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Bible Encyclopedias
Nestorius
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or a celebrated theologian of the 5th century, noted as the founder of the Nestorians (q.v.)an important and early sect of Christians was born, according to the ecclesiastical historian Socrates, who has written his life, at Germanicia, a city in Northern Syria, near the opening of the 5th century. He received his theological education, it is supposed, under the Monophysite Theodore of Mopsuestia. Nestorius was ordained to the priesthood at Antioch, where he was made a presbyter, and where he was "esteemed and celebrated," says Neander, "on account of the rigid austerity of his life and the impressive fervor of his preaching."
The popularity of his pulpit gifts attracted to him large and attentive audiences, and he became a great favorite with the people generally. The Church — which was then greatly divided on the doctrine of the motherhood of Mary, some holding her to be the mother of God, others regarding her simply in the modern evangelical light — looked upon Nestorius as the man eminently fit by his sound, practical judgment and his vast theological learning for a clearing process in this mystifying dogma; and so general was the opinion that Nestorius could unite all Christian believers of the East that the people hailed with great satisfaction and joy his elevation (A.D. 428) to the patriarchate of Constantinople, which had been sought for by more prominent ecclesiastics, whom the emperor had passed by because of their rivalry. In Constantinople Nestorius was looked to as a second Chrysostom, and a restorer of the honor of his great predecessor against the detraction of his Alexandrian rival. But no sooner was Nestorius promoted to this elevated and responsible position than he began to display an intemperate neal, which partook more of the bigotry of the monk than the general tolerant spirit which was becoming his character and, positions as a minister of Christ. His very first efforts when once seated in the patriarchal chair were directed towards the extirpation of heretics, including Arians and; Novatians, Quartodecimani and Macedonians, who at that time abounded in the capital of the East and its subordinate dioceses. Indeed Nestorius's course had been foreshadowed in his inaugural. discourse, in which, addressing the emperor Theodosius II, or the Younger, he gave utterance to these violent expressions: "Give me a country purged of all these heretics, and in exchange for it I will give you heaven. Help me to subdue the heretics, and I will help you to conquer the Persians." Nor did his fury against the heretics find vent only in words; he proceeded to deeds of persecution which, by exciting tumults among the people, led to the effusion of blood. The Pelagians alone, with whose. doctrine of free-will (but not of original sin) he sympathized, he treated indulgently, receiving to himself Julian of Eclanum, Coelestius, and other banished leaders of that party, interceding for them in 429 with the emperor and with the pope Celestine, though, on account of the very unfavorable reports concerning Pelagianism which were spread by the layman Marius Mercator, then living in Constantinople, his intercessions were of no avail (comp. Schaff, Ch. Hist. 3:716). While thus busily engaged in the persecution of others, Nestorius raised up even among the orthodox party in the Church a numerous host of enemies, who were not long in accusing him also of heresy. Having been trained in the strict Antiochian doctrine as to the clear distinction between the divine and human natures of Christ, he and his friend Anastasius, whom he had brought with him from Antioch, could not fail to disapprove of some expressions then current in the Church, which evidently proceeded upon confused notions in respect to the two natures of Christ. One expression in particular, the title θεοτόκος , or Mother of God, applied to the Virgin Mary, more especially taken in connection with the excessive veneration of the Virgin which had begun to prevail, called forth the strongest reprobation on the part of Nestorius. Along with his friend Anastasius he took occasion in his public discourses to state, in the most emphatic manner, his objections to the certainly very bold and equivocal expression mother of God, which had already been sometimes applied to the Virgin Mary by Origen, Alexander of Alexandria, Athanasius, Basil, and others, and which, after the Arian controversy, and with the growth of the worship of Mary, had passed into the devotional language of the people (comp. Schaff, Ch. Hist. 3:716, also 582,583).
