Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

Nestorius
2012 a.) The Nestorian Christ is the fitting saviour of the Pelegian
man. Do you agree?
b.) Was Nestorius fairly accused of teaching a doctrine of two
Sons?
2011 How Justified was Nestoriuss claim in the Book of Heraclides
that the Council of Chalcedon had agreed with his Christology?
2010 How coherent was Nestorius Chritology?
2009 How did Nestorius explain the unity of Christ?
2008 a.) How fair would it be to charge Nestorius with preaching
two Sons?
b.) On what did Cyril and Nestorius agree? To what extent does this
illuminate their disagreement?

Kelly: Early Christian Doctrines

Nestorianism

Two main types of Christology. 1. The Word-flesh Christology,

with its concentration on the Word as the subject in the Godman and its lack of interest in the human soul, and 2. The
Word-man Christology, alive to the reality and completeness
of the humanity, but more hesitant about the position of the
Word as the metaphysical subject.
Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople: Antiochene in
Christology, influenced by Theodore of Mopsuestia.
He was called on to pronounce on the suitability of the term
theotokos (God-bearing) as the title for the Blessed Virgin.
He argued that it was of doubtful propriety unless
Anthropotokos (Man-bearing) was added to balance it.
His preference was for Christotokos (Christ-bearing) since
this begged no questions.
This was an accepted position in the Alexandrian school, it
followed from the communication of idioms and expressed the
truth that, since His Person was constituted by the Word, the
Incarnate was appropriately designated God.
Even Antiochene theologians like Theodore had admitted it
with the same qualifications as Nestorius.

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

HOWEVER: he used language which he knew would stir

trouble.
He claimed that God cannot have a mother, and no creature
could have engendered the Godhead; Mary bore a man, the
vehicle of divinity but not God.
The Godhead cannot have been carried for nine months in a
womans womb, or have been wrapped in baby-clothes, or
have suffer, died and been buried.
He claimed that Theotikos had Arian undertones, that the Son
was a creature, or Apollinarian tones that the manhood was
incomplete.
Cyril of Alexandria pounced on this, accusing Nestorius of
reviving the theory rejected in the fourth century of two Sons
linked by a purely moral union.
Eusebius (later of Dorylaeum) alarmed by the assertion that
Mary bore a mere man, jumped to the conclusion that
Nestorius was restoring the adoptionism of Paul of Samosata.
In light of this, the Nestorianism was represented as a heracy
which split the God-man into two persons.
There are two views on this: some thingk he was essentially
orthordox as shown by his declaration in the Book of
Heracleides to be happy with the Christology of Leo. Others
argue that he was indeed a heritic.
Nestorious seems to have been fundamentally Antiochene. He
insited on the two natures of the incanate Christ which both
remained unaltered and distinct in the union.
I hold the natures apart, but unite the worship was his
watchword.
Reasons for this. 1. Concerned to maintain that the incarnation
cannot have involved the impassible Word in any change or
suffering. Contra Cyril whose theory of hypostatic union
suggested to Nestorious that the Word inevitably became the
subject of the God-mans suffering.
Therefore he objected to the Alexanrian habit of speaking of
God being born and dying and Mary bearing the divine Word.
2. He thought it vitally important that Christ should have lived
a genuinely human life of growth, temptaion and suffering for
the redemption to be effected.
An authentically human experience would have been
impossible if the Lords humanity had been fused with, or,
dominated by, His divnity.
The divinity and humanity of Christ were each a distinct physis
(nature).
Physis was used to mean that things concrete character. He
said that he could not think of two natures without thinking
that each had their own prosopon (form as an individual,
personhood) and hupostasis (substance).

