Chapter Second

CHAPTER SECOND.

THE MONOTHELETE CONTROVERSIES OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY. THE CECUMENICAL SYNODS OF THE YEARS 680 AND 693.

IIow far the Monophysitic mode of thought was from having been fully overcome at the date of the Synod of Chalcedon, is sufficiently clear from the immense compass of this long-enduring and not hitherto terminated controversy:—indeed, down to the time of Justinian, it may be regarded in more than one respect as a controversy within the Church itself, to the doctrinal efforts of which, it in several instances gave a new direction. Not before the time of Justinian was a decided blow struck at the influence of Monophysitism in the Greek Church. This result was due, partly, to the continuous schism which existed in the party, side by side with a retrograde movement towards a species of Dyophysitism; partly to the circumstance, that the Monophysites, after they began to be persecuted, made the countries which lay outside the Roman Empire the principal scene of their operations, and that, in the following century, they were for the most part shut out from the influence of the other Churches, through the inroads of Mohammedanism. Considered in relation to the Council of Chalcedon, the matter may be said to have stood as follows:—the unquestioned and sole supremacy of the doctrine of the two natures, in the Greek and in the Latin Church, dates from Justinian; and all attempts to call again in question the authority of the Chalcedonian decrees, or to obtain for the Monophysites some sort of a place in the orthodox Church, were, from that time onwards, entirely dropped.

But with all that was blameworthy in it, the fundamental intuition of Monophysitism had struck its roots so deeply into the Christian consciousness, that even after it had been formally proscribed the Monothelete Controversy arose within the very limits of the Church.¹ On the part of its chief teachers—the Patriarch Sergius, and Pyrrhus of Constantinople, Cyrus of Alexandria, Theodoras of Pharan, and Honorius, Patriarch of Rome—Monotheletism may be considered as an attempt to effect some kind of solution of the problem of the vital unity of the Person of Christ, which had been so seriously proposed by Monophysitism, on the basis of the now firmly established doctrine of the two natures. Nor, looked at in this aspect, can it be denied that the Church had now arrived at a stadium in its development, when, even on internal grounds, this attempt required to be made; although political motives and plans induced the Emperor to attempt to turn the rising impulse to an irenical (elprjviKos) account—to use it as a basis for the reconciliation of Monophysitism with the main body of the Church. Regarded in connection with the Council of Chalcedon, on the contrary, the result of the controversy was the logical and consistent evolution of one important aspect of the Chalcedonian doctrine. This evolution was, however, of such a character, that another solution of the problem referred to was the more imperatively required, when the Monothelete solution had been condemned by the Church. The most prominent representatives of this aspect, were Sophronius, at a later period Patriarch of Jerusalem, the monk Maximus, and Agathon of Rome.

Let us now examine these controversies more closely. We have spoken before (p. 52) of the great influence of the Egyptian monks, which had made itself felt from the end of the fourth century. From the fifth century onwards, we find a connection of varied character existing between them and the

¹ The Monophysites persisted in maintaining that two natures must also have two wills or modes of expression—that one will demands one nature

Syrian monks, especially that part of the Syrian monks which shared the mystical tendency, which had originated with the elder Ephraem. To this connection must it be attributed that, despite the efforts of a Theodoret, and despite the more friendly tone assumed by the Council of Chalcedon, towards the old school of Antioch, Monophysitism attained to so wide-spread an authority in Syria and Asia. In these monasteries, also, was probably produced that peculiar mixture of Platonism or NeoPlatonism and Christianity, the most characteristic expression of which are the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, that oracle of secret wisdom, whose fame the Monophysites, indeed, were the first to proclaim, but who rose to great importance in the Church also, on account of the mystical nature of his teachings. His praise was echoed even during the Middle Ages, and his heavenly hierarchy may be said to have been the type of the earthly. These writings probably originated in the fifth' ] century. It will be necessary to dwell for a time upon them, both because their mystical Christology formed an important link of connection between Monophysitism and the doctrine of the Church, and because they not only greatly aid in accounting for the rise of Monotheletism, but were even a prelude thereto. Moreover, the extended influence enjoyed by the name and the views of the Areopagite, may prove to be an important confirmation of the assertion previously made, that in the old Monophysitism there was a background of Pantheism: not that we mean to affirm that the Areopagite was a declared Monophysite; certainly, however, that his entire mode of viewing the world and God belonged to this family (Note 37).

In his work on the Divine Names (c. 2, § 10) he remarks, 11 —The deity of Jesus, which is the cause of all things, fills all things, and preserves all the parts of the universe in concord with the whole,—is neither a part nor a whole, and yet again is both a part and a whole. For it comprises all the parts and the full whole in itself: it is perfect in the imperfect, for it is the prime originator of perfection; but in perfect things it is imperfect, for both as to dignity and origin, it transcends their perfection. In the things which are defective as to form, it is the forming form and the principle of form; but it is also, at the same time, destitute of form, in the forms, because it is itself above all form. It is the being which completely dwells in all beings without stain, and is at the same time entirely exalted above all beings.¹ All the principles of things, and all ordinances, it determines, and yet stands above every principle and every ordinance. It is the measure of things, and their time (that is, their measure, as to space and time), and yet it is above, and prior to, time: it is full in needy things, and overflows in full things: it is unutterable, innominable: it is above understanding, above life, above substance, above nature; and so forth. Thus, on the one hand, the Areopagite represents every conception of God, every nominable Divine attribute, as absolutely swallowed up in the incomprehensible Divine unity in the Divine obscurity; and not even from the operations of God may any conclusions be drawn, according to the law of causality, respecting God Himself. "The causes are outside their effects, and are exalted above them, in accordance with the law of their own original, primal ground."² The very strongest expression is thus given to the exclusiveness which characterized this conception of God, in relation to everything finite and human;—a conception which lay also at the foundation of Monophysitism. From this point of view there is absolutely no resemblance between God and even man,—there is not even an objective relation between the two: God is too highly exalted. But the converse aspect of this matter is also necessary,—namely, that the world has no real existence as a world; that, so far as it can be said really to exist, it is simply the existence of the divine in it. In so far as it really is, God is the unity of that which is divided, the essential being in that which is, the one power uniting the powers, the life of the living; in such a way, however, that whilst He is allowed to be all this, He is conceived as transcending it,—as an absolutely peculiar, and absolutely incomprehensible, supersubstantial (iiberseiend, inrepovaios) being. We are here carried back, in all essential respects, to the point of view of Philo; with the difference, that Philo sums up and

¹ See Note F. App. ii.

³ There may have worked here a precognitive feeling, that a free causality is out of the question, so long as the law of causality takes only a physical form,—that is, so long as certain conclusions can be drawn from the nature of the effect to the nature of the cause. But a free causality, such as he describes, which bears no resemblance whatever to its operations, is in reality physical, because it is arbitrary, notwithstanding its apparent loftiness, and its absolutely supernatural character.

comprises the positive relation of God to the world in the Logos, the negative relation in the bv. That out of this bv, the idea of the supersubstantial (jnrepovaiov) should have been formed, may have been due, partly, to the transcendental character of the Christian conception of God,—a transcendence in which the Son also, according to the Areopagite, must participate. A difference in the positive aspect of the Divine relation to the world could not fail to be brought about by the idea of the incarnation,—an idea which the Areopagite took also into consideration. But this step in advance, as we at once find, was, in both aspects, but uncertain and precarious, for precisely the same reason, and because of the very defects, which we remarked in Philo. Both the religious and philosophical consciousness here made their boldest flight towards that absoluteness of the Divine nature which is fitted to attract a pious spirit, or to fill it with reverence, and to give to thought the appearance of infinite depth: in reality, however, these attempts did but reveal the inner poverty and emptiness of an idea of God which can only be defined by categories borrowed from the domain of the physical. As though intoxicated with nature, and given up to ecstasies, these men ignored the ethical nature of God; and yet at the same time imagined themselves able to advance an infinitely more sublime conception of God.

But, seeing that God is the one, who is at once in all and above all,—yea, outweighs the negation of the many by the Divine unity,—all idea of distinct hypostases in God ought consistently to be renounced: in the superessential God everything sinks down into a unity without distinctions. Much is said, indeed, of the Many, along with the One; but the trinity in God retains merely a completely precarious position.¹ The Areopagite aims at beholding the One in motion, in process. But a process is only possible where there is a real distinction of momenta; whereas, in this case, the distinctions are not deduced from the unity itself, but are empirically or traditionally adopted, and are then again allowed to disappear in the undiscriminated unity. Importance and significance could, therefore, attach to the distinctions only so far as they mark a lower stage of consciousness, which had not yet advanced to the highest unity.¹ By the distinctions or the many, the Areopagite signified the ¹ Compare Baur, a. a. 0., Band ii. S. 235-239. * See Note G. App. ii.

world. For the reason just assigned, however, the world could have merely a docetical existence; for it is quite as truly nothing as something, inasmuch as all that it is, God is; and yet God, again, is quite as truly not in all, but above all. The result, as far as Christology is concerned, is very plain: after laying down such premises, it was impossible for the Areopagite to justify, either anthropologically or theologically, a specific incarnation in one. If he taught it at all, it was because he had adopted it from the creeds of the Church, and he was quite unable to put himself into a sincere and true relation towards it. He says,— Inasmuch as the deity of Jesus, in its exceeding goodness, came even to nature (bis zur Natur), and truly assumed the substance of our flesh, so that the Highest God could be called "man," the supernatural and supersubstantial essence shone forth out of humanity. Not merely because He communicated Himself to us without mixture or change (for in His overflowing fulness He suffered no harm from His unspeakable humiliation), but— and this is the most marvellous amongst all marvellous thingsHe was supernatural in our natural; He was superessential (iiberseiend) in that which belongs to our being (Sein); and He possessed in an unique manner all that is ours, of us, and above us.¹ "How can Jesus," he asks, "6 irdprav hreKuva (ultra) be essentially united with all men; that is, not merely in the sense in which He who is the Author of man, can be designated man (in accordance with his notion that God may be named with the names of all His creatures), but in the sense that He was truly man as to His entire nature?" We call Him, he replies, not "man," for He is not merely man: nor is He merely above our substance (imepovaios); but He is actually man, inrep dvdpdmow; xat Kara avdpdrrrow;. The superessential One is i£ dvdpamav ovaias ouaia>fievos: but He does not, therefore, the less overflow with superessential essence, seeing that He is always beyond and above all being (Sein). He remains concealed even after the revelation of Himself; or rather, to speak more divinely, He remains concealed even in the revelation of Himself. For this reason, even when He entered into being, He was invested with a being above being (xnrep ovaiap ovauedrj). In a manner above the human, He performed human acts. In

¹ De div. nomin. ed. Paris, pp. 271-273; compare also Euthym. Panopl. I., Tit. vii., pp. 39, 40.

short, He was not a man, not as though He were not man, but because, though born after human fashion, He was, notwithstanding, really man above the human mode, and above man. Not as God did He perform divine acts, nor human acts as man; but inasmuch as in Him, God had become man, He developed a new, that is, a divine-human, a theandrical activity ^(BeavBpiKrjv evipyeiav).¹ From what has been advanced, it is deaf" enough that- the Pseudo-Areopagite could not really ac-^r knowledge the duality of the natures. It is true, he further suggests, in the words last quoted, that the entire activity of Christ was neither purely divine nor purely human, but in all cases theandrical (deavBpiKrf); and he accordingly approximated towards the view of the human in Christ as the mere form of the divine, or as the configured divine; but it was out of his power to set it with distinctness before the mind. The superessential, formless essence of the divine, which remains the same even during the incarnation, presented a constant hindrance in the way of his conceiving the Son to have been really and actually present in Jesus. And, inasmuch as he sought to unite the human with the divine, by representing the former as participating in the superessential essence of the latter, the human is a<»ain reduced to a something vague and general, and acquires a Docetic character. His whole view of the world, as set forth in his heavenly hierarchy,² owing to the pantheistic and universalistic nature of the deificatory process on which it rests, rendered it still more difficult for him to assign to the God-man Jesus any distinctive and integrant place in the universe. What place can Christ occupy in this order, which is divided into two parts,—the heavenly, and its symbolical antitype, the earthly? Does He occupy a place in the earthly? But then He is on a stage lower than the very lowest of the heavenly order. Or, does He occupy a place in the heavenly? But then His earthly existence is an illusion: He must, further,

¹ Epist. ad Cajum Medicum, 3, 4; compare the Schol. of the Confessor et Monach. Maximus, as appendix to the Oxford Edition of the Opera of Joh. Scotus Erigena, 1681, p. 58 ft.

2 The divine nature is represented as diffusing itself in multiple forms through all that is, in that it descends from the highest to the lowest stages, and becomes ever more and more disintegrated; but, through the purifying, consecrating, and perfecting action of these same stages, it returns upwards again into the simple unity which is in God, and which is God.

either be co-ordinated, or put on one level, with the heavenly spirits (whether they be the highest or not, is immaterial), and be held to be merely one of the High Priests of the universe, who collect divine life within themselves, and again diffuse it; or else He stands at the apex, as the highest unity. In the latter case, according to this system, Christ must be coincident with the Deity, the humanity must disappear, and either all beings must be in a graduated measure God-men, or there is no God-man at all. In point of fact, the latter is the truth: for God, as God the Superessential One, in the view of the Areopagite, is by His very idea incommunicable, like the God of Philo, and can neither reveal Himself nor be known. For Christ, consequently, there would only remain a subordinate place: His appearance and revelation is not a purely positive thing, but is as necessarily marked by negation and limitation, as everything else that is finite. Dionysius knew no other way of escaping from that Hellenic Ebionitism into which, at this point, he might easily have fallen, than by calling the Logos Himself Jesus: thus confessing, by implication, that he only retained an eternal Christ, and that the historical Christ had faded away before his eyes.

The Monophysites were the first to regard the teachings of the Pseudo-Dionysius with favour, and to concede to them authority i¹ from the Nestorian party they met with a different reception. But, even in the Church, they soon came to be regarded with not a little consideration. This was due, partly, to the wider diffusion of an acquaintance with Platonism, to the revival of Origenism amongst many of the monks, especially those of the monastery of Laura, to the transcendental character and apparent loftiness of the conception of God contained in the works of the Areopagite, and, finally, to the favour with which his idea of an hierarchy was regarded. A. physical conception of God, such as these writings set forth, could not but be felt to be favourable to the idea of magical

¹ Even if these writings did not proceed from the Monophysite party (see above, p. 196). In the religious colloquy opened at the instance of Justinian, the Monophysites appealed to passages from the Areopagite; but their orthodox opponents declared that they had previously had no knowledge of those writings, and therefore refused to allow them to be quoted as authoritative.

powers, administered by a regularly graduated hierarchy: and, inasmuch as the teachers of the Church represented, on the one hand, the divine and human natures as absolutely different substances ;¹ and yet, on the other hand, could not avoid regarding God as the prototype and goal of man; the necessary consequence was, the adoption of a doctrine of redemption which made it necessary to the perfection of man, that he should relink quish his own nature and be raised to another and higher nature. When man corresponds to his true idea, he is good: but there is a higher goodness and virtue than the common, and this higher goodness becomes the portion of him, who either raises himself, or is raised, above human life, by means of those magical I forces. Hence the distinguished position assigned by the Areopagite to Monachism. The highest virtue is not genuinely human, or the human in its true form and condition, but the negation thereof. An ethical system of this nature necessarily leads to the conclusion, that man, in order to attain to perfection, must cease to be—must be absorbed or transformed * into God. The principle was not followed out to its logical consequences; but there was an unsteady alternation between the ethics of ecstasis and ethics proper. The latter, namely, ethics proper, contented itself with the conclusion, that so long as man is quantitatively different from God, he cannot be perfect; and accommodated its requirements to this conclusion. That such views necessarily admitted only of a negative conception of evil, does not need to be expressly shown.

In all these respects, the system of the Areopagite did but give a general expression to the real secret of the point of view of the Western theology of that day. Accordingly, in the following century, the genuineness of these writings was defended even by the teachers of the Church, and the champions of orthodoxy went to the extent of landing Dionysius as the Divine. At first, indeed, the Church probably felt that they had a strange and unfamiliar sound: but the heathen schools of the Neo-Platonists having been closed, and Christianity having been, outwardly, universally recognised, these writings,

¹ See above, p. 144 ff. Compare also Boethius I. c. p. 952, against the Nestoriana: "Deo atque homini quid non erit diversa ratione disjunctam, si sub diversitate nature pereonarum quoque credatur mansisse discretio?"

with their high-flown rhetorical tone, must have had the more overmastering a charm for a perversely cultivated age, as they clothed with the appearance of deepest divine knowledge views of God and the world which had really an heathenish origin, and which the Church did not allow to become influential in its midst, without experiencing at first great scruples of conscience. The Pseudo-Areopagite played an important part in the history of Christology from the circumstance that the expression employed by him, deavhpiKrj evepyeia (divine-human activity), appeared a formula happily fitted to meet the demand for unity, whilst leaving untouched the doctrine of two absolutely opposed substances. With regard to one point, no doubt whatever seemed to be entertained,—to wit, that if the man Jesus acted for himself, and the Son of God in like manner for Himself, no result was attained by the incarnation, and that, con sequently, the unity of person must express itself, at the very least, in the activity. Accordingly, in Christ, God and man were held, not merely to will the same thing, but to will the same thing in the same manner; and, consequently, both the form and the contents of the will of the two natures interpenetrated and constituted a unity. Hitherto, also, there had been no lack of teachers of the Church who taught, without hesitation, that in Christ there was unity of action and unity of will. Besides all, the hope was entertained of a possible reconciliation of the Monophysites by means of the doctrine of one will:—a consideration to which the Emperor Ileraclius especially, attached great importance, on account of his difficulties with the Mohammedans. The older authorities do not inform us whether the Bishops Athanasius and Cyrus, who first brought this matter before the attention of the Emperor, had been led to the view they took by political reasons, or reasons connected with the peace and unity of the Church. We should suppose the former not to have been the case, so far as, in the natural course of things, we should be justified in expecting the will of Christ to be now made the subject of inquiry;—the corporeal and intellectual aspects of His Person having been hitherto so frequently discussed. That Monothclctism could not have owed its rise to any merely external considerations, and that the decision of the Council of Chalcedon did not by any means, as a matter of course, include the doctrine of two wills, was due, partly, to the conviction, that two wills in one person seem most decidedly to presuppose two centres or Egos,—the will being most intimately connected with the personality; partly, to the circumstance, that the doctrine of two natures and one will in Christ had, at first, been received with very general favour, because the Patriarchs Sergius of Constantinople and Cyrus of Alexandria, and even Pope Honorius, had distinctly expressed their approval of Monotheletism. The Emperor Heraclius, therefore, did not hesitate to lend it the force of his authority. And the Monophysites in the Patriarchate of Alexandria were actually reconciled to the Church by means of this doctrine, including as it did the formula of Dionysius. Cyrus and the Alexandrian Synod of 633 (Neander says, 630?) repudiated the notion both of mixture and separation; aimed, however, at the same time, not merely at an hypostatical, but also at a physical union, the two factors of which should not be mixed in thought, but continue to exist and act distinctly, though co-operating in a divine-human operation. Before entering into the details, it will be advisable first to endeavour to find the bearings of this confused controversy, which hitherto has not been sufficiently cleared up or understood.

The Monotheletic Controversy went through three stadia. In its first stadium, which may be considered to extend from the . year 623 until towards the year 638, the controversy bore chiefly" on the question, Whether we are to assume only fii'a ivepyeia (BiavEpiKi/) in Christ, as did the Monophysites and Monotheletes, or Bvo ivepyeiai? Theodorus of Pharan, Sergius, Cyrus,¹ the Synod of Constantinople of the year 626, and the Synod of Alexandria in the year 633, took the first view; Sophronius the second.² The volitional power was, as yet, not at all brought under special consideration. In consequence, however, of the ambiguity even of the word ivepyeia (operatio),—an ambiguity which allowed it to denote, on the one hand, the actual volition, or, the activity and mode of operation, and, on the other hand, the deed or effect of the volition (airore\eafia\—the controversy still continued to be marked by indefiniteness. If ivepyeia were taken in the second sense, the majority must have been disposed to acknowledge that there was but one ivepyeia. This

¹ Mansi x. 585, 603, 744; xi. Cone. Cstp. Act. 13, pp. 558-579.
'Mansi xi., Act. 11, pp. 461-485. His " Ep. Synodica ad Serg."

position was the most favourable one for the defenders of the unity, though it was at the same time the position of least importance as regards the idea to be formed of the Person of Christ; for, in itself, the doctrine of two natures and wills was quite compatible therewith. In this first stadium, the question of one or two wills was not at all agitated: the principal and only question was, "Are the two natures to be conceived as active and efficient or not?" The one party, at a later period designated Monotheletes, were disposed to represent the deity of Christ alone as active, and not the humanity. So, for example, Theodore of Pharan. Dyophysitism was thus reduced to a dead, impotent proposition; and, by assigning to the humanity of Christ, at the utmost, a passive position, they took a most decided turn towards Monophysitism. But when their opponents —for example, Sophronius, and in part also, at a later period, Honorius—maintained that both natures were active, from a fear of opening the door to Monophysitism, they were still far from conceding the duality of wills, along with the duality of natures. They rather conceived the two potences, each acting in its own way, to be reduced to unity in the personality, and assumed for this purpose the existence of an Jivpostatical will in Christ, with which the final decision rested. Naturally, therefore, they held the deed or effect to be one, to be divine-human. Accordingly, the one Christ, or His one deciding will, accomplished the one ^divine-human work (airore\eafia), through the medium of the two powers, or congeries of powers (natures), each of which acted in its own way. Examined in the light of the later Dyotheletism, these also must be classed with the Monotheletes: in fact, some of them were actually classed with the Monotheletes (for example, by the Council of 680), especially Honorius. Sophronius, on the contrary, the originator of the controversy, whose teachings, as we shall see, were essentially the same as those of Honorius, was, marvellously enough, recognised as orthodox by the Sixth Council. In consequence of the mistakes which have prevailed relatively to this matter, the greatest confusion has been introduced into the course and history of this controversy.

