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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Monophysites and Monophysitism</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10489b.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="Rejected the dual nature of Christ. 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Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more all for only $19.99...</a> The history of this <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a> and of its ramifications has been summarized under <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">EUTYCHIANISM</a> (the nickname somewhat unfairly given by <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> controversialists). The <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a> of Monophysitism has also been described under the same heading. Two points are discussed in the following article: first, the literary activity of the Monophysites both in Greek and Syriac; secondly, the question whether they can be exculpated from material <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresy</a> in their <a href="../cathen/14597a.htm">Christology</a>. <h2>Literary history</h2> From many points of view the Monophysites are the most important of early <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresies</a>, and no <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresy</a> or related group of <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresies</a> until the sixteenth century has produced so vast and important a literature. A large portion of this is lost; some remains in <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a>, and of late years important publications have brought much of this material to the light of day. Nearly all the Greek literature has perished in its original form, but much of it survives in early Syriac translations, and the Syriac literature itself is extant in yet greater amount. The scientific, <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a>, and grammatical writings of Monophysites must for the most part be passed over here. Ecclesiastical history and biography, as well as dogmatic and polemical writings will be described for the fifth and sixth centuries, together with a few of the chief works of the centuries immediately following. <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <a href="../cathen/05019a.htm">Dioscurus</a> has left us but a few fragments. The most important is in the "Hist. Misc.", III, i, from a letter written in exile at <a href="../cathen/06377b.htm">Gangra</a>, in which the banished patriarch declares the reality and completeness of our Lord's Human Body, intending evidently to deny that he had approved the refusal of <a href="../cathen/05631a.htm">Eutyches</a> to admit <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ's</a> consubstantiality with us. Timothy Ælurus (d. 477) who had been <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordained</a> <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> by St. Cyril himself, and preserved a profound attachment to that saint, published an edition of some of his works. He accompanied <a href="../cathen/05019a.htm">Dioscurus</a> to the <a href="../cathen/05495a.htm">robber Council of Ephesus</a> in 449, as he says himself "together with my brother the blessed <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> Anatolius" (the secretary of <a href="../cathen/05019a.htm">Dioscurus</a>, promoted by him to the <a href="../cathen/04301a.htm">See of Constantinople</a>). It is not <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> to infer that Timothy and Anatolius were brothers. When the death in exile of <a href="../cathen/05019a.htm">Dioscurus</a> (September 454) was known, Timothy assumed the leadership of those who did not acknowledge the <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a> Patriarch Proterius, and demanded a new <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>. He had with him four or five deprived <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>. The riots which followed were renewed at the death of the Emperor Marcian, and Proterius was <a href="../cathen/07441a.htm">murdered</a>. Even before this, Timothy had been <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecrated</a> patriarch by two <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>. Eusebius of Pelsium and the famous Peter the Iberian, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of Maïuma, the latter not even an <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egyptian</a>. At Constantinople Anatolius was scarcely his enemy; the minister Aspar was probably his friend; but the Emperor Leo certainly desired to acquiesce in the demands for Timothy's deposition addressed to him by the <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a> <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> of <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egypt</a> and by <a href="../cathen/09154b.htm">Pope St. Leo</a>, and he punished the murderers of Proterius at once. Meanwhile Ælurus was expelling from their sees all <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> who accepted the <a href="../cathen/03555a.htm">Council of Chalcedon</a>. It was not, however, till Anatolius was dead (3 July, 458) and had been succeeded by <a href="../cathen/06416a.htm">St. Gennadius</a>, that the Emperor put into effect the opinion he had elicited from all the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> of the East in the "Encyclia", by exiling Ælurus first to Gangrus in Paphlagonia, and then in 460 to the Cheronesus. During the reign of Basilicus he was restored, at the end of 475, and Zeno spared his old age from molestation. Under <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">EUTYCHIANISM</a> something has been said of his <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a>, and more will be found below. Of his works a fragment on the Two Natures, is in <a href="../cathen/10290a.htm">Migne</a> (P.G., LXXXVI, 273). The unpublished Syriac collection of his works (in British Mus., <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> Addit. 12156, sixth cent.) contains <div class="bulletlist"><ul><li>a treatise against the "Dyophysites" (<a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a>) which consists mainly of a collection of extracts from the Fathers against the Two Natures, the last of the citations being from letters of <a href="../cathen/05019a.htm">Dioscurus</a>. This is, however, but a summary of a larger work, which has recently been published entire in an <a href="../cathen/01736b.htm">Armenian</a> translation under the title of "Refutation of the <a href="../cathen/03555a.htm">Council of Chalcedon</a>". We learn from Justinian that the original was written in exile.</li><li>Extracts from a letter written to the city of Constantinople against the <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">Eutychianizers</a> Isaias of Hermopolis and Theophilus, followed by another florigeium from "the Fathers" (almost entirely from <a href="../cathen/01615b.htm">Apollinarian</a> forgeries). This letter is preserved entire by Zacharias (in Hist. Misc., IV, xii, where it is followed by the second letter) and also in the "Chronicle" of Michael the Syrian.</li><li>A second letter against the same.</li><li>Extracts from two letters to all <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egypt</a>, the <a href="../cathen/14561a.htm">Thebaid</a>, and Pentapolis on the treatment of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>, <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, and <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> who should join the Monophysites.</li><li>A refutation of the Synod of Chalcedon and of the Tome of Leo, written between 454 and 460, in two parts, according to the title, and concluding with extracts from the "Acts" of the Robber Synod and four documents connected with it.</li><li>A short <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a> which Blessed Timothy used to make over those who returned from the communion of the Dyophysites.</li><li>Exposition of the <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> of Timothy, sent to the Emperor Leo by Count Rusticus, and an abridged narration of what subsequently happened to him. A similar supplication of Ælurus to Leo, sent by the silentiary Diomede, is mentioned by Anastasius Sin. The contents of this <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> are largely cited by Lebon.</li></ul></div> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> A translation into Latin of patristic testimonies collected by Ælurus was made by <a href="../cathen/06417a.htm">Gennadius Massil</a>, and is to be identified with the <a href="../cathen/01736b.htm">Armenian</a> collection. A Coptic list of Timothy's works mentions one on the Canticle of Canticles. The "Plerophoria" (33, 36) speak of his book of "Narrations", from which Crum (p. 71) deduces an <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">ecclesiastical history</a> by Timothy in twelve books. Lebon does not accept the attribution to Timothy of the Coptic fragments by which Crum established the existence of such a work, but he finds (p. 110) another reference to a historical work by the patriarch in <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> Addit. 14602 (Chabot, "Documenta", 225 sqq.). <a href="../cathen/11770a.htm">Peter Mongus</a> of Alexandria was not a writer. His letters in Coptic are not genuine; though a complete <a href="../cathen/01736b.htm">Armenian</a> text of them has been published, which is said to be more probably authentic. <a href="../cathen/11768a.htm">Peter Fullo</a> of Alexandria similarly left no writings. Letter addressed to him exist, but are certainly spurious. Timothy IV, <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">Patriarch</a> of <a href="../cathen/01300b.htm">Alexandria</a> (517-535), composed "Antirrhetica" in many books. This polemical work of his was lost; but a <a href="../cathen/07448a.htm">homily</a> of his remains and a few fragments. Theodosius, <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">Patriarch</a> of <a href="../cathen/01300b.htm">Alexandria</a> (10-11 February, 535, and again July, 535- 537 or 538) has left us a few fragments and two letters. The Severians of Alexandria were called Theodosians after him, to distinguish them from the Gaianites who followed his Incorruptibilist rival Gaianus. The latter left no writings. Severus: The most famous and the most fertile of all the Monophysite writers was Severus, who was <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">Patriarch</a> of <a href="../cathen/01570a.htm">Antioch</a> (512-518), and died in 538. We have his early life written by his friend Zacharias Scholasticus; a complete biography was composed soon after his death by John, the superior of the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> where Severus had first embraced the monastic life. he was born at <a href="../cathen/14166a.htm">Sozopolis</a> in <a