Working quickly, Cyril and his allies deposed Nestorius before his Syrian supporters could reach the council site. Rome backed Cyril's move and Nestorius was stripped of his position and exiled.
Theologians who study Nestorius' writings today say that his opinions were misrepresented and probably were not heretical.
Nestorius verbally and in writing refused to accept the title Theotokos God-bearer for Mary, the mother of Jesus. In doing so, the rest of the church felt he he was proclaiming his refusal to accept the two natures of Christ. He was embittered by the refusal of the "other side" to agree with his teaching. It has been pointed out many times that there was competition -- sometimes fierce -- between Alexandria and Constantinople.
Alexandria wanted a Patriarch who would understand the needs of the African Church and listen to her theologians. They were very unhappy with Nestorius. It was called to resolve a dogmatic controversy that had divided the church into two main camps. Theodore of Mopsuestia, supported by Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople, held to what has become known as the Nestorian heresy.
The opposite camp was represented by Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, the pope, and emperor Theodosius the Younger. Theodosius, who called the Council, believed that the strength of his empire depended upon true worship of God without the intermingling of falsehood. Two hundred fathers attended. The Council opened under Cyril, a thoroughly unsympathetic figure, and a master of political intrigue. He had the agreement of Pope Celestine who was deceased by the time the council began.
Consequently all Christians who were not Nestorians were driven from Persia. But the story of this persecution as told in the letter of Simeon of Beit Arsam is not generally considered trustworthy, and the alleged number of Monophysite martyrs is quite incredible.
The town of Tagrit alone remained Monophysite. But the Armenians were not gained over, and in they condemned at Valarsapat the Council of Chalcedon , St. Peroz died in , soon after having murdered Babowai, and the energetic Bishop of Nisibis had evidently less to hope from his successor, Balash. However, he excused himself from being present at Acacius's council in at Seleucia , where twelve bishops were present. At this assembly, the Antiochene Christology was affirmed and a canon of Beit Lapat permitting the marriage of the clergy was repeated.
The synod declared that they despised vainglory, and felt bound to humble themselves in order to put an end to the horrible clerical scandals which disedified the Persian Magians as well as the faithful; they therefore enacted that the clergy should make a vow of chastity; deacons may marry, and for the future no one is to be ordained priest except a deacon who has a lawful wife and children.
Though no permission is given to priests or bishops to marry for this was contrary to the canons of the Eastern Church , yet the practice appears to have been winked at, possibly for the regularization of illicit unions. The Persian Church was now organized, if not thoroughly united, and was formally committed to the theology of Antioch.
But Acacius, when sent by the king as envoy to Constantinople, was obliged to accept the anathema against Nestorius in order to be received to Communion there.
After his return he bitterly complained of being called a Nestorian by the Monophysite Philoxenus, declaring that he "knew nothing" of Nestorius. Nevertheless Nestorius has always been venerated as a saint by the Persian Church.
One thing more was needed for the Nestorian Church; it wanted theological schools of its own, in order that its clergy might be able to hold their own in theological argument, without being tempted to study in the orthodox centres of the East or in the numerous and brilliant schools which the monophysites were now establishing. The rector was Narses the Leprous, a most prolific writer, of whom little has been preserved.
This university consisted of a single college, with the regular life of a monastery. At one time we hear of students. Their great doctor was Theodore of Mopsuestia. His commentaries were studied in the translation made by Ibas and were treated almost as infallible.
By Kihn , a work which is a translation and adaptation of the published lectures of a certain Paul, professor at Nisibis. The method is Aristotelean , and must be connected with the Aristotelean revival which in the Greek world is associated chiefly with the name of Philoponus, and in the West with that of Boethius.
The fame of this theological seminary was so great that Pope Agapetus and Cassiodorus wished to found one in Italy of a similar kind. The attempt was impossible in those troublous times; but Cassiodorus's monastery at Vivarium was inspired by the example of Nisibis. There were other less important schools at Seleucia and elsewhere, even in small towns.
