What is monophysitism? Question: "What is monophysitism?"
Monophysitism is an erroneous or heretical view concerning the
nature of Jesus Christ. Its name comes from a combination of the
Greek words monos, meaning “one” or ”alone,” and physis, meaning
“nature.” According to this view, Christ had only a single
divine nature instead of two natures, one divine and one human,
as set forth in the orthodox or Chalcedonian position of the
hypostatic union of Christ. This view is also sometimes known as
Eutychianism, after Eutyches, a 5th-century leader of a
monastery in Constantinople. In response to Nestorianism (the
belief that there were two separate persons in Christ, a human
person and a divine person), Eutyches taught that Jesus’
humanity was essentially dissolved or obliterated by His divine
nature, describing it as being “dissolved like a drop of honey
in the sea.” An analogy that might help explain what he meant is
a drop of ink put into a glass of water. The result is a mixture
that is not pure water or pur