When Sergius beheld the opposition which his new form of doctrine had
to encounter, particularly from Sophronius, who had in the meantime been
elevated to the dignity of patriarch of Jerusalem, he endeavoured, in a most
artfully composed letter, to gain to his side the pontiff Honorius. In this
epistle, he described with great exaggeration the return of all the Egyptian
Monophysites to the Church, and remarked that it would be distressing to compel
these millions to fall back again into their heresy for the sake of an
expression, one operation in Christ ; an expression moreover, which had been employed
by many of the Fathers : he then suggested to the pope, that it would be most
expedient that mention should not be made either of one or two wills and
operations in Christ ; not of one, for although the form of speech was correct,
it was new, and might therefore be offensive to many : not of two, for thence
two conflicting wills would follow, for it would be impossible that there
should be in one subject two wills not opposed, and in conflict with each
other. Honorius suffered himself to be misguided. His answer was almost an echo
to the letter of Sergius, and betrayed an extraordinary dogmatical obscurity,
and misconception of the subject in dispute. He viewed the opposition of
Sophronius as a contest for words, which should be left to grammarians, and
decreed that no ecclesiastical decision should be pronounced on the question:
but when he made the distinction of the two natures, which remained
unmixed, and of the two operations peculiar each to its nature, he declared the
true doc- trines of the Church : he made mention indeed of an unity of will in
Christ, but by that he understood no more than the conformity of the human with
the Divine will, and rejected the idea that in Christ, as in sinful man, there
was a law of the members combating with the spirit. Without, therefore,
declaring for Monothelitism, he seemed to favour it, and to approach to it, by
his unsupported interpretation of those texts so decisive for the cause of the
two wills : "Father, let this chalice pass from me; yet not my will,
but thine be done;" which words, he said, were uttered by our
Redeemer, only to teach us to conform our will to the will of God. From this
inconsiderate letter of Honorius, matter was drawn in later times both for his
condemnation and exculpation. Pope John IV, in his apology of Honorius,
addressed to the emperor Constantine, and the holy Maximus Martyr, pleaded his
cause on this ground, that by asserting an unity of will in Christ, he wished
only to oppose the idea of a twofold will in Christ, of the flesh and of the
spirit. Leo II, in his brief to the bishops of Spain, and to the emperor Constantine,
places the error of Honorius in his inactivity, by which he gave support to the
heresy, and caused confusion in the Church : but the sixth council condemned
him, because he followed the advice of Sergius, and thus strengthened his
errors. Such was this affair, although we are fully authorized to suppose, that
Honorius thought much more correctly than he had expressed himself. (Johann
Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, A History of the Church, 4 vols. [trans. Edward
Cox; London: C. Dolman, 1840], 2:196-197)
