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NESTORIUS 
 
 AND HIS PLACE IN THE 
 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 
 
 by 
 
 FRIEDRICH LOOFS, D.D., Phil.D. 
 
 Professor of Church History in the University 
 of Halle- Wittenberg, Germany 
 
 Cambridge : 
 
 at the University Press 
 1914 
 
Cambridge : 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
B' 
 
 i~ & 
 
 PEEFACE 
 
 IN this small book I publish four lectures which 
 I was invited to give in a course of "advanced 
 lectures in theology " at the University of London, 
 March, 1913. The lectures were for the most part 
 originally written in German. I translated them with 
 the kind assistance of Miss Ida South ha 11, M.A., of 
 Birmingham, then a guest at my house. But it is not 
 she alone to whom I am indebted. I have also to thank 
 my dear host during my stay in London, Professor 
 H. J. White, who read two of my lectures before I 
 gave them, and the corrector of the Cambridge 
 University Press and two of our American students, 
 Mr H. Harper, B.A., of Avalan (U.S.A.), and Mr 
 Charles Baillie, B.D., of Picton (Canada), whose kind 
 suggestions I often utilized in reading the proofs. 
 However, I beg my readers to put it to my account, 
 that in spite of all these friendly helpers, the German 
 author very often reveals himself. 
 
 In quoting Nestorius' "Book of Heraclides" I have 
 given the pages both of the Syriac text and of Nau's 
 French translation — not in order to raise in my reader's 
 mind the idea that I made use of the Syriac text. 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 Having forgotten nearly all I once knew of Syriac, 
 I examined the Syriac text with the help of various 
 friends only in a very few places, and I realize how 
 much the ordinary use of the French translation alone 
 is to be regarded as a defect in my lectures. I have 
 quoted the numbers of the pages of the original Syriac 
 text, as given by Nau, only in order that in this way 
 the places where the quotations are to be found may be 
 more accurately indicated than by merely quoting the 
 pages of Nau' s translation. 
 
 Since this book w T ent to press I have made the 
 acquaintance of a lecture by Dr Junglas, a Roman- 
 Catholic scholar, entitled Die Irrlehre des Nestorius 
 (Trier, 1912, 29 pages), and of the interesting chapters 
 on "the tragedy of Nestorius" and "the council of 
 Chalcedon" in L. Duchesne's Histoire ancienne de 
 Vfiglise (torn, in, Paris, 1911, pp. 313-388 and 389- 
 454). The latter makes little use of the newly 
 discovered Liber Heraclidis and does not give much 
 detail about the teaching of Nestorius. Nevertheless 
 I regret very much that I did not know earlier this 
 treatment of the matter, surely more learned and more 
 impartial than any other of Roman-Catholic origin. 
 Dr Junglas in giving a short delineation of Nestorius' 
 " heresy " has utilized the " Book of Heraclides " and, 
 in my opinion, made some valuable remarks about the 
 terminology of Nestorius which are not to be found 
 elsewhere. However, in his one short lecture he was 
 
PREFACE Vll 
 
 not able to go into details, and there are many things 
 which he has failed to observe. There is a third 
 Roman-Catholic research into the doctrine of Nestorius 
 (J ugie, article " Ephese, concile de" in the Dictionnaire 
 de la theologie catholique, Fasc. 37. Paris, 1911, pp. 137- 
 163), which, as I understand, endeavours more eagerly 
 than Dr Jung las to show that Nestorius was justly 
 condemned ; but I have not had the opportunity to 
 read this article. 
 
 As regards my own treatment of the matter, I do 
 not pretend to have exhausted the subject nor to have 
 found the definite and final answers to the various 
 questions aroused about Nestorius' life and doctrine by 
 his Liber Heraclidis. I trust that I have indicated 
 more clearly than Professor Bethune-Baker has 
 already done the way by which we may arrive at a real 
 understanding of Nestorius' peculiar ideas. Others, 
 I hope, may be stimulated by the present lectures 
 to a further study of Nestorius' christology. The 
 subject is deserving of interest. For there is no other 
 christology in the ancient church so " modern " as his 
 and perhaps that of his teachers whose dogmatical 
 works are lost. 
 
 F. L. 
 
 Halle on the Saale, Germany, 
 January 20th, 1914. 
 
The subject of my lectures — " Nestorius and his 
 position in the history of Christian Doctrine " — seems 
 at the first glance to have little interest for us modern 
 men. Almost 1500 years have passed since Nestorius 
 played his role in history. And this role was in the 
 orthodox church a very transitory one. 
 
 For the Persian-Nestorian or Syrian-Nestorian 
 church (as the language of this church was Syriac) 
 Nestorius, it is true, became a celebrated saint ; and 
 still to-day small remains of this once far-reaching 
 church are to be found in the vicinity of the Urmia 
 Lake in the north-west of Persia and south of it in the 
 mountains of Turkish Kurdistan. But in the orthodox 
 church Nestorius was even in his own time an ephemeral 
 appearance. In the year 428 A.D. he became bishop of 
 Constantinople and as early as 431 he was deposed. 
 Four years later he was banished to Oasis in Egypt, 
 and up to a few years ago the common opinion was 
 that he died soon after in his exile. 
 
 For the orthodox church he remained merely one of 
 the most condemned heretics. He was reproached not 
 
 l. n. 1 
 
2 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 only for having forbidden the title Oeoroicos, mother of 
 God, as applied to Mary the virgin, but it was told of 
 him that he, separating the divine and the human 
 nature of Christ, saw in our Saviour nothing but an 
 inspired man 1 . What was right in his statements, viz. 
 his opposition to all monophysitic thinking, was held to 
 be maintained by the famous letter of Leo the Great to 
 Flavian of Constantinople of the year 449, acknow- 
 ledged by the council of Chalcedon, and by the creed of 
 that council itself. The rest of what he taught was 
 regarded as erroneous and not worth the notice of 
 posterity. 
 
 That this is not a tenable theory I hope to prove in 
 my lectures. 
 
 To-day it is my aim merely to show that just at the 
 present time different circumstances have led to the 
 awakening of a fresh interest in Nestorius. 
 
 The church of the ancient Roman Empire did not 
 punish its heretics merely by deposition, condemnation, 
 banishment and various deprivations of rights, but, 
 with the purpose of shielding its believers against 
 poisonous influence, it destroyed all heretical writings. 
 No work of Arius, Marcellus, Aetius and Eunomius e.g., 
 not to speak of the earlier heretics, has been preserved 
 in more than fragments consisting of quotations by their 
 opponents. A like fate was purposed for the writings 
 
 1 Coinp. Socrates, h. e. 7, 32, 6 ed. Gaisford n, 806; Evagrius, 
 h. e. 1, 7 ed. Bidez and Parmentier, p. 14, 6. 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 3 
 
 of Nestorius : an edict of the Emperor Theodosius II, 
 dating from the 30th of July 435 ordered them to be 
 burnt 1 . Even the Persian church, about the same time 
 won over to Nestorianism, had to suffer under this 
 edict : only a few works of Nestorius came into its 
 possession for translation into Syriac. 
 
 This we learn through Ebed-Jesu, metropolitan of 
 Nisibis (-f*1318), the most famous theologian of the 
 Nestorians in the middle ages and who has given us 
 the most complete account of the writings of Nestorius. 
 He introduces in his catalogue of Syrian authors 2 the 
 notice about Nestorius with the following words : 
 Nestorius the 'patriarch wrote many excellent books 
 which the blasphemers (viz. the Antinestorians) have 
 destroyed. As those which evaded destruction he 
 mentions, besides the liturgy of Nestorius, i.e. one 
 of the liturgies used by the Nestorians, which without 
 doubt is wrongly ascribed to Nestorius, five works 
 of the patriarch. The first of these is the book 
 called Tragedy, the second the Book of Heraclides, 
 the third the Letter addressed to Cosmas, the fourth a 
 Book of letters and the fifth a Book of homilies and 
 sermons. 
 
 For us the edict of Theodosius against the writings 
 of Nestorius has had a still more important result. 
 Until 1897 nothing was known about the second book 
 
 1 Cod. Theodos. 16, 5, 66; Mansi, v, 413 f. 
 
 2 J. S. Assemani, Blbliotlieca orientalis, in, 1, p. 35 f. 
 
 1—2 
 
4 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 mentioned by Ebed-Jesu, i.e. about the Book of Hera- 
 clides. Also the Letter addi*essed to Cosmas mentioned 
 third by Ebed-Jesu had to be counted and is still to be 
 counted as lost 1 . Of the three other works ascribed by 
 Ebed-Jesu to Nestorius we had and still have only 
 fragments — occasional quotations in the works of his 
 enemies and his friends. 
 
 Among the hostile writings in which we find such 
 fragments are to be named especially the works of his 
 chief opponent Cyril of Alexandria; then the proceedings 
 of the council of Ephesus ; then some works of Marius 
 Mercator, a Latin writer who in the time of Nestorius 
 lived in Constantinople and translated a series of 
 quotations from Nestorius given by Cyril, three letters 
 of Nestorius and also, but with considerable omissions, 
 nine of his sermons; finally the church history of Evagrius 
 (living about 590). The latter gives us 2 an account of 
 two works of Nestorius dating from the time of his 
 exile, one of which must be the Tragedy, while the 
 other could not be identified up to the last ten years, 
 and he inserts in his narration extracts from two 
 interesting letters of the banished heretic. Among 
 the friends who preserved for us fragments of Nestorius 
 the Nestorians of later date played a very unimportant 
 part. Important is a Latin work which has connection 
 with the earliest friends of Nestorius, the so-called 
 
 1 Comp. Hauck's Beal-Encyklopddie, xxiv, 242, 56 ff. 
 
 2 h. e. 1, 7 ed. Bidez and Parmentier, pp. 12 ft. 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 5 
 
 Synoclicon, known since 1682 1 or, in complete form, since 
 1873 2 , and which is a later adaptation of a work of 
 Bishop Irenaeus of Tyrus, a partisan of Nestorius, 
 which was entitled " Tragedy " like the lost " Tragedy " 
 of Nestorius, upon which perhaps it was based. 
 
 The quotations of these enemies and friends re- 
 present, as I said, fragments of three books of Nestorius 
 mentioned by Ebed-Jesu, viz. the Book of letters, the 
 Book of sermons and the Tragedy. The first two of 
 these three works of Nestorius need no further explana- 
 tion. The third, the Tragedy, about which Evagrius 
 and the Synodicon teach us, must have been a polemical 
 work, in which Nestorius, as Evagrius says, defended 
 himself against those who blamed him for having 
 introduced unlawful innovations and for having acted 
 tvrongly in demanding the council of Ephesus z . The 
 title which the book bears must have been chosen 
 because Nestorius told here the tragedy of his life up 
 to his banishment to Oasis in Egypt. 
 
 Fragments of other books of Nestorius not mentioned 
 by Ebed-Jesu were not known to us ten years ago 4 . 
 
 1 Ch. Lupus, Ad Ephesinum concilium variorum patrum epistolae, 
 1682 = Mansi, v, 731-1022. 
 
 2 Bibliotheca Casinensis, i, 49-84. 3 h. e. 1, 7, pp. 12, 24 f. 
 
 4 We bad, it is true, the Anathematisms of Nestorius against 
 Cyril's Anathematisms, and a fragment of his \oyi8t.a ; but the 
 Anathematisms probably were attached to a letter, and the Xoyldia 
 (short discourses) perhaps belonged to the Book of homilies and 
 sermons. 
 
6 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 All the fragments previously known and in addition 
 to them more than 100 new fragments preserved 
 especially by the Syrian-monophysitic literature I 
 collected and edited in 1905 in a volume entitled 
 Kestoriana 1 . It is with pleasure that here in England 
 I mention the collaboration of the learned English 
 scholar Stanley A. Cook, an expert in Syrian language 
 and literature, without whose help I never could have 
 used the Syriac texts in the British Museum. I will 
 not speak long of the book which this help and that of 
 a German scholar then at Halle, Dr G. Kampffmeyer, 
 enabled me to compose. Three remarks only shall be 
 made. Firstly: The Syriac fragments gave us knowledge 
 of «, book of Nestorius not mentioned by Ebed-Jesu, 
 which was written in the form of a dialogue and which 
 was certainly a comprehensive work, although the 
 number of the fragments handed down to us is very 
 small. The title of this work is The Theopaschites, 
 that is, the man who thinks God had suffered, a title 
 certainly chosen because Nestorius in this dialogue 
 opposed the Cyrillian party, which he accused of holding 
 a doctrine which imagined the God in Christ suffering. 
 
 Secondly : The introductory headings in the Syriac 
 fragments of the sermons of Nestorius in combination 
 with a reconstruction of the order of the leaves in the 
 
 1 Nestor iana. Die Fragmente des Nestorius, gesammelt, unter- 
 sucht und herausgegeben von F. Loof s. Mit Beitragen von Stanley 
 A. Cook und G. Kampffmeyer, Halle, 1905. 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 7 
 
 manuscripts used by Marius Mercator and by the 
 council of Ephesus, offered the possibility of arranging 
 the fragments of the sermons of Nestorius in such 
 a manner that more than 30 sermons could be clearly 
 discerned and that not a few of them were recognisable 
 in their essential contents and their characteristics. 
 
 Thirdly : By the help of the quotations I succeeded 
 in finding — as did also at almost the same time a 
 Catholic scholar 1 independently of me — the original 
 Greek of one sermon of Nestorius in a sermon preserved 
 in a manuscript at Dresden and printed in 1839 as 
 a work of Chrysostomus. It is a sermon on the high 
 priesthood of Christ in many respects especially charac- 
 teristic of the teaching of Nestorius. 
 
 Thus my Nestoriana gave for the first time an 
 opportunity to survey the remains of the works of 
 Nestorius then accessible. They were the first factor 
 in arousing fresh interest in Nestorius. They inspired, 
 as the author himself says, the writing of a monograph 
 on the christology of Nestorius by a Roman Catholic 
 chaplain, Dr Leonhard Fendt 2 . 
 
 But the second factor now to be treated is still 
 more important and surely more interesting. Let me 
 give some introductory remarks before treating the 
 subject itself. 
 
 1 S. Haidacher, Rede des Nestorius fiber Hebr. 3. 1, iiberliefert 
 unter dem Nachlass des hi. Chrysostomus (Zeitschrift fur katholische 
 Theologie, xxix, 1905, pp. 192-195). 
 
 2 Die Christologie des Nestorius, Kempten, 1910. 
 
8 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 Some few heretics of the ancient church were 
 fortunately enabled long after their death to triumph 
 over the condemnation or even destruction which the 
 orthodox church pronounced against their writings. 
 
 Of Apollinaris of Laodicea, the heretic whose 
 doctrine was to Nestorius a special cause of offence, we 
 have still not a few writings because the Apollinarists 
 secretly introduced the works of their master into the 
 church literature, inscribing them with the names of 
 orthodox authors of good renown, e.g. Athanasius, Julius 
 of Rome, Gregorius Thaumaturgos. Since these 
 fraudes Apollinaristarum 1 , of which as early as the 6th 
 century some church writers had an idea or at least 
 a suspicion 2 , were carefully examined, a small collection 
 of works of Apollinaris could be made. Prof. Lietz- 
 mann of Jena gave such a collection in his Apollinaris 
 von Laodicea in the year 1904. 
 
 Severus of Antioch, the most conspicuous of the 
 Monophysites of the 6th century, continued to be 
 admired in the Syrian monophysite church, although 
 the orthodox church had anathematized him. Hence 
 not an unimportant part of the works of Severus 
 translated into Syriac has been preserved, especially 
 among the Syriac manuscripts of the British Museum. 
 
 1 Comp. Leontius, adversus fraudes Apollinaristarum; Migne, 
 ser. graec. 86, 1947-1976. 
 
 2 Comp. the preceding note and Nestorius' ad Constantinopolita- 
 7ios (F. Nau, Nestorius, Le Livre d'Heraclide, p. 374). 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 9 
 
 And, besides others 1 , your famous countryman E. W. 
 Brooks has, to the great advantage of historical science, 
 begun the publication of this material 2 . 
 
 Pelagius, the well-known western contemporary of 
 Nestorius, whose doctrine Augustine opposed, wrote 
 beside other smaller dogmatical works a large commen- 
 tary on the Epistles of Saint Paul, the original text of 
 which was held to be lost. An orthodox adaptation only 
 of this work, as was the opinion of ancient and modern 
 scholars, existed in a commentary regarded since olden 
 times as belonging to the works of Hieronymus and it 
 has been printed among them. But nobody took much 
 notice of these commentaries; for because they were 
 regarded as having been revised they could teach 
 nothing new about Pelagius, and one could only make 
 use of those thoughts which otherwise were known to 
 be his. Lately we have come by curious bypaths to 
 valuable knowledge about the Pelagius-commentary 
 which we hope will soon put us in possession of the 
 original text of Pelagius. The well-known Celtic scholar, 
 HeinrichZimmer, formerly professor at the University 
 of Berlin (f 1910), was led, as we see in his book Pelagius 
 in Irland (1901), to traces of the original Pelagius- 
 commentary by quotations in Irish manuscripts. He 
 
 1 e.g. R. Duval in Patrologia orientalis, iv, 1, 1906. 
 
 2 The sixth book of the select letters of Sever us, Patriarch of 
 Antiochia in the Syriac version etc., 2 vols., London, 1902-1904; 
 Hymns in Patrologia orientalis, vi, 1, 1910. 
 
10 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 even believed he had recovered the original commentary 
 itself; for a manuscript which he found in the monastery 
 of S. Gallen (Switzerland) in his opinion nearly re- 
 sembled the original text, in spite of some additions, 
 and showed that the Pseudo-Hieronymus, i.e. the form 
 printed among the works of Hieronymus, was more 
 authentic than was previously supposed. This judgment 
 on the manuscript of S. Gallen and the Pseudo-Hiero- 
 nymus proved, it is true, to be too optimistic. But the 
 investigation, begun by Professor Zimmer, has been 
 furthered by German and English scholars by means of 
 extensive study of manuscripts. Professor A. S outer 
 of Aberdeen, who played a prominent r61e in this 
 research and who really succeeded in finding at Karls- 
 ruhe a manuscript of the original Pelagius-commentary, 
 is right in hoping that he will be able to give to 
 theological science the original text of Pelagius within 
 a few years 1 . 
 
 In a still more curious manner Priscillian, the first 
 heretic, who in consequence of his being accused was 
 finally put to death (385), has been enabled to speak to 
 us in his own words. None of his writings were 
 preserved ; we only had the accounts of his opponents. 
 Then there was suddenly found, 27 years ago, in the 
 University library at Wiirzburg (Bavaria) a manuscript 
 of the 5th or 6th century containing 11 treatises of the 
 old heretic perfectly intact — the genuineness of which 
 1 Comp. Hauck's Real-Encyklopddie, xxiv, 311. 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 11 
 
 cannot in the least be doubted. It must remain a 
 riddle for us how this manuscript could be preserved 
 without attention having been drawn to it. Neverthe- 
 less it is a matter of fact that these 11 treatises of 
 Priscillian now, more than 1500 years after his death, 
 can again be read ; they were printed in the edition of 
 the discoverer, Dr Georg Schepps, in 1889. 
 
 A similar fortune was prepared for Nestorius. A 
 Syriac translation of his Book of Heraclides mentioned 
 above, which was made about 540 A.D., is preserved in 
 a manuscript, dating from about 1100, in the library of 
 the Nestorian Patriarch at Kotschanes in Persian 
 Turkestan. The American missionaries in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the Urmia Lake having heard about this 
 manuscript, attempted to gain further information about 
 it, and in 1889 a Syrian priest, by name Auscha'na, 
 succeeded in making secretly a hurried copy of the 
 manuscript for the library of the missionaries at Urmia. 
 One copy of this Urmia copy came into the University 
 library of Strassburg, another into the possession of 
 Professor Bethune-Baker of Cambridge; a fourth 
 copy has been made directly after the original at 
 Kotschanes for the use of the Roman Catholic editor, 
 the well-known Syriac scholar Paul Bedjan. 
 
 The rediscovery of this work of Nestorius was first 
 made known when the existence of the Strassburg 
 manuscript was heard of, in 1897 \ The publication of 
 1 Comp. my Nestoriana, p. 4. 
 
12 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 the Syriac text was delayed longer than scholars seemed 
 to have had a right to hope. The first detailed notice 
 of the work, therefore, was given by Professor Bethune- 
 Baker in his work, Nestorius and his teaching, edited 
 1908. This scholar had been enabled by means of an 
 English translation of a Mend to make use of the Book 
 of Heraclides or " Bazaar of Heraclides " as he called it. 
 Long quotations from the book of Nestorius made this 
 publication of great value. As late as 1910 the edition 
 of the Syriac text by Paul Bedjan appeared and at 
 the same time a French translation by F. Nau 1 . It is 
 especially this publication which is able at the present 
 time to arouse interest in Nestorius. 
 
 First the preface of the Syriac translator attracts 
 our attention. The translator remarks at the conclusion 
 that the following book of Nestorius belongs to the 
 controversial writings on the faith and must be read 
 after the " Theopaschites " and the " Tragedy ", which he 
 wrote as apologetic answers to those who had blamed him 
 for having demanded a council 2 '. This remark not only 
 confirms what we already knew from Evagrius about 
 the Tragedy of Nestorius, but it enables us also to 
 identify the second book of the banished Nestorius 
 known to Evagrius. Evagrius tells us that it was 
 directed against a certain Egyptian — Cyril is often 
 
 1 Nestorius, Le Livre d'Heraclide de Damas, ed. P. Bedjan, 
 Paris, 1910; Nestorius, Le Livre d'Heraclide de Damas, traduit en 
 Franqais par F. Nau, Paris, 1910. 
 
 2 Bedjan, p. 4; Nau, p. 3. 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 13 
 
 called by Nestorius " the Egyptian " — and that it was 
 written SiaXe/cTitccos 1 , apparently meaning "in the form 
 of a dialogue ". These words of Evagrius even before the 
 discovery of the Book of Heraclides could be held to point 
 to the Theopaschites, which has in the fragments that 
 are preserved the dialogue form. Nevertheless in my 
 Nestoriana I did not venture to make this identification 
 because the book known to Evagrius must have also 
 contained historical-polemical passages, while the frag- 
 ments we have present no such material. Now according 
 to the preface of the translator of the Book of Heraclides 
 the Theopaschites really contained historical -polemical 
 material. One can therefore now without doubt identify 
 it with the second book notified by Evagrius. 
 
 More interesting than the preface is naturally the 
 book itself. Its title, " Tegurtd " of Heraclides of 
 Damascus, according to Bedjan 2 and Nau 3 corre- 
 sponding in Greek to lipayfiarela 'Hpa/cXelSov rod 
 Aafiaafcrjvov, hence " Treatise of Heraclides " — not 
 "Bazaar of Heraclides" as Professor Bethune-Baker 
 translated — is the most puzzling thing in the whole 
 work. The Syriac translator remarks in his preface that 
 Heraclides was a noble and educated man living in the 
 neighbourhood of Damascus, and that Nestorius puts 
 this name in the title of his book because he feared 
 
 1 h. e. 1, 7, pp. 13, 21: ypacfret. 8e teal Zrepov \byov irpos two. 5r)6ev 
 AiyviTTtov crvyKei/xevov k.t.X. 2 p. viii, no. 2. 
 
 3 p. xvii and Revue de V Orient chretien, xiv, 1909, pp. 208 f. 
 
14 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 that his own name would prevent people from reading 
 it 1 . The Syriac translator therefore had already found 
 the title Treatise of Heraclides in his Greek original. 
 He does not seem to have known anything about the 
 meaning of this title. The vague remarks he makes 
 about Heraclides tell nothing more than anyone might 
 guess without his help. The book itself in its present 
 incomplete condition — about one-sixth of the whole is 
 missing — nowhere explains the title, Heraclides not 
 being mentioned at all. And Nestorius has made no 
 effort to conceal his authorship. The names of the 
 persons which, in the dialogue of the first part of the 
 book, head the single portions of the text, viz. Nestorius 
 and Sophronius, must, it is true, be regarded as later 
 additions — just as the headings of the chapters. But 
 the manner in which the matter is dealt with, especially 
 in the second half of the book, reveals so clearly that 
 Nestorius is the writer, that a pseudonym, as Heraclides 
 or anyone else, could have deceived only those who 
 gave no attention to the contents. Perhaps — that is 
 the opinion of Be thune -Baker 2 — the pseudonymous 
 title is to be regarded as the device of an adherent of 
 Nestorius, to save his master's apology from destruction. 
 However it may be — the book itself has nothing to 
 do with Heraclides of Damascus. It falls, as the Syriac 
 translator rightly remarks 3 , into two parts, the first of 
 
 1 Bedjan, p. 3; Nau, p. 3. 
 
 2 Nestorius and his teaching, p. 33. 3 Bedjan, p. 4; Nau, p. 4. 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 15 
 
 which has three, the second two sections. To the first 
 section of the first part 1 the translator gives the 
 heading : Of all heresies opposed to the church and of all 
 the differences with regard to the faith of the 318 {i.e. the 
 Fathers of Nicaea). In the second section 2 Nestorius, 
 as the translator observes, attacks Cyril and criticizes 
 the judges (who condemned him) and the charges of 
 Cyril. The third section 3 contains according to the 
 translator his (viz. Nestorius') answer (or apology) and 
 a comparison of their letters (viz. of Cyril and Nestorius). 
 The first section of the second part 4 is characterized by 
 the translator as a refutation and rectification of all 
 charges for which he was excommunicated, and the 
 second section 5 as dealing with the time or the events 
 from his excommunication to the close of his life. 
 
 Even the first of the five sections shows considerable 
 omissions ; the second is incomplete in the beginning 
 and again at the end; also of the third section the 
 beginning is missing. The fourth section, in which all 
 extracts from the sermons of Nestorius criticized at 
 Ephesus as heretical are brought under review, seems, 
 apart from small omissions, incomplete only in the 
 
 1 Bed] an, pp. 10-13 f. ; Nau, pp. 1-88 ; comp. Hauck's Real- 
 Encyklopadie, xxiv, 240, 44 ft. 
 
 2 Bed j an, pp. 147-209; Nau, pp. 88-125. 
 
 3 Bedj an, pp. 209-270; Nau, pp. 126-163. 
 
 4 Bedjan, pp. 138-160 and 271-366 (or 459) ; Nau, pp. 163-235 
 (or 294) ; comp. Hauck's Real-Encyklopadie, xxiv, 240, 55 f. 
 
 5 Bedjan, 366 (or 459)-521 ; Nau, 235 (or 294)-331. 
 
16 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 beginning; the last section is the most completely 
 preserved. 
 
 In spite of all omissions it is a book of extensive 
 scope in which Nestorius speaks to us : the Syriac text 
 has 521 pages, the French translation of Nau fills 331, 
 and they are of a large size. 
 
 In reading the book one has to regret, it is true, 
 again and again, that it has not been preserved intact 
 and in its original language. It would be of inestimable 
 importance for the history of Christian doctrine if we 
 possessed the original Greek of these explanations, so 
 important from a dogmatic point of view. 
 
 Nevertheless even as we have it now in the Syriac 
 translation the Treatise of Heradides of Nestorius 
 remains one of the most interesting discoveries for 
 students of ancient church history. In two respects it 
 is able to awaken fresh interest in Nestorius : by what 
 we hear about his life and by what we learn about his 
 doctrine. 
 
 As concerning the first, the Treatise of Heradides 
 has undoubtedly many relations to that earlier work of 
 Nestorius, entitled Tragedy and only known in a few 
 fragments, in which he treated historically and polemi- 
 cally the tragedy of his life and especially the doings 
 of the Cyrillian council of Ephesus. Also in the 
 Treatise of Heradides Nestorius writes as one who is 
 conscious of being unjustly condemned and wrongly 
 delivered over to the intrigues of the unscrupulous 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 17 
 
 Cyril. But he does not make pretentious claims for 
 his person or hope for another turn of his fortune. He 
 has no more interest in the world. For e.g. after having 
 said that one might ask him why the bishops of the 
 Antiochian party had given assent to his deposition he 
 answers 1 : Well you must ask him (meaning Cyril), 
 apparently also those (meaning the Antiochians). If 
 you want to learn anything else of me, then I will speak 
 of what is now gradually coming to the knowledge of the 
 whole world, not in order to find approbation or assistance 
 among men — for earthly things have but little interest 
 for me. I have died to the world and live for Him, to 
 whom my life belongs ; — but I will speak to those who took 
 offence etc. He writes in exile in the deserts of Egypt 
 and has no prospect but of death. As for me, so 
 he concludes the treatise 2 , / have borne the sufferings 
 of my life and all that has befallen me in this world as 
 the sufferings of a single day ; and I have not changed 
 all these years. And now I am already on the point to 
 depart, and daily I pray to God to dismiss me — me 
 whose eyes have seen his salvation. Farewell Desert, my 
 Jriend, mine upbringer and my place of sojourning, and 
 thou Exile, my mother, who after my death shalt keep my 
 body until the resurrection comes in the time of God's 
 pleasure! Amen. 
 
