Christ's Two Natures: Exaggeration of Unity -> Rejection of Equality

 

Monophysites taught that, after the union of the divine and the human in the historical Incarnation, Jesus Christ, as the incarnation of the eternal Son or Word (Logos) of God, had only a single "nature" which was either divine or a synthesis of divine and human.

Two schools of Monophysite thought emerged in the early history of the church:
1. Eutychianism holds that the human and divine natures of Christ were fused into one new single (mono) nature: His human nature was "dissolved like a drop of honey in the sea".
2. Apollinarism (or Apollinarianism) holds that Christ had a human body and human "living principle" but that the Divine Logos had taken the place of the nous, or "thinking principle", analogous but not identical to what might be called a mind in the present day.

 

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