The sense, or monstrous nonsense, of this term of course was not that the creature bore the Creator, or that the eternal Deity took its beginning from Mary, which would be the most absurd and the most wicked of all heresies, and a shocking blasphemy; but the expression was intended only to denote the indissoluble union of the divine and human natures in Christ, and the veritable incarnation of the Logos, who took the human nature from the body of Mary, came forth God-Man from her womb, and as God-Man suffered on the cross. For Christ was born as a person, and suffered as a person; and the personality in Christ resided in his divinity, not in his humanity. So, in fact, the reasonable soul of man, which is the centre of the human personality, participates in the suffering and the death-struggle of the body, though the soul itself does not and cannot die. The Antiochian theology, however, could not conceive a human nature without a human personality, and this it strictly separated from the divine Logos. Therefore Theodore of Mopsuestia had already disputed the term theotokos with all earnestness. "Mary," he says, "bore Jesus, not the Logos, for the Logos was, and continues to be, omnipresent, though he dwelt in Jesus in a special manner from the beginning. Therefore Mary is strictly the mother of Christ, not the mother of God. Only in a figure, per anaphoram, can she be called also the mother of God, because God was in a peculiar sense in Christ. Properly speaking, she gave birth to a man in whom the union with the Logos had begun, but was still so incomplete that he could not yet (till after his baptism) be called the Son of God." He even declared it "insane" to say that God was born of the Virgin; "not God, but the temple in which God dwelt, was born of Mary." In a similar strain Nestorius and his friend Anastasius argued from the pulpit against the theotokon. Nestorius proposed the middle expression, mother of Christ (Χριστοτόκος ), because Christ was at the same time God and man. He delivered several discourses on this disputed point. "You ask," he says in his first sermon, "whether Mary may be called mother of God. Has God, then, a mother? If so, heathenism itself is excusable in assigning mothers to its gods; but then Paul is a liar, for he said of the deity of Christ that it was without father, without mother, and without descent (Hebrews 8:3 ἀπάτωρ, ἀμήτωρ, ἄνευ γενεαλογίας). No, my dear sir, Mary did not bear God;... the creature bore not the uncreated Creator, but the man who is the instrument of the Godhead; the Holy Ghost conceived not the Logos, but formed for him, out of the virgin, a temple which he might inhabit (John 2:21). The incarnate God did not die, but quickened him in whom he was made flesh... This garment, which he used, I honor on account of the God which was covered therein and inseparable therefrom;... I separate the natures, but I unite the worship. Consider what this must mean. He who was formed in the womb of Mary was not himself God, but God assumed him [assumsit, i.e., clothed himself with humanity], and on account of him who assumed, he who was assumed is also called God." A controversy now ensued in which the enemies of Nestorius, not comprehending the danger which he saw to be involved in the use of the word theotokos, charged him most unjustly with holding the Photinian and Samosatenian views, which asserted that Jesus was born of Mary as a mere man; or, in other words, they accused him of denying the divinity of Christ. The question was very keenly agitated, both among the clergy and laity, whether Mary was entitled to be called the mother of God. In this dispute Nestorius took an active part, adhering firmly to the doctrine of the school of Antioch. Dupin (Bibliotheque, 1:442, ed. 1722) thus summarizes his views as expounded by himself:
1. He expressly rejected the error of those who said that Christ was a mere man, as Ebion, Paul of Samosata, Photinus.
2. He maintained that the Word was united to the humanity in Christ Jesus, and that this union was most intimate and strict.
3. He maintained that these two natures made one Christ, one Son, one Person.
4. And that this Person may have either divine or human properties attributed to him. But his words contradicted this formal enunciation of his doctrine. His illustrations proved that he did not allow the hypostatic union, but admitted a moral union only. A contemporary writer (Marius Mercator, Opera [Paris, 1673, ed. Gamier]), who lived in the first half of the fifth century, says that Nestorius was sound in most of the Catholic truths on this question taken seriatim. He was sound "de persona divina assumente," also "de natura humana assumpta," and also "de tempore, quo primum extitit unio;" all these positions being demonstrated by extracts from extant sermons and other writings of Nestorius. But he was unsound "de genere unionis." He certainly allowed only a moral union, "Deus et homo unum tantum moraliter." Hence the incarnation according to him was "ἐνοίκησις, ἀνάηψις, ἐνέργεια, ἐνανθρώπησις ." There were two natures in Christ, and the properties in each should be very carefully distinguished — "duae in Christo reipsa hypostases; secernenda singulorum idiomata." Nor would he allow human attributes to be predicated of the divine nature of Christ: "Nec quae unius tribuenda alteri, nisi .