The great oecumenical councils, notably that of Chalcedon gave rise to schismatic sects which
have perpetuated themselves for a long time, some of them to the present day.
For a brief period Monotheletism was restored by Bardanes or Philippicus, who wrested
the throne from Justinian II. and ruled from 711 to 713. He annulled the creed of the sixth
oecumenical Council, caused the names of Sergius and Honorius to be reinserted in the diptycha
among the orthodox patriarchs, and their images to be again set up in public places. He deposed
the patriarch of Constantinople and elected in his place a Monotheletic deacon, John. He convened
a council at Constantinople, which set aside the decree of the sixth council and adopted a
Monotheletic creed in its place. The clergy who refused to sign it, were deposed. But in Italy he
had no force to introduce it, and an attempt to do so provoked an insurrection.
The Emperor Anastasius II. dethroned the usurper, and made an end to this Monotheletic
episode. The patriarch John accommodated himself to the new situation, and wrote an abject letter
to the Pope Constantine, in which he even addressed him as the head of the church, and begged his
pardon for his former advocacy of heresy.
Since that time Dyotheletism was no more disturbed in the orthodox church.
But outside of the orthodox church and the jurisdiction of the Byzantine rulers,
Monotheletism propagated itself among the inhabitants of Mount Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon under
the lead of abbot John Marun (Marwvn), their first patriarch (d. 701). The maronites,^643 as they
were called after him, maintained their independence of the Greek empire and the Saracens, and
adhered to the Monotheletic doctrine till the time of the crusades, when they united themselves
with the Roman church (1182), retaining, however, the celebration of the communion under both
kinds, the Syrian liturgy, the marriage of the lower clergy, their own fast-days, and their own saints.
§ 116. The Adoptionist Controversy. Literature.
I. Sources.
The sources are printed in Harduin, Vol. IV., Mansi, XIII., and in Alcuin’s Opera, ed. Frobenius
(1777), reprinted by Migne (in his "Patrol. Lat.," vols. 100 and 101), with historical and
dogmatical dissertations.
(1.) The writings of the Adoptionists: a letter of Elipandus Ad Fide lem, Abbatem, a.d. 785, and
one to Alcuin. Two letters of the spanish bishops—one to Charlemagne, the other to the Gallican
bishops. Felicis Libellus contra Alcuinum; the Confessio Fidei Felicis; fragments of a posthumous
book of Felix addressed Ad Ludovicum Pium, Imperat.
(2.) The orthodox view is represented in Beatus et Etherius: Adv. Elipandum libri II. Alcuin: Seven
Books against Felix, Four Books against Elipandus, and several letters, which are best edited
by Jaffé in Biblioth. rer. Germ. VI. Paulinus (Bishop of Aquileja): Contra Felicem Urgellitanum
libri tres. In Migne’s "Patrol. Lat.," vol. 99, col. 343–468. Agobard of Lyons: Adv. Dogma
Felicis Episc. Urgellensis, addressed to Louis the Pious, in Migne’s "Patrol. Lat.," vol. 104,
col. 29–70. A letter of Charlemagne (792) to Elipandus and the bishops of Spain. The acts of
the Synods of Narbonne (788), Ratisbon (792), Francfort (794), and Aix-la-Chapelle (799).
643
Μαρωνει̑ται.