 We knew previously that Nestorius had to endure 
 
 1 Bedjan, p. 451; Nau, p. 289. 
 
 2 Bedjan, p. 520 f.; Nau, p. 331. 
 
 L. N. 2 
 
18 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 many sufferings during his exile. Evagrius, as I said 
 above, hands down to us fragments of two letters of 
 Nestorius to the governor of Thebais 1 . From these 
 we learn that Nestorius was captured in Oasis by 
 invading bands of barbarians and then, being released, 
 surrendered himself, by a letter written in Panopolis, into 
 the hands of the governor, in order not to come under 
 the suspicion of having fled. But then, so the second 
 letter teaches us, he was sent by order of the governor 
 first to Elephantine and, before reaching it, back to 
 Panopolis, then into the surrounding district and from 
 there to a fourth place of exile. The hardships of these 
 continual removals and severe bodily pains caused by an 
 injured hand and side had brought him to the brink of 
 death. We cannot help being moved when we see him 
 in his first letter from Panopolis, written directly after 
 his release from capture, asking the governor that he 
 should see to a lawful continuation of his exile, lest in 
 all future generations should be told the tragic history 
 that it was better to be captured by barbarians than to take 
 refuge with the Roman Empire 2 . But these occurrences 
 happened soon after 435, for in the first letter Nestorius 
 mentions the synod of Ephesus as a fact of the recent 
 past. Scholars therefore could suppose and actually 
 
 1 Evagrius, h. e. 1, 7, pp. 14-16; Nestoriana, pp. 198-201. 
 
 2 tva. fj.r) iraaaus £k tovtov yeveah rpayipdrjrat Kpelrrov elvai ftapfidpiov 
 alxP'dXojTov J} Trp6<T<pvya ftacnXeias. pwfial'KTJs (Evagrius, 1, 7, p. 15, 12 f.; 
 Nestoriana, p. 199, 12 ff.). 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 19 
 
 did suppose that death soon put an end to the sufferings 
 of the banished Nestorius. He feels himself an old man 
 even as early as the time of these letters. 
 
 But now the Treatise of Heraclides teaches us 
 that Nestorius was still alive at least in the autumn of 
 450, for the news of the death of the Emperor Theo- 
 dosius, who died 28 July 450, had penetrated even 
 to the loneliness of his exile. Professor Bethune- 
 Baker 1 goes even further, thinking — in my opinion 
 without sufficient grounds — that Nestorius must have 
 died after the council of Chalcedon, about 452. 
 During at least 15 to 16 years, therefore, Nestorius 
 endured the hardships of exile. How many sufferings 
 these years may have seen ! Nestorius does not speak 
 much of them. But he remarks incidentally, that for 
 many years he never had a moment of repose or any 
 human comfort 2 . Surely the person claims our interest 
 who in spite of all this could write 3 : The goal of my 
 earnest wish, then, is that God may be blessed on earth as 
 in heaven. But as for Nestorius, — let him be anathema ! 
 Only let them say of God what I pray that they should 
 say. I am prepared to endure and to suffer all for 
 Him. And would God that all men by anathematizing 
 me might attain to o: reconciliation with God. 
 
 1 Nestorius and his teaching, pp. 34-37, and Journal of theol. 
 studies, ix, 1908, pp. 601-605. 
 
 2 Bedj an, p. 519; Nau, p. 330. 
 
 3 Bedjan, p. 507 f. ; Nau, p. 323. 
 
 2—2 
 
20 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 Thus, if we are interested by what the Treatise of 
 Heraclides teaches us about the life of Nestorius, in no 
 less a degree ought our interest to be awakened by 
 what we learn about his doctrine. 
 
 As early as about 440 Socrates the church-historian 
 defended, with the impartiality which distinguished 
 him, his contemporary Nestorius against the grave 
 misrepresentation to which his doctrine was exposed. 
 People, as he says 1 , thought that Nestorius regarded 
 the Lord as a mere human being, as did Paul of Samosata 
 and Photinus. But, so he continues 2 , / read his writings 
 and I will say the truth : he did not hold the same 
 opinions as Paid of Samosata and Photinus nor did he 
 at all regard the Lord as a mere man, only he abhorred 
 the term OeoTOKos as a bugbear. 
 
 In a still higher degree Luther did justice to 
 Nestorius. In his book Von Conciliis und Kirchen he 
 confesses that he himself for some time did not under- 
 stand what the error of Nestorius was, and that he also 
 thought that Nestorius had held Christ to be nothing 
 more than a man, as the popish decrees and all popish 
 writers declared; but that after having looked more 
 accurately at the accounts he saw that this was false 3 . 
 This, too, according to Luther, was wrongly assumed 
 about Nestorius, that he made two persons of the one 
 Christ. Nestorius, Luther says, really does not teach more 
 
 i h. e. 7, 32, 6. 2 I.e. 8. 
 
 3 Erlanger Ausgabe, Deutsche Schriften, 2. Aufl. 25, 364. 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 21 
 
 than one Christ ; hence he could not regard Christ as two 
 persons ; otherwise he would have said a Yes and a No 
 in the same article, contradicting himself 1 . Nestorius, 
 he says 2 , rightly believed that Christ was God begotten 
 of the Father from all eternity and man born of Mary 
 the Virgin ; and, he declares 3 , it was right, too, that 
 Mary did not bear the Godhead. But Luther thought 
 that Nestorius as a rough and unlearned man did not 
 comprehend the communicatio idiomatum, which in his 
 opinion justifies the phrase that God was born of Mary, 
 just as a mother (although the soul of her child does 
 not come from her) is nevertheless not only the mother 
 of the body, but the mother of the child 4 . 
 
 Luther had but a very limited knowledge about 
 Nestorius. To the increased knowledge of our day 
 even before the discovery of the Treatise of Heraclides 
 the doctrine of Nestorius showed itself in a still more 
 favourable light. As early as ten years ago I wrote in 
 the Realencyklopddie fur protestantische Theologie und 
 Kirclie : If Nestorius had lived in the time of the council 
 of Chalcedon, he would possibly have become a pillar 
 of orthodoxy 5 . Now the Treatise of Heraclides teaches 
 us that Nestorius lived roughly speaking till the time of 
 that council. Accurately speaking there is no trace of the 
 Chalcedonian synod in the Treatise of Heraclides, and 
 the passages which seem to point to the time following it 
 
 1 I.e. p. 365. 2 I.e. p. 366. 3 I.e. p. 367. 
 
 * I.e. p. 367. 5 xiii, 741, 15 f. 
 
22 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 must in my opinion be explained otherwise 1 . Hence 
 I believe that the monophysitic stories asserting that 
 Nestorius had been invited to the council of Chalcedon, 
 but died a dreadful death on the journey thither 2 are 
 right in so far that Nestorius did not live to see the 
 opening of the council in October 451. But he saw the 
 beginning of the reaction which followed the so-called 
 robber-synod of Ephesus in 449. He even read the 
 famous letter of Pope Leo to Flavian of Constantinople, 
 which was of such decisive importance for the determina- 
 tion of Chalcedon and was acknowledged as a norm of 
 doctrine by this council. What was his judgment about 
 this letter of Leo's ? Many times in the Treatise of 
 Heraclides he declares that Leo and Flavian taught 
 the truth and that their opinion was exactly the same 
 as his 3 . He even tells that he was begged by friends to 
 write to Leo of Rome, but he did not do it, lest — so he 
 says — through the prejudice existing against him he 
 should hinder him (i.e. Leo) who was running a right 
 course 4 . 
 
 Because of all this, Professor Bethune-Baker, in 
 his above-mentioned book, Nestorius and his teaching, 
 
 1 Comp. Hauck's Real-Encyklopadie, xxiv, 241, 36 ff. 
 
 2 Comp. F. Nau, Nestorius d'apres les sources orientales, Paris, 
 1911, p. 51 ff. ; Evagrius, h. e. 2, 2, ed. Bidez and Parmentier, 
 p. 39, 17 ff. 
 
 " Bed j an, pp. 466, 474, 495, 514, 519; Nau, pp. 298, 303, 316, 
 327, 330. 
 
 * Bedjan, p. 519; Nau, p. 330. 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 23 
 
 thought he could maintain on the ground of the Treatise 
 
 of Heraclides that Nestorius was not a Nestorian but 
 
 was perfectly orthodox 1 . This thesis and the Treatise of 
 
 Heraclides on which it is based are indeed both able to 
 
 awaken our interest in Nestorius. 
 
 And still a third factor capable of arousing our 
 
 interest besides my Nestorian a and the Treatise of 
 
 Heraclides must be named. The French translator of 
 
 the Treatise of Heraclides, F. Nau, has added to his 
 
 translation four further almost new Nestoriana. He 
 
 thinks he has discovered the original Greek text of 
 
 three sermons of Nestorius on the story of the temptation, 
 
 of which I knew only fragments from the first and third 2 . 
 
 I had grounds for supposing that more of these sermons 
 
 existed in manuscripts of Chrysostomus, but I did not 
 
 succeed in finding such material 3 . The new discovery, 
 
 I fear, is looked upon in a too optimistic manner by its 
 
 editor. The new sermons certainly contain actual 
 
 sections of homilies of Nestorius ; but taken as a whole 
 
 they do not seem to me to be of a really different kind 
 
 from that Pseudo- Chrysostomus- homily from which I 
 
 took the fragments of the sermons on the story of the 
 
 temptation. Hence I cannot believe that the new 
 
 sermons present the homilies of Nestorius on the 
 
 temptation in an unaltered and complete form 4 . 
 
 1 pp. vii and 197 ff. 
 
 a Nau, pp. 333-358; Nestoriana, pp. 341-347. 
 
 3 Nestoriana, p. 149. 
 
 4 Comp. Hauck's Real-Encyklopadic, xxiv, 242, 29 ff. 
 
24 A FRESH INTEREST IN NESTORIUS 
 
 More interesting, therefore, in my opinion, is the 
 fourth Ineditum which Nau gives in a French transla- 
 tion, after a Syrian British Museum manuscript to which 
 I pointed in my Nestoriana 1 . I refer to a fragment 
 of a letter of Nestorius to the inhabitants of Constanti- 
 nople, the beginning and end of which were previously 
 known by a quotation made by the Monophysite 
 Philoxenus of Mabug 2 . I did not include this letter 
 in my Nestoriana, because with all other scholars I 
 regarded it as a monophysitic forgery intended to 
 discredit the doctrine of Pope Leo by showing it to be 
 approved by Nestorius. Indeed the letter appears for 
 the first time in monophysitic circles — in the writings 
 of Philoxenus about 520 2 and, what escaped the notice 
 of Nau, about 570 in the so-called anonymous Historia 
 miscellanea*. But according to the Syrian translator 4 
 the Nestorians also, e.g. Simon Bar Tabbahe about 750 5 ; 
 acknowledged it as genuine, and since we know from 
 the Treatise of Heraclides the judgment of Nestorius 
 about Flavian and Leo there is no longer a plausible 
 objection which may be raised from this side against 
 the genuineness of the letter. I confess, however, that 
 I am not rid of all doubts. Certainly a definite judgment 
 is not possible till the whole of the letter be brought to 
 
 1 p. 84. 2 Comp. Nestoriana, p. 70. 
 
 3 Die Kirchengeschichte des Zacharias Rhetor in deutscher Vber- 
 setzung von K. Ahrens und G. Kriiger, Leipzig, 1899, pp. 23, 31 ft. 
 
 4 Nau, p. 376. 
 
 5 Assemani, Bibliotheca orientales, in, 215. 
 
RECENTLY AWAKENED 25 
 
 light; for now between the beginning quoted by 
 Philoxenus and the fragment of the British Museum 
 a section is missing, the length of which we do not know. 
 Nevertheless the genuineness of the letter seems to me 
 now to be more probable than the contrary 1 . 
 
 The beginning of the letter refers to the synod of 
 Constantinople, held in 448 by Flavian for the purpose 
 of condemning Eutyches, and the criticism of his 
 doctrine given by Leo in his letter to Flavian. It is 
 my doctrine, so Nestorius declares, which Leo and 
 Flavian are upJiolding 2 . Then, after the omissions, some 
 assertions corresponding to the doctrine of Nestorius only 
 as described by Cyril, are disproved. Then follow 
 polemics against Cyril, rejecting various quotations from 
 the Fathers which he was in the habit of using in 
 supporting his doctrine, these quotations being for the 
 most part apollinaristic forgeries 3 . Then the letter 
 ends in exhortations. These conclude with the words 
 preserved also by Philoxenus : Believe as our holy 
 comrades in the faith, Leo and Flavian ! Pray that 
 a general council be gathered in order that my doctrine, 
 i.e. the doctrine of all orthodox Christians, be confirmed. 
 My hope is, that ivhen the first has taken place, the 
 second, too, will come to pass*. Here Nestorius is 
 wooing the interest of his readers for the council of 
 
 1 Comp. note 3. 2 Nau, p. 374; i, 3. 
 
 3 This fact evidently is in favour of the genuineness of the letter. 
 
 * Nau, p. 375; in, 19. 
 
26 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 Chalcedon before it was held. Was his doctrine really 
 in harmony with that of this council ? Was this heretic 
 a rudely maltreated exponent of orthodoxy ? 
 
 These questions, you see, are not only raised by 
 Professor Bethune-Baker ; but we, too, have to raise 
 them, when we are considering the material we find in 
 the sources. 
 
 Hence I hope that, while dealing with these questions, 
 I shall succeed in gaining your further interest during 
 the course of the next three lectures. 
 
 In the next lecture we shall see that really to no 
 other heretic has been done such great injustice as to 
 Nestorius. The last two lectures will deal with the 
 doctrine of Nestorius and his position in the history of 
 dogma. 
 
 ii 
 
 In the preceding lecture we saw that by the 
 increased knowledge of the works of Nestorius and 
 especially by his lately rediscovered Treatise of Hera- 
 clides, written not long before his death, and by his still 
 later letter to the inhabitants of Constantinople, the 
 question is raised whether this heretic was a rudely 
 maltreated exponent of orthodoxy. 
 
 About his doctrine we shall speak in the next 
 lecture, to-day it will only occasionally be mentioned. 
 For what now will occupy us is the fact that he was 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 27 
 
 indeed so rudely maltreated that his life really became 
 what he himself called it — a tragedy. This tragedy is 
 composed of five acts : first the undivided affection of his 
 parish was robbed from him, then the sympathies of the 
 Occident, then the favour of the court and his episcopal 
 office ; then he was brought into disfavour as a heretic 
 also amongst the majority of his friends, and finally as 
 an exiled and forgotten man he was exposed to common 
 condemnation. 
 
 1 
 
 It is well known that Nestorius in April 428 was 
 called out of the monastery of Euprepios, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Antioch, to the vacant bishopric of Con- 
 stantinople 1 . We knew before the discovery of the 
 Treatise of Heraclides that it was the aversion of the 
 court to the election of a Constantinopolitan which 
 caused the decision to be in his favour 2 . Now we are 
 told more about this by an address which Nestorius in 
 his Treatise of Heraclides puts into the mouth of the 
 Emperor Theodosius 3 . Of course this address cannot 
 be regarded as given by the Emperor in these very 
 words ; but it is certainly trustworthy in what it tells 
 about the events in Constantinople. We see here that 
 the sentiment of the court was the result of lengthy 
 
 1 Comp. Hauck's Real-Encyklopadie, xm, 737, 45 ff. 
 
 2 I.e. p. 737, 37 ff. 
 
 3 Bedjan, p. 377 ff. ; Nau, p. 242 ff. ; comp. Bethune-Baker, 
 Nestorius and his teaching, p. 6 ff . note 3. 
 
28 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 transactions, in which the emperor made great con- 
 cessions to the monkish party and its leader, the archi- 
 mandrite Dalmatius. The monks themselves, according 
 to the narration of Nestorius, finally asked for the 
 decision of the court 1 . They, too, — later the most 
 embittered enemies of Nestorius — had at first no ground 
 for being discontented with his election. And, apart 
 from the heretical parties, which experienced the anti- 
 heretical zeal of the new bishop soon after his enthrone- 
 ment 2 , this contentment was at first general 3 . 
 
 But already before the end of Nestorius' first year 
 of office, the controversy began. Nestorius asserts in 
 the Treatise of Heraclides in just the same manner as 
 in a letter of December 430 to John of Antioch and in 
 his Tragedy, that he was not its beginner — he had 
 found a quarrel over the question as to whether Mary 
 was to be called Oeoroicos or avOpoyiroroKo^, when he 
 arrived at Constantinople, and in order to settle it, he 
 had suggested the term ^plg-totoko^. When did 
 Nestorius do this ? I think it was common opinion that 
 it took place in his " first sermon on the Oeorotcos" which 
 dates perhaps as far back as 428, perhaps only from the 
 beginning of 429. But in the fragments of this sermon 5 
 
 1 Bedjan,p. 379 ; Nau, p. 243 f. ; Bethune-Baker,p.8, note. 
 
 2 Comp. Hauck's Real-Encyklopadie, xirr, 738, 1 £f. 
 
 3 I.e. p. 737, 53 ff. 
 
 4 Bedjan, p. 151; Nau, p. 91; ep. ad Joann., Nestoriana, 
 p. 185, Tragoedia, Nestoriana, p. 203. 
 
 5 Nestoriana, pp. 249-264 ; comp. pp. 134-146. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 29 
 
 the term xpmttotokos does not occur. Now Nestorius 
 in his Treatise of Heraclides tells us that the quarrelling 
 parties, which abusively designated each other by the 
 names of" Manicheans" and "Photinians", came into the 
 bishop's palace and begged his counsel. He recognised 
 that neither the friends of the Ogotokos were Manicheans 
 nor were the upholders of the term dv6pco7roroKo<; 
 adherents of the heresy of Photinus, and he declared 
 that both terms, when rightly understood, were not 
 heretical, but as a safer one he suggested the term 
 XpMTTOTOfcos 1 . In this way, Nestorius narrates, the 
 parties were reconciled, and they were at peace with 
 one another until Cyril of Alexandria intruded himself 
 in the matter 2 . 
 
 In this account, three points are worthy of considera- 
 tion. First the notice that Nestorius advised the 
 quarrelling parties in his home. This report is un- 
 doubtedly trustworthy, for in his first sermon on the 
 Scot 6 /cos Nestorius directly makes mention of such 
 persons, who shortly before in his presence argued 
 against each other the question whether Mary should be 
 called 6eoTOKo<i or avOpwiroTOKos*. This extension of 
 our knowledge as regards the place where Nestorius 
 advised the contending parties seems to be very un- 
 important. But that this is not the case we shall now 
 
 1 Bed jan, p. 151 f. ; Nau, p. 91 f. 2 I.e. pp. 152 and 92. 
 
 i Nestoriana, p. 251, 21 ff. : Audiant liace, qui..., ricut modo 
 cognovimus, in (ex?) nobis invicem frequenter sciscitantur : deoTOKos... 
 Maria, an autem avOpuiroTbuos? 
 
30 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 see, if we discuss the second point which in the above- 
 quoted narration of the Treatise of Heraclides seems to 
 be worthy of consideration. 
 
 Nestorius, as I mentioned, says here he had declared 
 that both terms, Oeorotcos as well as avOpcDiroroKo^, rightly 
 understood, were not heretical, but that he recommended 
 as more safe the term ^piaroroKos: 1 . This account of 
 Nestorius seems to be untrustworthy ; for his well-known 
 first sermon on the Oeoroicos, preserved in long frag- 
 ments 2 , seems wholly to exclude the term OeoroKos ; and 
 it is likewise well known that Nestorius was continually 
 reproached for interdicting or at least refusing to give 
 to Mary the title deoroKo^. Even his afterwards 
 unfaithful friend, John of Antioch, asked him in a letter 
 of the autumn of 430 to give up his opposition against 
 this designation of Mary 4 . Is Nestorius, therefore, 
 telling a falsehood when he narrates that he had 
 declared the 6eor6fcos, when rightly understood, to be 
 non-heretical ? Here the place of meeting between 
 Nestorius and the quarrelling parties becomes important. 
 For, while I do not believe that Nestorius even in his 
 first sermon on the Oeorofcos, in spite of his criticism, 
 declared the term to be nevertheless tolerable, yet it is 
 not quite improbable that he did so previously in the 
 
 1 Comp. above, p. 29. 
 
 2 Comp. above, p. 28, note 5. 
 
 3 Comp. sermo 18, Nestoriana, p. 300, 15 : Non dicit, inquiunt, 
 to 8€ot6ko$, et hoc est totum, quod nostris sensibus ab Mis opponitur. 
 
 4 Mansi, iv, 1065 b. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 31 
 
 presence of the contending parties. This would agree 
 with what he narrated as early as December 430 in his 
 answer to the above-mentioned letter of John of Antioch 1 . 
 And even in his first letter to Pope Celestine, after 
 having expressed his strong aversion to the term 
 Ogotokos, he nevertheless wrote : The term may be 
 tolerated 2 . Hence we can give credit to the statement 
 of Nestorius, that from the beginning he did not regard 
 as intolerable the term Oeorofcos if rightly understood. 
 His position was this : he feared the term would originate 
 false ideas 3 , and for this reason and because he believed 
 the term unknown to the orthodox Fathers of the past, 
 he had nothing in its favour and undoubtedly opposed it 
 on frequent occasions ; but even in a sermon of the spring 
 of 429, which was known to Cyril before writing his 
 epistola dogmatica, he declared : If you will use the 
 term deorofco? with simple faith, it is not my custom to 
 grudge it you*. Afterwards in a sermon, which cannot 
 be dated, but was certainly delivered before the spring 
 of 430, he was able to say : / have already repeatedly 
 declared that if any one of you or any one else be simple 
 and has a preference for the term Oeorotcos, then I have 
 
 1 Nestoriana, p. 185, 10 f. : volentibus concessi, ut pie genitricen vel 
 particen del virginem nominarcnt. 
 
 2 I.e. p. 167, 24: ferri tamen potest hoc vocabulum. 
 
 3 Sermo 10, Nestoriana, p. 273, 4 f. : ri)v rrjs \e£ews irpo<popav 
 a&cpahl^OfJLOu, tov £v ttj \e£ei upvirrofxevov Kiudvuov vcpopwu-evos. 
 
 4 I.e. p. 272, 13 f. : el ,uerd iricrTeus airXrjs to " deoTOKOs" irpo^cpepes, 
 ovk av gol t??s X^ews iepdovqaa. 
 
32 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 nothing to say against it — only do not make a Goddess 
 of the virgin 1 . And even before the letter of John of 
 Antioch mentioned above Nestorius came to an under- 
 standing with his clergy about the necessary use and 
 meaning of the term Oeorotcos 2 . 
 
 How under these circumstances was such a passionate 
 controversy as that which followed, possible ? What 
 was it that deprived Nestorius of the undivided affection 
 of his parish which he enjoyed at the beginning ? 
 
 First it may be noted that the enemies of Nestorius 
 were persuaded that bad heresies lurked behind his 
 opposition to the term OeorcKos. As early as the 
 spring of 429 Eusebius, afterwards bishop of Dorylaeum, 
 accused Nestorius by means of a public placard of 
 thinking as Paul of Samosata 3 . Even at that time 
 Nestorius was reproached for regarding Jesus as a mere 
 man 4 . This reproach however was still more groundless 
 than the indignation about his opposition to the term 
 OeoroKos. Hence this reproach, too, cannot be the first 
 and the true cause of the controversy. 
 
 Nestorius declares in the above-quoted passage of 
 the Treatise of Heraclides — and this is the third point 
 
 1 Nestoriana, p. 353, 17 ff. : Et7rov 5e rfdr} TrXetcrd/cis, otl et ns 17 
 er vfitv acpeXtarepos, e'ire ev aXXots tmti x a ^P ei T V T °v " QtorbKos" ^wvtj, 
 
 ffiol TTpOS T7]V (pUV-qV (pddvOS OVK %UTl. fXOVOV /ULT] TTOULTW T7)V TTapOeVOV 
 
 Bedv. 
 
 2 ep. ad Joann. Nestoriana, p. 184, 21 if. 
 
 3 Mansi, iv, 1008 e-1012 b (Greek text) and v, 492-494 (Latin 
 text) ; comp. Nestoriana, p. 49. 
 
 4 Nestoriana, p. 259, 16 ; 284, 2 ; 285, 12. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 33 
 
 which in his statement needs explanation — that the real 
 cause of the controversy is to be found in the intrigues 
 of Cyril of Alexandria 1 . These intrigues on their part, 
 according to what Nestorius tells in the continuation of 
 the above-quoted passage 2 , originated in accusations 
 which were brought against Cyril himself. Cyril is 
 regarded by Nestorius as having framed the dogmatic 
 controversy for no other reason than to keep these 
 accusations in the background. Nestorius raised this 
 reproach against Cyril as early as in the late summer 
 of 430 in a letter to the bishop of Rome 3 ; and that this 
 reproach was well grounded, I tried to show as far back 
 as 1903 by pointing to a letter, written by Cyril to his 
 clerical agents in Constantinople 4 . After long explana- 
 tions about the perverted doctrine of Nestorius he says 
 in this letter : / had till now no quarrel with him and 
 wish him betterment ; but for supporting my enemies he 
 shall give answer before God. No ivonder if the dirtiest 
 persons of the city, Chairemon, Victor and others, speak 
 ill of me. May he, who incites them, learn that I have 
 no fears about a journey or about answering them. 
 Often the providence of the Saviour brings it about that 
 little things cause a synod to be held, through which His 
 church is purified. But even if others and honourable 
 men should accuse me on his instigation — that wretched 
 
 1 Comp. above, p. 29. 2 Bed j an, p. 152 f.; Nau, p. 92. 
 
 3 ep. ad Caelest. 3, Nestoriana, p. 181, 10 f. 
 
 4 Hauck's Real-Encyklopadie, xin, 745, 30 ff. ; comp. 743, 28 if. 
 
 L. N. 3 
 
34 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 man shall not hope that he can be my judge. I will 
 withstand him, if I come thither, and it is he who shall 
 answer for em^or 1 . Nevertheless Cyril says in a 
 following section of this letter preserved only in its Latin 
 text : If he professes the right faith, then shall be made 
 the most perfect and firmest peace. If he longs for that, 
 let him compose an orthodox confession of faith and send it 
 to Alexandria... . Then I, too,., .will publish a writing and 
 declare that nobody shall reproach one of my fellow-bishops 
 because his words — so I shall say — are rightly meant 2 . 
 Does not this mean : If he does what I wish (pointing 
 naturally and especially to the accusations, mention of 
 which is cleverly omitted), then he is no heretic ! To 
 give you a full idea of the plottings of Cyril as shown 
 by his communication with his agents I must add a 
 further quotation from the letter which occupies us. It 
 is out of the last part of the Greek text which by ancient 
 scholars 3 was held to be a supplement to the letter. 
 
 1 Cyril, ep. 10, Migne, ser. graeca, 77, p. 65 d; comp. the Latin 
 translation of Marius Mercator, ed. Baluze, p. 106 = Migne, I.e. 
 p. 74 f . It is noteworthy that Marius Mercator, a partisan of Cyril, 
 suppressed the words 6 8el\cuo$ [pr] Tr/xxrSoKdrw] ; he translates : Non 
 igitur speret, etc. Veracity was not a common virtue among the 
 Christians of that time! 
 
 2 ed. Baluze, p. 108 = Migne, I.e. p. 77 f. : Si rectam fidem profi- 
 teatur, fiet plenaria et firmissima pax. Quam si in voto gerit, scribat 
 catliolicam fidem et mittat Alexandriam. Si haec ex affectu cordis 
 intimi scribantur, paratus sum et ego pro viribus meis similia scribere 
 et edere ac dicere, nullum debere gravari consacerdotum meorum, quia 
 ejus voces, dicimus, habent intentionem ac propositum manifestum. 
 
 3 Garnier in his edition of Marius Mercator, 1673, n, 56 = Migne , 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 35 
 
 Cyril says here 1 : / received and read the petition you 
 sent me, which, after having received my consent, is 
 purposed for presentation to the Emperor. But since it 
 contains various complaints against my brother there 
 — or ivhat shall I call him 2 I — I kept it back for 
 the time, lest he should reproach you saying : you 
 accused me as a hei*etic before the Emperor. But 
 I composed another petition, in which I declined to be 
 judged by him, pointing to his enmity and proposing that 
 ...the judgment be handed over to other officials. Read 
 this petition and present it, if need be. And if you see 
 that he continues to scheme against me and really tries 
 to set all things against me, write it to me at once. Then 
 I shall choose some wary and prudent men and send 
 them as soon as possible. For, as it is written*, I will 
 not give sleep to mine eyes or slumber to mine eyelids 
 till I have finished the fight for the salvation of all. 
 
 Whoever knows this advice of Cyril to his agents 
 cannot doubt that the accusations brought against 
 Cyril played a prominent role in the beginnings of the 
 Nestorian controversy, and will, therefore, put confidence 
 in what Nestorius tells about this matter in his Treatise 
 of Heraclides. The agents of Cyril, he narrates 4 , 
 
 I.e. p. 78; Tillemont, Memoires, ed. of Venice, xiv, 755; Ch. W. F. 
 Walch, Historie der Kezereien, v, 392, note 4. 
 