καθ᾿ ὁμονυμίαν Rogers (Parker Soc. page 55) quotes an opposite passage in this connection: Φησὶ γὰρ ἐνωθῆναι τὸν θεὸν λόγον τῷ ἐκ Μαρίας ἀνθρώπῳ é σπερ εἴ τις φίλος φίλῳ ἕνωσιν διὰ σχέσεως ποιοῖτο (Nicephorus, 18:48). He denied therefore that God the Son had endured human suffering or gone through human experiences, and he necessarily rejected, according to the above view, the term θεοτόκος, and proposed Χριστοτόκος as an alternative. There is abundant proof from his works of his denial of the hypostatic union. He compared the union of the two natures in Christ to marriage; he spoke of Christ's humanity being the habit, the temple of his divinity. He said that Thomas had touched him that was risen again and honored him that raised him up. He believed "hominem Deificatun, et non verbum carnem factum," that Christ became God by merit and not by nature. At some meetings at Ephesus, preliminary to the council, Nestorius said he would not admit that a child could be God. Acacius, bishop of Melitana, at the council said that he had heard a bishop of the party of Nestorius say "that he that suffered for us was a distinct person from the Word" (Dupin, 1:640). Nestorius proposed an alteration of phraseology in order to overcome this difficulty. He suggested that there would be no difficulty if we said the divine Jesus Christ knew men's thoughts, the human Jesus Christ was hungry, and the like (see Dr. Hey's Lect. 4. He speaks of the cruelty of the persecution of Nestorius, and does "not scruple to say that the Council of Ephesus erred in treating Nestorius with too great severity"). Practically it became clear that his doctrine amounted to teaching that there were two persons in Christ, and it was so felt at the time. (See HIYPOSTATICAL UNION).
Thus the word theotokos became the watchword of the orthodox party in the Nestorian controversy, as the term homoousios had been in the Arian; opposition to the word θεοτόκος meant denial of the mystery of tile incarnation, or of the true union of the divine and human natures in Christ. Unquestionably the Antiochian Christology, which was represented by Nestorius, did not make the Logos truly become man. It asserted indeed, rightly, the duality of the natures, and. the continued distinction between them; it denied, with equal correctness, that God, as such, could either be born, or suffer and die; but it pressed the distinction of the two natures to double personality. It substituted for the idea of the incarnation the idea of an assumption (πρόσληψις) of human nature, or rather of an entire man, into fellowship with the Logos, and an indwelling of Godhead in Christ (ἐνοίκησις in distinction from ἐνάρκωσις). Instead of God-Man (θεάνθρωπος ), we have here the idea of a mere God-bearing man (ἕνωσις καθ᾿ ὑπόστασιν ); and the person of Jesus of Nazareth is only the instrument, or the temple, in which the divine Logos dwells. The two natures form, not a personal unity (θεοφόρος, also θεοδόχος, from δεχεσθαι , God-assuming), but only a moral unity, an intimate friendship or conjunction (συνάφεια). They hold an outward, mechanical relation to each other, in which each retains its peculiar attributes (ἰδιώματα), forbidding any sort of communicatio. idiomatum. This union is, in the first place, a gracious condescension on the part of God (ἕνωσις κατὰ χάριν, .or κατ᾿ εὐδοκίαν ), whereby the Logos makes the man an object of the divine pleasure, and in the second place an elevation of the man to higher dignity and to sonship with God (ἕνωσις κατ᾿ ἀξίαν, καθ᾿ υἱοθεσίαν). By virtue of the condescension there arises, in the third place, a practical fellowship of operation (ἕνωσις κατ᾿ ἐνέργειαν), in which the humanity becomes the instrument and temple of the Deity and the ἕνωσις σχετική culminates.
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 'the able founder of the Antiochian Christology, set forth the elevation of the man to sonship with God (starting from Luke 2:53) under the aspect of a gradual moral process, and .made it dependent on the progressive virtue and meritoriousness of Jesus, which were completed in the resurrection, and earned for him the unchangeableness of the divine life as a reward for his voluntary victory for virtue. The Antiochian and Nestorian theory amounts therefore, at bottom, to a duality of persons in Christ, though without clearly avowing it. It cannot conceive the reality of the two natures without a personal independence for each. With the theanthropic unity of the person of Christ it denies also the theanthropic unity of his work, especially of his sufferings and death; and in the same measure it enfeebles the reality of redemption. From this point of view Mary, of course, could be nothing more than mother of the mall Jesus, and the predicate theotokos, strictly understood, must appear absurd or blasphemous. Nestorius would admit no more than that God passed through (transiit) the womb of Mary. Cyril charges upon Nestorius (Epist. ad Coelest.) that he does not say the Son of God died and rose again, but always only the man Jesus died and rose. Nestorins himself says, in his second homily (in Mar. Mere. page 763 sq.): "It may be said that the Son of God, in the wider sense, died, but not that God died. Moreover the Scriptures, in speaking of the birth, passion, and death, never say God, but Christ, or Jesus, or the Lord — all of them names which suit both natures. A born, dead, and buried God cannot be worshipped." "Pilate," he says in another sermon, "did not crucify the Godhead, but the clothing of the Godhead, and Joseph of Arimathaea did not shroud and bury the Logos" (in Mar. Merc. page 789 sq.).
