Nestorius

Its purpose was to resolve a dispute between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius about the nature of Mary and whether or not she should be declared Theotokos (Simonetti, 2006, 808). Nestorius opposed the term because “whenever the sacred scriptures speak of Our Lord’s activity, they never speak of the birth and suffering of the divinity, but of the humanity of Christ. That is why the most accurate way of speaking about the Holy Virgin is Christ-bearer, not God-bearer” (Fouad, 2010). He emphasized that Christ had independent divine and human natures going so far as to suggest “that they were two persons loosely united” (Nestorian, 2016). Cyril was a staunch opponent to Nestorius and responded to his dual nature position by affirming that in the incarnation, while retaining their respective characteristics, “the two natures [were] brought together in true union, there is of both one Christ and one Son” (Allison, 2011, pp.…

1 Nestorius placed a special emphasis on the humanity of Jesus. He began preaching against the title Theotokos or Mother of God, beginning to be used of the Virgin Mary. He distinguished between the logos (“divine nature”) and Christ (the Son, the Lord) as a union of divine nature and human nature. He refused to attribute the human acts and the sufferings of Jesus to the divine nature, arguing that God could not suffer on the cross, as God is omnipotent. Therefore the Virgin Mary, could not be…

St. Cyril of Alexandria lived a very fascinating life, living from 375 to 444 AD. St. Cyril of Alexandria was a Christian theologian and bishop in the 5th century. Cyril was ordained by his uncle and received a theological and classical education in Alexandria. He went with his uncle to Constantinople in 403 and attended the Synod of the Oak that had John Crysostom leading the program. Cyril was was greatly known for his campaign against Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, whose views on…

too was just a normal person and experienced many emotions people did. Theodore says that when Christ experiences these emotions, his divine nature was portrayed through that. Nestorius argues that Christ was two natures in one human body (Placher and Nelson, 2013). He differentiates between Christ’s divinity and humanity often, which makes it difficult to recognize how these two come together as one (Placher and Nelson, 2013). Nestorius does believe that the will of Christ to suffer on the…

the Christological Controversy was accelerated by Nestorius, representative of the Antiochene and Bishop of Constantinople. The political tension between the East and the West were high. The Council of Constantinople declared that the Bishop should have the same superiority in the East as the West. Nestorius then declared that Mary should no longer be called Theotokos which means bearer of God and suggested that she be called Christotokos which means bearer of Christ. This set off a wave of…

arose at Constantinople in 431 when Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople, formulated the thought that Mary was not the Mother of God. This follows Plato’s pattern of thought, that imperfect worldly things were created by a higher being, and thus could not produce higher beings themselves. Deduced, Nestorius hypothesized that Christ could be God or man, depending on the status of Jesus pre/post crucifixion and resurrection. In retaliation, St. Cyril of Alexandria refuted that if Jesus had not…

of attributes was quickly put to the test once Mary, mother of Jesus, was added to the arguments. If Mary birthed the human Jesus, then Mary birthed the divine logos, giving her the title Theotokos, or bearer of God. This was of particular abhorrence to the Antiochene school as shown by Nestorius who implored the use of anthropotokos (bearer of humanity) or Christotokos (bearer of the Christ) for Mary’s role instead. It terms of Jesus’ suffering on the cross and the communication of attributes,…

nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. Earlier, Arius had taught the doctrine that the Son of God was a created being and that He was not equivalent to the Father. This was a false doctrine and was corrected during the Nicaea council meeting. The Council sought to explicitly define the relationship between the Father and the Son. The council stated Jesus was actually God. The belief is that we only worship one god and Christ is part of the Trinity. After the meeting of the Nicaean…

Apollinarianism, taught by Apollinaris the Younger, Bishop of Laodicea, stated that because Christ, the Logos, had been made flesh. He proposed that Jesus Christ did not have a “human soul or mind” because the Word was His soul. This was found to be an acceptable position until the Council of Chalcedon where the heresy of Nestorius “sacrificed the unity of Christ’s person for the fullness of deity and humanity.” Nestorius taught it was incorrect to call Mary the "Mother of God" (Theotokos).…

1st century-Split with Judaism At around year 50, the first council of the church known as the Council of Jerusalem, convened a meeting to reconcile doctrinal differences concerning the Gentile mission. At this meeting, it was agreed that Gentiles could be accepted to Christianity without full adherence to Mosaic laws 2nd Century-Early Heresies In this century, the role of Bishops was to refute heresies. Christians began to deny both Christ’s divinity and humanity. Examples are; Doetism and…