The second stadium was inaugurated by Honorius. He asserted that there were two natures, each working in its own way, not one evipyeia; but one will, which he assigns to the personality. Now, for the first time, was a definite doctrine of one will laid down: the occasion thereto was given by the work of Sergius. (Sergius, however, appears to have reserved to himself the right to apportion this unity of will to the natures instead of to the person; and thus also to teach fiiav ivepyeiav.) The "EKdeaK iri<rrea<; of Heraclius in 638, the successors of Sergius—Pyrrhus, Paulus, Petrus, maintained the same view; and the expositions given by these men, determined the form which Monotheletism bore in the eyes of those who assailed it. Acceding to the desire expressed by Honorius, through the medium of his envoy, Sophronius composed himself: and, indeed, there cannot have been any great difference between the views of Sophronius and Honorius. But this doctrine of one will, whether the will were attributed to the natures or to the person, was most hotly controverted, both by Sophronius' pupil Stephanus, and by the succeeding popes,—especially by Martin I. One reason for this opposition was, that its defenders, from a desire to favour Monophysitism, refused to combine with it the doctrine of two natures, which, though acting in conjunction, were yet distinct. Another reason, and one which especially influenced St Maximus, whose doctrine had considerable weight with the Lateran Council of the year 649, was, that the reality of the humanity of Christ was not believed, and that with justice, to be ensured, unless it were allowed to possess freedom—the ability to move for itself, and to take independent initiative;—which ability seemed to be curtailed, if, as Honorius taught, the will of the divine hypostasis or nature had deciding, and, as it were, arbitrative power. But, for the preservation of the unity of the two series of activities and of the two wills, which run parallel with each other, little or no care was, in this connection, taken. Dyotheletism, as laid down by Maximus and the Lateran Council, started with the ivepyeia, or mode of action of each nature, and thence passed to the "potentia," to the capacity possessed by each nature (including therein the intellectual faculty): it distinguished, further, between the ivipyeia as activity (will "actualiter"), and ivepyeiu as deed, effect (airore\ea/ia); and endeavoured to carry out the duality in all these three respects.

Monotheletism gained thus, for the first time, a clear understanding of its own nature and tendencies. In the course of the third stadium (from the year 649 to 680), it perceived that it must attach more importance to the preservation of the unity of the volitional faculties, in the inmost centre of the person, than to the assertion of an undiscriminated unity of activities and effects. For even Monophysitism had been accustomed, since the time of Severus, to allow room for distinctions in both those aspects. The Monotheletes, accordingly, still asserted the unity of the will, but were induced, even previously to 645, by the charge of denying the reality of the humanity of Christ, to assume a will, in some way or other composite, which admitted of, or comprised, distinctly acting powers (natures). This was specially the view of the Antiocheian Patriarch Macarius, who no longer insisted on one " operatio," but merely on a deavBpiKrjv evepyeiav (without the addition of filav): he still adhered, however, to the unity of the dejp.a of the hypostasis. The Synod of Constantinople, however, in 680, maintained that the two natures had two wills; and tried also (see their letter to the Emperor, xi. 664) to make it appear that they had established a free human will in Christ; but we shall find that they again contrived, by means of unexpected addenda, to give to the will of the divine aspect such a predominance, that the human will was degraded from the position of a free, to that of a merely operative, power (conceded to it even by Monotheletism), constituting little more than a point of transition for the all-decisive divine will. Thus, at the very moment when Honorius was ranked among heretics worthy of anathema, and his writings were burnt by the hand of the Synod, his view was in all essential features adopted by the Council.¹ After this general survey, let us now enter on the details.

FIRST STADIUM.

From the year 623 to 638.

Previously to this controversy, many had unhesitatingly adopted the formula, fila ivepyeia; partly on the authority of the

¹ Mansi xi. 621, 636, 684, 582, etc. The defence of Honorius put forth by Maximus (Mansi x.) is poor, and contradicts the second letter of Honorius. A better justification of him may be found in the decrees of the (Ecumenical Council. See below.

Areopagite,' and partly because, notwithstanding the duality of the natures, they were anxious in any case to preserve the unity of the work, of Christ. But the term ivepyeia embraced both the activity and the result of the activity. The testimony of the Fathers was unquestionably not unfavourable,—Cyrill's fundamental view was in favour thereof,²—everything in Christ seemed split up, and the unity of His Person more completely dissolved than it was even according to the theory of Nestorius, who expressly taught the fiiav ivepyeiav, if the duality were extended even to the ivepyeia, instead of its being constituted the point in which, or by which, the unity of the person was preserved.

Accordingly, Bishop Theodorus of Pharan, the oldest and most important defender of the fiia ivepyeia, although a Dyophysite,³ taught that all the deeds narrated of Christ, even all that appertained to His soul and body, proceeded singly and undividedly from one principle (ap'^oeiBw, povaBtKios xat dBiaiperon), beginning in, and, as it were, welling originally forth from, the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Logos, though emerging through the medium of the rational soul, and of the body. Sleep, weariness, hunger, thirst, motion, and rest, he considered, should alike be referred to the all-wise and omnipotent activity of the Logos, who purposed to become man: everything, therefore, must be attributed to the one activity of the whole Logos, as One. In Christ, consequently, there was one will, and that will was divine.⁴ Even His so-called sufferings, although they were the natural expression of human motions, must all be designated the one activity of one and the same Christ, put forth in order to bring us salvation. Natural motions also, were activities in Christ,—activities, that is, of the Logos. Our soul, indeed, is not master of the body in relation to density, or mass, or weight, or colour, and so forth; but it was otherwise with the body of Christ, possessed as it was of divine power and life. For He proceeded forth from Mary, and from the grave, and passed through doors, as one who had no body; He walked on the sea, as on a solid road. If, then, such an one was, notwithstanding, affected by sufferings, it must have been due to the action of the will of the Logos, who purposed it.¹ Body and soul in Christ were simply the ready organ of the alone-dominant Logos, the medium for the evolution of His ivipyeia, which he designates the fila 0eov ivipyeia. The motions which pertained to the human nature, did not penetrate to the upper sphere: the Logos, with His nature, is represented as having occupied the place of the personality, and the humanity is thus reduced to the rank of a mere garment, or means of revelation, which stands in a completely passive relation to the divine nature,—the divine nature being, at the same time, also the personal element. When Theodorus speaks of the ivipyeia in the sense of effect, he does not fear to describe it as both divine and human (as it were, composite) ;² but when he understands by it the activity, the principle itself as active, he can only attribute it to the Logos. The question,—Whether we can speak of one will of the natures, did not at all suggest itself to him.

¹ Sophronius was no doubt justified (as even Pyrrhus allows) in blaming Cyrus, for citing the expression filai i tStatlpixqt itipytiat, as though the Areopagite had employed it; whereas in reality he uses the word xccittit, instead of fii'at. Substantially, however, Cyrus was right (see above, page 160), as is plain, both from the use of the singular, and from the word tiut

iflxtl.

* Compare Mansi xi. 533. ³ See Mansi xi. 568, 569.

⁴ L. C. 568. Airrov yap To iiXn/tx it ion, Kox roDro itixit.

In a very similar way, Cyrus of Alexandria also clung to the fila ivipyeia, both in his transactions with the Egyptian Monophysites,—thousands of whom he gained over by his formulae of concord,—and in his letter to Sergius. He makes no mention whatever of the will, or of the unity of the will,³ as a faculty, but confines himself to requiring fila deavBpiKrj ivipyeia,—understanding thereby both the effect and the activity. In point of thought, therefore, he certainly does assert one actual will,—a one will, however, of such a character, as not totally to exclude living movements on the part of the two natures (wluch

¹ This reminds us of Aphthartodocetism. His principal object, however, was to represent everything as the act of the Logos. For this reason even sufferings are converted into acta: a thought which, in itself, is important; but he does not employ it to the advantage of the humanity or soul of Christ also, but only to that of the Logos.

* L. c. 568 below, compare with 569 above.

* Compare his first Letter to Sergius, Mansi xi. 560, 561, and especially the Deed of Union (Vereinigungsurkunde), p. 565, can. 7, where he appeals to Dionysius, and recognises the formula, ft!x faxvapixri enipytia: he also recognises the Chalcedonian formula, in lio Qvetotn,—inserting, however, various clauses.

it was his wish to preserve); provided only that the duality either terminated in a synthesis, or even, as Theodore maintained, took its rise in the unity of the all-determining Logos. Very similar expressions are used by Sergius in his reply.¹ Leo's letter to Flavian, with regard to which Cyrus still betrayed certain doubts, he remarks, in order to put him at ease, does not teach that there were two modes of operation; nor was it so understood by Eulogius of Alexandria. Many Fathers, on the contrary, have taught that there was but fiia ivepyeia. He himself, he says, had begun a collection of the testimonies of the Fathers, which he was in the habit of sending to his friends: amongst them, it would appear, indeed, that there were some spurious ones. For the rest, he praises the wisdom and zeal developed by Cyrus in reconciling so many to the Church.

Sophronius, however, a learned monk, who was in Alexandria whilst the negotiations with the Monophysites were proceeding, appears to have had his suspicions awakened, precisely by the mixture of conciliatory aims. He feared a revival of Monophysitism, unless a duality of activities, correspondent to the duality of natures, were accepted.² In what sense, we shall shortly see. The matter was laid before Sergius, as the principal Patriarch in the East,³ who prevailed upon him to promise to cease the controversy which had been begun. Shortly afterwards, however (in the year 634), Sophronius was made Patriarch of Jerusalem; and at his entrance on office he issued a circular letter, embodying a very detailed confession of faith, written in a very turgid and bombastic style, and characterized by a spirit of hatred towards heretics, reminding one of an Epiphanius: he especially revived the controversy concerning the ivepyeia of Christ, which had been allowed to die out.⁴

He first advanced the usual statements against Monophysitism. The Logos cannot be circumscribed in the flesh, for He is omnipresent; whereas the flesh is circumscribed. Christ's body went from one place to another, but not the Logos: the former was tangible, the latter intangible; the latter is eternal, the son of Mary was temporal. But the Son of God, who was

¹ Mansi xi. Act. 12, pp. 525, 528. * lb., pp. 572, 532.

* According to the letter addressed by him somewhat later to Honoring in Rome, Mansi xi. 529-537.

« Mansi xi. Act. 11, pp. 461-488.

eternally the One, became the other, without change, by the assumption of humanity. If the unity is, and remains, unchangeable and undivided, so also must the duality of that which presents itself in unchangeable distinction, and shines together in undivided altereity (Anderheit), remain unchangeable. They are natures, essences,, forms (fwp<pa\), out of which the mysterious union was constituted, and in which one and the same Christ is beheld. The one remains one,—to wit, the result produced from the natures,—which result is no longer divided into two, but without conversion or separation still shows that, of which it consists.¹ That is the hypostasis, the composite person, which subsists by means of a mixture without confusion, and of a conjunction which knows no division. The hypostatical union it is, which does not involve the identiBcation of the natures (javrortfs), but preserves the distinction between them.² Both natures act, each in its own way; after the Unio, they have neither precisely the same conterminous modes of action, nor merely one mode of action. But they do not therefore separate: they rather pursue a mutually correspondent /mode of action,—they work in conjunction (xaraWi7Xo? evepyeia, avvepyeia), that is, for the one result or work (airore\ea/ia). This conjointness of action is theirs through the hypostasis of one and the same Christ, who is beheld in the two natures, and who works what pertains to each of them, in accordance with the essential inborn characteristics of each. Sophronius, consequently, attributes to each of the two natures its own mode of action or its own activity: to the hypostasis (or the Ego) of Christ also, which he terms at once composite and monadic, and which stands alongside of or above the natures, he attributes an activity of its own. Nay more, this one Christ has the power of decision. When it was His will, He gave the human nature time or space to suffer, or to work, or to grow, and so forth. For He did not allow Himself to be the involuntary or constrained subject of such things, although they were congruous to human nature; but God consented to suffer as to the flesh: and yet He neither worked nor suffered because, and when, the natural or fleshly motions called for it, and stirred up to action or suffering, but only when it was His own will. Human sufferings and activities were, as it were, collected and stored up in His Person: nay more, He was not merely their living storehouse (to/h'o?), but also the arbitrator (Schiedsrichter, irpvravi<;), who presided over their distribution.¹ For this reason (because the divine Ego, strictly speaking, both decided and acted), what was human in Him was superhuman, in that it was not His by nature, but was freely, voluntarily assumed. Nor did He work under constraint or coercion (TvpawiKa><;, avar/Kairrw); nor, again, was there ever in Him, as there is frequently in us, any lack of willingness; but whenever and in what degree He willed, He gave opportunity both to those who sought to inflict sufferings on Him, and to the sufferings themselves which acted naturally (kclto. <f>vaLv). All the miracles, indeed, were wrought by the person, but through the human nature, in order that the divine nature might be recognised in them, as the human nature was recognised in and through the sufferings. And so was the one Son known, who evolved every activity, both divine and human, out of Himself. Divinely enlightened men admonish us to draw a distinction between some biblical words and others— to refer the one to the divine, the other to the human nature: and so also do they say regarding the same Son; they affirm that no one can divorce the collective activity, from the one Sonship.² From what has been said, it is clear that Sophronius, with whatever zeal he might assert the duality of the ivepyeiai} placed above them the will of the hypostasis, and in the strict sense, attributed to it the sole decision. In reality, therefore, if not in words, he posits one will, which carries out its volitions by means of the modes of action of both the natures, and allots this will to the one Christ. A duality of wills he never mentions; nor could he in any case have regarded a will of the human nature as, strictly speaking, a free will,—he could only have viewed it as an active power, which derived its impulse from another source. The sole difference, consequently, between him and Theodoras is, that the latter always speaks of humanity as passive, and distinctly describes the Logos as the sole actor; whereas Sophronius, whilst representing the humanity over against and in relation to the hypostasis (to which he goes back rather than to the Logos) as altogether determined, and as, therefore, so far passive, conceives it also to be in itself endowed with its own law of motions.¹ For this reason, the Areopagite also, he supposes, spoke of a new theandrical mode of action, because the one divine-human person, in reality, works everything, though by means of the two natures (see p. 160 f.).

¹ See Note H. App. ii.

² Yet he also terms it tpvaixtit xat' iirovrativ tvaam, p. 477. P. 481: 9vtrtx7i xx\ xa.S' vxoanum huais. The preceding quotation runs in the original text: Mini To Id h, To i£ at/ru» (Jfinnai) ytyovis xvortKiirfia, juqxiw S/x« iixtpovfiitor.

¹ L. c, p. 485.

2 P. 488: KJj vii; iyituaxtro o tauntn f? aurov (l. xirou) -x-poftput hip. yun, iiint Tt xai xvipairinrin. \\/.?.« xal aCru; licl Tou ho; vlou (fowln (ft l\i$ptn;), *£oxv—hipynxn oix £n Ti; yifitpUat xii; fui; f/erirrof.

The position thus taken up by Sophronius towards the Alexandrian work of peace, and to the fiia ivepyeia, induced the Patriarch Sergius to apply, by way of precaution, to Honorius. Sergius feared the approach of a storm, especially as he understood Sophronius to intend also to assert a duality of wills in Christ, and not merely the duality of the modes of action under the one will of the one Christ, who Himself did everything. In his letter to Honorius, he expresses himself to the following effect:—

After his victory over the Persians, Heraclius held a conversation on matters of faith with a follower of Severus, and successfully defended the orthodox faith against him: in that conversation, too, he spoke of one ivepyeia of Christ. Of this interview he afterwards gave an account to Cyras, then the Bishop of Colchis. Cyrus, however, being uncertain whether it were right to speak of one ivepyeia, had applied to him (Sergius) for instructions. Meanwhile, Cyrus had won over almost all Egypt, Thebais, and Libya by propositions, of which the fiia ivepyeia was one; and, in consequence of this condescending adaptation, which the Fathers not only had not forbidden, but had often exercised themselves, he had brought the Monophysites to recognise the doctrine of two natures, laid down by the Chalcedonian Council and by Leo. Sophronius, then a monk, very recently chosen Patriarch of Jerusalem, is opposed to this adaptation. This circumstance Sergius wished to lay before Honorius. In his view, it would be cruel, disputatiously to disturb the union which had been scarcely established, for the sake of a question which did not endanger pure doctrine, as must be

¹ The doctrine of Sophronius is designated orthodox, Cone. vi. Mansi xi. 556.

the case, should the words fiia evepyeia, be again struck out of the formula, agreeably to the demand of Sophronius. Sergius had discussed the matter at large with him, and Sophronius had not been able to prove the doctrine of a twofold evepyeia, either by patristic or synodal testimonies. To Cyrus he had written, advising him, in consideration of the peace which had been established, to allow no one to teach either the unity or the duality of the evepyeiai, but to limit them to setting forth one and the same only-begotten Son, who worked everything— both that which befitted God and that which befitted man,— the incarnate God, out of whose unity everything undividedly proceeded, and back into whose unity everything must be referred. The formula, fiia evepyeia, although employed by some of the holy Fathers, wears still a strange face to some, and excites the suspicion that there may be an intention of leading them into Monophysitism: it would, therefore, be better avoided. The formula, Bvo evepyeiai, had never been employed by any recognised teacher of the Church, and is a stumblingblock to many; and it should be the more strictly avoided, as the assumption of two evepyeiai, necessarily involves the positing of two wills, and that, of two opposed wills. It is, for example, as though the Logos partially willed the sufferings, and the humanity resisted His will, which would end in the recognition of two subjects, choosing opposite courses; for there cannot be two wills, in reference to the same thing, at the very same time, in one and the same subject. To assert that, would be to1 separate the humanity of Christ from His deity, and to abolish the incarnation. The doctrine of the God-taught Fathers tells us plainly enough, that the flesh of the Lord, animated by a rational soul, never accomplished its natural motions separately and of its own impulse, or in opposition to the suggestions of the Logos hypostatically united with it; but merely when, as, and in the measure, in which God the Logos willed it. As our body is governed by the soul, so was the entire human lifesystem of Christ, always and in all things, impelled by God. Gregory of Nyssa also allots the passive to the flesh, the active to God. Sergius, therefore, counselled him against the use of the formula of unity or duality, although the hush-word fiia evepyeia ought not to be quite repudiated, as some demanded; and Sophronius had expressed himself satisfied therewith, had promised to keep the peace, and had only required a written declaration, which Sergius had given him. To the like intent, he had also recently expressed himself to the Emperor, warning him against too subtle investigations, and counselling him to be content with that which had been handed down from of old,— namely, with maintaining that every divine and human act proceeded, undivided and unseparated, from one and the same incarnate Word. Leo also had evidently taught the same doctrine in the words: "Agit enim utraque forma cum alterius communione, quod proprium habet."¹

SECOND STADIUM.

The Dominance of Monotheletism in the Church; and the opposition made to it, especially in the Western Church, from the year 638 to 648

Honorius answered Sergius, on the whole, approvingly.' Both formulas he regarded as equally and solely fitted to stir up useless school controversies; but differed from Sergius, who evidently gave the preference to the fiia evepyeia, in not finding it suitable, whether it be referred to the natures or to the personality. For the personality has not merely one or two, but many activities; and the natures act, each in its own way: it is, therefore, right to take no account of the evepyeia (the activity, mode of action), but, on the contrary, to go back to the will of Christ. He treats as almost self-evident, what Sergius had scarcely hinted, regarding this will of Christ: "Inasmuch as the humanity was naturally united with the Logos (naturali imitate copulata), and Christ is therefore One, we acknowledge one will of Christ (he does not say one will of His humanity,

¹ The Latin text has " forma utraque" in the nominative; whereas the Monotheletes took these words as the ablative fioptpji; in consequence of which the subject of the verb is "the person," instead of "the natures," and the one person appears as the sole actor and wilier (even though through the medium of the natures).

² Mansi xi. Act. xii. p. 537 ff., gives a fragment of a second letter to Sergius (Act. xiii. pp. 580, 581), written after Sophronius had sent an embassy to Honorius. Through this embassy, Honorius instructed Sophronins not any longer to insist on the formula of Ivo i»ipytixi. This the embassy promised in the name of Sophronius, provided Cyrus would desist from teaching the fiiu hipynu.

as Maxim us subsequently tried to explain his words). It was owing to the supernatural mode of His birth, that there were not different or contradictory wills in Him; and when He said, 'I do not mine own will, but the will of My Father,' it was out of condescension to our state and position, for whom He desired to be an example." In his second letter he says,— "Instead of teaching one operation or mode of operation (operatio), we ought rather to teach that there is one Operator (unus operator), Christ, who works by means of both natures; and in place of teaching that there are two ' operationes,' we should teach that in the one person there are two natures, each performing what is appropriate to it."¹

At this moment, when, for the first time, all the patriarchs— Sophronius even, who kept silence, scarcely excepted—were one, Heraclius issued his ^vjex6w<.? 7n.'<rrea>?, in which disputes regarding the unity or the duality of the ivepyeuu, were forbidden, and the unity of the will expressly taught,—partly on the ground, that not even Nestorius himself had ventured to maintain a volitional duality.² The "EKdear, therefore, did but keep close to that which had received the approval of Honorius (Note 38).

We may describe the Monotheletes as, more or less consciously, striving to prevent the Chalcedonian doctrine of two natures from being made the basis of a doctrine of two parallel life-systems in Christ,—which would have abolished the unity of His Person. At the same time, however natural it might be, for even orthodox Chalcedonians and sincere Dyophysites, to be seized by a fear of assuming two such parallel series of intellectual activities in Christ,—such an assumption appearing to

¹ "Utrasque naturas in uno Christo imitate naturali copulates cum alterius communions operantes et opera trices confiteri debemus.—Pro una operatione oportet noa unum operatorem confiteri et pro duabus operationibus, ablato gemiose operationis vocabulo, ipsas potius dims naturas— in una persona unigeniti—praedicare propria operantes:" compare xi. 582, 636, 684.

* Even Sophronius substantially allowed the unity of will. The unity of the i»ipyeia was not taught in the "F.xhaic. At the utmost, therefore, Sophronius could only be dissatisfied that the unity was not expressly repudiated, and that the duality of the i»ipyeieu, in the sense of two powers under the sway of the one will, was not expressly taught. Rightly viewed, however, he scarcely needed to be dissatisfied even with this, seeing that there was scarcely any one, not even a follower of Severus, who could deny the duality of modes of operation to which Sophronius still clung.

P. 2.—VOL. I. M

involve the lowering of the idea of the incarnation to an empty' word, and its entire suppression, especially as the Logos was, in addition, always held to be "extra carnem,"—it cannot be doubted that the decided victory of Monotheletism would have reduced the doctrine of two natures, to a dead and impotent thesis; nay more, that it would have led to the construing of the entire actual life of this person, as though there existed no doctrine of two natures, but the very contrary. In other words, and considered historically, Monotheletism, and especially He— norms, were not in harmony with Leo's letter to Flavian, and its whole point of view. Notwithstanding the decision of Honorius, this was first felt in the West.

