Thursday, April 21, 2005

Marx and monophysitism

It occurred to me during Music Appreciation last night that Monophysitism has a certain similarity to the Hegelian dialectic as used by Marx.

Monophysites, begun by the cleric Eutyches, hold that Christ's nature is neither fully human nor fully divine, but a mingling of the two. Just as a drop of honey dissolves in the ocean, so His humanity is swallowed up in His divinity. Just as the honey and water is neither honey nor water, but honey-water, so is Christ a God-man.

This view was refuted as a heresy by the Council of Chalcedon, called in 451. A number of the old Eastern churches, including Egypt's Coptic church, still hold it.

The dialectic, at its simplest, is a thesis and anthesis, which clash and produce a third thing, which is the synthesis. The synthesis becomes a new thesis, which spawns a new antithesis and new clash, and it keeps going.

I am not, for the record, accusing Copts of holding a Marxist Christology...

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