Monophysitism is a heresy which states that Jesus is God. It’s kind of the opposite of the heresy of Arianism, which you mentioned. The hyper complex language of the trinity was a fourth century attempt to get around talk about the relationship between the historical Jesus of Nazareth and a God who is outside space and time. I think a less inappropriate language is that Jesus brought God’s salvation. I don’t, but some Xtians like to insert “unsurpassed” as an adjective, which makes Jesus the unsurpassable bringer of God’s salvation. All religions run into the same problem. Who/what mediates the transcendant into the historical?

The overwhelming tendency in world religions is to drain the prophet, historical revealer of the transcendant, of their humanity. It’s what we do to heroes. I would say that the heresy of Monphysitism does much more serious damage to the Jesus tradition than Arianism, but the pope and a lot of fundies don’t agree with me. After Xtians drained Jesus of all his humanity, believers turned to his Mom. Once that happened, the institutional Church drained Mary of all her humanity. Then the worship of the saints followed the same dehumanizing pattern. Part of Luther’s theological genius was recognizing and fighting against that pattern. He called it for what it was, idolatry. That’s why the worship space of reformed Churches is so different from Catholic churches. It’s a personal relationship with our lord and savior, Jesus of Nazareth, who is truly human.

Thanks for all your terrific posts, you’re a lot of fun to read.