href="../cathen/12116b.htm">Pisidia</a>, his <a href="../cathen/11478c.htm">father</a> being a senator of the city, and descended from the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/14166a.htm">Sozopolis</a> who had attended the Council of Ephesus in 431. After his <a href="../cathen/11478c.htm">father's</a> death he was sent to study rhetoric at Alexandria, being yet a <a href="../cathen/03430b.htm">catechumen</a>, as it was the custom in <a href="../cathen/12116b.htm">Pisidia</a> to delay <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> until a <a href="../cathen/02362a.htm">beard</a> should appear. Zacharias, who was his fellow-student, testifies to his brilliant talents and the great progress he made in the study of rhetoric. He was enthusiastic over the ancient orators, and also over Libanius. Zacharias induced him to read the correspondence of Libanius with <a href="../cathen/02330b.htm">St. Basil</a>, and the works of the latter and of <a href="../cathen/07010b.htm">St. Gregory of Nazianzus</a>, and he was conquered by the power of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> oratory. Severus went to study <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a> at Berytus about the autumn of 486, and he was followed thither by Zacharias a year later. Severus was alter accused of having been in youth a worshiper of idols and a dealer in magical arts (so the libellus of the Palestinian <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> at the council of 536), and Zacharias is at pains to refute this <a href="../cathen/03190c.htm">calumny</a> indirectly, though at great length, by relating interesting stories of the discovery of a hoard of idols in Menuthis in <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egypt</a> and of the routing of necromancers and enchanters at Berytus; in both these exploits the friends of Severus took a leading part, and Zacharias asks triumphantly whether they would have consorted with Severus had he not agreed with them in the <a href="../cathen/07149b.htm">hatred</a> of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">paganism</a> and <a href="../cathen/15674a.htm">sorcery</a>. Zacharias continued to influence him, by his own account, and induced him to devote the free time which the students had at their disposal on Saturday afternoons and <a href="../cathen/14335a.htm">Sundays</a> to the study of the Fathers. Other students joined the <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">pious</a> company of which an ascetic student named Evagrius became leader, and every evening they <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayed</a> together in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> of the Resurrection. Severus was persuaded to be <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptized</a>. Zacharias refused to be his godfather, for he declared that he did not communicate with the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> of <a href="../cathen/12041a.htm">Phoenicia</a>, so Evagrius stood sponsor, and Severus was <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptized</a> in the church of the <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyr</a>, Leontius, at <a href="../cathen/15060a.htm">Tripolis</a>. After his <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> Severus renounced the use of baths and betook himself to <a href="../cathen/05789c.htm">fasting</a> and vigils. Two of his companions departed to become <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> under Peter the Iberian. When the news of the death of that famous <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> (488) arrived, Zacharias and several others entered his <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> of Beith-Aphthonia, at the native place of Zacharias, the port of <a href="../cathen/06399c.htm">Gaza</a> (known also as Maïuma), where Peter had been <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>. Zacharias did not persevere, but returned to the practice of the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a>. Severus intended to practise in his own country, but he first visited the shrine of <a href="../cathen/09179b.htm">St. Leontius</a> of <a href="../cathen/15060a.htm">Tripolis</a>, the head of St. John Baptist at Emea, and then the holy places of <a href="../cathen/08344a.htm">Jerusalem</a>, with the result that he joined Evagrius who was already a <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> at Maïuma, the great austerities there did not suffice for Severus, and he preferred the life of a solitary in the <a href="../cathen/04749a.htm">desert</a> of <a href="../cathen/05380a.htm">Eleutheropolis</a>. Having reduced himself to great weakness he was <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obliged</a> to pass some time in the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> founded by Romanus, after which he returned to the laura of the port of <a href="../cathen/06399c.htm">Gaza</a>, in which was the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convent</a> of Peter the Iberian. Here he spent what his charities had left of his patrimony in building a <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> for the ascetics who wished to live under his direction. His quiet was rudely disturbed by Nephalius, a former leader of the <a href="../cathen/01100c.htm">Acephali</a>, who was said to have once had 30,000 <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> ready to march on Alexandria when, at the end of 482, <a href="../cathen/11770a.htm">Peter Mongus</a> accepted the <a href="../cathen/07218b.htm">Henoticon</a> and became patriarch. Later on Nephalius joined the more moderate Monophysites, and finally the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a>, accepting the council of Chalcedon. About 507-8 he came to Maïuma, preached against Severus, and obtained the expulsion of the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> from their <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convents</a>. Severus betook himself to Constantinople with 200 <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>, and remained there three years, influencing the Emperor Anastasius as far as he could in the support of the <a href="../cathen/07218b.htm">Henoticon</a>, against the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> on the one hand and the irreconcilable <a href="../cathen/01100c.htm">Acephali</a> on the other. He was spoken of as successor to the Patriarch Macedonius who died in August 511. The new patriarch, Timotheus, entered into the views of Severus, who returned to his <a href="../cathen/04060a.htm">cloister</a>. In the following year he was <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecrated</a> <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">Patriarch</a> of <a href="../cathen/01570a.htm">Antioch</a>, 6 November 512, in succession to <a href="../cathen/06098c.htm">Flavian</a>, who was banished by the emperor to Arabia for the half-heartedness of his concessions to Monophysitism. <a href="../cathen/05385a.htm">Elias of Jerusalem</a> refused to recognized Severus as Patriarch, and many other <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> were equally hostile. However, at Constantinople and Alexandria he was supported, and Elias was deposed. Severus exercised a most active <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">episcopacy</a>, living still like a <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a>, having destroyed the baths in his palace, and having dismissed the cooks. He was deposed in September, 518, on the accession of Justin, as a preparation for reunion with the West. He fled to Alexandria. In the reign of Justinian the patronage accorded to the Monophysites by Theodora raised their hopes. Severus went to Constantinople where he fraternized with the ascetical Patriarch Anthimus, who had already exchanged friendly letters with him and with Theodosius of Alexandria. The latter was deposed for <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresy</a> by <a href="../cathen/01202c.htm">Pope Agapetus</a> on his arrival in Constantinople in 536. His successor <a href="../cathen/10190a.htm">Mennas</a> held a great council of sixty-nine <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> in the same year after the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>;s departure in the presence of the <a href="../cathen/09118a.htm">papal legates</a>, solemnly heard the case of Anthimus and reiterated his deposition. <a href="../cathen/10190a.htm">Mennas</a> <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knew</a> Justinian's mind as was determined to be <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a>: "We, as you know", said he to the council, "follow and obey the <a href="../cathen/01640c.htm">Apostolic See</a>, and those with whom it communicates we have in our communion, and those whom it condemns, we condemn." The Easterns were consequently emboldened to present petitions against Severus and Peter of <a href="../cathen/01592b.htm">Apamea</a>. It is from these documents that we have our main <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of Severus from the point of view of his <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a> opponents. One petition is from seven <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> of Syria Secunda, two others are from ninety-seven <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> of Palestine and Syria Secunda to the emperor and to the council. Former petitions of 518 were recited. The charges are somewhat vague (or the facts are supposed known) of <a href="../cathen/07441a.htm">murders</a>, imprisonments, and chains, as well as of <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresy</a>. <a href="../cathen/10190a.htm">Mennas</a> pronounced the condemnation of these <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretics</a> for contemning the succession from the Apostles in the <a href="../cathen/01640c.htm">Apostolic See</a>, for setting at nought the patriarchal see of the royal city and its council, the <a href="../cathen/01641a.htm">Apostolic succession</a> from our Lord in the holy places (Jerusalem), and the sentence of the whole Diocese of Oriens. Severus retired to <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egypt</a> once more and to his <a href="../cathen/07280a.htm">eremitical</a> life. He died, 8 February, 538, refusing to take a bath even to save his life, though he was persuaded to allow himself to be bathed with his clothes on. Wonders are said to have followed his death, and <a href="../cathen/10338a.htm">miracles</a> to have been worked by his <a href="../cathen/12734a.htm">relics</a>. He has always been <a href="../cathen/05188b.htm">venerated</a> by the Jacobite Church as one of its principal <a href="../cathen/05072b.htm">doctors</a>. <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> His literary output was enormous. A long catalogue of works is given by Assemani. Only a few fragments survive in the original Greek, but a great quantity exists in Syriac translations, some of which has been printed. The early works against Nephalius are lost. A dialogue, "Philalethes", against the supporters of the <a href="../cathen/03555a.htm">Council of Chalcedon</a> was composed during the first stay of Severus at Constantinople, 509-11. It was a reply to an <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a> collection of 250 extracts from the works of St. Cyril. An answer seems to have been written by John the Grammarian of Caesarea, and Severus retorted with an "Apology for Philalethes" (remains of the attack and retort in Cod. Vat. Syr. 140 and Cod. Venet. Marc. 165). A work "Contra Joannem Grammaticum" which had a great success, and seems to have long been regarded by the Monophysites as a triumph, was probably written in exile after 519. Severus was not an original <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologian</a>. He had studied the Cappadocians and he depended much on the <a href="../cathen/01615b.htm">Apollinarian</a> forgeries; but in the main he follows St. Cyril in every point without conscious variation. A controversy with Sergius the Grammarian, who went too far in his <a href="../cathen/15753a.htm">zeal</a> for the "One Nature", and whom Severus consequently styles a <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">Eutychian</a>, is preserved in <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> Addit. 