Marek Jankowiak - The Invention of Dyotheletism

Recent works by Uthemann and Hovorun have firmly rooted Monothelete theology in the Neochalcedonian background of the sixth century. Far from being a device contrived to lure the Monophysites into a union with the Imperial Church, the doctrine of one will in Christ evolved from the speculations of late sixth-century Chalcedonian theologians such as Anastasius patriarch of Antioch or Theodore of Raithu/Pharan. In this context, it seems legitimate to reconsider the beginnings of the rival position, that of the Dyotheletes. What was the prehistory of Maximus the Confessor’s engagement with the doctrine of two wills?

Through a close reading of several key texts from the first period of the Monothelete controversy in the 630s, I will try to expound the gradual emergence of the Dyothelete position. Two letters of Sophronius dating from 635, the very year of Honorius’ fateful letter to Sergius of Constantinople where the teaching of one will was for the first time set forth in an authoritative way, demonstrate that the problem of the wills was at that juncture marginal to the new patriarch of Jerusalem. The situation changed only several years later, around 641, the likely date of two texts illustrating the earliest stage of Dyothelete thought. Strikingly, they take very different roads to defend Honorius’ formulation and to provide the teaching of the two wills with a solid theological foundation. Maximus, in the opusculum 20 to Marinus of Cyprus, argued that while Honorius was referring to Christ’s divine will, he did not rule out the existence of an undefiled human will. At the same time, Pope John IV, in his letter to the sons of Heraclius known as the “Apologia pro Honorio”, chose an opposite approach, pleading that Honorius’ single will was Christ’s human will. In his interpretation, the use of the word “single” was only meant to emphasize that Christ was exempt from the human struggle between bodily and spiritual desires.

These are not mere theological subtleties. A study of these texts sheds new light on the origins of the Dyothelete theology, and thus leads to a reassessment of the Monothelete controversy.