that raised him up. He believed " horainem Deifica- tura, et lion verbutn carnem factum," that Christ became (Jod by merit and not by nature. At some meetings at Epliesus, preliminary to the council, Nestorius said he would not admit tliat a cliild could be (iod. Acacius, liisliop of Jlclitaiia, 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" (I)upiii. i, 040). Nestorius proposed an alteration of phraseolo<ry in ortler to overcome tliis difficulty. He siiffj^esteil tliat there would be no ditKculty if we said the divine Jesus Christ knew men's thou{jjhts, the liu- man .Jesus Christ was hungry, and the like (see Dr. Hey's Led. iv. He speaks of the cruelty of the per- secution of Nestorius, and does " not scruple to say tliat tlie Council of Ephesus erred in treating Nestorius with too great severity"). Practically it became clear that liis doctrine amounted to teaching that there were two persons in Christ, and it was so felt at the time. See HvposTATiCAL Union. Thus the word theotokos be- came the watchword of the orthodox party in tlie Nes- torian controversy, as the term hoinoonsius had been in the Arian; opposition to the word ^iot6ko<; meant denial of the mystery of the incarnation, or of the true union of the divine and human natures in Christ. Vjw- (piestionably the Antiochian Christology, which was represented by Nestorius, did not make the Logos truly become man. It asserted indeed, rightly, tlie 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 per- sonality. It substituted for the idea of the incarnation tlie idea of an assumption {7rp6a\:]\(/tc:) of human nat- ure, or rather of an entire man, into fellowship with the Logoj, ail 1 an indwelling of Godhead in Ciirist (U'oiicrjms in distinction from tvcrdpKioaiQ). Instead of (ioil-Man (3lidv^pM7^oQ), we have here the idea of a mere Gutl-beariiig man (jVwfftf Ka^' VTruaraaiv); 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 (^^eo(p6poc, also BioOoxof:, from OiX^aSrai, God-assuming), but only a moral unit\% an intimate friendship or conjunction (ovv- ci(j)ua). They hold an outward, mechanical relation to each other, in which each retains its peculiar attri- butes (ISuonaTct), forbidding any sort of communicntio idiomatum. This union is, in the first place, a gracious condescension on the part of God {'ivwaiq Kara xupiv, or Kar evSoKiav), 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 (ti'wiTtc Kar' d'^iav, ica^' v'loitaiai'). ]5y virtue of the condescension there arises, in the third )ilacc, a practical fellowship of operation {tvoomg Kar' iv'tpyHCiv), in which the humanity becomes the instru- ment and temple of the Ufity and the 'iviuaiQ (txitiki) culminates. Tlieodore of Mopsuestia, the able founder of the Antiochian Christology, set forth the elevation of the man to sonsliip with (Jod (starting from Luke ii, b'.i) under the aspect of a gradual moral process, and made it dependent on the progressive virtue and mcrito- riousness of Jesus, which were completed in the resur- rection, and earned for him the unchangc.iblcness of the divine life as a reward for his voluntary victory for vir- tue. The Antiochian and Nestorian theory amounts therefore, at bottom, to a duality of persons in Christ, though without clearly avowing it. It cannot conceive tlie reality of the two natures without a personal inde- pendence for each. With the theaiithropic unity of the person of Christ it denies also the theaiithropic unity of liis work, especially of his sulTeriugs and dcatli; and in the same measure it enfeebles the reality of redt'iiiiition. From this jioint of view Mary, of course, could be noth- ing more than mother of the man Jesus, and the predi- cate ihcotokof, strictly understood, must appear absurd or blasphemous. Nestorius would admit no more than
I that God passed through (fransiit) the womb of Mary.
! Cyril charges ui>on Nestorius {EpUt. ad Calest.) that he does not say the Son of (iod died and rose again, but al-
1 ways only tlie man Jesus died and rose. Nestorius himself says, in his second homily (in Mar. Merc. p. 7G3 sq.) : " It may be said that the tion of God, in the wider
1 sense, died, but not that God died. Moreover the Script-
I ures, in speaking of the birth, passion, and death, never say God, but ChrisI, or Jesux, or the Lord — all of them names which suit both natures. A born, dead, and buried (iod cannot be worshipped." " Pilate," lie says in another sermon, " did not crucify tlie Godhead, but the clothing of the Godhead, and Josejih of Arimathsea did not shroud and bury the Logos" (in Mar. Merc, p, 789 sq.).
Nestorius by this controversy had opened a question which went beyond the usual theological arena. Tlie 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, hesi- tated not to issue orders that the most refractory should be seized, and forthwith beaten and imprisoned. One of these, Prochis 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 ilary as the mother of (iod, and charged all who refused to acknowl- edge her as such with being believers in a deified man. Proclus, ill the course of his discourse, praised iMary 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 ciiamber in which the Word wedded the Hesh ; the living bush of nature, which was unharmed by the lire of tlie divine birtli ; the light clofld which bore liira who sat between the cherubim; the stainless lleecc, bathed in the dews of heaven, with which the Shep- herd 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 misrepresentation!) of the preacher. Nestorius's middle term of XpiCTroroKOf, which he had ado])ted to prevent a schism in the Church, failed longer to satisfy any except his most devoted as- sociates; and a considerable party, composed both of clergy, monks, and Churcli members, refused outright to recognise Nestorius as their ecclesiastical superior. They even renounced all Church fellowship with him. Tiie patriarch accordingly convened a synod at Con- stantinople in A.D.42!), which deposed some of the most violent of the clergy as favorers of JManicluvan doctrines by denying the reality of Christ's humanity. In a short time, however, tlie Nestorian (■ontroversy, which had raged so violently in the Church ami jiatriarchatc of Constantinople, extended far beyond t licse narrow limits, and soon another eminent opjioneiit ajipeared to liarass