The first half of the fifth century was a tumultuous period in the history of Christianity.  A great theological dispute concerning the nature of the incarnation of God in Christ shook the very foundations of the Catholic Church.  It culminated in a theological and political victory by the occupant of the Episcopal See of Alexandria over the Bishop of the Imperial capital at Constantinople.  This paper will focus on the history of the theological debate between Cyril and Nestorius, but for the sake of clarity, I will present a brief overview of the events leading up to the disagreement before getting to the main topic.  Both men have left a mark on Christianity that is hard to measure fully.  Cyril of Alexandria is seen as a Doctor of the Church, one of its greatest theologians, second only to Athanasius; while his opponent, Nestorius, was personally destroyed by the whole affair.  Nestorius was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, deposed from his office and exiled, and after the council he faded from history.  Nestorius' personal defeat, however, was not a complete theological defeat, because the theological position attributed to him became the basis of belief for what came to be called the Nestorian Church, a Church which eventually spreads all the way to China.  But Cyril enjoyed the victory of the moment, and many more moments to come.  The key to his triumph is the holistic nature of his theology, founded on the mystical and sacramental view of Christianity, as opposed to the Nestorian view that emphasized Christ’s human nature alone.

          The controversy broke out shortly after Nestorius, the Bishop of Antioch, was transferred to the Imperial capital in April 428.  The roots of the conflict can be attributed to the fact that Nestorius had been trained in a type of theology that emphasized the humanity of Christ as opposed to His divinity.  He thus refused in his public homilies and in his writings to call Mary the "Mother of God" (theotokos), and would only call her either "Mother of Christ" (christotokos) or "Mother of man" (anthropotokos).  Yet, the term anthropotokos involves positing a human hypostasis to Christ, which destroys the doctrine of the incarnation.  Though certain monks in the capital supported Nestorius in this matter, the majority of them along with the majority of the lay faithful did not.  But unwilling to accept that the title theotokos could be applied to the Virgin Mary, Nestorius pressed the issue by arranging for one of his friends, the monk Anastasius, to deliver a sermon in which he condemned the word as heretical.  The new teaching that Mary was only the "Mother of Christ" seemed to imply that "somehow Christ was not fully divine." [1]  The term theotokos had been used to describe Mary for quite some time, and the word was actually seen as a christological term, a term more about the nature of Christ, than about the nature of Mary.  The uproar caused by those opposed to Nestorius attracted the attention of Cyril's spies in the capital, who dutifully reported back to their master in Alexandria. 

          Cyril had wanted for some time to increase the power of his episcopal throne at the expense of Antioch and Constantinople, and now he had the catalyst he needed.  In the early part of the year 430 Cyril began to formulate a theological response to the speculations of Nestorius.  The Roman Pope, Celestine I, summoned a synod in 430 condemning the position of Nestorius and ordering him to recant.  Celestine then forwarded to Cyril copies of two letters that he had received from Nestorius shortly after Nestorius' transfer to Constantinople, along with several other writings and some public sermons.  With these materials Cyril was able to write a response to Nestorius' refusal to use the term theotokos, and show the defective nature of his christology.  Then Cyril convened a synod of the local clergy in Egypt that also condemned Nestorius ordering him to abjure his heresy or be excommunicated. 

          The Pope of Rome had told Cyril to personally go to Nestorius and ask him to submit to the synodal decrees, but instead of doing this, Cyril composed a letter which included twelve anathemas against the theology of Nestorius.  He then maneuvered in order to get the Egyptian Synod to approve his twelve anathemas against Nestorius, and after this was done he authorized four suffragan Bishops to go in his place and present the ultimatum for the errant Bishop's signature.  When they arrived in the capital Nestorius refused to meet with them, and he balked at the idea of submitting to Cyril's letter containing the anathemas.

          In order to understand the nature of the controversy, it is important to first familiarize ourselves with the two main theological schools of thought and their respective views on the nature of the incarnation.  The theological tradition within which Nestorius had been trained had developed at the Catechetical School of Antioch over a period of two centuries prior to the rise of this particular theological dispute.  The masters of this school had worked out what could be called a rationalist or literalist view of theology.  They downplayed the mystical and typological interpretation of scripture and of theological matters generally.  Their purpose in doing this was to defend God's absolute transcendence, but at the same time it should be noted that they did not intend to deny that through the incarnation God had really entered into communion with mankind. 