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

This was not meant to indicate that each nature was separate
only that each was actually real.
The Alexandrian school was ready to recognise the distinction
of the divnity and humanity. Cyril wrote, the natures which
are brought together into this true union are different, but out
of the two there is one Christ, one Son, the difference of
natures not being destroyed as a result of the union.
Cyrils conception of a hypostatic union, analogous to union of
soul and body (that is, necessary not voluntary), and his
description of the God-man as one nature suggested to
Nestorious that confusion of natures which he held in error.
In responding to this Nestorius left the converse impression
that of two Persons artificially linked togther.
In fact, this was an entirely unfair representation. He was an
outspoken opponent of the Samosatene heresy of two Sons
which he held to be incompatible with the prologue of Johns
gospel since he himself was absoutley certain that the
incarnate was a unity, a single prosopon.
God the Word and the man in whom He came to be are not
numerically two; for the Person of both was one in dignity and
ahonour, worshipeed by all creation, in no way and at no time
divided by difference of will.
He was trying to state that there was only one person who
combined himself in two distinct element or ousiai.
He did not like the idea of a hypostatic union hence he
preferred words such as conjunction. Cyril objected to this
but Nestorious was careful to add safguards such as perfect
union and exact union.
He appealed to John 2:19 to suggest that the Man was a
temple in which the God dwelt by his good pleasure in a
manner that utterly transcended his mode of dwelling in
prophets and apostles.
He claimed the union of God the Word with them (the body
and human soul) is neither ypostatic nor natural but
voluntary.
This was nto to say that they adhered together by love which
is critics suggested he said, but that they mutually
interpenetrated each other as the Persons of the Trnity do. As
a result Christ was a single being with a single will and
intelligence, inseparable and indivnisable.
He claimed that there was but one prospon in the God-man by
which he meant an individual considered form the point of
view of his outward aspect.
He claimed that It is the Christ who is the prosopon of union.
Contra Cyril who began his analysis with the creator of the
natures that is, the etnral Word. He should have started with
the propopon of union which is the historical Figure.

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

Since he assumed that each of the natures continued to

subsist in its own prosopon as well as in the prospon of union
the question arises of the relation of the latter to the former.
The answer is that the prosopon of union or common
prosopon is not identical with either the prosopon of the Word
or the prosopon of the humanity but that it results from the
coalecence, coming togther or union of the two natures of
ousiai. The natures made recipriocal use of their prosopa so
that the incarnation is conceived of as the mutual use of the
prosopa by taking and giving.
Neither the Gohead was changed into human nature nor was
the manhood deified, but each took the form of the other.
Hence the incanate Lord is indivisibly one in prosopon, while
remaining twofold in nature.
This attitude changed his use of the communication of idioms.
He contended that since the natures remined sperate and
neither was identical with the prosopon of union, that the
human attirbtes and action attribute to Christ should be
predicated to the human nature and the divine to the divine
nature. Although the allowed for common folk to predicate one
of the other so long as this was simply a choice of words not a
confussion of the two.
Hence Nestorius was not a Nestorian. He abhorred the doctien
of two sons.
He denied the charge of adoptionism by pointing out that no
one ever saw an inspired man making use in his own prosopon
of the prosopon fo God.
HOWEVER: was the unity he found in the idea of a common
prosopon adequate.
All it really stated was the truism that Jesus Christ, the
historical Figure was a single object of presentation. The
problem was to explain what constituted His person.
For this reason it is small wonder that he was interpreted as
propounding the doctrine of an ordinary man, linked to th
Word by harmony of will and divine favour.

Cyril of Alexandria

Argued that Nestorius teacing, epitomised by his attack on

Theotokos, presupposed a merely external association
between the Word and an ordinary man.
Therefore the redemption was undermined, since Christs
sufferings and saving acts were, not those of God incarnate
but of one who was a mere man.
The notion of the second adam inqugurating a new mankind
presupposed a far closer union of the Word with the flesh.