 1 Migne, I.e. p. 68 c-69 a. 
 
 2 /caret, rod e/cetcre — ?) d5e\0oO rj tt&s au eiiroifAi; 
 
 3 Psalm 132, 4. 
 
 4 Bed j an, p. 152 ff. ; Nau, p. 92 f . 
 
 3—2 
 
36 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 counselled the contending parties not to accept the 
 term xP i<rT0T ° K0 'S' They schemed, agitated and were 
 to be found everywhere, referring always to Cyril as 
 their ally. Then, according to Nestorius' narration, 
 men who had complaints against Cyril, brought speakable 
 and unspeakable things against him before the Emperor 
 and requested at the same time that Nestorius should 
 be judge. Nestorius then sent for Cyril's clerical agents 
 and asked them to explain the situation. But these, to 
 use Nestorius' own words, were annoyed and said to me : 
 What, you admit an accusation against the patriarch of 
 Alexandria and do not at once condemn the accusers as 
 calumniators without trial ?... We contest your right and 
 with good ground; for that would be a dangerous en- 
 couragement of accusers, while it will be a profit to you to 
 keep him (Cyril) as your good friend and not to turn him, 
 who is famous because of his importance and who is among 
 the great, into an enemy. Then I answered them : I have 
 no desire for a friendship which woidd make me guilty 
 of injustice, but only for such which without respect oj 
 persons does God's work. Thereupon they returned : 
 We will report it to the patriarch. Since that time, 
 continues Nestorius, he became my irreconcilable enemy 
 and ready for anything. He started a quarrel in order 
 to decline my judgment on account of my enmity, and to 
 outwit his accusers according to his custom, and to keep 
 the charges, brought against him, in the background. 
 This he managed to do, and then presented a petition 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 37 
 
 asking that the judgment might be handed over to others 1 . 
 As evidence of this, Nestorius quoted the above- 
 mentioned 2 conclusion of (or supplement to) Cyril's 
 letter to his agents, adding a sharp criticism. 
 
 We do not know which were the charges made 
 against Cyril before the emperor and before Nestorius 
 — they do not seem to have been of a dogmatic kind ; 
 but, in my opinion, nobody can rightly dispute that 
 they were of decisive importance for the dogmatic 
 accusations which Cyril brought against Nestorius. 
 
 There is, however, one argument which could perhaps 
 be advanced against this. Hefele, the Roman Catholic 
 author of a famous history of the councils, objected 3 
 that Cyril did not speak of the fact that his name was 
 slandered by false accusers before his second letter to 
 Nestorius, the so-called epistola dogmatical, which was 
 written about the end of January 430, while even 
 his first letter 5 to Nestorius contained the dogmatic 
 charges against him. The observation seems at first 
 to be right. For Cyril's letter to his agents, which we 
 have discussed, is contemporary with his epistola 
 dogmatica to Nestorius 6 , in spite of the differing tone of 
 the two letters 7 . Nevertheless Cyril spoke of his being 
 
 1 Bedjan, p. 153 f. ; Nau, p. 93. 2 p. 35. 
 
 3 C. J. v. Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 2nd ed. n, 165 f. 
 
 4 ep. 4, Migne, 77, 44-49. 6 ep. 2, Migne, 77, 40 f. 
 
 6 Gamier, opp. Marti Mercatoris, n, 53. 
 
 7 Comp. ep. 4, Migne, 77, p. 48 d : ravra ical vvv e£ aydir-qs rrjs 
 4v Xpt<TT(f) ypd<p(a irapaKaKCjp ws ddeXtpbv K.r.X, ; ep. 10, p. 68 a: imtj 
 
38 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 accused before his second letter to Nestorius and the 
 contemporary letter to his agents. We learn this from 
 the Treatise of Heraclides. We saw 1 that Nestorius 
 here quoted and discussed the last part of Cyril's letter 
 to his agents, which by ancient scholars was held to be 
 a supplement to it; and the French translator of the 
 Treatise of Heraclides really is of the opinion that 
 Nestorius quoted only the mere conclusion of this letter 2 . 
 But in no words of Nestorius is there a hint that he 
 deals with a part of a letter 3 . And more : if he had 
 known the beautiful phrase which we found in a 
 preceding section of the letter: That wretched man 
 shall not hope that he can be my judge etc. 4 , he would 
 not have passed it by. Hence he knew the " supplement " 
 as a separate letter. That it really was one 5 is 
 confirmed by the translation of the letter to the agents 
 made by Cyril's contemporary Marius Mercator ; for in 
 this translation the "supplement" is missing 6 . Then 
 
 7rpo<rdoKaT<i) 5e 6 SeiXcuos, 6'ti k.t.X. ; and 68 c: Kara rod eKeiae — rj 
 ddeXcpov rj irCos av eiTroi/Ai ; k.t.X. 
 
 i Above, p. 34 f. 2 Nau, p. 93, note 6. 
 
 3 Nestorius however omitted at least an introductory sentence ; for 
 the opening words of the "supplement": To di ye <rx^d,piov k.t.X. 
 cannot have been the exordium of a letter. 
 
 4 Above, p. 34, note 1. 
 
 5 Comp. the restriction made above in note 3. 
 
 6 Baluze, p. 108. Gamier (n, 56), giving Peltan's (comp. 
 Nestoriana, p. 9 f.) Latin translation by the side of the Greek text, 
 has induced some of his readers (e.g. Walch, Historie der Kezereien, 
 v, 392, note 4, and, as it seems, also Migne, ser. gr. 77, p. 78) to take 
 the Latin text as a translation of Mercator. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 39 
 
 the question arises as to when the " supplement-letter," 
 so to speak, was written, and this question must be 
 answered by the assertion that it was earlier than the 
 letter to the agents as the conclusion of which it is 
 found in the Greek manuscripts 1 . For in the supplement- 
 letter, Cyril, even writing to his own agents, is not yet 
 sure whether he shall call Nestorius a brother or not, 
 and he will not yet give Nestorius cause for the reproach 
 that his agents denounced him as a heretic. The 
 supplement-letter is written, therefore, at least as early 
 as the first letter of Cyril to Nestorius, dating from 
 about late summer 429. Nestorius in his Treatise of 
 Heraclides seems to regard it as still earlier, for his 
 
 1 About these manuscripts comp. Nestoriana, p. 8 ff. In the 
 manuscripts used by Pel tan in his translation (comp. Sacrosancti... 
 concilii Ephesini acta omnia Theodori Peltani... opera... latinitate 
 donata, Ingolstadt, 1576, p. 220) and by the editio Commeliana (Td 
 irpaKTiKa rijs oiKOVfieviKrjs Tpirr]i avpddov k.t.\. , 1591, p. 73), in the cod. 
 Coislin. 32 (saec. xin) of which Professor Henry Lebegue, of 
 Paris, kindly has sent me a collation, in the codices Monacenses 115 
 and 116 (both saec. xvi ; Nestoriana, p. 10, I gave erroneously the 
 numbers 114 and 115) about which I received kind information from 
 the Royal Library of Munich, and in the cod. Vat. 830 (saec. xv), as 
 I learnt from a kind letter of Dr Erich Katterfeld, now at Rome, 
 the "supplement" (to 8t ye ax^Sapiov k.t.X.) immediately follows 
 the preceding sentence (explicit: el fir) tls yivrjrai fxeTayvwats). But 
 the Greek text given by these manuscripts proves itself to be very 
 badly preserved, as is shown even by the address {n-pbs roi)s Kwv- 
 CTavTLVovTrbXeus kXrjpiKods araaid^ ovras) ', the Greek manuscripts 
 cannot therefore give evidence against the hypothesis that the 
 "supplement" originally was a separate letter or part of such. 
 The Latin versions of the Acta Ephesina do not contain Cyril's letter 
 to his agents (comp. Man si , v, 465 ff.). 
 
40 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 narration gives the impression that the conversation 
 between him and Cyril's agents took place some time 
 before he received the first letter from Cyril 1 . There 
 are arguments against asserting that Nestorius was 
 right in presuming this. I shall not lay any stress 
 upon the fact that, according to Cyril's letter to pope 
 Celestine 2 , it was only the doctrine of Nestorius which 
 gave him offence ; for we have ground to distrust this 
 holy man. And also the objection that the affair of 
 the accusations against Cyril probably did not last a 
 whole year or more, is not decisive. But it is certain 
 that a reason for opposing the doctrine of Nestorius was 
 to be found by Cyril in the party-difference between 
 the Alexandrian and the Antiochian schools and in the 
 rivalry between the sees of Alexandria and Con- 
 stantinople. Cyril's letter to the Egyptian monks in 
 which, about Easter 429, without mentioning Nestorius, 
 he began to oppose his doctrine, really may have been 
 brought forth by the party-difference alone. In Con- 
 stantinople, too, in the very beginnings of Nestorius' 
 time as bishop, there certainly were theologians and 
 laymen who opposed his teaching for no other reason 
 than because they were adherents of a different theo- 
 logical tradition. I leave, therefore, the question 
 undecided as to whether the supplement-letter of Cyril 
 to his agents was earlier than his first letter to Nestorius 
 
 1 Comp. Bedjan, p. 157; Nau, p. 95. 
 
 2 ep. 11, Migne, p. 89 ff. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 41 
 
 or not. But it is certain that Cyril, who before 
 writing his epistola dogmatica had knowledge of a 
 sermon of Nestorius in which he allowed the use of the 
 term Oeoroicos 1 , could have come to an agreement with 
 him as easily as with the Antiochians afterwards in 
 433 2 , if he had not had, on account of the charges 
 brought against himself, an interest in discrediting him. 
 More than the heretic Nestorius, the " Saint " but 
 really very unsaintly Cyril is to be held responsible for 
 the Nestorian controversy. And it is not improbable 
 that his agents in Constantinople were among those 
 and behind those who aroused the first opposition 
 against the teaching of Nestorius. 
 
 Nestorius was not quite guiltless, as he had been 
 incautious in his polemics against the Oeoroicos. But it 
 seems not to have been his fault that he made an 
 enemy of Cyril. He, Cyril, the Saint, had the chief 
 part in bringing it about that Nestorius lost the 
 common confidence of his parish. 
 
 2 
 
 And Cyril did more. At about the same time 
 that he wrote his epistola dogmatica he prepared for 
 war against Nestorius. He composed his five books 
 
 1 sermo 10, Nestoriana, pp. 265-277, which contains the passage 
 quoted above, p. 31, note 4, is mentioned in Cyril's letter to his 
 agents (Nestoriana, p. 264, 7) and this letter is contemporary with 
 the epistola dogmatica (comp. above, p. 37, note 6). 
 
 2 Comp. below, p. 53 f . 
 
42 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 adversus Nestorium 1 , a work which opposed and de- 
 nounced as heretical 43 quotations from the sermons of 
 Nestorius, which partly he had previously adapted to 
 suit his polemical ends 2 . Then he sent this work, 
 translated into Latin, to the bishop of Rome together 
 with a letter as untrue as it was clever 3 . About the 
 same time he wrote three doctrinal letters really against 
 Nestorius, but without mentioning his name, and 
 addressed these to the emperor, to the empress and to 
 the sister of the emperor, the "Augusta" Pulcheria 4 . 
 With the first of these actions which opens the second 
 act of our tragedy Cyril was astonishingly fortunate. 
 I say astonishingly fortunate, for it is a riddle that 
 Rome, whose dogmatic traditions were nearer to those 
 of the Antiochians than to those of Cyril, let herself be 
 guided by Cyril. In order to explain this riddle we 
 can point to the fact that Rome had taken it amiss of 
 Nestorius that he had received in Constantinople some 
 banished western adherents of Pelagius 5 . One could 
 even say that Rome took up her position against 
 
 1 ed. Pusey, Oxford, 1875. 
 
 2 Comp. Nestorius, tragoedia, Nestoriana, p. 205 ff. and liber 
 Heracl. Nau, p. 222, note 2. 3 ep. 11, Migne, pp. 80-89. 
 
 4 Mansi, iv, 617-679; 679-802; 803-884 = Migne, ser. graec. 
 76, 1133-1200; 1201-1336; 1336-1420; comp. Theodosius, ad 
 Cyrillum, Mansi, iv, 1109 d, e. 
 
 5 Comp. Marius Merc, exemplum commonitorii, ed. Baluze, 
 p. 132 f . ; Nestorius, ad Caelestium (Nestoriana, p. 172 f.) and ad 
 Caelcstinum, ep. 1 (ibid. p. 165); Caelestin. ad Nestorium, Mansi, iv, 
 1034 b. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 43 
 
 Nestorius before Cyril's action. For the seven books 
 of Johannes Cassianus contra Nestorium, the writing 
 of which was instigated by Rome, show no influence of 
 the material sent by Cyril, as they deal only with 
 three of the earliest Constantinopolitan sermons of 
 Nestorius, evidently sent by Nestorius himself together 
 with his first letter to pope Celestine 1 . But the work 
 of Cassianus itself is a riddle. Is it not monstrous to 
 build up a strongly antinestorian work on this small 
 basis of three sermons ? This piece of monstrous daring 
 cannot be explained unless it be that Rome was 
 prejudiced against Nestorius. Is the reception of the 
 Pelagians in Constantinople a sufficient ground for this 
 prejudice ? Hardly. .For as regards these Pelagians 
 Nestorius demanded advice of the Roman bishop in his 
 very first letter 2 . He would doubtless have sent them 
 away if the pope had asked this. But Celestine of 
 Rome had left unanswered at least three letters of 
 Nestorius. The reason he afterwards gave, viz. that the 
 letters of Nestorius had first to be translated into Latin 3 , 
 deserves to be met by us with an incredulous shake 
 of the head. Was the real reason perhaps plottings of 
 Cyril ? Cyril declares in May 430, in a letter to the 
 pope, that he had not written before to any of his 
 fellow-bishops about Nestorius 4 . As regarding the 
 
 1 Comp. Nestoriana, pp. 51 f., 57, 156-158. 
 
 2 Nestoriaiia, p. 166, 9 ff. 
 
 3 ad Nestor. Mansi, rv, 1026 d. 
 
 4 ep. 11, 1, Migne, 77, 80c. 
 
44 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 pope this must be true. But Cyril may have had his 
 confidents also in Rome ; — I believe him to have been 
 capable of the most reckless intrigues. Indeed he says 
 in the conclusion of his above-discussed supplement- 
 letter to his agents : The necessary letters will soon be 
 written to the necessary persons 1 . However it may 
 have been, at any rate it must be charged to Cyril 
 that Celestine of Rome came to the firm conviction 
 that Nestorius was a heretic. And in an astonishing 
 degree the pope's actions followed the advice of Cyril. 
 In a synod at Rome he condemned Nestorius and notified 
 this, the 11th of August 430, to Cyril, to Nestorius, 
 to John of Antioch and others, to whom he had been 
 advised to write by Cyril 2 . The letter to Nestorius 
 was sent to Cyril for forwarding; it declared that 
 Nestorius was to be regarded as excommunicated, if he 
 did not recant within 10 days 3 . It is well known that 
 Cyril made the best of the success he had had at 
 Rome : he held a synod in Alexandria and wrote in its 
 name his third letter to Nestorius, the so-called 
 epistola synodica, which ends in the famous 12 
 anathematisms which Nestorius was to accept within 
 10 days on penalty of excommunication 4 . It was 
 Sunday, the 6th of December 430, when this letter of 
 
 i ep. 10, Migne, 77, p. 69 a. 
 
 2 Mansi, iv, 1018 ff . ; comp. the marginal note, p. 1050 d and 
 Cyril, ep. 11, 7 {ad Caelest.), Migne, 77, 85 a. 
 
 3 Mansi, iv, 1035 a b. 
 
 4 ep. 17, Migne, 77, 105-121. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 45 
 
 Cyril together with that of the pope was delivered to 
 Nestorius by an Alexandrian legation 1 . Now there 
 was an enmity not only between Nestorius and Cyril 
 and his adherents, but also between him and the 
 western division of the church. 
 
 Nestorius was not quite guiltless as regards this 
 course of events. His behaviour towards the Pelagians 
 had not been cautious, and the tone of his letters had 
 perhaps displeased the pope. But it was tragic that 
 there was a Cyril who was capable of turning the 
 mistrust of Nestorius which previously existed in Rome 
 into enmity. 
 
 3 
 
 In this case we find the turning point, as is usual, 
 in the third act. The emperor, in spite of (or rather 
 because of) the above-mentioned letters of Cyril, re- 
 mained at first still inclined towards Nestorius 2 . For it 
 was Nestorius and no other who succeeded in inducing 
 the emperor to call a new ecumenical synod 3 . On the 
 19th of November 430 the emperor ordered that it 
 should be gathered together in Ephesus on Whitsunday 
 next, i.e. the 7th of June 431 4 . To Cyril it was notified 
 
 1 Nestoriana, p. 297, 25. 
 
 2 Comp. Theodosius, ad Gyrillum, Mansi, iv, 1109 ff. 
 
 3 Comp. above, pp. 5 and 12, and Nestorius, ad Caelest. ep. 3 
 (Nestoriana, p. 182, 12). 
 
 4 Mansi, iv, 1111 ff. ; Easter-day fell in 431, according to the 
 Alexandrian Easter cycle, on the 19th of April (comp. E. Schwartz, 
 Christliche mid jiidische Ostertafeln, Abhandlungen der Konigl. Gesell- 
 schaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, Neue Folge, vni, 6, 1905, p. 48). 
 
46 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 also by a very ungracious imperial letter, which in the 
 strongest terms required his appearance before this 
 synodical court l . Under these circumstances Nestorius 
 could, on the 6th of December 430, receive with perfect 
 composure the letters from Rome and Alexandria. The 
 council would examine the matter, as he believed ; and 
 he looked forward to it without any fear. For he was 
 convinced of the orthodoxy of his teaching, and the 
 emperor was favourably inclined toward him ; Cyril, on 
 the contrary, was under suspicion for his doings and, 
 as Nestorius with many others thought, also for his 
 doctrine, and was out of favour with the emperor 2 . 
 
 But Cyril was clever enough to change his position 
 in Ephesus from that of anvil to that of hammer. 
 Three things enabled him to do so. Firstly the great 
 number of Egyptian bishops he had brought with him, 
 secondly the support he found in Memnon the bishop 
 of Ephesus and so in the population of that city, 
 thirdly the effrontery with which he, who as having 
 been accused ought to have remained in the back- 
 ground, pushed himself forward into a leading position 3 . 
 Before the Antiochian bishops and the Roman legates 
 had arrived he and his adherents opened the council on 
 the 22nd of June 4 , though 15 days after the appointed 
 
 1 Mansi, rv, 1109 f., comp. especially, p. 1112 c. 
 
 2 Comp. his sermon of December 12th, Nestoriana, p. 299, 25 ff. 
 
 3 Comp. liber Heraclidis, Bed j an, p. 256 f. ; Nau, p. 155. 
 
 4 XCal. Jul., Mansi, rv, 1123 and v, 772 a. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 47 
 
 time 1 , nevertheless in an arbitrary manner. John of 
 Antioch had, in a still existing letter written on the 
 journey, given a prospect of his and his countrymen's 
 arrival within 5 to 6 days 2 , and this letter had arrived 
 at Ephesus at the latest on the 20th of June 3 ; 68 
 bishops on the 21st of June had protested against the 
 opening of the synod before the arrival of the 
 Antiochians 4 , and the commissioner, whom the emperor 
 had sent to Ephesus, the count Candidian, emphatically 
 demanded that the opening should be postponed 5 . 
 But Cyril could not be hindered from making the 
 best of the favourable situation. That Nestorius did 
 not present himself before this party-council is com- 
 prehensible. They condemned him then in absentia^ 
 and incited the people of Ephesus to tumultuous 
 approbation of this judgment 7 . At the latest four days 
 
 1 Comp. above, p. 45, note 4; Memnon (Mansi, iv, 1129 d) 
 counts 16 days, including the first and the last day. 
 
 2 Mansi , iv, 1121. 
 
 3 John's friends declared June 21st (comp. the next note) : juxta 
 quae nuper suis litteris intimavit (Mansi, v, 765c). Cyril's lost 
 letter to John of the 20th of June (Mansi, rv, 1272 c) seems to 
 have been an answer to John's letter. 
 
 4 Mansi, v, 765-768 (directa pridie quam celebrarentur gesta 
 contra Nestorium, i.e. XI Cal. Jul. = June 21; comp. Mansi, v, 765, 
 note d). 
 
 5 Comp. his contestatio of June 22nd: haec non semel sed saepius 
 admonens .. nihil proj 'eci (Mansi, v, 771c). 
 
 6 Mansi, rv, 1211. It was in the first session of the Cyrillian 
 council (June 22nd). 
 
 7 Mansi, rv, 1264 a b; comp. Nestoriana, 188, 19 ff. 
 
48 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 after the opening of the Cyrillian council the Antio- 
 chians arrived 1 , and, as they, too, on the 26th of June 2 , 
 probably the very day of their arrival 3 , opened with 
 Nestorius and others the council or rather their party- 
 council, and deposed Cyril and Memnon, there was, 
 therefore, then, one party-council standing in opposition 
 to the other. The Roman legates who arrived last of 
 all joined the Cyrillian synod. 
 
 Now it was for the emperor to decide. After many 
 transactions, which need not be described, induced by 
 the demonstrating monks of Constantinople, he heard 
 delegates of both parties 4 , and if not earlier at least 
 then ceased to be a protector of Nestorius. Nestorius 
 himself made this easier for the emperor by writing 
 to Constantinople that he, if the right doctrine were 
 sanctioned, would willingly renounce his bishopric and 
 return to his monastery at Antioch 5 . Nevertheless the 
 
 1 Hef ele, 2nd ed. n, 192, note 2 (1875), left it undecided whether 
 John arrived June 26th or the 27th ; but even before the publication 
 of the Bibliotheca Casinensis, i, 2, p. 24 (published 1873), it was to be 
 seen in Mansi, v, 773 b, that the first session of the Antiochian 
 council was held the 26th of June (VI Cal. Jul.). 
 
 2 Comp. the preceding note. 
 
 3 This is pretended by the Cyrillian party (Mansi, iv, 1333 b) ; 
 and the notice in the Synodicon (Mansi, v, 773a; Bibliotheca 
 Casin. i, 1, p. 58 a) : mox enim post triduum veniens Joannes, probably 
 confirms it, since the preceding document dates from June 23rd 
 (Mansi, v, 772c: hesterno die). 
 
 4 Hef ele, n, 213 ff., 230 ff. ; comp. now Nestorius, liber Hera- 
 clidis, Bedjan, p. 375 ff. ; Nau, p. 241 ff. 
 
 5 Nestoriana, p. 194, 16ff. ; comp. p. 195, note=Mansi, v, 792 f . 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 49 
 
 emperor when at about the end of July 1 he sent to 
 Ephesus a second commissioner, the count John, one 
 of his confidants, was not yet on Cyril's side : the royal 
 order delivered by count John confirmed all three de- 
 positions, that of Nestorius, of Cyril and of Memnon 2 , 
 and when John committed all three into close custody, he 
 consigned Nestorius to the care of count Candidianus, 
 who was inclined towards him, while Cyril seems to have 
 been treated in a less friendly manner 3 . The question 
 of the doctrine was regarded by the court as still open ; 
 and as count John was not able to bring the parties at 
 Ephesus to an understanding with one another, in the 
 second half of August 4 delegates of each group were 
 called to the capital, or rather to the neighbouring city 
 of Chalcedon, for further negotiations. But as regards 
 the persons one decision was given just at this time : 
 the emperor resolved about the end of August 5 to send 
 
 1 Hefele, n, 219, note 2. 2 Mansi,iv, 1395 f. 
 
 3 Mansi, rv, 1398 b = v, 780 e; comp. Liber Heraclidis, Bed j an, 
 p. 387 f.; Nau,p. 248 f. 
 
 4 A letter written by the Antiochian delegates immediately after 
 their arrival at Chalcedon dates from Gorpiaei mensis undecimo, 
 (Mansi, v, 794 b — rv, 1406e), i.e. according to Tillemont (edition of 
 Venice, xiv, 776 f) the 4th or the 11th of September: and although 
 each of these dates seems to me open to controversy (comp. Pauly's 
 Real-Encyclopadie, 2nd edition, vn, 1664), we can and must let the 
 matter rest. Nearly the same time, as given by both dates, is 
 indicated by the course of events. 
 
 5 Eight days before the letter mentioned in the preceding note was 
 written (Mansi, v, 794 a). — The Alexandrian report in Mansi, v, 
 255 and 658 f., connecting the imperial order regarding Nestorius — 
 
 L. N. 4 
 
50 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 back Nestorius into his monastery. This resolve which 
 was followed, though perhaps not instantly 1 , by the 
 return of Nestorius to Antioch, seemed regrettable to all 
 Antiochians 2 , but corresponded, as we saw, to the request 
 of Nestorius. The emperor, however, did not order this 
 because Nestorius had wished it. Nestorius was now 
 in open disfavour; not even his name could be mentioned 
 before the emperor 3 . But as for Cyril the situation 
 had changed in his favour : he had been able to escape 
 from custody and to return to Alexandria 4 , and as 
 
 erroneously styling it an order of banishment — with the election of 
 Maximian, which happened a month later, is not trustworthy (comp. 
 Tillemont, xrv, 777a). 
 
 1 Nestorius, ep. 10 (Nestoriana, p. 195f. = Mansi, v, 793), and 
 the epistola praefecti, answered by this letter, seem to indicate a delay, 
 and the Antiochians as late as in their answer to the second letter 
 of their delegates (for the heading of chapter xxvi in Mansi, v, 794, 
 belongs to chapter xxvm, comp. Bibliotheca Casinensis, i, 1, p. 60) 
 apparently did not know anything about the departure of Nestorius, 
 for they wrote only: ea vero, quae contra personam, quae injustitiam 
 pertulit, facta sunt, cognoscentes, totius obstuporis sumus taciturnitate 
 perculsi (Mansi, v, 796b). 
 
 2 Comp. epist. legat. orient., Mansi, v, 794 ab : . . .imperatori placu- 
 erit, dominum Nestorium ab Epheso dimitti, quocumque ire voluerit. 
 Et omnino doluit anima nostra, quia, si hoc verum est, ea, quae 
 absque judicio et illicite facta sunt, interim roborari videntur. 
 
 3 Comp. Theodoreti ep. ad Alex. Hieropol., Mansi, v, 800b, and 
 epistola legatorum orientalium, Mansi, rv, 1420 e ( = v, 802 a). 
 
 4 That Cyril escaped from custody is told not only by Acacius 
 of Beroea (Mansi, v, 819c: dum custodiretur in Epheso, fuga est 
 usus) and by Nestorius (Liber Heraclidis, Bedjan, p. 388; Nau, 
 p. 249: Cyrille...echappa a, ceux qui le gardaient . . . , et gagna sa ville); 
 also the postscript given to the ultima sacra imperatoris ad synodum 
 (Mansi, iv, 1465; v, 805) in the Synodicon (Mansi, v, 805) says: 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 51 
 
 successor to Nestorius a man was elected, Maximian by 
 name, with whom he could be quite satisfied 1 . And 
 when the emperor, though no decision had been reached 
 at Chalcedon, officially dissolved the council, Cyril's 
 return to Alexandria was allowed and Memnon was 
 permitted to remain in his office at Ephesus 2 . 
 
 This change of feeling in the court is explained by 
 Nestorius in a passage of his Treatise of Heraclides by 
 the fact, as he thinks, that Cyril gave or promised 
 much money to the count John and through him to 
 the emperor 3 . He presumes, that the favour which 
 John showed towards him was as unreal as his disfavour 
 towards Cyril, as this disfavour only enabled him to let 
 Cyril escape from custody 4 . The narration by which 
 Nestorius tries to prove this assertion 5 is very similar 
 
 missa sacra ultima omnium, directa est, quando jam redierat in 
 civitatem suam beatus Cyrillus. Now this sacra was later than 
 the consecration of Maximian which took place on the 25th of 
 October (Socrates, 7, 37, 19; Mansi, v, 255b = 659a: post hoc): 
 the Alexandrian deputies of the Ephesian synod assisted at this 
 consecration (Mansi, v, 255 = 658; Cyril, ep. 32, Migne, 77, 
 157 f.=Mansi, v, 265), and the Antiochian deputies, too, had not 
 yet departed from Chalcedon, although they were not allowed to 
 assist at Maximian's consecration (Acacius Beroe., Mansi , v, 819 en). 
 But Cyril arrived at Alexandria as early as October 30th (Mansi, 
 v, 255c =659 a); hence he left Ephesus before the council was 
 dissolved. 
 
 1 Comp. Cyril, ep. 32 (Migne, 77, 157 f.; Mansi, v, 265) 
 
 2 Mansi, iv, 1765b; v, 805b. 
 
 3 Bedjan,p. 385 ff.; Nau,p. 247 ff. 
 
 4 Bedj an, p. 388; Nau, p. 249. 
 
 5 Bedj an, p. 385; Nau, p. 247 f. 
 
 4—2 
 
52 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 to that which we find in a letter of Acacius of Beroea, 
 written as early as 431 \ But in this letter it is the 
 eunuch Scholasticus, not count John, who is bribed, 
 and other differences, too, are to be observed. We 
 see, therefore, that Nestorius is repeating party-gossip. 
 Nevertheless there may be a foundation of truth in this 
 gossip, for Nestorius and the Antiochians complain 
 again and again — and, as we shall see, not without 
 grounds — of the briberies of Cyril. In another place 
 in his Treatise of Heraclides Nestorius tells us, that 
 the Augusta Pulcheria supported Cyril, because he, 
 Nestorius, offended her by not paying her, on account of 
 doubts about her virtue, the ceremonial honours which 
 she as a virgin demanded 2 ; and in this narration the 
 disfavour, which Nestorius had experienced at the hands 
 of Pulcheria, cannot be an invention of the writer. 
 Then it is interesting to note that Cyril in the 
 beginnings of the controversy tried, as we saw 3 , to win 
 Pulcheria to his cause, and afterwards, as we shall see 4 , 
 sought her favour even by means of presents. But the 
 endeavours of Cyril to gain favour with Pulcheria are 
 only one example of his intrigues. More generally 
 speaking it can be said : it was essentially Cyril's work, 
 that the council of Ephesus, demanded by Nestorius 
 
 1 ad Alexandr. Hierop., Mansi, v, 819 c. 
 
