Pearson is mistaken in supposing that the resolution of the compound Theotocos into meter tou Theou was unknown to the early Greek writers. Dionysius expressly calls Mary he meter tou Theou mou (Contr. Paul. Samos., Quæst. viij.); and among the Latins Mater Dei and Dei Genetrix were (as Pearson himself confesses in note 37) used before the time of St. Leo I. It is not an open question whether Mater Dei, Dei Genetrix, Deipara, meter tou Theou are proper equivalents for Theotokos. This point has been settled by the unvarying use of the whole Church of God throughout all the ages from that day to this, but there is, or at least some persons have thought that there was, some question as to how Theotocos should be translated into English.
Throughout this volume I have translated it "Mother of God," and I propose giving my reasons for considering this the only accurate translation of the word, both from a lexico-graphical and from a theological point of view.
(a) It is evident that the word is a composite formed of Theos = God, and tiktein = to be the mother of a child. Now I have translated the verbal part "to be the mother of a child" because "to bear" in English does not necessarily carry the full meaning of the Greek word, which (as Bp. Pearson has well remarked in the passage cited above) includes "conception, nutrition, and parturition." It has been suggested that "God-bearer" is an exact translation. To this I object, that in the first place it is not English; and in the second that it would be an equally and, to my mind, more accurate translation of Theophoros than of Theotokos.
Another suggestion is that it be rendered "the bringer forth of God." Again I object that, from a rhetorical standpoint, the expression is very open to criticism; and from a lexicographical point of view it is entirely inadequate, for while indeed the parturition does necessarily involve in the course of nature the previous conception and nutrition, it certainly does not express it.
Now the word Mother does necessarily express all three of these when used in relation to her child. The reader will remember that the question I am discussing is not whether Mary can properly be called the Mother of God; this Nestorius denied and many in ancient and modern times have been found to agree with him. The question I am considering is what the Greek word Theotocos means in English. I do not think anyone would hesitate to translate Nestorius's Christotocos by "Mother of Christ" and surely the expressions are identical from a lexicographical point of view.
Liddell and Scott in their Lexicon insert the word theotokos as an adjective and translate "bearing God" and add: "especially he Theotokos, Mother of God, of the Virgin, Eccl."
(b) It only remains to consider whether there is from a theological point of view any objection to the translation, "Mother of God." It is true that some persons have thought that such a rendering implied that the Godhead has its origin in Mary, but this was the very objection which Nestorius and his followers urged against the word Theotocos, and this being the case, it constitutes a strong argument in favour of the accuracy of the rendering. Of course the answer to the objection in each case is the same, it is not of the Godhead that Mary is the Mother, but of the Incarnate Son, who is God. "Mother" expresses exactly the relation to the incarnate Son which St. Cyril, the Council of Ephesus, and all succeeding, not to say also preceding, ages of Catholics, rightly or wrongly, ascribe to Mary. All that every child derives from its Mother that God the Son derived from Mary, and this without the co-operation of any man, but by the direct operation of the Holy Ghost, so that in a fuller, truer, and more perfect sense, Mary is the Mother of God the Son in his incarnation, than any other earthly mother is of her son.
I therefore consider it certain that no scholar who can and will divest himself of theological bias, can doubt that "Mother of God" is the most accurate translation of the term Theotocos.
[247] Cf. Bp. Lightfoot's criticism on Gibbon as an historian, The Apostolic Fathers, Vol. I., p. 46 n. Macaulay's History of England will of course instantly present itself to the reader as a sample of the brilliant variety of histories referred to in the text.
[248] The date is not certain, it may have been a year or so different.
[249] Theod., Hist. Eccl., I., 4.
[250] Pearson, An Expos. of the Creed, Art. III., n. 36.
[251] I take this passage as cited by Hefele, Hist. Counc., Vol. III., 9,
[252] Ignat., Ad. Eph., vii.
[253] Ibid. xviij.
[254] Melito, Fragm. 14 (ed. Otto); cit. Lightfoot, Apost. Fath., II., 1, p. 48, n.
[255] Pearson, An Expos. of the Creed, Art. III., n. 36.
II.
If anyone shall not confess that the Word of God the Father is united hypostatically to flesh, and that with that flesh of his own, he is one only Christ both God and man at the same time: let him be anathema.
Notes.
Nestorius.
II.
If any one asserts that, at the union of the Logos with the flesh, the divine Essence moved from one place to another; or says that the flesh is capable of receiving the divine nature, and that it has been partially united with the flesh; or ascribes to the flesh, by reason of its reception of God, an extension to the infinite and boundless, and says that God and man are one and the same in nature; let him be anathema.
III.
If anyone shall after the [hypostatic] union divide the hypostases in the one Christ, joining them by that connexion alone, which happens according to worthiness, or even authority and power, and not rather by a coming together (sunodo), which is made by natural union (henosin phusiken): let him be anathema.
Notes.
Nestorius.
III.
If any one says that Christ, who is also Emmanuel, is One, not [merely] in consequence of connection, but [also] in nature, and does not acknowledge the connection (sunapheia) of the two natures, that of the Logos and of the assumed manhood, in one Son, as still continuing without mingling; let him be anathema.
Hefele.
(Hist. of the Counc., Vol. III., p. 7.)
