CHAPTER VI
MONOPHYSISM
Now we go back to the 5th century and take up again the story of the great Christological controversy, of which the first part is the Council of Ephesus and the condemnation of Nestorius. The second part is Monophysism. But it is all one story. Monophysism, the extreme opposite of Nestorianism, begins merely as an ardent opposition to that heresy. The first Monophysites were the men who cried loudest for the faith of Ephesus and of Cyril. It is difficult to say exactly when they begin. They exist certainly before the Nestorian quarrel is settled. The Monophysite sects come out (on the other side) of the same turmoil which produced the Nestorians. They are vastly more important. Nestorianism was soon crushed, expelled from the empire, which it never again troubled; it became one sect in Persia. Monophysism made an appalling disturbance throughout the whole Eastern Empire for about two centuries, and then settled down in not one but four great national Churches. All the lesser schismatical Eastern Churches, except the one we have discussed, are Monophysite.
1. The First Monophysites
There is no one man who stands out as the founder of Monophysism, as Nestorius is the founder of his heresy. This accounts for the different kinds of name the two great Christological errors bear. Nestorianism is called after a man. Monophysism is a defini-
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