17154. This polemic enabled Severus to define more precisely the Monophysite position, and to guard himself against the exaggerations which were liable to result from the habit of restricting <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a> to attacks on Chalcedon. In his <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egyptian</a> exile Severus was occupied with his controversy with Julian of <a href="../cathen/07117a.htm">Halicarnassus</a>. We also hear of works on the two natures "against Felicissimus", and "Against the Codicils of Alexander". Like all Monophysites his <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a> is limited to the controversial questions. Beyond these he has no outlook. Of the numerous sermons of Severus, those which he preached at Antioch are quoted as "Homilae <a href="../cathen/03438a.htm">cathedrales</a>". They have come down to us in two Syriac translations; one was probably made by Paul, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/03183b.htm">Callinicus</a>, at the beginning of the sixth century, the other by Jacob Barandai, was completed in 701. Those which have been printed are of astonishing eloquence. A diatribe against the Hippodrome may be especially noted, for it is very modern in its denunciation of the cruelty to the horses which was involved in the chariot races. A fine exhortation to <a href="../cathen/06278a.htm">frequent communion</a> is in the same sermon. The letters of Severus were collected in twenty-three books, and numbered no less than 3759. The sixth book is extant. It contains <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> letters besides many <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proofs</a> of the varied activities of the patriarch in his episcopal functions. He also composed <a href="../cathen/07595a.htm">hymns</a> for the people of Antioch, since he perceived that they were fond of singing. His correspondence with Anthimus of Constantinople is found in "Hist. Misc.", IX, xxi-xxii. Julian, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/07117a.htm">Halicarnassus</a>, joined with Severus in the intrigue by which Macedonius was deposed from the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 511. He was exiled on the accession of Justin in 518, and retired to the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> of Enaton, nine miles from Alexandria. He was already of advanced age. Here he wrote a work "Against the Diphysites" in which he spoke incorrectly according to Severus, who nevertheless did not reply. But Julian himself commenced a correspondence with him (it is preserved in the Syriac translation made in 528 by Paul of <a href="../cathen/03183b.htm">Callinicus</a>, and also partially in the "Hist. Misc.", IX, x-xiv) in which he begged his opinion on the question of the incorruptibility of the Body of Christ. Severus replied, enclosing an opinion which is lost, and in answer to a second letter from Julian wrote a long epistle which Julian considered to be wanting in respect, especially as he had been <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obliged</a> to wait for it for a year and a month. Parties were formed. The Julianists upheld the incorruptibility of the Body of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, meaning that <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> was not naturally subject to the ordinary wants of hunger, thirst, weariness, etc., nor to pain, but that He assumed them of His <a href="../cathen/06259a.htm">free will</a> for our sakes. They admitted that He is "consubstantial with us", against <a href="../cathen/05631a.htm">Eutyches</a>, yet they were accused by the Severians of <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">Eutychianism</a>, <a href="../cathen/09591a.htm">Manichaeism</a>, and <a href="../cathen/05070c.htm">Docetism</a>, and were nicknamed Phantasiasts, Aphthartodocetae, or Incorrupticolae. They retorted by calling the Severians Phthartolotrae (Corrupticolae), or Ktistolatrae, for Severus taught that our Lord's Body was "corruptible" by its own nature; that was scarcely consistent, as it can only be of itself "corruptible" when considered apart from the union, and the Monophysites refused to consider the Human Nature of Christ apart from the union. Justinian, who in his old age turned more than ever to the desire of conciliating the Monophysites (in spite of his failure to please them by condemning the "three chapters"), was probably led to favour Julian because he was the opponent of Severus, who was universally regarded as the great foe of <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodoxy</a>. The emperor issued in edict in 565 making the "incorruptibility" an <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligatory</a> <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a>, in spite of the fact that Julian had been <a href="../cathen/01455e.htm">anathematized</a> by a council of Constantinople in 536, at which date he had probably been dead for some years. A commentary by Julian on the Book of Job, in a Latin version, was printed in an old <a href="../cathen/11480c.htm">Paris</a> edition of <a href="../cathen/11306b.htm">Origen</a> (ed. Genebrardus, 1574). A <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> of the original Greek is mentioned by <a href="../cathen/09538a.htm">Mai</a>. It is largely quoted in the catena on Job of Nicetas of <a href="../cathen/07242b.htm">Heraclea</a>. The great work of Julian against Severus seems to be lost. Ten <a href="../cathen/01455e.htm">anathematisms</a> remain. Of his commentaries, one on Matthew is cited by Moses Barkepha (P.G., CXI, 551). It is to be hoped that some of Julian's works will be recovered in Syriac or Coptic translations. An anti-Julianist catena in the British Museum (<a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> Addit. 12155) makes mention of Julian's writings. We hear of a treatise by him, "Against the Eutychianists and Manichaens", which shows that Julian, like his great opponent Severus, had to be on his guard against extravagant Monophysites. Part of the treatise which Peter of <a href="../cathen/03183b.htm">Callinicus</a>, <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">Patriarch</a> of <a href="../cathen/01570a.htm">Antioch</a> (578-591), wrote against the Damianists is extant in Syriac <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a> (See Assemani's and Wright's catalogues). The writers of the <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheist</a> <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a> next demand our attention. The chief among them John Philoponus, of Caesarea, was <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">Patriarch</a> of the <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheists</a> at Alexandria at the beginning of the sixth century, and was the principal writer of his party. He was a grammarian, a <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosopher</a>, and an <a href="../cathen/02025a.htm">astronomer</a> as well as a <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theologian</a>. His principal <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> work, Diaitetes e peri henoseos, in ten books, is lost. It dealt with the <a href="../cathen/14597a.htm">Christological</a> and Trinitarian controversies of his age, and fragments of it are found in Leontius (De sectis, Oct. 5) in <a href="../cathen/08459b.htm">St. John Damascene</a> (De haer., I, 101-107, ed. <a href="../cathen/09187a.htm">Le Quien</a>) and in Niceph. Call., XCIII (see <a href="../cathen/09609c.htm">Mansi</a>, XI, 301). A complete Syriac translation is in Brit. Mus. and Vat. <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a>. Another lost <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> work, peri anastaseos, described the writer's theory of a creation of new bodies at the <a href="../cathen/12792a.htm">general resurrection</a>; it is mentioned by Photius (cod. 21-23), by Timotheus Presbyter and Nicephorus. As a <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosopher</a> Philoponus was an <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotelian</a>, and a disciple of the <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotelian</a> commentator Ammonius, son of Hermeas. His own commentaries on <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotle</a> were printed by Aldus at <a href="../cathen/15333a.htm">Venice</a> (on "De generatione et interitu", 1527; "Analytica posteriora", 1534; "Analytica priora", 1536; "De nat. auscult.", I-IV, and "De anima", 1535; "Meteorologica", I, 1551; "Metaphysica", 1583). He also wrote much against the Epicheiremata of Proclus, the last great Neoplatonist: eighteen books on the <a href="../cathen/05551b.htm">eternity</a> of the world (Venice, 1535), composed in 529, and peri kosmopoitas (printed by <a href="../cathen/04359a.htm">Corderius</a>, <a href="../cathen/15417a.htm">Vienna</a>, 1630, and in <a href="../cathen/06349c.htm">Gallandi</a>, XII; new ed. by Reichert, 1897), on the Hexaemeron, in which he follows St. Basil and other Fathers, and shows a vast <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of all the literature and <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> accessible in his day. The latter work is dedicated to a certain Sergius, who may perhaps be identified with Sergius the Grammarian, the <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">Eutychianizing</a> correspondent of Severus. The work was possibly written as early as 517 (for 617 in the editions is evidently a <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clerical</a> <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">error</a>). A "Computatio de Pascha", printed after this work, argues that the <a href="../cathen/14341a.htm">Last Supper</a> was on the 13th of Nizan, and was not a real <a href="../cathen/11512b.htm">passover</a>. A lost <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> work (entitled tmemata is summarized by Michael the Syrian (Chronicle, II, 69). A book against the <a href="../cathen/03555a.htm">Council of Chalcedon</a> is mentioned by Photius (cod. 55). A work "Contra Andream" is preserved in a Syriac <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a>. Another work "Against the Acephali" exists in <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a>, and may be the work Philoponus is known to have written in controversy with Severus. In grammar his master was Romanus, and his extant writings on the subject are based upon the katholike of Herodian (tonika paraggelmata, ed. Dindorf, 1825; peri ton diaphoros tonoumenon, ed. Egenolff, 1880). This sixth century Monophysite is to be distinguished from an earlier grammarian, also called Philoponus, who flourished under <a href="../cathen/02107a.htm">Augustus</a> and <a href="../cathen/14717b.htm">Tiberius</a>. Of his life little is known. On account of his <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheistic</a> opinions he was summoned to Constantinople by <a href="../cathen/08578b.htm">Justinian</a>, but he excused himself on account of his age and infirmity. He addressed to the emperor a treatise "De divisione, differentia, et numero", which seems to be the same as a treatise spoken of as "De differentia quae manere creditur in Christo post unionem"; but it is lost. He addressed an essay on <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheism</a> to <a href="../cathen/02035a.htm">Athanasius</a> Monachus, and was condemned on this account at Alexandria. At a disputation held by the emperor's order before the <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">Patriarch</a> of Constantinople John Scholasticus, Conon, and Eugenius represented the <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheists</a>; John condemned Philoponus, and the emperor issued an edict against the <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a> (Photius, cod. 24). In 568 Philoponus was still alive, for he published a pamphlet against John, which Photius describes with great severity (cod. 75). The style of Philoponus, he says, is always clear, but without dignity, and his argumentation is puerile. (For the <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> views of the <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a>, see <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">TRITHEISTS</a>). Conon, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/14461b.htm">Tarsus</a>, though a <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheist</a> and, with Eugenius, a supporter of John Philoponus before the emperor, disagreed with that writer about the equality of the three Persons of the <a href="../cathen/15047a.htm">Holy Trinity</a> (see <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">TRITHEISTS</a>), and together with Eugenius and Themistius wrote a book, kata Ioannou, against his views on the <a href="../cathen/12792a.htm">Resurrection</a>. Eugenius is called a Cilician <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> by <a href="../cathen/08470c.htm">John of Ephesus</a>, but Bar Habraeus makes him <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of Selucia in Isauria (see <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">TRITHEISTS</a>). Themistius, surnamed Calonymus, was a <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacon</a> of Alexandria, who separated from his patriarch, Timothy IV (517-535), and founded the <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a> of <a href="../cathen/01215b.htm">Agnoetae</a>. He wrote against Severus a book called "Apology for the late Theophobius", to which a <a href="../cathen/13742b.htm">Severian</a> <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> named Theodore replied; the answer of Themistus was again refuted by Theodore in three books (Photius, cod. 108). Other works of Themistius are referred to by <a href="../cathen/10078b.htm">St. Maximus Confessor</a>, and some fragments are cited in <a href="../cathen/09609c.htm">Mansi</a>, X, 981 and 1117. Stephen Gobarus the <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheist</a> is known only by the elaborate analysis of his book given by Photius (cod. 232); it was a "Sic et Non" like that of <a href="../cathen/01036b.htm">Abelard</a>, giving authorities for a proposition and then for the contrary opinion. At the end was were some remarks on curious views of a number of Fathers. It was evidently, as Photius remarks, a performance of more labour than usefulness. <h2>History</h2> We now turn to the historians. Zacharias of <a href="../cathen/06399c.htm">Gaza</a>, brother of Procopius of <a href="../cathen/06399c.htm">Gaza</a>, the rhetorician, Zacharias Scholasticus, Zacharias the Rhetorician, Zacharias of <a href="../cathen/10407a.htm">Mitylene</a>, are all apparently the same <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a> (so Kugener's latest view, Kruger, and Brooks). Of his early life we have a vivid picture in his memoirs of Severus, with whom he studied at Alexandria and at Berytus. His home was at the port of Iberian. To the latter he was greatly devoted, and believed that Peter had prophesied his unfitness for the monastic life. He in fact did not become a <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a>, when his friends Evagrius, Severus, and others did so, but practised law at Constantinople, and reached eminence in his profession. Of his writings, a dialogue "that the world did not exist from <a href="../cathen/05551b.htm">eternity</a>" was probably composed in youth while he lived at Berytus. His "Ecclesiastical History" is extant only in a Syriac epitome which forms four books (III-VI) of the "Historia Miscellanea". It begins with a short account from a Monophysite point of view of the <a href="../cathen/03555a.htm">Council of Chalcedon</a>, and continues the history, mainly of Palestine and Alexandria, until the death of Zeno (491). From the same history is derived a curious statistical description of <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a> in "Hist. Misc.", X, xvi. The very interesting life of Severus carries the author's recollections up to the accession of his hero to the See of Antioch in 512. It was written subsequently to the history, as the cubicularius Eupraxius, to whom that work was dedicated, was already dead. His recollections of Peter the Iberian and of Theodore, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/01564a.htm">Antinoe</a>, are lost, but his biography of Isaias, an <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egyptian</a> ascetic, is preserved in Syriac. A disputation against the <a href="../cathen/09591a.htm">Manichæans</a>, published by Cardinal Pitra in Greek, was probably written after the edict of Justinian against the <a href="../cathen/09591a.htm">Manichæans</a> in 527. He seems to have been still a <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">layman</a>. Up to the time he wrote the life of Severus he was a follower of the <a href="../cathen/07218b.htm">Henoticon</a>; this was the easy course under Zeno and Anastasius. It would seem that he found it paid to revert to <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodoxy</a> under Justin and Justinian, for he was present as <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/10407a.htm">Mitylene</a> at the Council of <a href="../cathen/10190a.htm">Mennas</a> at Constantinople in 536, where he was one of the three <a href="../cathen/10244c.htm">metropolitans</a> who were sent to summon Anthimus to appear. His name does not appear in the incomplete printed list of subscriptions to that patriarch's deposition, but Labbe testifies that it is found in some <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a> (<a href="../cathen/09609c.htm">Mansi</a>, VIII, 975); it is absent from the condemnation of Severus in a later session. Zacharias was dead before the <a href="../cathen/04423f.htm">ecumenical council</a> of 553. An important historical work in anecdotal form in the "Plerophoria" of John of Maïuma, composed about 515; it contains stories of Monophysite worthies up to date, especially of Peter the Iberian, whose life was also written by Zacharias, but is now lost. A later life of Peter has been printed, which contains curious information about the Iberian princes from whom the Monophysite <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> descended. The life of the ascetic Isaias by Zacharias accompanies it. The interesting "Historia Miscellanea", often referred to as Pseudo-Zacharias, was composed in Syriac in twelve books by an unknown author who seems to have lived at <a href="../cathen/01429c.htm">Amida</a>. Though the work was completed in 569, he seems to have used part of the history of <a href="../cathen/08470c.htm">John of Ephesus</a>, which was finished only in 571. Certain parts were written earlier (or are borrowed from older writers), VII, xv before 523; X, xii in 545; XII, vii in 555; XII, iv in 561. The first book contains a quantity of legendary matter form Greek sources which are still extant; a few words are added on the Syriac <a href="../cathen/05072b.htm">doctors</a> Isaac and Dodo. Book II has the story of the <a href="../cathen/05496a.htm">Seven Sleepers</a>. History begins in II, ii, with an account of <a href="../cathen/05631a.htm">Eutyches</a>, and the letter of Proclus to the <a href="../cathen/01736b.htm">Armenians</a> follows. The next four books are an epitome of the lost work of Zacharias Rhetor. The seventh book continues the story from the accession of Anastasius (491), and together with general <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">ecclesiastical history</a> it combines some interesting details of <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">wars</a> with the <a href="../cathen/11712a.htm">Persians</a> in Mesopotamia. <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> A curious chapter gives the Prologue of Moro, or Mara, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/01429c.htm">Amida</a> (a Syriac writer whose works appear to have been lost), to his edition of the four Gospels in Greek, to which the writers appends as a curiosity the pericope of the <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">woman</a> taken in <a href="../cathen/01163a.htm">adultery</a> (<a href="../bible/joh008.htm">John 8</a>) which Moro had inserted in the 89th canon; "it is not founded in other <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a>" Book VIII, iii, gives the letter of Simeon of Beit-Arsham on the <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrs</a> of Yemen, perhaps an <a href="../cathen/01601a.htm">apocryphal</a> document. Book XI is lost, with most of X and XII. Some of X has been restored by Brooks from the "Chronicle" of