o In 640, he wrote several tractates against the monophysites and
monothelites, arguing that Christ had a full humanity, including
a human will.o He secured the condemnation of monotheletism at several
African synods and helped secure its condemnation by the
Lateran Council (in Rome) of 649.o In 653, Maximus was forcibly brought to Constantinople,
where the emperor Constans II used pressure (and even torture)
on the theologian and finally exiled him to the Caucasus, where
he shortly died as a result of what he had suffered.• The Third Council of Chalcedon in 680–681 defined orthodoxy in
terms of two wills in Christ (the divine will and the human will),
corresponding to the two distinct but united natures in one person.
Monotheletism was condemned.• The duration and fierceness of the Christological battle in
Byzantium indicates how fragile any agreement or unity was in
this form of Christianity that placed such an emphasis on right
teaching (orthodoxy).The Battle over Iconoclasm
• An even more divisive controversy arose in Byzantine Christianity
some 40 years later that caused even deeper divisions, namely, the
battle over iconoclasm (meaning the breaking of icons or images),
which raged for more than a century (725–842).
• Icons are painted representations of Christ, Mary, or other saints
that had traditionally been used by the faithful in prayer, both
liturgically and privately. The use of such images affirms in a fairly
direct fashion the deep convictions of orthodoxy concerning the
humanity of Jesus and the sanctification of the material order by the
divine. Because God entered into humanity, the artistic depiction of
Jesus as human can symbolize the presence of the divine.