First, a few words touching the external history of the controversy, in its second stadium. After the death of Honorius, in the year 638, the Roman See began to pursue a totally different tendency: in taking this course, it and its friends in Africa were encouraged, by their knowledge of the intention of several prefects to revolt against the Emperor, and to adopt an opposite line of policy. Rome itself was influenced both by the memory of Leo, and by its dislike of the manner in which the Patriarchate of Constantinople fell in with the favourite ideas of the imperial policy: Northern Africa, Libya, Numidia, Mauritania, were influenced by their ancient connection with Rome, and by the warm interest still felt in those countries for the school of Antioch. The now commencing Dyotheletic movement leaned for support mainly on the Romish bishops, John IV., Theodore, and especially Martin I. Its intellectual champions, however, were Stephen and the Greek Abbot Maximus. The former, as he himself narrates, had vowed to Sophronius, whose confidant he was, and whose attention was then fully engaged by the inroads of the Saracens, with a fearful vow to carry on the struggle. He did so in a decidedly dyotheletic manner. He succeeded in silencing his opponents by journeying himself to the Synods in the above-mentioned districts of Africa.¹ Maximus, however, was the most able and successful defender of the doctrine of two wills for the West and the East, especially for Egypt, the principal country; and displayed a zeal in the assertion of his convictions that drew upon him martyrdom. He gained particular fame by his disputation with Pyrrhus, ¹ Mansi x. 892 ff. Concil. Rom. Later. 449.

-who had been Patriarch of Constantinople. Pyrrhus—not -without a hope of being reinstated in his patriarchate—acknowledged himself vanquished, and sought and found peace with Rome.¹ When, therefore, Synods in Africa and Rome had demonstrated that the hope was vain, of a union on the basis of the 'Exdeais of Heraclius, which had already been so variously condemned, the Emperor Constans allowed it to drop, and in the year 648 substituted for it the TWo? Tj}? iriarea><;.² The aim thereof was to establish concord by prohibiting controversy regarding the question either of the duality or unity of activities and wills: the unity of the will was not yet surrendered. Now, however, the controversy began to rage afresh, with even greater violence. The Lateran Council of the year 649 condemned even the Tinros, under Martin I.; and the sole result was, that Dyotheletism now underwent revival in the East also.

In connection with the inner history of the controversy at this stadium, special mention must be made of the disputation of Maximus with Pyrrhus,³ of the treatise prepared by Stephen for the Romish Council of the Bishop Theodore, and the Lateran Council under Martin I.⁴

In that disputation- the prime objection urged by Pyrrhus was, that two wills presuppose the existence of two who will; whereas there cannot be two who will, in one person. Maximus answered,—The Church teaches that there are three who will, in the Trinity, and yet but one will,—clearly showing that the will pertains to the nature, and not to the person: otherwise there must be three wills in God. According to the principle laid down by Pyrrhus, we should have to assume three wills in the Trinity. But if the will pertain to the nature, it follows that two natures have two wills. The duality does not necessarily denote antagonism. Besides, what could give rise to an antagonism? Could it arise from the nature, or from evil? But God creates no evil natures, and there was no evil in Christ. Pyrrhus retorted,—Granted that volition pertained and corresponded to the nature;—in that case holy men would be of a divine nature (that is, equal to Christ), because they are of a divine will. Maximus replied,—The object of volition is

¹ He soon fell away again, it is true, when the Emperor had reinstated aim in his patriarchate.

2 Mansi xi. 1029. » Mansi x. 710-759. ⁴ Mansi x. 897 ff.

in their case, divine, not the volition itself. But now Pyrrhus raised objections directly to the position itself, that the will must correspond to, and characteristically denote, the nature of any particular thing. Inasmuch as our volitions undergo unnumbered changes, our nature also, on this view, must undergo unnumbered changes. Maximus again refers to the distinction between form and contents: The contents of volition may change, but volition remains, and corresponds to the nature of him who wills. Pyrrhus then attacked the idea of the natural will,—that is, of a will which necessarily corresponds to the nature of him who wills. Everything natural is subject to necessity; accordingly, there would be left no freedom (eKovctiov). His opponent, however, reminded him that the fullest freedom is possessed by the nature of God, and that in rational natures nothing is involuntary: it is, therefore, possible for freedom to pertain to the nature. Pyrrhus, he urges, allows that rational natures are also endowed with will, and that Christ's two natures consequently possessed two natural wills. But one may also further say that the one will of Christ was compounded of two natural wills; even as Christ has been termed one nature, though His one nature was compounded of two. Maximus said: All philosophers and Christian theosophers have granted that a synthesis is only possible in the case of things which have a certain self-subsistence, but impossible in the case of things which only subsist in another thing (as accidents, qualities, which are altogether selfless, and destitute of independent existence). On this ground alone, there can be no word here of a composition (inasmuch as the humanity of Christ has no independent subsistence of its own). Besides, how could a synthesis be effected between a limited and an unlimited nature —between the mortal and the immortal? And how could the will of Christ, as a composite will, still remain one with the will of the Father? Whereupon Pyrrhus asks: Have, then, neither the wills nor the natures in Christ, anything in common with each other? Nothing, answered Maximus, except the bare hypostasis of the two natures (p. 717). And against the objection, "But did not the Logos move the humanity of Christ?" Maximus urges, that such an assumption would have the effect of introducing a division into Christ. Moses and David, it is true,—as, in fact, all who have become susceptible of the work of God by the renunciation of their human qualities,—were unquestionably moved by His suggestions; but what distinguished Christ was, that He willed not merely as God, but also as man, —that He willed, moreover, in such a way, that the human will, which is here, was not blameworthy. The Logos created the humanity out of nothing, that it might have a real being, and not be a mere nonentity; but it could not have a real being and existence without will, without the power of self-assertion and of resistance, for example, to hostile elements. To Christ, therefore, must have pertained actual human volitions and human motions: for example, He experienced fear, not against His nature, but by way of notifying to the natural capacity that it should offer resistance. But, whereas in us, nature and its movements precede the will, in Christ everything, even suffering, was determined, not by His nature, but by His will. This will, moreover, was a power above His nature, and was therefore supernatural; though it was exerted for the purpose of confirming the existence of the nature and the full reality of the incarnation. But, according to Maximus, the will, which in Christ alone possessed such power over its nature (the body), forms an essential part of the idea of a rational being. For there are three kinds of beings possessed of life—organic, animal, and rational. All of them are capable of motion, and not merely of suffering; but to the rational pertains, free motion (kiwjai<; avrel;ovaio<;). The expression, "natural will," need therefore awaken no hesitation, as it denotes merely that which pertains to the human nature, to wit, the free will. Animals are moved: men move themselves by their own will; man is God's image, and God is free. All men possess will: it is not merely one that has it, and another not: a human will, therefore, is one of the characteristic common signs of man. Consequently, when the Logos purposed to become flesh—flesh, too, animated by a rational soul—He was, even as a man, essentially a voluntary being. The saying of the Fathers, that Christ moulded our will, does not mean that the Logos determined the will of Christ; but that He, as a man, subjected humanity, in Himself and through Himself, to God the Father, —thus setting us an example of a perfect kind, that we also may voluntarily submit ourselves.

What a wide difference between Maximus and the teachers of the fourth century (see Part I. p. 1071 ff.), who left no place for freedom in Christ! By freedom, however, he understood, not mere freedom of choice, but divine freedom, which the humanity of Christ, because it was the true humanity, so possessed from the very commencement, that it was able to repel and overcome every ungodly element that approached it. In this way, Maximus established a duality of wills, which run parallel with each other without coming into contact, and both of which, notwithstanding, will that which is divine. Indeed, he carries the distinction still further, maintaining not merely that there were two volitional faculties in Christ,—not merely that there was a double series of volitional activities; but even that the result (airOTe\eafm) was a twofold one, in so far as it was not external to Himself, but bore reference to His own person, although the activity on the part of both the aspects might meet in the same object.¹ He discriminates even so far as to say that one thing which is reported of Christ proceeded solely from the will of the Logos, and another solely from Christ as a man; and adduces, by way of illustration, John vii., where, he affirms, the purpose to go could only have pertained to His humanity; and Phil. ii., Gal. iv., where the subjection to the law cannot be referred to His deity.

The chief argument brought against the Monotheletes by Stephen, in his memorial to the Lateran Synod of the year »49, was, that Christ would have been no longer by nature perfect God and by nature perfect man, but rather aTeXt;s, or, as Maximus says, eXXwn)?, if He had not had both an essentially human and an essentially divine will. God is no longer God, and man is no longer man, if we do not attribute to God the essential or natural (ovauoBrj, <pvaiKrjv) divine will, and to man the essential or natural human will. The like holds good also of the ivepyeia. The Chalcedonian formula, "perfect as to His deity," "perfect as to His humanity," was thus set up as the standard; and to it not even a Patriarch of Constantinople durst venture to raise opposition (Note 39). The Monotheletes probably felt themselves cramped by the Council of Chalcedon; but, strictly speaking, their opponents also must have had the same feeling, for its decrees taught the unity of the person, quite as decidedly as the duality of the natures. The advocates ¹ See Note I. App. i.

of Monothelitism, within the Church, were also disposed to maintain this duality in Christ (Mansi x. 1024); but they made the unity of the person their starting-point, and deduced therefrom the unity of the will, with no less force than their opponents deduced the duality of the will from the duality of the natures. Both parties, therefore, could with equal right appeal for countenance to the Council of Chalcedon. This is shown with peculiar ability, in the letter addressed by Paul, Patriarch of Constantinople, to Theodore of Rome.¹ The Logos who became flesh, says he, remained what He was, and became that which He had not been; consequently, all the activity which befitted God and man proceeded from, and is to be referred back to, one and the same incarnate Logos. He remained undivided, unmixed; the one and the same God the Logos, who became flesh, worked the miracles, and voluntarily undertook to suffer on our behalf: it is, therefore, permissible to say, in agreement with the indissoluble personal union effected between the two natures, God suffered, and the Son of man descended from heaven. We teach, consequently, that our Lord had one will, in order to avoid attributing an antagonism or distinction of wills to this one and the same Person of Christ, or conceiving Him as in conflict with Himself, or introducing a duality of willers. Lest he should be suspected of giving such a definition for the sake of introducing a commixture of the two natures, or of doing away with one of them, Paul declares his meaning to be simply, that the humanity of Christ, animated by a rational soul, being divinely enriched by the absolute union, gained through the Logos a divine and undiscriminated will; and that it was always impelled and moved by the Logos, never accomplishing its natural motions separately, or purely of its own impulse, and against the mind of the Logos personally united with it, but when, as, and in the measure in which, the Logos willed them. In this way he hoped to avoid subjecting the Logos to any natural necessity. The words, "I do not Mine own will," and, "not as I will," he considered (as we have found to be frequently the case), with Gregory, to have been spoken by Christ in our person, and not in His own person: he further reminded the Romish Pope of the contradiction into which he had fallen with Honorius.

¹ Mansi x. 1020 ff.

Martin I., however, and the Lateran Council, taught that there were really and truly two natures, which were preserved unmixed and undivided in the person; and threatened those with anathema who should teach otherwise. They also asserted the continued existence of the divine and human attributes, "indiminute" and " indeminorate" (Can. 7, 9). Specially had our Lord and God Christ "duas voluntates cohserenter unitas;" equally also, "duas operationes" (Can. 10, 11). Therefore, whoso teaches one will, or one " operatio," or refuses to confess that there were two wills and two "operationes," denies the reality of the incarnation (dispensatio).¹ Lastly, the Tirrros was condemned, because it aimed at silently suppressing the truth. The formula of a deavopiKrj evepyeia was treated as doubtful, and only admitted in a sense which excludes what it purposed to affirm, namely, in the sense that the ivepyeiai so intimately interpenetrated each other, as to constitute a unity. Maximus and Sophronius supposed themselves to be able to use the formula, provided the fiia were omitted; but, as we found in the case of Honorius, its omission made no essential change in the formula, for the simple reason that the unity lies in the combination.

THIRD STADIUM.
From the year 649 to 680.

In this stadium, the Emperors tried to break down the opposition raised to the Twro<;, by resorting to violent measures, and treating it as political insubordination. The champions of Dyotheletism died as martyrs in banishment, and after shameful treatment,—Martin in the year 655, Maximus in 662. Terrified, the following Popes, Eugenius and Vitalianus,

¹ This Synod said further:—" Even if only some one portion of the divine attributes could inhere in a person who is not of divine substance, and if it should be possible for this person to be, to that extent, as God Himself—say, what is to prevent all that is God's from ceasing to be (cedant)? what would be the consequence? That everything would be thrown into confusion; that everything would be turned upside down—the uppermost becoming the undermost, and the undermost the uppermost?" How far removed is all this from a real " communicatio idiomatum!" They further added: "This is the constant doctrine of the Fathers."

silently conformed to the imperial will. But when Adeodatus became Pope, in 677, he excommunicated the Greek Patriarchs; and as they retorted with an excommunication from the East, the consequence was a formal schism. From the time that he ruled alone, this state of things was intolerable to the Emperor Constantinus Pagonatus; and as early as the year 678, he entered on negotiations with Domnus of Rome, for the summoning of a new Synod. Domnus' successor, Agathon, also fell in with the proposal, and after holding a Council at Rome, for the purpose, as it were, of giving the proper tone, he addressed to the Sixth Synod of Constantinople, held in 680-681, a letter, which was intended to have the same influence on its decrees as Leo's letter had had on the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon.

And now, as to the inner history of the controversy. Both parties started with recognised principles. The Monotheletes took, as their starting-point, the unity of the volitional subject, and thence deduced the unity of the will: their opponents started with the duality of the natures, and thence deduced the duality of the wills. The conclusion of the former was only valid, in case volition pertains solely to the Ego or subject, and is not also a matter of the nature; and the conclusion of their opponents, only in case the will is a matter solely of the nature, but not directly of the hypostasis. Herein might be concealed, therefore, an ethical antagonism between nature and personality ;—the main point, however, was, that the Monotheletes made the unity of the willing personality their startingpoint, representing the antagonisms of the two natures as having been so conciliated and adjusted in it, as to constitute an unity (whether their doctrine were in other respects dyophysitic or monophysitic) :—whereas their opponents, starting with a duality of willing natures or of natural wills, arrived at no unity, save one that consists, partly, in the two volitional series, which proceed from the opposed natures, having the same volitional content, each after its own manner; and partly in these volitional series being conceived to be held together by one and the same hypostasis. The characteristic expression employed by the Monothelete party was, that the one will is' the hypostatic will of Christ: characteristic expressions of their opponents were, that the will is a matter of the nature, and

always corresponds to its substance,—that whatever has one will, has also one substance,—that there is one will in the Trinity, because there is one substance. Because in the Father, Son, and Spirit there is one will, it follows that in them the nature is the common, the volitional element. According to the Monotheletic doctrine of the hypostatic will, we ought to assume, tritheistically, three wills; or, in order to preserve the unity of the will, we ought to deny the plurality of the hypostases. To say that the Son Jesus Christ could have but one will, would be either to disregard His humanity and deny the incarnation, or to accept an incarnation of the Father and the Spirit, in order to avoid setting up a difference between the one divine-human will of Christ, and that of the Father and the Spirit. Such propositions as,—Natures are not dead, motionless powers; every living power must have a mode of utterance; and every being expresses itself agreeably to its nature; as is the nature, so also is its will and its activity,— were regarded as axioms by the Dyotheletes, and were constantly used as such.

As the Monotheletes persisted in maintaining that two wills lead to the (Nestorian) doctrine of two persons, their opponents tried to show that to assume one will in Christ, must necessarily end in the acceptance of one nature, and consequently lead back to Monophysitism. Older Monotheletes also, such as Theodore, Sergius, and Honorius, rendered it easier for them to prove that Monotheletism necessarily curtailed the full reality of the human nature, and left no place for those declarations of the New Testament which attribute a special human will to Christ during His earthly existence, but groundlessly referred them rather to us than to His own person.

The Monotheletes replied, indeed, that if the flesh is solely the flesh of God the Logos, and if, as Cyrill taught, both the sufferings and miracles belong thereto; then, of necessity, both the human and divine operations are the operations of the one Logos who became flesh, and there is accordingly but one activity in the one Christ. Even the changes affecting the human aspect did not become actual and real changes, except as the Logos permitted them, in accordance with His wise almighty will, which was the monadic principle of unity of the humanity, although it employed the rational soul, and the body as its instrument. In Christ, therefore, we can only assume one wiD, namely, the divine will, which willed what was human also, as its own; and of this will, even the sufferings of the human aspect, considered in their ultimate relations, were activities. The humanity was, in every respect, the dependent or passive organ of the divine nature. Such is the view of Theodore of Pharan, and especially of Macarius of Antioch.¹ Along therewith, it was quite consistent, in the view of Macarius, to maintain the Chalcedonian doctrine of two natures which remain unmixed; inasmuch as the humanity is the passive element, and the deity the active. By suffering, the latter was not affected; the natures must, therefore, have been different, though related to each other as correlates; and the will of the Logos alone acted, and alone determined that suffering should be undergone. But he advances a step further in order to assail his adversaries' position, and follows up hints thrown out by Pyrrhus and others. Assuming the existence of two wills in the one Christ, they must either be like each other or different. In either case, they would be outside of each other, and thus the incarnation would be dissolved. In either case, we should fall into inconsistencies. There could not be two wills, precisely the same, in Christ; they would necessarily converge into one: otherwise we should have to assume, either a second will precisely the same as the human will, whereas the will of the Logos is unchangeable; or we must assume two absolute wills, neither of which could possibly pertain to the human nature; besides, that the doctrine of the Church does not admit of two absolute wills. Seeing, then, that the two wills, even on these grounds, must be unequal, if the divine will of the Logos be good, the human will cannot have been good, and we must necessarily advance, from the assumption of a duality of wills, to the acknowledgment of a will of the flesh, which, according to the Apostle, is not subjected to the law of God, is enmity against God;—in a word, we should have to assume the existence of two opposed wills,—the one good, the other evil. At the very least, the motion of fear belongs to human nature, and is something blameworthy, which it would be improper to suppose cleaving to Christ. Such a consequence can only be avoided by denying altogether, as the Fathers did, that the flesh of Christ had a special will of its own. The humanity of Christ was related to the Logos, precisely and only as the body is related to the soul. It is, accordingly, both unnecessary and inadmissible to assume the existence of two wills, each separate and distinct from the other.

¹ Manai, Tom. x. 743. Compare Baur's "Geachichte der Dreieinigkeitalehre," vol. i. pp. 108 ff.; Mansi, Tom. xi. 533; Aug. Mai vii. 194.

The Dyotheletes, on their side, especially Maximus and Anastasius, who continued active until the year 662, endeavoured partly to reply to these objections, and partly to show that a humanity so completely passive, moved only from without, and robbed of a volitional centre of its own, would not be a real humanity, and that such a doctrine would prevent Christ from being fully and truly an example to us.

In answering those objections, they appealed to the double sense in which the word flesh is used in the New Testament.¹ Anastasius and Maximus, connecting Christology with the doctrine that man is the image of God, affirmed that flesh in itself, as it proceeded from the hand of God, in the case of Adam, was not undivine, was innocent (aSidfi\7jro<;); and that evil is contrary to nature. According to Anastasius, the soul, with its faculties of thought and desire, is derived from God (detyvrov)? Adam's soul was produced in an unutterable way, out of the substance of the Logos by His will, and was consequently eKdeo<;, deofioios, pure, unspotted, immortal :³ nay more, even after the Fall it remained inwardly possessed of Godlike immortality. The soul, therefore, does not need so thorough a transformation as the body; but simply a spiritual rectification. Now this Godlike soul, which was extruded at the time of the creation, the Logos incorporated again with Himself by the incarnation; so that the pure human soul, as conferred on

¹ Anastasius Presb., Ang. Mai vii. 195; Mansi x. 737.

² To Xoy(OT/*on Kxl iirtt)vft-r,Tixiv oiaiuit; ti'Krifix. He afterwards speaks of a 0tXr,oi; >.o-/idtikni. This, as well as the doctrine of the gnomic will of Christ, shows that in the Monotheletic Controversy iiKnfut was understood to include the actuality of the intelligence,—specially at a later period; compare Baur l. c. p. 196.*

³ We shall find similar views expressed by Maximus; whereas in the West, Monophysitism met with a far stronger opposition, and the absolute difference of the divine and the human substances was far more consistently asserted. Notwithstanding their Dyotheletism, Maximus and Anastasius show traces of the influence of the Areopagite.

• See Note J. Appendix II.

Adam at the very beginning, by the Logos, had its subsistence from, through, with, and in Him (inrearrj). This soul and the Logos are not strangers to each other. Moreover, says Anastasius, the rational will of the soul, according to the Areopagite, is nothing else than the power of the intelligence and of the desire to be united with God (axwaTrreodaL),—a power which was made essentially the soul's own, by the gift of God. So also love, which is our task, according to the Areopagite, is nothing but the constitution of the soul, in virtue of which it tends to union.* Notwithstanding, the rational will is different from God. Accordingly, Anastasius supposed that there was in Christ a created /] and an uncreated divine element; for he did not connect the'¹' two natures merely by means of the unity of the hypostasis, nor of the moral concord of the wills. He deemed himself able to maintain the existence of two unblameable activities and wills: the one will uncreated, the other created. Even man, he considered, furnishes an analogy to such a duality. To love parents and relatives, is a natural, blameless will of the soul; but to leave and deny them for God's sake, is, in truth, a divine, supernatural, praiseworthy will: there may, consequently, be two blameless wills in one and the same man. In like manner, Christ was obedient to Joseph and His mother, and, as a child, in natural love allowed Himself to be loved and caressed by them, in order that He might be in all respects like us, sin only excepted. But again, when He said to His mother, "Woman, what have I to do with thee I" or when He said, "Whoso doeth the will of My Father, he is My father and mother," He reveals to us His divine and supernatural will, which purposed to be an example to us.

Does he not hereby arrive at three wills in Christ, whilst endeavouring to prove the possibility of two? The higher human will, Godlike, a created divine element, is represented, indeed, as the connecting link: in reality, however, it renders the divine will of the Logos dispensable; and it is difficult to see how Anastasius could keep the divine will separate from the higher human will. Another analogy, to show the possibility of a duality of wills, he takes from sleep. All the senses then cease from their activity, and yet the rational soul remains active. And as our soul does many things apart from the body,—for example, exercises love to God, and faith, and, in short, all the virtues,—so also the Logos in Christ, by His unbounded, allmundane (allweltlich), and supramundane divine energy. On the other hand, the Logos in Christ ruled, animated, and developed His own body, by the God-given vital power of His rational soul; the same power He confers on other souls also. And as the Logos conferred on the soul, created in His image, the power of acting somato-psychically (seelenleiblich, yfrvyavSpiKux;, atu^aro^rv^o)?), as a type of Christ; so did the Logos, prior to the incarnation, act without limitation indeed in heaven, but theandrically (deav8piK&s) in Christ.