Nestorius by this controversy had opened a question which went beyond the usual theological arena. The sentiment of venerating Mary had spread so greatly among the people that it touched the most vehement passions, and he was, therefore, not only resisted by theologians of the opposite camp,viz., the Alexandrians, but by the people, and was rejected in public by some of his own clergy even. He accordingly, enraged at the contempt shown to his authority as patriarch, hesitated not to issue orders that the most refractory should be seized, and forthwith beaten and imprisoned. One of these, Proclus by name, who had at a former period applied in vain for the patriarchate of Constantinople, rendered himself peculiarly conspicuous by the bitter hostility which he evinced to the opinions of Nestorius.
This man having, on one occasion, been called to preach in the presence of his patriarch, took occasion, in the course of his sermon, to extol the Virgin Mary as the mother of God, and charged all who refused to acknowledge her as such with being believers in a deified man. Proclus, in the course of his discourse, praised Mary as "the spotless treasure-house of virginity; the spiritual paradise of the second Adam; the workshop in which the two natures were annealed together; the bridal chamber in which. the Word wedded the flesh; the living bush of nature, which was unharmed by the fire of the divine birth; the light cloud which bore him who sat between the cherubim; the stainless fleece, bathed in the dews of heaven, with which the Shepherd clothed his sheep; the handmaid and the mother,, the Virgin and Heaven." The sermon was received with loud applause, and Nestorius found it necessary to defend his own doctrine against the misrepresentations of the preacher. Nestorius's middle term of Χριστοτόκος , which he had adopted to prevent a schism in the Church, failed longer to satisfy any except his most devoted associates; and a considerable party, composed both of clergy, monks, and Church members, refused outright to recognise Nestorius as their ecclesiastical superior. They even renounced all Church fellowship with him. The patriarch accordingly convened a synod at Constantinople in A.D. 429, which deposed some of the most violent of the clergy as favorers of Manichaean doctrines by denying the reality of Christ's humanity. In a short time, however, the Nestorian controversy, which had raged so violently in the Church and patriarchate of Constantinople, extended far beyond these narrow limits, and soon another eminent opponent appeared to harass Nestorius. This one was Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, who had previously exhibited a violent persecuting spirit against pagans, Jews, and heretics. He took the field, moved by interests both personal and doctrinal, and used every means to overthrow his rival in Constantinople, as his like-minded uncle and predecessor, Theophilus, had overthrown the noble Chrysostom in the Origenistic strife. The theological controversy was at the same time a contest of the two patriarchates. In personal character Cyril stands far below Nestorius, but he excelled him in knowledge of the world, shrewdness, theological learning, and acuteness, and had the show of greater veneration for Christ and for Mary on his side; and in his opposition to the abstract separation of the divine and human he was in the right, though he himself pressed to the verge of the opposite error of mixing or confusing the two natures in Christ. (Comp. in particular his assertion of an ἔνωσις φυσική in the third of his Anathematism against Nestorius; Hefele [Conciliengesch. 2:155], however, understands by this not a ἕνωσις εἰς μίαν φύσιν, but only a real union in one being, one existence.)
