Monophysitism
MONOPHYSITISM, meaning "one nature" and referring to the person of Jesus Christ, is the name given to the rift that gradually developed in Eastern Christendom after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. While the definition agreed upon at the council laid down that Christ should be acknowledged "in two natures," human and divine, the properties of each nature retaining their identity, the Monophysites held that after the incarnation the two natures became one, so that all the thoughts and acts of the Savior were those of a single unitary being, God in Christ.
The germ of Monophysitism may be found in the logos-sarx (Word-flesh) theology of the Alexandrian church. The question of how Christ's personality should be acknowledged could not be avoided, however, once the Creed of Nicaea (325) confessed that he was "of one substance with the Father." If this was so, how was Christ to be considered of one substance with man? Fifty years later, the answer was given uncompromisingly by Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea in Syria, a friend of Athanasius and an Alexandrian-trained theologian. Scripture, he maintained, emphasized that Christ was "one." In De fide et incarnatione he wrote, "There is no distinction in Holy Scripture between the Word and His flesh; He is one energy, one person, one hypostasis [individuality], at once wholly God and wholly man." This exactly summed up what was to become the Monophysite position: Christ was "out of two natures," one.
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