* "Die einheitliche auf Vcrbindung gerichtete Seelenbeschaffenheit."

These are ideas which, for the most part, may already be found in the writings of Maximus, the teacher of Anastasius; only that he, as we found above, displayed almost greater zeal in asserting the humanity to have been more than merely passive, || and that a free will pertained to its nature: he further, and consequently, held that the humanity of Christ occupied an independent position over against the Logos, and His will, in that it willed what pertained to it of its own impulse.

But the question now more than ever suggests itself,—How Maximus met the Monotheletic objection, that in this way the Logos and man would be related to each other as strangers? It is not enough, in this case, to answer, that the first man, prior to the Fall, and the humanity of Christ, were created in the image of God, and were of the same substance with God;— not even, if we connect therewith, as Maximus did, the theologoumenon, that in God a distinction is to be made between the communicable and the incommunicable, and suppose the former to have become the property of man; or, in other words, that there was in man a created divine element. Pure humanity, Christ included, would then have constituted, as it were, a family of gods. But, apart from the inquiry as to the distinction between Christ and the regenerated, it would still be necessary to point out how it was possible for the highest incommunicable God, the Logos Himself, and His will, to be vitally united with the created divine element, or the humanity, in Christ. At present, however, we cannot dwell any longer on this subject: we shall take another opportunity of scrutinizing the mystical background of the doctrine of Maximus, and considering its relation to Christology. We are the more disposed to take this course, as he kept the background referred to out of sight (probably not undesignedly), during his struggle to secure for the doctrine of Dyotheletism an ecclesiastical sanction. When asked what bond of unity remained between the two natures and wills, if, as he supposed, they run in two parallel series which exercise no determining influence on each other, he answered, "The personal union (ew»<n? inroararucrj); for the soul of Christ subsisted in the Logos." Conjoined into one, in this way, the natures effected a mutual interchange of that which was physically predicable of each, so that, in consonance with the mysterious union, these predicates pertained alike to both, though without involving the conversion or confusion of their natural substance. For this reason, it is right to speak of _t a will common to both, but not of one will. The communication assumed to have taken place, rather of itself indicates that the two natures were not one, but unequal. Each of the natures acted for itself, although it appropriated the will of the other. This he terms the r/Hwro? dvriB6aea>s (Note 40). A further result of the hypostatical union, was the mysterious mode in which the natures of Christ revolved within each other (^irepi^fyqaL^s, _(/ circumincessio). Taken together, these things, he supposes, do full justice to the expression, deavBpiKrj ivipyeia: and whilst it is true that Christ by no means put forth one activity alone, it is equally true that He manifested the two activities in a unity of a new and mysterious kind (Note 41).

That Maximus should have attached such great importance to a humanity possessed of a capability of relatively independent motion, to the avre^ovaiov of the humanity of Christ, is an evidence that the doctrine of the will of Christ had made considerable progress since the fourth century. Instead of upholding a Christology which required the human to be simply a passive organ and point of transition for the almighty will of the Logos, the efforts of Maximus were directed towards an ethical Christology. He aimed at vindicating to the humanity of Christ an independent focus of volitional impulses, virtues, and good actions: Christ was not to be merely a God acting in the garb of a man. A new light was thus, for the first time, thrown on the relation Christ holds to men as an example; and the blows which were aimed at the same time, from this vantage ground, at Monotheletism in its older form, did not fail to take effect. Anastasius gave them additional force, in the following manner.

Were Christ's soul, says he, a dead, stagnant power, it would be a proof of its never having really existed. Were it destitute of will, it must have been involuntarily subjected to the Logos, as Apollinaris taught (vol. i. 993 ff.), and must have resembled the clouds or the stars, which are governed without having any will of their own. In Hades, therefore, Christ's soul had no real will, and performed no real acts; but was a mere spiritless organ, lacking language and thought of its own (\6yos ipBuideros), through which the Logos spake. According to this representation, the Logos must have annihilated the will and activity of the blameless soul called into existence by Hia own breath. But faith and love, and all other virtues, can only be realized by the free will (eKovaiov) and independent activity of the soul. If, then, we deny to Christ the attributes which constitute our nature (ra<; avarariKa<; Tt)? rjjierepw; <pvaews towrJrros),—that is, the proper will, and the activity of the soul'(dijai<; Km evepyeia),—His humanity would be on a level with irrational creatures. And this leads us to the principal point. It is to the work of Christ that he specially refers. Part of His work, he says, was to exercise obedience, and to fulfil the will and law of His Father. "I came down from heaven not to do Mine own will," says He, "but that I may accomplish the work and keep His commands." Now, if the rational soul of Christ had no will at all, in accordance with, or by means of, what will, did He keep the Father's commands? According to the will of the Divine Logos? But the will of the Logos is a will that commands and rules; and the will of the Father is one and the same with the will of the Son. By means of what will, then? For the will that commands is one thing, the will that obeys, another. We are thus reduced to the alternative, either of saying that the will of obedience was the will of the Logos, or of granting that there was a true human will in Christ. The former alternative makes the divine nature of the Logos a subject and servant, after the manner of Arius;—an error which needs no refutation. Besides, freedom (eKoixnov) is a necessary condition of virtue, and of the fulfilment of the law. No course, consequently, is open but to assume the existence of a will, distinct from that of the Logos, and yet pure,

good, and free—of a rational, deliberative, and reflective will (8i\qais KoyiKi), fiov\evriKrj xal Biavo^riKrj). Only on this supposition can due significance be attached to His assumption of the form of a servant; the end of which was, that He might fulfil the commands which the servant Adam had disobeyed, by obeying them Himself in the form of a servant; and that He might discharge the debt which the servant bad contracted for himself and us—even the debt of death, which the servant (Christ), in virtue of His being in the form of God, paid by obedience even unto death (Note 42).

The advancing of such arguments, and the charge of holding a docetical, or at all events an imperfect humanity,—a charge which we find constantly repeated by Maximus, Stephen, and Anastasius,—gave rise to a phenomenon in connection with Monotheletism, very similar to one in connection with Monophysitism, traces of which may already be perceived in the writings of Pyrrhus. To this conjuncture may be partially referred the development of the doctrine of one will, into the doctrine of a composite will; partially, also, and even more truly,, l the doctrine of the so-called gnomic wills (gnomisch).

At a subsequent period, Monotheletism allowed the justness of statements from the Fathers, such as, that every nature that exists must also have its operation; that the mode of operation is conformed to the character of the nature; and that, accordingly, two natures in Christ necessitate the recognition of two natural wills. It endeavoured, however, to constitute an unity out of this duality,—an unity, too, consisting not merely in the unity of the personality, which might in itself be but a very formal tie;—it represented this higher unity of the two wills as itself a will, that is, as a composite will (e* To>v Bvo <f>vaiKwv deKrjfi<Wwv ev Tl ovvderov). By such a guarding of the human factor, Monotheletes hoped to diminish the importance of their difference from the Dyotheletes, and yet at the same time to preserve the unity of the activity, or even the unity of the power. Originally they had taught that the humanity stood in a purely passive relation to the deity, as that which was moved to the mover (deoKiirqrov), if not even as accident to substance; now, however, they departed from that representation, and conceived the personality, not indeed to be purely divine, nor even (with their opponents) as the common place in which both natures meet, but as posP. 2.—VOL. I. . N

sessed of will, and as divine-human (theandric) in its volitions. The will, in which the two natures interpenetrate and form a unity, is the hypostatical Will, which has its human aspect no less than the hypostasis. Nothing, however, was herewith done to secure the recognition of the will as a distinct and integrant element; nor could anything be done, until the human aspect had been confessed to be the subject of a real volitional process, in which the divine nature could not directly participate. These Monotheletes were therefore driven to say, that whilst the will of the Logos remained ever the same, the human will, although essentially united with the divine, ran through a volitional process. In its first stadia, the human will was not yet adjusted to, or even came into conflict with, the eternal divine will; but on each occasion the process in the human will ended in a determination, and an activity or deed, which was fully identified with the divine will. The concrete result was on all occasions one will, which was at once divine and human; it was an, activity, a work of a divine-human kind (Note 43).

To this entire theory of composition (which implied, of course, that the two, essentially suited or belonged to each other), the teachers of the Church objected, the incompatibility of the created and the uncreated, of the unlimited and the limited;— an objection, by the way, which might be urged with equal justice, or rather injustice, against any Christology whatever. They drew a further objection from the Trinitarian doctrine of one and the same will in Father, Son, and Spirit; urging that, inasmuch as the will of the Son was united with the human will, either it would be different from that of the Father and Spirit, or Father and Spirit must also have a divine-human will; and characterized the synthesis of the divine and human as a monstrosity (rpaye\a<po<;). Lastly, they deemed the doctrine of a gnomic will ebionitical. A unity which could be attained through the medium of a gnomic, choosing, deliberative, selfdetermining will, they considered not to be a unity of essence, but merely of attributes, which is nothing more than a Nestorian unity (that is, a moral unity, or a unity Kara, i^ovaiav, avdevriav)}

The argument derived from the Trinity was not indeed conclusive; for, if the three Persons of the Trinity can have one and the same will, much more must it be possible for one

¹ So Maximus, especially in his disputation, and John Damascenus.

Person to have one will, notwithstanding that it is compounded of two natures or suhstances. The Dyotheletes do, it is true, say that in the Godhead the three Persons have but one nature, and that the three Persons consequently have but one will, inasmuch as the will always pertains to the nature. Here, however, the Monotheletes might have replied, not only that from such a point of view we should necessarily arrive at one will in different human persons, but also, that the duality of substances in the God-man does not necessitate the assumption of a duality of wills; in that even man consists of two substances, body and soul, and yet we never attribute to him more than one will. They might further have urged, that the collective activity of Christ, as a whole, was one; that the whole was the personality; that all His activity was personal, hypostatical: but if we represent the activity of this Person as twofold, because of the duality of substances, we shall be compelled to concede a triple activity, because soul, body, and Logos are three substances.¹ When Maximus retorted, as he did,—Unquestionably; but only if we assume that there were three natures in Christ, which the Monotheletes do not intend to do; moreover, body and soul together first constitute the idea (etoo?) of man, and this idea is destroyed if either the one or the other be missing: consequently, the human essence or substance is one, that is, it is the unity of the two;—Pyrrhus was justified in applying the same rule to the God-man, whose peculiar and indivisible essence or idea (eZSo?) consisted in the unity of the Logos and man, even as the distinctive idea of man consists in the unity of body and soul.

But with the Christology opposed to them by such men as Maximus, the Monotheletes were justly dissatisfied. Recognition it undoubtedly deserved, for laying great stress not only on the human aspect in general, but especially on the human ethical, on the airregovaiov. In this respect, Maximus and those like him preserved what was true in the doctrine of the school of Antioch, giving it greater depth, however, by regarding it from the religious point of view. But they failed, unfortunately, to follow it out to its logical results. No trace whatever is discernible of a process of absolute union, which the duality was intended to further. Christ is rather supposed to have had ¹ L. c. x. pp. 744, 745.

simply the pure Adamitic soul, which was from God, which was immediately hely and divine, and which was in no point the subject of an actual development. Hence also the avre^ovaiov is represented as a spiritual power, absolutely complete from the moment of its creation, and neither needing nor capable of a development.—Side by side with this holy, ready-made and complete soul and its will, was supposed to be the Logos with. His will; the latter holding the relation of ruler, the former of subject. With the avre^ovatov of the humanity of Christ, this situation of matters is brought into agreement, solely by supposing that the human nature freely imposed upon itself obedience to the will of the Logos,—in doing which it not only acted with freedom, but also with necessity, in so far as such a course was consonant to the purity of its own nature. In this case, however, we should have two series of volitions, which move onwards of themselves, indeed, in the concord of a preestablished harmony; but, as they do not determine eacb other, and still less enter upon a process the result of which is union, far too little is done for the maintenance of the unity of the Person. The man Jesus was the avdpayKos KvpiaKos, the "homo dominicus," united with the Logos solely by a tie which Is not at all a distinctly Christological one,—the tie, namely, that the hypostasis of the Logos constituted the basis and root of his individual existence. The archetypal human will of Christ is represented as so thoroughly dependent on the clement in Him which is held to remain eternally different from the Logos, to wit, the human nature, that the duality is eternized: not to mention, that it is not a very ethical procedure to make the will, considered in itself, and in all its activities, dependent solely on a nature possessed from the very beginning of a complete and ready-made holiness. No marvel, therefore, that an extreme Dyotheletism like this, into which the aforementioned men allowed themselves to be driven, should not have won over the Monotheletes, but that even the Church should have found it advisable to decline going so far. We now approach nearer to the decision at which the Church arrived, as the result of these conflicts.

Notwithstanding the persistent favour with which the successors of Heraclius also still continued to regard Monotheletism, the opposition against it in the Church became ever more organized, especially after the Lateran Council; and created such a division, that the Emperor Constantfnus Pagonatus, to whom the winning over of Rome must have been a matter of considerable importance, found himself under the necessity of making an entire change in his policy. This course he was further called upon to adopt by the Pope Agathon.¹ The Emperor convoked a Council to Constantinople in the year 680, to which Agathon addressed a circular letter.² Therein Agathon confesses,—one Lord in Jesus Christ, of two and in I two substances (ovalai), unmixed and unchanged, uuseparated and undivided; the distinction of the natures nowhere abolished for the sake of the union, but the distinctive character of each preserved, and yet both concurring into one hypostasis or person; both natures so indissolubly joined together in Him, in virtue of the hypostatical union, that they can only be separated and distinguished in thought. This person is a composite of the two forms, each of which performs that which is peculiar to it, in fellowship with the other. The rule of piety requires, therefore, that Christ should have both two natures or substances, and also two natural wills, and two natural activities. In his letter to the Emperors, Agathon further adds :³ Christ had from eternity the divine will and the divine activity in common with the consubstantial Father; the human will and human activity He assumed in time, from us, along with our nature; but these two wills were not opposed to, and did not conflict with, each other. The Emperor's ancestors, he urges, had never ceased to struggle quite as earnestly against this Monophysitic error (of gnomic wills), as against the heresy which in reality separated the natures) in that it connected them merely by means of the character of the will, or of a harmony of activity. When Christ said, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt," He revealed thereby, as well as in His prayer, a human will, different from the divine. We may say, therefore, with Ambrosius, that He assumed our will and our sadness; ours were both: out of love to us He assumed them. In like manner, also, the Lord said, "I have come from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of the Father which sent Me;" and in Matthew, "My soul is troubled even

¹ Mansi xi. Act. iv. pp. 233-257.

* Mansi xi. Act. iv. pp. 285-297. * L. c. p. 240.

o

unto death." Now, the Word or 4he Spirit cannot have said that; but Christ spake it <in His human nature, which was subject to the will of the Father: the Logos could never have said, "Not as I will." Indeed, Scripture passages must in general be understood to refer, now to the humanity, now to the deity of Christ. To the deity must be attributed the miracles, and such expressions, for example, as John v. 26 ff., —" As the Father quickeneth the dead, so also the Son;" or Matt. xi. 27, "No man knoweth the Father, save the Son;" "What the Lord will, that doeth He in heaven and on earth." But as a man, He said, "My meat is to do the will of Him who hath sent Me." Concerning the man it was said, "He could not conceal Himself," and, "He commanded to be conveyed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee;" for, as the Logos, He was almighty and omnipresent. How erroneous is it, then, not properly to distinguish the two! But the human nature and will assumed by Him were purified by the very act of assumption, and could not be opposed to Him; for the Creator of all things could neither have created a contradiction to Himself, nor have assumed it in the incarnation. The duality of the natures and wills is taught with special clearness in Phil. ii. also; and whoso denieth the human will, must alsodeny the human soul: for, on the one hand, His deity did not by nature possess a human wilL nor, on the other hand, did His humanity by nature possess a divine will; nor, finally, could another will, besides the natural one, proceed from the two natures of Christ. The human nature was rather merely exalted by the omnipotence of Christ's deity, and the divine nature revealed by means of the humanity. If we assume that there was but one will alone, we must either call it divine or human, or a composite and mixture of the two; or we must derive the unity of the will and activity from the one composite nature. He repeatedly adds, however, that the distinctions remain only for thought.

The Synod itself¹ substantially adopted the formula proposed by Agathon, extending the negative cautels of the Council of Chalcedon to the two physical wills and activities, and adding,—Two natural wills, not opposed to each other (which God forbid), but the human will following, not resisting, nay, ¹ Mansi, Tom. xi. Cone. Const. Act. xviii. pp. 636-610.

much rather subjected to, the divine and almighty will; for the will of the flesh must be moved, though in subjection to the divine will, as Athanasius said (See Note 42, Appendix I.). For, as the flesh of Christ was termed, and was, the flesh of God the Logos, so also was the will of His flesh designated the proper will of God the Logos Himself, and was such in reality. For, as His most holy, blameless, besouled humanity, was not done away with by the deification, but remained in its own rank and state, and within the limits of that rank, so also was His human will not done away with by the deification, but was preserved: as Gregory said, "His will was not opposed to God, but was completely deified." Thus, in the one hypostasis of Christ, our true God, may be discerned His two natures; and by this person, He both performed His miracles and endured His sufferings, in such a manner that each of the two natures willed and worked that which was distinctive of it, in conjunction with the other. After this manner do we teach that there were two natural wills and operations in Christ, which acted in correspondence (KaraWypw;) to each other, for the salvation of the \ human race.

Contemplating the Monotheletic Controversy in its historical connection, it may be characterized as an attempt to bring to a stand, and partly to drive back, the Dualism, which, since the year 451, had penetrated into the Church. At Chalcedon the unity of the person was affirmed, but nothing was done to show the compatibility of that unity with the premiss of two natures: nay more, the main stress was laid on this duality. Still, whatever might be the relation between the two natures, and however they might be brought into unity, all alike recognised the truth, that Christ acted and lived as one: and the common recognition thereof was a pledge of reconciliation. What was more natural than for the Monotheletes to seek to prevent the division going further, and to maintain, that, whatever might be the internal relation between the two natures, the product of the natures could not be self-contradictory; nay more, that there could not in any case be two series of operations and activities? A double series of simultaneous activities like this, was not taught even in Leo's letter, but rather an interchange of such activities (or, according to circumstances, sufferings) as the one person carried out by means of the divine nature, and of such as the same person carried out by means of the human nature; the community of the latter nature with the former, however, not being abolished thereby. The Monotheletic doctrine, therefore, remained uncensured, so long as it did not enter into closer relationship with Monophysitism; but no sooner did that take place, than it was unavoidably felt to be an attack on the Chalcedonian doctrine of the natures, and the guardians of the tradition of the Church must be set in motion against it. Monotheletism, by itself, might never have originated an attack on the doctrine of two natures,—it might even have given up or forbidden controversy regarding the question of the duality of the activities or wills, and consequently have laid claim to nothing more than the toleration, which it had hitherto enjoyed in the Church, side by side with the other view; but when the traditional consciousness had once been awakened, and the formula of Chalcedon was thought to be endangered, nothing could quiet the Church but the condemnation of Monotheletism. The logical consequences of the decree of Chalcedon needed to be, and must be, brought to light. On the other hand, the Monotheletes could only preserve the unity of the person intaot from that double series of activities, so long as they paid no heed to the decision arrived at, respecting the duality of the natures. Logically, therefore, the aim of the Monotheletes could not he merely to assert the unity of the divine-human activity and operation; for, in such case, they might have taught that the two wills of the two natures combined to produce one divinehuman activity and operation, that is, they might have been almost Dyotheletes. Their aim was rather, if we pass over their beginning, to deduce the unity of the will from the unity of operations and activities, that is, as their name in fact implies, to establish the unity of the volitional faculty in Christ. That the Chalcedonian symbol was incompatible therewith, is clear at a glance; for how could there be a true human nature without a volitional faculty? And when once attention had been drawn to this point, the unity of the activity (ivepyeia) could no longer be assumed without consideration. The existence of a human volitional faculty might be acknowledged; but, if it were never energized, but remained as it were inactive, asleep, in Christ, the result would be Monotheletism, or even Monophysitism; for a motionless, dead human nature is as good as non-existent. The duality of natures being taken as the starting-point, the goal reached was necessarily Dyotheletism; and accordingly it happened, that, through the influence of Monotheletism, the duality of natures, which had simply been affirmed by the Council of Chalcedon, was now carried out, and the living reality of the natures, or, in other words, the duality of the wills and activities, was recognised.

It is only too evident, however, that the problem of showing how the two natures of Christ could constitute one person, which had not been solved by the Council of Chalcedon, and which had been almost lost sight of during the controversy with the Monotheletes (for example, by Maximus and Agathon), was now rendered infinitely more difficult. Neither at the Lateran Council, nor in the person of Agathon, did the Westerns sufficiently consider the problem; but rather believed that all that was necessary, would have been effected, when once Leo's letter and its consequences had been established. The Orientals, on the contrary, who offered a less stern opposition to Monotheletism and Monophysitism, did not forget the question of the unity, but added a series of propositions to the conclusion of the Council of Constantinople, whose design was to form a counterpoise to the doctrine of two wills.

In consequence thereof, however, an irreconcilable contradiction crept into the symbolum: two opposed views, which do not combine with each other, are there coupled together. According to the one view, which we may designate the Occidental, the two natures were supposed to be sufficiently closelybound together by the unity of the personality;—this personality, although divine, being held to occupy the place of Ego ip the human nature (which was not conceived to be personal in and by itself), and to pertain to the humanity. Had the traditional assumption of the Church, that the divine nature cannot in any way be separated from the divine hypostasis, been adhered to, the divine nature, as well as the divine Ego, must have been acknowledged to belong to the humanity; and even if the human nature were not supposed to have been supplanted or represented by the divine, it must be held to have possessed divine knowledge and volitions, as its own.¹ The question would then have arisen,—What place still remained for actual ¹ As the Lutheran Church taught at a subsequent time.

human knowledge and volitions? Those who declined to accept this consequence, were driven ever more and more to separate the divine nature and the divine personality from each other, to place the divine and human natures side by side, and to regard the personality standing in the middle of the juxtaposited natures, as the common place which comprises both, or which is filled out by both. In the West, the teachers of the Church (even Augustine, and at a later time a Council of Toledo) believed themselves necessitated to take this step by the following further considerations. According; to the doctrine of the Trinity, the nature of the Son is the same as that of the Father and of the Holy Spirit; and He is discriminated from the nature which He has in common with them, solely by His hypostasis or person. Had His nature also assumed humanity, there would have been no escaping the conclusion, that the Father and the Holy Spirit had also become flesh, as to their nature. Stress was therefore laid on the fact, that not the nature, but merely the Person, of the Logos, assumed humanity. VAs the act of assumption was conceived to be the moment /which constituted the person, the divine personality, without the divine nature, was, by implication, set forth as the chain by which the Logos bound humanity to Himself, in order, through the medium of Himself, to bring human nature into connection with His own divine nature.

