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Monophysitism was a Christological heresy of the fifth century. It was condemned by the church in the middle of that century at the council of Chalcedon. Surviving its condemnation it flourished in the East for several centuries. Its adherents formed themselves into a powerful church with orders and succession of their own. Although the monophysite church has long since lost all influence, it is still in being. The Coptic and Jacobite churches of Egypt and Mesopotamia, respectively, preserve to

The monophysitism of the fifth century had its roots in the past as well as in the a priori . In the previous chapter we treated it as a phase of philosophic thought and reviewed the metaphysic on which the heresy rests. In the present chapter its relations as a historical system of religious thought are to be exhibited. As such, it owes much to outside influences. Much in the monophysite mode of thought and many of its specific doctrines can be traced either to other ecclesiastical heresies or

The distinctive doctrine of monophysitism, that from which the name of the heresy is taken, is the assertion that there is but one nature, the divine nature, in Christ. There existed some difference of opinion among the monophysites as to whether any degree of reality might be ascribed to the human nature. Some were prepared to allow it conceptual reality; they would grant that Christ had been diphysite momentarily, that He was "out of two natures." But that admission is quite inadequate. It amo

Monophysitism originated in a monastery. Eutyches, "the father of the monophysites," was a monk. The monastic temperament is peculiarly susceptible to this heresy, and the monastic element has always been dominant in the monophysite churches. The cloister is the natural habitat of the doctrine of the one nature. Monasticism is applied monism. If the world's existence be a sham, if its value compared with God be negligible, it becomes a religious duty to avoid all influences that heighten the ill

Christology divorced from empirical psychology is a barren science. Abstract discussions about person, nature and union of natures soon degenerate into logomachies. If personality is a psychic entity, and nature another distinct psychic entity, then the question at issue between diphysite and monophysite is worth debating. If they are concepts merely, the debate is hollow and of purely academic interest. A study of psychology clothes the dry bones with flesh. It puts life and meaning into these

"To believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ" is an ideal that the thoughtful Christian strives to attain. He expects to find the solution of high moral and speculative problems in that union of divine and human. The right faith is not easily reached. It is an elusive prize. There are conditions moral and intellectual attaching to its possession. The moral conditions may take a lifetime to fulfil. Even on its intellectual side faith is a long process. No sudden mental grasp of th