Monothelitism
EDWARD EPSEN
The teaching that the person of Christ has “one will” or voluntative activity was promulgated by Patriarch Sergius in his statement entitled Psephos (633), and officially endorsed by Emperor Heraclius in his Ekthesis (638) in an effort (given the increasingly fragile state of Byzantine imperial unity) to appease the monophy- sites of Armenia, Syria, and Egypt without abandoning the Council of Chalcedon (451). With origins lying in the writings of Theodore of Pharas and Cyrus of Phasis, the appeal of Monothelitism owed to its apparent consistency with the Chalcedo- nian confession of “two natures ... in one person.” Nevertheless, while having two natures, might not the oneness of Christ’s person be manifested in a single voluntative activity? St. Maximos the Confessor argued that this approach confused the agreement of two wills with their identity, and confused the activity of willing with the condition willed. Drawing on the example of the prayer in Gethsamene, Maximos articulated the orthodox dythelite (two wills) position eventually upheld by the Sixth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople III, 681) that the Savior, in accordance with his two natures, willed as human that his own divine will (which he shares with the Father) should be fulfilled.
SEE ALSO: Council of Constantinople III (680–681); St. Maximos the Confessor (580–662)
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Lethel, F.-M. (1979) Theologie de l’agonie du christ. Theologie historique 52. Paris: Beauchesne.
Maximos the Confessor (1865) Opuscula 3,6, & 7 in J. P. Migne (ed.) Opuscula theologica etpolemica. Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 91, pp. 10–286. Paris.