The Library
1774 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
601–700
10 works
633–634
Greek
Sergius I of Constantinople · d. 638
A patriarch's attempt to reunite an empire split by Chalcedon: stop arguing about one energy or two, he rules, and simply confess one will in Christ. The letter to Rome presents this as a settled peace and asks for agreement.
634
Latin
Honorius I · d. 638
Rome's reply to Sergius, agreeing that the question should be dropped and adding the sentence that would cost him: we confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ. He appears to have meant that Christ had no divided will, not that he had only one.
634
Greek
Sophronius of Jerusalem · c. 560–638
A newly elected patriarch's statement of faith, insisting against the imperial compromise that Christ has two natural activities, not one.
638
Greek
Heraclius, drafted by Sergius · Heraclius, c. 575 – 641
Posted in the narthex of Hagia Sophia. It forbids anyone to speak of one energy or two in Christ, and requires the confession of a single will — imperial law settling a question the councils had left open, in the year Jerusalem fell.
c. 626–658
Greek
Maximus the Confessor · c. 580 – 662
Forty-five letters to officials, monks, and bishops across the Mediterranean, written while Maximus moved from Constantinople to Africa to Rome ahead of the armies. The second, on love, argues that charity is what makes one nature out of many persons, as God is one nature in three.
645
Greek
Maximus the Confessor · c. 580–662
The transcript of a public debate at Carthage in which Maximus argues that a will belongs to a nature rather than a person, so Christ must have two.
648
Greek
Constans II · 630 – 668
Withdrawing the Ecthesis and going further: nobody may argue about one will or two at all, in either direction, on pain of deposition for clergy and exile and confiscation for everyone else. The disputed texts were to be taken down.
October 649
Greek and Latin
Martin I and the Lateran Synod · Martin I, d. 655
A hundred and five bishops at Rome condemn the Ecthesis, the Typos, and the patriarchs who framed them, and define two natural wills and two natural operations in Christ. The Greek text is the original; Maximus and his circle almost certainly wrote it.
655
Greek
Relatio Motionis
Anastasius the Disciple
A transcript taken by Maximus's own disciple. Charged with treason for losing Egypt to the Arabs, he answers the political charges first and then the real one. Told that all the patriarchs have accepted the Typos, he replies that if the whole world communicated with them, he alone would not.
680–681
Greek
The Third Council of Constantinople
The sixth ecumenical council declares two natural wills and two natural operations in Christ, the human will always freely following the divine.
10 of 1774 works