EUTYCHES, the founder of the sect of the Eutychians, was a presbyter and archimandrite at Constantinople, and first came into notice in 431 a.d. at the council of Ephesus, where, as a zealous adherent of Cyril and the Alexandrine school, he vehemently opposed the doctrine of the Nestorians. They were accused of teaching that the divine nature was not incarnated in but only attendant on Jesus, being superadded to his human nature after the latter was completely formed. In opposition to this Eutyches went so far as to affirm that after the union of the two natures, the human and the divine, Christ had only one nature, that of the incarnate Word, and that therefore His human body was essentially different from other human bodies. In this he went beyond Cyril and the Alexandrine school generally, who, although they expressed the unity of the two natures in Christ so as almost to nullify their duality, yet took care verbally to guard themselves against the accusation of in any way circumscribing or modifying his real and true humanity. It would seem, however, that Eutyches differed from the Alexandrine school chiefly from inability to express his meaning with proper guardedness, for equally with them he denied that Christ’s human nature was either transmuted or absorbed into his divine nature. The energy and imprudence of Eutyches in asserting his opinions led to his being accused of heresy by Eusebius, bishop of Dorylaeum, at a council presided over by Flavian at Constantinople in 448. As his explanations were not considered satisfactory, the council deposed him from his priestly office and excommunicated him; but in 449, at a council convened by Dioscorus of Alexandria and overawed by the presence of a large number of Egyptian monks, not only was Eutyches reinstated in ...