The Ego might readily be regarded, even prior to anything else, as the link connecting the two; for, evidently enough, the two natures were together in the one person. But, as the conception of this Ego, was only arrived at by abstracting from the natures all the specialties and qualities which made the natures what they were, the result was something void, destitute of attributes and differentiated by no distinction; and this result being accepted as just, it might appear a matter of no consequence to humanity whether it had its own Ego or the divine Ego,—for both natures might, without difficulty, be combined in such an Ego. An Ego of this kind, which had no special qualities, was, indeed, nowhere to be found:— it was a mere abstraction. But the great point was in some way or other to couple the two natures, concerning whose inner connection and conciliation nothing was known; and the Ego seemed to offer, as it were, the welcome spot, the neutral territory, in which hoth could meet, although it itself primarily originated with the divine nature.

Regarded in this aspect, therefore, nothing better resulted , from this Christology than the local union, with which was | afterwards combined the doctrine of the circling of the two natures within each other (circumincessio, ireptywprjais); in order that they might not appear to be merely laid down, as it were, in one common spot. But the fundamental view was in! nowise affected by this addition.

The fundamental features of this view continued to mark the Christology of the West for centuries. It is plain, however, that in such a way the natures were by no means united, but were merely brought into external connection with each other. Indeed, an abstract Ego, so constituted as to be able to replace the human Ego, could have no combinative power in itself: with such an Ego, the natures could not be vitally and actually united. For an Ego destitute of attributes is a dead abstraction; and its only strength and life are traceable to the natures from which it is abstracted. This idea was not, it is true, usually followed out to its legitimate result: the Ego being held to be divine, was on that ground constantly conceived to be endowed with the irjpwf>ia of divine powers. Plainly, however, a return was thus made to the notion, that the nature of the Logos, equally with His person, belonged to the human nature. An actual double series of knowledges and volitions could only be attained in one way,—to wit, by so divorcing the Ego of the divine Logos from His nature, that the divine nature shall not appear to be so directly appropriated to the human nature as the divine Ego. What pledge there may be, with this duality of wills, for the agreement of the human will of Christ with the divine, we are not here informed. To urge that the humanity is the pure Adamitic humanity, was not sufficient; for it might fall: and if it could not fall, on the ground of being perfect from the very commencement, as Maximus, for example, supposed, then the humanity lacked reality and truth.

The other Christological view, which may be designated the Oriental, took sufficient care to secure this concord of the wills. It regarded the Ego, not as an empty compartment in which the two natures were deposited, nor as a third something in addition to the two natures, but simply, after the manner of the ancient Church, as the divine nature, which is, in itself and essentially, personal. Not something empty, but full; not a something indifferent to the distinctions of divine and human nature, but a something determinate in itself, was it, therefore, which assumed human nature;—and starting with this point, the Orientals aimed to bring clearly to view the living union with human nature. The problem then took this form,—How can a true human nature be one with the divine hypostasis and its nature? The task, in this case, was to show how the natures could directly belong to each other, how they were internally conciliated.

The Oriental portion of the symbol gave, as we have seen, the following answer:—The two physical wills were not opposed to each other, but the human will followed, that is, it never took the initiative, it had not to be an impulse to itself. It was, further, not hostile or rebellious, but subject to the divine and almighty will.¹ All decisive volitions proceeded, thus, from the inmost centre of Christ, from the divine nature which formed His personality. Originally, indeed, there were two wills conceived as capacities, and two natures; nay more, the capacities were also conceived as operative : but the divine will, by its omnipotence, carried the human will along with it in its course at every volition. On this view, however, the human will never existed but for a moment, and disappeared again as soon as it existed; and, in direct opposition to the Dyotheletic position, it was absorbed by, and so blended with, the divine, that the one divine will alone operated through the medium of the living human nature. But we are thus plainly led back, substantially, to Honorius and the Monotheletism which the Council had condemned.

So little harmony was there in the conclusions of this Council, so great was the confusion with respect to the true state of the matter: the German Reformers were right, there

¹ The effort made during the second stadium of the Monotheletic Controversy, in the interest of the ethical aspect of the matter, especially by Maximus, to assert the truth of the humanity of Christ by attributing to it the ai>rtl-oiniion, was frustrated by the Council of 680, and, to use the words of John Damascenus, the xurt^ouamn of the humanity was swallowed up in the i^i^ovaion (Joan. Damasceni, Opp. ed. Lequien, Tom. i. p. 620).

fore, In refusing to recognise the authority of this Council. The Fathers who composed it are chargeable with vacillation, not merely between the two opposed modes of considering the matter, mentioned above, but also between the Nestorian doctrine of a twofold series of wills and knowledges on the one hand, and a Monophysitic predominance of the divine nature, which left no room for the free activity of the human nature, on the other hand; and the positing of all these things together, proved but a very poor mode of reconciling the contradictions.

In the Dyotheletism of Maximus, indeed, who followed that doctrine out most closely and consequently, traces are discernible of a reaction against the notion, that the divine nature alone had and exercised power, in favour of the reality and freedom of the humanity of Christ. As we have seen, however, the unity of the person was greatly endangered by the course he took; and we cannot be surprised, therefore, to find that, in the last stadium of the Monotheletic Controversy, with a view to escaping this danger, a sudden turn was taken towards the view of the omnipotence of the will of the divine nature, against which Maximus had so decidedly protested. The Church was thus again, substantially, led back to the doctrine which had found an undisguised expression in the formula, "Unus operator filius Dei Christus.," and His "una voluntas," during the first stadium of the controversy.

But the (so to speak) ostensible doctrine of the Church, the recognition of which in words, at the close of the Monotheletic Controversy, determined the ecclesiastical reputation of this Council, was henceforth Dyotheletism. And so we can understand how, in the following century, views could be diffused in Spain, and that professedly on a good Church basis, the main object of which was to save the independence and freedom of the humanity of Christ, whilst adhering to the traditional doctrine of the natures. Viewed in this connection, Adoptianism wears no longer the appearance of an historical riddle, of a strange rehabilitation ; but is seen to be the natural continuation of the efforts of Maximus, the representative of a principle destined to he of importance in the future, and a protest against that dissipation of the humanity of Christ, to which so strong an impulse had been given by the appeal to the mere omnipotence of the Logos at the Sixth Council:—an impulse which, as we shall see, determined, for the most part, the character of the Christology of the Middle Ages.

Monotheletism was once more revived in the Greek Church under the Emperor Philippicus (Bardanes),—and, through his influence, attained to supremacy in the year 711. He convoked a new Council to Constantinople, which condemned the decrees of the Sixth Council, and adopted a symbolum favourable to Monotheletism. The bishops fell in with this confession as easily as they had fallen in with the opposed one of the year 681. Two years afterwards, however, Anastasius II. restored Dyotheletism; and the bishops showed themselves again quite ready to alter their confession. This characterless changeableness of the Greek clergy was due not merely to their deep moral corruption, but also, as justice compels us to acknowledge, to the want of definiteness and precision in the symbolum of the Sixth Synod, which might be explained at once monotheletically and dyotheletically. Officially, however, especially subsequently to this renewal of the controversy, Dyotheletism was the authoritative view; and it was the fashion with dogmatical writers to attack Monotheletism along with Monophysitism. What meaning was to be attached to the term, "human will," —whether it was to be understood to be the power of selfdetermination, or merely a volitional motion, back of, and above, which stood the determination of the divine will,— remained undecided. They contented themselves with having asserted the truth of the human nature, more perfectly than even the Council of Chalcedon, by means of their Dyotheletism; and the more confidently believed themselves able, openly and without prejudice, to maintain the impersonality of the human nature, which hitherto had been rather " implicite" than "explicite" conceded. (Note 44.)

We have now arrived at the point at which the development of the Christological dogma in the Greek Church remained standing, and came to a termination. From this time forth, the Greek mind aimed, without developing any further dogmatical productivity, simply to recapitulate and store up the results so far attained. We must dwell a little on this matter. John Damascenus (about the year 750) deserves a more careful consideration than the other writers of his Church; for he sums up, in the form of thesis and antithesis, with great clearness, those results of the precedent movement which had received the sanction of the Church, and establishes them by the best arguments of the Fathers; especially, however, does he deserve attention, both for having laid the topstone to the dogmatical efforts of the Greek Church, by which he has ever since been regarded as the highest authority, and because his chief work, entitled, Ilepl opdoBo^ov 7rtaTea)? (Sec. 12, under Eugene III.), was translated into Latin, early became accessible to the Western Church, and was particularly studied by Peter the Lombard.

We shall do best to take our start from the last Christological discussions; for on them John Damascenus bestowed special attention, not merely in the work just mentioned, but also in a separate work, on the two wills, activities, and remaining natural attributes of Christ.¹ The same Lord Jesus Christ, says he, we acknowledge to be perfect God and perfect man. He had all that the Father had, with the exception of aseity; and all that the first Adam had, with the exception of sin. Whatever naturally pertained to the two natures of which He was constituted, was also His,—two natural wills, the divine and the human; two natural activities; a double natural freedom of will, a divine and a human; and twofold wisdom, and twofold knowledge.² These are the natural attributes, without which the natures cannot subsist. For the establishment of this double vital system, he advances, but with greater force and precision, the following main arguments, which we have for the most part met with already in Maximus. Whatever has the same nature, must have the same will, and the same activity: that which has a different nature, must be different in each of these respects. So, on the other hand, that which has one and the same will and activity, must be of the same substance; and a difference in the former, involves a difference in the latter. Besides the divine nature, there are three kinds of substances—organic, animal, and rational; each discriminated from the other by characteristics which belong to its nature. To the class of rational substances belongs the avre^ovaiov: now, so certainly as each of the other kinds has something distinctive of it,

¹ Opp. T. i. 529—54. He also assailed the Monophysites in a separate work.

^J De fid. orth. lib. iii. cap. 13.

which constitutes its nature, so certainly does freedom of will pertain to the human class, as the element which is natural to it; but freedom of will is simply will (diKrjais).¹ Animals are ruled by their nature: in man, the nature is ruled by the free will; and he is, consequently, a voluntary being (jdejriKix;). What we do not first need to acquire, pertains to our nature: now, we do not learn to will; to will, therefore, belongs to our nature. God has freedom of will: human nature is in the image of God; to human nature, consequently, belongs freedom of will. What all have equally, and not the one more and the other less, pertains to their general essence. All men have will; will, therefore, belongs to their nature: were it not a matter of nature, it would be a personal thing, or against nature; and in the latter case, it would be a departure from nature. If we assume it to have been a matter of the personality in the case of Christ,—that is, if we assume His will to have been hypostatical, as the Monotheletes do, supposing will in general to pertain to the personality and not to the nature, —we should have to assume three wills, for the three Persons of the Godhead; whereas the Church only confesses one will.

But, in order to understand his conception of the duality of wills and activities, we must consider the more precise distinctions drawn by him. A distinction is to be made between the act of willing (das Wollen) in general, determinate volitions, and the subject of volitions. Willing in general is simply the faculty of volition (dejriKrj Biva/us), in virtue of which the nature is capable of forming volitions (de)riKbv). The determinate will is the will as related to an object, and denotes the content, that which is willed; this he designated ffikrjfia yvwfitKov. Finally, the voluntary subject is he who actually makes use of the capacity of volition (de\.rjais).

As there were two natures capable of volition, he holds that two wills also should be taught; and in maintaining his Dyotheletism, he plainly lays the chief stress, not so much on any continuous actual activity of the two wills, as on the fact of their positive dynamical existence:—indeed, he confesses that there was only one who willed in Christ," the one and the same Christ. But this one and the same Christ willed both divinely and humanly; and, therefore, as far as the determinate will ¹ T. i. 226, lib. iii. cap. 14. ² P. 226.

is concerned, the object or the content of the will (0eXT/rw) is the same. In point of matter, there is no distinction or antagonism between the will of the divine and the will of the human nature. Christ did not will dividedly, but unitedly; and yet, in willing, He willed in correspondence with each one of the two natures: so that, regarded "formaliter," two volitional natures were directed towards the same object. He willed, namely, not merely that which He would have willed as God, according to His divine nature, for the divine nature in itself did not will to eat and drink; but He willed also that which was necessary to the subsistence of His human nature,—not in contradiction to that which God willed, but in accordance with the distinctive character of the human nature, which, when the divine will permitted it, willed, in the way appropriate to it, to suffer or to do that which was natural for it to suffer or do.

According to the Damascene, then, there were two abiding volitional faculties, both of which came into actual operation; and the human nature was not merely passive, but, considered in relation to the human soul, the flesh was dependent, and the humanity of Christ possessed of freedom of will. But the volitions of the divine and human natures were not therefore dissociated; for, in the first place, the object of volition was common to both, although each willed it in its own way, or in its own form; and, in the second place, the human' nature had not freedom of volition over against the divine, but was determined by the divine, and was dependent on it, both for the form and the matter of its volitions. Even those actual volitions to which it was impelled by its own nature, were not executed, unless the will of the divine nature permitted or willed it.¹ According to this, the faculty and the activity of the human nature were encompassed and embraced by the divine, which alone ruled and determined the entire actual life. Despite all the pains which the Damascene takes to establish Dyotheletism, he in reality gets no further than one determinant will, that of the divine nature :—alongside of the divine will, the human nature is really selfless; and, however zealously he seeks to show that the will is a matter of the nature, and not of the personality, in order that he may be able to maintain the duality of wills, he is, in the last instance, led back to the one deciding will of the divine nature. And as the divine nature was at the same time the formative principle of the personality, the conclusion he really arrived at was,—that there was one, even a deciding, will of the person, above the will of the human nature; and he consequently reduced the human will to the position of a mere natural psychical movement, of a momentum in the will of the one Christ.

^J Compare lib. iii. cap. 6. When the stronger (Xo'yof) permits it, the spirit of Christ shows ita own supremacy (« nixxrxi rt xxi tirtrx; r$ "piirron xxi rxvra intpyti at i iilx jiovXtTxi ii'kwt;). Cap 18, p. 241:

fiirIT0 Xxi ViriTXCatTO TU> UVTOU itKifiXTI TO avipUiTlVOU, fiii xmoifioon yvufifi

<'--*, dr/A nxrrx 6iXov, & To 0f?on Xvtov ijitM ifonfix.

T. 2.—VOL. I. O

And yet, in respect of the abiding difference of the natures, the Damascene gave such prominence to the duality, that he failed to show that the wills and activities were actually one, even in the work of Christ. Nothing had been more objectionable to Cyrill, than the denial of divine power to the human nature of Christ; and he had insisted on it, for example, in his Anathemas, that the flesh of Christ is life-giving flesh. John of Damascus, on the contrary, supposed that, though the speaking and touching, and other the like acts, in connection with miracles, appertained to the human nature, the miracles themselves were performed solely by the divine nature.¹ So far was he from the idea of a divine-human life. The formula, deavSpiKrj ivepyeia, he explained to signify, that there was both a divine and a human activity, each permanently discriminated from the other.2 The composite term, deavBpiKr), he took to mean nothing more than the formula propounded by Leo,— each of the two natures operated in Christ in conjunction with the other ;³ for there never was in Him, cither naked deity, or mere humanity.

Still, he also took great pains to exhibit clearly the unity of the two natures. In pursuance of this design, he taught, firstly, that to the divine nature alone pertained the power of constituting a personality; secondly, the doctrine of the T/mwto? Tj)? dvriSoaeax: ;* thirdly, the doctrine of the ivepiywprjai<i.

Not with a humanity already possessed of an independent existence, was the Divine Logos united; but the Logos became

¹ Pp. 231, 233, 236. ^s De duab. volunt. § 44, i. 563.

⁸ Lib. iii. 19, de duab. vol. § 44, p. 653. ⁴ Lib. iii. cap. 3, 4.

Himself the hypostasis of the humanity.¹ No being, indeed, can exist without an hypostasis (L. iii. 9); for beings are known alone by their hypostases. The hypostasis is the individual (aroyuov, fiepiKbv, L. iii. 6), to which is opposed the general or the common (koivov). But the general and the individual are not external to each other: the general (etSo?) has no independent existence, it exists only in the hypostases; and so, vice versa, the individual contains the general within itself, —not merely a portion of the general, but the whole. For the general essence is simply that which remains after the individual has been deducted; the hypostasis, consequently, is the general, or the otaia, in conjunction with accidents, or distinctive characteristics. So in the Trinity; so in Christology. But then he proceeds to say (L. iii. 9),—^u It is not necessary that each of the (personally united) natures should have an hypostasis of its own; for they may meet in one hypostasis: they may also so exist, that they are neither without hypostasis, nor each has its own hypostasis, but both have the same." It is characteristic, that the personality in relation to the nature or the substance is reduced by him to a mere accident (ovfifieftrjKb<i). This ancient view was for the first time uprooted daring the Germanic period. But the Damascene appears thus to fall into contradiction with himself. For if, in other cases, the hypostasis of human nature is constituted by the individual human accidents, which are superadded to the general human substance, either there must be in Christ a human hypostasis, side by side with the divine, seeing that there is in Him an individuality, and not merely the general human substance; or there is not in Him a double hypostasis, and the human is excluded by the divine. In such case, however, Christ could only have possessed, and have been, humanity in the general sense: He could not have had an individual humanity. And this is not what John Damascenus desired; for he insists upon it, that humanity, in the general sense, cannot have a real existence, save in human individuals, and that Christ's humanity was not merely the general human substance, but an individual human body and an individual soul. We have here a fresh confirmation of what we remarked above, to wit, that the true conception of human personality was still lacking. It was ¹ Lib. iii. cap. 2 and 8.

not yet conceived as the Ego, as the inmost centre; but, on the contrary, the hypostasis was treated as the accidental, the individual, as that which is superadded to the inner portion, to the essence, in accordance with the definition given by the teachers of the Church, conjointly with the Monophysites. They did not, however, adhere strictly to this definition; but when their aim was to show that the divine and human natures were one, without conceding a double personality, they affirmed that the hypostasis of the divine nature might also be the hypostasis of the human. In this case, hypostasis was taken to denote, not the individually or accidentally human (for how could it be replaced by the divine hypostasis?), but the inner conjunctive principle of unity, the Ego, which, as we have shown before, when conceived to be separated from the divine nature and from the human, might, as an empty form, appear fitted to constitute the connecting tie between the two natures. He teaches, therefore, that the general human essence in conjunction with characteristic features of the individual man Jesus, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the general divine substance in conjunction with the characteristic features which constituted the hypostasis of the Son, were united in Christ. In such a manner, however, that the hypostasis of the Son is also designated the hypostasis of the human nature; which would imply, if hypostasis denote " the congeries of characteristic marks," that in Christ there was only human nature in the general sense, and not an individual man,—that the divine hypostasis took the place of the individual, the hypostatical, in His human nature. But the principle of the iv-vn-ooTa<rla of the human nature in the Logos was plainly taken by him in another sense; namely, the divine hypostasis of the Son was the formative and connective principle of unity of this person, not merely in the sense in which the creative Logos universally discharges that function, but so that, through the Logos who became man, and for His hypostasis, those elements, which, apart from the incarnation, would not have sufficed to constitute a man, were united in, and formed, an individual man, of such a constitution, that the hypostasis of the Son was capable of being his hypostasis. Had he inquired more closely how this man must be constituted, in order that the hypostasis of the Logos might at the same time be his hypostasis; had he especially made full use of an idea frequently advanced by him, —the idea, that this individual man must be regarded as having an universal signifiance, and as the head of men and angels ; he would have arrived at a conception of the humanity of Christ, which would not have condemned it to be treated as impersonal, in order that the Logos might be its hypostasis or personality. On the contrary, instead of being obliged to represent the human nature as destitute of an hypostasis, he might have represented it as having an hypostasis, united and identical with that of the Logos. He did not, however, take this step; and, in consequence, the hypostasis of the Logos continued to be something foreign to human nature, and it became necessary to the maintenance of the unity, that something of the completeness of the humanity should be sacrificed.

