with its will and its energy. If the duality of the natures does not divide the one Christ, no more is this done by the duality of wills and operations." P. " But two wills presuppose two willers." M. " That you have certainly maintained in your writings ; but it is absurd. Assuming that it were so, that two wills pre suppose two willers, then it must be, vice versa, that two willers should have two wills. If you apply this to the Trinity, you must either say with Sabellius, that because in God there is only one will, there, is therefore only one Person (one Wilier) in the Godhead ; or you must say with Arius, because there are three willing (persons), there must there fore be in God three wills, and so three natures, — for the difference of wills, according to the teaching of the Fathers, comes from the difference of natures." l P. " But it is not possible that there should be in one person two wills that do not contradict each other." M. " By this you will allow that there may be two wills in one person, only it is necessary that they should contradict each other. But whence comes then the contradiction ? If from the natural will (in itself), then it would come from God, and God would( be the Author of the conflict. But if it comes from sin, then this contra diction could not be in Christ, because He was free from all sin." P. " The willing is then a matter of nature." M. " Certainly the simple willing." P. " But the Fathers say the saints had one will with God ; are they, then, of the same nature as God ? " M. " Here is a lack of distinction, and you interchange the object of the will (the thing willed) with the will in itself. The Fathers, by that expression, had only the object of willing in view, and used the expression will, not in the proper sense of the word." P. " If the will is a matter of nature, then we must often change our nature, for our will changes often, and we must be of a different nature from other men ; for they often will differently from
1 That the difference of wills rests in the difference of the natures was taught by Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril, etc. Cf. the collection of patristic passages for two energies in his Opp. t. ii. p. 156 sqq.
76 HISTOKY OF THE COUNCILS.
ourselves," M. " We must distinguish the will (as such) from the concrete willing of a definite thing, as we must dis tinguish sight from the seeing of a definite thing, e.g., whether right or left, upwards or downwards, etc., etc., they are modi of the use of the will or of sight, and by these modi one is distinguished from another." P. " If you confess two natural wills in Christ, you take away His freedom ; for what is natural is necessary." M. " Neither the divine nor the human rational nature of Christ is other than free ; for the nature which is endowed with reason has the natural power of rational desire, i.e. the (teX^o-is (the willing of the rational soul). But from the proposition, " the natural is necessary," there follows an absurdity. God is natura good, natura Creator, then was it of necessity that HE should be Creator and good. And were he not free who has a natural will, then, conversely, he must be free who has no natural will, therefore that which is lifeless." P. " I concede that there are in Christ natural wills ; but, as of two natures GV rt, crvvQerov is acknowledged by us, so must we also of two wills admit ev TI avvOerov ; and therefore they who acknowledge two wills, because of the duality of nature, should not contend with those who assume only one will because of the closest union, — it is only a strife of words."1 M. " You are mistaken, because you do not perceive that unions (syntheses) take place only in things which are immediately in the hypostasis (as the natures), but not in things which are in another (as the wills in the natures). If, however, we assume a union of the wills, we should also be forced to assume a union of all the other properties of the natures, thus, e.g., a union of the created with the uncreated, of the limited with the illimitable, of the mortal with the immortal, and so come to absurd assertions." . . . P. " Have not, then, the properties of the natures something in common, like the natures themselves ? " M. " No, they have nothing in common (i.e. the properties of the one nature have nothing in common with those of the other), but the one hypostasis." P. " But do not the Fathers speak of a communion of glory and a communion of humi liation when they say, the communion of the glory has one 1 Mansi, t. x. p. 715.
ABBOT MAXIMUS AND HIS DISPUTATION WITH PYRBHUS. 77
source, and another that of the ignominy ? " (Thus said Leo the Great, see vol. iii. sec. 176, c. 4, where he speaks of this, that the common honour of the Godhead and manhood in Christ has a different source from the common ignominy of both.) M. " The Fathers speak here after the manner of avTiftocTLS (of the communicatio idiomatum). This, how ever, presupposes two dissimilar things, since that which naturally belongs to the one part of Christ (e.g., to Him as God) is ascribed to the other part (the Son of man). And if, after the manner of the avT&ocns, you call the 6e\rj^a of Christ a KOIVQV, you confess thereby not one but two wills." P. "How? Was not the flesh of Christ moved by the suggestion of the Logos united with it ? " M. " If you say this, you divide Christ ; for by His suggestion also Moses was moved, and David, etc. But we say with the Fathers that the same highest God who unchanged became man, not only as God willed that which was suitable to His Godhead, but the same also as man willed that which was suitable to His man hood. As all things have the Sui/a/u? of the existent, and this naturally is the op^rj (the inclination) to the profitable, and the afopfAr) (drawing back, escaping) from the destructive, so also the Incarnate Logos had this Svvafiis of self-preserva tion, and showed His op^rj and a<f>op/bLrj through His energy : the opfir) in the use of physical things (yet without sin), and the afyopjJLri when He shrunk from voluntary death. Does the Church, then, do something unsuitable when it holds fast in the human nature also the properties innate in it, without which the nature cannot be ? " P. " But if there is fear in the nature, then there is something evil in it, and the human nature (of Christ) is yet free from all evil." M. " You deceive yourself by similarity of sound. There are two kinds of fear, one according to nature and one not according to nature. The former serves for the preservation of nature, the other is irrational. Christ showed only the former ; I say showed, because with Him all that was physical was voluntary. He hungered and thirsted and feared in truth, but yet not as we do, but voluntarily." P. " We should avoid all subtleties, and simply say, Christ is true God and true man, and abstain from everything else (i.e. the properties and
