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Nestorius had an associate whom he had brought from Antioch, a
presbyter named Anastasius; for this man he had the highest esteem,
and consulted him in the management of his most important affairs.
This Anastasius preaching one day in the church said, 'Let no one
call Mary Theotocos: for Mary was but a woman; and it is impossible
that God should be born of a woman.' These words created a great
sensation, and troubled many both of the clergy and laity; they having
been heretofore taught to acknowledge Christ as God, and by no means
to separate his humanity from his divinity on account of the economy of
incarnation, heeding the voice of the apostle when he said, 'Yea,
though we have known Christ after the flesh; yet now henceforth know
we him no more. And again, 'Wherefore, leaving the word of the
beginning of Christ, let us go on unto perfection.' While great
offense was taken in the church, as we have said, at what was thus
propounded, Nestorius, eager to establish Anastasius'
proposition--for he did not wish to have the man who was esteemed by
himself found guilty of blasphemy--delivered several public discourses
on the subject, in which he assumed a controversial attitude, and
totally rejected the epithet Theotocos. Wherefore the controversy on
the subject being taken in one spirit by some and in another by others,
the discussion which ensued divided the church, and resembled the
struggle of combatants in the dark, all parties uttering the most
confused and contradictory assertions. Nestorius thus acquired the
reputation among the masses of asserting the blasphemous dogma that the
Lord is a mere man, and attempting to foist on the Church the dogmas
of Paul of Samosata and Photinus; and so great a clamor was raised
by the contention that it was deemed requisite to convene a general
council to take cognizance of the matter in dispute. Having myself
perused the writings of Nestorius, I have found him an unlearned man
and shall candidly express the conviction of my own mind concerning
him: and as in entire freedom from personal antipathies, I have
already alluded to his faults, I shall in like manner be unbiassed by
the criminations of his adversaries, to derogate from his merits. I
cannot then concede that he was either a follower of Paul of Samosata
or of Photinus, or that he denied the Divinity of Christ: but he
seemed scared at the term Theotocos, as though it were some terrible
phantom? The fact is, the cause-less alarm he manifested on this
subject just exposed his extreme ignorance: for being a man of natural
fluency as a speaker, he was considered well educated, but in reality
he was disgracefully illiterate. In fact he contemned the drudgery of
an accurate examination of the ancient expositors: and, puffed up with
his readiness of expression, he did not give his attention to the
ancients, but thought himself the greatest of all. Now he was
evidently unacquainted with the fact that in the First Catholic
epistle of John it was written in the ancient copies, 'Every spirit
that separates Jesus, is not of God.' The mutilation of this
passage is attributable to those who desired to separate the Divine
nature from the human economy: or to use the very language of the early
interpreters, some persons have corrupted this epistle, aiming at
'separating the manhood of Christ from his Deity.' But the
humanity is united to the Divinity in the Saviour, so as to
constitute not two persons but one only. Hence it was that the
ancients, emboldened by this testimony, scrupled not to style Mary
Theotocos. For thus Eusebius Pamphilus in his third book of the
Life of Constantine writes in these terms:
'And in fact "God with us" submitted to be born for our sake; and
the place of his nativity is by the Hebrews called Bethlehem.
Wherefore the devout empress Helena adorned the place of accouchement
of the God-bearing virgin with the most splendid monuments,
decorating that sacred spot with the richest ornaments.'
Origen also in the first volume of his Commentaries on the apostle's
epistle to the Romans? gives an ample exposition of the sense in which
the term Theotocos is used. It is therefore obvious that Nestorius
had very little acquaintance with the treatises of the ancients, and
for that reason, as I observed, objected to the word only: for that
he does not assert Christ to be a mere man, as Photinus did or Paul
of Samosata, his own published homilies fully demonstrate. In these
discourses he nowhere destroys the proper personality of the Word of
God; but on the contrary invariably maintains that he has an essential
and distinct personality and existence. Nor does he ever deny his
subsistence as Photinus and the Samosatan did, and as the
Manichaeans and followers of Montanus have also dared to do. Such in
fact I find Nestorius, both from having myself read his own works,
and from the assurances of his admirers. But this idle contention of
his has produced no slight ferment in the religious world.
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