The Logos he regarded as exclusively the hypostasis of the God-man: the consequence thereof was the peculiar method he adopted to reduce the natures, and especially the activities, to unity. He says, indeed,¹—Christ had a power of volition (dejTikij ovra/u;), corresponding to each of His two natures, and volition in general (fleXijat?, To de\eiv). Further, each nature, as far as concerned concrete volitions or the objects of volition (to Ttw? de\eiv, To de/fia, To yvaifUKov deKrjfia), had by nature a different will; for the divine does not by nature require food and drink, as does the human. Nay more, Will he considered to be identical with freedom; and, following the example of Clement, he defined Will to be the free movement of a selfruling spirit.² He explains very beautifully,³ how, along with freedom, which was given to Adam without sin, we received the law; how both together were given, that we might attain to virtue; in that, though whatever we are by nature is beautiful and bestowed by the Good for good,⁴ yet through the use thereof we first become virtuous or the contrary. As we are by nature under obligation to obey, and subject ourselves to, the law of God (BovKoi), we are possessed of freedom, which is the constitutive principle of virtue (avarariKov); for that to which men are constrained (to fiia yevofievov), is neither a virtue nor an enjoyment. No less strongly does he maintain, that no such thing as obedience could be attributed to Christ,¹ unless He possessed a human will, whose obedience must be a free and unconstrained subjection of the will to the will of another. But however distinctly he may here assert the full completeness and freedom of the humanity of Christ, it is rendered illusory by the mode in which he aims to secure the unity of the two wills and natures, or that the two wills should always harmonize both as to their objects, and as to their ethical form. He reminds, further, that will concrete, presupposes one who wills; but the volitional subject in Christ, says he, is one alone, to wit, the hypostasis of the Logos,—united, indeed, with the humanity, but still divine. Now, as it is physically impossible that actual volitions should arise in a being, if the volitional subject resists the impulse or tendency to a definite volition (for whatever takes place independently of the volitional subject, is not a volition, but an involuntary motion), the human nature of Christ, although endowed with the potence of freedom of will, could not possibly originate an actual volition, which was not at the same time, both in point of substance and form, the volition of the Logos; for, as the Damascene himself allows, even the form of a volition may be made the subject and matter of a volition.² In the last instance, accordingly, nothing remained for the selfruling freedom of will of Christ's human nature, than to be the impersonal (as it actually is) transition-point and organ for the personality which takes its place. It could only hold to the Logos, therefore, the relation which the body of man holds to his soul, and the relation of the body to the soul, is that of a physical, subservient, dependent organ.³ We can, accordingly, only be surprised when we find him afterwards¹ objecting to call the humanity of Christ Bov\o<;; and such an objection is only intelligible on the supposition, that he deemed the hypostatical designation given to humanity in this expression to be too strong. In the last instance, he, no less than the Monotheletes, represents humanity as a mere organ; though with such a representation, it is difficult to reconcile, what he otherwise says regarding a free obedience of the human will of Christ. For he excludes all choice, preference, consideration (eKKo^rj, irpoaipeins, Kpuri<;, and so forth; and the X07tayA0? eirafuf>orepityov Kiii Burrdfav), from the will and activity of Christ.² In the way of a metaphysical argument for this view of his, he endeavours to employ the distinction, undeniably existing in the world, between the predominantly passive and the predominantly active (iradrjTiKbv and eveprfqriKov): for example, in relation to the soul, the body is passive; and, as rational, the soul has the power freely to govern the body. But its freedom, like everything else in the world, is purely passive relatively to God; inasmuch as the divine nature alone is not passively moved, and is without motion active.³ This statement, however, is plainly not reconciled with the former ones regarding the necessity of freedom to virtue. Nor does he even adhere faithfully to the latter position; for, when he has occasion to speak of the first Adam,⁴ he follows Irenaus, who held that Adam must have been created in mutable sinlessness, whereas God alone possesses freedom and sinlessness, without mutability.

¹ "De duabus voluntatibus," pp. 529-554; specially § 24 ff.

* L. c. § 28: xiiroxparopof noD xhr.ai; xvrt^ovcn;.

* § 19. * § 19.

¹ § 27. * § 23.

* § 16: Qwikw 8oSxon. This he expressly confesses in § 42, p. 553. The soul is virnpirn; to the Logos (p. 552), whose will is decisive (xvpaurau To 0iion (iXrifiK irxpd To xvtpuirivon, as he says, following the example of Gregory of Nyssa, § 35, p. 549). Nay more, in § 40, he goes so far as to say, Adam's will did not continue subject to the divine, because it followed its own ynufiti, in opposition to God. For this reason the Logos assumed human nature and a human will, but by no means an dnipcnrinw v-U-xnrj in order that the natural human will might not live in accordance with its own gnomic and hypostatical will, in opposition to the deity, but obey God in free obedience (?). From this we may see that, in the last instance, he only posits one gnomic Will, to wit, the deciding personal will of the Logos.

We see, accordingly, that he who meant to assert the independence and completeness of the humanity so zealously, took away with one hand what he had given with the other,—and that he did so in the interest of the very method adopted to secure the unity of the person; for the hypostasis of the Logos, by means of which that unity was secured, did not permit of the existence of the human hypostasis.

On the other hand, it must be remarked, that as respects the independence of the human aspect, he gives again, half unconsciously, in his doctrine of the irepiyii}prjais and of the Tptnros airtSoaeo)*?, with the one hand what he had taken away with the other. From the Unio Kaff inroirraaiv, which, in his view, should be held to have been complete from the very commencement (re\ela), he deduced, in the first place, the irepiycaprjais of the natures in each other (" de fide orthod." L. iii. 3, 7, 17, 19). In like manner, Gregory Nazianzen (Or. 51) had spoken of the natures as irepixa>povaa.<; ei? aW^Xa? Tu> \6y<p T?}? ov/t<pvtas; and this "eircumincessio" had long ago been applied, with a similar intent, to the Persons of the Trinity. The parts (fi£py) of which the person was composed, held a living relation to each other. They did not exist outside of each other, but lived and moved in each other. This, however, must be limited (according to lib. iii. 7) to the extent of saying, that the divine nature alone permeated the human ; for the divine nature penetrates and permeates everything, as it chooses, whereas it is itself penetrated by nothing. This, however, was naturally not intended to signify, that the all-penetrating Logos was united with humanity only in the manner in which He is united with all other beings :—to describe the relation between them, frequent use was rather made of the image of iron which is heated by fire. The substances of the iron and the fire do not cease to be different, and yet they are united and work in union (ijiw/iew? ov BigpiHiivioi); even so, like iron and fire, the deity and the humanity performed different things,—each that which was peculiar to and became it. But the main point is, that this irepir ](<i>p7jats brought about a communication, not indeed of the human elements to the divine nature, which remained untouched by suffering, but of the divine glory to the human nature QieroSi'Soxm rjJ aupKl Twv oiKeta>v axr^qpArwv, c. 7). As the "Unio hypostatica" is at the foundation of the 7re/3t^(up7?at?, so the irepvxwpri<ri<; is the foundation of the rpoiros airtooaeo)?.¹

¹ Lib. iv. cap. 21. » § 28, p. 644, de fide orth. iii.

* § 18: Toox xr!ai; Ktittv •xxinrixu; Kittirxi Kx\ impyti, /*o'nn it ij Stix fvai; irrin «i«^[, diraiu; Kinovfiinn, xxl dxivtiru; inpyoiwa.

* §28.

Many teachers before the Damascene had spoken of an interchange taking place between the two aspects within the Person of Christ, designating it, avrifiediirrcuris r&v ovofuxra>v, eiraWayrj, ovofiarwv eirl£evl-is. An dvriBoai<; IBuufiarwv was taught by Leontius in his work against the Nestorians and the Eutychians, and the Damascene set himself to make the dvriBo<rt ? available for the assertion of the unity of the person.2 He remarks, that, according to it, the Logos communicated to the J lib. iii. cap. 23. * Lib. iii. cap. 3.

flesh that which pertained to Himself (/xeTaSi'oWt). But when this dvriSoais came to be practically exemplified, it turned out to be a mere transference of names (airiSoai? ovofidrwv).¹ For the behoof of the unity of the person, names which strictly belong to the one nature, are transferred to the other also. Indeed, we are expressly warned against supposing the attributes of the one nature to be attributed, or to belong actually, to the other.* But what real difference is there between such a mere nominal communication of attributes, and the dva<f>opa of the ^hool of Antioch, which Cyrill considered to be so objectionable? John's doctrine of deification (d&waii) and of appropriation (pueeieoais) carries us somewhat further. A deification of hutaan nature, he represents as resulting even from the mere act »f incarnation.³ The divine nature permeated the human, and united it inseparably with itself, even as heated iron cannot be touched without the substance of the fire being at the same time touched. Hence, the human intellect of Christ, which was by nature imperfect (ayvoelv), participated from the very beginning in the all-comprehensive divine knowledge.⁴ Logically, the same must hold good of the will also. When it is said in the Gospel, "He grew in years, wisdom, and favour," we must understand it to mean that Christ, as He grew in years (and He did really increase in years), manifested ever more and more the treasures of His wisdom, and more and more completely fulfilled the will of God. But whoso supposes that in these latter points He really and truly made progress, necessarily denies that the union of the Logos with the flesh was fully accomplished from the commencement, and, instead of confessing that there was an hypostatical union, does but allow a Nestorian ayeriKrj evioaa and yfri\ij ivolmjai<;. For if the flesh subsisted in the Logos from the commencement of its existence, and was even hypostatically identical with the Logos (ravrorq<; inroarariKrj), must it not have been enriched by His

¹ lib. iii. cap. i.

^s Ou z»nmfii£ofiin xvrij; {iiorirro;) rx T)j? xnipairornro; liiu/ixrx—o£r« « Tijff ffaexof, tjrot rij; do$puir0TiiTOS zxTyiyopovfitv roc rri; itorrrro; fotufcxrx— iirl riif virocTciafo;, x£n Ik Tod avuxfi^Oripov, xcfn «£ inof run fitpun rmnw imfcifttfiin dfi<Poripun run (pvatuv rcl ioiuuxjx xur>i tiriTifafiin.

» L. iii. 17, 19.

« L. iii. 21, 22, de duab. vol. untatibus, § 38, p. 550. The Logos **tfrXourwt, the human nnture, T«in T«n fii%.x6nTan ynuait.

wisdom? The human soul became, in fact, the soul of the Lord, of the Logos. Hence this idea rendered it impossible for the Damascene to attach any real meaning to the prayers offered by Christ (L. iii. 24). In Christ, God was the personality; how, then, could He need to pray for anything? Considered in relation to its form, prayer is a rising of the soul to God; how, then, could He who was God need thus to rise? All he could say, therefore, was, that Christ had played our part in prayer, desiring to be an example to us, and to do honour to God. In other connections, also, the Damascene very readily resorted to the supposition that Christ assumed our role.¹ In opposition to the Julianists, he maintains, indeed, that the physical aspect of Christ shared the <f>dopa of humanity; alleging as the ground thereof, that the purpose of incarnation directly involved the assumption of the human capability of suffering: but he at the same time asserts that it participated also in the power of giving life,—it was, as Cyrill so energetically affirmed, foxwrow?. Furthermore, since the resurrection it has been raised above all capability of suffering and all human needs, although it continues to be circumscribed, limited.2 Christ's body was always limited, and will be limited when He comes again: God alone is unlimited; but humanity sits at the right hand of God:—words which are not to be explained literally, but simply signify that the honour and glory of the Deity, which the Logos had ever possessed and retained, are now shared by His humanity, and that one worship must be rendered to His person, inclusive of the humanity. "Iron heated by fire I avoid, as I do fire itself; and so, the humanity of the Logos I worship in conjunction with Him."³

¹ L. iii. 25. That is, aUtluais; of which there are two kinds:—1. A real and true appropriation and assumption of our nature (jpvstxi), ovaiuitf), in accordance with which His purpose was to share human experiences. 2. An oixavpoauvtxq or tr%frixit appropriation, when, solely in virtue of a peculiar relation to us, for the sake of the love or compassion borne us, He spoke in the person of another, precisely as it became Him in the role He had undertaken; or rather, precisely as became, not Himself, but the other whom He represented. So does he explain Matt, xxvii. 46; Gal. iii. 13; 2 Cor. v. 21.

* L. iii. 28, iv. 1-3.

³ What we have advanced above shows that he recognised no human development, save that of the body. And yet he only needed to extend

We should very much deceive ourselves, however, if we took this avriSoais, or even 0«o<m, to imply that through it divine attributes were veritably appropriated to human nature. According to the Damascene, the divine attributes cannot be separated from the divine substance; every nature maintains itself only by retaining the essential qualities which constitute the idea of its nature (avarariKa T% <f>vaew<;), and by excluding others which might be incompatible therewith. Through the deification (Vergottung), the humanity became merely the nature of the Logos,—a nature permeated by Him, and His by appropriation (piKeuoais). This flesh became the flesh of the Logos; this soul, the soul of the Logos—His property in the most special sense, because of its most intimate, that is, because of its personal, union with the Logos. But, in essence, the human nature remained unaltered; even the attributes of both natures remained uncurtailed, unmixed: solely for the sake of fellowship¹ (which in itself presupposes a duality) was the flesh of the Lord enriched by the divine activities (evepyeuu). It did not receive divine attributes in and for itself (in. 17, 18, 19). The human will, which had become the will of the Logos, was indeed almighty also, but not in itself; it performed divine acts,—not, however, by its own proper power (/iar olKeiav evepyeiav), but solely in virtue of its union with the Logos, who manifested the power inherent in Himself through the medium of the flesh. Strictly speaking, therefore, he did not understand by the deification a real transference of divine attributes to the human nature, but simply the undivided co-existence and co-operation of the two substances,—an idea which necessarily involves the impossibility of coming into contact with the humanity of Christ, without at the same time coming into contact with His deity. And as far as concerns that perfect wisdom and virtue, which the God-man is said to have possessed from the beginning, they were not an independent possession of the humanity of Christ; but through

his doctrine of the up«x«P °f the Logos, which left room for such human motions as had the consent of the Logos, a little further, and he might have conceded the possibility of a mental development of Christ. Like Maximus, he often quotes Mark vii. 28, but only for the purpose of showing that there was a human will in Christ, aide by side with the divine: so also John vii. 8; Matt. xxvi. 39; John v. 30, viii. 50.

¹ Therefore is the expression faxnlpixv bipytia, a irtplippaai; or phrase employed to denote that two things are combined in one xify;: iii. 19.

the Logos, who became the hypostasis of the humanity, and who possessed them eternally, they became the property of the humanity.¹ He aptly remarks, also, with Maximus (iii. 18), that, to represent the saints and prophets as moved by the divine will, without their having the power, and being free, to move themselves, is the Old Testament type of the action of God on man. So, however, was it not with Christ: His humanity did not move merely at the nod of the Logos (vevfiari X070u), as Sergius said, but had a freedom of its own, and freely willed what the Logos willed. And yet he goes on to say,—it was one and the same Personality of Christ that willed both according to the divine and according to the human will; consequently, the two wills of the Lord differed solely as to their nature, not as to their object and sentiment (yva>fiij). We see again, however, that, in the last instance, the human will of Christ was not really complete,— that a humanity perfectly free, and freely determining itself to the good, was not manifested even in Christ, but merely a humanity determined by the vevfia \6yov. In a word, the human will, according to the Damascene, was simply the medium through which the Logos moved the man Jesus.

It is evident enough that the Christological result thus arrived at by the ancient Church, whatever may have been the extent of its traditional influence even down to recent times, was far from bringing the matter to a close. The human nature of Christ was curtailed, in that, after the manner of Apollinaris, the head of the divine hypostasis was set upon the trunk of a human nature, and the unity of the person thus preserved at the cost of the humanity. Further, and this is simply the reverse side of the same fault, the entire doctrine of the natures and wills taught by the ancient Church, admitted of nothing but an external union of the divine with the human; and the two natures, continuing unchanged even as to their attributes, were but, as it were, inserted into each other in the Person of Christ. We can, indeed, discover the rudiments of something better; and they warrant us in supposing that the theory adopted failed, notwithstanding its rounded appearance, to give adequate expression to the image of Christ which hovered before the mind. The doctrine of the freedom of the humanity of Christ was plainly intended to play a more important part than it actually did, in the system of John of Damascus. He did not mean merely to teach that the humanity of Christ was passively carried and moved hither and thither by the Logos, that it lost its personality in the personality of the Logos; for it would have contradicted one of his fundamental postulates, which was, that nothing that forms an essential part of any nature—and the hypostasis must without doubt be counted essential both to the Logos and to humanity—can fail, without involving the destruction of that nature, nor be really communicated by another nature, especially if of a different substance (Note 45). And, on the other hand, when he laid down the doctrine of the dvrlBoai<;, irepiywpi)ai<;, otVctoxn?, he had in view a much more intimate union between the divine and human natures than he arrived at in his systematic exhibition of the matter,—invariably ending, as it does, with denying that either the natures or the attributes were really interchanged.

¹ Lib. iii. cap. 15. He expresses himself similarly also in reference to the Mf/tix of the $vui;. He appeals to the words of Gregory of Nyssa (used by him in reference to the Trinity) : «n i foipytix ft!x, rourun irim; xxi i) ivnxfii; ij a&nj- Itccux ydp ifipyeiec ivuxft.su; diettlXtafix. A created nature cannot possibly have the same ivnxfii; with the uncreated, nor the same itipytix; otherwise the Logos would have been affected by fear and sadness. The one faipytix of the deity and the flesh must have been compromised; and then, that of the Logos could no longer have been one with that of the Father.

Not that this resulted from his being bound by the decisions of previous Councils :—his own conception of God and man brought him into this situation. In endeavouring to arrive at the true idea of man, he goes to work inductively, assuming that the true idea of human nature must consist in that which remains after the abstraction of whatever belongs to this or that individual. Accordingly, he looks to humanity as it was before Christ, after the first creation; and that which was common to it, he concludes to be human nature in general, er to constitute the true conception of human nature. This course might be admissible if it were right to consider humanity as a mere part of nature, or as a merely natural being. It is, moreover, only right and fair to distinguish as carefully as possible between such a humanity and the deity, both in the interest of the idea of creation and of the ethical. But he overlooked the circumstance, that the Christian doctrine of the second Adam implies that the true idea of man was not realized at the first creation, but solely at the second creation. He did not take into consideration that humanity, unlike beings which constitute a part of mere nature, and which are subject to its laws, is capable of a history; and that, therefore, its true idea can only be realized in the course of a history. To the realization of the true idea of man, it was necessary that God should progressively reveal Himself, and thus bestow a share of His divine life (2 Pet. i. 4). If such be the case, then, with the true idea of man, any idea of him must necessarily be very imperfect which is derived from the world of the first creation, especially in the fallen and sinful condition of man. Nay more, it cannot be enough even to go back to Adam; for, unless a mythical view be taken of his first condition, there could not have been in him more than the beginnings of a true human life: on the contrary, we must start with the conception of man which Christianity is at once capable of realizing and requires to be realized, and which was first truly realized in the Person of Christ. But the idea of humanity revealed and embodied in Christ, does not require us so to separate between it and God; and as this necessarily reacts upon the conception formed of God, the distinction between God and humanity will need to be otherwise defined than it was, when the natural Adamitic humanity was taken as a starting-point in estimating the nature of the humanity even of Christ.

This Person of Christ, he conceived to be compounded of two parts (jieprj), which were in turn independent wholes, but were united into a new whole, not by the divine nature, but by the hypostasis of the Logos. Other less definite terms to describe the unity are as follows :—He is the two natures; they are the one Christ, and Christ is the two natures (iii. 19). Even the Chalcedonian formula is more precise,—The two natures conjoin in Him to constitute one person. His most precise definition is the following:—The one Vttoot<utk irepieKrud) i<rri T&v Bvo <f>vaea>v (c. iii. 3); or, Christ is one composite person: and he often employs the simile of man, who is compounded of body and soul. When the Monophysites objected, —This image teaches the contrary, teaches one compound nature or one compound substance; for if man is compounded of two substances, body and soul, Christ should rather be said to be compounded of three natures or substances (Note 46) ;—he answered: Body and soul are only the parts, of which human nature is the whole; and with this whole, the divine, which was also a whole, was hypostatically united as a second nature. But, if it is not allowable to regard the body and the soul as individual natures, and as constituting, together with the divine, three natures; and if, further, as the Damascene maintains, the two substances, body and soul, whatever difference there may otherwise be between them, combine to form the one substance, which compound substance we designate human nature,—then he had no right to blame the Monophysites for following out the same analogy, and saying,—Man compounded of two substances, and yet, as every one allows, one substance, is a type of that which we see in Christ, namely, of the union of this human substance (nature) and of the divine into one substance, embracing both. John of Damascus saw very clearly how near such a conclusion lay, and replied,—Undoubtedly two substances do unite in man to form the one human nature (avdpayiroTt)s); but we cannot say that there was in Christ only one essence (or nature) resulting from a potencized (potenzirter) combination: for humanity (aydpamorrjs ) is the common, the generic (koivov, elSo?); but there existed no such thing as a common generic Christhood or Christity (^ptoTOr^?), inasmuch as there was only one Christ (lib. iii. 3). But the eZ8o? of a being cannot be dependent on the number of the individuals in whom it is embodied. Why then might not the Monophysites have answered, that the %pi,<tt6tt)<; was in Christ, and in Him alone? that He was the perfect and only representation of that higher compound unity, designated Christhood 1 Or, what was to prevent them from saying, that, as the natural man is neither merely an animated body, like the animals, nor merely spirit, like the angels, but his distinctive character consists in his being a compound of both substances; so the Christian is a higher being than the natural man, in that the natural compound unity enters into a new real union, an union with the divine (an union which is nothing more than a bare possibility in the case of those who are not Christians); and that, in this sphere, the xpurrorrjs occupies an absolute and specific position?

If we take our start with the Monophysitic definitions of nature and hypostasis;¹—essence or nature is the generic idea, which has no independent existence, hut is merely that which remains behind in thought when the IBiKov has been abstracted; and hypostasis is nothing but the independent subsistence of a nature for itself, or the circumscription of a nature by means of certain peculiarities :—the two natures must be allowed to be at the same time, also, two hypostases, inasmuch as otherwise they would be destitute of reality. For this reason, the Monophysites say, that through the union, the two hypostases and the two natures became one nature and one hypostasis; but that it is thoroughly inconsistent to teach, that after the Unio, there were two natures and one person, instead of that there was one nature, and one hypostasis. For, how could the two natures have an existence of their own, apart from the hypostases corresponding to them? how could Christ have humanity without having an individual man? As certainly as each of the united elements must have both fyvais and viroaraffis, because the one is not cogitable without the other; so certainly is the union an union of natures and hypostases, excluding the possibility of a separation of the latter from the former. Had two hypostases really become one, as the teachers of the Church assert, the union would have been perfect as to the hypostases, but imperfect as to the natures; whereas, both being inseparable, must have a like fate. From their point of view, therefore, the doctrine of the Church appeared inconsequent and discordant; and the union, complete in reference to one aspect (the Ibikov) of the natures, but incomplete in reference to the other aspect.

The Damascene answered,—The representation, according to which two hypostatic natures, containing the universally human and the universally divine, each by itself inseparably conjoined with its correspondent hypostasis, unite as wholes to constitute a nature embracing both, and itself also having an hypostasis, would only be correct, on the supposition that each of the two hypostatic natures had had an independent existence prior to the incarnation. But, so far from this having been the case, the Logos alone gave the human aspect its

¹ Compare a fragment from the iixnnrK of Philoponus, opp. Joann. Dam. i. p. 101 ff.

existence; in Him alone it had its primal subsistence; and He therefore was its hypostasis. What has just been advanced, however, is quite sufficient in itself to direct attention to the fact, that here again a conception of hypostasis is adopted, completely diferent from that with which the definition given above started, —namely, the conception of hypostasis as the constitutive principle of the Person of Christ, and the ground of its existence.