78 , .. HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
wills of the natures.)" l M. " That would be a rejection of the Synods and Fathers, who have made declarations respecting not only the natures, but also their properties, teaching that one and the same is visible and invisible, mortal and immortal, tangible and intangible, created and uncreated. They also taught two wills, not merely by use of the number two, but also by the opposition of d\\o KOI a\\o and by the relation of divine and human." P. " We should speak neither of one nor of two wills, since the Synods have not done so, and the heretics misuse these expressions." M. " If only the expressions of the Synods were to be used, then they would not say, fjuia ^VO-LS TOV Oeov \6yov creaapKco/jLevij. Moreover, even if they would only hold by the Synods, they would be compelled from the two natures and their properties (which the Synod of Chalcedon taught) to infer two wills, and to recognise them. Among the properties of a nature we understand that which physically belongs to it, and to each nature of Christ there is a will akin to the nature (<pvcri,K(os e^Tre^v/cev). And if the Synods anathematised Apollinaris and Arius, each of whom taught only one will, the former, because he declared that the crap!; of Christ was of like substance with the Godhead, and Arius, because he, lowering the Son, ascribed to Him no truly divine will ; how, then, can we hesitate to teach two wills ? Further, the fifth Synod declared : ' We recognise all the writings of Athanasius, Basil, Gregory,' etc. Now, in these, two wills are clearly taught." P. " Does not, then, the expression natural will seem objectionable to you ? " M. " There are three kinds of life in creatures,^ the life of the plant, the life of feeling, and the life of thought. It is the proper nature of the plant, to grow, etc. ; of the creatures that feel, to desire; of the creatures that think, to will. All that is rational, then, must by nature be voluntary. Now, the Logos has assumed a rationally quickened humanity, there fore must He also, so far as He is man, be voluntary." P. " I am convinced that the wills in Christ belong to the natures, the creaturely will to His created nature, etc., and that the two wills cannot combine into one. But those in Byzantium who oppose the natural wills maintain that the . * Mansi, t. x. p. 720.
ABBOT MAXIMUS. AND HIS DISPUTATION WITH PYERHUS. 79
Fathers had said that the Lord had a human will /car ol- Kelcoaiv (appropriation)." : M. " There are two kinds of appro priation, namely, the essential, by which everyone has what belongs to his nature, and the relative, when we in a friendly manner appropriate something foreign to ourselves. Which appropriation is here meant ? " P. " The relative." M. " How unsuitable this is will soon appear. The natural is not acquired ; so, too, will is not acquired, consequently man has by nature the power of willing. . .. . If, now, those persons maintain that Christ has assumed the human will only as something foreign, they must in consistency say that He also appropriated the other properties of human nature merely as something foreign, by which the whole Incarnation becomes an appearance. Further, Sergius anathematised everyone who admits two wills. Now, even the teachers of that otVetWt? assume two wills, even if one of them is only the appropriated one, thus anathematising the friends of Sergius themselves. And when they, falsely indeed, maintain that two wills render two persons necessary, then the teachers of that oi/ceiWi? themselves bring two persons into Christ." P. " Did not, then, the Fathers teach that Christ had formed our will in Himself, ev eavrw ervTrwcre 1 " M. " Yes, they also taught that HE had assumed our nature, but by that they did not mean /car' oiiceiaxriv" P. " But when they say, Christ formed our will in Himself, can a natural will be meant by this ? " M. " Certainly ; since Christ is also true man, He has in Himself and by Himself subjected the human to God, set up for us a pattern to will nothing but what God wills." P. " But those who admit only one will mean it not ill." 2 M. " Even the Severians say, they mean it not ill, when they admit only one nature. But which, then, should this one will be ? " P. " They call it the gnomish, and yvcofjiTj is, as Cyril says, the T^OTTO? f<w?}?, that we live vir tuously or sinfully." M. " The manner of life is matter of choice ; but by choice we will, therefore yva)^ is the willing of a real or supposed good. How can we now say, the will is gnomish, i.e. of a yvcopfj ? That means nothing else than that the will goes out from a will, which is not possible,
i.Mansi, I.e. p. 721. 2.Mansi, I.e. p. 725.
80 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
Moreover, if one ascribes to Christ a jvcofirj (a choice), He is thus made a mere man, as though HE, like us, had not known what to do, had hesitated and deliberated. . . . Should we not rather say, as His personality was divine, He possessed, in His very being, the natural good ? " 1 P. " Are, then, the virtues something natural ? " M. " Certainly." P. " But why, then, are not all men equally virtuous, since all are of one nature ? " M. " Because we do not develop the natural in like measure, nor in like measure strive after that for which we are born." P. " But yet we acquire the virtues by discipline ? " M. " Discipline and the efforts following upon it only serve to drive away the deceptions of sin. When these disappear, the natural virtues come of themselves." P. " It is, then, blasphemy to assert one 7^0)^77 in Christ." M. " The Fathers use ryvto/jLij in a different sense, e.g., as counsel, as Paul, when he says