o Notice that the discourse is nevertheless entirely in ontological
terms (“being” and “nature”) rather than in terms of Christ’s
moral character or human actions. The classical debate
concerned the what of Christ (“what is his essence”) rather
than the who of Christ (“what is his character”).• In reaction to Apollonarianism, the Antiochean school emphasized
the full humanity of Christ.
o This position, known as the logos/anthropos (“Word/human”)
approach, insisted that a full human person was united to the
divine Word in Christ.
o The extreme version of this position was adopted by an
Antiochene monk named Nestorius, who became archbishop
of Constantinople in 428 and whose preaching on the radical
separation of Word and humanity gave rise to the heresy called
Nestorianism. His approach was to deny the title Theotokos,
“Mother of God,” that traditional piety had attributed to Mary,
the mother of Jesus.o Mary is obviously the mother of a human being named Jesus.
That was not in debate. But if Jesus is believed to partake fully
in the divine from birth, does this justify calling Mary the
“Mother of God”? It sounds shocking, to be sure, but Christians
have always been comfortable with paradox.• The rabid opponent of Nestorius was Cyril, the archbishop of
Alexandria from 412 to 444 and a controversialist of uncommon
vigor and vitriol. As early as 429, he wrote against Nestorius.
o Both Cyril and the Nestorians appealed to Celestine I, the
bishop of Rome, and a Roman synod condemned Nestorius
in 430.
o Cyril threatened to depose Nestorius if he did not recant,
but Nestorius was supported by Bishop John of Jerusalem
and Theodoret of Cyrus, who saw Cyril’s position as
“Apollonarianism.”