 2 Bedjan, p. 148; Nau, p. 89; comp. ep. ad Cosmam, Nau, 
 p. 363, 8. 
 
 3 Above, p. 42. 
 
 4 Below, p. 55, note 3. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 53 
 
 himself and hailed by him with joy, led to the result 
 that Nestorius lost the emperor's favour and his 
 bishopric. It was the tragedy of Nestorius' life, that, 
 in Ephesus, the question was whether he should be 
 overthrown or Cyril, a man as unscrupulous as he was 
 greedy of power. 
 
 4 
 
 After the transactions at Ephesus the tragedy of 
 Nestorius' life came to its end in two acts, the first 
 of which is now to be treated. I say after the transac- 
 tions at Ephesus and not after the council of Ephesus, 
 for "a council of Ephesus," an ecumenical council of 
 Ephesus, never existed. Two party-councils had sat 
 and cursed each other; the dogmatic question had 
 remained undecided. The Antiochians continued to 
 hold Nestorius in esteem and to treat as heretical the 
 anathematisms of Cyril; the latter, for his part, regarded 
 Nestorius as a condemned heretic and had grounds for 
 thinking that his council had proved his anathematisms 1 . 
 The church of the East was divided. The emperor, 
 assisted by Maximian, the new bishop of Constantinople, 
 forced the parties to a peace by means of the union 
 of 433. The document of this union between Cyril 
 and the Antiochians is Cyril's epistola ad orientates 2 , 
 in which he accepted an Antiochian confession of faith, 
 
 1 Comp. Tillemont, Memoires, edition of Venice, xiv, 398 and 
 p. 758 (note 26). 
 
 2 ep. 39, Migne, 77, 173-181. 
 
54 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 composed in 431 at Ephesus, probably by Theodore t. 
 The prolonged transactions which led to this union are 
 even in their details sufficiently known to us. But 
 I am glad not to have to treat them now ; for the 
 Treatise of Heraclides, although very often dealing with 
 this union, adds nothing to our knowledge here, as far 
 as I have been able to see. 
 
 I remark only, that Nestorius in his Treatise of 
 Heraclides gives a sharp and right characterisation 
 of the situation which preceded the union 1 . Cyril 
 and John of Antioch had each two wishes in the event 
 of peace. Cyril wished to see acknowledged, firstly his 
 council and the condemnation of Nestorius, secondly 
 his anathematisms ; John on the other side wished as 
 ardently that the first should not take place and 
 secondly, that Cyril should recant his anathematisms. 
 Cyril, in order to retain his power, let himself be 
 bartered down to a great extent. He accepted the 
 Antiochian confession of faith and was contented with 
 the fact that his anathematisms were not condemned. 
 But he did not give up the demand, that his council 
 should be acknowledged and Nestorius be anathematised. 
 He again set in play all his possible means for attaining 
 this end. And here we are in a position to follow 
 his actions by means of documents, which show clearly 
 that he did not even hold himself back from bribery. 
 These documents are a letter of Cyril's archdeacon 
 1 Bedjan, pp. 395-403; Nau, pp. 254-259. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 55 
 
 Epiphanius to Maximian of Constantinople 1 , and, sup- 
 plementing it, a list of the presents which Cyril at the 
 same time sent to Constantinople 2 . I regret that time 
 forbids me to quote this letter, but I beg every one who 
 holds my judgment upon Cyril to be too harsh, to begin 
 his study on the holiness of this man by reading this 
 letter 3 . The aim of Cyril's intrigues and briberies 
 
 1 Man si, v, 987-989. 
 
 2 Bibliotheca Casinensis, i, 2 (Florilegium Casinense), p. 46 f., 
 eomp. i, 1, p. 72. 
 
 3 Now in the printed text I am able to add some quotations, 
 Mansi, v, 988 d:... Nunc igitur, domine mi sanctissime, impone tibi 
 omne in hoc causa stadium. Scriptum est a domino meo, fratre vestro, 
 et dominae ancillae dei reverentissimae Pulcheriae et praeposito 
 Paulo et Romano, cubiculario, et dominae Marcellae, cubiculariae, 
 et dominae Droseriae, et directae sunt benedicciones dignae 
 eis. Et ei, qui contra ecclesiam est, C hr y s o r e ti praeposito , magnifi- 
 centissimus Aristolaus paratus est scribere de nonnidlis, quae angelus 
 tuus (read: sanctitas tua = y <rr] ayLdrys? comp. Mansi, note i) debeat 
 impetrare; et ipsi vero dignae transmissae sunt eulogiae 
 (comp. in the list of presents, Bibl. Cas. i, 2, p. 47a: Praeposito 
 Chrysoreti , ut nos impugnare desinat, coacti sumus du- 
 plicia destinare). Scripsit autem dominus mens, frater tester, et 
 domino Scholastico (comp. Bibl. Cas. I.e. p. 47 6, and above, p. 52) 
 et magnificentissimo Arthebae, ut ipsi conveniant et persuadeant Chry- 
 soreti tandem desistere ab oppugnatione ecclesiae; et ipsis vero 
 Venedictiones dignae directae sunt. Festina igitur et tu ipse, 
 sanctissime, supplicare dominae ancillae dei Pulcheriae Augustae, 
 ut iterum ponat animam suam pro Domino Christo — puto enim, quod 
 nunc non satis curet pro sanctissinw vestro fratre Cyrillo ut et omnes, 
 qui sunt in palatio regis, et quicquid (read : quod aliquid ?) avaritiae 
 eorum deest, q uanquam non desint etipsi diversae benedictiones — , 
 ut scribat increpative Joanni, quo nee memoria illius impii (viz. 
 Nestorii) fiat. Scribatur vero et magnificentissimo Aristolao , ut 
 instet ei (viz. Joanni) celeriter. Et roga dominant Olympiadem , ut 
 
56 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 shown by this letter was, that John of Antioch and his 
 friends should be made willing to accept the judgment 
 of his synod against Nestorius. John of Antioch 
 yielded to Cyril at this point : to bring about the 
 union he payed the heavy price of giving up his 
 old friend. The same price was paid by almost all 
 Antiochians who accepted the union, only Theodoret 
 and a few others being excused from doing so. 
 
 From that time forth one could speak in eccle- 
 siastical phraseology of the holy ecumenical council of 
 Ephesus, which had condemned Nestorius. Nestorius 
 could have accepted the confession of faith on which the 
 union was based. It was, therefore, really tragic that the 
 anathema against him was the price of the peace. He 
 was now also robbed of his former friends, and there 
 cannot be the least doubt that for this painful experience, 
 too, he had to thank Saint Cyril. 
 
 et ipsa coadjuvet nos et ut insuper roget Marcellam et Droseriam, 
 quia satis earn patienter auscultant...Et dominion meum sanctissimum 
 Dalmatium abbatem roga, ut et imperatori mandet, terribili eum 
 conjuratione constringens, et ut cubicularios omnes ita constringat, ne 
 illius (viz. Nestorii) memoria ulterius fiat, et sanctum Eutychen, ut 
 concertet pro nobis... Subjectus autem brevis (comp. above p. 55, note 2) 
 ostendit, quibus hinc directae sint eulogiae, ut et ipse noveris, quantum 
 pro tua sanctitate labor et Alexandrina ecclesia, quae tanta pr a est at 
 his qui illic sunt; clerici enim, qui hie sunt, contristantur, quod 
 ecclesia Alexandrina nudata sit hujus causa turbelac.De tua ecclesia 
 praesta avaritiae quorum nosti, ne Alexandrinam ecclesiam contristent. . . 
 Festinet autem sanctitas tua rogare dominant Pulcheriam, ut faciat 
 dominum Lausum intrare et praepositum fieri, ut Chrysoretis (comp. 
 above) pote?itia dissolvatur et sic dogma nostrum roboretur. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 57 
 
 The last act of our tragedy may be treated shortly, 
 but it stretches over a much longer period than any 
 of the others. It was opened by the banishment of 
 Nestorius to Oasis in the year 435 \ and not until 
 sixteen years later was it closed by Nestorius' death 2 . 
 
 We have only two accounts which give us informa- 
 tion as to how this banishment of Nestorius came about. 
 Nestorius himself, as we learn from Evagrius, narrated 
 that for four years he had enjoyed at Antioch various 
 tokens of esteem, but had then been banished to Oasis 
 by order of Theodosius 3 . Evagrius adds that Nestorius 
 did not say how fitting a measure this was, for also in 
 Antioch Nestorius had not ceased his blasphemy, with 
 the result that even Bishop John complained about 
 it, and Nestorius was condemned to permanent exile 4 . 
 The Nestorian legend, too, tells us that Nestorius had 
 lived four years in Antioch and that then John of 
 Antioch had caused his banishment out of jealousy 
 of his influence 5 . That the first part of this account 
 goes back to Nestorius' own narration is made probable 
 by its concurrence with the words of Nestorius in 
 Evagrius. It is, therefore, probable that also the 
 
 1 Comp. below, note 3. 2 Comp. above, p. 19 and 22. 
 
 3 Evagrius, h. e. 1, 7, ed. Bidez and Parmentier, p. 13, 12 fL 
 
 4 1. c. p. 13, 16 fit. 
 
 5 M. Brie re, La legende syriaque de Nestorius (Revue de V Orient 
 Chretien, 1910, p. 21; Nau, p. xxi, note 1). 
 
58 THE TRAGEDY 
 
 account given about John of Antioch in both sources 
 is derived from Nestorius. His banishment according 
 to this account took place in the year 435 1 . In the 
 same year, on the 30th of July, Theodosius, the emperor, 
 issued an edict which ordered the impious books of the 
 detestable Nestorius against the orthodox piety and 
 against the decrees of the synod of Ephesus to be 
 burnt, and which gave the name of Simonians (that 
 of an ancient heretical party) to his adherents 2 . The 
 wording of this edict and the account of Evagrius that 
 Nestorius had not ceased his blasphemy in Antioch 
 could make possible the conjecture 3 that the banish- 
 ment of Nestorius and this edict against his books were 
 caused by what he had written in Antioch, especially by 
 his Tragedy which dealt with the decrees of the synod 
 of Ephesus. But this conjecture has its difficulties 4 . 
 We are, therefore, obliged to take the edict as referring 
 to the earlier books of Nestorius and the account 
 of Evagrius to spoken blasphemies. All the more 
 important in this connection must have been the in- 
 stigatory efforts of John of Antioch. Pope Celestine, 
 too, petitioned the emperor as early as 432 for the 
 exile of Nestorius 5 , and Cyril was probably working with 
 
 1 Four years after the synod of Ephesus, comp. above, p. 57, note 3. 
 
 2 Mansi, v, 413 f. ; cod. Theodosianus, 16, 5, 66. 
 
 3 Nestoriana, p. 88. 
 
 4 For according to Evagrius (1. c. p. 13, 15 f.) Nestorius mentioned 
 in his Tragedy his banishment to Oasis. 
 
 5 Mansi, v, 271b. 
 
OF NESTORIUS' LIFE 59 
 
 the same end in view. These latter are not much to be 
 blamed for this wish. It is not the same with John 
 of Antioch. He may have had, even if jealousy was 
 out of the question, many grounds for finding the stay 
 of Nestorius in Antioch disagreeable — his mere presence, 
 after the union, was a reproach to him — but he has 
 much impaired his good renown by this Judas-deed. 
 And for Nestorius it was the consummation of his 
 tragic fortune that his final banishment was caused by 
 his former friend. 
 
 How rich the years of exile were in tragic events 
 we have seen already in the first lecture 1 . I merely 
 remark here that Nestorius in these years was even 
 before his death a dead man for the world — I mean 
 the orthodox church. He now was nothing but the 
 condemned heretic, nothing but the cause of offence 
 thrust out from the people of God. 
 
 He was really not dead : he hailed with joy the 
 change of the situation after the robber-synod, hailed 
 with joy Leo's letter to Flavian, hailed with joy the 
 new council he saw in prospect 2 . He did not live to 
 experience the fact that this council, too, condemned 
 him and that also Theodoret, who even up to his death 
 held to him, was forced to consent to this condemna- 
 tion 3 . With this the tragedy of Nestorius' life came 
 to an end. Now he was regarded by all in the church 
 as a cursed heretic; now for him came to pass what, 
 1 Above, p. 17 f. 2 Comp. above, p. 25 f. 3 Mansi, vn, 188 f. 
 
60 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 according to the edict of 435, was to be the fortune 
 of his adherents : he had not only supported the 
 punishment of being covered with ignominy during his 
 lifetime, but also after his death did not escape from 
 ignominy 1 . 
 
 The orthodox saw in his sufferings nothing but a 
 just penalty: Nestorius himself called his life a tragedy. 
 I, too, used the same expression. But his life was a 
 tragedy only if he was guiltless. The question as to 
 whether he was guiltless shall occupy us in the next 
 two lectures. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the last lecture we spoke about the tragedy 
 of the life of Nestorius. Was it really a tragedy ? His 
 enemies regarded his sufferings as deserved punishment 
 for his impiety. Were they wrong? Was Nestorius 
 really the guiltless victim of a tragic fortune ? He was. 
 It is this which I wish to prove in this and the next 
 lecture. 
 
 I do not mean that Nestorius was altogether guiltless 
 in his life's misfortune. He was incautious, passionate 
 and reckless, and this, as we saw in the preceding lecture, 
 was not without unfavourable influence upon the course 
 
 1 Mansi, v, 413b: fx-qre ^Qvras Ti/xuplas, fir/re davdvras drifiias 
 
 CKTOS VTT&pX eiV ' 
 
OF NESTORIUS 61 
 
 of events. But no hero of a tragedy is quite guiltless. 
 And we Christians know that we all have the old Adam 
 in us as long as we live. 
 
 Only by understanding the word "guiltless" in a 
 broader sense I am able to say that Nestorius was 
 guiltless. His guilt was very slight in comparison with 
 the heavy weight of his sufferings. 
 
 Socrates, the church historian, regarded, as we saw 1 , 
 the dogmatic charges against Nestorius as essentially 
 unfounded. He thought the fault of Nestorius was his 
 lack of knowledge 2 . But I must decline to accept for 
 Nestorius this privilegium ignorantiae. It is true that 
 Nestorius at first did not know that the term Oeotokos 
 was used by some of the orthodox Fathers of the fourth 
 century. But this lack of knowledge is not a sign 
 of ignorance. I won't say that Nestorius was a learned 
 man. Neither the fragments of his works nor his 
 Treatise of Heraclides show patristic or philosophical 
 erudition. But his education was not in any way a 
 merely rhetorical one. The Treatise of Heraclides and 
 many of the earlier known fragments of Nestorius prove 
 that, in spite of some inaccuracies in his terminology 3 , 
 he was a theologian well educated in dogmatics. 
 
 Luther thought that, besides his want of learning, it 
 was fatal for Nestorius that he was a boorish and proud 
 
 1 Above, p. 20. 
 
 2 h. e. 7, 32, 8: ayvoovvra itpevpiffKW rbv dvdpa. 
 
 3 Comp. below, p. 90, note 1. 
 
62 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 man 1 . This judgment was based on a very insufficient 
 knowledge of the sources. But it may give us occasion 
 to enquire whether the personal character of Nestorius 
 was the cause of his tragic fortune. 
 
 Nestorius was passionate and dogmatic. John of 
 Antioch reminds him in a letter of a scene from their 
 earlier life in common, which may prove this 2 . And 
 even an account, which is friendly to Nestorius, tells 
 about him, that he was lacking in courtesy and 
 amiability 3 . This characteristic is really shown in his 
 letters to Cyril. Also his letters to Rome are not 
 exactly models of courtesy. And even from the pulpit 
 he sometimes declaimed against his enemies in a rough 
 and passionate manner 4 . 
 
 The account, which denied him amiability, points 
 in explanation of this characteristic to the fact that 
 Nestorius, as a monk, had no experience of worldly 
 affairs 5 . Indeed, it was an unpolished nature he 
 showed. But the merits of this naturalness came out 
 as clearly as the demerits. Even now we see some- 
 thing straight and open in the letters and in the 
 polemics of Nestorius. And comparing his writings 
 
 1 Comp. above, p. 21. 2 Mansi, iv, 1064d. 
 
 3 ep. ad Cosmam, Nau, p. 364, 9: C'etait un homme excellent et 
 jalouse, qui n'avait pas V 'experience des affaires du monde et qui 
 manquait de ce qu'on appelle amabilite. 
 
 4 In a sermon (Nestoriana, p. 300) he addressed Cyril : Quid per- 
 turbationes ferinis rugitibus adferre conaris ? 
 
 6 Comp. above, note 3. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 63 
 
 with those of Cyril, which overflow with so-called piety, 
 and even with some of the letters of John of Antioch 1 , 
 we are agreeably impressed by observing that Nestorius 
 did not wrap up his thoughts in pious phrases. It is 
 also deserving of mention that Nestorius, where he 
 had confidence, showed nothing of narrow-minded 
 sensitiveness. His answer to the above-mentioned 
 letter of John of Antioch is proof enough of this 2 . I 
 think he was also sincere when he asked Cyril the 
 reproachful question : Why did you not write me a 
 friendly letter and inform me of the troubles in Egypt, 
 their cause and the manner of settling them, instead 
 of writing to the monks about my doctrine 3 ? 
 
 And it would be quite wrong to presume that 
 Nestorius had also in his intellect something rough 
 and blunt. He is, on the contrary, acute in his thinking, 
 not without ability in his polemics, and here and there, 
 by the use of fitting images, he shows that he was 
 capable of fine observation 4 . 
 
 The reproach that he was proud is still less well 
 grounded. He seems to have had an exalted idea of 
 the bishop's position to which he was called 5 . This will 
 
 1 Comp. e.g. his letter to Cyril, mentioned above p. 47, Mansi, 
 iv, 1121. 2 ep. vn, Nestoriana, pp. 163-186. 
 
 3 Liber Heraclidis, Bed j an, p. 158 f. ; Nau, p. 96. 
 
 4 Comp. Liber Heracl., Bed j an, p. 188, Nau, p. 113 (cuttle- 
 fishes), B. p. 189=N. 114 (fights with children), p. 204 = 123 (timid 
 dogs), p. 338 = 217 (drowsy men), p. 438 = 280 f. (wounded snakes). 
 
 5 I do not point here to the famous apostrophe, which, according 
 
64 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 explain why he wrote to the Roman bishop with a 
 self-conscious assurance and agreed without hesitation 
 to become the judge of Cyril. But this self-con- 
 sciousness of office was something other than pride 
 and greed of power and glory. This is convincingly 
 proved by the fact, that Nestorius himself offered the 
 emperor to return to his monastery 1 ; and he did not 
 only offer this, but he proved by the deed, that he 
 easily gave up his episcopal honours 2 . One cannot call 
 him proud who regarded nothing more blissful than 
 the calm stillness of the monastery 3 . And when in his 
 exile he surrendered himself to the governor, as we 
 saw 4 , he showed himself not only straightforward and 
 honest, but also proved that he did not set a high value 
 on himself and his life. Finally his remark that he did 
 not write to Leo of Rome lest he should bring him into 
 discredit 5 , may be taken as proof that striving after 
 glory and honour and esteem was far from him. 
 
 May we now realise that, nevertheless, in the 
 personal character of Nestorius are to be found the 
 grounds for the tragic course of his life ? It is intelligible 
 
 to Socrates (7, 29, 4f.), he gave to the king in his first sermon at 
 Constantinople: Aos fioi, w /ScunXeO, nadapav rr\v yfy tQv alpeTiKwv, 
 Kayw <roi rbv ovpavbv avTidwau. For here, I think, Nestorius is to 
 be assumed as having spoken in the name of God. 
 
 1 Comp. above, p. 48. 
 
 2 Comp. ep. ix, Nestoriana, p. 194, 14 f. : a me, teste deo, episco- 
 palis honor facillime respuatur. 
 
 3 I.e. p. 194, 22. * Above, p. 18. 
 5 Above, p. 22. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 65 
 
 that a man with such characteristics was not exactly 
 suited to the taste of the court and especially of the 
 circle of that most pious lady, the Augusta Pulcheria ; 
 he was not cut out for a courtier. But even if the 
 ground of his misfortune were to be found here, his life 
 should nevertheless be called a tragedy, for his sufferings 
 would have been too harsh a punishment. We can, 
 however, hardly assume that the characteristics we 
 discussed were the cause of Nestorius' unhappy 
 fate. For he enjoyed the favour of the court as long 
 as he lived in Constantinople and even longer, and his 
 enemies never pretended, as far as I know, that his 
 guilt rested in his personal character. 
 
 His enemies condemned him for his teaching. It 
 is, therefore, his teaching that we must examine. 
 
 Nestorius was an Antiochian as regards his theo- 
 logical upbringing. I do not believe that he was a per- 
 sonal pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia — the chronology 
 contradicts this, and there are no convincing arguments 
 for this assumption 1 . But that he was educated in the 
 traditions of the Antiochian school is without doubt. 
 
 The Antiochian Christology is most easily compre- 
 hended, if we contrast it with Apollinarism, condemned 
 by the church about fifty years before Nestorius became 
 bishop of Constantinople. Apollinaris of Laodicea is 
 well known to have taught that a real incarnation 
 and a real unity of the historical person of Christ was 
 1 Comp. Walch, Ketzerhistorie v, 315 f. 
 
 L. N. 5 
 
66 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 only intelligible, if the Logos took on himself not 
 a perfect man, that is body and animal soul and 
 intellectual soul or intellect, but joined himself with a 
 human body and a human soul in such a manner that 
 he himself became the intellect, the moving principle, 
 in the new and united being. This idea of a substantial 
 unity between the Logos and the human nature which 
 resulted in the new and composite nature of the 
 incarnate Logos seemed to the Antiochians to do away 
 with the true manhood of Christ and with the possibility 
 of his moral development. They taught, therefore, 
 that the divine and the human nature in Christ were 
 to be regarded as perfect each in itself, a human free 
 will, too, having to be assumed in Christ. To maintain 
 this, they laid stress on the assertion that the two 
 natures in Christ were not altered by their union as 
 substances which are chemically combined. Hence 
 they did not think the union to be a substantial one. 
 
 Before going further I will make a short remark 
 about the term nature, deferring discussion of the term 
 substance till later. I can do it by quoting Professor 
 Bethune -Baker. For this scholar is right in saying 
 that the term nature at that time meant all the 
 attributes or characteristics attached to a substance 
 and as a whole always associated with it 1 . Apollinaris 
 saw in Christ but one substance, viz. the substance of 
 
 1 Comp. Bethune-Baker, Nestorius and his teaching, p. 48. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 67 
 
 the Logos, to which in addition to its own characteristics 
 those of the imperfect human nature were attached. 
 
 Nestorius was as strong an opponent of this 
 Apollinaristic doctrine as any other Antiochian. Re- 
 garding his zeal in opposing it, it is characteristic that 
 he almost always named Apollinaris in the same breath 
 with Arius and Eunomius or placed the Apollinarists and 
 the Arians side by side \ He had a right to do so ; for 
 the Arians were the first who looked at the incarnation, 
 like Apollinaris, in a — I do not say serious — but 
 mythical light. The pre-existent son of God, so was 
 their teaching, really changed into man, taking the 
 body from the virgin as his body so that he himself 
 became the soul of this body and the subject of all 
 experiences which are told of Jesus : he hungered, 
 suffered, died. Hence the Arian Eudoxius expressly 
 said that there were not in Christ two natures, the 
 whole being one combined nature 2 . Nestorius knew 
 of course that Apollinaris, differing from the Arians, 
 regarded the pre-existent Son of God, following the 
 decree of the Nicene synod, as 6[xoovcrios tw irarpi, 
 and, at least in the second period of his development, 
 
 1 Comp. Nestoriana, p. 166, 19; 170, 30; 179, 4; 181, 18; 182, 
 8; 184, 15; 185, 12; 194, 16; 208, 16; 267, 16; 273, 6 f . ; 300, 20; 
 301, 4. 5. 16; 305, 15 f. ; 312, 7; Liber HeracL, e.g. B. 252 = N. 152; 
 B. 261 =N. 157. 
 
 3 Halm, Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln, 3rd edition, 
 Breslau, 1897, § 191 p. 262: ov 86o (pucrets, iirel /xi] WXetos f)v dudpuiros, 
 dXK avTi ipvxv* Gebs iv (rapid • fxia to 6\ov Kara crvvdeaiv (pvcris. Comp. 
 Nestorius, Liber Her. B. 12 = N. 6, 5. 
 
 5—2 
 
68 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 conceded that this A0709 took on a human body with a 
 soul 1 ; but he was right in minimising this difference. 
 Here and there, he argued, the peculiar human nature 
 of Christ became perfect only when the Logos was added 
 to it, neither here nor there is Christ a real man as we 2 ; 
 and with acute perception he brings to light the 
 weakness of Apollinaris' theory. Even if, he says, the 
 incarnation was thought by Apollinaris to be a voluntary 
 action of the Logos, nevertheless as soon as the unity 
 between the Logos and the body with human soul 
 was perfected, the union was after the manner of a 
 substantial one, not voluntary: the Logos was forced 
 nolens volens to suffer what his body and soul suffered 3 . 
 And a second difficulty, too, is seen by Nestorius, 
 a difficulty which afterwards gave trouble to the 
 scholastics. If the Son, so Nestorius argues, was united 
 substantially with the human nature, the same must be 
 assumed also of the Father and the Holy Spirit because 
 of the unity of substance in the Godhead, but if the 
 Father and the Spirit had not, in the same measure as 
 the Son, partaken in the sufferings of the historic 
 Jesus, then the unity of substance with the Father and 
 the Spirit is taken from the Son 4 . 
 
 But these difficulties of thinking are not the 
 chief stumbling-block for Nestorius as regards the 
 
 1 Liber Her. B. 50 = N. 31. 
 
 2 I.e. B. 50 f., 52ff. = N. 31, 32 ff. 
 
 3 I.e. B. 55f. = N. 35. 4 I.e. B. 56, 58=N. 35, 36. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 69 
 
 Apollinaristic teaching. The chief cause of offence for 
 him is, that the Logos appeared here as capable of 
 suffering and dying and, therefore, his divine nature as 
 altered in itself. In opposition to these thoughts 
 Nestorius held by the Antiochian doctrine, afterwards 
 also acknowledged by the council of Chafcedon, that 
 the two natures in Christ were each perfect in itself 
 and unaltered. 
 
 This was also conceded by Cyril. In his epistola 
 dogmatica to Nestorius he had written : The natures 
 which are brought together into a true union are different, 
 but of the two there is one Christ and one son, the 
 difference of the natures not being destroyed by the 
 union 1 ', and in contradiction to Apollinaris he, too, 
 contended that the Logos took on a perfect human 
 nature, not only body and animal soul, but also an 
 intellectual soul or a human intellect 2 . Where then 
 was the difference between this Alexandrian exponent 
 of the two natures and Nestorius ? Cyril's formula, 
 also in the quotation which I have given, was: one 
 Christ out of both, out of two natures. This formula is 
 at the first glance unintelligible, since Cyril would not 
 assert a mixture of the natures and, apart from some 
 incautious utterances 3 , really did not do so; but it 
 
 1 ep. 4 Migne, 77, 45 c: 5id<popot. p.ev at Trpbs €v6tt}tci tt\v aXr)0ivT]v 
 auvaxQe'icrcu (ptitxeis' eh 5e e| apupoTipuv Xpicrros Kal vids' oix &$ T V V T &v 
 (pvcreuv 5ia<popa$ dvrjprjfji^s 5ta ttjv 'ivuxjiv k.t.\. 2 I.e. p. 45 B. 
 
 3 Comp. e.g. de recta fide ad Theodos. 40, Migne, 76, 1193b: 
 'Irjaovs Xpt<rr6s...et5 ev ti to /xera^v crvyKei/xevos. 
 
70 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 is explained in Cyril by another term, viz. that of 
 hypostatic union: Cyril teaches a evooats Ka0* viroaraaiv. 
 Nestorius, on the contrary, protested against this phrase. 
 In his Treatise of Heraclides he deals much with the 
 question of this phrase and openly says that he did not 
 understand it then (when he first heard it) and did not 
 understand it now 1 . 
 