Michael the Syrian (died 1199). It is <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> to mention the "Chronicle of <a href="../cathen/05282a.htm">Edessa</a>", from 495 to 506, which is embedded in the "chronicle" attributed to Joshua the Stylite (who seems to have been a <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a>); this latter is included in the second book of the "Chronicle" attributed to the <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">Patriarch</a> of <a href="../cathen/01570a.htm">Antioch</a>, Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, a compilation which has a fourth book (from the end of the sixth century to 775) which is an original work by the compiler, who was in reality a <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> of Zonkenin (north of <a href="../cathen/01429c.htm">Amida</a>), possibly Joshua the Stylite himself. Some small chronicles of the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries have been published as "Chronica minora" in the "Corpus Script. Or." Of later histories, those of <a href="../cathen/02294a.htm">Bar Hebraeus</a> (died 1286) must be noted. His "Chronicon Syriacum" is an abridgment of Michael with a continuation; the "Chronicon ecclesiasticum" contains the <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">ecclesiastical history</a> first of Western <a href="../cathen/14399a.htm">Syria</a> and then of Eastern <a href="../cathen/14399a.htm">Syria</a>, with lives of the <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">patriarchs</a> of Antioch, of the Jacobite missionary <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> (called maphrians) and of the <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorian</a> <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">patriarchs</a>. The "Chronicle" of Elias of <a href="../cathen/11084c.htm">Nisibis</a> to 1008 is important because it mentions its sources, but it is very defective in the early period through the loss of some pages of the <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a>. Masil the Cilician and John of Ægea are counted as Monophysite writers by Ehrhard (in Krumbacher, p. 53), but Photius clearly makes them out <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorians</a> (cod. 41, 55, 107), and it is by a slip that he conjectures Basil to be the author of a work against Nestorius. <h2>Syriac writers</h2> Of the Syriac Monophysite writers none is more important than Philoxenus, otherwise Xenaias, who was <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of Mabug (Hierapolis) from 485. For his life and the version of Scripture which was made by his order, see <a href="../cathen/12040a.htm">PHILOXENUS</a>. His dogmatic writings alone concern us here. His letter to the Emperor Zeno, published by Vaschalde (1902) is of 485, the <a href="../cathen/04636c.htm">date</a> of his episcopal <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecration</a> and of his acceptance of the <a href="../cathen/07218b.htm">Henoticon</a>. His treatises on the <a href="../cathen/07706b.htm">Incarnation</a> date perhaps before 500; to the same period belong two short works, "A Confession of Faith" and "Against Every <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorian</a>". He wrote also on the Trinity. A letter to Marco, <a href="../cathen/09111a.htm">lector</a> of <a href="../cathen/01461a.htm">Anazarbus</a>, is attributed to 515-518. After he had been exiled by Justin to Philippolis in Thrace in 518, he attacked the <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a> patriarch, Paul of Antioch, in a letter to the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> of Teleda, and wrote another letter of which fragments are found in <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> Addit. 14533, in which he argues that it is sometimes wise to admit <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptisms</a> and ordinations by <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretics</a> for the sake of peace; the question of sacramental validity does not seem to have occurred to him. Fragments of his commentaries on the Gospel are found in <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a> Thirteen <a href="../cathen/07448a.htm">homilies</a> on <a href="../cathen/12748b.htm">religious life</a> have been published by Budge. They scarcely touch upon <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a>. Of his three <a href="../cathen/09306a.htm">liturgies</a> two are given by <a href="../cathen/12769a.htm">Renaudot</a>. Out of the great mass of his works in <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> at <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a>, Paris, <a href="../cathen/11365b.htm">Oxford</a>, Cambridge, London, only a fraction has been published. He was an eager controversialist, a scholar, and an accomplished writer. His Syriac style is much admired. His <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a> had no more energetic leader until <a href="../cathen/02282a.htm">Jacob Baradaeus</a> himself. He was president of the synod which elevated Severus to the See of Antioch, and he had been the chief agent in the extrusion of <a href="../cathen/06098c.htm">Flavian</a>. He was an energetic foe of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a>, and his works stand next in importance to those of Severus as witnesses to the tenets of their party. He was exiled by Justin in 519 to Philippolis and then to <a href="../cathen/06377b.htm">Gangra</a>, where he died of suffocation by smoke in the room in which he was confined. <a href="../cathen/08278a.htm">James of Sarugh</a>(451-521) became periodeutes, or visitor, of Haura in that district about 505, and <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> of its capital, Batnan, in 519. Nearly all his numerous writings are metrical. We are told that seventy amanuenses were employed to copy his 760 metrical <a href="../cathen/07448a.htm">homilies</a>, which are in Wright's opinion more readable than those of <a href="../cathen/05498a.htm">Ephraem</a> or Isaac of Antioch. A good many have been published at various times. In the Vatican are 233 in <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a>, in <a href="../cathen/09341a.htm">London</a> 140, in <a href="../cathen/11480c.htm">Paris</a>, 100. They are much cited in the Syriac Liturgy, and a liturgy and <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptismal</a> rite are ascribed to him. Numerous letters of his are extant in Brit. Mus., <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a> Addit. 14587 and 17163. Though his <a href="../cathen/06021b.htm">feast</a> is kept by <a href="../cathen/09683c.htm">Maronites</a> and even by some <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorians</a>, there is no <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a> that he accepted the <a href="../cathen/07218b.htm">Henoticon</a>, and was afterwards in relation with the leading Monophysites, rejecting the <a href="../cathen/03555a.htm">Council of Chalcedon</a> to the end of his life. Stephen bar Soudaili was an Edessene Monophysite who fell into <a href="../cathen/11447b.htm">Pantheism</a> and <a href="../cathen/11306b.htm">Origenism</a>. He was attacked by Philoxenus and <a href="../cathen/08278a.htm">James of Sarugh</a>, and retired to Jerusalem. The confession of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> of John of Tella (483-538; <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, 519-521) is extant, and so is his commentary on the Trisagion, and his canons for the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> and replies to the questions of the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> Sergius — all in <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a> in the British Museum. The great <a href="../cathen/02282a.htm">James Baradaeus</a>, the eponymous hero of the <a href="../cathen/14417a.htm">Jacobites</a>, who supplied <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> and <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> for the Monophysites when they were definitively divided from the Eastern <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> in 543, wrote but little; a liturgy, a few letters, a sermon, and a confession of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> are extant. Of Syriac translators it is not <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> to speak, nor is there need to treat of the Monophysite scientist Sergius of Reschaina, the writer on philosophy, Ahoudemmeh, and many others. <a href="../cathen/08470c.htm">John of Ephesus</a>, called also John of <a href="../cathen/01777b.htm">Asia</a>, was a <a href="../cathen/14399a.htm">Syrian</a> of <a href="../cathen/01429c.htm">Amida</a>, where he became a <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacon</a> in 529. On account of the <a href="../cathen/11703a.htm">persecution</a> of his <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a> he departed, and was made administrator of the temporal affairs of the Monophysites in Constantinople by <a href="../cathen/08578b.htm">Justinian</a>, who sent him in the following year as a missionary <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> to the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagans</a> of <a href="../cathen/01782a.htm">Asia Minor</a>. He relates of himself that he converted 60,000, and had 96 churches built. He returned to the capital in 546, to destroy idol worship there also. But on the death of Justinian he suffered a continual <a href="../cathen/11703a.htm">persecution</a>, which he described in his "History", as an excuse for its confusion and repetitions. What remains of that work is of great value as a contemporary record. The style is florid and full of Greek expressions. The lives of blessed Easterns were put together by John about 565-566, and have been published by Land. They include great men like Severus, Baradæus Theodosius, etc. (For an account of these works and for bibliography see <a href="../cathen/08470c.htm">JOHN OF EPHESUS</a>.) George, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> of the Arabians (b. about 640; d. 724) was one of the chief writers of the Assyrian <a href="../cathen/14417a.htm">Jacobites</a>. He was a personal follower of <a href="../cathen/08277b.htm">James of Edessa</a>, whose poem on the Hexameron he completed after the death of James in 708. In this work he teaches the Apocatastasis, or restoration of all things, including the destruction of <a href="../cathen/07207a.htm">hell</a>, which so many <a href="../cathen/05230a.htm">Greek</a> <a href="../cathen/06001a.htm">Fathers</a> learned from <a href="../cathen/11306b.htm">Origen</a>. George was born in the Tehouma in the Diocese of Antioch, and was <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordained</a> <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> of the wandering <a href="../cathen/01663a.htm">Arabs</a> in November, 686; his <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">see</a> was at Akoula. He was a man of considerable learning. His translation, with introduction and commentary, of part of the "Organon" of <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotle</a> ("Catagories", "De Interpretatione", and "Prior Analytics") is extant (Brit. Mus., <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> Addit. 