Cyril, as if to blind the eyes of his antagonists, opened the controversy by mild and apparently suave measures. He simply wrote to Nestorius remonstrating against the views of the Constantinopolitan patriarch. Cyril published two letters addressed to Egyptian monks, in which he assailed the opinions of Nestorius, without, however, alluding to or once mentioning his name. The appearance of these writings excited no light sensation in the East, and gave great offence to Nestorius, against whom they were so plainly levelled. Cyril followed this up by a solemn protest, and finally launched out by vehement and bitter denunciations of Nestorius and his doctrine, declaring the latter at variance with the very essence of Christianity. An epistolary altercation now took place between the two patriarchs, which continued for some time, with considerable bitterness on both sides. To bring about Nestorius's removal from the patriarchate, Cyril addressed the emperor, the empress Eudocia, and the emperor's sister Pulcheria, who took a lively interest in Church affairs; and when these efforts failed to bring about the much desired result, he finally determined to rouse the pope against Nestorius, and therefore caused the sermons of that patriarch to be translated and sent to Rome, and at the same time urged his holiness to take summary measures for the vindication of pure doctrine. Celestine, moved by orthodox instinct, and flattered by the appeal to his authority, summoned a synod to meet at Rome, and with their sanction decided that the clergy excommunicated by Nestorius should be restored to the fellowship of the Church; and, further, that if within ten days after receiving the sentence pronounced at Rome, Nestorius should not give a written recantation of his errors, he should be forthwith deposed from his office as patriarch and excommunicated, "ab universalis ecclesiae catholicae communione dejectus." Cyril having thus found at last the opportunity of humbling his rival, took it upon himself to execute the sentence of the Roman synod. Summoning a synod of Egyptian bishops at Alexandria, Cyril despatched a letter, A.D. 430, in the name of the synod to Nestorius, in which, conformably to the sentence pronounced at Rome, he called upon him to recant, and concluded with twelve anathemas against his presumed errors, thus formally setting forward the Egyptian creed in opposition to the Antiochian system, as expressed by Theodore of Mopsuestia. The controversy now completely altered its aspect, being converted from a personal into a doctrinal dispute. By orders of John, patriarch of Antioch, a refutation of the Egyptian anathemas was published by Theodoret, bishop of Cyros, a town on the Euphrates; and this refutation, which was written with great severity, called forth an equally violent reply from the pen of Cyril. Nestorius, on his part, treated the deputies sent from Celestine and Cyril with the utmost contempt, and answered the anathemas of Cyril by sending twelve counter anathemas, in which he accused his opponents of the heresy of Apollinaris (q.v.).
The controversy had now become so general and critical that it was thought to be absolutely necessary to summon a general council, and therefore the emperor, Theodosius II, in connection with his Western colleague, Valentinian III, issued a proclamation to all the metropolitans of his empire to meet in oecumenical council at Ephesus about Pentecost of the following year. Cyril and Nestorius arrived at Ephesus at the appointed time, the former authorized temporarily to represent the pope, Celestine, and accompanied by a great number of Egyptian bishops, who came to act as his devoted tools. The bishop of the city in which the council was assembled was the friend of Cyril, and such was the extent of influence arrayed against Nestorius that he found it necessary to solicit from the imperial commissioner a guard to protect his person and the house in which he resided. A number of the Syrian bishops were prevented from reaching Ephesus in time for the opening of the council, and having waited sixteen days beyond the time appointed by the emperor, Cyril insisted on commencing proceedings, and accordingly on June 22, 431, he opened the synod with 200 bishops. The bishop of Hippo, St. Augustine, was to have presided at the Council of Ephesus, but he died in the latter part of the year 430. Nestorius refused to attend till all the bishops had assembled, and having been formally invited three several times to appear and answer the various charges, oral and written, laid against him, his refusals to obey the summons of the synod were construed as an admission on his own part of his guilt, and it therefore proceeded to his condemnation. The bishops unanimously cried, "Whosoever does not anathematize Nestorius, let himself be anathema; the true faith anathematizes him; the holy council anathematizes him. Whosoever holds fellowship with Nestorius, let him be anathema. We all anathematize the letter and the doctrines of Nestorius. We all anathematize Nestorius and his followers, and his ungodly faith, and his ungodly doctrine. We all anathematize Nestorius," etc. (Mansi, 4:1170 sq.; Hefele, 2:169). Then a multitude of Christological expressions of the earlier fathers and several passages from the writings of Nestorius were read, and at the close of the first session, which lasted till late in the night, the synod, in which, says Schaff, "an uncharitable, violent, and passionate spirit ruled the transactions," after many tears, as its members declared, constrained by the laws of the Church, and by the letter of the Roman bishop, Celestine, pronounced sentence in the following terms: 'The Lord Jesus Christ, by Nestorius blasphemed, has ordained by this most holy synod that the Nestorius above named be excluded from the episcopal dignity, and from sacerdotal fellowship'? (Mansi, 4:1211; Hefele, 2:172).
