tions as fused in the fire of divine feeling, His
body as a phantom. They could not admit that He lived the real life of
a real man. They could not see the value of such a life.
Neo-Platonism had paralysed their optic nerve. Thinkers such as the
Christologians of Alexandria, imbued with the spirit of Neo-Platonism,
had no motive for preserving the distinct subsistence of Christ's human
nature. It was their boast that their Ideal had faced and overcome and
trampled on the lower elements of His being. He was a proof from fact
that body and sense and all that is distinctively human could be
sublimated into the universal substance, which is the primary effluence
of the Plotinian One. In a word, the incarnate Christ was, to them,
the personification of the Neo-Platonist _unio mystica_.

We may conclude this comparison of monophysitism with Neo-Platonism by
pointing out that the two systems had a similar bearing on the conduct
of life. Neo-Platonism was a religion. Its speculative aspect was
subordinate to its practical. A knowledge of the soul's position in
creation and of its destiny laid the philosopher under strict
obligation. Fasting and self-denial were essential preliminaries to
the higher mystic practices. Ecstasy could not be reached until body
and sense had been starved into complete submission. Monophysitism
adopted this tradition, and made ascesis the central duty of the
Christian life. The monophysite church became celebrated for the
length and rigidity of its fasts. The monastic element dominated its
communion. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that the monophysite
movement, on its external side, was an attempt to capture the Church
for monastic principles. The heresy drew its inspiration from the
cloister. The Christ of the monophysites had withdrawn from the market
to the wilderness; so His followers must needs go out of the world to
follow in His steps.

[1] Harnack, "History of Dogma," vol. iv. chap. ii. p. 160.

CHAPTER III

MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINE

The distinctive doctrine of monophysitism, that from which the name of
the heresy is taken, is the assertion that there is but one nature, the
divine nature, in Christ. There existed some difference of opinion
among the monophysites as to whether any degree of reality might be
ascribed to the human nature. Some were prepared to allow it
conceptual reality; they would grant that Christ had been diphysite
momentarily, that He was