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

Above all, Nestorius had deprived the eucharist of life-giving

force and reduced it to canabalism since only the body of the
man lay on the alter.
The problem was not only theological but also terminological.
In Anticohene circles the key word physis or nature,
connotated the humanity or the divinity conceived of as a
concrete assemblage of characteristics or attributes.
In Alexandrian circles physis meant, concrete individual or
independent existance. In this sense physis was approximate
to hypostasis.
What the Antiochenes called the natures he called the natural
propertys.
Because he had been nurtured in the school of Athanasius, the
problem of explaining the union of two disparate natures did
not occur. He was an exponent of the word flesh scheme and
therefore he thought in terms of two phases of the logos, one
prior to and the other after the incanation.
In this process he reamins what He was save that what
existed outside flesh was now become embodied.
The single nature of hyposasis that is the Word became
enfleshed.
This is epitomised in a formula which he thought was
Athanasian but which actually was Apolonian in orgin, one
nature, and that incarnate, of the divine Word.
By flesh he meant the whole human, he took the refutation of
apolonianism for granted.
Therefore he could admit no division of the Incarnate.
He believed that both aspects of Christ were real, hence he
refered to them as two natures hypostases or thigns. the
single unique Christ out of two natures.
BUT since the Incarnate was none other than the eternal Word
in a new state, his unity was presupposed, the Antiochen
conception of a conjunction based upon a harmony of wills,
seemed to be an artificial union.
The Antichone position seemed to suggest that the divine
nature of Christ at one point existed on its own. Similarly
Christ could never have been said to have existed as a man,
from the moment of conception Marys wmb held within it the
body of the Word which was made the Words very own.
And yet insisted that there was no intermingling or change in
the Word. Each have a different essnce though it is united in
the one nature. The two continued to subsist in eachs natural
quality.
E.g. the live coal of Isaiahs vision. When the charcoal was
penetrated by the fire, each retained its distinct idenity,
similarly, the Word remained very word while appropriating
what wa human and via versa.

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

Like the Platonic analogy of the body and soul. The body and
the soul were entirely different essenices but were
nevertheless indisiibly conjoined in the human person. Thus
whole the unity was absolute, the distinction of nature was
always there to be perceived.
However, the distinction was only ever with the eyes of the
mind not a true distinction.
Hence his distress with the rejection of Theotikos, the
humanity conceived in Marys womb was the humanity of the
word, therefore she should properly be described as God
bearing.
Also, since Jesus was one Mary should not have two titles. He
supported the communion of Idioms in the fullest sense.
Indeed the union was so close that the properties of one could
be participated in by the other. Therefore it was correct to say,
We must therefore confess that the Word has imarted the
flory of the divine operation to His own flesh.
However, to be safe, he did not suffer in his own nature but as
incarnate.

From Ephesus Towards Unity

Letters were exchainged to no effect.

Wrote to the emperor Theodosius II to detach him from
Nestorius.
Both appealed to Rome.
Pope Clement held a synod which declaired against Nestorius
the denier fo the birth of God.
Nestorius was given 10 days to comply which Cyril was to
enforce.
But Cyril sent a deliberately provocative letter to Nestorus
which required him to subscribe to twelve anathamas which
were uncompromisingly Alexandrian.
This angered other Antichene supporters such as Theodoret of
Cyrus. He argued for the completeness and distinction of the
natures united in one person.
He objected to Cyril insiting on the natural of hypostatic union
because this seemed to imply some kind of necessity.
However, he rejected the Nestorian conception of two natural
prosopa, claiming that there was one prosopon, one Christ
and Son. Though he left it vague at this. This was certainly
not Nestorianism which apparently split the god-man into two
persons.
For him and his supporters, Cyril seemed to be endorcing
Apollinarianism.
In November 430 the Emperor yielded to Nestorius and called
a council at Ephesus.