This sentence was no sooner passed than, by orders of Cyril, it was publicly proclaimed by heralds through the whole city. It was also formally announced to the emperor. Meanwhile John, bishop of Antioch, with about thirty Syrian bishops, arrived at Ephesus a few days after the council headed by Cyril had met and deposed Nestorius, and, on learning what had been done, they declared the proceedings of that council null and void, proceeded to form a new council, or conciliabulum — yielding nothing to the heated violence of the other — in the dwelling of the celebrated Theodoret (q.v.), under the protection of the imperial counsellor and a body-guard, and declared itself to be the only regular one. The conciliabulum, in turn, now deposed Cyril and Memnon, bishop of Ephesus, and excommunicated the other members who had taken part in the proceedings of the Cyrillian councils until they should manifest penitence and condemn the anathemas of Cyril (Mansi, 4:1259 sq.; Hefele, 2:178 sq.). The sentence against the two bishops was made known throughout the city, and formally communicated to the emperor. In the midst of this conflict of councils the deputies of the Roman bishop appeared at Ephesus, and, according to their instructions, gave their formal sanction to all the proceedings of Cyril and his council.
The emperor, however, on hearing the report of his commissioner, lost no time in despatching a letter to Ephesus by the hands of an imperial officer, conveying his royal pleasure that the disputed question should be carefully considered, not by any party in the assembly but by the whole council in common, and until this was done no one of the bishops could be permitted to return to his diocese or to visit the court. Cyril and his party, seeing the evident leaning of the emperor in favor of Nestorius, resorted to various expedients for the purpose of enlisting the influence of the court for, themselves, and at length they succeeded in prevailing upon the feeble and vacillating emperor, through the intervention of Theophilus's sister, to confirm the deposition of Nestorius, although he had agreed to withdraw his objection to the word "theotokos," mother of God. Thus, finally forsaken by the court, which had so long protected him against his numerous and powerful enemies, Nestorius saw himself deserted by many of the bishops of his party; and though John of Antioch and a number of the Eastern bishops stood firm for a time, John and Cyril were ultimately brought to an agreement, and both retained their sees. The compromise which was effected between the two prelates and the emperor was brought about mainly by the following steps. John of Antioch sent the aged bishop Paul of Emesa a messenger to Alexandria with a creed which he had already, in a shorter form, laid before the emperor, and which broke the doctrinal antagonism by asserting the duality of the natures against Cyril, and the predicate mother of God against Nestorius (Mansi, 5:305; Hefele, 2:246; Gieseler, I, 2:150). "We confess," says this symbol, which was composed by Theodoret, "that our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and body subsisting (θεὸν τέλειον καὶ ἄνθρωπον τέλειον ἐκ ψυχῆς λογικῆς [against Apollinaris] καὶ σώματος ); as to his Godhead begotten of the Father before all time, but as to his manhood born of the Virgin Mary in the end of the days for us and for our salvation; of the same essence with the Father as to his Godhead, and of the same substance with us as to his manhood ὁμοούσιον τῷ πατρὶ κατὰ τὴν θεότητα, καὶ ὁμοούσιον ἡμῖν κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα Here homoousios, at least in the second clause, evidently does not imply numerical unity, but only generic unity); for two natures are united with one another (δύο γὰρ φύσεων ἕνωσις γέγονε, in opposition to the μία φύσις of Cyril). Therefore we confess one Christ, one Lord, and one Son. By reason of this union, which yet is without confusion (κατὰ ταύτην τὴν τῆς ἀσυγχύτου [against Cyril] ἑνώσεως ἔννοιαν), we also confess that the holy Virgin is mother of God, because God the Logos was made flesh and man, and united with himself the temple [humanity] even from the conception; which temple he took from the Virgin. But concerning the words of the Gospel and Epistles respecting Christ, we know that theologians apply some which refer to the one person to the two natures in common, but separate others as referring to the two natures, and assign the expressions which become God to the Godhead of Christ, but the expressions of humiliation to his manhood" (καὶ τὰς μὲν θεοπρεπεῖς κατὰ τὴν θεότητα τοῦ Χριστοῦ τὰς δὲ ταπεινὰς κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα αὐτοῦ παραδιδόντας).
