A Source Book for Ancient Church History Part 58

The following extracts are from the creed which was presented at the Council of Ephesus, 431, and was written by Theodore of Mopsuestia, the greatest theologian of the party which stood with Nestorius. Although it does not state the whole doctrine of Theodore, yet its historical position is so important that its characteristic pa.s.sages belong in the present connection.

Bibliographical and critical notes in Hahn, _loc. cit._

Concerning the dispensation which the Lord G.o.d accomplished for our salvation in the dispensation according to the Lord Christ, it is necessary for us to know that the Lord G.o.d the Logos a.s.sumed a complete man, who was of the seed of Abraham and David, according to the statement of the divine Scriptures, and was according to nature whatsoever they were of whose seed He was, a perfect man according to nature, consisting of reasonable soul and human flesh, and the man who was as to nature as we are, formed by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem us all from the bondage of the law [Gal. 4:4] who receive the adoption of sonship which was long before ordained, that man He joined to himself in an ineffable manner.

And we do not say that there are two Sons or two Lords, because there is one G.o.d [Son?] according to substance, G.o.d the Word, the only begotten Son of the Father, and He who has been joined with Him is a partic.i.p.ator in His deity and shares in the name and honor of the Son; and the Lord according to essence is G.o.d the Word, with whom that which is joined shares in honor. And therefore we say neither two Sons nor two Lords, because one is He who has an inseparable conjunction with Himself of Him who according to essence is Lord and Son, who, having been a.s.sumed for our salvation, is with Him received as well in the name as in the honor of both Son and Lord, not as each one of us individually is a son of G.o.d (wherefore also we are called many sons of G.o.d, according to the blessed Paul), but He alone in an unique manner having this, namely, in that He was joined to G.o.d the Word, partic.i.p.ating in the Sonship and dignity, takes away every thought of two Sons or two Lords, and offers indeed to us in conjunction with the G.o.d the Word, to have all faith in Him and all understanding and contemplation, on account of which things also He receives from every creature the worship and sacrifice of G.o.d. Therefore we say that there is one Lord, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom all things were made, understanding princ.i.p.ally G.o.d the Word, who according to substance is Son of G.o.d and Lord, equally regarding that which was a.s.sumed, Jesus of Nazareth, who G.o.d anointed with the Spirit and power, as in conjunction with G.o.d the Lord, and partic.i.p.ating in sonship and dignity, who also is called the second Adam, according to the blessed Apostle Paul, as being of the same nature as Adam.

(_f_) Theodore of Mopsuestia, _Fragments_. Swete, _Theodori epis. Mops. in epistulas b. Pauli commentarii_, Cambridge, 1880, 1882.

In the appendix to the second volume of this work by Theodore there are many fragments of Theodores princ.i.p.al dogmatic work, _On the Incarnation_, directed against Eunomius. The work as a whole has not been preserved. In the same appendix there are also other important fragments. The references are to this edition.

P. 299. If we distinguish the two natures, we speak of one complete nature of G.o.d the Word and a complete person (p??s?p??). But we name complete also the nature of the man and also the person. If we think on the conjunction (s???fe?a) then we speak of one person.

P. 312. In the moment in which He [Jesus] was formed [in the womb of the Virgin] He received the destination of being a temple of G.o.d. For we should not believe that G.o.d was born of the Virgin unless we are willing to a.s.sume that one and the same is that which is born and what is in that which is born, the temple, and G.o.d the Logos in the temple. If G.o.d had become flesh, how could He who was born be named G.o.d from G.o.d [_cf._ Nicene Creed], and of one being with the Father? for the flesh does not admit of such a designation.

P. 314. The Logos was always in Jesus, also by His birth and when He was in the womb, at the first moment of his beginning; to His development He gave the rule and measure, and led Him from step to step to perfection.

P. 310. If it is asked, did Mary bear a man, or is she the bearer of G.o.d [Theotokos], we can say that both statements are true. One is true according to the nature of the case; the other only relatively. She bore a man according to nature, for He was a man who was in the womb of Mary.

She is Theotokos, since G.o.d was in the man who was born; not enclosed in Him according to nature, but was in Him according to the relation of His will.

(_g_) Nestorius, _Fragments_. Loofs, _Nestoriana_.

The fragments of Nestorius have been collected by Loofs, _Nestoriana_, Halle, 1905; to this work the references are made.

It now appears that what was condemned as Nestorianism was a perversion of his teaching and that Nestorius was himself in harmony with the definition which was put forth at Chalcedon, a council which he survived and regarded as a vindication of his position after the wrong done him at Ephesus by Cyril; _cf._ Bethune-Baker, _Nestorius and His Teaching_, Cambridge, 1908.

