May 1980 Print

 
by Pastor Historicus

Monothelitism & The African Heresies

The Council of Chalcedon did not find complete approval, particularly in the eastern provinces of the Empire. Many of these provinces remained firmly monophysite. In fact, following the Persian invasion of the Middle East all the captured provinces were monophysite. This was around AD 620.

The Emperor Heraclius was, however, able to recapture the lost provinces from the Persians and set about trying to restore religious harmony between Catholics and Monophysites. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Sergius, was ready to help. A few years earlier he had devised his own "version" of Trinitarian belief. Sergius won over the Patriarch of Alexandria, a monophysite, to his own views. However, once again, there was a champion of orthodoxy to hand. This was a learned monk of Alexandria named Sophronius. He became Patriarch of Jerusalem. Sergius wrote to the Pope about his own teaching and what was happening. His teaching was that although it was true to talk of Christ being "in two natures," He worked His divine and human works by one Theandric operation (i.e. there is only one will in Christ). The Pope, in his replies to Sergius and Sophronius, showed that he had no real grasp of the theological issues and ordered both sides to remain silent.

The Emperor then issued a exposition of the heresy to be enforced throughout the Empire. This is known as the "Ecthesis" of Heraclius. It states bluntly that there is but one will in Christ. In 649 a new Pope, St. Martin, called a synod and condemned Sergius and the Ecthesis. He declared there are "two natural wills, the Divine and human, and two natural operations, the Divine and human." The new Emperor, Constans, a monothelite, was furious and seized the Pope by force. He later died of his hardships in exile in the Crimea.

Finally, orthodoxy triumphed in the Council of Constantinople in AD 680. Some of the key words are "We also preach two natural wills in Him and two natural operations, without division, without change, without separation, without partition, without confusion . . . And two natural wills, not contrary as impious heretic assert, but His human will following His divine and omnipotent will, not resisting it but rather subject to it."

The African Heresies

We now turn back a few centuries to consider a group of three heresies that were found largely in North Africa. They have one thing in common, that St. Augustine of Hippo was involved in dealing with them.

Donatism

This heresy had its origins in the ending of the persecutions of Catholics at the turn of the Third Century. Donatus was a Bishop in Numidia. The troubles arose because of squabbles between those who had been imprisoned for their faith and those who remained free and were accused of apostasy in the face of the enemy. Among those accused were certain bishops. The Donatists claimed that apostasy meant such a great fall from Grace that they had lost all their spiritual power. They could no longer be a means of Grace—no longer baptize or ordain. Where priests and bishops had been ordained by apostates they lacked valid orders. True Catholic doctrine is that the unworthiness of the minister does NOT affect the validity of his administration of the Sacraments, which operate ex opere operate (literally, "from the work worked").

This heresy dragged on for one hundred years. There was a weird off-shoot known as the "Circumcellions." They were a militant band of fanatics, self-appointed judges of social inequality and rigourists in matters of morals. They roamed around the country with cudgels and ravaged the estates of the wealthy, compelling assent with terror. Sorne demanded to be killed in order "to die for their faith"! However, it was often true Catholics who died at their hands and it was common practice among these vandals to throw out the Blessed Sacrament from a church if they knew that Mass there was said by a true Catholic priest.

In today's world, we have a near parallel with "Catholic" guerillas who make common cause with the Communists and seek to overthrow lawful governments by violence where they consider social inequalities exist. These groups also claim their own martyrs. One was a priest known as "Camillo Torres," who became a guerilla and was later shot.

The classic defense against the Donatists is to be found in the works of St. Augustine (De Baptismo iv 18): "Wherefore anyone who is on the devil's side cannot defile the sacrament which is of Christ . . . When baptism is administered in the words of the Gospel, however great be the perverseness of either minister or recipient, the sacrament itself is holy on His account Whose sacrament it is."

The Manichees

Before his conversion, St. Augustine was for a time a Manichee. The heresy is, in fact, another variety of Gnosticism originating in Persia and very close to Mithraism described earlier. The founder, named Mani, preached his pernicious doctrine around the year AD 240. There is the dual origin of life and two supreme principles, one good and one evil. There is only one way in which Manicheeism differs significantly from Gnosticism. The Manichees were divided into two groups. First there were the elect, who were bound to a severe moral code including prohibitions of certain foods and drinks, and even of marriage. But then there were the "Hearers" who accepted the system and would one day qualify for salvation by passing into the ranks of the Elect but who until then had nothing else to do except hold fast to their resolution to do so. St. Augustine, as a young man, was intellectually satisfied with a system which claimed to "know" everything and appeared as a complete academic scheme, which would, however, allow the moral disorders of his life to continue as a mere "Hearer." The "Hearers" were notorious for their immorality.

Manicheeism was condemned time and time again—by St. Leo the Great, by the 2nd Lateran Council (1139), and the 3rd Lateran Council (1179). In the fourth century the Church in Spain was nearly destroyed, due to the activities of a Manichee known as Priscillian. But the worst outbreak of all occurred in the 13th century and is known as the Albigensian heresy, which we will look at later.

Looking at today's situation we can see the new Manichees or "Hearers" in the Church claiming that there is no real sin at all provided you have a "fundamental option" to please God. Witness those who seek to re-admit divorced and re-married Catholics to the Sacraments, those who condone methods of birth control and all forms of sexual vice. These obnoxious individuals claim that a "stable loving relationship" is all that is needed. We can only hope that they will see the true evil in all this before they go to face their Creator, just as St. Augustine did all those centuries ago.

