Nestorius

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 viewed as the Mother of God, but simply as the mother of a man. St. Cyril began a series of attacks against Nestorius. Cyril argued that the two natures were mutually united in Christ and since the holy Virgin brought forth corporeally God for this reason we should also call her Mother of God. The Council of Ephesus, which was held in 431, was crucial in affirming the truth of the title “Mother of God.” People had been calling Mary that for quite some time, but it was not dogmatically defined until the Council of Ephesus. In denouncing Nestorianism, the bishops affirmed the unity of the divine and human natures of Christ. Given that one cannot separate Christ’s divine nature from his human nature,…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

In Wilken’s book, he talks about Nestorius’ chaplain preaching in 428. The chaplain used the term theotokos which means God bearer in a sermon and then Nestorius used the term Christokos which means mother of God. In the third centur, mother of God was mentioned in the prayer: “To your protection, we flee, holy Mother of God. Do not despise our prayers and our needs, but deliver us from all dangers, glorious and blessed Virgin.” (5, pg.195). Not only is the mother of God mentioned in Wilkens…

will say he was a phantom. It says he had the same schematics as a man (8And being found in fashion as a man) and so could suffer death and did go to a cruel death reserved for criminals on the cross. He was really a man in the things that mattered concerning manhood. It was a joining together of the Word of God and human flesh. The join was forever and irrevocable. It was not an impersonal joining of flesh with Logos which was just Reason. It was very personal, as the Logos was personal, being…

being the way it was practiced. Jewish teaching told of a “Messiah” that would come to help them triumph over the Romans. This thought infuriated the Romans and they ensured that any form of political or militaristic uprising would be put down immediately. What separated Christianity from this was its teachings of peace, and salvation through the acceptance of Jesus as their savior. This thought greatly disgusted the Romans and they assassinated Jesus. At the time, Jesus was thought of to be a…