14659), as is the collection he made of scholia on <a href="../cathen/07010b.htm">St. Gregory of Nazianzus</a>, and an explanation of the three Sacraments (Baptism, <a href="../cathen/07402a.htm">Holy Communion</a>, and <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecration</a> of <a href="../cathen/03696b.htm">chrism</a>, following <a href="../cathen/05013a.htm">Pseudo-Dionysius</a>). His letters of 714 till 718 are extant in the same <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> as this last work (Brit. Mus., <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> Addit. 12154). They deal with many things; <a href="../cathen/02025a.htm">astronomical</a>, <a href="../cathen/05692b.htm">exegetical</a>, <a href="../cathen/09306a.htm">liturgical</a> questions, explanations of Greek proverbs and fables, <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> and polemics, and contain historical matter about <a href="../cathen/01593c.htm">Aphraates</a> and <a href="../cathen/07023a.htm">Gregory the Illuminator</a>. His poems included one in dodecasyllables on the unpromising subject of the calculations of movable feasts and the correction of the solar and lunar cycles, another on the monastic life, and two on the <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecration</a> of the <a href="../cathen/03696b.htm">holy chrism</a>. His works are important for our <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of Syriac Church and literature. His reading was vast, including the chief <a href="../cathen/05230a.htm">Greek</a> <a href="../cathen/06001a.htm">Fathers</a>, with whom he classes Severus and <a href="../cathen/05013a.htm">Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite</a>; he knows the Pseudo-Clementines and <a href="../cathen/08522a.htm">Josephus</a>, and of Syriac writers he knows <a href="../cathen/02293a.htm">Bardesanes</a>, <a href="../cathen/01593c.htm">Aphraates</a>, and St. Ephraem. His correspondence is addressed to literary <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> of his <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a>. The canons attributed to George in the "Nomocanon" of <a href="../cathen/02294a.htm">Bar Hebraeus</a> are apparently extracts from his writings reduced to the form of canons. <a href="../cathen/08277b.htm">James of Edessa</a> (about 633-708) was the chief Syriac writer of his time, and the last that need be mentioned here. His works are sufficiently described in a separate article. The Syriac literature of the Monophysites, however, continued throughout the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">middle ages</a>. Their Coptic, Arabic, and <a href="../cathen/01736b.htm">Armenian</a> literature is large, but cannot be treated in an article like the present one. <h2>Orthodoxy</h2> Were the Monophysites really <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretics</a> or were they only schismatics? This question was answered in the affirmative by Assemani, more recently by the Oriental scholar Nau, and last of all by Lebon, who has devoted an important work, full of evidence from unpublished sources, to the establishment of this thesis. It is urged that the Monophysites taught that there is but one Nature of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, mia physis, because they identify the words physis and hypostasis. But in just the same way the <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorians</a> have lately been justified. A simple scheme will make the matter plain: <blockquote><a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorians</a>: One <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a>, two hypostases, two natures. <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a>: One <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a>, one hypostasis, two natures. Monophysites: One <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a>, one hypostasis, one <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a>.</blockquote> It is urged by Bethune-Baker that Nestorius and his friends took the word hypostasis in the sense of nature, and by Lebon that the Monophysites took nature in the sense of hypostasis, so that both parties really intended the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">Catholic doctrine</a>. There is a prima facie argument against both these pleas. Granted that for centuries controversialists full of odium theologicum might misunderstand one another and fight about words while agreeing as to the underlying doctrines, yet it remains that the words <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a>, hypostasis, nature (prosopon, hypostasis, physis) had received in the second half of the fourth century a perfectly definite meaning, as to which the whole Church was at one. All agreed that in the <a href="../cathen/15047a.htm">Holy Trinity</a> there is one Nature (physia or physis) having three Hypostases of Persons. If in <a href="../cathen/14597a.htm">Christology</a> the <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorians</a> used hypostasis and the Monophysites physis in a new sense, not only does it follow that their use of words was singularly inconsistent and inexcusable, but (what is far more important) that they can have had no difficulty in seeing what was the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> meaning of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> councils, <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a>, and <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a>, who consistently used the words in one and the same sense with regard both to the Trinity and the <a href="../cathen/07706b.htm">Incarnation</a>. There would be every excuse for <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> if they misunderstood such a strange "derangement of epitaphs" on the part of the schismatics, but the schismatics must have easily grasped the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> position. As a fact the Antiochene party had no difficulty in coming to terms with <a href="../cathen/09154b.htm">St. Leo</a>; they understood him well enough, and declared that they had always meant what he meant. How far this was a fact must be discussed under <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">NESTORIANISM</a>. But the Monophysites always withstood the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">Catholic doctrine</a>, declaring it to be <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorian</a>, or half <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorian</a>, and that it divided Christ into two. Lebon urges that Severus himself more than once explains that there is a difference in the use of words in "theology" (doctrine of the Trinity) and in "the economy" (Incarnation): "admittedly hypostasis and ousia or physis are not the same in <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a>; however, in the economy they are the same" (P.G., LXXXVI, 1921), and he alleges the example of <a href="../cathen/07010b.htm">Gregory of Nazianzus</a> to show that in a new mystery the terms must take new significations. But surely these very passages make it evident that Severus distinguished between physis and hypostasis. Putting aside the Trinity and the <a href="../cathen/07706b.htm">Incarnation</a>, every physis is a hypostasis, and every hypostasis is a physis in this statement all <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> and Monophysites agree. But this means that the denotation of the words is the same, not that there is no difference of connotation. Physis is an abstraction, and cannot exist except as a concrete, that is to say, as a hypostasis. But "admittedly" in the Trinity the denotation as well as the connotation of the words is diverse, it is still <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> that each of the three Hypostases is identified with the Divine Nature (that is, each Person is <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>); but if each Hypostasis is therefore still a physis (the one physis) yet the physis is not one by three Hypostases. The words retain their old sense (connotation) yet have received a new sense in a new relation. It is obvious that this is the phenomenon to which Severus referred. <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> would add that in the <a href="../cathen/07706b.htm">Incarnation</a> conversely two natures are one hypostasis. Thus the meanings of physis (abstract=ousia) and hypostasis (subsistent physis, physis hyphestosa or enhypostatos) in the <a href="../cathen/15047a.htm">Holy Trinity</a> were a common possession; and all agreed further that in the created <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a> there cannot exist a nature which does not subsist, there is no such thing as a physis anhypostatos. <div class="bulletlist"><ul><li>But <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> hold the Human Nature of Christ considered in itself to be anhypostatos, but that the second Person of the <a href="../cathen/15047a.htm">Holy Trinity</a> is its hypostasis. As the <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinity</a> of the Divine Nature is capable of a threefold subsistence, so the <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinity</a> of the Hypostasis of the Word is able to be the Hypostasis of the Human Nature assumed as well as of the Divine. The union in Christ is not a union of two natures directly with one another, but a union of the two in one hypostasis; thus they are distinct yet inseparable, and each acts in communion with the other.</li><li>The <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorians</a> argued thus: There are, according to the Fathers, two natures in Christ; but since every nature is a hypostasis, the Human Nature in Christ is a hypostasis. In order to make one Christ, they tried (in vain) to explain how two hypostases could be united in one <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a> (prosopon). They did not mean to divide Christ, but their prosopic union leaked at every seam; it was difficult to express it or argue about it without falling into <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresy</a>. The Antiochenes were glad to drop such inadequate formulae, for it was certain that "person" in the <a href="../cathen/15047a.htm">Holy Trinity</a> was only another name for "hypostasis". The Cyrillians were shocked, and could not be induced to believe (though St. Cyril himself did) that the <a href="../cathen/10755a.htm">Nestorianizers</a> did not really mean two Christs, two Sons.