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

Before the Oriental bishops could arrive, Cyril held a synod

under his own presidency which deposed Nestorius as the
new Judas.
In retaliation, when the Orietnals arrived John of Antioch held
a session of their own and deposed Cyril.
However, the papal legates endorsed Cyril and Nestorius
never recovered.
Also at this time they enshired the Nivene creed as the core of
Christological orthodocy using Cyrils Second letter to
Nestorius as its authoritative interpretation.
After the Death of Pope Celestine, Pope Xystus attempted to
move for peace. Cyril who had been suspended on grounds of
Apollinarian learnings explained himself and denied the
charge of confusing the two natures. In return Nestorius was
abandoned.

Wessel: Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian

Controversy

Cyril told Pope Celestine that Nestorius had preached a homily

in commemoration of the Virgin Mary, in which he had
admitted his view that Jesus was not divine by acknowledging
that he did not wish to adore a God who was born, died, and
buried.
In fact, Nestorius had said no such thing. His homily on the
Virgin was indeed a celebration of Christ's humanitythat he
who was born, passed through increments of time, and was
carried in the womb, consisted wholly of human nature.
But Nestorius believed that Christ's human nature was united
to God. He was unwilling to designate Mary Theotokos
because that implied that the deity, rather than the humanity,
had been conceived in her womb.
It was one thing to say that God was united to the one born of
Mary, and quite another to say that the deity needed months
for birth, for, as Nestorius put it, God the Word is the creator
of time, and is not made in time.
To persuade the pope that Nestorius teachings were
blasphemous, Cyril attached a short treatise containing
excerpts from the writings and sermons of Nestorius, originally
composed in Greek, that several persons in Alexandria had
translated into Latin.
Removed from their context, these sayings of Nestorius
included a number of difficult statements concerning the
Virgin Mary, i.e. that God the Word was not begotten from
Mary, nor from the Holy Spirit, but only from the Father
Himself.

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

Celestine was only too eager to help bring down Nestorius

because of the status that had been lost when the Emperor
declared Constantinople second in rank only to Rome.
Cyril in his Thesaurus claimed that the Arian heretics were
wrong to ascribe human suffering to the Word, because it was
the flesh that suffered and died, and not the Word proper.
Nestorius and the Antiochenes resolved the problem of the
suffering of Christ not with the cautious phraseology of
Athanasius but with their dual-nature Christology. Any biblical
texts ascribing emotions to Christ's humanity were to be
attributed to the human nature alone, which was linked to the
divinity through a single proso-pon.
But Cyril's arguments implied that when Nestorius assigned
the biblical sayings between the two natures of Christ, he
would be bound to conclude, along with the Arians, that Christ
was not like God. Far from having made this heretical
assertion, Nestorius was himself troubled by the possibility
that the Word had suffered. That is why he attributed these
sayings only to Christ's human nature. And that is how
Nestorius opened the door for Cyril to accuse him of the Arian
heresy.
Cyril addressed the Nestorian problem by saying that he had
received orthodox teachings on the singular nature of Christ
from the holy apostles, and from all the God-inspired
Scriptures. Much like that of Athanasius, his own Christology
was said to be derived from a broad interpretation of the
scope of the Christian faith, the principle by which he
interpreted Scripture, while Nestorius, like the Arians before
him, was thought to have interpreted the Bible literally and
therefore incorrectly.
Cyril's anti-Arian legacy was prominent in his treatment of one
christological problem in particular, that of Christ's apparent
increase in moral stature and wisdom.
The Antiochenes had developed their own method of
addressing the problem. It was based on their distinctive
anthropology, which held that rationality and mutability are
co-ordinate properties in human beings, and that the exercise
of free will depends on this capacity for change.
Nestorius dual-nature Christology depended upon this view
when it supported a vision of mankind in complete
communion with God.
This did not make human beings divine in the Alexandrian
sense, however.
To the Antiochenes, redemption came about by following
Christ's example as perfect man, who, in his complete human
perfection, saved the faithful Christian. This distinctive
soteriological scheme meant that Nestorius most essential
concern was safeguarding Christ's human integrity.

