st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

"
"
"
"
4 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
the same time that Mahomet entered on his career.
Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, had noticed, in
a letter ascribed to his predecessor, Mennas, the ex
pression, "one will and one life-giving operation,"
applied to the Saviour. Being struck with it,
he
consulted Theodore, Bishop of Pharan, in Arabia
;
a
person," says Robertson, 1 of whom "
nothing
is
known except in connection with this controversy,
but who, from the reference thus made to him, may
be supposed to have enjoyed an eminent character
for learning, and to have been as yet unsuspected of
any error in doctrine and as
;
Theodore approved the
words, the patriarch adopted them, and had some
correspondence with other persons on the subject."
The opposite, Qidyotkelete view, was that the faculty
of willing is inherent in each of our Lord s natures ;
although, as his person is one, the two wills act in
the same direction the human will being exercised
in accordance with the divine. One of the ablest
champions of the orthodox, or dyothelete view, was
Maximus, a man of a noble Byzantine family, whose
career was not unlike that of Damascenus himself.
He had been first secretary,"
or secretary of state,
under the Emperor Heraclius, and, like the one just
mentioned, had a prospect of high preferment at
court. But he, too, determined to embrace the
monastic life, and became the zealous and untiring
opposer of monotheletism. Neander s analysis of his
religious system may help the reader to form a better
conception of the grounds on which the twofold
1 "
Christian Church," vol. ii., p. 42.