5. The Trullan Councils
fended the Monothelite standpoint.
He appealed to the letter of Mennas to
Vigilius, to Vigilius's letters to Justin
ian and Theodore, all of which were
declared by the Roman representatives to be fab
ricated by the Monothelites. The patriarch of Con
stantinople,
supported by his bishops, was openly
in favor of the views of Agatho. Pope Vitalian's
name was restored to the diptychs, Maoarius and
his supporter Stephanus were deposed for falsification
of documents and for heresy. In the thirteenth
session, on Mar. 28, Pope Honorius, along with sev
eral of the recent patriarchs of Constantinople, all
of whom had been condemned in a letter from
Agatho, were anathematized by the counc Hon
orius was placed with the other Monothel~ lead
ers, because the council considered that his letter
to Sergius proved that he was a Monothelite him
self and
established his godless teaching. All com
promise plans were rejected, and the synod would
hear nothing of the patriarch's attempts to save
the reputations of his predecessors. In the eight
eenth session, a dogmatic decree was accepted,
acknowledging the teaching of two natural wills
and two natural energies, but stating that the two
natural wills are not opposed. Rather the human
will follows and is subordinate to the divine will.
In accordance with the doctrine of Athanasius,
that Christ's body is called and is the body of the
divine Logos, the natural will of his body is called
and is the proper will of the Logos; just as his
holy, sinless, rational body is not done away with
by the deification but continues in its own proper
limitations and relations, so by the deification the
human will is not destroyed but preserved. Agatho
died before the council concluded its sessions.
Macarius who was sent to Rome for instruction,
refused to retract, and with his adherents was
imprisoned in a monastery. The second Trullan Coun-
cil of 692 accepted the acts of the first. One emperor, Philippicus Bardanes (711-713), attempted
to reestablish Monothelitism, but unsuccessfully.
The Monothelite discussion may be considered a
sequence of the Monophysite controversy. An important point, however, to notice is that correct
diphysite opinion had not previously led to diothelite
consequences. Sergius in his letter to Cyrus
of Phasis makes a good deal of this
6. Basis in fact and insists that no evidence for
Patristic the expression "two energies" can be
Dogmatics. found in earlier teachers. Although
this statement is not true, as several
authorities used it (Eustathius, MPG, Ixxxvi. 1, 909
B; Justinian, ib. 1149A), yet Sergius was correct in
pointing out the lack of recognized patristic examples. His case is still better as concerns the use of
the term "two wills." Apparently it had not
been
a matter of debate to any considerable extent;
Eulogius of Alexandria is the only writer who made
the question the subject of polemical discussion
(MPG, 1xxxvi. 2, 2939-44). Interest in it seems
to have been limited to Alexandria. Sergius was
not aware of the existence of this work of Eulogius and it escaped the notice even of Photius.
It can not be said that the monergistic question
was decided in the time of Justinian along lines
identical with those of its latest settlement. It
is true, though, that the Leonine teaching concerning the dual nature logically admits of two
natural energies. Indeed Sergius may be accused
of quibbling when he appeals to Leo for support,
since that pope had never used the expression " two
energies." It must be allowed, though, that the
point of departure for the monergistic view was in
no way unorthodox. It is fair to contend that as
from the moment of the Incarnation the personal
center in which the human nature subsists and
grows is the person of the Logos, all that Christ
says or does can be ascribed to the one energy of
the God-man. Good patristic precedent is found
for this position, especially the passage appealed
to by Sergius and his supporters from Dionysius,
where the expression "one theandric energy" is
used (MPG, iii. 1072C), and the passage from Cyril,
where, in commenting on
Luke viii. 54,
he had
spoken of Christ's "showing through both, namely,
the commanding word and the touch with the
hand, one correlated energy" (MPG, lxxiii. 577C).
The idea of
the monergists was that there is one
sole source for all the actions of the God-man, that
is, the divine nature. The impulses of this source
are carried out through the rational human soul
and through the human body. The acts and activities of Christ, they claimed, do not have their
origin in the human nature, as this does not subsist for itself. There is one energy, its creator God,
its instrument humanity; there is one will and that
divine. Sergius could claim orthodoxy for his statement that the body of the Lord, endowed with
soul and spirit, carried out its natural motions according to the measure of the divine will. And he
could say that as man's body is controlled by his
rational soul, so with Christ the whole complex of
his human nature is always under the control of
the Godhead.
The objections to the unity of the "energy" are
concerned with the involved necessity that the dis
tinctively human element with its self-determined
activity would be done away; human nature would
be
reduced to a dead organ, without soul, or, at
least, without reason. On this account