Pelagius

Pelagius was a monk from Britain who came to Africa in 410, fleeing from Alaric who was about to sack Rome. With him came his friend, Celestius, who sought ordination and was refused. He turned to Ephesus where he found a bishop foolish enough to ordain him. Celestius then returned to Carthage to spread his errors in Africa, while Pelagius moved to Jerusalem. He was opposed tooth and nail by the great Biblical scholar, St. Jerome, and eventually his heresy was condemned at the Council of Carthage in 418. Even after this date the heresy continued in the hands of Julian, Bishop of Eclanum, and it was the needs of this moment—the opposition to the heresy, that drew from St. Augustine his great work, The City of God. The Pelagians started by denying original sin. They denied that death and concupiscence arise from Adam's fall. Adam's sin affected his offspring only as a bad example. In no way, they taught, has human nature suffered by Adam's fall. Pelagius went on to say that man is able by his ordinary powers to avoid sin and reach heaven, that the Law is the equal of the Gospel as a guide to heaven, and that man by training his will can live without sin. With this system Baptism is something external, nothing to do with original sin but the stimulus of a moral lesson. The Redemption itself is emptied of its main significance and becomes a wonder out of proportion with its object. In summary man can do everything by himself by training his will. This is a return to pagan stoicism with its harsh pride. Julian, while not quite going to the extremes of Pelagius, taught that man by natural good works could deserve Grace and that once in the state of Grace man does not need gratuitous Grace from God.

The Council of Carthage stated against Pelagius that death in Adam and us is the result of sin, that children need baptism as a result of Original Sin, that Grace is needed not just for the knowledge of God's commandments but also the strength to obey them. Also that without Grace it is impossible to perform good works.

We do not have far to look to see that Pelagianism is still alive and well and spreading its ugly tentacles around today! With many so-called Catholic teachers and preachers, the doctrine of Original Sin has disappeared. Human nature was never weakened because no actual "fall of Adam" took place. With Original Sin going out, the doctrine of the Redemption also falls down. The coming of Christ is often portrayed by these writers as merely the attempt to show men an example of how to live their lives properly. The avoidance of bad habits is reduced to a matter of proper education and the use of an informed conscience. The word "Grace" has fallen out of favor and has been replaced with the ambiguous "love." Furthermore, the whole mission of Christ on earth, the great work of Redemption, is now termed "Good News," another vague term. With the absence of a true Redemption, and no Original Sin, these modern writers reduce Baptism, as Pelagius did, to a ceremonial action, simply an initiation rite into the Church. These writers lay great stress on the idea that "everything will be all right" once people are educated properly to listen to the "good news."

The Iconoclasts

Iconoclasm owes its origin to the ending of the persecutions in the same way as Donatism. The Romans had at one time insisted on the worship of statues of the emperors or idols of the gods. These idols or statues were thus put on the same plane as the "brazen images" in the Book of Exodus. The Jews, when they fell away from the worship of the true God, fell to worshipping idols. So the early iconoclasts claimed that it was wrong to make icons or statues of Our Lord, Our Lady, or the saints. They claimed that this was forbidden in Scripture. In fact, the use of images and icons probably dates from the first century. There may have been a tendency in some places to worship the pictures in themselves, but this is very doubtful. The custom spread after the ending of the persecutions of placing icons and pictures in churches. The use of Holy Pictures was defended by Leontius, Bishop of Neopolis in AD 590. He pointed out that the reverence paid to them is purely relative, the prostrations before them, and the place of honor given to them in the churches are directed to the personage they represent.

The Monophysites and the Manichees opposed the placing of images in churches and it is possible that the Emperor, Leo III, who decreed the removal of religious images in 726 was, in fact, a Monophysite. When the Patriarch of Constantinople refused to obey his decrees he was deposed. The Emperor sent troups to arrest the Pope who also refused to accept the decree. However, the troops were lost in a storm at sea on their way over. The defense of the faith fell to yet another great figure, St. John Damascene, who not only attacked the iconoclasts but also objected strongly to the Emperor meddling in the affairs of the Church.

After Leo died in 741 he was succeeded by Constantine Copronymous (literally "Dung-maker," after an accident at his baptism!) who lived up to his name by the virulence of his persecution of Catholics. He decreed that images were to be torn down and in their places should be set up landscapes and pictures of birds and animals. Most of the resistance came from the monks and many were martyred. It even became a criminal offense to pray to the saints or even to use the word "saint." Finally, at Nicea in 787, some years after the death of Constantine Copronymous, a new Council was held. Speaking of images, icons, and statues the Council decrees state: "For the more continually these are observed by means of such representations, so much the more will the beholders be aroused to recollect the original, and to long after them, and to pay to the images the tribute of an embrace and a reverence of honor, not to pay them the actual worship which is according to our faith and which is proper only to the divine nature; but as to the figure of the venerable and life giving cross, and to the holy Gospels and the other sacred monuments, so to those images to accord the honor of incense and oblation of lights as it has been the pious custom of antiquity."

This should have been the end of the affair but as we have seen so often, the troubles lingered on. In 813 there was a violent outburst of iconoclasm led by Emperor Leo V. He exiled the Patriarch of Constantinople and the persecution he started was even worse than under Leo III. Monasteries were sacked, the abbots imprisoned and flogged, some were sewn up in sacks and flung into the sea. The next two emperors kept up the heresy but when a new emperor was only yet a baby, his mother, widow of the persecuting Theophilus, reversed his evil ways with the help of yet another saint, Methodius, who became Patriarch of Constantinople and replaced all the Iconoclast bishops.

We do not have to look very far for 20th-century Iconoclasts in the Catholic Church! Many of our buildings have been stripped not only of their statues and holy pictures, but there has also been a ruthless ripping out of altar rails, reredos, and even altars themselves to accommodate the "new spirit" which demands that the entire concentration should be placed upon a "table" set up to replace the Altar. Of course, not every church building has been desecrated in this way but the damage is almost as great as that which took place when the heresy first started.