An heretical sect which arose in the 5th century, teaching that there was
but one nature in Christ, as a reaction against Nestorianism. Nestorius had
held that in Our Lord there was both a human hypostasis or person and a
divine. Some early Monophysites, prominent among whom was Eutyches,
archimandrite of a monastery near Constantinople, endeavored to save the
unity of the Word Incarnate by suppressing the human nature. Other members
of the sect spoke of a single combined nature which was both human and
divine. Outstanding among the first exponents of Monophysitism were
Dioscurus (condemned at Chalcedon, 451) and Timothy Ælurus, both patriarchs
of Alexandria. This heresy still prevails in the East among the Copts and
the Syrian Jacobites.