Narses seems to have lived longer. The Nestorian Church which they founded, though cut off from the Catholic Church by political exigencies, never intended to do more than practise an autonomy like that of the Eastern patriarchates. Its heresy consisted mainly in its refusal to accept the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. It is interesting to note that neither Junilius nor Cassiodorus speaks of the school of Nisibis as heretical.
They were probably aware that it was not quite orthodox , but the Persians who appeared at the Holy Places as pilgrims or at Constantinople must have seemed like Catholics on account of their hatred to the Monophysites , who were the great enemy in the East.
The official teaching of the Nestorian Church in the time of King Chosroes Khusran II died is well presented to us in the treatise "De unione" composed by the energetic monk Babai the Great, preserved in a manuscript From which Labourt has made extracts pp.
Babai denies that hypostasis and person have the same meaning. A hypostasis is a singular essence ousia subsisting in its independent being, numerically one, separate from others by its accidents. A person is that property of a hypostasis which distinguishes it from others this seems to be rather "personality" than "person" as being itself and no other, so that Peter is Peter and Paul is Paul. As hypostases Peter and Paul are not distinguished, for they have the same specific qualities, but they are distinguished by their particular qualities, their wisdom or otherwise, their height or their temperament, etc.
And, as the singular property which the hypostasis possesses is not the hypostasis itself, the singular property which distinguishes it is called "person". It would seem that Babai means that "a man" individuum vagum is the hypostasis, but not the person , until we add the individual characteristics by which he is known to be Peter or Paul.
This is not by any means the same as the distinction between nature and hypostasis, nor can it be asserted that by hypostasis Babai meant what we should call specific nature , and by person what we should call hypostasis. The theory seems to be an unsuccessful attempt to justify the traditional Nestorian formula: two hypostases in one person.
He rejects the communicatio idiomatum as involving confusion of the natures, but allows a certain "interchange of names", which he explains with great care.
The Persian Christians were called "Orientals", or "Nestorians", by their neighbours on the west. They gave to themselves the name Chaldeans ; but this denomination is usually reserved at the present day for the large portion of the existing remnant which has been united to the Catholic Church. The Nestorians also penetrated into China and Mongolia and left behind them an inscribed stone, set up in Feb.
The stone is at Chou-Chih, fifty miles southwest of Sai-an Fu, which was in the seventh century the capital of China. It is known as "the Nestorian Monument". Fur Kirchengesch. XXIX , Asiatica Ital. APA citation. Chapman, J. Nestorius and Nestorianism. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. MLA citation. Chapman, John. New York: Robert Appleton Company, This article was transcribed for New Advent by John Looby. Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat.
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About this page APA citation. And despite this distinction, Nestorius believed that he was preaching one indivisible Christ. From the writings preserved, it seems clear that Nestorius sought to preserve the fullness of both God and man in Christ.
Whether this necessitates a division within the person of Jesus Christ for Nestorius is much harder to conclude. However, Cyril felt that Nestorius clearly sacrificed the unity of Christ and created in Him two distinct persons. Cyril concerned himself primarily, it seems, with the issue of unity in Christ. Who was Christ for Cyril then? The key concept in the Alexandrian way of theologizing was the unity of Christ as both God and man.
Yet the natures of both God and man remain distinct. Cyril in his letter to John of Antioch denied that he advocated the mixing of confusing of the natures of Christ, instead arguing for the impassibility of the Logos as a means of salvation. This theology of hypostatic unity of fully God and fully man in Christ raised further questions that had to be addresses at the later Council of Chalcedon.
Both Cyril and Nestorius claimed to be orthodox in their conceptions of Christ. Nestorius focused on the distinctive aspects of both God and man in Christ, while Cyril focused on the unity of the divine and man in Christ. Taken into account with the later Monophysite and Chalcedonian conflict, this Christological controversy demonstrates the diversity of thought concerning Christ in the Early Church, as well as the importance of definite, accurate, technical language in defining theological concerns for the Christendom.
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