</li><li>Conversely, starting from the same proposition that every physis is a hypostasis, the Monophysites argued that a Christ is one Person, one Hypostasis, so He is one Nature, and they preferred "is one nature" to the equivalent "has one nature". They alleged high authority for their formula, not only St. Cyril, but behind him St. Athanasius, Pope St. Julius, and <a href="../cathen/07015a.htm">St. Gregory the Wonderworker</a>. These authorities, however, were but <a href="../cathen/01615b.htm">Apollinarian</a> forgeries; the favourite formula of St. Cyril, the mia physis sesarkomene, had been borrowed unwitting from an <a href="../cathen/01615b.htm">Apollinarian</a> source, and had been meant by its original inventor in a <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretical</a> sense. Nay, the "one nature" went back to the <a href="../cathen/01707c.htm">Arians</a>, and had been used by Eudoxius himself to express the incompleteness of the Human Nature of Christ.</li></ul></div> Yet the Monophysites were far from being <a href="../cathen/01615b.htm">Apollinarians</a>, still less were they <a href="../cathen/01707c.htm">Arians</a>; they were careful from the beginning that Christ is perfect Man, and that He assumed a complete Human Nature like ours. <a href="../cathen/05019a.htm">Dioscurus</a> is emphatic on this point in his letter to Secundinus (Hist. Misc., III, i) and with need, since he had acquitted <a href="../cathen/05631a.htm">Eutyches</a> who had denied our Lord's "consubstantiality with us". Ælurus is just as clear in the letters by which he refuted and <a href="../cathen/05678a.htm">excommunicated</a> Isaias of Hermopolis and Theophilus as <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">"Eutychians"</a> (hist. Misc., IV, xii), and Severus had an acute controversy with Sergius the Grammarian on this very point. They all declared with one voice that Christ is mia physis, but ek duo physeon, that His Divine Nature is combined with a complete Human Nature in one hypostasis, and hence the two have become together the One Nature of that one hypostasis, howbeit without mixture or confusion or diminution. Ælurus insists that after union the properties of each nature remain unchanged; but they spoke of "the divine and human things", divina et humana, not natures; each nature remains in its natural state with its own characteristics (en idioteti te kata physin) yet not as a unity but as a part, a quality (poiotes physike), nor as a physis. All the qualities of the two natures are combined into one hypostasis synthetos and form the one nature of that one hypostasis. So far there is no <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresy</a> in intention, but only a wrong definition: that one hypostasis can have only one nature. But however harmless the formula "one nature" might look at first sight, it led in fact immediately to serious and disastrous consequences. The Divine Nature of the Word is not merely specifically but numerically one with the Divine Nature of the Son and the Holy Ghost. This is the meaning of the word <a href="../cathen/07449a.htm">homoousios</a> applied to the Three Persons, and if Harnack were right in supposing that at the Council of Constantinople in 384 the word was taken to imply only three Persons of one species, then that Council accepted three <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">Gods</a>, and not three distinct but inseparable Persons in one <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. Now if the Divine and Human Natures are united in the Word into one Nature, it is impossible to avoid one of two conclusions, either that the whole Divine Nature became man and suffered and died, or else that each of the three Persons had a Divine Nature of His own. In fact the Monophysites split upon this question. Ælurus and Severus seem to have avoided the difficulty, but it was not long before those who refused the latter alternative were taunted with the necessity of embracing the former, and were nicknamed Theopaschites, as making <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> to suffer. Vehemently Severus and his <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">school</a> declared that they made the Divinity to suffer not as <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, but only as man; but this was insufficient as a reply. Their formula was not "The Word made flesh", "the Son of God made <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man</a>", but "one Nature of the Word made flesh";-the Nature became flesh, that is the whole Divine Nature. They did not reply: "we mean hypostasis when we say <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a>, we do not mean the Divine Nature (which the Word has in common with the Father and the <a href="../cathen/07409a.htm">Holy Ghost</a>) but His Divine <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">Person</a>, which in the present case we call His physis", for the physis tou Theou Logou, before the word sesarkomene has been added, is in the sphere of "theology" not of "the economy", and its signification could not be <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubted</a>. Just as there were many <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">"Eutychians"</a> among the Monophysites who denied that Christ is consubstantial with us, so there were found many to embrace boldly the paradox that the Divine Nature has become incarnate. Peter Fullo added to the praise of the Trinity the words "who was crucified for us", and refused to allow the natural inference to be explained away. Stephen Niobes and the Niobites expressly denied all distinction between the Human and the Divine Natures after the union. The Actistetae declared that the Human Nature became "uncreated" by the union. If the greatest <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a> of the <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a>, Severus and Philoxenus, avoided these excesses, it was by a refusal to be <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logically</a> Monophysite. It was not only the <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a> who were <a href="../cathen/13506d.htm">scandalized</a> by these extreme views. An influential and very learned section of the <a href="../cathen/13529a.htm">schism</a> rebelled, and chose the second of the two alternatives — that of making the Divine Nature threefold, in order to ensure that the Human Nature in Christ was made one with the Nature of the Son alone and not with the whole Divine Nature. John Philoponus, the <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotelian</a> commentator, therefore taught that there are in the Trinity three partial substances (merikai ousiai) and one common substance (mia koine), thus falling into <a href="../cathen/12223b.htm">Polytheism</a>, with three, or rather four gods. This <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheistic</a> party was treated with leniency. It split into sections. Though they were <a href="../cathen/05678a.htm">excommunicated</a> at Alexandria, the Patriarch Damian held a view not far different. He so distinguished between the Divine ousia and the three Hypostases which partake (metechousin) in it, that he conceded the ousia to be existent of Itself (enyparktos), and his followers were nicknamed Tetradatites. Thus Peter Fullo, the Actistetae, and the Niobites on the one hand, and the <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheists</a> and Damianists on the other, developed the Monophysite formulae in the only two possible directions. It is obvious that formulae which involved such alternatives were <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretical</a> in fact as well as in origin. Severus tried to be <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a>, but at the expense of consistency. His "corruptibilist" view is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> enough, if the Human Nature is considered in the abstract apart from the union (see <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">EUTYCHIANISM</a>), but to consider it thus as an entity was certainly an admission of the Two Natures. All change and suffering in Christ must be (as the Julianists and Justinian rightly saw) strictly <a href="../cathen/15506a.htm">voluntary</a>, in so far as the union gives to the Sacred Humanity a right and claim to <a href="../cathen/02364b.htm">beatification</a> and (in a sense) to deification. But Severus was willing to divide the Natures not merely "before" the union (that is, <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logically</a> previous to it) but even after the union "theoretically", and he went so far in his controversy with the <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a> John the Grammarian as to concede duo physeis en theoria. This was indeed an immense concession, but considering how much more <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodox</a> were the intentions of Severus than his words, it is scarcely astonishing, for St. Cyril had conceded much more. But though Severus went so far as this, it is shown elsewhere (see <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">EUTYCHIANISM</a>, MAXIMUS CONFESSOR, and especially <a href="../cathen/10502a.htm">MONOTHELITISM</a>) that he did not avoid the <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">error</a> of giving one activity to our Lord, one will, and one <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. It is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> enough that he had no intention of admitting any incompleteness in the Humanity of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, and that he and all the Monophysites started merely from the proposition that all activity, all will, and intelligence proceed from the <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a>, as ultimate principle, and on this ground alone they asserted the unity of each in Christ. But it was on this ground that <a href="../cathen/10502a.htm">Monothelitism</a> was condemned. It was not supposed by the best <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a> who attacked the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> that the Monophysites denied Christ to have exercised human activities, <a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">human acts</a> of the will, <a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">human acts</a> of cognition; the <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">error</a> was clearly recognized as lying in the failure to distinguish between the human or the mixed (theandric) activity of Christ as Man, and the purely Divine activity, will, <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, which the Son has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and which are in fact the Divine Nature. In speaking of one activity, one will, one <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> in Christ, Severus was reducing Monophysitism to pure <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresy</a> just as much as did the Niobites or the <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheists</a> whom he certainly held in horror; for he refused to distinguish between the human faculties of Christ-activity, will, intellect-and