the perplexity of controversies as to Christian doctrine, drew many away from the Gospel to profess the faith of Islam."

About the same time when Mahomet began his public career, a controversy arose which continued for nearly a century to agitate the Church.

m

h

Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, who is said to have been a Syrian, and connected by family with the Jacobite sect, had met with a letter ascribed to his predecessor Mennas, in About which the Saviour was said to have "one will, and one A.D. 616. life-giving operation." Struck with the expression, he consulted Theodore, bishop of Pharan, in Arabia, a person of whom nothing is known except in connexion with this controversy, but who, from the reference thus made to him, may be supposed to have enjoyed an eminent character for learning, and to have been as yet unsuspected of any error in doctrine; and as Theodore approved the words, the patriarch adopted them, and had some correspondence with other persons on the subject." The doctrine thus started, which was afterwards known as Monothelism, is summed up in some words from another of Theodore's writings-that "in the incarnation of our Saviour there is but one operation, whereof the framer and author is God the Word; and of this the Manhood is the instrument, so that, whatsoever may be said of Him, whether as God or as man, it is all the operation of the Godhead of the Word." P In opposition to this, it was contended that the faculty of willing is inherent in each of our Lord's natures, although, as his person is one, the two wills act in the same direction-the human will being exercised in accordance with the Divine.

Heraclius, in the course of his Persian wars, saw cause to regret the policy by which the Nestorians had been alienated from the empire, and to desire that the evils which were likely

A.D. 622.

to result from the schism of the Monophysites might be averted. With a view to a reconciliation, he conferred with some

of their leaders-as Paul, the chief of the party in Armenia, and Athanasius, the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, to whom it is said that he offered the Catholic throne of that city on condition of accepting the council of Chalcedon. The Monophysites had gradually become less averse from the substance of that council's doctrine; and Heraclius was led to hope that the schism might be healed if the Catholics would grant that, although our Lord had two natures, yet He had only one will and operation.t When in Lazica, in the year 626, the emperor related the course of his negotiations to Cyrus, bishop of Phasis, who, as the question was new to him, wrote to ask the opinion of Sergius. He was told by the patriarch, in reply, that the Church had pronounced no decision on the point; that Cyril of Alexandria and other approved fathers had spoken of "one life-giving operation of Christ, our very God;" that Mennas had used similar expressions; that he was mistaken in supposing Leo the Great to have taught two operations, and that Sergius was not aware of any other authority for for so speaking." Cyrus was convinced by this letter. Through the emperor's favour, he was soon after promoted to the patriarchate of Alexandria, and in 633 effected the reunion of the Theodosians, a Monophysite sect, with the Church, by means of a compromise which was embodied in nine articles.* In the seventh of these it was said that our Lord "wrought the acts appertaining both to God and to man by one theandric (i. e. divinely-human) operation"-an expression for which the authority of the writings ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite was alleged." The Monophysites regarded the terms of union as matter of triumph. "It is not we," they said, "who have gone over to the council of Chalcedon; it is the council that has come over to us.”2 Sophronius, a learned monk, who was then at Alexandria, was greatly alarmed on seeing the articles. He uttered a loud cry, threw himself at the patriarch's feet, and, with a profusion of

A.D. 630.

theandric, but to the statement that the operation was single. (Pagi, xi. 273-4.) In the passage of Dionysius (Ep. 4, Opera, ii. 75. ed. Corderius, Antwerp, 1634), they read " a new theandric operation"-kawy (instead of μíav) Tiva τὴν θεανδρικὴν ἐνέργειαν ἡμῖν πεπολιτευ μévos. But although this reading was correct, the singular number and the epithet "new were in favour of the Monothelites. Dorner, ii. 208.

Theophan. 274-5, ed. Paris.

tears, implored him, by the Saviour's passion, not to sanction such Apollinarian doctrines. Cyrus proposed to refer the matter to Sergius, and the monk, furnished with a letter to the patriarch of Constantinople, proceeded to the imperial city. Although himself a Monothelite, Sergius did not consider agreement in his opinion necessary as a condition of orthodoxy. In conversation with Sophronius, he dwelt on the importance of regaining the Monophysites throughout the Egyptian patriarchate; he asked the mouk to produce any express authority for speaking of two operations in Christ; and, as Sophronius could not do this, the patriarch obtained from him a promise to let the question rest. Sergius then wrote to Cyrus, desiring him to forbid all discussion on the subject, lest the late union of parties should be endangered.

A.D. 634.

66

one

In the following year, Sophronius became patriarch of Jeṛusalem. He seems to have felt that he was thus released from his promise that the silence which might have been proper in a humble monk would be treachery to the faith in the occupant of a patriarchal throne. On hearing of his elevation, Sergius took the alarm, and, without waiting for the formal announcement of it, wrote to Honorius of Rome, detailing the previous history of the question. The pope, in his answer, echoed the opinions of his correspondent; he not only agreed with him as to the expediency of enforcing silence, but in a personal profession of Monothelism :-" We confess," he says, will of our Lord Jesus Christ, forasmuch as it is evident that that which was assumed by the Godhead was our nature, not the sin which is in it-our nature as it was created before sin, not as it was corrupted by transgression." After discussing St. Paul's words as to the will of the flesh and the will of the mind, he concludes that the Saviour had not the fleshly will; and he spoke of the question as to two operations as one fit only for grammarians." Sophronius, in his enthronistic letter, set forth very fully, and with great ability, the doctrine of the Incarnation, with special reference to the controversy which had arisen." He admits the word theandric, this jointly with the Divine will. See Dorner, ii. 232.

a Maximus ap. Baron. xi. 647.

b It is said that Sophronius afterwards, in a work which is now lost, produced six hundred passages from the fathers in favour of his doctrine. Hefele, iii. 132.

