THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 258
The Nestorian Controversy: The Christological Divide
17.6. The Nestorian Controversy: The Christological Divide
This question might have seemed to be one of purely academic interest, if it had not obtained an excellent catchword which appealed to the popular mind: the title of Mother of God as applied to the Virgin Mary, vehemently asserted by the Alexandrians, rejected, or accepted with many qualifications, by the Antiochenes. The fierceness of the battle over this word suggests analogies and associations which are easily exaggerated. In some sermons preached on behalf of the Alexandrian view there arc remarks which seem to foreshadow the Virgin cult in medieval and modern times. And the great glory of Cyril, as we find in superscriptions of his works, was that of being the chief advocate of the Divine Mother. Again, and this is a more important point, and one that will meet us again, both the word and the conception could be interpreted in harmony with one of the strongest elements in revived paganism.
The worship of a maternal deity, such as seems to have prevailed widely in the earliest civilisation of Mediterranean lands, had again come to the fore in the last conflict of Paganism with Christianity. The mysteries of Isis and of Cybele were widespread, Julian wrote a mystic treatise in honour of the Mother of the Gods; and as he blames the Christians for applying the term Mother of God to the Virgin Mary, he seems here to be following his ordinary policy of strengthening Hellenism on its devotional side by bringing in such elements from Christianity as might be found compatible with it. The reverse process, by which Christianity among both the educated and the uneducated was assimilating pagan ideas, was of course going on at the same time, consciously in some quarters, unconsciously in others. But it would be a mistake to look on the Nestorian controversy as chiefly, or even as greatly, connected with the honour of the Virgin.
Nestorius himself, in one of his sayings, probably uttered in a testy mood, protested “anyhow, don't make the Virgin a Goddess”; but this is, I believe, almost the only utterance of the kind during the controversy.
Generally speaking, on its speculative side, the controversy was Christological. The Niccne Fathers had finally pronounced on the relation of the Father to the Divine Logos, but within the limits of orthodoxy there was room for a difference as to the relation of the Logos to the human Christ. Some — on the Antiochene side — dreaded lest the idea of the humanity should be entirely merged in that of the Logos. Others (leaning towards Alexandria) would avoid any contamination of t he Logos by the associations of humanity. Meantime the unphilosophical minds that took part in the dispute imagined in a vague way that it was possible for human beings to commit the crime of literally confusing the nature of the Deity or of cutting Christ in pieces.
The position of Nestorius himself and of those who followed him most closely is summarised in a saying of his that was often quoted and oftener misquoted: “I cannot speak of God as being two or three mouths old.” He regarded it as impiety to attribute to a Person of the Trinity the acts and accidents of human, still more of infant, life. The Alexandrians, on the other hand, considered this view as virtually implying the existence of two Christs, a divine and a human. Naturally the opponents made no efforts to understand one another's position, and if they had their efforts could hardly have been successful. During this unhappy century, the mind of man had gone hopelessly astray as to its limitations. Intellectual courage had survived intellectual contact with facts, but that courage was often directed against chimaeras.
The Pope of Rome at this juncture was Celestine I (422-432). He seems to have been a conscientious and active ruler, a strict disciplinarian, yet averse to extreme rigour in dealing with delinquents. As we have already said, in this conflict Rome is not on the side of Constantinople and Antioch, but on that of Alexandria. Among the many reasons that may be assigned for the change, two considerations are prominent: first, that the relations between the sees of Rome and of Constantinople had been somewhat strained through rival claims to ecclesiastical supremacy in the regions of Illyria; and secondly, that Celestine was a devoted admirer of Augustine and anxious to put down the Pelagian heresy. Nestorius, we may safely say, was not himself a Pelagian. In some, at least, of his extant discourses he strongly opposes that teaching, But it is clear that the most eminent Antiochene theologians were not so pronounced as was Augustine in their doctrine of original sin and of predestination. Theodore of Mopsuestia was accused of the same tendency, though he avoided the heretical deductions from his principles, and Nestorius himself once wrote a sympathetic letter (though the obscurity of the text makes it doubtful as evidence) to Coelestius the notable follower of Pelagius. Again, a few years before our present date, at the Council of Carthage in 426, a monk named Leporius of Marseilles, who has been called a “Nestorian before Nestorius,” was condemned as a Pelagian.
The Antiochene see was more definitely than it had previously been on the side of Constantinople. It was now occupied by a certain John, who plays an ambiguous part, but seems to have been favourable to Nestorius. But the most eminent person on this side was Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, in the province of Euphratensis, a learned theologian, a good fighter, and a man of generous impulses, though he did not keep by his friend Nestorius to the bitter end. In these Eastern bishops we see a growing jealousy of the overweening power of Alexandria. The Church of Edessa, which had, generally speaking, lived a life apart, was drawn into the controversy. The bishop Rabbulas, though not inclined to urge the adoption of the disputed terms, took the anti-Nestorian side. His successor however, Ibas (435), upheld the Nestorian position, and retained for centuries the reverence of the Nestorian Christians of the East.
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