 Indeed this term has its difficulties. If we wish 
 to comprehend in which sense Cyril made use of it 
 and Nestorius opposed it, we must, as Professor 
 Bethune-Baker rightly remarks 2 , put out of the 
 question that meaning of the term which is taught by 
 the council of Chalcedon and adopted by the orthodoxy 
 of later times, for this meaning is a result of a 
 development, which was not yet completed when Cyril 
 and Nestorius wrote. Originally inroaTaat? is a 
 synonym of ovala, if this latter is understood in the 
 sense of real being ; both words then may be translated 
 by substance. As synonymous with ovala the term 
 vTrocrTaaLs appears in the Nicene creed, because the 
 Logos here is deduced i/c tt}<; ovalas rod 7rarp6<; and the 
 assertion is anathematised, that he was ef erepa? ovala? 
 rj viroaT&aews. And Athanasius said even about the 
 end of his life : rj viroaraaiv ovala iarc ical ovBev a\Xo 
 avfiacpo/xevov eyei r) avro to 6V 8 . Auto to ov,the being 
 itself — that is the meaning of vTroaraacs. The term 
 
 1 Liber Her. B. 228 = N. 138. 2 Nestorius and his teaching, p. 47. 
 3 ad Afros 4, Migne, 26, 1036 b. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 71 
 
 means 1 to viroKeifievov, as Aristotle said, the ultimate 
 reality which is the bearer of all the attributes which 
 are called the nature of a thing, the substance in the 
 sense in which the earlier philosophy, that of the 
 middle ages included, made use of this term and which 
 was afterwards criticised by Locke and Hume. The 
 term ovaia could also be used in a generic sense and 
 then received a meaning similar to kind or nature, but 
 vTrocrracns means only that which ovcria could mean 
 in addition to its other meaning, viz., a single and 
 really existing being, whether material or immaterial. 
 As regards the doctrine of the Trinity these two terms, 
 originally synonymous to some extent, were differen- 
 tiated : one spoke of fiia ovaia and rpei? virocrrdcreLs in 
 the Trinity; but, as Professor Bethune-JBaker rightly 
 observed 2 , there is not any clear evidence that a similar 
 usage, a similar differentiation between ovcria and 
 vTToo-Tao-Ls, had been extended in the time of Cyril to 
 the christological problem. Hence in the discussion 
 between Cyril and Nestorius on the relation of the 
 Godhead and manhood in Christ the term i/Troo-racris 
 must be understood as essentially synonymous with 
 ovaia. Now Nestorius, just as the earlier Antiochians, 
 believed that the natures of Christ, as both really 
 existing in him, had each their viroarao-L^ : he spoke 
 of two viroorrdaei^ with as little scruple as of two 
 
 1 Comp. Bethune-Baker, I.e. p. 48 ff. 
 
 2 I.e. p. 50. 
 
72 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 natures in Christ 1 . Cyril, on the contrary, expressly 
 condemned the Siaipeiv to? vTroardcrec^ iirl rou evbs 
 Xpio-ToO 2 , the evcoo-is icaff viroa-raaLv excluded for him 
 the existence of two viroa-racrei^ in Christ. In explaining 
 this theory he is not always fortunate, and in his 
 terminology he is not always consistent. Professor 
 Bethune-Baker is right in saying: "His use of the 
 expression evcoais <j>vaifC7) gives strong support to the 
 view that he used the parallel expression eVaxm /caO* 
 vTTOGTacnv in the sense of substantial rather than in 
 the sense of personal oneness 3 ." Nevertheless his real 
 theory is clearly to be perceived. The divine Logos, 
 he thinks, who naturally has his vTroaTacns or is an 
 t'7ro<jTacrt?, remained the one and the same that he was 
 before the incarnation, also after having assumed 
 human nature. He took in his viroaracn^ a human 
 body, soul and intellect as his own body, soul and 
 intellect, so that his human nature had, therefore, no 
 vTroarcLGLs. Christ's human nature was, according to 
 Cyril, nothing more than all the human characteristics 
 taken as a whole, which the \6<yo$ aeaapKcofievos had 
 as such. It existed, so to speak, before the incarnation 
 as the nature or substance of the human race; but 
 after the incarnation, because of the evaxris /caO' 
 
 1 Comp. e.g. Liber Her. B. 291=N. 184, B. 302 = N. 192, B. 305 = 
 N. 193: On ne doit pas concevoir une essence sans hypostase, comme si 
 V union avait eu lieu en une essence. 
 
 2 ep. 17, anath. 2, Migne, 77, 120c. 
 
 3 Bethune-Baker, I.e. p. 174. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 73 
 
 viroa-Tacnv, it cannot be regarded apart from the 
 vTToaTaais of the Logos. That is meant by Cyril's etc 
 
 &VO <f)V(T€(0V el?. 
 
 It is easy to perceive that this theory is not 
 conceivable. If it meant that the Logos became man 
 in the manner of a mythical metamorphosis, this would 
 be, although a false, yet a somewhat intelligible theory, 
 and I am convinced that thousands of Cyril's adherents 
 took this to be the meaning of his theory, and that 
 even in our day thousands of simple Christian people 
 understand the incarnation in this mythical interpreta- 
 tion. Cyril, however, asserted that this was not his 
 meaning. Then, as I said, his theory is not conceivable. 
 For what is a nature which has no real existence of its 
 own ? Is then the Logos not thought of as suffering 
 and dying, in spite of Cyril's protest ? or can one speak 
 of sufferings and death where there is no suffering or 
 dying subject, but only an impersonal nature ? And 
 is it still possible to say that Christ was a man as we 
 are, if the human nature existed in him only as assumed 
 in the virocracn^ of the Logos and as having become 
 his human nature ? Nestorius is quite right in 
 reproaching Cyril that his doctrine resulted in a 
 suppression of the manhood of Christ, for, according to 
 Cyril's doctrine, the human intellect of Christ cannot be 
 realised as operating in him 1 . The Christ of Cyril, as 
 
 1 Liber Herac. B. 341 = N. 218, comp. B. 295 = N. 187: Qu'est ce 
 que Vhomme par/ait qui n'agitpas et qui n l 'est pas mu selon la nature 
 
74 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 Nestorius rightly observed, did not think with the 
 intellect of manhood, but with the intellect of the 
 God-Logos ; he did not feel by means of a human soul 
 but in unity with his Godhead etc. 1 
 
 Nobody can doubt that the doctrine of the Antiochian 
 school, which Nestorius held, was a clearer one. Christ, 
 according to them, was really a man who thought and 
 felt as a man and had his bodily, intellectual and moral 
 development as other men. Nevertheless they asserted 
 that Christ was also perfect in his Godhead, as the 
 Logos is ofioovaios tc5 irarpL But they were blamed 
 by their opponents for not having brought these two 
 ideas to such an agreement, that the oneness of the 
 person of Christ became comprehensible. They were 
 said to have divided Christ into two persons and two 
 sons — the eternal son of God and the son of Mary, — 
 the first being son of God by nature and the other only 
 by adoption. 
 
 Nestorius, too, is reproached for this, but he again 
 and again protested against this reproach. Christ, as 
 he continually says, was one: one Christ, one son of God, 
 one Lord, one irpocrcoTrov 2 . Also in the Treatise of 
 Heraclides there are numerous explanations of this kind. 
 If you, so he says to Cyril, understand by the eWcri? 
 
 de Vhomme? II n'est homme que de nom, corps de nom, time rationnelle 
 de nom, celui qui n'est pas mu selon la nature de son etre, etc. 
 
 1 I.e. B. 251 = N. 152. 
 
 2 Comp. Nestoriana Index s.v. Christus (p. 397 ft), /cifyuos (p. 402 a), 
 vl6s (p. 407 a), irpbciaTov (p. 405a). 
 
OF NESTORIUS 75 
 
 /cad* vttogtclgiv the union in the irpoGwirov of Christ, 
 then I agree with you 1 . And with the formulas which 
 he saw proposed by Flavian of Constantinople 2 or found 
 in Leo's letter to Flavian 3 he showed himself well 
 contented 4 . 
 
 Thus apologising for himself, Nestorius was not 
 fortunate in his own time but he is in our time. For 
 Professor Bethune-Baker has in his book on Nestorius 
 and his teaching a particular chapter with the heading : 
 "Two persons not the teaching of Nestorius 5 ," and here 
 we find Professor Bethune-Baker asserting: "It is 
 impossible to doubt that Nestorius was clear in his own 
 mind that his doctrine of the incarnation safeguarded 
 absolutely the unity of the subject. He did not think 
 of two distinct persons joined together, but of a single 
 person, who combined in Himself the two distinct 
 substances, Godhead and manhood, with their charac- 
 teristics (natures) complete and intact though united in 
 Him 6 ." Of course Professor Bethune-Baker does not 
 fail to recognise that the use of the term irpbawirov in 
 Nestorius is somewhat "puzzling 7 ," but nevertheless, 
 
 1 Liber Heracl. B. 229 = N. 138 (condensed translation). 
 
 2 Comp. Hahn , Bibliothek der Symbole, 3rd edition, § 223, p. 321 : 
 iu Svo (pv<re(TLv...iv /xlS, viroaT&aei kclI ev evl irpoa&irip eW Xpiarov, 'iva 
 vlov, eW Kvpiov o/JLoXoyov/xev. 
 
 3 Hahn, I.e. §224, pp. 321-330; iinitas personae in utraque 
 natura intelligenda (c. 5, p. 326). 
 
 4 Comp. above, p. 22 and 25. 
 
 5 pp. 82-100. 6 I.e. p. 87. 7 I.e. p. 97. 
 
76 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 without much discussion of the term 7rp6aayrrov — some 
 remarks are given 1 — he arrives at the conclusion that 
 Nestorius "used the term person (irpoacoTrov) to express 
 that in which both the Godhead and manhood of our 
 Lord were one" 2 ; and his final judgment is, that 
 Nestorius, though not sharing the later orthodox 
 phraseology which declares the human nature of the 
 Lord impersonal in itself but personal in him only, 
 nevertheless seems to have made an attempt to express 
 the same conception in other terms 3 . 
 
 Here, I am afraid, I cannot agree with Professor 
 Bethune-Baker, however much I sympathise with 
 him in his doing justice to the miserable exile of Oasis. 
 
 First, it must be emphasised that irpbcrwrrov is for 
 Nestorius not the same as what we call person. For 
 our notion of person the main thing is the oneness of the 
 subject or of the internal self. We can, therefore, use 
 the term person only for rational beings or at least those 
 living beings, in which — as in the case of the higher 
 animals — we see some analogy to human thinking, 
 feeling and willing. For Nestorius, who in this respect 
 was influenced by the manner of speaking common at 
 that time, the main thing in his notion of irpoaayirov, 
 according to the etymology of the word and to the 
 earlier history of its meaning 4 , was the external 
 
 1 I.e. p. 97. 2 I.e. . 3 I.e. p. 98. 
 
 4 Comp. Siegmund Schlossmann, Persona und YlptxTwirov im 
 Recht und im christlichen Dogma, Kiel and Leipsic, 1906, p. 11 ff. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 77 
 
 undivided appearance 1 . He was, therefore, able to 
 call a bishop preaching from the pulpit the irpoacoirov of 
 the church (because the church appeared in him) 2 and 
 to say that Christ had exhibited in himself the 
 TTpoa-coirov of the human nature as being sinless 3 . In 
 his opinion, I believe, everything had its irpoaayTrov, 
 that is its appearance, its kind of being seen and judged. 
 In not a few places in Nestorius, it is true, the meaning 
 of Trp6<j(07rov coincides with our understanding of the 
 term. person, e.g. "Cyril's 7rp6aco7rov ,,4: means Cyril, "these 
 irpoaoaTra" means these persons 5 , and eh teal 6 avros and 
 ev TTpoacoTrov may be used alternately 6 . Nevertheless, 
 before we go further, I must lay stress on the fact that 
 the notion of irpoa-wirov in Nestorius grew upon 
 another soil and, therefore, had a wider application than 
 our term person. 
 
 Coming now to the matter itself I must firstly remark 
 that the places in which Nestorius, just as Theodore 
 
 1 Comp. Liber Heracl. B. 89 = N. 58: L'homme est reconnu en 
 effet au irpbawirov humain, c J est a dire a Vapparence du corps et a la 
 forme (du serviteur); comp. B. 31 ff. =N. 18 ff., where Nestorius is 
 regarding a soldier's uniform as his irpoawirov. This conception of 
 irpoauTTov makes intelligible the phrasings we find B. 241 =N. 145 
 (da7is tout ce que le prosopon comporte) and B. 276 = N. 174 (en tout ce 
 qui forme le prosopon). 
 
 2 Nestoriana, p. 332, 13. 
 
 3 I.e. p. 239, 18f.: 5ei£as iv £avT$ to ttjs 0ucrews irpbawwov a/xaprlas 
 iXetidepov. 
 
 4 Liber Heracl. B. 195 = N. 117. 
 
 5 I.e. B. 197 = N. 118. 
 
 6 I.e. B. 323 = N. 206. 
 
78 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 of Mopsuestia 1 , speaks about two irpoawira in Christ, 
 viz. the 7rp6acD7rov of the Godhead and the irpoaanrov 
 of the manhood, are more numerous 2 than Professor 
 Bethune-Baker's book 3 leads us to suppose. Nestorius 
 as an adherent of the Antiochian school could as little 
 realise a really existing nature without irpoawirov as 
 without virocTTacTL^, for the whole of the characteristics 
 which make the nature must, in his opinion, as 
 necessarily have a form of appearance, i.e. a irpoaayrrov, 
 as a real being by which they are borne, i.e. an 
 vTrocrracjLS. One place in the Treatise of Heraclides is 
 very characteristic in this respect. Here Nestorius is 
 asking Cyril : Which of the natures do you think is 
 without TrpoacoTTov, that of the Godhead or that of the 
 manhood ? Then you will no longer be able to say that 
 the God-Logos was flesh and that the flesh was Son 5 . 
 That is : if you think the Godhead without irpoawrrov 
 then there will be lacking the form of appearance which 
 the manhood could take on, and if the manhood, then 
 
 1 Comp. de incarn. ed. H. B. Swete, Theodori episc. Mops, in 
 epistolas B. Pauli etc., n, 299, 18 ff. : orav fikv yap ras 0tfcreis diaicpi- 
 pojfxev, reXelav ttjv <pv<TLv rod deov \6yov (pa/Ah nal riXeiov to irpbaunrov • 
 ovdt yap airpbo'wtrov £o~tip virbaTaaiv eiiruw reXdav 5e teal tt)v too 
 avQpiji-Kov <f>vai.v nal to rrpoacjirov 6/xotus. 8rav 5e £iri ttjv o~vp&<peiav 
 dTridw/xev, ft» irpbadnrov t6t€ <f>ap.^v. 
 
 2 e.g. B. 78 = N. 50; B. 94=N. 61; B. 106 = N. 69; B. 305 = 
 N. 194: les natures subsistent dans leurs prosopons et dans leurs 
 natures; B. 341 = N. 218. 
 
 3 p. 97 f. 
 
 4 Comp. Liber Heracl. B. 316 = N. 202: pour ne pas fair e... les 
 prosopons sans hypostase. 5 B. 305 = N. 194. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 79 
 
 the form of appearance of the flesh which the Logos 
 could take on. 
 
 Nevertheless the number of those places in which 
 Nestorius asserts that there was one irpoaanrov in Christ 
 is much greater than that of those in which he 
 speaks about the irpoauyira in Christ. The former are 
 found in great number already in the earlier known 
 fragments 1 and in a still greater in the Treatise of 
 Heraclides 2 . This formula is to be held as charac- 
 teristic of the teaching of Nestorius. He repeats again 
 and again that the natures were united in the one 
 TrpoawTTov of Christ. But what does he understand by 
 this? 
 
 At first we must answer: Nestorius has in his mind 
 the undivided appearance of the historic Jesus Christ. 
 For he says, very often, that Christ is the one 
 irpoawirov of the union 3 . And he argued with Cyril : 
 You start in your account with the creator of the natures 
 and not with the irpoawirov of the union*. It is not the 
 
 1 Comp. Nestoriana, Index, s.v. irpbvwTcov, p. 405 a. 
 
 2 Comp. Nau's translation, Index, s.v. prosopon, p. 388 b. 
 
 3 e.g. B. 212 = N. 128: C'est done le Christ qui est le prosopon de 
 V union ; B. 223 = N. 134 f. : le prosopon dhmion est le Christ ; B. 250 = 
 N. 151; B. 307=N. 195. 
 
 4 B. 225 = N. 136; comp. B. 255 = N. 154: Pourquoi done m'avez- 
 vous condamne? Parce queje lui ai reproche de . . .commencer par celui-ci 
 (Dieu le Verbe) et de lui attrihuer toutes les proprietes, and B. 131 = 
 N. 85: C est pourquoi celui-la (Cyrille), dans V incarnation, n'attribue 
 Hen a la conduite de Vhomme, mais (tout) a Dieu le Verbe, en sorte 
 quHl s'est servi de la nature humaine pour sa propre conduite. 
 
80 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 Logos who has become twofold 1 ; it is the one Lord Jesus 
 Christ who is twofold in his natures 2 . In him are seen 
 all the characteristics of the God-Logos, who has a nature 
 eternal and unable to suffer and die, and also all those 
 of the manhood, that is a nature mortal, created and 
 able to suffer, and lastly those of the union and the 
 incarnation*. To understand this idea of Nestorius all 
 thoughts of a substantial union ought to be dismissed. 
 A substantial union — so Nestorius argues — including a 
 confusion, a mixture, a natural composition, would 
 result in a new being 4 . Here the natures are unmixed: 
 the Logos ofioovcrio*; tco Trarpi is bodyless 5 and is 
 continually what he is in eternity with the Father®, being 
 without bound, without limit 7 , but the manhood has a 
 body, is mortal, limited etc. 8 These different natures 
 are united not substantially but in the it poo-coir ov of 
 the union 9 ; and it is to be noticed, that for Nestorius 
 there is nothing singular in such a union in itself, that 
 
 1 B. 213=N. 128; B. 215 = N. 130; B. 248 = N. 150; B. 296 = 
 N. 188. 
 
 2 B. 213 =N. 128; Nestoriana, p. 283, 13; 341, 2. 
 
 3 B. 249f. = N. 151. 
 
 4 B. 250f.=N. 151; comp. B. 236 =N. 142. 
 
 5 B. 70=N. 45. 6 B. 265 = N. 160. 
 7 B. 304 = N. 193; comp. B. 239 = N. 144. 8 B. 265 =N. 160. 
 
 9 e.g. B. 213 = N. 129: L'union est en effet dans le prosapon, et non 
 dans la nature ni dans V essence; B. 230 = N. 139: C" est pour quoi je 
 crie avec insistance en tout lieu que ce n'est pas a la nature, mais au 
 prosopon, quHl faut rapporter ce qu'on dit sur la divinite" ou sur 
 Vhumanite. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 81 
 
 is apart from the very natures which are united here. 
 / know, he says, nothing which would suit a union of 
 different natures except a single irpoacoirov by which 
 and in which the natures are seen, while they are giving 
 their characteristics to this irpoawirov 1 . 
 
 For the detailed explanation of this thought an 
 idea is important which Professor Bethune-Baker 
 has already noted 2 in the Treatise of Heraclides, viz. the 
 idea that in Christ the manhood is the irpoacoirov of 
 the Godhead, and the Godhead the irpoaayirov of the 
 manhood^. Reading Professor Bethune-Baker's book 
 one could think that this idea appeared only once or at 
 least seldom. Really, however, it recurs again and again 4 . 
 It is the leading idea of Nestorius that the natures 
 of Christ made reciprocate use of their irpoacoira 5 , the 
 Godhead of the form of a servant, the manhood of the 
 form of God 6 . In this sense in the one irpoacoirov of 
 Christ, according to Nestorius, a union of the irpoo-coira 
 
 1 B. 230 = N. 138 f. 
 
 2 p. 97. 3 B. 144 = N. 168. 
 
 * Comp. e.g. B. 78ff.=N. 50 ff.; B. 289 = N. 183; B. 305 = 
 N. 193 f. ; B. 334 = N. 203, etc. 
 
 5 Comp. e.g. B. 341 f. =N. 219: Pour nous, dans les natures, nous 
 disons un autre et un autre, et, dans V union, un prosopon pour Vusage 
 de Vun avec V autre (ou: pour leur usage mutuel); B. 289 = N. 183: 
 Vhumanzte utilisant le prosopon de la divinite et la divinite le prosopon 
 de Vhumanite; B. 307 = N. 195: lis prennent le prosopon Vun de 
 Vautre; B. 334 = N. 213: Elles (les natures) se servent mutuellement de 
 leurs prosopons respectifs. 
 
 6 e.g. B. 81 = N. 52; B. 90f. = N. 59; B. 241 = N. 145. 
 
 L. N. 6 
 
82 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 took place 1 so that this is that and that is this 2 . Professor 
 Bethune-Baker, who did not enter into a discussion 
 of the last quoted formulas, says in reference to the 
 former (viz. : The manhood is the irpoacdirov of the God- 
 head and the Godhead is the irpoawirov of the manhood*) : 
 " These words come near to eliminating ' personality/ 
 as we understand it, altogether, or at all events they 
 suggest the merging of one personality in the other, 
 each in each. This in fact seems to be the meaning 
 of Nestorius. He is in search of the real centre of 
 union and he finds it here. He uses the term 
 irpocrcoirov to express that in which both the Godhead 
 and manhood of our Lord were one, even while 
 remaining distinct from one another, each retaining its 
 own characteristics 4 ." I think that Professor Bethune- 
 Baker is here still striving to find a metaphysical 
 centre of union. In my opinion the idea of Nestorius 
 is most easily 5 understood by us, if we look at 
 Philippians ii, 6 ff. The form of a servant and the form 
 
 1 B. 305 = N. 193: L' 'union des prosopons a eu lieu en prosopon. 
 Comp. B. 213 = N. 129: L 7 union est en effet clans le prosopon et non 
 clans la nature; B. 275 = N. 174: II n'y a pas un autre et un autre 
 dans le prosopon; B. 281 =N. 177: Nous ne disons pas un autre et un 
 autre, car il n'y a qu'un seul prosopon pour les deux natures. 
 
 2 B. 331 =N. 211: Cest dans le prosopon, qu'a eu lieu Vunion, 
 de sorte que celui-ci soit celui-la et celui-Ut, celui-ci. These last words 
 are to be found very often. 
 
 3 Comp. p. 81 with note 3. Similar sentences recur again and 
 again. 4 P- 97. 
 
 5 About the difficulties which remain see below, p. 90, note 1. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 83 
 
 of God here spoken about do not, according to 
 Nestorius, succeed each other, they are co-existent, i.e. 
 the one Christ shows us as clearly the form of God as 
 the form of a servant, and it is once expressly said 
 by Nestorius that the form is the irpoaanrov 1 . The 
 statement, that the irpocrccura interchange, means, 
 therefore, that the Logos shows himself in the form 
 of a servant and the man in the form of God, this one 
 by humbling himself, the other by being exalted 2 , or 
 as Nestorius says 3 with Gregory of Nazianzen 4 : Oeov 
 (lev ivavOpcoTrtfaavros, avdpwirov Se dewOivros. 
 
 Let us examine these two thoughts further. First, 
 that the union takes place in the Trpocrcoirov of the man. 
 
 The Logos humbled himself in willing obedience 
 unto death, yea, the death of the cross, taking on the 
 TTpoawirov of the man, who suffered and died, as his 
 own irpoaoiirov 5 . From the annunciation, the birth and 
 the manger till death 6 he was found in outward being 
 as a man, without having the nature of a man ; for he 
 did not take the nature but the form and appearance of 
 
 1 B. 244 = N. 147. 
 
 2 B. 84f.=N54f. ; B. 244 = N. 147; B. 341 = N. 218. 
 
 3 e.g.B. 280 = N. 177; B. 307=N. 195; B. 315 = N. 201; B. 330 = 
 N. 210 f.; B. 332 = N. 212; B. 360 = N. 231. 
 
 4 ep. 101, Migne, 37, 180 a. 
 
 5 Comp. B. 84f. = N. 55; comp. B. 131=N. 85: La forme de 
 Dieu etait en apparence comme un homme. 
 
 6 B. 132 = N. 85; B. 118=N. 76: Parce qu'il etait Dieu et im- 
 mortel, il a accepte dans son prosopon — lui qui n'etaitpas coupable — 
 la mort, tfest a dire ce qui est mortel et capable de changement. 
 
 6—2 
 
84 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 a man as regards all ivhich the irpbcrwTrov includes 1 . 
 But how can the Logos himself have the form of a 
 servant if he did not have the human nature ? An 
 answer may be found in the following words of Nestorius : 
 God the Logos is said to have become flesh and son of 
 man as regards the form and the irpoGoyrrov of the flesh 
 and of the man, of which he made use in order to 
 make himself knotun to the world 2 . It was the flesh, 
 in luhich he manifested himself, in which he taught, in 
 ivhich and through which he acted, and that not as being 
 absent ; he made use of His wpoacoirov in the flesh, 
 because he ivished that he himself might be the flesh and 
 the flesh He himself z . God had a beginning and develop- 
 ment by manifestation*. Nestorius takes this so 
 earnestly that he says : Christ is also God and he is no 
 other than God the Logos 5 . 
 
 The second side of the idea we are discussing, viz. 
 that the manhood in Christ shows itself in the form 
 of God, is already partly explained by the preceding- 
 quotations, as they assert that it was the Logos who 
 was to be seen in the man. But we need to have a 
 clearer understanding of this second side of the idea 
 
 1 B. 241 = N. 145; comp. B. 252 = N. 152: Un et le meme (est le) 
 prosopon, mais (il n'en est pas de meme pour) Vessence; car Vessence de la 
 forme de Dieu et Vessence de la forme du serviteur demeurent ; and 
 B. 262 = N. 158: 11 a pris la forme du serviteur pour son prosopon et 
 non pour sa nature ou par changement d'essence. 
 
 2 B. 230 = N. 139. 3 B. 80=N. 51. 
 * B. 274=N. 173; comp. below, p. 85, note 6. 
 6 B. 218 = N. 132. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 85 
 
 also. Because the Logos manifested himself in the 
 form of servant, the man appeared in the form of God. 
 No one eve?' saw hefore that a man in his own irpoawirov 
 made use of the irpoawirov of God 1 . The prophets, it 
 is true, were to a certain extent the representatives 
 of God 2 , for delegates are substitutes of the persons of 
 those who sent them and because of this they are their 
 irpoacoTra by virtue of their ministry 3 . But in Christ 
 the man in the real sense used the irpoawirov of God, 
 for Christ has said: " My father and I are one" and: "He 
 who has seen me, has seen the father*," and all honour 
 due to the Logos is partaken of by the manhood, because 
 it has become the irpoaioirov of the Logos 5 . Likewise, 
 however, as the Logos did not become man by nature, 
 so also the manhood in Christ is not deified by nature. 
 He who had a beginning, greiv and was made perfect, 
 so Nestorius often declares with Gregory of Nazianzen, 
 is not God by nature, although he is called so on account 
 of the manifestation which took place gradually®. He is 
 
 1 B. 76=N. 49. 2 1. c. ; comp. B. 82 = N. 53. 
 
 3 B. 83 = N. 54. * B. 76-N. 49. 
 
 5 B. 348 = N. 223: Dieu etait aussi en lui ce quHl etait lui-meme; 
 de sorte que ce que Dieu etait en lui pour la formation de son etre a 
 son image, lui aussi V etait en Dieu: le prosopon de Dieu; B. 350 = 
 N. 224: L , homme...est Dieu par ce qui est uni. 
 
 6 Gregory, ep. 101, Migne, 37, 18: to yap -qpy^hov rj irpoKoirrov rj 
 rekeLovfxevov ov Beds, K'du 5ta ttjj' /card fiiKpbv dvadei^iu ovtio Xeyvrai 
 Nestorius, Liber Herac. e.g. B. 273 = N. 173; B. 280 =N. 177 
 B. 283=N. 179; B. 286 = N. 181; B. 332 = N. 212; B. 349 = N. 224 
 B. 360 = N. 231. 
 
86 THE DOCTKINE 
 
 God by manifestation because he ivas man by nature 1 . 
 As regards the manhood he is not divine by nature but 
 by manifestation 2 . 
 
 But this is not all that is to be said; for the 
 manhood in Christ, according to Nestorius, has really 
 through the union with the Logos become something 
 which it would not be otherwise. The man in Christ 
 has the irpoawrrov of the son of God not only in the 
 sense we have already discussed. For when Nestorius 
 says that the union took place in the irpoaoairov of the 
 son 3 , then this does not mean only that aspect of the 
 interchange of the irpoaunra, on account of which the 
 manhood as really bore the irpocrwirov of the Logos as 
 the latter took up the irpoawTrov of the man 4 . Here a 
 new idea is to be noticed. Although — so Nestorius 
 says — the Logos was the son of God even before the 
 incarnation, nevertheless after having taken on the 
 manhood, he can no more alone be called the sow, lest 
 ive should assert the existence oftivo sons 5 . The manhood 
 has become the son of God because of the son, united 
 with it 6 . Again and again Nestorius repeats that two 
 sons of God was not his doctrine. 
 
 1 B. 349 = N. 224. 2 B. 288 = N. 182. 3 B. 231 = N. 140. 
 
 4 Comp. B. 331 = N. 211: A cause de celui qui Va pris pour son 
 prosopon, celui qui a ete pris obtient d'etre le prosopon de celui qui 
 Va pris. 
 
 5 Nestoriana, p. 275, 1-5 (condensed). 
 
 6 Nestoriana, p. 274, 17: vlbs dia rbv <rvvr)nix£vov vibv ; Liber 
 Heracl. B. 145 = N. 168: Cette humanite est dite le Fils de Dieu par 
 Vunion avec le Fils (et non par la nature); B. 80 = N. 51:. ..et il a 
 
OF NESTORIUS 87 
 
 One will understand this better if a new line 
 of thought is followed, which in Nestorius is clearly 
 shown to us only by the Treatise of Heraclides. To 
 Adam the Logos as his creator gave his image in all 
 glory and honour 1 , but Adam lost it for himself and for 
 his descendants 2 . Hence the Logos became man in 
 order to efface the fault of the first man and to give back 
 to his nature the original image 3 . Only he could do it : 
 apart from him there was nothing divine or honourable*, 
 and only in the manhood could this renovation take 
 place 5 . Nestorius gives in this connection a complete 
 answer to the question : Cur deus homo 6 ? and it is not 
 
 donne a la forme du serviteur (qui est) sa forme, un nom qui Vemporte 
 sur tous les noms, c'est a dire le nom de Fits, a u quel tout genou, etc. 
 
 1 B. 90 = N. 58. 2 B. 91 = N. 59; B. 107f.=N. 70. 
 
 3 B. 91 = N. 59. 4 I.e. 
 
 5 B. 267 = N. 161 : On avait besoin de la divinite adherente pour... 
 refaire la forme de Vimage qui avait ete detruite par nous; (on avait 
 besoin) aussi de Vhumanite qui fut rcnouvelee et qui reprit sa forme ; 
 Vhumanite etait necessaire pour observer Vordre, qui avait existe. 
 
