st renounce all secular interests
and "go out of the world." The path of renunciation had an additional
claim on the Christological monist. In his universal ideal, as
manifested in time, the human elements were sublimated into the divine.
Consequently his ideal of conduct imposed a negative attitude towards
the world and a merging of his ego in the universal spirit. These are
the ruling elements in the spirit of the cloister, and these are the
characteristics of the monophysite ethos.

Those men, to whom God is the sum of all reality and the world merely a
cosmic shadow, regard worship as the sole worthy activity of the human
spirit. In worship union with God is sought, a union so close that the
personality of the worshipper is absorbed into the being of the
worshipped. His experience of God is so intimate that his experience
of the world is reduced to insignificance. As an overpowering human
love welds two beings into one, and identifies their thoughts, wills,
springs of action and even feelings, so the _amor dei_ identifies man
with God and makes possible a deification of humanity. Deeply
religious natures in all ages have heard this mystic call. To lose
their ego in the divine spirit is the height of their religious
ambition. The conception is lofty, but it is not the Christian ideal
of life and duty.

Mysticism and monophysitism are twin systems. Both are religious
phases of pantheism. As, to the intellect, acosmism is the corollary
of pantheism, so, to the heart, asceticism follows from mysticism.
Whether conceived in terms of existence or of value, the world for the
mystic is an obstacle to the _unio mystica_. It snares the mind
through the senses and creates a fictitious -appearance of solid
reality in sensuous objects. It makes pretensions to goodness and
attaches to itself a spurious value. The only remedy is self-denial,
denial of existence to the world, denial of credence to the senses,
denial of gratification to the passions, desires, and inclinations.
The monophysites were mystics. They were the rigorists of the eastern
church. They formed the "no compromise" party. They stood for a
thorough-going renunciation of the world and the flesh. Though they
did not officially lay down the inherent evil of matter, Manicheanism
is latent in their system. They did not explicitly identify matter
with the spirit of evil, but they had the spiritual man's suspicion of
matter and his contempt for the b