This compromise of principle with which John of Antioch was thus made chargeable roused a large party in his own diocese, and many of the Syrian bishops withdrew from all fellowship with him. A schism followed in various parts of the Eastern Church. Nestorius, on the other hand, at his own request, was assigned to his former cloister at Antioch, and on October 25, 431, Maximian was nominated as his successor in Constantinople. Upon the death of this patriarch in A.D. 433, however, a large party at Constantinople demanded the restoration of Nestorius, threatening that if their wish was refused they would set fire to the patriarchal church; but so strong was the influence exercised by the opponents of the deposed patriarch that the vacant dignity was conferred upon his early adversary, Proclus. Cyril, seeing the strength of Nestorius's friends, determined now that his opponent should be forever removed beyond the possibility of exercising any longer any influence in the Church; and the Antiochians, having saved the doctrine of two natures, were gradually won over by persuasives in various forms to consent to the sacrifice of the person of Nestorius for the sake of the unity of the Church. Finally, in A.D. 435, an imperial edict appeared which condemned Nestorius to perpetual banishment in the Greater Oasis of Upper Egypt. "The unhappy Nestorius," says a Church historian, " was now dragged from the stillness of his former cloister of Euporpius, before the gates of Antioch, in which he had enjoyed four years of repose, from one place of exile to another — first to Arabia, then to Egypt and was compelled to drink the bitter cup of persecution which he himself, in the days of his power, had forced upon the heretics." To his credit, be it said, he bore his sufferings with resignation and independence. In his exile Nestorius busied himself by the writing of several theological works. Thus he wrote a history of his life and of his theological controversy, in which he sought to vindicate himself against the reproaches of both friends and foes, significantly entitled a Tragedy. (Fragments in Evagrius, Hist. Ecclesiastes 1:7, and in the Synodicon adversus Tragediam Irenaei, c. 6. That the book bore the name of Tragedy is stated by Ebedjesu, a Nestorian metropolitan.
The imperial commissioner, Irenaeus, afterwards bishop of Tyre, a friend of Nestorius, composed a book concerning him and the ecclesiastical history of his time, likewise under the title of Tragedy, fragments of which, in a Latin translation, are preserved in the so-called Synodicon, in Mansi, 5:431 sq.) Various accounts are given of the circumstances which led to his death, but in one thing all are agreed, that his last years were embittered by many acts of harsh and cruel persecution. The precise time or place of his death has not been ascertained, but he is believed to have died previous to A.D. 450, when the Eutychian controversy began to attract notice. The account given by Evagrius, that Nestorius's death was caused by a disease in which his tongue was eaten by worms, rests, according to Evagrius himself, on a single and unnamed authority. The more probably authentic narratives ascribe his death to the effects of a fall. He was still living A.D. 439, when Socrates wrote his history (Hist. Eccles. 7:34). The Monophysite Jacobites are accustomed from year to year to cast stones upon his supposed grave in Upper Egypt, and have spread the tradition that it has never been moistened by the rain of heaven, which yet falls upon the evil and the good. The emperor, who had formerly favored him, but was now turned entirely against him, caused all his writings to be burned, and his followers to be named after Simon Magus, and stigmatized as Simonians. But though this be his memory in the East, in the West the sad fate and upright character of Nestorius, after having been long abhorred, has in modern times, since Luther, found much sympathy; while Cyril, by his violent conduct, has incurred much censure. Walch (Ketzerhist. 5:817 sq.) has collected the earlier opinions. Gieseler and Neander take the part of Nestorius against Cyril, and think that he was unjustly condemned. So also Milman, who would rather meet the justice of the divine Redeemer loaded with the errors of Nestorius than with the barbarities of Cyril, but does not enter into the theological merits of the controversy (Hist. of Latin Christianity, 1:210). Petavius, Baur, Hefele, and Ebrard, on the contrary, vindicate Cyril against Nestorius, not as to his personal conduct, which was anything but Christian, but in regard to the particular matter in question, viz., the defence of the unity of Christ against the division of his personality. Dorner (2:81 sq.) justly distributes the right and wrong, truth and error, on both sides, and considers Nestorius and Cyril representatives of two equally one-sided conceptions, which complement each other. Cyril's strength lay on the religious and speculative side of Christology, that of Nestorius on the ethical and practical. Kahnis (Dogmatik, 2:86) gives a similar judgment. Perhaps it is nearest the truth to concede that Nestorius was possessed of an honest and pious zeal, but was wanting in that prudence and moderation by which zeal should have been controlled.