 6 e.g. B. 297 = N. 188: Bieu le Verbe s'est income pour faire de 
 Vhumanite la forme de Dieu en lui, et pour le renouveler en lui dans la 
 nature de Vhumanite..., par ce que lui seul pouvait renover celui qui 
 etait tombe en premier lieu par la transgression de Vinobservance des 
 preceptes; et il donna sa vie pour lui, pour les observer, parce quHl ne 
 suffisait pas qiCil se conservdt sans peche ; sinon, notre chute serait de- 
 meuree sans guerison comme le paralytique qui se soigyie et qui reste sans 
 marcher, maispour qui le medecin marche, et qui leporte, mais qui nelui 
 ditpas: "Live toi (et) marche, car tu a ete gueri pour marcher. " C'est 
 pourquoi il a pris une forme de serviteur qui etait sans peche dans 
 sa creation, au point de reccvoir dans les observances des preceptes un 
 nom superieur a tous les noms, et de fortifier , par les observances et par 
 la vigilance, ce qui etait dans la renovation de sa crCature. 
 
88 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 only by physical categories as in Athanasius' de incar- 
 natione 1 that Nestorius argues. The idea is further 
 not exhausted by the thought that the Logos took such 
 a form of a servant, as was without sin in its creation 2 . 
 The main thing is that the Logos in the form of a 
 servant brought into existence a sinless man 3 ; hence 
 the stress is laid on the moral and religious development 
 of Jesus. 
 
 The man alone, even the second Adam, would not 
 have been able to remain sinless 4 ; but God was acting in 
 him, and observed the commandments in his place because 
 he luas in this nature 5 . Christ had all that belongs to 
 a true man, but without being deprived of the union ivith 
 God the Logos®. God's will ivas his oivn will 7 ; he 
 raised his soul to God conforming his volitions to those of 
 God, so that he ivas an image of the archetype of the 
 
 1 Migne, ser. graeca 25, 96-197; comp. A. Harnack, Lehrbuch 
 der Dogmengeschichte, 4th edition, Tubingen, 1909, n, 159-162. 
 
 2 Liber Heracl. B. 297 = N. 188 (see p. 87, note 6). 
 
 3 Nestoriana, p. 239, 19 : deltas ev eavrtp to 7-775 (pvaeus irpbawirov 
 afiaprias eXefidepov. 
 
 4 Liber Heracl. B. 298 = N. 189. 5 I.e. 
 c B. 133 = N. 86. 
 
 7 B. 102 = N.67; compare the preceding sentence : Parce que done 
 il 8* est liumilie en toute chose d'une facon incomprehensible par une 
 humiliation sans pareille, il est apparu encore un seal esprit, une 
 seule volonte , une seule intelligence inseparable et indivisible, comme 
 dans un seul itre. Comp. also Nestoriana, fragments, 197, 198, 201 
 and 202 (pp. 65 f. and 219 f. and 224) the genuineness of which 
 perhaps may be defended with more confidence than I showed, in 
 my Nestoriana (p. 65 f.). 
 
OF NESTORIUS 89 
 
 image of God 1 , viz. the Logos. So he renewed our 
 nature in himself by means of a perfect obedience 2 till 
 the death, to which he was condemned for us s and 
 through which he, as being sinless, gained the victory 
 over the devil 4 . By means of this renewal humanity 
 received the form of the sonship of him %vho had created 
 it 5 . And together with and by virtue of the gift of 
 sonship there was given to the manhood also a share 
 in the position of power and dominion of the son of 
 God 6 . 
 
 Now I come to the question : Did Nestorius really 
 make the unity of the natures in the one person of 
 Christ intelligible ? As long as one starts by pointing 
 to the Logos on the one side and the man on the other, 
 it is comprehensible that a negative answer should have 
 been given. The Antiochian formulas, which are found 
 in Nestorius, e.g. Sia rbv (fropovvra rbv fyopovfjuevov 
 
 <76/9ft), BlCb TOP K6KpV/Hfl€VOV TTpOCTKVVO} TOV (f>aiv6/JL€VOV 7 
 
 and : o/noXoyco/nev top iv avOpaiTrw 6eov, <re/3a)fjL€v rbv 
 rfj Oela avvatyela tg5 iravTOKparopt 0ea> avyinrpoa- 
 Kvvovjxevov av6pa)7rov 8 , seem again and again to force 
 
 1 B. 96 = N. 62; comp. B. 102 = N. 66: La forme cle serviteur Va 
 servi absolument comme il le voulait. 
 
 2 B. 342 = N. 219. 3 B. 102 = N. 66. 
 
 4 Comp. B. 297 = N. 188; B. 299 = N. 189; Nestoriana, p. 344 
 6 ff. 
 
 5 B. 299 = N. 189. 
 
 6 Nestoriana, p. 361, 22; couip. above, p. 86 f., note 6. 
 
 7 Nestoriana, p. 262, 3 £. 8 I.e. p. 249, 2 ff. 
 
90 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 us to such a negative answer. Besides the one wpoacoTrov 
 of Christ we find the two Trpoawira 1 , one of each nature, 
 
 1 Cornp. above, p. 78, and B. 348 = N. 223: les prosopons de V union. 
 Nestorius was even able to write: Nous ne disons pas union des 
 pros&pons, mais des natures (B. 252 = N. 152), and as it is not the 
 translator who is to be blamed for the contradiction to other state- 
 ments of Nestorius which is to be seen here (comp. above, p. 82, 
 note 1), it must be conceded that Nestorius in his terminology was not 
 quite free from inaccuracy (which is to be observed also in his position 
 toward the comparison of the union in Christ to the union of body and 
 soul, comp B. 236 = N. 142 and B. 292 = N. 185). Nevertheless there 
 is no real contradiction in Nestorius' thoughts. What he is denying 
 (B. 252 = N. 152) is one natural prosopon: Cest pourquoi V union 
 a lieu pour le prosopon et non pour la nature. Nous ne disons pas 
 union des prosopons, mais des natures. Car dans V union il n'y a 
 quhin seul prosopon, mais dans les natures un autre et un autre, de 
 sorte que le prosopon soit reconnu sur V ensemble (B. 252 = N. 152). 
 This is clearly to be seen also in other passages, e.g. B. 304 f.=N. 193 : 
 Ce n'est pas sans prosopon et sans hypostase que chacune d'elles (viz. 
 natures) est connue dans les diversites des natures. On ne congoit pas 
 deux prosopons des fils, ni encore deux prosopons des homines, mais 
 d'un seul homme, qui est mu de la meme maniere par V autre. L' union 
 des prosopons a eu lieu en prosopon et non en essence ni en nature. On 
 ne doit pas concevoir une essence sans hypostase, comme si Vunion avait 
 eu lieu en une essence et quHl y eut un prosopon d'une seule 
 essence. Mais les natures subsistent dans leurs prosopons et dans 
 lews natures et dans le prosopon d'union. Quant au prosopon naturel 
 de Vune, V autre se sert du mime en vertu de Vunion; ainsi il n'y 
 a quhin prosopon pour les deux natures. — B. 239 = N. 144:. ..Ze prosopon 
 de Vune est aussi celui de V autre et reciproquement. — B. 333 f. = 
 N. 212 f. : La divinite se sert du prosopon de Vhumanite et Vhumanite 
 de celui de la divinite ; de cette maniere nous disons un seul pros- 
 opon pour les deux. — B. 340 = N. 218: Ne comprends tu pas, comment 
 les peres confessent un prosopon de deux natures ? et que les differences 
 des natures ne sont pas supprimees a cause de Vunion parce qu'elles 
 se reunissent en un seul prosopon, qui appartient aux natures et aux 
 prosopons . — We need however, a more exhaustive examination of 
 
OF NESTORIUS 91 
 
 asserted. There is, as Nestorius himself says, a 
 difference between the Lord Jesus Christ and the 
 Logos 1 ; or : the terms God-Logos and Christ do not 
 have the same meaning 2 . For, though Christ is not out- 
 side the Logos 3 , nevertheless the Logos is not limited 
 by the body*. Christ spoke of the Logos as of his 
 TTpoacoirov and as if he were one and had the same 
 irpocrayTrov 5 ; there appeared one spirit, one will, one 
 inseparable and indivisible intellect as in one being 6 ; 
 ive regard this one as that one and that one as this one, 
 although this one and that one remain 1 . But if one 
 keeps in mind that Nestorius rejected the idea of a 
 substantial union which would include an alteration 
 of the Logos, then one must say that he came as near 
 as possible to the idea of a union. Where a substantial 
 union is excluded, there the union can only come about 
 on a spiritual plane. Hence Nestorius says that the 
 incarnation took place through an intelligent and rational 
 soul 8 ,. By means of the soul a relation is set up between 
 
 Nestorius' terminology, especially of the meaning of Trpocru-rrov in 
 his works. In B. 240 f. = N. 145 (Ces choses [corps et time] s'unis- 
 sent en une nature et en prosopon naturel. Dieu prit pour lui 
 la forme du serviteur et non d'un autre pour son prosopon et sa 
 filiation; ainsi sont ceux qui sont unis en une nature. II 
 prit la forme du serviteur, etc.) the words ainsi sont ceux qui sont 
 unis en tine nature must have been inadvertently transposed: their 
 place, in my opinion, is before Dieu prit pour lui, etc. 
 
 i B. 120 = N. 133. 2 B. 254 = N. 153. 
 
 3 I.e. 4 B. 239 = N. 144. 5 B. 79 = N. 51. 
 
 6 B. 102 =N. 67 (see above, p. 88, note 7 : comme). 
 
 7 B. 348 = N. 223. 8 B. 128 = N. 83. 
 
92 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 the Logos and the man, and this relation is on both 
 sides one of free will 1 , a relation of love 2 , a relation 
 of giving on the one side and of taking on the other 3 , 
 a relation that becomes so close, that the one presents 
 himself as the other, and that the form of God shows 
 itself in the form of a servant and the form of a servant 
 is teaching, acting, etc. in the form of God. 
 
 We must observe, it is true, that the man is God 
 not by nature, but only because God reveals Himself in 
 him, and that the Logos is not flesh by nature, but only 
 manifests himself in the flesh 4 . But also my late 
 colleague Dr Martin Kahler (fSept. 7th, 1912), who 
 was regarded as orthodox, held it to be a vain attempt to 
 combine two independent beings or two persons in an 
 individual life 5 . He himself thought that the union 
 of the Godhead and manhood will become intelligible 
 if understood as a reciprocity of two personal actions, 
 
 1 B. 264 f.=N. 159:. ..tme union volontaire en prosopon et non en 
 nature. 
 
 2 B. 81 = N. 52: unies par V amour et clans le mime p>rosdpon; 
 B. 275 = N. 174: riunies en egalite par adliesion (avv&feia) et par 
 amour. 
 
 3 B. 299 =N. 189 f. :...ajin que le prosopon fiit commun a celui 
 qui donnait la forme et a celui qui la recevait a cause de son obeissance; 
 B. 348 = N. 223; Par les prosopons de V union Vun est dans V autre 
 et cet ' un* n' est pas concu par diminution, ni par suppression, ni par 
 confusion, mais par Paction de recevoir et de donner et par 
 V usage de V union de Vun avec V autre, les prosopons recevant et 
 dormant Vim et V autre. 4 Comp. above, p. 83 f . and 85. 
 
 5 Kahler, Die Wissenschaft der christlichen Lehre, 3rd edition, 
 Leipsic, 1905, § 388, p. 339. 
 
OF NESTORIUS 93 
 
 viz. a creative action on the part of the eternal Godhead 
 and a receiving action on the part of the developing 
 manhood 1 . If thus justice is done to the idea of the 
 unity of the natures in one person, then Nestorius, too, 
 made it intelligible, even where he, dealing with the 
 Logos on the one side and the man on the other, tries to 
 understand the union as the result of the incarnation. 
 His understanding of irpoacoirov, it is true, does not 
 coincide with what we mean by "person " — we cannot free 
 ourselves from metaphysics — but we, too, can sympathise 
 with him when he took the incarnation as meaning 
 this, that in the person of Jesus the Logos revealed 
 himself in human form so that the Logos exhibited 
 himself as man and that the man of history was the 
 manifestation of the Logos in such a way that he 
 exhibited himself to us as the eternal Logos 2 . We, too, 
 therefore, understand what Nestorius means when he 
 said that the irpoawirov of the one is also that of the 
 other. 
 
 Still more intelligible does the christology of 
 Nestorius become to us, if, following his advice, we 
 start from the one Trpoaayrrov of the union, i.e. from the 
 one Jesus Christ of history 3 . As regards him we are 
 
 1 i.e. 
 
 2 Comp. Liber Heracl. B. 362 = N. 233: V 'incarnation est congue 
 comme V usage mutuel des deux (prosopons) par prise et don. 
 
 3 Liber Heracl. B. 230 = N. 139 and in many other places the 
 prosopon of the union evidently is the prosopon of the flesh. Comp. 
 B. 304f. = N. 193 (above p. 90, note 1): On ne concoit pas deux 
 
94 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 able to speak of one person in our sense of the word 
 also. This one person, it is true, is not simply the 
 Logos, as this is not limited by the body, but still less 
 is he a mere man. This Jesus Christ of history is the 
 beginner of a new humanity and at the same time the 
 personal revelation of God, and he is the one because 
 he is the other. Only the renewed manhood could 
 become the image of God, but even this was only possible 
 because the God-Logos was acting here in the manhood 
 by means of a union of giving and taking 1 . 
 
 Is this orthodox ? The answer I will give in the 
 next lecture. 
 
 IY 
 
 It was not the personal character of Nestorius which 
 caused his tragic fortune ; if he was guilty, it was his 
 doctrine which was to be blamed — this we saw in the 
 preceding lecture. We have tried, therefore, to gain 
 an idea of his teaching. Was Nestorius orthodox? 
 What is his position in the history of dogma ? — these 
 are the questions which will occupy us to-day. 
 
 The question as to whether Nestorius was orthodox 
 cannot be regarded as really answered by the anathema 
 of the so-called third ecumenical council of Ephesus, 
 
 prosopom des fits, ni encore deux prosdpons des homines, mais d'un 
 seul homme, qui, etc. 
 1 Comp. above, p. 88. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 95 
 
 because, as we saw 1 , an ecumenical council of Ephesus 
 never existed. It was only the party council of Cyril 
 which condemned Nestorius, while the council of the 
 Antiochians was on his side, and the question of doctrine 
 was still undecided even when the council consisting of 
 these two party councils was dissolved. The idea that 
 Nestorius was condemned by " the holy ecumenical 
 council " was only the result of the ecclesiastical-political 
 transactions of which the union of 433 was the outcome 2 . 
 This fiction and the consent of the Antiochians, which 
 they were ignominiously forced to give, cannot help us 
 to decide the question, all the more so since Nestorius 
 could have accepted the doctrinal basis of the peace, 
 although his condemnation was its result. 
 
 The standard of measure for Nestorius' doctrine 
 must, therefore, be the definition of that ecumenical 
 council which gave the first decision about the christo- 
 logical question (although proved later to be a 
 preliminary one), viz. the fourth ecumenical council 
 of Chalcedon, of 451. 
 
 The definition of this council, which is to be seen 
 not only in its creed but also in its recognition of Leo's 
 letter to Flavian and Cyril's epistola dogmatical and 
 epistola ad Orientates* f was a compromise, as the Roman 
 legates could not and would not give up the letter of 
 Leo, while the majority of the Eastern bishops were for 
 
 1 Above, p. 53. 2 Comp. above, p. 56. 
 
 3 Comp. above, p. 37. 4 Comp. above, p. 53. 
 
96 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 their part tied to the Cyrillian tradition. Without 
 doubt, however, there is no real harmony between 
 these different standards of faith. For Leo's letter 
 declares: A git utraque forma cum alterius communione, 
 quod proprium est, verbo scilicet operante quod verbi est 
 et came exequente quod carnis est; unum horum 
 coruscat miraculis, alter urn succumbit injuiiis 1 , but 
 Severus of Antioch, the well-known later monophysite, 
 was right, when he said : ov yap evepyel irore cf>v<ri<; ov^ 
 v(j)€crTco<7a irpoa wit news' 2 , and for Cyril the human nature 
 of Christ was a (pvais oi>% v(f>ear(baa, as is shown by his 
 understanding of the evcoais /caO* viroaraaiv' 3 . Nay, 
 in his epistola synodica to Nestorius 4 he even anathe- 
 matised the Btatpelv rag i/Troardcreis fiera ttjv evwaiv 
 and required a union of the natures icad" evwaiv <j)v<rL/cr'/v 5 . 
 This disharmony between the Cyrillian tradition and that 
 of the western church represented by Leo showed itself 
 also during the proceedings of the council in a very 
 distinct manner, when the wording of the creed was 
 deliberated. The first draft of this creed contained the 
 words itc Svo fyvaewv el? 6 , which corresponded to the 
 
 1 Ch. iv; Mansi, v, 1375 cd; Hahn, Bibliothek der Synibole, 
 3rd edition, p. 325. 
 
 2 Doctrina patrum, ed. F. Diekamp, Minister, 1907, p. 310, 19 f. 
 
 3 Comp. above, p. 72. 4 Comp. above, p. 44. 
 
 5 Anath. 3, Migne, 77, 120 c. 
 
 6 This document was not inserted in the Proceedings (Mansi, 
 VII, 100 d: opov, bv e'5o|e fir) ivrayrjpai TO?cr8e rots VTrofipr]/j.aat) and 
 now, therefore, is lost, but there cannot be any doubt, that it con- 
 tained the words e/c 5vo (ptiaewp eh (comp. Mansi, vn, 103d: 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 97 
 
 Cyrillian tradition, but Leo asserted in his letter, that 
 the unity of Christ's person was seen " in two natures 1 ," 
 and especially blamed Eutyches for not having been 
 willing to concede the duality of the natures after the 
 incarnation, while allowing the term eV Bvo (pvaecov eh 2 . 
 The Roman legates, therefore, energetically opposed 
 the phrase etc Bvo (fevaecov in the draft of the creed 3 
 and they succeeded in substituting ev Bvo (f>vaeatv for 
 e/c Bvo <f>vo~€(ov 4 . One self-consistent view, therefore, 
 could not be attained in Chalcedon; a compromise 
 had to be made. And it was made by recognising as 
 standards of faith at the same time Leo's letter and 
 Cyril's epistola dogmatica and epistola ad Orientates 5 . 
 Cyril's epistola synodica, which understood the ei/axris 
 /ca6' viroaraatv in the sense of a evwo-cs tyvo-ticr), was not 
 
 definitio . . .ex duabus naturis habet, and 106 c: Dioscorus dicebat: 
 "Quod ex duabus naturis est, suscipio, duas non suscipio" ; sanctis- 
 simus autem archiepiscopus Leo duas naturas dicit esse in Christo... 
 Quern igitur sequimini ? sanctissimum Leonem, aut Dioscorum? 
 
 1 Ch. 5, Mansi, v, 1379 b: Propter hanc unitatem personae in 
 utraque natura intelligendam (comp. the preceding note). 
 
 2 Ch. 6, Mansi, v, 1386 f. 
 
 3 Mansi, vn, 101 ab; comp. above, p. 96 f. note 6. 
 
 4 Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, 3rd edition, p. 166; Hefele, 
 Conciliengeschichte, 2nd edition, n, 470 f. note 1. 
 
 5 Mansi, vn, 113 bc. The meaning of the sentence ras rod 
 fxaKapiov Kvpik\ov...<rvvo8i.Kas eTriaroXas Trpos re Ne<rr6ptoj' /cat trpbs tovs 
 ttjs dpaTo\rjs...e8e^aTo is illustrated by the fact, that Cyril's epistola 
 dogmatica and epistola ad Orientales, but not his epistola synodica, 
 were previously (Mansi, vi, 959 ab, 959 d, 971 ab, 973 c) approved. 
 Comp. p. 98 note 1. 
 
 L. N. 7 
 
98 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 approved by the council 1 , and its creed, by treating the 
 words vTToaracns and persona as identical, interpreted the 
 term evaiais tcaO' vTroaracrcv in the sense of a personal 
 union. By this interpretation Cyril's epistola dogmatica, 
 which contained this term 2 , was made acceptable to 
 western thought. But even Cyril's epistola synodica 
 with its anathematisms, once so sharply attacked by the 
 Antiochians, although it was not recognised, was spared 
 criticism 3 . And more, Dioscorus, Cyril's successor, 
 who had been a more incautious upholder of the 
 Alexandrian tradition than Cyril and who at the Robber- 
 synod had declared the assertion of two natures after 
 the union to be unlawful 4 , although he was deposed, 
 was nevertheless not declared a heretic 5 . On the other 
 side also Theodoret, whom a decree of the Robber-synod 
 had deposed 6 , was present in Chalcedon. Pope Leo 
 
 1 This is expressly said in the Collatio cum Severianis (Man si, 
 vni, 821 e — 822 a) and is to be seen also in the proceedings of the 
 Chaleedonian council itself (comp. Ermoni, De Leontio Byzantino, 
 Paris, 1895, p. 100 f. and 111 f.). I now give up my former opinion, 
 that Cyril's epistola synodica was implicitly acknowledged (Leontius 
 von Byzanz 1887, p. 50, Hauck's Real-EncyUopddie, v, 646, 40). 
 
 2 Migne, 77, 48 b: eav de tt)v ko.Q' virbaTaaiv €i>ot)<ni>...TrapaiToiJiu.€da, 
 €fXTri7TTOfJ.€P eis rb 8vo \eyeu> viovs. 
 
 3 That is less than "acknowledged implicite" (comp. above note 1). 
 
 4 Mansi, vi, 737 c. 
 
 3 Mansi, vi, 1094 f., comp. Mansi, vn, 103 b: Anatolius .. .dixit : 
 propter fidem non est damnatus Dioscorus, sed quia excommunicationem 
 fecit domino archiepiscopo Leoni et tertio vocatus est et non venit. 
 
 6 The second synod of Ephesus together with etc. ed. by S. G. F. 
 Perry, 1881, pp. 251-258. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 99 
 
 had recognised him as orthodox 1 , the imperial com- 
 missioners stood up for his right to be a member of 
 the council 2 , and the synod rehabilitated him after he 
 had consented to anathematize Nestorius 3 . Nevertheless 
 he was not forced to retract his book against Cyril's 
 anathematisms. In the same way Ibas of Edessa, who 
 had likewise been deposed in 449 4 , was at Chalcedon 
 reinstated as bishop 5 , without having been forced to 
 recant what he had said in his letter to Maris about 
 Cyril's " Apollinarism " as he called it, although this 
 letter had been condemned by the Robber-synod. 
 
 Hence it follows, that the decision of Chalcedon 
 was interpreted in very different ways by the western 
 church, by the adherents of Cyril and by Theo- 
 doret, Ibas and other Antiochians. It is, therefore, 
 impossible to answer in one sentence the question 
 whether Nestorius was orthodox according to the 
 standard of the Chalcedonian definition. 
 
 It is certain that he could have accepted the creed 
 of Chalcedon and its standards of faith as easily as 
 Theodoret, for he could have reconciled himself to Cyril's 
 epistola dogmatica if understanding the evcaai^ /cclO' 
 viroaraaiv in the sense of a personal union, and what 
 Theodoret, yielding to pressure, had anathematized in 
 
 1 Mansi, vn, 190 d. 
 
 2 Mansi, vi, 592 d and vn, 190 bc. 
 
 3 Mansi, vn, 190 ab and 191 b-d. 
 
 4 Perry, I.e. p. 134 f . 
 
 5 Mansi, vn, 262-70. 
 
 7—2 
 
100 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 his old friend 1 , Nestorius had never taught, nay he had 
 even expressly rejected such assertions 2 . Nestorius can 
 therefore be regarded as orthodox according to the 
 Antiochian interpretation of the Chalcedonian definition. 
 
 The formulas contained in Leo's letter, as we shall 
 see later more accurately, had their root in a view 
 somewhat different from that of Nestorius, but Nestorius 
 had endeavoured more earnestly than Leo to make in- 
 telligible the oneness of the person of Christ 3 , and in 
 any case he himself approved of Leo's letter 4 . Thus 
 according also to the western interpretation of the 
 Chalcedonian definition Nestorius can be regarded as 
 orthodox. 
 
 On the other hand, an interpretation according to 
 the Cyrillian tradition could not have been accepted by 
 Nestorius, and measured by the standard of such an 
 interpretation he could not be regarded as orthodox. 
 Such an interpretation, however, had considerable 
 difficulties. For, while to western thinking Cyril's 
 letters, which were recognised at Chalcedon, had been 
 made acceptable by interpretation, there was at that 
 time in the East* no Cyrillian theology, i.e. no theology 
 
 1 Mansi, vn, 189 b: avddefxa Necropty /ecu rip firj \iyovri rrfl> 
 ayiav ^laplav deoroKov /cat t<£ els duo viovs fiepi^ovri rbv eVa vibv rbv 
 /xovoyevi]. 
 
 2 Comp. above p. 31 f . and 74 and his epistola ad Constantinopoli- 
 tanos (comp. above p. 24 f.), ch. 2, Nau, p. 374. 
 
 3 Leo asserted the unitas personae, but made no attempt to show 
 how this unitas personae was to be imagined (comp. below p. 113). 
 
 4 See above p. 22. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 101 
 
 following the Cyrillian tradition, which could digest 
 Leo's letter. The quarrels about the decision of Chal- 
 cedon show how disagreeable it was to the majority of 
 the Eastern Christians. 
 
 Hence as long as we apply no other standard than 
 the Chalcedonian definition, the statement of Professor 
 Bethune-Baker, that Nestorius was orthodox, is not 
 to be held a false one. It was a tragic feature in the 
 fortune of Nestorius, that he had already been con- 
 demned, when the council, whose creed he could have 
 accepted, was held. 
 
 The Chalcedonian definition, however, was not 
 the final one. The uncertainty as to how its formulas 
 were to be interpreted was removed. The first step of 
 importance in this direction was the Henotikon of the 
 Emperor Zeno in 482 \ This edict, indeed, did not 
 condemn the Chalcedonian definition, but in actual 
 opposition to Leo's letter and to its assertion about 
 the operation of each nature in Christ 2 it expressly 
 declared : ei>o? elvai <f>a/jL€v rd re Oav/jLara ical ra TrdOrj^, 
 condemning at the same time everyone who then or 
 earlier, at Chalcedon or elsewhere, thought otherwise 4 . 
 That means that an interpretation of the Chalcedonian 
 definition according to the Cyrillian tradition only was 
 to be regarded as right, while Leo's letter with all its 
 
 1 Evagrius,h. e. 3, 14, ed. J. Bidez and L.Parmentierp. 111-114. 
 
 2 See above p. 96. 3 Evagrius 1. c. p. 113, 9. 
 4 1. c. p. 113, 21 ff. 
 
102 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 contents, which did not suit the Cyrillian point of view, 
 was practically put aside. The eastern church, while 
 under the Henotikon, on the whole enjoyed peace — 
 the Antiochian tradition having been put into the 
 background — , but between it and the western church 
 a schism arose. When in 519 a settlement was reached, 
 the Henotikon being at the same time abrogated, 
 the question as to how the decree of Chalcedon, then 
 reacknowledged, was to be interpreted, came again to 
 the fore in the East. 
 
 This time it did not remain long without an answer, 
 for at the same time the activity of the so-called 
 Scythian monks began, and this was important just 
 because they developed a theology wholly along the 
 lines of Cyril, which nevertheless could do justice to all 
 requirements of the Chalcedonian definition 1 . It was 
 scholastic arguing, creation of terms and logical dis- 
 tinctions, which brought into existence this Cyrillian- 
 Chalcedonian orthodoxy. Only one of these saving- 
 terms need be mentioned, namely ivviroaraaia. This 
 term allowed the assertion that the human nature 
 of Christ, although it had no viroaracn^ of its own, 
 nevertheless was not without viroaTaais, the viroaraai^ 
 of the Logos becoming that of the human nature, too. 
 By the help of this term the twofold operation of the 
 natures, spoken of in Leo's letter, could be accepted, 
 
 1 Comp. my Dogmengeschichte, 4th edition, 1906, p. 304 f. and my 
 Leontius von Byzanz, 1887, pp. 60-74. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 103 
 
 the one viroaTaat^ of the Logos being thought of as 
 the actual subject of the operation of the divine and 
 human nature of Christ. Really, however, this doctrine 
 of the Enhypostasia is identical with the Cyrillian view 
 of the Anhypostasia of Christ's human nature, for actually 
 it assumed that the Logos and the human nature became 
 one being in the same sense as understood by Cyril, 
 when he used the term evwcris fyvcriicri and the phrase 
 fiia <f>v<TLs rod 6eov \6<yov aeaap/cco/jievr] which had come 
 in the orthodox tradition through the Apollinaristic 
 forgeries 1 . There was now only the possibility of 
 abstract separation of the natures in Christ 2 . As a 
 shibboleth of their Cyrillian-Chalcedonian orthodoxy, 
 the Scythian monks used the phrase : eva 7779 a<yias 
 rpiahos TreirovOe aap/cl, and this phrase was really 
 characteristic. For, like Cyril, it makes the Logos the 
 subject even of the sufferings, while by the addition 
 of aap/ci, which naturally was not uncyrillian, it was 
 asserted, that the natures were not mixed through the 
 union ; and to some extent justice was done also to Leo's 
 letter, which contended that it was the human nature 
 which suffered. The Antiochian tradition naturally was 
 considered to be insupportable by this new orthodoxy. 
 The Scythian monks, therefore, acted consistently in 
 demanding that Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of 
 Mopsuestia, the famous teachers of the Antiochian 
 
 1 Comp. my Dogmengeschichte, 4th edition, p. 270 and 293. 
 
 2 Comp. my Leontius, p. 71. 
 
104 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 school, although they had died in the peace of the 
 church should be anathematised, as well as Nestorius 1 . 
 
