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Theology Terms Tuesday – Monophysitism.

January 5, 2010 at 5:01 pm | Posted in Christology, Theological Terms, Trinity | Leave a Comment

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last two weeks. I decided to take a little blogging break over the holiday. Much needed rest was needed. Anyway, I am cooking up some ideas for a new series for our weekly terms in mean time enjoy this fun term as well as some history:

Monophysitism.

Derived from monos, “single,” and physis, “nature,” monophysitism is the doctrine which holds that the incarnate Christ had only a single, divine nature, clad in human flesh. It is sometimes called Eutchianism, after Eutyches (d.454), one of its leading defenders. Since the Council of Chalcedon, which confirmed as orthodox the doctrine of two natures, divine and human, monophysitism has been considered heretical. Its roots probably go back to Apollinaris (ca. 370), who laid tremendous stress on the fusion of the divine and human. Alexandria became the citadel of this doctrine, and Cyril, although deemed orthodox, furnished fule for the fire kindled by his successor, Dioscorus, and Eutyches, who denied that Christ’s body was the same in essence as the bodies of men. Their chief opponent was Leo I of Rome, whose formulation of the doctrine of two natures in one persone triumphed at Chalcedon.