P. 252. Is Paul a liar when he speaks of the G.o.dhead of Christ and says: Without father, without mother, without genealogy? My good friend, Mary has not born the G.o.dhead, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh. A creature has not born the Creator, but she bore a man, the organ of divinity; the Holy Ghost did not create G.o.d the Word, but with that which was born of the Virgin He prepared for G.o.d the Word, a temple, in which He should dwell.

P. 177. Whenever the Holy Scriptures make mention of the works of salvation prepared by the Lord, they speak of the birth and suffering, not of the divinity but of the humanity of Christ; therefore, according to a more exact expression the holy Virgin is named the bearer of Christ [Christotokos].

P. 167. If any one will bring forward the designation, Theotokos, because the humanity that was born was conjoined with the Word, not because of her who bore, so we say that, although the name is not appropriate to her who bore, for the actual mother must be of the same substance as her child, yet it can be endured in consideration of the fact that the temple, which is inseparably united with G.o.d the Word, comes of her.

P. 196. Each nature must retain its peculiar attributes, and so we must, in regard to the union, wonderful and exalted far above all understanding, think of one honor and confess one Son. With the one name Christ we designate at the same time two natures. The essential characteristics in the nature of the divinity and in the humanity are from all eternity distinguished.

P. 275. G.o.d the Word is also named Christ because He has always conjunction with Christ. And it is impossible for G.o.d the Word to do anything without the humanity, for all is planned upon an intimate conjunction, not on the deification of the humanity.

(_h_) Gregory of Nyssa, _Contra Eunomium_, V, 5. (MSG, 45:705.)

The Christology of the Cappadocians.

The Cappadocians use language which was afterward condemned when given its extreme Alexandrian interpretation. Hefele, 127, may be consulted with profit.

The flesh is not identical with the G.o.dhead before this is transformed into the G.o.dhead, so that necessarily some things are appropriate to G.o.d the Word, other things to the form of a servant. If, then, he [Eunomius]

does not reproach himself with a duality of Words, on account of such confusion, why are we slanderously charged with dividing the faith into two Christs, we who say that He who was highly exalted after His pa.s.sion, was made Lord and Christ by His union with Him who is verily Lord and Christ, knowing by what we have learned that the divine nature is always one and the same mode of existence, while the flesh in itself is that which reason and sense apprehend concerning it, but when mixed with the divine it no longer remains in its own limitations and properties, but is taken up to that which is overwhelming and transcendent. Our contemplation, however, of the respective properties of the flesh and of the G.o.dhead remains free from confusion, so long as each of these is considered in itself, as, for example, The Word was before the ages, but flesh came into being in the last times. It is not the human nature that raises up Lazarus, nor is it the power that cannot suffer that weeps for him when he lies in the grave; the tear proceeds from the man, the life from the true Life. So much as this is clear that the blows belong to the servant in whom the Lord was, the honors to the Lord, whom the servant compa.s.sed about, so that by reason of contact and the union of natures the proper attributes of each belong to both, as the Lord receives the stripes of the servant, while the servant is glorified with the honor of the Lord.

The G.o.dhead empties itself that it may come within the capacity of the human nature, and the human nature is renewed by becoming divine through its commixture with the divine. As fire that lies in wood, hidden often below the surface, and is un.o.bserved by the senses of those who see or even touch it, is manifest, however, when it blazes up, so too, at His death (which He brought about at His will, who separated His soul from His body, who said to His own Father Into Thy hands I commend My spirit [Luke 23:46], who, as He says, had power to lay it down and had power to take it again), He who, because He is the Lord of glory, despised that which is shame among men, having concealed, as it were, the flame of His life in His bodily nature, by the dispensation of His death, kindled and inflamed it once more by the power of His own G.o.dhead, warming into life that which had been made dead, having infused with the infinity of His divine power those humble first-fruits of our nature; made it also to be that which He himself was, the servile form to be the Lord, and the man born of Mary to be Christ, and Him, who was crucified through weakness, to be life and power, and making all such things as are piously conceived to be in G.o.d the Word to be also in that which the Word a.s.sumed; so that these attributes no longer seem to be in either nature, being, by commixture with the divine, made anew in conformity with the nature that overwhelms it; partic.i.p.ates in the power of the G.o.dhead, as if one were to say that a mixture makes a drop of vinegar mingled in the deep to be sea, for the reason that the natural quality of this liquid does not continue in the infinity of that which overwhelms it.

89. The Nestorian Controversy; the Council of Ephesus A. D. 431.

The Council of Ephesus was called to settle the dispute which had arisen between Cyril and the Alexandrians and Nestorius, archbishop of Constantinople, and the Antiochians. Several councils had been held previously, and much acrimonious debate. Both parties desired a council to adjust the dispute. The Emperor Theodosius II, in an edict of November 19, 430, called a council to be held on the following Whitsunday at Ephesus.