 This Cyrillian-Chalcedonian orthodoxy was supported 
 by the emperor Justinian, and the fifth ecumenical 
 council, held in Constantinople in 553, approved the 
 emperor's church-policy and the doctrine which he 
 had supported 2 . 
 
 The condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia and 
 of the anti-cyrillian writings of Theodoret and Ibas, 
 sanctioned by this council 3 , clearly manifested the fact 
 that an Antiochian interpretation of the Chalcedonian 
 definition no longer was allowed. And twice in the 
 decision of the council an Antiochian interpretation of 
 Chalcedonian formulas was expressly anathematised 4 . 
 Cyril, therefore, remained master of the field. Even 
 
 1 Leontius, contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos, 3, 7 ff. and 3, 37 ff. 
 Migne, ser. graeca, 86, 1364-1387. 
 
 2 Comp. the anathematisms of this council, Mansi, ix, 375-388, 
 Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, 3rd edition, pp. 168-172. 
 
 3 Anath. 12-14. 
 
 4 Anath. 5 : Et res tt)v [xiav vTrocrracnv rod Kvpiov y)p.Q>v 'Irjcrov 
 XpuTTov oi/tws €K\a/j.fHavei, cbs emdexop-evTjv iroWwv viroOTacrewv 0"t)fJMffl(U> 
 kclI dia toijtov..Jv rrpoawrrov \4yet Kara d^iav /cat ti/j.t]v /cat 7TpocrK6vr)o~iv 
 nadairep 0e65wpos koX Ne&Topios fiaivop-evoi avveypd\j/avTO' koI o~vko- 
 (pavrel rrjv ayiav ev XaAfCTjSoi'i avvodov, ws Kara Ta^rrjv ttjv 
 dcrefUr} ivvoiav xP r ) (T0L f x ^ vr l v T< ? T V S M-iois viroaracreus pr)fxaTi...6 
 toiovtos dvdde/xa 2o~tu. — Anath. 6 : Et rts KaraxpT/crrt/cws, dW ovk 
 dXrjdws, deoroKOV A£yei ttjv ayiav Zv5oi;ov deiirapdevov Mapiav fj Kara 
 dva<popdv, ws..., /cat cri>Ko<pavTe2 ttjv ayiav iv Xa\K7]d6vi ctivoSov , 
 tl>s Kara rati ttjv ttjv a ere fir) €Trivo7]de7(7 av Trap a Qeodutpov Zvvoiav 
 OeoroKOv tt)v TvapQkvov elirov&av ...6 toiovtos dvadep-a ^ctoj. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 105 
 
 his epistola synodica actually was approved, for Theo- 
 doret and Ibas were criticized for having attacked it 1 . 
 
 The term evwcris (jivo-i/cr}, used in Cyril's epistola 
 synodica, was left, it is true, unapproved ; for this term 
 could have been understood as allowing the assumption 
 that the natures in Christ were mixed through their 
 union. Nevertheless, what Cyril really meant by the 
 term k'vaxris <f>vatK7] was accepted; for the evwcns tcaO' 
 viroaraaiv is interpreted in the sense of an evaxris Kara 
 avvdeaiv 2 . The Logos took on — this is the doctrine of 
 the council — a human <rdpi; with ^frvxv and vov$ in 
 such a way, that out of the two natures came one 
 Christ 3 , who was the subject as of the OavfjuaTovp^elv 
 so of the TraOelv* ; the two natures, of which the one 
 Christ is composed, are only to be distinguished 
 abstractly 5 , the Logos himself was born a second time 
 through Mary 6 , the io-ravpw/jLevos is eh t% a<yias 
 rptdSos 7 . 
 
 There can be no doubt, that, measured by the 
 
 1 Anath. 13: JZitis avrnroie'iTaL t&v aaefiuiv avyypafXfxaTiou Qeodopirov 
 tG>v Kara...Tov iv ayiois KvpLWov ko.1 tQv i/3' avrov K€(pa\aL(j)v...Kai...ovic 
 avad€fxari'^i...irdvras robs ypa\pavras Kara... rod 4v ayiots KvpiWov Kal 
 tQv dwdeica avrov Ke<pa\aioiv . . .6 tolovtos avadefxa iarui. Anath. 14 
 (against Ibas) has an analogous wording. 
 
 2 Anath. 4: 'H...iKK\r]cria...Trju e'vwatv rod deov \byov irpbs ttju 
 <rapi<a Kara, ffuvdecriv o/xoXoye?, oirep earl icad' virbuTacnv. 
 
 3 Anath. 8. 4 Anath. 3. 
 
 Anath. 8. : ...rrj dewpia ixbvr) rrjv SiacpopavTOVTUv XapijBdveiv, £i- uv 
 Twere'dy. 
 
 6 Anath. 2. 7 Anath. 10 ; comp. 5. 
 
106 XESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 standard of these decisions, the christology of Nestorius 
 is to be called heterodox. It was the main purpose 
 of all the anathematisms of the council to show the 
 Nestorian understanding of the evwcris, of the ev 
 TTpoawirov, and of the deoroteos, to be heretical. 
 
 And these decisions remained valid. The sixth 
 ecumenical council, it is true, in opposition to the 
 Greeks, who were drawing back gradually and too 
 openly from the formulas of Chalcedon, sanctioned the 
 Dyotheletism, asserting, under the strong influence of the 
 western church, the difference between the natures of 
 Christ also as regards the ivepyecai and the cf>vcrifca 
 BeX^fiaTa 1 , but it left the Cyrillian interpretation of 
 the Chalcedonian creed untouched and even gave to the 
 dyotheletic statement a look suited to the Cyrillian 
 tradition ; for it said that the human will became 
 in the same sense the real will of the Logos as the 
 human flesh became his flesh, the human soul his soul, 
 the human intellect his intellect 2 , and that the Logos 
 had his being also in the human ivepyelv and 6e\eiv z . 
 Even if some other parts were added to the apparatus 
 of flesh, soul, intellect, energy, will, which was regarded 
 as composing the human nature, it would not have 
 mattered, since the Cyrillian doctrine had won the 
 
 1 Comp. the creed of the council (approved the 16th of September 
 861), Mansi, xi, 631-640, the main section of which is to be found 
 also in Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole etc., 3rd edition, pp. 172-174. 
 
 2 Mansi, xi, 637 cd. 
 
 3 1. c. xi, 637 e sq. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 107 
 
 victory, and since there existed now in the East a 
 theology which was able to master difficult formulas 
 by means of scholastic distinctions and arguments. 
 
 Also the Occident, as far as it belonged to the East- 
 Roman Empire, Rome included, had had to accept the 
 Cyrillian-Chalcedonian orthodoxy of the council of 553; 
 and Rome led the young nations of the mediaeval world 
 in the same direction. When in the Adoptianism of 
 Spain old western tradition, not consistent with the 
 Cyrillian-Chalcedonian orthodoxy, emerged once again, 
 the Carolingian theologians with the agreement of 
 Rome rejected them, and Alcuin in conformity with 
 the Cyrillian-Chalcedonian orthodoxy contended : in 
 assumptione camis a deo persona perit hominis, non 
 natura 1 . 
 
 There cannot, therefore, be the least doubt, that 
 Nestorius was an exponent of a doctrine which even if 
 not through the decree of Chalcedon, at least through 
 the decisions of later time, was condemned by the 
 church. Hence, measured by the standard of church- 
 orthodoxy, Nestorius — in spite of all Professor Bethune- 
 Baker's attempts to save him — must be regarded as 
 a heretic. 
 
 Nevertheless his doctrine has more historical right 
 than the Cyrillian orthodoxy. That is what remains 
 for me to show. 
 
 Nestorius was a pupil of the Antiochian school ; all 
 
 1 adv. Felicem 2, 12, Migne, ser. latina 101, 156 a. 
 
108 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 Antiochian theologians were at first on his side. He 
 seems to have endeavoured more earnestly than the 
 greatest teachers of his school, Diodore of Tarsus and 
 Theodore of Mopsuestia, to make intelligible the oneness 
 of the person of Christ. An absolute decision is not 
 possible in this case, as the chief dogmatic works of 
 Diodore and Theodore are lost. But even if appearance 
 speak the truth — I shall return to this question later 1 — it 
 is nevertheless without doubt, that the fundamental ideas 
 and the decisive formulas which we find in Nestorius 
 were part of the traditional teaching of his school. 
 
 It was not Diodore or even Theodore who first created 
 these formulas; they had already been used by Eustathius 
 bishop of Antioch (who was deposed in 330). We are 
 able to observe this, although only small fragments of 
 his works are preserved 2 . It is proved not only by 
 the idea, that it was not the Logos who was born, 
 who suffered, but the man, whom he joined with 
 
 1 See below p. 126. 
 
 2 The only book of Eustathius which is preserved intact (De 
 Engastrimytho, Migne, ser. graeca 18, 613-676) is of little value 
 here. The fragments of other works were first collected by J. A. 
 Fabricius (Bibliotheca graeca ed. Harles rx, 1804, pp. 136-149) — 
 these fragments (about 35 in number) are the most important ones — ; 
 in Migne (18, 676-696) the number of fragments is enlarged to 
 about 50 ; and a collection of 86 fragments (of which those, which 
 were formerly known, for the most part are not given in full text) is to 
 be found in S. Eustathii, episcopi Antiocheni, in Lazarum, Mariam 
 et Martham 1w?nilia, cliristologica (which is spurious)... edita cum 
 commentario de frag mentis eustathianis opera et studio Ferdinandi 
 Cavallera, Paris, 1905. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 109 
 
 him 1 , whom he resuscitated from the dead 2 , and who then 
 became his avvOpovo^, and also not only by phrases as 
 6 av0pa)7ros, bi> icfroprjaev*, or dvOpadirivov opyavov 5 or 
 KCLTotKovaa iv avr<p (viz. tg3 dv6pa)7T(p) #60x779 6 or 
 av6p(0TTO<$ deocfropos 7 or vaos rf}<; OeorrjTOS 8 , but we find 
 
 1 De engastrim. 17, p. 652 a: 6 \6yos... apery ttjs debryTos airavraxov 
 Trdpeanv ddpboos. el 5e Kai... tov 'ixupiTov clvtov vabv eirirpexpe Xvdrjvai, 
 Tpii]p,epov fjjkp avrUa irdXiv dvrjyeipe (comp. 18, p. 653: debryros apery... 
 irdvra -rrXypo?) — ; Cavallera, 15, p. 72 = Migne, p. 685 c: ovde 6 Xbyos 
 avTov...dXX' 6 avdpojiros rod XpttrroG eK veKpQv eyeipbp,evos vxpovrai — ; 
 Migne, p. 681 c (Cav. 30): dwades to delov rod Xptarov irvevfxa — ; 
 Migne, p. 693 (Cav. 73): Si in Christo plenitudo divinitatis in- 
 habitant, aliud...inhabitatur ; si vero naturaliter differ unt ab alter utris, 
 neque mortis passionem, neque cibi appetitum...plenitudini divinitatis 
 coexistere fas est..., homini vero haec applicanda sunt proprie, qui ex 
 anima constat et corpore — ; Migne, p. 691 (Cav. 65) : hominem causa 
 salutis hominum Verbo coaptavit (awij^ev) — ; Migne, p. 684 a (Cav. 
 27) : rb /xev yap aQ>fxa...earavpovTo, to 5e Oelov ttjs cocplas Trvev/u-a /cat 
 tov aufxaros etcrw cSitjtcZto Kai toXs ovpaviois eire^dreve Kai iracrav irepielxe 
 T7)v yyv — ; comp. Migne, 681 b (Cav. 29), p. 684 c (Cav. 28), 
 Cav. 55, p. 90 = Migne, p. 689 b, Cav. 83, p. 99 etc. 
 
 2 Cav. 16, p. 72 = Migne, p. 685 c: tov Xbyov re Kai deov tov 
 eavTov vabv d^Loirpeirus avao~T7]o~avTos — ; comp. Cav. 13, p. 71 and 
 Migne, 677 b (Cav. 25): Joh. 2, 19; Migne, p. 681c (Cav. 30) 
 and the preceding note. 
 
 3 Cav. 14, p. 71 f. = Migne, p. 685 b: avvdpovos dirobedeiKrai Tip 
 6ei0TaT(p TTvevp-aTi. bid tov olnovvra debv ev ai>T<p 8t,r)veKQs. 
 
 4 Migne, p. 677c (Cav. 26), p. 677c (Cav. 21). 
 
 5 Migne, p. 680c (Cav. 20). 
 
 6 Cav. 12, p. 69 = Migne, 688b: debs ck deov yevvydels 6 x/^ay, 
 6 be xP ia @ ets eTriKTrjTov e'CXwcpev dperyv, eKKpinp vaovpyla Koap.r)deh eK rrjs 
 tov KaroLKovvTos ev avTi2 OeoTrjTos, comp. note 3. 
 
 7 Migne, p. 693 (Cav. 77 and 78): deiferum hominem; homo 
 deum ferens. 
 
 8 Migne, p. 677 b (Cav. 25): vabs yap Kvplus b xadapbs Kai 
 dxpcvTOs 7) Kara rbv dvdpwwbv ecm. irepl tov Xbyov o-kwvt}, evda irpocpavws 
 
110 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 him also, however sharply he distinguished between 
 the Logos and the man in Christ, asserting the oneness 
 of the TTpoawirov, the /lovaBiKov irpoacDirov, in contrast 
 to the oneness of the natures which was taught by the 
 Arians 1 . He, too, spoke of the Logos (or of the pre- 
 existent son of God) as the image of God, and of Christ 
 as the image of the son of God or the image of the 
 archetype of the image of God 2 ; he too — only to 
 mention one further line of thought common to him 
 and Nestorius — dealt with Melchisedek as a type of 
 Christ, in order to refute by means of Hebrews vii. 3 
 (aTrdrcop, dfjLr)Ta)p) the idea, that the Logos was born 3 . 
 The theological tradition followed by Nestorius can 
 thus be traced at least to Eustathius. 
 
 But it dates from a still earlier period. To prove 
 this, I will start by pointing to the fact that Nestorius 
 himself found in Leo's letter views which agreed with 
 
 (TK7]vib<xas $K7]<rev 6 debs — ; Migne, p. 684c (Cav. 28): irdcrxei fxev 
 ve £ s — ; comp. p. 109 notes 1, 2 and 6. 
 
 1 Cavallera, 7, p. 67: p.ovabiKbp to irpbcroiirov ovk el-rrov ixovabi.K7\v 
 tt]v <f>ij<riv . . . , dXX' etirov eva Kvpiov 'hjixouu Xpiarbv . . Jv t<Jj biacpbpcp tuiu 
 (pvaecov yvupi£bp.evov — ; comp. Cav. 82, p. 98. 
 
 2 Migne, p. 677 cd (Cav. 21): ov yap elwev b naOXos (Rom. 
 8, 29) o~vp./xbp<povs rod viov rod deov, d\\& o~vpt./xbp<povs rrjs eUbvos rod 
 viov avrov ' ak\o pAv ti beLKvtiwv rbv viov elvai, dWo be ttjv einbva aiirov ' 
 6 p.ev yap vibs...elKtJv iart rod irarpbs..., b be avdpuiros, bv e<pbpeo~ev, eitccav 
 ian rod viov — ; comp. p. 693 (Cav. 70) and Cavallera 45' 2 p. 85 : to 
 yovv tt)s ipvxys op,p.a abb\wrov ^x ovT€S npos to ttjs (vioTrjTOS ?) Trpwrb- 
 Tvirov Kal ttjs elxbvos ixopcfx^^a irpoafiXeirovTes bo^d^'ofiev to ttjs einovos 
 apxcTvirov, comp. Cav. 82, p. 98, where Baruch 3, 36-38 is quoted. 
 
 3 Cavallera, 3, p. 63. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 111 
 
 his own. Leo was not the author of these views; 
 he, too, followed a tradition which had come down to 
 him. A generation before Leo a very striking agree- 
 ment with Nestorius is seen in Pelagius, a native of 
 Britain 1 . He says about the Logos, quern ubique esse 
 non dubium est: descenderat ad formam servi non 
 localiter, sed dignanter 2 , and even the following sentence 
 is found in him : omnes simul hominem adorent cum 
 verbo assumptum 3 . It is not wholly improbable that 
 these formulas of Pelagius were influenced by the 
 Antiochian theology, for it is possible that Pelagius 
 visited the East before he came to Rome. But even 
 if Pelagius be left out of consideration (although his 
 utterances may be wholly explained as having their 
 origin in western tradition), — even then a near relation- 
 ship between the western and the Antiochian tradition 
 can easily be proved. As early as in Tertullian's time, 
 one spoke in the West of two natures of Christ which 
 were not mixed but joined {conjunctae = <Tvurjfifjbeva^) 
 and Tertullian himself says 5 : adeo salva est utriusque 
 
 1 Comp. Hauck's Real-encyklopadie xxiv, 1913, p. 312, 30 ff. 
 
 2 On Eph. 4, 9, Migne, ser. lat. 30, 1846, p. 832 a, comp. 
 Zimmer, Pelagius in Irland, p. 365. 
 
 3 On Phil. 2, 10, Migne, p. 846 a, Zimmer, I.e. p. 378. Comp. 
 other striking quotations in my Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmen- 
 geschichte, 4th edition, p. 287 f . 
 
 4 Comp. Tertullian adv. Praxeam 27 : Videmus duplicem statum, 
 non confusum, sed conjunctum, in una persona, deum et hominem 
 Jesum. 
 
 5 adv. Praxeam 1. c. 
 
112 NESTORIUS PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 proprietas substantiate, ut et spiritus (i.e. the Logos 1 ) 
 res suas egerit in illo, id est virtutes, et caro passiones 
 suas functa sit, denique et mortua. The phrases " homo 
 Christi," "assumptus homo" or "susceptus homo" are very 
 often found in the west even as late as in Augustine 2 . 
 The idea of the coexistence of the forma servi and the 
 forma dei, which we found in Nestorius, belonged here 
 to the tradition 3 , and in Novatian (about 250) we find 
 the idea, returning even in the 8th century in the 
 Adoptianism of Spain, that by the son of God by 
 nature the son of man also, whom he joined to himself 
 and who was not son of God by nature, was made 
 a son of God 4 , and as late as in the 4th century 
 Ambrosius says about the words on the cross : " My 
 God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " clamavit 
 homo divinitatis separations moriturus 5 . 
 
 1 Comp. about Eustathius above p. 109 notes 1 and 3 and about 
 other western theologians Loof s , Das Glaubensbekenntnis der Homou- 
 sianer v. Sardica (Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie, 1909, p. 35). 
 
 2 Comp. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, 4th edition, n, 358 ff. ; 
 Loofs, Dogmengeschichte, 4th edition, p. 284 ff. Augustine often 
 used the term dominicus homo (comp. 0. Scheel, Die Anschauung 
 Augustins von Christi Person und Werk, 1901, p. 228) and only as 
 late as Retract 19, 8 (Migne, ser. lat. 32, 616) blamed this expression. 
 
 3 Comp. J. B. Li ght foot's Commentary, 127-135; H. Reuter, 
 Augustinische Studien, 1887, p. 198 ff . ; O. Scheel, 1. c. p. 189 ff . ; 
 Leo, ep. ad Flavianum, eh. 3. 
 
 4 Novatian de trin. 24 (al. 19), Migne, ser. lat. 3, 933 c: 
 legitimes dei jilius, qui ex ipso deo est, ...dam sanctum istud (comp. 
 Luke 1, 35) assumit, sibi filium hominis annectit et...filium ilium dei 
 facit, quod Me naturaliter nonfuit. 
 
 5 in Luc. 10, 127, Migne, ser. lat. 15, 1836 a. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 113 
 
 There was, it is true, a difference between western 
 and Antiochian thinking, for, while all Antiochians, 
 Nestorius included, even when starting with the Logos 
 endeavoured to make intelligible the oneness of the 
 person of Christ, that is, to use Melanchthon's 1 words, 
 to explain the modus incarnationis, the Westerners did 
 not trouble themselves with this difficulty. The oneness 
 of the person of the Jesus of history — "persona " being 
 here more than the irpoawirov of the Antiochians and 
 nearer to what we understand by "person" — was with 
 the western theologians an indisputable fact, which was 
 presupposed in all their christological explanations. 
 About this one person they asserted, that it was the 
 filius dei incarnatus and also that two distinct substances 
 or natures were clearly to be seen in it 2 . The specu- 
 lative question as to how this was to be conceived did 
 not occupy the western church ; the doctrine of two 
 natures meant here nothing more than that only after- 
 wards one discerned in this one person the two natures ; 
 and the presupposition of the oneness of the person of 
 him who was God and man together was here regarded 
 without any efforts of thought as so certain, that 
 because of this oneness of the person the phrases deus 
 natus est and cruciflxus est were used in early times 3 . 
 
 1 Loci of 1521, Corpus Ref. 21, 85. 
 
 2 Comp. above p. Ill, note 4. 
 
 3 Tertullian, de came Christi 5; Damasus, epigramma 91, ed. 
 M. Ihm, p. 94; Reuter, Augustinische Studien, p. 205 ff. 
 
 L.N. 8 
 
114 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 The western theologians were, however, aware of the 
 fact, that such phrases were only inaccurate and in- 
 complete statements, for only by virtue of the addition 
 " ex humana substantia " did these phrases suit the 
 undivided Christ, while as regards the Logos they were 
 nothing more than forms of speech 1 . 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of this difference there can, 
 in my opinion, be no doubt, that there must have been 
 a kinship between the western and the Antiochian 
 tradition. Adolf Harnack, it is true, does not admit 
 this. He says that the Antiochians were going the 
 same way as Paul of Samosata 2 , and he even thinks 
 that the explanations of Theodore of Mopsuestia about 
 the relation of the Logos and the man in Christ, and about 
 Christ's natures, will, feelings and so on were, here and 
 there, literally identical with those of Paul of Samosata 3 . 
 The christology of Paul of Samosata, as to itself, is con- 
 sidered by him to be an advanced form of the christology 
 of Hermas and the so-called Monarchians of Rome 4 . 
 Between Tertullian's doctrine of two natures in Christ, 
 however, and the doctrine of the Monarchians he sees 
 no connection; he looks upon Tertullian's doctrine, in 
 so far as it goes farther than Irenaeus on whose works 
 Tertullian was dependent, as formulated by Tertullian 
 
 1 Tertullian adv. Praxeam 29 and Reuter 1. c. — Even Leo, ep. 
 ad Flavianum 5, says: filius dci crucifixus dicitur, cum haec non in 
 divinitate ipsa..., sed in naturae humanae sit infirmitate perpessus. 
 
 2 Dogmengeschichte n 1 , 324 ; n 4 , 339. 
 
 3 1. c. i 1 , 599 ; i 4 , 732. 4 i 1 , 594 ; i*, 727. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 115 
 
 himself and influenced by Gnostic ideas 1 . Besides in 
 Harnack it is not clear whether these relations are to 
 be regarded as based on mere resemblance or on real 
 kinship, for he remarks even as regards the connection 
 between Eustathius and the later Antiochians, that in 
 consequence of the many crossings it would be very 
 difficult to prove a direct dependence and influence. 
 He thinks it must suffice to group together what is 
 homogeneous 2 . I cannot share this sceptical attitude — 
 in the course of my research into the history of dogma 
 I have become increasingly more convinced of the 
 influence of tradition — , and the very kinships assumed 
 here by my honoured teacher and friend do not seem 
 to me to be the right ones 3 . In my opinion the 
 supposition that there was a kinship in tradition 
 between the Antiochian and the western christology 
 seems to be unavoidable because of the close resem- 
 blance of the views and the formulas. But what sort 
 
 1 i 1 , 474 ; i 4 , 606. 2 n 4 , 341 note 1. 
 
 3 I do not deny that there was a kinship in tradition between 
 Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, and the later Antiochians. 
 The famous passages of Paul in the Doctrina patrum (ed. Diekamp, 
 p. 303 iv — 304 viii), about the genuineness of which I am more 
 doubtful than Harnack (Dogmengeschichte i 4 , 724 note 1), especially 
 the most interesting of them (1. c. p. 304 viii : to. Kpa.Tovv.eva t<£ Xoyio 
 T7?s (pdaeus k.t.X.), could have been written by Theodore of Mopsuestia 
 or by Nestorius. But Paul of Samosata was not the creator of the 
 formulas he used ; he stood in the same line of tradition as Eustathius, 
 Theodore and Nestorius, although he modified these traditions — 
 perhaps, however (comp. Harnack r 4 , 724 note 2), not in such a 
 degree, as his opponents try to make us believe. 
 
 8—2 
 
116 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 of kinship was it ? To answer this question I must 
 enlarge upon two other points, i.e. the doctrine of 
 Marcellus of Ancyra and the so-called Symbolum 
 Sardicense. 
 
 Marcellus of Ancyra, whose huge work is preserved 
 only in fragments 1 , does not seem to have occupied 
 himself with the christological question as such, as far 
 as we can judge. It was the Arian Zo^ros-doctrine 
 that he opposed ; the Arian doctrine as to the Jesus 
 of history was not made an object of discussion by him. 
 Hence it may be explained, that in some places he says : 
 the Logos took on flesh, and in others: God joined a 
 man to his Logos. This latter phrase, it is true, is less 
 often used than the other, but nevertheless it does occur 2 . 
 And it is not this phrase alone which shows resemblance 
 to Nestorius' doctrine ; it is also said by Marcellus, that 
 the man joined to the Logos became son of God by adop- 
 tion {Oea-evY, and we even find in him the idea, that this 
 
 1 Collected after Rettberg (Marcelliana, Gottingen, 1794) by 
 E. Klostermann (Eusebius Werke iv, G eg en Mar cell., etc., Leipzig, 
 1906), pp. 185-215. Comp. F. Loofs, Die Trinitatslehre Mar cells v. 
 Ancyra {Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie, 1902, pp. 764-781). 
 
 2 Klostermann, 74, p. 200, 5 f . : ovk ei$ top avdpunov bv duei- 
 \t)(pev airopxtiruv tovto (John 10, 30) (py\<nv, d\X' ei's top e/c rod Trarpos 
 irpoehdovTo. \6yop — ; 1, p. 185, 10: 8re top dyairrjO^PTa vir clvtov 
 dpdpwwop t£ eavTov avprj\pep \6ycp — ; comp. 107, p. 208, 15; 108, 
 p. 208, 22; 117, p. 210, 29. 
 
 3 Klostermann, 41, p. 192, 1 ff. : /cat 8id tovto oi>x vibp deov 
 iavrbp opofiafct, d\\d...vlop dpdpwrrov..., iVa did ttjs tokxijttjs dfioXoyias 
 dtaet top apdpojirop 5td ti]p irpbs <xvtop koipupIclp v'lop deov yep^crdai 
 Trapae K€vdo"fl. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 117 
 
 man joined to the Logos 1 , after having been exalted, 
 became avvOpovos tw #e&> 2 . Still more of kinship in 
 tradition is to be seen between Marcellus and Nestorius 
 when in Marcellus Christ appears as the beginner of 
 a new humanity. It was for this purpose, that the 
 Logos took on the man, viz. that he might assist the 
 man who has been deprived by the devil of his position 
 of glory, in gaining victory over the latter 3 . He, the 
 man joined to the Logos, is the Trpcororofcos tt}? /caivi}? 
 KTiaews and the 7T/3&)toto«o? etc veKpwv^, the irpcoTO^ 
 /caivos avOpcoiro^, eh ov ra irdvTa dva/cecfraXciioocracrdai 
 if3ov\rj0r] 6 6e6s 5 , he is the image of the Logos and 
 thus of the invisible God 6 , and, having become /cvptos 
 and #eo? 7 , he received thereby the firstfruits of the 
 
 1 Klostermann, 42, p. 192, 8 and 109, p. 208, 25: 6 t^ Xoyy 
 evudeis avdpanros. 2 Klostermann, 110, p. 208, 30. 
 
 3 1. c. 108, p. 208, 21 £f . : iva virb tov 8iaj3bXov diraTrjdtvTa wporepov 
 tov avdpwirov ai>Tov avdis vt/c^crat rbv didfioXov irapao-Kevdo-rj- 5ta tovto 
 dveiXrjtpev tov dvdpcoirov, 'iva dxoXovdcos tovtov dirapxyv T V S e^ovalas 
 TrapaXafieZv TrapaaKevdarj. 
 
 4 1. c. 2, p. 185, 24 : ov /xbvov ttjs Kaivijs /crt'crews irpuTOTOKOv avrbv 
 6 d.7r6<TTo\os elvai (prjaiv, dXXa /cat irpwTOTOnov e/c venp&v. 
 
 5 1. c. 6, p. 186, 18 f. 
 
 tf 1. c. 94, p. 205, 12 £f. : eiKiav 4o~tiv tov dopdrov deov- vvv drjXovoTi, 
 OTT7]i>iKa tt)v tear einbva tov deov yevofxevqv dvelXrjcpe o~dpKa...ei yap did 
 ttjs eiKbvos rai'T7js tov tov 6eov Xbyov 7)t,id]9r]/jiev yv&vai, irxrTeueiv 6<pei- 
 Xo/Jiev avTip Tip Xbyy Sid. r?)s elicbvos XtyovTi- eyw /cat 6 iraTTjp ev ea/j-ev. 
 oCt€ yap Tbv Xbyov ovtc tov irarepa tov Xoyov x w P' J T V S cikovos TavTrjs 
 yvdval Ttva dwarbv. 
 