Theodore [of Mopsuestia, and in this he was followed by Nestorius,] (and here is his fundamental error,) not merely maintained the existence of two natures in Christ, but of two persons, as, he says himself, no subsistence can be thought of as perfect without personality. As however, he did not ignore the fact that the consciousness of the Church rejected such a double personality in Christ, he endeavoured to get rid of the difficulty, and he repeatedly says expressly: "The two natures united together make only one Person, as man and wife are only one flesh....If we consider the natures in their distinction, we should define the nature of the Logos as perfect and complete, and so also his Person, and again the nature and the person of the man as perfect and complete. If, on the other hand, we have regard to the union (sunapheia), we say it is one Person." The very illustration of the union of man and wife shows that Theodore did not suppose a true union of the two natures in Christ, but that his notion was rather that of an external connection of the two. The expression sunapheia, moreover, which he selected here instead of the term henosin, which he elsewhere employs, being derived from sunapto [to join together], expresses only an external connection, a fixing together, and is therefore expressly rejected in later times by the doctors of the Church. And again, Theodore designates a merely external connection also in the phrase already quoted, to the effect that "the Logos dwells in the man assumed as in a temple." As a temple and the statue set up within it are one whole merely in outward appearance, so the Godhead and manhood in Christ appear only from without in their actuality as one Person, while they remain essentially two Persons.
IV.
If anyone shall divide between two persons or subsistences those expressions (phonas) which are contained in the Evangelical and Apostolical writings, or which have been said concerning Christ by the Saints, or by himself, and shall apply some to him as to a man separate from the Word of God, and shall apply others to the only Word of God the Father, on the ground that they are fit to be applied to God: let him be anathema.
Notes.
Nestorius.
IV.
If any one assigns the expressions of the Gospels and Apostolic letters, which refer to the two natures of Christ, to one only of those natures, and even ascribes suffering to the divine Word, both in the flesh and in the Godhead; let him be anathema.
St. Cyril.
(Apol. contra Orientales.)
For we neither teach the division of the hypostases after the union, nor do we say that the nature of the Deity needs increase and growth; but this rather we hold, that by way of an economical appropriation (kat' oikeiosin oikonomiken), he made his own the properties of the flesh, as having become flesh.
(Quod unus est Christus.)
For the wise Evangelist, introducing the Word as become flesh, shows him economically submitting himself to his own flesh and going through the laws of his own nature. But it belongs to humanity to increase in stature and in wisdom, and, I might add, in grace, intelligence keeping pace with the measure of the body, and differing according to age. For it was not impossible for the Word born of the Father to have raised the body united to himself to its full height from the very swaddling-clothes. I would say also, that in the babe a wonderful wisdom might easily have appeared. But that would have approached the thaumaturgical, and would have been incongruous to the laws of the economy. For the mystery was accomplished noiselessly. Therefore he economically allowed the measures of humanity to have power over himself.
A. B. Bruce.
(The Humiliation of Christ. Appendix to Lect. II.)
The accommodation to the laws of the economy, according to this passage, consisted in this--in stature, real growth; in wisdom, apparent growth. The wonderful wisdom was there from the first, but it was not allowed to appear (ekphenai), to avoid an aspect of monstrosity.
St. Cyril.
(Adversus Nestorium.)
Therefore there would have been shown to all an unwonted and strange thing, if, being yet an infant, he had made a demonstration of his wisdom worthy of God; but expanding it gradually and in proportion to the age of the body, and (in this gradual manner) making it manifest to all, he might be said to increase (in wisdom) very appropriately.
(Ad Reginas de recta fide, Orat. II., cap. xvi.)
"But the boy increased and waxed strong in spirit, being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him." And again: "Jesus increased in stature and wisdom, and in favour with God and men." In affirming our Lord Jesus Christ to be one, and assigning to him both divine and human properties, we truly assert that it was congruous to the measures of the kenosis, on the one hand, that he should receive bodily increase and grow strong, the parts of the body gradually attaining their full development; and, on the other hand, that he should seem to be filled with wisdom, in so far as the manifestation of the wisdom dwelling within him proceeded, as by addition, most congruously to the stature of the body; and this, as I said, agreed with the economy of the Incarnation, and the measures of the state of humiliation.
(Apol. contra Theod., ad Anath. iv.)
And if he is one and the same in virtue of the true unity of natures, and is not one and another (two persons) disjunctively and partitively, to him will belong both to know and to seem not to know. Therefore he knows on the divine side as the Wisdom of the Father. But since he subjected himself to the measure of humanity, he economically appropriates this also with the rest, although, as I said a little ago, being ignorant of nothing, but knowing all things with the Father.
V.
If anyone shall dare to say that the Christ is a Theophorus [that is, God-bearing] man and not rather that he is very God, as an only Son through nature, because "the Word was made flesh," and "hath a share in flesh and blood as we do:" let him be anathema.
Notes.
Nestorius.
V.
If any one ventures to say that, even after the assumption of human nature, there is only one Son of God, namely, he who is so in nature (naturaliter filius = Logos), while he (since the assumption of the flesh) is certainly Emmanuel; let him be anathema.
Petavius.
It is manifest that this anathematism is directed against the blasphemy of Nestorius, by which he said that Christ was in this sense Emmanuel, that a man was united and associated with God, just as God had been said to have been with the Prophets and other holy men, and to have had his abode in them; so that they were properly styled Theophoroi, because, as it were, they carried God about with them; but there was no one made of the two. But he held that our Lord as man was bound and united with God only by a communion of dignity.