the Divine Nature itself. This is no <a href="../cathen/01615b.htm">Apollinarianism</a>, but is so like it that the distinction is theoretical rather than real. It is the direct consequence of the use of <a href="../cathen/01615b.htm">Apollinarian</a> formulae. St. Cyril did not go so far, and in this <a href="../cathen/10502a.htm">Monothelite</a> <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">error</a> we may see the essence of the <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresy</a> of the Monophysites; for all fell into this snare, except the <a href="../cathen/15061b.htm">Tritheists</a>, since it was the <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logical</a> result of their mistaken point of view. <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="cenotes"><h2>Sources</h2>For general literature see <a href="../cathen/05633a.htm">EUTYCHIANISM</a>. In P.G. there are more fragments than complete writings. Important collections are ASSEMANI, Bibliotheca Orientalis (Rome, 1719-28); CHABOT and others, Corp. Script. Christ. Orient., Script. Syri; GRAFFIN and NAU, Patrologia Orient. (1905-, in progress); also DE LAGARDE, Analecta Syriaca (Leipzig, 1858); LAND, Anecdota Syriaca (Leyden, 1870). For the very numerous Monophysite writings contained in Syriac MSS. see especially the following catalogues: ASSEMANI, Bibl. Medicaeae Laurentianae et Palatinae MS. Orient. catal. (Florence, 1742); IDEM, Bibl. Apost. Vatic. catal., part I, vol. II-III (Rome, 1758-9); WRIGHT, Catal. of the Syriac MS. in the Brit. Mus. acquired since 1838 (London, 1870-2); WRIGHT AND COOK, Catal. of Syriac MSS. of the Univ. of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1901); SACHAU, Handschrift- Verzeichnisse der K. Bibl. zu Berlin, XXIII, Syrische MSS. (Berlin, 1899), etc. On the literature in general see ASSEMANI, op. cit., II, Dissertatio de Monophysitis: GIESELER, Commentatio qua Monophysitarum veterum errores ex corum scriptis recends editis illustrantur (Gottingen, 1835-8); WRIGHT, Syriac literature (Encyclop. Brit., 9th ed., 1887; published separately as A Short History of Syriac Lit., London, 1894); DUBAL, La litterature Syriaque (3rd ed., Paris, 1907); many excellent articles by KRUEGER in Realencyclopadie.On TIMOTHY ÆLURUS see CRUM, Eusebius and Coptic Church Hist. in Proc. of Soc. of Bibl. Arch. (London, 1902); TER-MEKERTTSCHIAN and TER-MINASSIANTZ, Tim. Ælurus' des Patriarchen von Alexandrien, Widerlegung der auf der Synode zu Chalcedon festgesetzten Lehre, Armenian text (Leipzig, 1908); LEBON, La Christologie de Tim. Ælure in Revue d'hist. ecc. (Oct. 1908); IDEM, Le Monophysisme severien (Louvain, 1909), 93-111.For French tr. of the letters of PETER FULLO se REVILLOUT in Revue des Questions Hist., XXII (1877), 83, and (in Coptic and French) AMELINEAU, Mon pour servir a l'hist. de l'Egypte chret. (Paris, 18888); the Armenian text in ISMEREANZ, The book of Letters, Armenian only (Tiflis, 1901); the letters to Peter Mongus are in Mansi, VII, 1109 sqq.; in favour of their genuineness see PAGI's notes to BARONIUS, ad ann. 485, No. 15; against, VALESIUS, Observ. eccles., 4 (in his edition of EVAGRIUS, Paris, 1673; P.G., LXXXVI), and TILLEMONT, XVI. Greek fragments from the homilies of TIMOTHY IV in Cosmas Indicopleustes (P.G., LXXXVII), an entire homily in MAI, Script. vet. nova coll., V (1831), and P.G. LXXXVI. Fragments of THEODOSIUS in Cosmas (ibid.), and of letters to Severus in P.G., LXXXVI; se also Mansi, X, 1117 and 1121. A letter from Theodosius to Severus and one to Anthimus in Hist. Misc., IX, 24, 26.On SEVERUS see ASSEMANI; KRUGER in Realencycl. s.v.; VENABLES in Dict. Christ. Biog.; SPANUTH, Zacharias Rhetor, Das Leben des Severus (Syr. text, Gottingen, 1893); lives by ZACHARIAS and JOHN OF BEITH-APHTHONIA, followed by a collection of documents concerning Severus, edited by KUGENER in Patrol. Orient., II; The Conflict of Severus, by ATHANASIUS, Ethiopic text with English transl., ed. by GOODSPEED, together with Coptic fragments of the same work, edited by CRUM, in Patrol. Orient., III; DUVAL, Homelies cathedrales de Severe, 52-7, Syriac and French, in Patr. Orient., II; BROOKS, Sixth book of select letters of Severus in the Syriac version of Athanasius of Nisibis (Text and Transl. Soc., London, 1904); EUSTRATIOS, Seuneos ho Monophysites (Leipzig, 1894); PEISKER, Severus von Antiochien, ein Kritischer Quellenbetrag zur Geschichte des Monophysismus (Halle, 1903); and especially LEBON, Le Monophysisme severien, largely founded on the study of unpublished Syriac MSS. in the Brit. Mus. (Louvain, 1909).On JULIAN see FABRICIUS, CAVE, GIESELER, DORNER, HARNACK; also DAVIDS in Dict. Christ. Biog. (1882); KRUGER in Realencycl. (1901); LIETZMANN, Catenen (Freiburg, 1897); IDEM, Aus Julian von Hal. in Rheinisch. Mus., LV (1900), 321. ON JOHN PHILOPONUS see CAVE, FABRICIUS, ASSEMANI, DORNER, etc.; SCHARFENBERG, Dissert. de Joanne Philop. (Leipzig, 1768); DAVIDS in Dict. Christ. Biog.; NAUCK in Allgemeine Encycl.; STOCKL in Kirchenlex., s.v. Joannes Philoponus; GASS and MEYER in Realencyckl.; RITTER, Gesch. der Philos., VI; KRUMBACHER, Gesch. der byz. Litt. (2nd ed., 1897), 53 and 581, etc.; LUDWICH, De Joanne Philopono grammatico (Konigsberg, 1888-9). On ZACHARIAS see KUGENER, La compilation historique de Ps.-Zach. le rheteur in Revue de l'Orient Chret., V (1900), 201; IDEM, Observations sur la vie de l'ascete Isaie et sur les vies de Pierre l'Iv. et de Theodore d'Antinoe par Zach. le Schol. in Byzant. Zeitschr., IX (1900), 464; in these articles KUGENER distinguishes the Rhetor from the Scholastic, whom he identifies with the bishop; but he has changed his mind acc. to KRUGER, Zach. Schol., in Realencycl. (1908). See also below under Historia Miscellanea.The Plerophoria of JOHN OF MAIUMA are preserved in an abridgement in the Chronicle of MICHAEL SYR. A French translation by NAU, Les Plerophories de Jean, eveque de Maiouma in Revue de l'Orient chret. (1898-9, and separately, Paris, 1899). The life of PETER THE IBERIAN, RAABE, Petrus der Iberer (Leipzig, 1895); BROOKS, Vitae virorum apud Monophysitas celeberrimorum in Corp. Script. Orient., Script. Syri, 3rd series, 25, including the life of Isaias, which is also in LAND, III (Paris, 1907); a Georgian version of the biography publ. by MARR (St. Petersburg, 1896); KUGENER in Byzant. Zeitschr., IX (Leipzig, 1900), 464; CHABOT, Pierre l'Iberien d'apres une recente publication in Revue de l'Orient latin, III (1895), 3.The Historia Miscellanea of PSEUDO-ZACHARIAS was published by LAND, loc. cit., III, in Syriac; German tr. by AHRENS and KUGLER, Die sogennante Kirchengeschichte von Zach. Rh. (Leipzig, 1899); HAMILTON and BROOKS, The Syriac chronicle known as that of Zach. of Mitylene (London, 1899, English only); See KUGENER, op. cit. For MICHAEL THE SYRIAN, CHABOT, Chronique de Michel le Syrien (Paris, 1901-2, in progress). There is an abridged Latin translation of the Chronicle of JOSHUA in ASSEMANI, loc. cit., I, 262-283; Syriac and French by MARTIN, Chronique de Josue le St. in Abhandlungen fur die kunde des Morgenlandes, VI (Leipzig, 1876), 1; in Syriac and English by WRIGHT, The Chronicle of J. the St. (Cambridge, 1882); Syriac and Latin (Chronicle of Edessa only) in Corpus Script. Orient., Chronica minora (Paris, 1902); HALLIER, Untersuchungen uber die Edessenische Chreonik in Texte und Unters., IX (Leipzig, 1892), 1; NAU in Bulletin critique, 25 Jan., 1897; IDEM, Analyse des parties inedites de la chronique attribuee a Denys de Tell-mahre in Suppl. to Revue de l'Orient chret. (1897); TULLBERG, Dionysii Tellmahrensis chronici lib. I (Upsala, 1851); CHABOT, Chronique de Denys de T., quatreme partie (Paris, 1895); BEDJAN, Barhebraei Chronicon syriacum (with Latin tr., Paris, 1890); ABBELOOS and LAMY, Barhebraei Chron. eccles. (With Latin tr., Louvain, 1872-7); LAMY, Elie de Misibe, sa chronologie (earlier portion, with French tr., Brussels, 1888).On PHILOXENUS see ASSEMANI, WRIGHT, DUVAL; KRUGER's good article in Realencycl.; BUDGE, The Discourses of Philoxenus, Bishop of Mabbogh, Syriac and English, with introduction containing many short dogmatic writings, and a list of the works of Philoxenus, in vol. 2 (London, 1894); VASCHALDE, Three letters of Philoxenus Bishop of M., Syr. and Eng. (Rome, 1902); IDEM, Philoxeni Mabbugensis tractatus de Trinitate et Incarnatione in Corpus Script. Or., Scriptores Syri, XXVII (Paris and Rome, 1907); DUVAL, Hist. politique, religieuse et litteraire d'Edesse (Paris, 1892); GUIDI, La lettera de Filosseno ai Monaci di Tell Adda in Mem. dell' Acad. dei Lincei (1886); see especially LEBON, op. cit., 111-118, and passim. On JAMES OF SARUG see ABBELOOS, De vita et scriptis S. Jacobi (with three ancient Syriac biographies, Louvain, 1867); ASSEMANI, WRIGHT, DUVAL, loc. cit.; Acta SS., 29 Oct.; BARDENHEWER in Kirchenlex.; NESTLE in Realencycl.; MARTIN, Un eveque poete au xxx et xxxx siecles in Revue des Sciences eccl. (Oct., Nov., 1876); IDEM, Correspondance de Jacques de Saroug avec les moines de Mar Bassus in Zeitschr. der deutschen Morganlandl. Gesellsch., XXX (1876), 217; Liturgy in Latin in RENAUDOT, Liturg. Or. coll., II, 356; ZINGERLR, Sechs homilien des h. Jacob von S. (Bonn, 1867); BEDJAN, 70 Homiliae selectae Mar Jacobi S. (Paris and Leipzig, 1905-6); single homilies are found in various publications; several in CURETON, Ancient Syriac Documents (1864).FROTHINGHAM, Stephen Bar Sudaili, the Syrian mystic, and the book of Hierotheos (Leyden, 1886). On JOHN OF TELLA, KLEYN, Het leven van Johannes van Tella (Leyden, 1882); another life in BROOKS, Vitae virorum, loc. cit.; his confession of faith is cited by LEBON, loc. cit. On GEORGE THE ARABIAN see ASSEMANI, WRIGHT, DUVAL, a good article by RYSSEL in Realencycl. (1899); IDEM, Ein Brief Georgs, Bischop der Ar. an den Presb. Josua aus dem Syrischen ubersetzt and erlautert, mit einer Einleitung uber sein Leben und seine Schriften (Gotha, 1888); IDEM, Georges des Araberbischofs Gedichte und Briefe (Leipzig, 1891), this work gives a German translation of all George's authentic works, apart from the commentaries; Syriac of the letter to Josua in LAGARDE, Analecta; part of poem on chrism in CARDAHI, Liber thesauri de arte poetica Syrorum (1875); the whole, with that on the monastic life, ed. by RYSSEL in Atti della R. Acad. dei Lincei, IX (Rome, 1892), 1, who edited the astronomical letters also, ibi d., VIII, 1.On the question of orthodoxy, see ASSEMANI, II; NAU, Dans quelle mesure les Jacobites sont-ils Monophysites? in Revue de L'Orient chretien, 1905, no. 2, p. 113; LEBON, op. cit., passim.</div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2>APA citation. Chapman, J. (1911). Monophysites and Monophysitism. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10489b.htmMLA citation. Chapman, John. "Monophysites and Monophysitism." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10489b.htm>.Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Michael T. Barrett. Dedicated to Fr. Michael Sprauer on his 25th anniversary of ordination.Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster at newadvent.org. 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