 7 1. c. Ill, p. 209, 1 f. : tov avdpcoirov tov irpoTepov did tt\v irapaK07)v 
 ttjs /SacrtXet'as e/c7re7rra;/c6ra nvpiov /cat debv yeveadai j3ovXb,uevos 6 #eoy 
 TavT7)v tt]v olKovoplav eipydaaTO. 
 
118 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 position of power which is given back to man 1 . Finally 
 it is deserving of notice, that Marcellus, when applying 
 the terms vlos, tcvpios and X/cho-to? only to the Christ 
 of history, is, as regards the two latter terms, in perfect 
 harmony with Nestorius, and that further, as regards the 
 first, Nestorius, too, applied the term after the incarna- 
 tion only to the undivided historical person of Christ 2 . 
 I have, therefore, no doubt that there existed a kinship 
 in tradition between Marcellus and Nestorius 3 . I do 
 not mean that Nestorius had necessarily read Marcellus' 
 work. It is probable — if a conjecture as to the text 
 is right — that he once named 4 him, opposing his idea, 
 that the Logos, when going at the end of all things to 
 be reabsorbed into the Father, would put off his flesh ; 
 but he could have learned this idea through hearsay. 
 Marcellus and Nestorius could have a kinship in 
 
 1 See p. 117, note 3, comp. above p. 89 at note 8. 
 
 2 See above p. 86. 
 
 3 In consideration of the fact that a common kinship of two 
 persons to a third one proves them to be akin to one another, I notice 
 that we find in Marcellus and Eustathius the same understanding 
 of the dfjiooijaios as excluding persons (vTroaT&aeis) in the Trinity, Xhe 
 same use of wedfia as applied to the Logos, the same quotation of 
 Baruch, 3, 36-38 (comp. above p. 110, note 2, and Marcellus, fragm. 
 70, p. 202, 20 ff.) and the same striking explanation of Prov. 8, 22 
 (comp. Eustathius, fragm. Cavallera, 33, p. 77: dpxv yap rot tu>v 
 KaXXt'crTOH' TTJs SiKaLooijvrjs 68Qv yeyevrjrai rjfxiv 6 (LvOpiairos rod XpiGTov, 
 rots KpeiTTo<ri tQv eirt.T7)5evp.aTb}v Trpoaayuv 17/uas k.t.\. and Marcell, 
 fragm. 9-15, Klostermann, p. 186 f.). 
 
 4 Nestoriana, p. 298, 23, where Marcellus is substituted for 
 Manichaeus. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 119 
 
 tradition even if Nestorius did not know Marcellus' 
 work. Besides it is perhaps remarkable, that Nestorius 
 who so zealously anathematises all heretics never put 
 Marcellus on such a black list. 
 
 Likewise it seems to me without doubt, that there 
 is a kinship in tradition between Nestorius and the 
 so-called Symbolum Sardicense 1 . In the beginning of 
 this creed Ursacius and Valens, " the Arians," as they 
 are called, are blamed because they pretended to be 
 Christians, and nevertheless dared to say, that the 
 " Logos or Spirit " was wounded, slain, died and rose 
 again 2 . Correspondingly the creed declares at the 
 end, that not the Spirit in Christ (i.e. the Logos) 
 suffered, aXX? 6 avOpcoTros, ov iveSvaaro, ov dveXaftev 
 etc MapLas rrj? irapOevov, rbv dvOpcoirov rov iradelv 
 hvvatievov' 6 , and it asserts as to the resurrection that 
 not o #eo9 iv rat dvOpcoiru) akX o avOpcoiros iv tw 
 6e<p dvicrrr} 4 . This conformity of views between the 
 Sardicense and Nestorius is really not surprising, for 
 the Sardicense is of western origin and we have already 
 seen that since Tertullian's time the western tradition 
 included a doctrine of the two natures of Christ, which 
 resembled that of Nestorius 5 . 
 
 1 I quote the revised text I gave in Das Glaubensbekenntnis der 
 Homousianer von Sardica (Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie, 1909) 
 pp. 7-11. 
 
 2 3, p. 7, 7-10. 3 11, p. 10, 53-55. 4 ib. p. 10, 55 f. 
 
 5 Comp. the references to western theologians I gave in the notes 
 of Das Glaubensbekenntnis etc. (p. 11 &.). 
 
120 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 Moreover, as regards the relation between Nestorius 
 and the Sardicense another point, too, is to be discussed. 
 I must go a roundabout way to show this. First, 
 attention must be drawn to the fact that the Sardicense 
 had a particular kinship with Marcellus 1 . Like Mar- 
 cell us, the Sardicense declares that the term irpwroTOfcos, 
 if used of Christ, is applied to him as to the new 
 creature, i.e. as to the beginner of the new humanity 2 . 
 Like Marcellus, it understands the eternity of the Logos, 
 not as Origen did as an eternal existence beside God 
 the Father, but as the eternal existence in him up 
 to the time when he issued from God 3 . Like Marcellus, 
 the Sardicense contends that God and his Logos have 
 one viroaraai^. Like Marcellus, it identifies the Xo'70? 
 aaap/cos and the Spirit of God 5 ; and like Marcellus, it 
 assumes, that from the historical Christ the Spirit of 
 God proceeded and went over to the disciples 6 . Like 
 
 1 This, too, is proved in the notes mentioned in the preceding 
 note. 
 
 2 Comp. above p. 117, note 4, and Sardicense, 7, p. 9 : o/xoXoyouiaev 
 fMOVoyevrj /cat irpuiTOTOKOV d\Xd fiovoyevrj tov \6yov, 6s ttclvtotc rjv kolI 
 'eariv iv rip Trarpi' to 7rparr6ro/cos 5£ Tip dvdpioTrip oicuptpei (i.e. refers to 
 the man) ical ttj Kcuvfj /crt'crei, 6tl koI TrpidTOTOKos 4k venp&v. 
 
 3 Comp. the preceding note. 
 
 4 Sardicense, 4, p. 7: rj/xeis 8e Tavrrjv irap€i\r;<pa,uei>...TrL<TTiv kclI 
 bp.oKoyiav filav elvat virbaTa<XLv,...Tod 7rarp6s /cat tov vlou /cat tov ayiov 
 iri>€v/Lt.aTos. 
 
 5 Sardicense, 11, p. 10 : /cat tovto (viz. to irueufia) irio-Tevoixev 
 rrefupdtv /cat tovto ov ireirovdev, d\V 6 avdpuiros, 8v evebvcaTO. 
 
 6 This cannot be proved by a single quotation ; but evidence is 
 given in my papers Die Trinitcitslehre Marcells (p. 771 ff.) and Das 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 121 
 
 Marcellus, therefore, the Sardicense teaches an economic- 
 trinitarian monotheism, i.e. the Trinity does not appear 
 here as eternal, but as produced in the course of the 
 economy, i.e. of God's dispensation. God was according 
 to Marcellus originally an absolute /xovas, then the Logos 
 issued from him as his Spao-rucr) ivepyeia without 
 being separated from him Bvvd/jiec, and then from the 
 incarnate Logos the Spirit proceeded, the Spirit of God, 
 who was in him and went over to the Christian com- 
 munity. These views were without doubt shared by 
 the Sardicense, although they are not all definitely ex- 
 pressed. It did not even blame another idea of Marcellus 
 which is closely connected with these views, viz. that 
 just as the divine fiovd? has been extended, the Spirit 
 and the Logos will finally be reabsorbed in God in 
 order that God may be all in all ; for this idea, in spite 
 of all opposition to it on the part of Marcellus' enemies, 
 is passed over in silence by the Sardicense, and, as I 
 have shown elsewhere 1 , this silence was not merely 
 the result of church-policy, i.e. it cannot be explained 
 by the fact, that Marcellus, in contradiction to the 
 majority of the eastern bishops but in harmony with 
 the western, held to the Nicene creed. The real reason 
 was, that the idea of Marcellus here in question corre- 
 sponded to a tradition found in Tertullian and Novatian 
 
 Glaubensbekenntnis etc. (p. 31 ft'.). Also regarding the statements 
 which follow above I must refer to these papers. 
 1 In the papers mentioned note 6, p. 120. 
 
 8—5 
 
122 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 and found in the western church as late as the middle 
 of the 4th century 1 . 
 
 Now it is theoretically possible that Marcellus was 
 influenced by the western tradition existing long before 
 his time, although it is very improbable that western 
 tradition could have made such an impression on an 
 eastern theologian. Actually, however, this is quite 
 
 1 Comp. my paper Das Glaubensbekenntnis etc., p. 31-34. Only 
 four quotations may be given here : Tertullian, adv. Praxeam, ch. 4 ed. 
 Kroymann, p. 232, 16 ff.: cum autem subjecta erunt Mi omnia absque 
 eo, qui ei subjecit omnia, tunc et ipse subjicietur Mi, qui ei subjecit 
 omnia, ut sit deus omnia in omnibus (1 Kor. 15, 28). videmus igitur 
 non obesse monarchiae [filium'} , etsi hodie apud filium est, quia et in suo 
 statu est apud filium et cum suo statu restituetur patri a filio. — 
 Novatian, de trin. 3, Migne, ser. lat. 3, 952 a : subjectis enim ei quasi 
 filio omnibus rebus a patre etc. (1 Kor. 15, 28), totam divinitatis 
 auctoritatem rursus patri remittit ; unus deus ostenditur verus et 
 aeternus pater, a quo solo haec vis divinitatis emissa et jam in filium 
 tradita et directa rursum per substantiae communionem ad patrem 
 revolvitur. — Victorinus Afer (fcirc. 363), adv. Arianos, 1, 39, Migne, 
 ser. lat. 8, p. 1070 d : evacuatis enim omnibus, requiescit activa 
 potentia (i.e. the Logos) et erit in ipso deo secundum quod est esse 
 et secundum quod est quiescere, et in aliis autem spiritualiier secundum 
 suam et potentiam et substantiam, et hoc est "tU sit deus omnia in 
 omnibus," non enim omnia in unoquoque, sed deo existente in omnibus, 
 et ideo omnia erit deus, quod omnia erunt deo plena. — Zeno of Verona 
 (about 370), after having quoted 1 Kor. 15, 24 ff. on the one side and 
 Luke 1, 32 (regni ejus non erit finis) and Sap. 3, 4 ff. (regnabit dominus 
 eorum in perpetuum) on the other : quid hoc est ? si in perpetuum 
 regnat, Paulus erravit ; si traditurus est regnum, isti mentiuntur. 
 absit! nullus hie error, diversitas nulla est. Paulus enim de hominis 
 assumpti temporali locutus est regno..., hi autem ad princi- 
 palem vim retulerunt, in cujus perpetuitate commanens in aeternum, 
 a patre filius regnum nee accepit aliquando, nee posuit ; semper enim 
 cum ipso regnavit. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 123 
 
 impossible ; for it is admitted by all that the origin of the 
 ideas of Marcellus can be sufficiently explained by an 
 earlier eastern theological tradition. This latter is seen 
 in Irenaeus, a native of Asia Minor, about 185, although 
 it is in him influenced by the quite different views of 
 the apologists 1 . Before Irenaeus it is to be found in 
 the utterances of the presbyters of Asia Minor which 
 are quoted in several places by Irenaeus 2 . Even in 
 the beginning of the second century, about 110, we 
 meet ideas resembling the fundamental thoughts of 
 Marcellus in Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who, as is shown 
 in the course of his last journey through Asia Minor and 
 by his relation to the Gospel of John, must have had 
 intercourse with Asia Minor before becoming bishop. 
 Like Marcellus, Ignatius assumes that the Logos of 
 God is not begotten 3 ; like Marcellus and differing 
 from the apologists, he applies the term Son of God 
 only to the historical and exalted Christ 4 ; like Marcellus 
 he nevertheless speaks about an issuing of the Logos 
 from God 5 ; like Marcellus, he says that God, when the 
 Logos issued from him, broke his silence 6 , i.e. opened 
 
 1 Comp. my Dogmengeschichte, 4th edition, § 21, 2d, p. 143 f . 
 
 2 1. c. § 15, 6, p. 103. 
 
 3 ad Ephes. 7, 2 : eh larpos eariv, crap/cuos re /ecu tv€v/ulo.tik6s, 
 yevvrjrbs (as crap/a/eos) /ecu ayevvrjTos (as irvev/.taTii<6s) k.t.X. 
 
 4 Comp. the preceding note and ad Smyrn. 1,1: vlbv deov /caret 
 de"\T)p.a /cat dvvapu.v deov yeyevvq^evov ...e/c irapdevov. 
 
 5 ad Magn. 7, 2: Irjaovit XptcrroJ', iov a<p' evbs irarphs irpoeXdovra. 
 
 6 Marcellus, fragm. 103, Klostermann, p. 207, 25: irpb yap 
 T7js drj/xiovpyias aTrdtrrjs ^cri^ta ris rjv, us et/c5s, 6Vros ev tu deip tov 
 
124 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 the economy, i.e. his dispensation which was intended 
 for the world's salvation ; like Marcellus, he speaks 
 about the oIkovojjlici et? top kclivov avdpco7rov, i.e. about 
 the dispensation of God which gave in Christ a new 
 beginning to the humanity 1 ; like Marcellus, he probably 
 identified the X070? and the Spirit of God as regards 
 the time before the Spirit went over from the historical 
 Christ to his disciples 2 . For him as for Marcellus the 
 historical Christ is at once God revealed in flesh and 
 the new and perfect man 3 . Finally, it is not impro- 
 bable that Ignatius, too, supposed that the Logos and 
 the Spirit would at last be reabsorbed in God 4 . 
 
 Hence dependence of Marcellus on the western 
 tradition is excluded from possibility. There is also 
 another argument against it, viz. that even in Tertullian 
 the western tradition shows itself influenced by the 
 
 Xbyov — ; Ignatius, ad Smyrn. 8, 2 : 'Irjaov Xpiarov rod viov clvtov, 
 os eariv avrov \byos d-rrb acyijs irpoehd&v. 
 
 1 As regards Marcellus comp. above p. 117, notes 4 and 5, and 
 Klostermann, Index s. v. oUovo/xta; Ignatius, ad Ephes. 20, 1 : 0U0- 
 vofiia els tov Kcuvbv avdpumov 'Ivcouv XpLo-rbv and ad Smyrn. 4, 2 : 
 'ItjctoG ~Xpio~Tod . . .rod reXelov avdp&irov yevofxevov. 
 
 2 In Ignatius, ad Philad. inscriptio, the irvedfia aytou is to ayiov 
 Xpio-Tov Tvevfia, while, according to ad Smyrn. 3, 3, Christ was on 
 earth TrveviJ.aTi.KCjs ijvoj/xevos ry rrarpi ; and ad Rom. 7, 2, Ignatius 
 apparently had in mind John 7, 38 f. 
 
 3 Comp. above note 1 and ad Ephes. 19, 3 : deov avdpuTrLvws 
 <pavepov/j.iuov els Kaivbr^ra aldiov farjs. 
 
 4 It seems to me not improbable, that in Ignatius ad Magnes. 
 7, 2 is to be read : e-iri 'iva 'Irjo-ovv Xpiarbv, top &<f> evbs iraTpbs irpoe\dbvT<x 
 {comp. p. 123, note 5) teal els hm fvra (comp. John 1, 18) /ecu els Zva 
 X^p^ovra (instead of x^PV<^ avTa ) • 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 125 
 
 views of the apologists 1 , who, to take only one 
 example, applied the term " Son of God " to the pre- 
 existent Logos and did not comprehend that the 
 historical Christ was even as the Son of God the 
 beginner of a new humanity 2 . 
 
 The western tradition, therefore, must be traced 
 back to the very pre-apologetic views which gave 
 birth to the tradition followed by Marcellus. And 
 this connection is at least recognisable for us in one 
 place ; for we find that Tertullian was strongly influenced 
 by Irenaeus and Melito, both natives of Asia Minor, and 
 by the Montanistic movement which arose in the same 
 country. 
 
 This is the line of tradition in which Nestorius, too, 
 has his place. That has been proved by what I have 
 said about his relation to Eustathius, Marcellus, and 
 the Sardicense. 
 
 The old tradition shows in him, it is true, in many 
 respects an altered face. Origen had strengthened the 
 influence of the apologists ; Nestorius, too, shows many 
 signs of this influence. But the old tradition seems to have 
 
 1 The influence of the apologists on Tertullian needs not to be 
 proved ; about the older traditions, which are clearly seen in him, 
 comp. W. Macholz, Spuren binitarischer Denkweise im Abendlande, 
 dissert, theol. Halensis, 1902, pp. 35-57. 
 
 2 There are in Tertullian remains of the pre-apologetic under- 
 standing of the term "Son of God," e.g. adv. Praxeam, 26, ed. 
 Kroymann, p. 277, 26: dicens (viz. the angel in Luke 1, 35) autem 
 " Spiritus dei" portionem totius (viz. substantiae divinae) intelligi 
 voluit, quae cessura erat in filii no men. 
 
126 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 had more influence on him than on the famous earlier 
 teachers of his school. The tendency of his christology 
 to start from the historical Christ and to apply not 
 only the terms Xptcrro? and /cvpcos but also the term 
 Son of God only to the historical Lord 1 probably did 
 not come only from his own endeavour to lay stress on 
 the oneness of the historical person of Christ, but must 
 have had a connection with the old tradition which had 
 come down to him. 
 
 If all this is right Nestorius is justified in his 
 thinking in a higher degree than if he had been 
 shown to be orthodox in the sense of the later orthodoxy; 
 for then he is nearer to the oldest theological tradition 
 and nearer to the N.T. than this later orthodoxy itself. 
 
 Only two remarks are to be made in this respect. 
 We are accustomed to the orthodox trinitarian and 
 christological formulas as they appear when detached 
 from the whole to which they originally belonged. 
 Hence we do not see that in these formulas a mythology, 
 actually contradicting the monotheistic belief, had 
 gained the victory. 
 
 This is, however, shown just by the contrast between 
 Nestorius and the Cyrillian orthodoxy. The council of 
 553 sanctioned, as we saw 2 , the statement of the Scythian 
 monks rbv iaravpco/jiepov aapKL...elvai eva t?}? aylas 
 
 1 Comp. Nestoriana, Index, s.v. Xpiards, tctipios, vlos and above, 
 p. 86. 
 
 2 Above p. 105 at note 7. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 127 
 
 rpidSos. What weight this sanction had is illustrated 
 by the remark of the same council, that the Holy 
 Trinity did not receive any addition when "one of 
 the Trinity " became man 1 . This remark is purposely 
 directed against Nestorius, who himself deals with the 
 reproach, that his doctrine led to the result, that the 
 man in Christ was added to the Trinity as the fourth 
 person 2 . He did not give a satisfactory answer to this 
 reproach 3 . Nor did Marcellus master the difficulty. 
 For him the problem did not lie in the fact, that on 
 account of the flesh, he had to regard the historical and 
 exalted Christ as another beside God, in spite of his 
 dynamic unity with God, for this is undoubtedly the 
 view held by the N.T. also ; but he confesses, that he 
 did not know, what would become of the manhood 
 (flesh) of Christ, when the Logos should finally be 
 reabsorbed in the unity of God, so that God might be 
 all in all 4 . There was no difficulty here for the old 
 tradition ; for when finally all Christians are made 
 perfect and wholly filled with the Spirit of God, then 
 naturally the beginner of the new humanity would no 
 longer have a peculiar position to himself, although 
 
 1 Anath. 5 : ovre yap irpo<rdriK7}v trpoawTrov ?} viroardaeios iwed^aro 
 7? ayia rpias aal crapuwOivTOS tov tubs rrjs ayias rpidSos, deov \6yov. 
 
 2 Liber Heracl. B. 33 = N. 19; B. 34 = N. 20; B. 38 = N. 23. 
 
 3 B. 360 = N. 231 (comp. note 4) : Le prosopon de Vhumanite n'est 
 pas odieux a la trinite; what is said B. 33 f.=N. 20 suffices just 
 as little. 
 
 4 Klostermann, 121, p. 211. 
 
128 NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY 
 
 God with his Logos would not cease to dwell in him ; 
 for God will be all in all 1 . 
 
 But I shall not discuss this longer nor enter into 
 the question as to whether the old tradition followed by 
 Nestorius can be accepted by us, and if so, how 2 . The 
 main thing for me is to contrast this tradition with the 
 trinitarian doctrine of the council of 553. Here the 
 Holy Trinity has become something through the in- 
 carnation which it was not before 3 . As regards the 
 time before, it is to some extent a conceivable idea, 
 that the three viroarda-eis, although they are regarded 
 as in such a way independent of each other that one 
 alone can become man, nevertheless together make the 
 one God ; for all three vTroardaeis are of the same 
 spiritual substance. But after the incarnation, the 
 Trinity is the triad of the merely spiritual Father, of 
 the crucified (i.e. the Logos united with human flesh, 
 soul and intellect), and of the Spirit 4 . This under- 
 standing of the Trinity is represented by the terrible 
 
 1 Comp. the closing sentences of Irenaeus adv. haer. (5. 36, 2) : 
 Etenim unus films, qui voluntatem patris perfecit, et unum genu* 
 kumanum, in quo perficiuntur mysteria dei, quern (read quae) con- 
 cupiscunt angeli videre et rum praevalent investigare sapientiam dei, 
 per quamplasma ejus conformation et concorporatum filio perjicitur ; 
 ut progenies ejusprimogenitus ( = tputotokos ; hence not "primogenita"), 
 Verbum, descendat infacturam, hoc est in plasma, et capiatur ab eo, et 
 factura iterum capiat Verbum et ascendat ad eum, supergrediens angelos, 
 et fiet secundum imaginem et similitudinem dei. 
 
 2 Comp. the closing remarks in my Oberlin-lectures " What is the 
 truth about Jesus Christ ? " (New York, 1913) pp. 237-241. 
 
 3 Cp. ibid. p. 174. 4 Cp. ibid. p. 175 note. 
 
OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 129 
 
 mediaeval pictures of the Trinity which show an old 
 man holding tip the Crucifix by the arms of the cross 
 with a dove hovering above. That is certainly not 
 the one God of the Christian belief! Nestorius, like 
 Augustine, was convinced that the opera trinitatis sunt 
 indivisa 1 . And only if we go back to the old economic- 
 trinitarian tradition, will the trinitarian doctrine be 
 compatible with monotheism. 
 
 The same is to be said about the doctrine of the 
 incarnation. Cyril thought he had treated the idea of in- 
 carnation in a serious manner. He, too, however, did not 
 assume that the Logos was confined by the body of Jesus 
 during his earthly life ; the Logos remained, according to 
 him, pervading the world, and this by his Godhead alone 2 . 
 As regards the time after the ascension, the same must 
 be assumed. Then also in Cyril something hetero- 
 geneous is added to the Trinity by the manhood of 
 Christ and, what is still more noticeable, the idea of 
 incarnation appears as not sharply distinguished 
 from that of inspiration. Mythological and popular 
 thought may imagine an incarnation perfectly distin- 
 guished from inspiration, but the theology of the 
 ancient church did not dare to do so. Luther was 
 the first, who endeavoured to think out such a doctrine 
 
 1 Nestoriana, p. 225, 13 ff. ; Liber Heracl. B. 326 = N. 208. 
 
 2 ep. 17 (synodica) Migne, ser. graeca, 77, p. 112 c: evwdels yap 
 6 rod deov \6yos vapid Kad' virbaTacnv, debs p.h £<tti tup oXuv, decnrdfei 5e 
 rod iravrbs. 
 
130 NESTORIUS' PLACE 
 
 of incarnation, and he did this by means of his idea of 
 Christ's bodily ubiquity, which began with the first 
 moment of his conception and remained even during the 
 time when Christ's corpse lay in the grave. However, 
 by following this line of thought, we arrive at mere 
 absurdities 1 . And if thus the endeavour to think out 
 the idea, that the Logos assumed the manhood in his 
 vTToaracns, leads us to absurdities, then we must go 
 further back than the first beginnings of this doctrine, 
 which are made by nothing other than the introduction 
 of popular mythological views into the Christian 
 theology. Only by returning to the lines of the 
 Antiochian theology, along which in Germany e.g. 
 I. A. Dorner and M. Kaehler went and R. Seeberg 
 and others now are going 2 , can we arrive at an under- 
 standing of the Johannine " o X0709 (rapt; iyeveTo," 
 which is in harmony with the N.T. and avoids theological 
 and rational impossibilities. 
 
 1 Comp. Hauck's Real-Encyklopadie x, 258, 41-260, 21. 
 
 2 Comp. the lectures mentioned above (p. 128, note 2) pp. 228-35. 
 
INDEX OF NAMES 
 
 Acaeius (of Beroea) 52 
 Aetius 2 
 Alcuin 107 
 Ambrosius 112 
 Apollinaris 8, 65, 66, 67 
 Aristolaus 55 
 Aristotle 71 
 Arms 2, 67 
 Arthebas 55 
 Athanasius 8, 70, 88 
 Augustine 9, 112, 129 
 Auscha'na 11 
 
 Bedjan 11, 12, 13 
 Bethune-Baker 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 
 
 22, 26, 66, 70, 71, 72, 75, 76, 
 
 78, 81, 82, 101, 107 
 Brooks 9 
 
 Candidian 47, 49 
 
 Cassian 43 
 
 Celestine (of Eome) 31, 42, 43, 
 
 44, 58, 64 
 Chairemon 33 
 Chrysoretes 55, 56 
 Chrysostomus 7, 23 
 Cook, Stanley A. 6 
 Cosmas 3, 4 
 Cyril 4, 5, 12, 15, 17, 25, 29, 
 
 31, 33-56, 58, 62, 63, 64, 69- 
 
 74, 77, 78, 79, 95-100, 102, 
 
 103, 104, 105, 129 
 
 Dalmatius 28, 56 
 
 Diodor (of. Tarsus) 103, 108 
 
 Dioscorus 98 
 
 Dorner 130 
 
 Droseria 55 
 
 Duval 9 
 
 Ebed Jesu 3, 4, 5, 6 
 
 Epiphanius 55 
 
 Eudoxius 67 
 
 Eunornius 2, 67 
 
 Eusebius (of Dorylaeum) 32 
 
 Eustathius 108-110, 115, 125 
 
 Eutyches 25, 56, 97 
 
 Evagrius 4, 5, 12, 13, 18, 57, 58 
 
 Fendt 7 
 
 Flavian 2, 22, 24, 25, 59, 75, 95 
 
 Gregorius Nazianzenus 85 
 Gregorius Thaumaturgos 8 
 
 Harnack 114, 115 
 Haidacher 7 
 Hefele 37, 48 
 Heraclides 13, 14 
 Hieronymus 9, 10 
 Hume 71 
 
 Ibas 99, 104, 105 
 Ignatius 123, 124 
 Irenaeus (of Lyons) 114, 123, 
 
 125 
 Irenaeus (of Tyrus) 5 
 
 John of Antioch 30, 31, 32, 44, 
 
 47, 54-59, 62, 63 
 John (count) 49, 51, 52 
 Julius (of Rome) 8 
 Justinian 104 
 
 Kahler 92, 130 
 Kampffmeyer 6 
 Katterfeld 39 
 
 Lausus 56 
 
132 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES 
 
 Lebegue 39 Priscillian 10, 11 
 
 Leo (of Rome) 2, 22, 24, 25, 59, Pulcheria 42, 52, 55, 56, 65 
 
 64, 75, 95, 96-98, 100-102, 
 
 110, 111 Romanus 55 
 Locke 71 
 
 Luther 20, 21, 61, 129 Sardieense symbolum 116, 119- 
 
 121 
 
 Marcella 55, 56 Schepss (sic! not Schepps) 11 
 
 Marcellus (of Ancyra) 2, 116- Scholasticus 52, 55 
 
 119, 120, 121-125, 127 Seeberg, R. 130 
 
 Maris 99 Severus 8, 96 
 
 Marius Mercator 4, 7, 34, 38 Simon Bar Tabbahe 24 
 
 Maximian 51, 53, 55 
 Melanchthon 113 
 Melito 125 
 Memnon 46-49, 51 
 
 Nau 12, 13, 16, 23, 24 
 
 Socrates 20, 61 
 Sophronius 14 
 Souter 10 
 
 Tertullian 111, 114, 119, 121, 
 122, 124, 125 
 
 Nestorius 1-9, 11-54, 56-65, 67- Theodore of Mopsuestia 65, 77, 
 89, 90, 91-96, 99-101, 106-108, 103, 104, 108, 114 
 
 110, 111, 113, 116-120, 125- 
 129 
 Novatian 112, 121, 122 
 
 Olympias 55 
 
 Paul of Samosata 20, 32, 114, 
 
 115 
 Paulus (praepositus) 55 
 Pelagius 9, 10, 42, 111 
 Peltan 39 
 Philoxenus 24, 25 
 Photinus 20, 29 
 
 Theodoret 54, 56, 59, 98, 99, 105 
 
 Theodosius II (emperor) 3, 19, 
 
 27, 35-37, 45, 47-51, 53, 57, 58 
 
 Ursacius 119 
 
 Valens 119 
 Victor 33 
 Victorinus Afer 122 
 
 Zeno (emperor) 101 
 Zeno (of Verona) 122 
 Zimmer 9, 10 
 
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