Monophysitism Past and Present: A Study in ChristologyLuce, A. A. (Arthur Aston)
Religion
Monophysitism Past and Present: A Study in Christology
Luce, A. A. (Arthur Aston)
Monophysites
There are two divergent, almost opposing, schools of sacramental
teaching, both of which have inherited the spirit of monophysitism.
Both are instances of sacramental monism. First, there are those who
identify the outward signs and the inward grace; second, those to whom
the inward grace is everything and the outward sign nothing. Both
schools of thought destroy the nature of a sacrament. The radical
error of both consists in undervaluing the human and material. In the
first case the error takes the form of the transubstantiation doctrine,
which is exactly parallel to the extreme form of Eutychianism.
According to Eutyches, the human nature of Christ was absorbed into the
divine and lost there; the truth of His being was the divine
personality; the human element was only an appearance. Similarly the
transubstantiation theory conceives the mutation of the _substance_ of
the material elements and the loss of their proper nature; the
appearance of reality that the _accidents_ possess is an illusion of
the senses. We may note in passing that the opposite error to
transubstantiation finds its Christological parallel in Nestorianism.
Socinianism which separates symbol from sacramental grace is
sacramental dualism, as Nestorianism is Christological dualism. Both
abandon a vital unity of divine and human. The pietistic or mystical
view of the sacraments does so too, but in a different way. This
second form of sacramental monism has much in common with the doctrine
of one nature. To the pietist the divine seems all important, and the
material no help, but rather a hindrance to the spiritual life. The
faith of the individual to him is the seat of the efficacy of the
sacraments; he regards matter as unreal if not sinful, and in either
case unworthy to be a channel of divine grace. Echo after echo of
monophysite thought can be caught here. The surest way to combat
sacramental errors on both sides is a clear and definite statement of
the catholic doctrine of Christology.
NEED OF A MENTAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE HUMAN NATURE OF CHRIST
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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