Mono Mia

Three times in the Pastoral Epistles Paul makes a comment about Overseers (Bishops in the KJV) and Deacons being the "Husband of One Wife", or in some more literal translations "of one wife a husband".  1 Timothy 3:2-12 and Titus 1:6.

When Protestants are attacking the Catholic Priestly Celibacy doctrine they quote these verses as if no less then one is the point.  But then when trying to claim the Bible teaches strict Monogamy will argue the point is no more then one.  Either of those applications would be a lot more plausible to me if the Greek word used was Mono, but instead the word used is Mia.

The Oriental Orthodox Church (which includes the Coptic, Nubian, Ethiopian and Armenian Churches) is commonly accused of Monophysitism (believing Jesus had only one nature, usually Divine rather then Human) by Chalcedonians.  They however insist that they are instead Miaphysite because they believe Christ's Divine and Human natures are United.

They take this use of Mia and Physis from a quote of Cyril of Alexandria, but Cyril is also revered as a Saint by Chalcedonians who insist what Cyril said in that quote is perfectly compatible with the Chalcedonian Definition.  The Chalcedonian Definition itself is not really why the Oriental Orthodox reject Chalcedon, but rather Chalcedon's condemnation of Dioscorus.  I don't want to get into all that here, the point is the Greek word Mia while often translated "one" can refer to something there is more then one of.

I think the point of these three quotes in the Pastoral Epistles was the Unity between Husband and Wife.  But my point is that phrasing was never meant to rule out being untied with more then one wife.  BTW the Husband and Wife being One Flesh verses also use Mia.

Many people (Muslims, Unitarians, Modalists, JWs, some Jews and even Secularists) accuse Nicene Trinitarian Christianity of not being truly Monotheist.  And we typically feel compelled to defend the applicability of the term Monotheism to us.  But I have recently been asking, why?  Monotheism and Monotheist are NOT Biblical terms.

I've looked at every New Testament verse that says "One God" or that "God is One", or "One Lord" or "Lord is One".  And likewise none of them use Mono either but instead Heis.  Some material from my Trinity in the Hebrew Bible and the YT videos I linked to in it are worth remembering here.

When Mono is used in the New Testament, in the KJV it partly because of context tends to get translated "Alone" or "Only" instead of simply One.  While it is used close to Theos in the text sometimes it's never directly used of how many Theos exist or that we worship.

According to the Strongs Concordance, Mia is the "irregular feminine" form of Heis.  Now it's easy to guess why Paul used a feminine form when referring to wives.  But why did Cyril use a feminine form when referring to the Divine and Human natures of Christ?  Is it simply that Miaphysite rolls off the tong as a name for your Christology better then Heisphysite?  Or maybe it's because Cyril said this while he was engaging in the Theotokos controversy and wanted to stress that it was in the Womb of a Woman that Deity and Humanity were United?

But perhaps Cyril had some awareness of what I talked about in The God of The Bible is both Masculine and Feminine?

So this Trinitarian Christian feels prepared to suggest that maybe we should stop clinging to the title of Monotheist and instead claim we are Miatheists, we believe True God is Three Persons who are United in One Being or Essence.  #Miatheism

In fact given how often Mono is translated things like "Only" and "Alone" I am willing to consider using it to define God potentially in conflict with the Nicene understanding of The Trinity.  Calling God the Monad was part of Gnosticism and Neoplatonism.  C Baxter Kruger likes to make the point that God didn't create Humanity because he was lonely, that theory on the "why" of Creation ignores The Trinity.  God created Humanity because they were a family that wanted to add to that family.  Elohim was technically plural right there in Genesis 1:1.