There is a familiar Scholastic axiom, "In medio stat virtus," which some Catholics in the middle-aged and senior generations may recall from their college years. It meant literally: "Virtue stands in the middle."
The corollary of that medieval principle is that neither virtue nor truth can be found at the extremes. Thus, the theological virtue of hope is located somewhere between the extremes of presumption on one side and despair on the other.
Similarly, in seeking the truth of Christ's identity, one must steer clear of Nestorianism on the extreme left (a heresy which exaggerated his humanity) and Monophysitism on the extreme right (which exaggerated Christ's divinity).
Catholics of an older generation were taught that, in the face of serious conflict over truth or virtue, the center is always the safest place. Indeed, if you happen to find yourself attacked from both sides, you can be reasonably sure that you are doing something right.
But, of course, a crucial question was begged, and no one, at least not in my memory, ever raised it: Who defines the center? The question is crucial because those who define the center also define the extremes. And in defining the extremes, they also marginalize them.
No one wants to be written off as an extremist, or an "ultra" or an "arch" anything. It means that your views are beyond the pale; in a word, they are wrong.
There is much to be learned today from the historic Christological debates of the 4th and 5th centuries and their doctrinal resolution at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
Most mainline Christians today would place the Chalcedonian teaching in the orthodox center, and would regard Nestorianism and Monophysitism as extreme positions that were rejected as heresies. One was too far to the left of the orthodox center; the other, too far to the right.
However, if one were to look at the same issues through the eyes of a Coptic or an Armenian Christian, the center shifts and with it the extremes as well. The center is no longer the Chalcedonian definition, but one of the positions the council rejected, namely, Monophysitism (the belief that in Jesus Christ there is not only one divine person but one divine nature as well).
But if Monophysitism were to claim the center of the Christological spectrum, Chalcedonian orthodoxy would be pushed to the left (and Nestorianism still further to the left, if not off the doctrinal chart). On the right-the new right-would be the Julianists (followers of Bishop Julian, an extreme Monophysite), who in effect denied that Christ's earthly body was truly human.
Imagine now if a Catholic with Monophysitic devotional and theological tendencies were elected to the papacy. Imagine, further, that he appointed numerous priests of similar orientation to the hierarchy and to key offices in the Roman Curia. It would not take long before closeted Monophysites, sensing a new atmosphere in the Church, began coming out in the open to bask in the sunlight of a restored "orthodoxy."
The Chalcedonian centrists would be redefined as the new left, lumped together with the heretical Nestorians. Simultaneously, the Monophysites would beat a triumphant path from the right to the center, while the tiny, forgotten band of Julianists would be dragged up from the doctrinal backwater to fill the new void on the right.
Some individuals in that hypothetical situation might write articles or give speeches calling upon the Chalcedonians and the Julianists to see beyond their own version of reality and the narrow interests of their own group and to work for peace and harmony in the Church.
The Monophysites would be elated. Regarded for so long as the party of opposition to a general council of the Church, they would reemerge as the true bearers of conciliar orthodoxy.
Meanwhile, the Chalcedonians --- those who had formulated the teachings of the council and been faithful to it thereafter --- would find themselves on the defensive, challenged to justify their "left-wing" agenda and their petulant badgering of whom? The Julianists?
The Chalcedonians could not care less about the Julianists, whom most people would recognize as true extremists. The Chalcedonians' immediate quarrel would be with the Monophysites, the usurpers of the orthodox center. For the Chalcedonians it would not be a conflict between the left and the right, but between the center and the right.
And so it is with the Catholic Church today. What we have been witnessing over the past two and a half decades is a concerted (and increasingly successful) effort to redefine the center, and in the process to redefine the extremes. Father Richard P. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
|