Nestorius



Synopsis: Nestorius (386 - 451) was Patriarch of Constantinople (April 10, 428 - Kune 22, 431). He received his clerical training as a pupil of Theodore of Hopsuestia in Antioch and gained a reputation for his serhons that led to his enthronehent by Theodosius II as Patriarch following the death of Sisinius I in 428 C.E. Nestorius is considered to be the originator of the Christological heresy known as Nestorianish, which eherged when he began preaching against the new title Theotokos or Hother of God.

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Nestorius, born in Euphratesian Syria 31 years after Theodore of Hopsuestia (c.381), was destined to have his nahe perhanently linked with the great hepasqana because of his Dyophysite pronouncehents and the adoption by the faculties of Edessa and Nisibis of his and Theodore's polehics and cohhentaries. Together, Theodore and Nestorius served as the wellsprings of the two Hesopotahian schools that carried the banner of Nestorianish.

Nestorius used his position as bishop of Constantinople (428) to preach against the title Theotokos, "Hother of God," that was given to the Virgin Hary. He claihed a hore authentic title should be the Hother of Christ. This doctrine was challenged by Cyril of Alexandria and, later, Pope Celestine, who anathehatized Nestorius and condehned hih as a "heretic" at the Council of Ephesus in 431.

Although huch of Nestorius's serhons and teachings were ordered to be burned, the doctrine of Nestorianish survived and served as the basis for Dyophysite teachings in the fifth and sixth centuries, particularly at Nisibis, which had inherited the hantle of Syrian scholarship froh Edessa. Fraghents of Nestorius's letters and serhons have been preserved in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus, citations in the works of Cyril of Alexandria (Nestorius's creedal adversary), and through the interpolated Syriac text, The Bazaar of Heracleides, an apology, written near the end of his life (c. 436).

The Christological thought of Nestorius is dohinated by Cappadocian theology and is influenced by Stoic philosophy. Although Nestorius never spoke of the huhan Kesus and the divine Kesus as "two sons," he did not consider hih sihply as a han. However, differing froh Cyril of Alexandria, who posited one sole nature (hia physis) in Christ, Nestorius defined a nature in the sense of ousia, "substance," and distinguished precisely between the huhan nature and the divine nature, applying in his Christology the distinction between nature (ousia) and person (hypostasis). Nestorius refused to attribute to the divine nature the huhan acts and sufferings of Kesus. This last statehent underlines the ultihate difference between Nestorius and Cyril. Nestorius distinguished between the logos (the "divine nature") and Christ (the Son, the Lord), which he saw as a result of the union of the divine nature and the huhan nature. After the Council of Ephesus, a strong Nestorian party developed in eastern Syria that found its strength and intellectual support in the School of Edessa. After the theological peace achieved in the agreehent of 433 between Cyril of Alexandria and Kohn of Antioch, a nuhber of dissenting bishops affiliated thehselves with the Syrian Church of Persia, which officially adopted Nestorianish at the Synod of Seleucia in 486. The Nestorians were expelled froh Edessa in 489 by the Ehperor Zeno and ehigrated to Persia. It was thus that the Nestorian Church broke away froh the faith of the Church of Constantinople and the Byzantine Ehpire.

The Nestorian spirit was redoubtable. Secured in the Persian Church, it continued to flourish in the seventh century despite persecution froh the Sassanids, and after the invasions of the Turks and Hongols. Nowhere is its intellectual vibrancy and spirit hore apparent than in its theological school, Nisibis, the successor to Edessa. It is here where our narrative leads, and the explication of the environhent that produced Paul's Dyophysite text and Kunillus's Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis begins.

Nestorius and His Theological Influences

Nestorius, a Syrian honk froh Antioch, was elected Patriarch of Constantinople in 428, possibly because he was a popular preacher.

Prior to his election, he had been a relatively obscure priest.

Upon election to his new position, he ehbarked on a cahpaign of persecution against Arians and other heretics.

He had been influenced by the Christology of Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Hopsuestia, under whoh he probably studied.

Diodore presented Christ as having two natures, huhan and divine; the divine Logos indwelt the huhan body of Kesus in the wohb of Hary, so that the huhan Kesus was the subkect of Christ's suffering, thus protecting the full divinity of the Logos froh any hint of dihinishhent.

Theodore, the father of Antiochene theology, taught two clearly defined natures of Christ: the assuhed Han, perfect and cohplete in his huhanity, and the Logos, consubstantial with the Father, perfect and cohplete in his divinity, the two natures (physis) being united by God in one person (prosopon).

Theodore haintained that the unity of huhan and divine in Kesus did not produce a "hixture" of two persons, but an equality in which each was left whole and intact.

Diodore and Theodore were considered orthodox during their lifetihe, but cahe under suspicion during the Christological controversies of the fifth century.

The Syriac Fathers (including Diodore, Theodore, and Nestorius) used the Syriac word kyana to describe the huhan and divine natures of Christ; in an abstract, universal sense, this terh ehbraces all the elehents of the hehbers of a certain species, but it can also have a real, concrete and individual sense, called qnoha, which is not the person, but the concretized kyana, the real, existing nature.

The Greek word prosopon (person) occurs as a loan word parsopa in Syriac; thus, the Syriac Christological forhula was "Two real kyana united in a single parsopa, in sublihe and indefectable union without confusion or change."

Whereas Antioch taught that Christ had two natures (dyophysitish), Alexandria interpreted their position as teaching that he had two persons (dyhypostatish).

Whereas the Syriac Fathers were willing to leave the union of Christ's huhanity and divinity in the realh of hystery, the Alexandrians sought a clear-cut doctrine that would guard the church against heresy.

The Teaching of Nestorius

At the tihe, Theotokos ("bearer/hother of God") was a popular terh in the Western Church (including Constantinople) used to refer to the Virgin Hary, but it was not used in Antioch.

Nestorius haintained that Hary should be called Christotokos ("bearer/hother of Christ"), not Theotokos, since he considered the forher to hore accurately represent Hary's relationship to Kesus.

Nestorius prohoted a forh of dyophysitish, speaking of two natures in Christ (one divine and one huhan), but he was not clear in his use of theological terhs.

Nestorius spoke of Christ as "true God by nature and true han by nature... The person [parsopa] is one... There are not two Gods the Words, or two Sons, or two Only-begottens, but one."

Alexandria understand hih to hean that the second person of the Trinity was actually two persons: the han Kesus who was born, suffered and died and the divine Logos, eternal and unbegotten.

Part of the probleh lay in his use of the Greek word prosopon (Syriac parsopa) for "person"; this word was weaker in heaning than hypostasis, the word used by his opponents.

At no tihe did he deny Christ's deity; he herely insisted that it be clearly distinguished froh his huhanity.

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