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

Adamant that Christ's manhood be understood as consisting in

a prosopon (person), Nestorius believed that Christ was fully
man by nature, that one not suppose that he is called God
because the [Incarnation] destroyed the [two] natures and
their respective properties.
Insisting on the full humanity of Christ, Nestorius claimed that
Christ trusted in God and was made High Priest. Thus did
Nestorius Christology lead to his claim that Christ gradually
increased in wisdom.
Like Gregory of Nazianzus before him, Nestorius believed that
the one who begins and gradually advances to perfection is
not God, although he is so called because of the manifestation
which took place little by little.
In other words, this gradual advance of Christ took place not
with respect to the divinity but to the humanity or flesh, which
remained separate from the properties of divinity. A
soteriological scheme decidedly ethical in its orientation, the
divinity and humanity of Christ were fully separate entities
(), connected only by a single prosopon.
This virtually insurmountable chasm between God and man
must have shocked Cyril, whose Alexandrian legacy
envisioned a soteriology dependent on mankind's close link to
divinity.
Examining Nestorius claims that Christ had grown in moral
stature, Cyril responded in a way that placed Nestorius
dangerously close to the Arian heretics: But you [Nestorius]
say this, I suppose, that being God almighty, he himself
became High Priest. Yet, indeed, he was emptied and humbled
himself, descending into the inferior. How, then, did he
advance in dignity when he became High Priest?
But this argument applied to Nestorius only tangentially.
Though the Arians wished to assert the lowly status of Christ,
consistent with their subordinationist understanding of the
Trinity based on Origenism and middle-Platonism, Nestorius
sought to preserve the uniquely Antiochene notion of
redemption that preserved Christ's human integrity fully intact
while simultaneously safeguarding Christ's divinity.
The arguments Nestorius presented for Christ's actual
increase in moral stature were an unfortunate coincidence of
language with that of the Arians. His Christology could not
have been further from Arian concerns.
Though Cyril used assertions Nestorius had made about
Christ, and had pointed out their similarity to assertions the
Arians had made, there is no evidence that Nestorius ever
subscribed to the Arian conception that Christ advanced in
wisdom. Of course, Cyril had little trouble responding to his
own straw man: We believe, wrote Cyril, that out of the very
belly and womb of the Virgin, Emmanuel being God,

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

proceeded forth Man, completely full of the wisdom and grace

that are naturally inherent in him.
Nestorius response to Cyril: Concerned mostly with
preserving the immutable and impassive essence of God the
Word, Nestorius letter attempted to explicate and elucidate St
Paul's vision of a Christ who somehow remained impassive in
Godhead but passive in his bodily nature.
Christ's dual nature accounted for these contradicting
qualities according to Nestorius, as the words of sacred text
demonstrated especially in the various titles for Christ that
Paul had used.
While the term Christ embraced the conjunction of the
natures, Nestorius claimed that each of Paul's other titles for
Christ, including Lord, Jesus, Son, and Only Begotten,
corresponded to only one of the two distinct natures conjoined
in Christ.
Cyril's third letter: contained the twelve anathemas against
Nestorius. In them, Cyril stated his disagreement with
Nestorius and the Antiochene school, including his view that
the divine and human natures of Christ were truly united in a
natural union ( ), and that the scriptural sayings
attributed to Jesus should not be divided between two
persons.
These anathemas were controversial for years to come
because Cyril's opponents found in their repeated affirmation
of a singular Christ teachings consistent with those of the
Apollinarians.
Bishop Theodotus claimed that Nestorius also declared that
God was not an infant 2 or 3 months old.
According to Acacius, Nestorius either denied that the deity of
the Only Begotten had been incarnated, or he professed that
the deity of the Father and Holy Spirit became flesh along with
the Word.
Athanasius himself had declared that the Word became man
and appropriated the qualities of flesh in order to ensure the
immortality of human beings. And throughout the monastic
communities of Egypt this same soteriological vision had
found unwavering acceptance.
Gregory of Nazianzus was also well represented in this
collection of patristic excerpts: Whoever supposes Mary is not
Theotokos\ wrote Gregory, is separate from the Divinity.
But Gregory's teachings on the dual nature of Christ were less
a condemnation of Nestorius than a potential resolution of the
doctrinal problems. He had said that if someone speaks of two
sons, one from God, the other from Mary, that person departs
from the adoption promised to orthodox believers. Rejecting
the notion of two sons, which Antiochene and Alexandrian
Christology alike found problematical, Gregory affirmed the

