Oxford history of the christian church

2. The theological background to seventh-century monotheletism.

The theological problems of the seventh century did not mark the opening of any new era. Throughout the late Roman and early medieval periods the Church had been concerned with the gradual formulation of basic Christian doctrine. It was necessary to define its teaching on the Trinity and the Incarnation, on cosmology and soteriology, not only in order to instruct the faithful but to meet the challenge of successive heretical interpretations. The continuity and constructive nature of this work should be stressed and the Byzantines themselves frequently emphasised the extent to which they were carrying on the tradition of 'the Fathers'. This tradition was built up by men of vision who dominated the early centuries, but it did not end with the fourth-century Cappadocians or the first four general councils from Nicaea I (325) to Chalcedon (451). For instance, Chalcedon left problems only partly solved; certain of Origen's heretical views lingered on in the sixth century and beyond; and there was need to enlarge the Christian theological vocabulary in order to explain more clearly the full implications of the Incarnation, particularly in so far as this was related to man's place in the Divine economy.

Thus the seventh and eighth centuries saw the Church still concerned with Christological problems. It saw too the positive contribution of an outstanding Christian thinker, the seventhcentury Maximus the Confessor. All too often historians convey a negative impression of the work of the early Byzantine Church, implying that it was dominated by complicated conciliar arguments and fruitless attempts to placate dissident elements, such as the monophysites or the Nestorians, particularly in the sixth and seventh centuries. This is not really true, and the failure of apparent political aims should not obscure doctrinal achievement.

The seventh-century theological controversies can be traced back to the problems arising out of the council of Chalcedon (451). This council had stated that Christ had two natures, the divine and the human, but one person or hypostasis. Its definition that Christ is known 'in two natures' had tended to offend the Alexandrians and in particular the followers of Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria (d. 444), and was regarded by some as having a pro-Nestorian bias in its treatment of the two natures of Christ. Its supporters were regarded as dyophysites in contrast to those who stressed a single nature, the monophysites.

As was the practice in the Byzantine Empire, Emperor and churchmen both took part in ecclesiastical affairs. The greater part of the sixth century was dominated by Justinian (527-65). Perhaps more than any other Byzantine Emperor he interpreted his imperial mandate as including theological as well as the administrative problems of the Church. He obviously desired to find some solution to current doctrinal controversy which would be acceptable to Rome and the West and would quiet the dissenting voices of monophysites and Nestorians. But it should be noted that the imperial provinces in which monophysite views predominated, Egypt and Syria for instance, were not at first hostile towards the central government and separatist in outlook. This only developed when they had abandoned hope (after Jacob Baradaeus had provided a rival episcopate) of gaining a monophysite Emperor, that is, until after Theodora's death. It was for reasons of prestige that Alexandria certainly resented the rise to power of Constantinople and the increasingly decisive part which the imperial capital took in ecclesiastical as well as secular affairs. But the political element should not obscure the primary importance of the theological problem.

The Alexandrians took their stand on Cyril of Alexandria's formula, 'one nature incarnate of God the Word'. Strict dyophysites, a minority, could not accept the implications of Cyril's teaching, but the majority of the Chalcedonians interpreted Cyril's word 'nature' (φúσις) as the equivalent of 'hypostasis' (υπóσaσις) or 'person' (πΡóσωπο½), thus preserving the unity of the Persons in whom there were two natures each retaining its own special properties or characteristics. Thus it was possible for Cyrillian Chalcedonians to accept the theopaschite formula which arose as a subject of controversy when the Patriarch of Antioch, Peter the Fuller (d. 488), began to chant the Trisagion, the 'Thrice-holy' chant, addressing God the Son as 'Holy God, holy Mighty, holy Immortal', with the additional words 'who was crucified for us'. Extreme dyophysites maintained that the human Christ and not the Logos suffered on the cross, a view which would deny the unity of the two natures forming one person. At Constantinople the Trisagion was commonly understood as referring to the Trinity, in which case the addition was not orthodox. But the use of the phrase 'crucified for us' as applied to God the Son was vital. The Word, the Son of God, and not just the human Christ, had to suffer in the flesh if man was to fulfil his destiny in the divine economy through his deification. As Gregory of Nazianzus put it 'In order that we may live again, we need a God who was incarnate and suffered death.' ²

This question of the nature of the hypostatic union with the soteriological implications was faced in the sixth century. Justinian supported by his Patriarch and by the Fifth general council (Constantinople II, 553) drew out the intentions of Chalcedon in making it clear that the human Christ and the eternal Logos had a single hypostatic identity. Thus theopaschism was acceptable in the sense that one of the Trinity, the Son of God, was crucified and buried. At the same time certain teachings of the Nestorians were condemned in Justinian's censure of the Three Chapters (that is excerpts from Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Ibas of Edessa favouring a strongly two-nature Christology), which was confirmed by the council of 553 with the reluctant assent of the Pope Vigilius. Though the Edict of Union (the Henoticon), an attempt to compromise with the monophysites sponsored by the Emperors Zeno (476-91 and Anastaslus(491-518) had been repudiated under Justinian's uncle, Justin I (518-27), the recognition in 553 of the Cyrillian position, provided it was interpreted 'as the holy Fathers have taught', ³ should have gone some way towards winning over the monophysites. The standing council in Constantinople (synodos endemousa) had already condemned certain heretical views on the creation and on the nature of man deriving from Origen (d. c.254) and Evagrius of Pontus (d. 399) which were current in monastic circles. ⁴ This censure of Origenism was confirmed by the council of 553.