Two points of view are discernible, therefore, in the writings of the Damascene also,—two points of view, moreover, which are not united. According to the one, the one personality pertains quite as truly to the humanity as to the deity, being, as it were, an indifferent middle thing, a ya>plov or territory, in which both natures participate. He took this point of view, when his aim was to assert the existence of a human will and activity different from the divine will and activity. For a volition is impossible without a volitional subject (de\iov): this subject of human volitions in Christ was furnished by the deity, in that it gave its own hypostasis; the divine nature, however, could not act in direct connection- with its hypostasis, but was under the necessity of refraining from its natural operations and volitions, in order that the human aspect might have free play. Here, therefore, the divine nature is most distinctly discriminated from the divine hypostasis :—the former cooperating not as such and in its entirety, but solely by means of that constituent of itself which accommodated itself to, and was required by, the human nature, in order that there might be a proper subject for the volitions formed in its name.¹ According to the other point of view, he would seem to have been clearly aware that that middle thing, the personality, was, notwithstanding, of divine nature, and that the nature could not be separated from the personality. In this connection, he treats the divine nature as the focus and centre of the entire Christ; he assumes it to have been entrusted with the sole hegemony and decision, and does not hesitate even to represent the human nature as subjected to the divJne, just as our body is subjected

¹ L. iii. 4, p. 209 ; cap. 9, p. 217 ; cap. 3, p. 206. To this connection belongs particularly, also, his designation of Christ's Person, with Maximus, as irtpiiKTiKYi i filx Vitootxoi; run ioiuu fitpun; further, also his representation of the divine and human natures as parts which were constituted into a whole, comprising both by means of the one hypostasis.

P. 2.—VOL. I. P

to the soul.¹ But to suppose the humanity in its totality to have been merely, as it were, a body for the divine nature, is irreconcilable with the assumption of an independent human will: and we thus arrive again at the Monotheletism of Hone— rius. It is true, that by the philosophy of this age, the will was held to pertain to the nature, and not to the personality, on the ground that to will, is characteristic of the genus Man. By a similar course of reasoning it might be shown, that subjectivity and personality appertain to the nature of man. And when he proceeds apagogically to argue,—" If the will does not belong to the nature, it either belongs to the personality or is against the nature. Now the latter is not the case; and were the former the case, the will of the Son would be another than the will of the Father. But inasmuch as in the Trinity the will belongs to the common nature, which is one, and therefore there are not several wills in it; so also in Christology is the will to be allotted to the nature, and therefore a duality of wills to be assumed in Christ:"—the reply readily suggests itself,—If the three Persons of the Trinity do not merely will the same thing, but have one and the same faculty of volition, much more must the personality, which in Christ is only one, be limited to one will; and if the Persons of the Trinity, to which particular wills should most decidedly be attributed, were such an attribution in any case possible, are, notwithstanding, combined in one will, how much easier must it have been for two natures, of which one was impersonal, to have one will, even though it were a will in which the divine and the human united to form a God-man! As we have remarked above, the reasonings of the Damascene conduct him to an unity of will of this latter kind. As a human will without a volitional subject is an impossibility; and as the divine subject, bringing with it, as it does, the divine nature, cannot be held to take the place of the human hypostasis, without giving to the divine aspect either a Monophysitic or Monotheletic predominance; the real duality of the wills and natures can only be established at the price of a duality of

¹ Lib. iii. cap. 15; cap. 6, p. 213; "De duabus voluntatibus," p. 549, § 35; p. 552, § 42. He even goes so far as to say, that the nve of Christ was not a Ovdoikos (fellow-inhabitant) of this person, but that, like the flesh, it was the yyupiot of the deity; whereas, from the first point of view, he regards the hypostasis as the xaipi<ii i of the deity and the humanity alike.

personalities, or even at the price of a human subject for the human nature. In this case, we should have to acknowledge the existence of two hypostases in the one Christ,—a final conclusion which the Church has never drawn, although the premises of two essentially different natures and wills seem to render it unavoidable. In fact, we shall soon find an approximation thereto in Adoptianism (Note 47).

All the means supplementary employed by this Christology (a Christology which put the finishing stroke to the efforts of the old period), on the basis of the doctrine of two natures of different substances, for the purpose of preserving the unity, along with the distinction, of the two aspects,—such means, for example, as the unity of the hypostasis, the irepiyd)prtaKf and the airtoWt?, dkwai<;, and olKel(0<ri<; based on the irepiyaiprjais,—however ingeniously devised, were fruitless, and failed to set forth the Person of Christ in its living actuality and unity. An actual unity does indeed appear to be effected, but it is an " Unio absorptiva;" and in this case, the dualistic character of the view taken of the natures is evinced in the divine being represented as holding a relation of negation and exclusiveness to the human. At the bottom, however, the principle of two natures or substances of different essence, which is the ultimate ground of the schism just referred to, remains eternally immoveable and firm, applying even to Christ's state of exaltation. The doctrine herein involved is the following,—Ere the natures themselves are shown to stand in an inner relation of unity, so that they shall seek each other, in obedience to their own inmost essence, it is of no use to produce an appearance of unity by interweaving their essentially different being, their activities, and their operations. Such an union is only attained at the price of a curtailment of one of the two aspects. A real vital unity—an unity in which the distinctions are fully and justly recognised—can never be the result of this mode of procedure.¹

We have now arrived at the point at which, in consequence of the failing productiveness of the Eastern Church in the matter of Christology, the dogma began to be treated scholastically, even before the rise of the Western Scholasticism. Of this traditional theology, a picture is presented to us in the ^u Panoplia" of Euthymius Zigabenus, and in the works of Nicetas of Chone, but it will not repay us to devote further attention to it.¹ At the same time, there remained a green track even in the desert of Oriental theology, mainly unrecognised, it is true, by the official leaders of the Church, but still pursued by not a few; showing clearly how, even in seasons of dearth, the Christian heart continues to beat, and, regardless of the empty din raised about orthodox ideas, instinctively directs its gaze to the Person of Christ in its undivided totality. Even amongst the most zealous champions of the later formulas of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, nobler spirits, such as Maximus, John of Damascus, Theodore Abukara, and others, did not refuse to drink at this fresher fountain. The Christological ideas which we shall here have to discuss, are amongst the principal phenomena of that Greek Mysticism which took its tone from the so-called "divine Dionysius." They arc the more deserving of attention, as they form the presupposition and foundation of the Romanic Mysticism of the West.²

¹ Nicola us of Met bone and Nicetas also, recognise no real " communicatio idiomatum."

In Maximus we have hitherto seen solely the dialectician, and the most important champion of Dyotheletism. This would at first sight seem incompatible with the mystical, Areopagitical elements, which now call for our attention, and to which he evidently clung with the whole intensity of his love. But it was as though he violently opposed Monotheletism and Monophysitism, because of the strong monistic, or even pantheistic, tendency he perceived in himself. Before his own conscience, he pleaded (wo may imagine) his advocacy of Dyotheletism as a justification of his unrestrained devotion to the monistic tendency. He made it his aim to incorporate the principle of freedom with the system of the Areopagite, and therefore succeeded in further developing, at all events, its anthropology, and in laying the corner-stone of a system which required the world neither to be

¹ Compare Ullmann's "Nicolaus v. Methone, Euthymius Zigabenus, und Nicetas Chon., oder die dogmatische Entwickelung der grieckischen Kirche im 12ten Jahrhundert;" in the "Studien und Kritiken" of 1833, iii.

* A more connected view of Greek Mysticism was first given by Gass, in his work, " Die Mystik desNic. Cabasilas vom Leben in Christo," 1849; Einl. pp. 1-224. He was unfortunately unable to make use of the works of Maximus.

a mere illusion, side by side with God, and a symbol of God, on the one hand, nor a reality, that is, a God-emptied reality, on the other. Duality he considers to be the preliminary con-+ dition of all true unity: so in the Christology of the Churchj so generally. In his Mystagogy, he describes everything in the world as a symbol of God,—above all, the Church. Typically, the world has, like God, the same energy as God.¹ However varied may be the antagonisms it includes, on all alike it confers a divine form. We see from this, that Maximus, whom we have found defending with all acuteness the doctrine of the duality of natures in Christ, in all its aspects, by no means intended the duality to be a dualism. His system rather tended to reduce the actual world to the precarious position of a mere symbol of the existence of God. But he further proceeds to say,—Not only are the Church and the world a symbol of God, but God and the world are also a symbol of the Church. Yea, man himself symbolically represents the Church, and the Church symbolically represents man: they are related to each other as the wheels of Ezechiel, being in each other. This plainly implies that they are not foreign to, but have an inward affinity with, each other; and yet, at the same time, they are discriminated from each other—discriminated in order to the possibility of their being in each other. Unity in distinction; distinction in unity. Hence also he says,—Sensuous knowledge is a symbolical knowledge of the ideal world (vot)to); and this latter world is in the sensuous world (ivinrdpyei).

The tendency to unity, to which he yielded himself as soon as he thought the distinctions securely established, recedes, as we may well understand, very much to the background, in those works which acquired ecclesiastical importance. That same tendency, however, gave him a decided superiority over the adherents of the Council of Chalcedon and the general sort of Dyotheletes, and was the link of connection between him and the Areopagite. Entertaining great reverence for Dionysius, he vied with him, especially in his Mystagogy, in representing the holy arrangements of the Church as symbolical of the mystical process through which divine powers descend on man, and the human spirit is raised to God. The Cultus and the Liturgy, in particular, were regarded by Maximus as both the

¹ u. 493.

representation, and the rejuvenescence and real continuation, of that process. There is, however, an essential difference between his mode of uniting the divine and the human, and that of the Areopagite,—a difference which first brings clearly to view the distinctive characteristics of the system of Maximus. The affirmative and negative (Kara<f>ariK6s, airo<parMos) theology of the Areopagite—the affirmative method of causality, and the negative of "eminentia"— did not play so important a role in the system of Maximus:¹ he did not, like Dionysius, fall into the danger of instituting so strong a contrast between the nameless God, who is exalted above all names, and the many-named God, that the mind is at last drawn either into a whirlpool, which takes away both its power of vision and thought, or into a region of absolute ignorance, through which is supposed to lie the path to "Faith," but which may lead those in whom the theoretical impulse predominates, to thorough scepticism, and to the treatment of God and the world as a dream. In him, rather, as is indicated even by the zeal with which he asserted that Christ had a human will, the tendency to contemplation was so combined with the ethical tendency, as to preserve both in a healthy state. Like the Areopagite, he conceived God, at one time, as absolutely incommunicable and transcendent, and the world, therefore, as a mere shadow of the truly divine; at another time, on the contrary, he regarded God as communicable, and the world as full of the divine. Theoretically, his position was still that of the Areopagite, but the moral and religious character of his mind led him to lay down principles indefensible before the forum of the apophatical (amo<fmtikos) theology. He says, for example,—Love is the experi-\ ence (irda^eiv) of a transport towards the beloved object (God): \ it presses onwards, and cannot rest, until the whole is united with the whole,—until the whole is loved in, and embraced by, the whole.² It is, further, the most perfect work of love and ha activity, to bring about such an habitual interchange of limits,

¹ Still he was not merely acquainted with it, but says also, i. 494: • ix run iiatun xarxtpxtixag ito'hoyuv, oxpxx To/si tit AGyoc, in that he

deemed the causality of God incognisable save from visible objects:

whoso, however, xirotpxrtxu; ix tun dQxipioiun hotoyii, -rnvfia ttatii tit Aoyov u; it xpyjn &tit «;a- and knows xx>.u; tit Uirtox'ytutirot.

² Schol. on Gregory Nazianzen, pp. 18-21, in Scotus Erig. ed. Oxf. Love ho defines to be a Too^s/h ixatxait irpi; xvti a; ipxtit.

qualities, and names, that they shall he the common property of the loving and the beloved,—to make man God, and to set forth God as man, in virtue of the one and unchangeable movement of the will.¹ Love is the final goal of all good; for it leads those who love to God, the highest good, and the source of all good, and unites them with Him. Faith is the foundation; Hope is the mediation: but Love is the fulfilment, for it embraces, in its entirety, the final desirable object with the entire force of its nature. Hence, also, it suspends the action of, and gives rest to, faith and love, in the enjoyment of the good, which, through it, is present to the soul. It is the prime, the choice good, to him who possesses it; for by it God and men are united, and its effect is to give the Creator of men the appearance of a man, in that it deifies man, and, so far as is possible, communicates to man the unchangeableness of God. |Through God, he holds, we are to become God—by means, Inamely, of the avretyvaiov. The mere capacity of choice he regards as an imperfect stage of freedom: the true and perfect form of freedom, on the contrary, is realized in him who preserves untouched that capability of good which is itself a kind of participation in the divine substance, and, by rejecting or repelling the possible opposite, makes sure the substantial good already possessed, and transforms it into proper Christian virtue. Such expressions occur frequently in his writings; but they have rather a soteriological and anthropological, than a Christological bearing. Still, they are not without significance, even in relation to Christology. With their ethical character, these thoughts only needed to be developed, and the idea of the Godman would have been seen to be the necessary, common goal, both of the descending divine and of the ascending human love—the marriage (yd/tos) (to use a favourite expression of the later Greek Mysticism) of God and humanity; though this necessity might undoubtedly have been set forth in a form which would have led to such an universalization of the incarnation, as to allow little or nothing that is distinctive to the Person of the historical Christ. In fact, he does touch upon the idea of an universal incarnation of God as the goal of humanity, and draws an analogy between the deification of Christians and the Godmanhood of Christ, saying,²—The fulness of the Godhead, ¹ CC. Capita Tkeologica et oeconomica, i. 517, §§ 27-29. ² i. 489.

which was in Christ by nature, is in Christians by grace,—so far, namely, as their nature is capable of receiving it. So, also, when he describes the process of deification as a corporealization of the Logos (awfiarovadai), through the medium of practical virtues, saying,—Man thus, on account of his love to God, becomes God for God, and God, on account of His love to man, becomes man for man. A beautiful interaction thus takes place between God and man — God becoming man by the deification of man, and man becoming God by the humanification of God. He conceived, also, that the will of the Logos and of God was to realize the mystery of His corporealization in all. In proportion as man deified himself for God by his love, God, through His love for men, became a man for men; and so far as man, by his virtues, reveals the essentially invisible God, in so far is he spiritually initiated into the knowledge of the invisible.¹ He says further,²—Christ is continually, and of His own will, mystically born, for He is made flesh in and through the redeemed; and He constitutes the parturient soul the virgin mother.—The Logos became the Son of man, in order that He might make men gods and sons of God; and His purpose will be actually accomplished there, where Christ now is, as the Head of the whole body, as the "forerunner" to the Father on our behalf, and on behalf of that which is to be realized with us. For, in the assembly of the gods, of the redeemed, God will stand in the very midst.

Such passages show us plainly that Maximus attributed to Christ an universal significance; though, strictly taken, it was the Logos alone to whom this significance pertained. What ,₍part the historical Christ takes in such a general process of 'deification is hard to say, especially when we bear in mind the position Maximus assigns to freedom. He represents the Logos as continually becoming flesh in manifold ways; for he says, everything is a symbol of God, and momentarily, or in one aspect, brings God to view: this is especially the case with public worship. Not in Christ alone does he consider the Logos to have been made flesh, but in the word of the Holy Scriptures also. The mustard-seed of the Gospel denotes primarily God's word, in which also is divine power; nay more, the mustard-seed is the Lord Himself, spiritually sown in the heart by faith. Whoso carefully tends this mustard-seed by his virtues, on him shall the divine powers descend as on wings (i. 486). The Logos, therefore, continually becomes flesh; and that not merely through being born afresh in us, but also when the inner man expresses and manifests itself in virtues.¹ This continuous descent of the Logos of God into Christians is conditioned by their will. To the work of Christ special attention is not directed: as the God-man, he holds Christ to be the precursor in this mystical process (7rp6Bpofios, i. 490); but as the Logos, or as confounded with the Logos, He is the cause of our deification. He teaches, further, that the human will must ascend by different stages. It must not continue to cling to the outward, which is mere flesh, and useless; nor to the manifold variety of mundane objects, although they do symbolize God; nor to the letter of Scripture; nor to the flesh of Christ. True love and knowledge unite to seek a resting-point beyond all that is created, beyond even the humanity of Christ: their' final goal is the pure and naked (yu/wo?) Logos, as He existed i prior to the incarnation and the creation (Note 48). It is' clear that, in the last instance, Christ is hereby reduced to the position of a mere theophany, and that the historical significance of His Person is destroyed. The same thing appears also from his application to the professedly highest stage, of the words,—" Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now know we Him no longer." So far was he from attributing eternal significance to the God-man, that he regarded the humanity of Christ rather in the light of an hindrance to the full knowledge and love of the pure God,—an hindrance which must be surmounted by those who aim to reach the highest stage.

¹ Maximus doe3 not separate volition from knowledge: the extent of ¹ our love is the extent of our knowledge. With Clemens Alexandrinus, he I terms the will noDn iptKTiKon. Mansi x. 733.

² Expos- in Orat. Domin. i. 354;—eitl— iiKm ymfirxi Xpurri; fivcriKu;, otx run aGifyfihuv oxcxoi>atvoc, r.x'i firrripx irxpiinm diripyx^ofiin; TV yiiwuexi $vxxn. CC. Capita Theol. et oecon. i. 490.

This is the point at which a connection still continued to exist between the system of Maximus and the negative theology of the Areopagite,—to the disadvantage of the former. He departs from the principles of Dionysius, in an anthropo¹ See above, i. 354, 493.

logical respect, when giving expression to his moral and religions convictions. By asserting the existence of a freedom which attains to perfection in God, he hoped to be able to posit a real world—a world which, being filled full of God, and thus, in a manner, endowed with independence, must oppose- resistance to the reabsorption of the world into God. But, in a theological respect, he was unable to rise above the theoretical principle of the absolute transcendence, infinitude, and incomprehensibleness of God, notwithstanding that the yearnings of his love required him to do so. Ever again does he seem to regard incomprehensible majesty, essential incommunicableness, as the absolutely divine, the absolutely highest good; and the consequence thereof is, that love is congruous rather to man than to God. Man thus falls into the contradiction of being drawn by love towards a God who cannot confirm his love by returning it, but, in strict consequence, can only absorb it. Another no less certain consequence is, that the Most High God cannot become incarnate; for it is only a subordinate element in God that is communicable. He who is truly wise and loving ought, therefore, to know that that which is highest in God is incommunicable. By such a conception of God, Christology was threatened with Docetism, and on grounds similar to those which involved Gnosticism therein. Nor does Maximus make any

I secret of this fact; for he says, "Even in the incarnation God continued super-essential."¹ And, indeed, in laying down such a principle, he did but put the finishing stroke to the doctrine of the Church, in the form which he himself had helped to fix. Thus God is also veiled by the God-man (not merely by the earthly man); revealed only in part, that is, symbolically. Of that incarnation, which, being essentially a theophany, was not limited to Christ, Christ was merely the starting-point, or the historical centre. God so far revealed Himself in Christ (as, indeed, in general, in the symbols of Himself) as met the wants of beginners. We see thus, that in the domain of theory the negative theology of the Areopagite was allowed finally to dominate, whether it declared its goal to be the incognisable or the super-incognisable. This theology passes away into a holy twilight,— it is borne aloft on sublimer thoughts, as on clouds, into the transparent ether of mystic vision (i. 498, § 59), and

¹ i. 53, 66.

thus lives a life of inner worship and divine service. And as the symbolical cultus of the Church properly moves in an holy, dusky light of this kind, the mystical mind feels itself there truly at home. If there is any difference between the PseudoAreopagite and Maximus, it is that the former designates the transcendent divine light also divine darkness (0eiO9 yv6<f>o<;); whereas Maximus guards against sinking into this abyss of God by the interposition of an ethical barrier. Man participates in the divine to the extent to which his nature lays hold of it: hence the element of Mysticism in Maximus is, without doubt, most accurately described by the expression, holy twilight. According to him, the world in general holds to God the relation of an element, in which He symbolically delineates His ideas or words. He regards God, at the same time, as the primal reality,— as that in which all being subsists, or as the inroara<ri s and formative principle of all things. The visible transitory world is a mere imperfect symbol of God; more perfectly, but still not perfectly, can God express Himself in man, who is imperishable, and who through his will can become the image of God (Note 49).

Notwithstanding the high esteem in which Maximus was held in the West, its teachers laid bare much more distinctly the real, though hidden, incompatibility both of his views and of those of the Areopagite with the Christology of the Church,— as we shall see in the case of Scotus Erigena. In the West, Mysticism assumed a more rigidly speculative form, and was less qualified and supplemented by a practical religious tendency. The tendency to practical religious Mysticism manifested itself there first at a later period,—specially after the appearance of the two St Victors. In the West, moreover, the cultus of the Church was not its home and vital element, as in the case of Maximus and the Areopagite; but its movements were freer, and it began at once to develop a predominantly subjective and inward character.

In the latest period of the Greek Church, however, that mystical vein of Maximus,—whose characteristic feature was the union of the religious and speculative; and, again, of these two aspects of Mysticism with the faith, and especially with the cultus, of the Church,—was not yet exhausted. Remarkable, and not till recent times duly appreciated, vouchers of this fact, are the Hesychastic Controversy of the years 1341 to 1350, and the Mysticism of Nicolaus Cabasilas, who flourished subsequently to 1350.¹ It is the more important to dwell on these two phenomena, because they give characteristic expression to the conception formed of God by the ancient Greek Church, and because that conception was at the same time confronted with the one held by the Latin Church.

The importance of the Hesychastic Controversy cannot be justly estimated, unless viewed in connection with the views of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite. As we have seen, he defined God to be both the Many-named and the All-active, and the Nameless. At first, therefore, God appears as the Approachable, the Communicable; but afterwards, no less, or even more truly, as the absolutely Transcendent and Unapproachable One: and the true knowledge of Him is ignorance,—is the suspension of discourse and thought,—is the silence of deep awe in the presence of that transcendent light, which veils itself from us in gloom. This holy awe of the mind which knows God in ignorance, is most appropriately expressed in devotion to the sacred cultus of the Church, whose symbolical usages are characterized by the same amphiboly,—giving, on the one hand, an impression of the Divine presence, and, on the other hand, covering it with a veil.

