room for spontaneous feeling, springing from His own nature, the
necessary concomitant of thought and will. Impassibility is a
comprehensive attribute. Originally negative, it soon acquired a rich
positive connotation. An impassible God is one who is outside space
and time. The attribute connotes creative power, eternity, infinity,
permanence. A passible God is corruptible, _i.e._ susceptible to the
processes of becoming, change, and decay. If to-day theists have to be
on their guard against debased conceptions of deity, in the plausible
garb of an "invisible king," of a finite or suffering God, much more
was such caution necessary in the early centuries of the Christian era.
Christians who came daily and hourly into contact with polytheistic
beliefs and practices had to be very jealous for the concept of
impassibility. It represented to them all that was distinctive in the
highest region of their Faith.

Monophysitism, as we proceed to show, compromised this article of the
Faith. Its adherents did not, perhaps, do so intentionally. In fact,
the first generation of monophysites maintained that their definition
safeguarded the impassibility. It was zeal for the honour of the Son
of God that induced them to deny Him all contact with humanity. Their
good intentions, however, could not permanently counteract the evil
inherent in their system. In later generations the evil came to the
surface. Theopaschitism, the doctrine that openly denies the
impassibility of the godhead, flourished in the monophysite churches.

MONISM ENTAILS A DEBASED CONCEPTION OF DEITY

The metaphysical basis of monophysitism made this result inevitable.
Extremes meet. Extreme spirituality readily passes into its opposite.
It cuts the ground from under its own feet. It soars beyond its
powers, and falls into the mire of materialism. Illustrations of this
fact can be found in the history of philosophy. The Stoics, for
instance, contrived to be both pantheists and materialists. Coming
nearer to our own time, we find Hegelianism explained in diametrically
opposite ways. After Hegel's death his disciples split into opposing
camps; one party maintained that the real was spirit, the other that it
was matter. Each party claimed the authority of the master for their
view. The divergence is easy to explain. From spiritual monism it is
a short step to materialistic monism. For the monist, all is on one
level of being. He may by cons