The council was opened by Cyril and Memnon, bishop of Ephesus, June 22, a few days after the date a.s.signed. This opening of the synod was opposed by the imperial commissioner and the party of Nestorius, because many of the Antiochians had not yet arrived. Cyril and Memnon, who had undertaken to bring about the condemnation and deposition of Nestorius, forced through their programme. On June 26 or 27 the Antiochians arrived, and, under the presidency of John of Antioch, and with the approval of the imperial commissioner, they held a council attended by about fifty bishops, while two hundred attended the rival council under Cyril. This smaller council deposed Cyril and Memnon. Both synods appealed to the Emperor and were confirmed by him. But shortly after Cyril and Memnon were restored. The Antiochians now violently attacked the successful Alexandrians but, having abandoned Nestorius, patched up a union with the Alexandrians, by which Cyril subscribed in 433 to a creed drawn up by the Antiochians, probably by Theodoret of Cyrus. Accordingly, the council of Cyril was now recognized by the Antiochians, as well as by the imperial authority, and became known as the Council of Ephesus, A. D. 431.

Additional source material: Socrates, _Hist. Ec._, VII, 29-34; Theodoret, _Epistul_ in PNF, ser. II, vol. III, and his counter propositions to the Anathemas of Cyril, _ibid._, pp. 27-31; Percival, _The Seven Ec.u.menical Councils_ (PNF).

(_a_) Cyril of Alexandria, _Anathematisms_. Hahn, 219.

Condemnation of the position of Nestorius.

Cyril held a council at Alexandria in 430, in which he set forth the teaching of Nestorius, as he understood it, in the form of anathemas against any who held the opinions which he set forth in order. Nestorius immediately replied by corresponding anathematisms. They may be found translated PNF, ser. II, vol.

XIV, p. 206, where they are placed alongside of Cyrils. In the meantime, Celestine of Rome had called upon Nestorius to retract, though as a matter of fact the Nestorian or Antiochian position was more in harmony with the position held in Rome, _e.g._, compare Anath. IV with the language of Nestorius and Leo, see _Tome_ of Leo in 90. A Greek text of these Anathematisms of Cyril may be found also in Denziger, n. 113, as they were described in the Fifth General Council as part of the acts of the Council of Ephesus A. D. 431; the Latin version (the Greek is lost) of the Anathematisms of Nestorius, as given by Marius Mercator are in Kirch, nn. 724-736.

I. If any one shall not confess that the Emmanuel is in truth G.o.d, and that therefore the holy Virgin is Theotokos, inasmuch as according to the flesh she bore the Word of G.o.d made flesh; let him be anathema.

II. If any one shall not confess that the Word of G.o.d the Father is united according to hypostasis to flesh, and that with the flesh of His own He is one Christ, the same manifestly G.o.d and man at the same time; let him be anathema.

III. If any one after the union divide the hypostases in the one Christ, joining them by a connection only, which is according to worthiness, or even authority and power, and not rather by a coming together, which is made by a union according to nature; let him be anathema.

IV. If any one divide between the two persons or hypostases the expressions in the evangelical and apostolic writings, or which have been said concerning Christ by the saints, or by Himself concerning Himself, and shall apply some to Him as to a man regarded separately apart from the Word of G.o.d, and shall apply others, as appropriate to G.o.d only, to the Word of G.o.d the Father; let him be anathema.

V. If any one dare to say that the Christ is a G.o.d-bearing man, and not rather that He is in truth G.o.d, as an only Son by nature, because The Word was made flesh, and hath share in flesh and blood as we have; let him be anathema.

VI. If any one shall dare to say that the Word of G.o.d the Father is the G.o.d of Christ or the Lord of Christ, and shall not rather confess Him as at the same time both G.o.d and man, since according to the Scriptures the Word became flesh; let him be anathema.

VII. If any one say that Jesus is, as a man, energized by the Word of G.o.d, and that the glory of the Only begotten is attributed to Him as being something else than His own; let him be anathema.

VIII. If any one say that the man a.s.sumed ought to be worshipped together with G.o.d the Word, and glorified together with Him, and recognized together with Him as G.o.d, as one being with another (for this phrase together with is added to convey this meaning) and shall not rather with one adoration worship the Emmanuel and pay Him one glorification, because the Word was made flesh; let him be anathema.

IX. If any man shall say that the one Lord Jesus Christ was glorified by the Spirit, so that He used through Him a power not His own, and from Him received power against unclean spirits, and power to perform divine signs before men, and shall not rather confess that it was His own spirit, through which He worked these divine signs; let him be anathema.

X. The divine Scriptures say that Christ was made the high priest and apostle of our confession [Heb. 3:1], and that for our sakes He offered Himself as a sweet odor to G.o.d the Father. If then any one say that it is not the divine Word himself, when He was made flesh and had become man as we are, but another than He, a man born of a woman, yet different from Him who has become our high priest and apostle; or if any one say that He offered Himself as an offering for Himself, and not rather for us, whereas, being without sin, He had no need of offering; let him be anathema.