But the negative (airo^ariKos) theology denied what the affirmative (/aira^arMco?) theology posited. God cannot, it maintains, be the cause of the world; because that would be coutrary to His infinite nature: yet, on the other hand, the empirical, nay more, the religious view of things, requires us to acknowledge God to be actually the first cause; and, consequently, involves the denial of the principles of the negative theology. To continue in a dualistic suspense of this kind, was impossible, save to a mixture of speculative or metaphysical thought, and of religion, which seriously cared neither for the negative nor the affirmative theology. Following the example set them by Maximus, the Hesychasts, instead of applying the opposed principles of these two theologies to one and the same subject, applied them to different subjects. They

¹ Gass, passim: compare Engelhardt's "Die Arsenianer und Hesychiasten," in Ulgen's "Zeitschrift fur historische Theologie," Th. viii. pp. 48-135.

considered the negative principles to hold perfectly good as applied to the domain of the divine essence; for it is absolutely simple, transcendent, unapproachable. God, however, is not merely essence, but also energy or causality. As to the former aspect, He remains eternally unapproachable, unknown; but the latter is by no means a mere movement or act, still less a mere created world,—it is the periphery around the divine centre; it is a divine world of the second rank; it is a glory around God's essence, charged with real forces of the divine light, which have not been produced, but eternally emanate from God.¹ By means of a mystical calm and silence, we attain to the blessed and transfigurative vision of this unbegotten light. So Palamas, the spokesman of the monks of Mount Athos. This light works as a purifying and perfecting element, communicating itself to pious souls that have attained to d-iradeia. In this way a compromise is effected between two principles equally certain,—that of the absolute incommunicableness of the divine essence, and that of the communicableness of divine powers. AVe shall find something similar in Thomas Aquinas. So much, however, is clear, that a Christology developed logically from such premises could scarcely end otherwise than in Subordinatianism, although with an emanatistic colouring. The Logos would have been converted into the centre of unity of that secondary divine world of lucific forces. And, as a matter of fact, the Greek Church, by allowing the conception of God which lay at the basis of this system to pass at several Synods, unintentionally showed (what was clear also from its rejection of the "Filioque") that it had not yet altogether thrown off the yoke of Subordinatianism. Moreover, it can scarcely be denied that the renunciation of all pretence to a knowledge of the most high and true God, on the part of the Hesychasts, and their claim to hold intercourse with the lucific powers, that is, with the divided deities of the second rank, is proof enough in itself of a commencing return to heathenism; not to mention that their view of the process of redemption and of purification was not

¹ They also hypostatize these powers of the light-world, and thus evince an affinity with the Gnostic Pleroma, with the doctrine of the Sg'i« of God, and with emanistically tinged Angelologies. TVe may see also therein, the after-influence of the heavenly hierarchy of the Areopagite, and the ex • pression of the ideal world in a more realistic form.

Christian, but partially negative and ascetical, and partially physical in its character (Note 50).

The Hesychasts, with Palamas at their head, set themselves in opposition to Barlaam and Acyndinos, who were called the Latin-minded (\arei,v6<f>pove<;); though they were abetted also by Nicephorus Gregoras and others. On the other hand, the Hesychasts, or at all events their main thesis, were defended by Nicolaus Cabasilas, Bishop of Thessalonia, and by Marcus Eugenicus, Archbishop of Ephesus.

The Latinizers controverted the distinction made by the Hesychasts between essence and activity; but discriminated the more carefully between the activity and the result of the activity. To assume the existence of activities side by side with the essence, would be, says Nicephorus, to posit an accident in God Himself. But a true conception of God can never be arrived at, until we have shut out every kind of division from the divine essence. In God there is no being (Sein) which is not also activity, act (actus); and, vice versa, there can be no activity in God in which His essence is not present. If we assumed an operation without an essence, we should have no operative subject: the operation would be a subsequent addition to the essence, and would supplement a previous lack in the essence; which would be incompatible, both with the divine unity and simplicity, and with the conception of God as the Good. For the Good cannot be conceived save as freely expressing itself in action. From this follows the Christological conclusion, that where the divine activity is, there also inseparably, is the divine essence; and as God works also in believers, and even in nature, He must be conceived to be universally present, not merely as to His operations, but also as to His substance. It remained, therefore, for the advocates of this view to discriminate by some means the presence of the divine essence in Christ, from the presence of His activity in other beings.¹ So far as is known, the opponents of the Hesychasts did nothing towards the solution of the problem. The spokesmen of the Hesychasts, on the other hand, drew conclusions such as,—If the divine activity is absolutely inseparable from the divine essence, God's activity is as eternal as His essence;

¹ In an exactly similar position is the orthodox theology of the Lutheran Church; for example, as set forth by Calov.

and then we must either adopt Origen's doctrine of an eternal creation, or teach that the Trinity was the production of the divine activity, instead of that the Son was generated, and that the Spirit proceeded from God. If, further, Having (das Haben) and Being (das Sein) are absolutely one in God, we either know Him solely in His essence, or we cannot know Him at all: whereas, we really know Him in His activity, and not in His essence. As God's essence is absolutely simple, whilst His operations are manifold, it is impossible to cognise His operations relatively to their ground in Himself, if, instead of assuming a plurality of divine activities, we identify them with the one substance of God. Cabasilas, therefore, distinguished between the participable (/tedeKrov) and the incommunicable in God: the latter being the inmost part of God, His centre, His proper essence and being; and the former, God's property or possession, which, being a possession, can be communicated.¹ Nicephorus repudiated such a distinction in God, designating it ante-Christian. God's essence, he remarks, is at once incommunicable and communicable. On the one hand, God is and dwells entirely in Himself, is self-contained; and yet, on the other hand, He exists entirely and essentially for that which is other than Himself, and is active, without therefore becoming divisible or sacri6cing Himself to individuals. He reproached the Palamites with the double error of representing the activity of God, which they conceived to be the communicable element in God, as losing itself, without self-assertion, in that to which it communicates itself; and of robbing the incommunicable in God of that content which constitutes its fulness and vitality;—the divine essence thus retained, being merely a self-assertant void. We see that in this interesting controversy efforts were made on both sides to interweave the affirmative and the negative theologies; the Hesychasts dividing, as it were, God's very essence into a Holy and a Holiest of All, and referring the affirmative theology to the former, and the negative to the hitter. Such a division of spheres,—introducing, as it does, a subordination of the living Pleroma of God, under the empty (for empty it remains) divine essence,—was justly regarded by

¹ Thomas Aquinas also makes this distinction; and it is the presupposition of the Lutheran Christology, which regards attributes or determinations of God as communicable without the essence.

Nicephorus and the Latins as a remainder of the ante-Christian conception of God, and accordingly rejected; but they themselves did not advance any further than simply to postulate, that God must be held to be, as to His entire essence, in Himself, and for Himself, and yet, at the same time, to exist for beings other than Himself. The reconciliation of this apparent contradiction, and the word of the enigma, is Spirit. Spirit, and spirit alone, is actually self-contained; and yet, whilst constantly asserting itself, and returning upon itself, it is at the same time universal, and wills to be for others. Or, more precisely, the ethical, which is the true essence of spirit, is alone capable of rising above that antagonism between an incommunicable self-retentive nature and a communicable nature, between the Jewish and the heathenish conception of God (a). The truly ethical unites within itself righteousness and goodness, justice and mercy (self-assertion and self-communication); and there is no love where either the one or the other is absent. A love, which in giving does not assert and maintain itself, is emanation, is a merely physical outflow: and beyond this view of love, the Greek theology does not essentially advance, so far as it deals with the operations of grace. On the other hand, a mere guarding of limits, a mere self-assertion without communication, may be justice; but it lacks the free power, and not only the desire, to dispose of its own fulness without the loss of itself. No true conception of God is arrived at until both moments intimately interpenetrate and combine. The opponents of the Hesychasts did no more than declare them in words to be united; though, as must be acknowledged, they did thus keep the problem in view.

Cabasilas, indeed, put the light-theory of these Mystics in the background, and that, unquestionably, because he felt that it assigned to the Church and to historical Christianity too uncertain a position; but, on the other hand, he clung firmly to the distinction drawn by them between the essence and the energy of God, and made use of it in connection with the system of Church-life, representing the sacred rites of the Church, especially the sacraments, as endowed by that divine element of the second rank, with virtues to renew, to strengthen, and to perfect. All this, however, he tries to connect with the (a) See Note K. App. ii.

Person of Christ. Christ is, in his view, the resting-place (aiTaXufia) of those human yearnings which are directed to the future highest good, He is the luxuriant pasture-ground of the thoughts; in Him the eternal good is incorporated with time. He retains and employs the traditional doctrine of the two natures and the double will, with the difference, that, like the Areopagite and Maximus, he conceives the Logos to have been super-essential even in the incarnation, and the humanity of Christ to have been superhuman and deified, notwithstanding its being of like substance with us. But the firm outlines of the humanity of Christ perceptibly fade away into the Logos during the process of deification; and, in the main, the only significance Cabasilas attaches to it, is that of marking the precise point at which the divine principle was actually and historically implanted into humanity. When following his own bent, therefore, he dwells exclusively on the spbere in which Christ manifests Himself as this divine power incorporated with the historical organism of humanity—the sphere, namely, of the Church and its sacraments, which are the instruments and channels of the life which streams forth from Christ to us, and which operate of themselves upon every one, even though he should be but passively open to their influence. Holy Baptism is, primarily, the generation of the new life which is in Christ; but it is also enlightenment. The triple invocation typifies the theological aspect; the submersion and re-elevation typify the economical aspect: the latter type being in the language of act, drastic, inasmuch as we are called upon to follow Christ. Strictly speaking, everything was accomplished by the death and resurrection of Christ; and all that is now required, is the transference to us of the virtue of the bath founded by Him and through His merits. Nay more, not merely gifts and light, but also power of vision and power of breath, stream forth to us from the one fount.—The Anointing (fivpov), which is his second sacrament, denotes symbolically the consecration of human nature, primarily as effected in Christ, by which it was ennobled and rendered capable of receiving the divine nature But, at the same time, the human vessel of Christ, with its contents, is incorporated with humanity as a principle of consecration, and continues to operate in the sacrament of anointing. It is especially the holy Eucharist, however, in which, to his mind, P. 2.—VOL. I. Q

the mystic solemnity reaches its climax. The imprinting of the divine image in baptism, the infusion of spirit by the anointing, are but preparatory steps to the perfection of human nature in its entirety—a perfection wrought by the divine-human nature present in the holy Eucharist. That which was done for human nature in Christ, is constantly done by this sacrament for the individual man. From the description given of that which is experienced by those who partake of the Eucharist, we may judge what sort of an image of the union of God with humanity would have been presented by these Mystics, had they expressed themselves, independently of the traditional Christological formulas. Appropriating Christ in this feast, we enter into a blood-relationship with God and Christ; and Christ celebrates His spiritual marriage (70/10?) with the Church, His bride. Its effects extend to the whole man. Christ's entire being, even His physical organism, was deified and became a higher nature: such, also, is the effect of the holy Eucharist on individual men. This action of its divine physis, which mingles itself with, pours itself into, and so transforms, our organism, that, in comparison with our relationship to Christ, the relationship to our earthly parents vanishes,—nay more, which brings Christ nearer to us than we are to ourselves,—is its first and prime action, overcoming in us the impurity which draws us to sin, and enabling the spirit of man freely to move its pinions in accordance with its own nature.¹ The distinctive feature of Cabasilas, therefore, is a natural Mysticism, sacramentally treated and viewed, by means of which he supposed the human substance to be united, yea, mixed, with the substance of Christ; and, on the basis thereof, he endeavoured to show that the humanity of Christ, as well as the pure divine light, or the naked Logos, stood in an important

¹ Compare Gass l. e. 143 ff. In accordance with the principle, that a cause must be homogeneous with its effect,—a principle which plays a great role in the history of the dogma of the holy Eucharist,—we may draw conclusions, as to the Christological image tacitly recognised by these teachers, from the above description of the effects of the Eucharist on its recipients; especially as Cabasilas considered Christ's Person, particularly His body and blood, to constitute the objective element in that sacrament. Gass must be allowed to be right, when he says (p. 145): Eutychian principles, which were disallowed in connection with Christology, were applied without hesitation to the operations of the holy Eucharist.

relation to the accomplishment of redemption. Not the Logos in Himself, but the Logos in union with human nature—His divine-human substance, in which the human is superhuman and commingled with the divine—is the vital essence, which, when received into our organism, ennobles it, and transforms it into its own substance.¹ As regards the spiritual aspect, Cabasilas undoubtedly failed to show that the freedom of the will, on which he lays great stress, was really compatible with the action of grace, as he represented it. This is evident from his physical doctrine of the sacraments. Grace and freedom he represents as alternating; and is not quite free from the notion, that each by itself, apart from the other, is able to conduct man to perfection.⁴ Still, his system contains also another idea, by means of which he endeavoured to neutralize the principle of the exclusive antagonism between grace and freedom, elsewhere laid down by him,—and that, both as regards the divine and the human aspect. Through this idea, he anticipated being able to surmount, and reconcile, that antagonism between necessity and freedom which had been implicitly, if not explicitly, introduced into God Himself, by the distinction drawn between the divine essence and the divine operations. It appeared fitted, finally, to clear the way for a spiritual action of the holy Eucharist, and to form the starting-point of a peculiar Christology.

This idea is his doctrine of the <f>lpov, of the magical power of divine love. Self-renunciation is the property of love. By it, he who loves passes out of himself (e^urrdvai), and bestows himself on, in order to exist solely for, the object of his love. This spell of love the Bridegroom throws like a dart into the heart, a ray of His beauty.³ "He wounds souls; and the greatness of the wound, and the longing of the soul, point to Him who wounds, who draws the soul, in a holy ecstasis of love, out of itself and into Himself,—carried away by the might of love, and yet at the same time free. But this love is likewise a power in God Himself, which draws Him forth

¹ TXipi Tflf it X^/crr£ fuijc, lib. iv. § 55. 'O yap T»j? £tiif Apro; xiiri; ami tit anoifitnon, Kxi fitiitrrrioi xx\ irpo; tavroo /nirxQxb'Mi, p. 95. Christ is the Head and the Heart of the Church, His body.

² Compare lib. vii. §§ 111, 112, p. 196.

» Lib. ii. §§ 132, 133, p. 56 f.

from His loftiness, incommunicableness, and impassibility, and compels Him, as even Dionysius hinted,¹ to pass out of Himself, and to empty Himself, as it were, in an ecstasis of love.² He does not continue in His own sphere, and call to Himself the servant whom He loves; but He Himself descends in search of the servant, approaches near, lets His loving yearnings be seen, and seeks what is like Himself. From those who despise Him He does not depart: with the defiant He is not angry; but follows them to their very doors, and does and bears everything, and even dies, in order to demonstrate His love.³ But much as this may be, we have not yet declared the highest: not merely does the Lord enter to such an extent into fellowship with His servants, and extend to them His hand; but He has given Himself entirely to us, so that we are temples of the living God, and these members of ours are the members of Christ. The Head of these members is worshipped by cherubim; and these hands and feet are joined to that heart."

In his view, therefore, Christ is the present God, who, though nothing was left in His possession save love, by its beauty, by its irresistible charms, overcame the world. First of all, however, He overcame, as it were, in Himself His own extra-mundane glory and loftiness, in order that He might be nearer to those whom He wins and blesses than they are even to themselves; nay more, in order that He might become their other self. Now, although it is almost, as it were, by sheer violence that this fervid Christian conception of God is put in the place of the abstract infinite being recognised by ancient speculation, it cannot be denied that he approximates towards the view of this love of God, not as an isolated or momentary movement—not as a causal act put forth once for all, to which, amongst other things, the above-mentioned infinite divine essence had opened itself,—but as the proper being and the true life of God. So, at all events, does he represent the life of love led by Christians.¹

¹ De divinis nominibus, c. iv. § 13 f.

² Lib. vi. § 16: Kx@i~fp yap r«in dnipuKUn roif Ipuna; i^lcrrnri Tn Qt"KTpoVi orxv WKtpfix'KKy xxl xpiiuoov yivyrxi Tuv oazxutvuin, Tou Jaof TpOirOf o irip) rov; xvipinrov; tpu; Tit Gton ixivuoiv. §§ 18, 19: thei it fi% iauianit cipiipx (piKun, xKKx -rij? fisyiorri; dyxirn; iovvxi iziipxn ifiin, xxl itii*i rin ia'/-x-w span ipunx. Teurrnn finxxuxrxi «)n xiauaii, xxl irpxypxrivtrxi *•" foul IS on o'o'f Tf ytno;r' xn Isinx irxie'm xxl o'3«vi|0!j*«/. Pp. 135, 186.

* Cf. vi. 19-24, § 99 ff.

Bat, even in relation to God Himself, he saw that it is essential to the" nature of the good to communicate itself, in order to draw the good in turn to itself. This is clear from the doctrine, advanced by him with equal beauty and confidence,* that not only the human race was, from the beginning, created with an eye to the God-man, and destined to be united with Him, but also the God-man for humanity.

"Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price," says Paul: for the sake of the new man was the nature of man created from the beginning; intelligence and appetency were prepared and bestowed with a view to him; we received reason that we might know Christ,—desire, that we might hasten towards Him,—memory, that we might carry Him with us; for He was the prototype after which we were created. It is not the old Adam who is the pattern for the new, but the new Adam who was the pattern for the old. If, as is written, the new was made in the likeness of the old, the reason thereof was simply that He might remove the sickness of our nature by His medicine, and that mortality might be swallowed by life. The elder Adam was a copy of the second,—was formed after His idea and image. Human nature strove after immortality, it is true, from the commencement; but attained it first through the body of the Redeemer, which He raised from the dead to immortal life,—thus becoming the Captain of immortality to the race. To sum up all in one word,—the Saviour for the first time exhibited the true and perfect man. both as relates to character, life, and everything else. If, then this be in truth the idea and destiny of man, beholding which God created him as the end and crown of all creation,—to wit. a life of purity, free from change and sin; if, further, the one. the first Adam, fell far short of realizing perfection, whereas the other Adam, being Himself perfect in all points, communicated His perfection to men, and harmoniously prepared the whole race for Himself; why should we not say that He who came later was the pattern for the earlier,—that the later was the archetype, the earlier, the antitype? The primal norm (jiava>v) of all things is the last man,—not he who proceeded last forth from the earth, but He—namely, Christ—to whom man is drawn by nature, by will, and by thought. And not merely for the sake of the deity, but also for the sake of other nature (der andern Natur), is this Christ the resting-place of all human love, the bliss of thoughts (jiaraKufta Twv avdpa>irLvwv ipdyra>v, rpv<prj Koyiafiwv)} The survey just taken shows that Cabasilas involuntarily became faithless to the doctrine regarding God first laid down by him, and which resembled that of the Hesychasts; for when, in obedience to his mystical tendency, he revels in the thought of the divine life of love, and clearly enough conceives God Himself as love, he entirely quits his hold on the doctrine that the divine essence is not contained in the divine activity, but that the highest in God rather remains eternally incommunicable. That in which the spirit finds its eternal restingplace, and its own perfection, he regards as the highest good; and that, not merely in relation to man, but in itself and in relation to the universe. Of this his Christology furnishes the proof. The sacramental Mysticism of Cabasilas is, though in a form not very scholastic, really an attempt to combine subjective personal with objective Church piety; and so far he bears most resemblance to Thomas Aquinas. First, when the Byzantine Empire approached its downfall, and Greek theology, which was already showing signs of decay, had no longer any firm ecclesiastical support, do we find Greek Mysticism losing the, as it were, liturgical character which it once possessed, and assuming (partly owing to contact with the West), especially in Italy, a form similar to that given to it by men like the Areopagite, and even by Scotus Erigena. In such men as Georgius Gemistius, surnamed Pletho,² Bessarion, the author of Hermes

¹ Cf. vii. §§ 164-167.

2 Lib. vi. §§ 132-139. P. 166, § 132: K«) yxp hi Too xxiniv Mpw xiipuirov (pvui; trvniaTti ri r£ xpym;, xxl nov; xxl tiriivfilx irpi; ixthov XxtscKivxaim.—Oi yx~p 6 iraXxii: Tod xxivou aATi' o nh; Woxu. rov itx'hxnv irxpxinyfix. P. 167, § 133: o irpeajivTipo; Tou iivripov filfitifix, Kxi xxriL Tijn Hixn ixtivov Kx\ Tillf ilxitx viirXxoTxi. § 135: Kxi lux To fas* uVo, To'n d>.viiinin £nipw!ron xxl -i'Ati<jv xx\ rpiirun xxl £aij; xx\ run iKKun litKX iro. T»n i?puTt>; xxl fcino; sifi^m 6 aurr,p.

¹ Lib. vi. § 139. He goes on to say: ci yap writ, oJ firi iraptarin, oul' fcriv, oV«? f&% ainariv iifiin, xayt rot; ^nroiai xal xirrij; iyylun iorl rill xaph'uf. Lib. vi. § 140, p. 108.

² Compare Gass' " Gennadius und Pletho, Aristotelismus und Platonismus, in der griechischen Kirche," 1844, pp. 24-98.

Trismegistus, who gained many adherents amongst the Italians, Marcilius Ficinus, the elder Count Pico of Mirandola, Greek science passed into a species of Neoplatonic theosophy, destitute, in many respects, not merely of an ecclesiastical, but even of a Christian character. For the Christian cultus, they substituted a cultus of the beautiful and of science; and, intoxicated with delight, found the Gospel in the philosophy of Plato. Then it became evident that the ingenious fabric of theological conceptions reared by the Greek Church had no longer an inner foundation in the intellect of the age. On the contrary, no sooner did tradition lose its authority, and the Church its prestige and position, than the fabric fell to pieces; and out of the ruins arose a spirit, which, as though there had been no intervening history, took its stand in the field of the ancient heathen philosophy, made the attempt to bring back the gods of Greece, and set itself to luxuriate in the brightness of their beauty, in the fulness of their wisdom. It does not lie within our plan to follow this subject further into detail: one observation, however, we may make, namely, that, as the Middle Ages drew to a close, the two streams of Mysticism—the Oriental and the Occidental—manifested a tendency to union (the cultures of the two regions tended, also, towards a union in the persons of other men), and were partially united in the person of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, Bishop of Brixen, one of the most eminent men of the fifteenth century. Led by hi3 Fates to Greece, he there endeavoured to bring about the union of the Greek and Latin Churches,—an object which he regarded as the dearest in his life. Keturning from that country by sea, he informs us that his mind was lifted up, as by enlightenment from above, to the intuition of God as the Most High, who unites in Himself and reconciles all antagonisms,—an intuition which forms the central feature of the system whose Christological aspect will subsequently occupy our attention, and which exercised so important an influence on Giordano Bruno.¹

¹ Compare Scharpff's " Der Kardinal und Bischof Nikolaus von Cusa," I. Theil, Mainz, 1843; F. J. Clemens' "Giordano Bruno und Nikolaus von Cuea," 1847; Moritz Carriere's "Die Philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit in ihren Beziehungen zur Gegenwart," 1847, pp. 16-25, 365 ff.