Literature. — On the sources are to be consulted —
(1.) In favor of Nestorius: Nestorius, ' ῾Ομιλίαι, Sermones; Anathematismi. Extracts from the Greek original in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus; in a Latin translation in Marius Mercator, a North African layman who just then resided in Constantinople (Opera, ed. Garnerius [Paris, 1673], part 2; and better ed. Baluzius, Paris, 1684); also in Gallandi, Bibl. vet. P.P. (8:615-735), and in Migne's Patrol. (tom. 47). Nestorius's own account (Evagrius, Hist. Ecclesiastes 1:7) was used by his friend Irenseus (bishop of Tyre till 448) in his Tragaedis s. comm. de rebus in synodo Ephesina ac in Oriente foto gestis, which, however, is lost; the documents attached to it were revised in the 6th century in the Synodicon adversus Tragaediam Irenaei (in Mansi, 5:731 sq.). In favor of Nestorius, or at least of his doctrine, Theodoret (t 457) in his works against Cyril, and in three dialogues entitled Ε᾿ρανιστής (Beggar). Comp. also the fragments of Theodore of Mopsuestia (t 429).
(2.) Against Nestorius: It has been shown that the great opponent of Nestorius was Cyril of Alexandria. He published Ἀναθεματισμοί, five books κατὰ Νεστορίου , and several Epistles against Nestorius and Theodoret, in volume 6 of Aubert's ed. of his Opera (Paris, 1638 [in Migne's ed.], tom. 9). These aim to prove that the Virgin Mary was θεοτόκος, and not χριστοτόκος. But there are besides a great number of writers against Nestorius and his heresy whose works are extant. Among these are, Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiastes 7, c. 29-35 (written after 431, but still before the death of Nestorius; comp. c. 34); Evagrius, Hist. Ecclesiastes 1:2-7; Liberatus (deacon of Carthage about 553), Breviariun causae Nestorianorum et Eutychianorum (ed. Garnier, Paris, 1675; and printed in Gallandi, Bibl. vet. Patrum, 12:121-161); Leontius of Byzantium (monachus), De sectis; and Contra Nestorium et Eutychen (in Gallandi, Bibl. 12:625 sq., and 658-700). Besides these should be mentioned Philastrius, Epiphanius, Theodoret, Faustus, Maxentius, Marius Mercator, and many others. A complete collection of all the acts of the Nestorian controversy, see in Mansi, 4:567 sq.; and 5, 7, 9.
Of later literature, see Petavius, Theolog. dogmatum, tom. 4 (de incarnatione), lib. 1, c. 7 sq.; Garnier, De haeresi et libris Nestorii, in his edition of the Opera Marii Mercator. (Paris, 1673; newly edited by Migne, Paris, 1846); Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 47; Jablonski, De Nestorianismo (Berol. 1724); Gengler (R.C.), Ueber die Verdammung des Nestorius (in Tibinger Quartalschrift, 1835, No. 2); Schmid, Vera Nestorii de unione naturarum in Christo sententia (Jena, 1794, 4to); Salig, De Eutychianismo ante Eutychen (Wolfenb. 1723, 4to); Schrockh, Kirchen-Geschichte, 18:176-312; Walch, Ketzerhist. 5:289-936; Schaff, Ch. Hist. 3:714-733; Neander, Torrey's transl. 2:446-524; 4:44 sq.; and his Hist. of Dogma. pages 329, 331-333, 336, 393; Gieseler, Kirchen- Geschichte, 1, div. 2, page 131 sq. (4th ed.); Baur, Gesch. der Dreieiniqkeitslehre, 1:693-777; Dorner, Person of Christ, 2:60-98; Hefele (R.C.), Conciliengesch. 2:134 sq.; Milman, History of Latin Christianity, 1:195-252; Neale, History of the Holy Eastern Church (Patriarchate of Alexandria), 1:233-277; Wright, Early Christianity in Arabia, § 9; Stanley, in his History of the Eastern Church, has seen fit to ignore the Nestorian and the other Christological controversies — the most important in the history of the Greek Church; Liddon, Bampton Lectures on the Divinity of Christ, pages 121, 257, 463; comp. also W. Moller, art. Nestorius, in Herzog's Real-Encykl. 10:288-296. See also the literature appended to the article (See NESTORIANS).
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McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Nestorius'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/n/nestorius.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