Serg. ad Honor. ap. Hard. iii. 1316. d Neand. v. 247. e Hard. iii. 1312-7.

f Ib. 1320. The answer is obviousthat, as a part of the sinless nature, He took the innocent human will, and had

Baronius boldly attempts to justify Honorius (633. 32. seqq.). Pagi gives up the pope's language and conduct, but maintains his personal orthodoxy, xi. 285-298, 390-2. See Combefis, 33-6; Walch, ix. 125-6; Schröckh, xx. 402; Döllinger, i. 157; Hefele, iii. 137.

h Hard. iii. 1257-96; Hefele, iii. 139. The extant works of Sophronius are in vol. lxxxvii. pt. 3, of the Patrol. Gr.

but applies it to the joint action of both natures in the Divinelyhuman Person-an application different from that in which it had been used by Sergius and his partisans. Honorius obtained from the envoys who conveyed this letter to Rome a promise that their master would give up speaking of two wills, if Cyrus would cease to speak of one will; but the controversy was not to be so easily appeased.

A.D. 637.

The siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Arabs may be supposed to have soon after engrossed the attention of Sophronius; and he did not long survive." But before his death he led Stephen, bishop of Dor, the first of his suffragans, to Calvary, and there, in the most solemn manner, charged him, by the thoughts of the crucifixion and of the last judgment, to repair to Rome, and never to rest until he should have obtained a condemnation of the Monothelite doctrine."

The distractions of the church continued, and in 639, Heraclius, unwarned by the ill success of his predecessors in such measures, put forth, at the suggestion of Sergius, an edict composed by the patriarch, which bore the title of Ecthesis, or Exposition of the faith. After stating the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, it proceeded to settle the controversy by forbidding the discussion of the question as to one or two operations. All operation suitable either to God or to man (it was said) proceeds from the same one incarnate Word. To speak of a single operation, although the phrase had been used by certain fathers, caused trouble to some; to speak of two operations, was an expression unsupported by any authority of approved teachers, and gave offence to many, as suggesting the idea of two opposite wills. The impious Nestorius himself, although he divided the Person of the Saviour, had not spoken of two wills; one will was to be confessed, agreeably to the doctrine of the holy fathers, forasmuch as the Saviour's manhood never produced any motion contrary to the inclination of his Godhead." Even if the Ecthesis had not in its substance been thus evidently partial to the Monothelites, no satisfactory result could have been reasonably expected from a document which aimed at putting an end to differences by concealing them, or from a policy which, in silencing both parties, necessarily favoured the more subservient, while it was galling to the more

A.D. 640.

The Ecthesis was approved by councils at Constantinople under Sergius and his successor Pyrrhus, and at Alexandria under Cyrus.a The patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem, suffering under the oppression of the Arabs, were in no condition to oppose it. But Honorius of Rome was dead; his successor, Severinus (whose pontificate lasted only two months, and was chiefly remarkable for the plunder of the papal treasures by the exarch of Ravenna '), appears to have rejected the new formulary;" and the next pope, John IV., with a council, certainly did so. Heraclius hereupon wrote to John, disowning the authorship of the Ecthesis; it had, he said, been drawn up by Sergius some years before, and he had only consented to issue it at the patriarch's urgent entreaty.t

X

Heraclius died in February 641, leaving the empire jointly to "Constantine, son of his first marriage, and Heracleonas, the offspring of his second marriage with his niece Martina." Constantine survived his father little more than three months, and Martina then attempted to rule in the name of her son; but the senate, backed by the army and by the inhabitants of the capital, deposed her and Heracleonas, as guilty of the death of Constantine, whose son, Constans II., was then set on the throne. On this revolution the patriarch Pyrrhus, who was regarded as an accomplice of Martina, thought it expedient to abandon his dignity, and sought a refuge in Africa. There he met with Maximus, a man of noble Byzantine family, who, after having been a secretary of state under Heraclius, had embraced the monastic profession, and became the ablest controversialist in opposition to Monothelism." In 645, a disputation was held between the two, in the presence of Gregory, governor of the province, with many bishops and other eminent persons. Pyrrhus started with the proposition that, as the Saviour's person is one, He could have but one will; to which Maximus replied that, as He is both God and man, each of his natures must have its own proper will. The discussion was long, and was carried on with much acuteness; but, in addition to the superiority of his cause,

* Nic. Cpol. 19-20; Gibbon. iv. 402-2. Nic. Cpol. 21; Theophanes, 508; Cedren. 430; Gibbon, iv. 402.

z Baron. 640. 5; Dupin, vi. 43; Walch, ix. 194. His works, among which are commentaries on the pseudoDionysius, were edited by Combefis, Paris, 1675, and are reprinted in the Patrol. Gr.

a Printed at the end of Baronius, vol, xi. See Dorner, ii. 222-3.