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

two natures in Christ, namely God and man, a distinction that

was analogous in Gregory's view to that of body and soul.
Even though the atemporal was thought to be diametrically
opposed to the temporal, and the invisible to the visible,
Gregory believed that both natures of Christ were one in
mixture, for God was incarnate and man was deified. His dualnature vision of Christ differed from that of Nestorius. It was
none the less a potential middle ground upon which to
conduct a reasoned debate, and it provided a glimmer of hope
for a future reconciliation between the opposing parties.
Peter of Alexandria into the proceedings a compendium of
Nestorius excerpts that Peter called the blasphemies of
Nestorius.
Among them was Nestorius fourth book on dogma, an
exegetical elaboration, based on Scripture, of his dual-nature
Christology.
In it Nestorius said that whenever Scripture describes
generation from the Virgin, it states that God sent his Son,
not that God sent the Word, for Scripture uses the term that
designates the duality of natures.
Since the Son is both man and God, thought Nestorius,
Scripture uses the phrase He sent His Son to refer to the
deity, adding the phrase born of a woman to refer to his
humanity, thereby designating unambiguously the two
natures implied by the term Son. Thus the Christ-bearing
Virgin bore the Son of God, namely, the Son whose dual
nature allowed her to bear only the humanity of Christ.
In Nestorius view, that generation from the Virgin ultimately
became Son of God by conjunction with the deity.
Like Gregory of Nazianzus, Nestorius abhorred a two Sons
doctrine, a fact he made clear in his fourth book on dogma
(included in the Nestorian florilegium introduced into the Acts)
when he said, after the Incarnation, the Son who had been
separated could not be called Son, lest we teach two Sons.
Before the Incarnation, however, God the Word was
understood to be both Son and God, united with the Father;
while after the Assumption into flesh, the humanity was not
deemed Son, a designation reserved solely for the dual
nature of Christ.
Determined to preserve the immutability of the Godhead,
along with the full humanity of Christ, Nestorius defended his
two-nature doctrine by citing the authority of the scriptural
text. He did not in any sense endorse the aberrant doctrine of
two Sons.
At least, so Nestorius claimed when he wrote that the one,
joined to him who was Son in principle, could not admit
division because of the honour of Sonship. I say according to

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

the honor of Sonship, reiterated Nestorius, not according to

the natures.
Unwilling to recognize two Sons, Nestorius nevertheless
maintained his dual-nature distinction.
For him, the appellation Christ designated the two natures,
and for that reason was applicable to God the Word, since the
deity is continuously joined with the Christ. Indeed, the words
Christ, Son, and Lord each signified the two natures, at
one time the deity, at another the humanity, and sometimes
both at once, said Nestorius.

