In their 2021 Keys over the Christian World, Scott Butler and John Collorafi spend a number of pages discussing Honorius’ letters to Sergius and his subsequent condemnation at the Third Council of Constantinople. The following is of importance as they provide new translations of important works relating to this important incident in Christian history, provided by Collorafi and his translation of sections from Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima Collectio and Migne, Patrologia Graeca:
His first reply to Sergius begins:
We have received the writings of Your Fraternity,
by which we have learned that new questions about words were introduced by a
certain Sophronius—who was then a monk although now . . . he has been made
bishop of Jerusalem—against our brother Cyrus, bishop of Alexandria, who
preaches one operation of our Lord Jesus Christ to those who have converted
from heresy. (Mansi 11:538)
After discussing the union of the two natures in
Christ, Honorius continued:
Wherefore we also confess one will of our Lord
Jesus Christ,
because evidently our nature, nor (our) guilt, was assumed by the divinity—that
(nature), to be sure, which was created before sin, not the son that was vitiated
after the fall. For Christ the Lord, coming in the likeness of the flesh of
sin, took away the sin of the world, and of his fulness we have all received:
and receiving the form of a servant, he was found in habit as a man, because
without sin he was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and also without sin was born
of the holy and immaculate virgin Mother of God, experiencing no contamination of
(our) vitiated nature . . . As we have already said, then, the vitiated nature,
which would war against the law of His mind, was not assumed by the Savior, but
rather He “came to seek and to save what was lost,” that is, the vitiated
nature of the human race. For there was not another law in His members, or a
diverse will, or one contrary to the Savior, because He was born above the law
of the human condition. And although indeed it is written, “I came not to do my
own will, but the will of the Father, who sent me,” and “Father, not my will,
but thine be done,” and other similar things—these are not (written) of a
diverse will, but of the dispensation of the humanity (which He) assumed. For
these things were said for our sake, to whom He gave an example . . . that each
of us might not follow his own will, but rather, in all things, prefer the will
of the Lord. (Mansi 11:539-42)
Returning to the question of one versus two
operations, Honorius added:
. . . neither do canonical authorities appear to
have explained that anyone should presume to preach one or two operations of Christ
God, which neither the words of the Gospel or the apostles nor a synodal examination
about this subject seem to have decided . . . Now whether, because of the works
of the divinity and the humanity, one or two operations should be said or understood
to be derived, these things ought not to pertain to us, leaving them to
grammarians. (Mansi 11:542)
Pope Honorius wrote a second letter to Sergius,
again contending that neither one operation or two operations should be defined:
As far as ecclesiastical dogma is concerned, what
we ought to hold or preach, because of the simplicity of men, and to avoid
inextricable controversies, as we said above, we must not define one or two
operations in the mediator between God and men but must confess each of the
natures joined in the one Christ by a natural union, working in communion with
the other. (Mansi 11:579) (Scott Butler and John Collorafi, Keys Over the
Christian World: The Evidence for Papal Authority (33 AD – 800 AD) from Ancient
Latin, Greek, Chaldean, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopian Documents [State
Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2021], 340-41)
Pope John IV (640-642), successor of Severinus,
sent the emperor a lengthy letter, sometimes called the “apology for Pope Honorius,”
adamantly denying that Honorius was a monothelite:
. . . all the regions of the West are scandalized
(and) disturbed, as our brother Patriarch Pyrrhus . . . is preaching certain
new things, which are outside the rule of faith . . . as if wrestling to his
own understanding our predecessor, Pope Honorius of holy memory—which was
utterly foreign to the mind of the Catholic father . . . Patriarch Sergius, of
reverend memory, signified to the earlier mentioned pontiff of the city of Rome,
of holy memory, that certain individuals were asserting two contrary wills
in our Redeemer, Jesus Christ . . . and therefore, in accordance with the
original formation of Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ deigned to have one nature
will of his humanity, not two contrary ones, as we who are born from the
sin of Adam are recognized to have. (Mansi X, 683).
In response to such speculation, John IV
continued, Honirius had taught one human will in Christ, not “two
contrary wills of the mind and flesh, ascertain heretics are known to assert
madly.” John IV continued his defense of Honorius at some length and made his
own orthodoxy clear by condemning Monothelitism in a council. (Mansi X, 682
sq.)
The pope’s defense of Honorius was substantiated
by the man who had drafted the first letter to Sergius: a Roman abbot
named John Symponus. Not only had Symponus composed the letter to Sergius, he
also drafted John IV’s apology for Honorius. In the disputation with Pyrrhus,
Maximus had adopted this defense of Honorius. The exchange went:
PYRRHUS. “What have you to answer for Honorius,
who openly (wrote) to my predecessor, teaching one will in our Lord Jesus
Christ”?
MAXIMUS. “Who is the trustworthy exegete of this
letter, he who composed it in the person of Honorius, who is still
living, or those at Constantinople, who speak from their own heart?”
PYRRHUS. “He who composed it.”
MAXIMUS. “The same individual (writing) to the
holy Constantine, who became emperor, again in the name of Pope John, who is
among the saints, said that: ‘We spoke of one will in the Lord, not of his
divinity and humanity, but of his humanity alone. For because Sergius had
written that certain individuals were asserting two contradictory wills in
Christ, he answered: ‘We said that Christ had one will, not two contradictory
wills, of the flesh and of the Spirit, as we do after the fall, which naturally
characterized His humanity.’” (PG 91:328-9)
In the “Tome to Marinus the priest,” Maximus revealed
that a personal friend, an abbot named Anastasius, had gone to Rome and discussed
the letter of Honorius “with the most distinguished priests of that great
Church.” Anastasius conferred also with John Symponus, who continued to deny
that the letter had asserted a “numerical unity” of will in Christ; that,
according to Symponus, had been done by whoever translated the letter into
Greek. (PG 91:244) (Ibid., 344-46; cf. Dom John Chapman, The Condemnation of Pope
Honorius [London: Catholic Truth Society, 1907] for a differing
perspective on the evidence from Symponus)