THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 257
The Nestorian Controversy: On the Humanity of God Incarnate
17.5. The Nestorian Controversy: On the Humanity of God Incarnate
In the second period the Alexandrian leader was Cyril, nephew of Theophilus, who had succeeded him as bishop in 412. The Byzantine bishop was Nestorius, who succeeded Sisinnius in 428. Both of these prelates were more distinctly theological controversialists than were the chiefs in the last encounter. But theology apart, they succeeded to all the difficulties in Church and State that had beset their predecessors, and neither of them was gifted with forbearance and tact. Cyril's episcopate began with violent conflicts between Christians and Jews, in which the ecclesiastical power came into collision with the civil. The story is well known how the bishop canonised a turbulent monk who had met his end in the anti-Jewish brawls, how the praefect Orestes opposed him in this and other high-handed acts, and fell a victim to the Alexandrian mob. The murder of Hypatia in 415 is not, perhaps, to be laid directly to Cyril's charge, but it illustrates the attitude of anti-pagan fanaticism towards the noblest representatives of Hellenic culture. Perhaps we may see here the effects of the policy of Theophilus when he stirred up the more ignorant of the monks to chase away or to destroy those more capable of philosophic views.
The monks were indeed becoming a more and more uncontrollable element in the situation. Cyril allied himself will) a very powerful person, the archimandrite Senuti, who plays a large part in the history of Egyptian monasticism and also in the Monophysite schism. At present he was orthodox, or rather his views wore those that had not yet been differentiated from orthodoxy, and his zeal was shewn chiefly in organising raids on idols, temples and pagan priests, and in attacks, less reprehensible perhaps, but no more respectful of private property, on the goods of wealthy landowners who defrauded and oppressed the poor.
Nestorius came from Isauria. His education had been in Antioch, and the doctrines with which his name is associated are those of the great Antiochene school carried to their logical and practical conclusions. But this association has a pathetic and almost a grotesque interest.
Much labour has of recent years been devoted to the task of ascertaining what Nestorius actually preached and wrote, and the result may be to acquit him of many of the extravagances imputed to him by his opponents. To put the case rather crudely: experts have contended that Nestorius was not a Nestorian. He seems to have been a harsh and unpleasant man, though capable of acquiring friends, intolerant of doctrinal eccentricities other than his own. He made it his mission to prevent men from assigning the attributes of humanity to the Deity, and boldly took the consequences of his position. Like Chrysostom, he suffered from the proximity and active ecclesiastical interest of the imperial family.
When Nestorius became bishop of Constantinople in 428, the Emperor Thcodosius II was in the twenty-seventh year of his age and in the twentieth of his reign. Though his character and abilities offer in some respects a favourable comparison with those of his father, he suffered, partly through his education, from a too narrowly theological outlook on his empire and its duties. For fourteen years a leading part in all matters, especially ecclesiastical, had been taken by his elder sister Pulcheria, who had superintended his education and seems to have maintained a jealous regard for her own influence. This influence was at times more or less thwarted by her sister-in-law Eudocia, the clever Athenian lady, whom she had herself induced Theodosius to take in marriage. Nestorius had somehow incurred the enmity of Pulcheria, The cause is too deeply buried in the dirt of court scandal to be disinterred. Eudocia, though she is often in opposition to her sister-in-law, does not seem to have had any leanings to the party of Nestorius, and in the end, as we shall see, she took a much stronger line against it than did Pulcheria.
But both ladies, in addition to personal feelings, had decided theological leanings, and to those the Alexandrians were able to appeal.
The theological principles of Cyril were those of the Alexandrian school. To him it seemed that the doctrine of the Incarnation of the Logos is impugned by any hesitation to assign the attributes of humanity to the divine Christ. It was this theological principle which was the cause, or at least, the pretext, of his first attack on Nestorius, The distinct ions between the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools have their roots far back in the history of theological ideas. One of the main differences lies in the preference by the Alexandrians for allegorical modes of interpreting Scripture, while the Antiochenes preferred — in the first instance, at least — a more literal method.
This is not unnatural, so far as Alexandria is concerned. That city had seen the first attempt at amalgamation of Jewish and Hellenic conceptions, by the solvent force of figure and symbolism, while underneath there worked the mind of primeval Egypt. The speculations of Philo and his successors, both Christian and Pagan, carried on the tradition into orthodox theology. The Christology of Alexandria had produced the concept of singularity, and now it regarded that term as needing further development — as pointing to an entire union of divine and human in the nature of Christ, beyond any conjunction which seemed to admit a possible duality.
On the other side, the Antiochene school is well represented by Theodore of Mopsuestia, the friend of Chrysostom, and the teacher, whether directly or indirectly, of Nestorius. He was a learned man and a great commentator, who insisted on the need of historical and literary studies in elucidating Holy Scripture. His eminence in this respect is to be seen in the fact that we often find him cited in quite recent commentaries. In his Christology, he held that the union of the divine and human in the person of Jesus was moral rather than physical or dynamical. He was, however, very careful to avoid the deduction that the relation of divine and human was similar in kind though different in degree, in Christ and in His followers. The actions and qualities ascribed to Christ as man, and particularly His birth, sufferings and death, were not to be attributed to the Doily without some qualifying phrase.
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