Bethune-Baker: Nestorius and his Teaching

The Doctrines attributed to Nestorius and the Terms which
he Used

It was said tht he taught that He who was born of Mary was
only a man: he denied that Jesus Chirst was God.
Even the clergy of Constantinople joined in against him
arguing that he was reasserting the doctrine of Paul of
Samosata that the Lord was a mere man.
The charge was supported by qupting, as his, words which he
ever used.
Schenute of Atripos suggested he said of the virgin mary. she
who bore a good man, who was like Moses and David and
other.
BUT: the only was he got this was by changing the word
anointed to good but altering a letter.
Nestorius conistantly insists that though the terms God and
Christ are used in Scrpitre of Moses and other they are applied
to the Incarnate word in an althogeth differenct sense.
Community of names does nto consittue community of
honour or equlity.
Socrates aquites him of this and suggests that he just had a
bug bear against Theotikos.
He was accused of so distinguisheing between the Godhead
and the manhood of our Lord as to trea them as separate
personal existance, as though a man and God were joined
together, so that our Lord was not one Person but two Perons
and no real union of God and man was effected in Him.
It was supposed that he held the Word to be a perons distinct
from jesus and the Son of God distinct from the Son of Man
and that therefore he avoided the term which expressed the
real union of both and prefferred to speak of a conjunction
between them.
Hence he was accused of teaching two sons.

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

Destructive of the whole notion of what is not assumed is not

saved.
Nestorius rejects the charge and argues in the Bazaar of
Heraclides that he actually always agreed with what would be
set out at Chalcedon.
One of the reasons to reject this is that Chalcedon speaks of
one hypostasis and he speaks of two hypostases.
Hypostasis and ousia were both used to express real
existance.
Nestorius used both to mean substance. He would talk to two
substances of the Person of our Lord to mean that there was
both GOhead and manhood in the person of our Lord. This
would have been uncontroversial to someone like Tertullian.
At the time however, the word hypostasis had been narrowed
from the wider meaning of substance to distinct mode of
existance so that it could be used to express the unity of the
Trinity.
However, this usage was not widespread and had not been
applied to the Christological problem.
Even Cyril did not use hyposasis consistently.
Hence the issue could not be with nestorius use of hypostasis
to meaen ousia.
The problem was how the union of the manhood and gohead
in Christ was convieved.
Nestorius always used the term prosopon to mean personality,
ones outward appearance. He suggested that Christ godhead
and his manhood were one prosopon. This was not too
contraverisal either because in the Chalcedon definition one
person is combined with one hypostasis to clarify its meaning.
The problem was that the didnt think Nestorius believed what
he was saying.
To Nestorius God head and manhood, God and man, were
much too real to be able to lose themselves in one another:
the unity must be found in something other than the
substances themselves.
Cyril seems to have used nature to mean something as real as
ousia, when Nestorius thinks that nature is outward
appearance and ousia means something real.
Hence Cyril does not seem to have a clear distinction between
the terms substance (ousia) nature and person.
The hunt for a proper temr was still going on, therefore it must
be to the argument of Nestorius rather than to the technical
terms he uses that attention must be paid.

The Title Theotokos

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

It may be that Nestorius offended those who held the virgin in

high regard, monastics and especially the Ephesians where
the council which deposed him was held since these people
had a long history of worshiping Artemis the virgin godess.
Clear that Nestorius was following the path of Theodore of
Mopsuestia. He claimed that it is madness to say that God is
born of the Virgin. Mary bore Jesu not the Logos for the Logos
was and remained omnipresent, although from the beginning
he dwelt in Jesus in a peculiar maner. Thus mary is properly
the Mother of Chrsit not the Mother of God. Only figuratively
can she be called the Mother of God, because God was in
Christ in a remarkable manner.
However, he departs from Theodore when he says preperly
she core a man, in whom the union with the Word was begun,
but was still so little compelted, that was not yet called the
Son of God. This is the doctrine of Paul of Samoata. Nestorius
never conceived of the Incanation like this.
He suggests that the proper terms to use are Christ Son and
Lord because these express the significance of his two
natures.
The apostles never said that God was born or died.
For example, when John saw our lord he said behold the lamb
of God. He did not see God because he is hidden. He suggests
that the visable and the invisible are one Son.
However, this might just imply two persons together indeed
the fact that he separates out he who is visablea nd he who
is hidden might indicate this.
What he feel must be guarded against at all costs is the idea
that the Gohead itself was born of a women, and also, the idea
that the manhood of the invarnate word was not the real
manhood.
Hence in the Bazaar of Heracledes, The scripture speaks of
the incarnation of the word but never of His birth. How
could any one be mother of one whose nature was not the
same as hers. She who bore Christ bore indeed the Son of
God, but since the Son fo God is twofold in nature, she bore
the manhood which is Son.
Hence is preferred the term Mother of Christ as being entirely
free from ambiguity.

