Talk:monophysitism

"partial" definition

@Pingku: Basically the distinction here is between e.g. most readings of Apollinarism, a variant of monophysitism in which there's only the 100% divine nature and the human part either doesn't exist or is irrelevant, and more mainstream forms of monophysitism where there's a single nature which is somehow divine and human blended together in varying proportions. The Catholic+Orthodox dyophysite position is 100% human, 100% divine. I can try and find a reference and/or some citations here if this is confusing. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 12:38, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Al-Muqanna. I do think it is inherently confusing and more clarity is needed. Referring to a "single nature" when the issue is divinity versus humanness strongly suggests that the nature be either one or the other, and specifically not some combination of both. (Perhaps the confusion arises from the English word nature: the WP article Miaphysitism, for example, refers to physis.) Furthermore, the linked Wikipedia page Monophysitism in its lead paragraph states and sources a definition that is firmly on the "only divine" side. (I don't suggest we have to agree with that, but the sourcing means some people interpret the word that way, so it is at least a meaning.)

I'd prefer to see a clearer split of the two senses, perhaps as sub-senses, so they can be cited, or at least referenced, separately.

Cheers.— Pingku^dimmi 06:27, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Pingku: There are a couple of problems with splitting these into separate senses, I think, one being the obvious one that usually we don't give hyponyms separate senses under their hypernym (see the ideological sense of communism), but also that the debate around monophysitism focuses on the edge: mainstream monophysitism argued that the divine aspect of the single nature was much more or even infinitely more important than the human one, so the sceptical response has been to ask whether that really just amounts to saying there's just a divine nature. A lot of the debate about it then was precisely about whether it's really one or the other, rather than it being used deliberately in distinct senses: the definitional part is just "one nature and divinity". In those situations I think it's more accurate to call it a dispute over the referent rather than a distinction in sense (like people arguing about whether reindeer are real or not).

From their references it seems like Wikipedia is drawing on polemical sources, and they also self-contradict on this anyway—later on in the article you get the mixture definition stated wrt Eutychianism. Anyway, I've added a bunch of citations, I think the Maier and Egger quotes in particular help clarify this ambiguity. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 11:31, 15 December 2022 (UTC)