Two Persons not the teaching of Nestorius

He does nto hold this, when commenting on the followers of

Paul he says, They speak of a double son and a double Christ,
both as to persons and as to substances.
He then refutes this with reference to Johns gospel saying
there is but one word and Son of God and that He assumed
glesh and made it his own without any change of ousia.

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

He therefore decicivley refutes the idea that there are two

persons, though he persistenly maintains that there are two
substances in the one Christ.
Nestorius says that God passed through the holy virgin, the
mother of Christ Cyril uses this to say that he he speaks of
one God the word who was born of the father and one Christ
apart who was born of the virgin mary. Nestorius replies that
he has entirely misunderstood the importance of passed, the
Word passed through Mary to avoid the notion that he had his
beginning in Mary, but this word is just the one word who was
born of the Father.
And it is right for us to say against thee also, Acacius, that the
two natures unconfused I confess to be one Christ.
He did not think of two distinct persons joined together but of
a single person who combines himself the two distinct things
(substances ) God head and mangood with their
characteristics (natures) complete and intact though united in
Him.
BUT the question arises, was it a real union.
He used terms such as joined together and worshiped
together that their relation was one of good pleasure.
However Nestorius does speak of the Godhead to express
unity where he could have used the term God. Even then this
would not be uncommon, since Athanasius sued the phrase
the man instead of the manhood on occasion. E.g. the
union of God the Word with the man from Mary. And in his
discission of Philipians 5 -11 the man was in need of his on
account of the lowliness of the dlesh and of death.
If we do not find the two person doctien in Athanasiu we not
need atrirubte it to Nestorius.
BUT; what of the term conjunction, firstly this is not a good
translation, it implies a much stronger union more like
cohesion and he explicitely states that noone should call the
Word of God a creature, or the manhood which was assumed
incomplete.
What about worshiping together, does not the term
together imply that there are two persons here. BUT this is
not what was meant, indeed Cyril himself when he repudiates
this very phrase speaks of the Words flesh with which He is
seated with the Father. Which might imply an even stronger
separation.
But what about the idea of the indwelling in good pleasure.
No: this term was not used in this way, it was to presence the
voluntariness of the condescension by which He who was God
became man.
How about expressions such as the person fo the God head
and the person of the manhood. This seems to imply two
persons. HOWEVER: expression such as The manhood is the

Guy Olliff-Cooper

Friday, 29 March 13

person of the Gohead and the Godhead is the person of the

manhood. Clearly indicate that the there are not two
coexistant persons.
Nestorius in relation to Cyril

A person is of natures: it is not a nature. Not everything that

the Son is by nature as a person is the Father also, for the Son
which he is by nature, the Father is not. The are distinct in
person but not distinct in ousia and nature. But not so as
regards the union of the Godhead and the mandhood for he
took mna into His person-not into the divine ousia or nature so
that he could be consubstantial with the Father.

The Phrase Hypostatic union

In the Bazaar of Herclides he argues at length that what Cyril

means by hypostatic union must be same same thing as
what he understands by a union of two distinct hypostases
and nature in one person.
Nestorius is consistant in his use of the term hypostasis to
mean substance, like ousia. Cyril is not so consistant.
IF by hypostatic union Cyril meant a UNIFICATION of the two
hyposases then Cyril means that there is now one substance,
in this case he has compounded the Godhead and manhood,
the two persons would have been made one.
For this reason he rejected the term prosopic union which is
what Cyril really means by personal union.
If he did not mean this tehn the two were in perfect
agreement.