          The Catechetical School of Alexandria on the other hand had worked out a mystical theology that aimed at bridging the gap between God and humanity.  This school of theology was older than the Antiochene School, and was viewed as more prestigious especially in the western part of the Roman Empire.  In opposition to the Antiochene view it tended to concentrate heavily in mystical interpretations of the Bible and emphasized the sacramental nature of Catholicism more than Antioch, although both schools saw the sacrament of the Eucharist as central to Christian faith and practice.  The Alexandrian School saw the doctrine of the incarnation as a voluntary abasement on the part of God, in which He became fully human, in order to deify humanity.  Cyril's more mystical approach to theology fits better with the tradition of the Church of the first three centuries, but these two theological perspectives although different in their emphases, need not be seen as mutually exclusive.  Both sides in this controversy played up the differences in their positions in order to try and discredit the other; neither man was in the mood to compromise.

          Two of the five patriarchal Churches had now held synods and had condemned the theological position of Nestorius indicating that his views on Christ were incompatible with the Catholic faith.  All of these events had thrown the Church throughout the eastern portion of the empire into turmoil and in response the Emperor in November of 430 called an ecumenical council of the whole Church to be held in the city of Ephesus in the summer of 431.  With the date of the council approaching each of the two sides in the dispute tried to solidify their own position.  Nestorius was determined to try and have Cyril's views investigated by the council in order to prove that he had denied the true humanity of Christ, while Cyril was working to get the coming ecumenical council to endorse his twelve anathemas.  Though there were political elements in the dispute between the two men, a struggle for power in the Church and in the Empire, it still must be admitted that the disagreement was basically of a theological nature.

          Nestorius' understanding of the incarnation was an attempt to emphasize the reality of Christ's human nature.  He did not deny that Christ was in some sense divine but wanted to ensure that no one denied Christ's humanity.  Nestorius' christology held that Christ possessed two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, and that these two natures came together in a moral union.  At times he appeared to assert that Christ was two persons and two natures.  In one of his sermons on the term theotokos he says that many "will ask, 'Is Mary the theotokos, that is, the deipara or Mother of God or is she rather the anthropotokos, that is, Mother of Man?  Does God have a Mother?  . . . A creature did not bring forth the Creator, but bore a Man, an instrument of divinity." [2]  Nestorius could not see how Mary could be called the theotokos because she was a creature and thus had a limited temporal existence, while God the  Creator is eternal.  Clearly as Fr. Grillmeier observed and as the quotation from Nestorius' own sermon confirms, the Bishop of Constantinople rejected "the traditional communicatio idiomatum." [3]

          The doctrine of the communication of properties (communicatio idiomatum) asserts that the properties from either of Christ's two natures can be ascribed to Him as a single subject of predication.  This doctrine was espoused as early as the second century by the North African theologian Tertullian, who had said that because Christ was one divine person, subsisting in two natures, it follows that it is possible to predicate operations from either of his two natures to Him as a single individual.  As a consequence of this doctrine, it becomes possible to say things like, "Mary is the Mother of God," or "God has suffered upon the Cross," or even, "the man Jesus is omnipotent."  These things can be said because Jesus is one person (prosopon) and one subsistence (hypostasis) in two natures, and thus He is only one agent of action.

          Nestorius held that the divine person of the Word of God, instead of assuming a human nature as the earlier Fathers of the Church had asserted, assumed a human person.  Instead of an incarnation of God, Nestorius was promoting an indwelling of God in the man Jesus.  Cyril grabbed onto this idea because he saw it as his opponent's Achilles' heel.  Cyril rightly saw that Nestorius had reduced the incarnation to an indwelling, but this idea of the indwelling of God the Word in the man Jesus, did not do justice to the Biblical revelation.  In the Gospel of John it says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." [4]  The scriptural text clearly asserts that God became man, and that the incarnation (enfleshment) was not simply an indwelling of the Word of God in an already existing person.

          The fact that Cyril's theology fit better into the traditional view of the incarnation and the redemption helped him to gain the upper hand in the dispute.  Before returning to the historical events surrounding the third ecumenical council held at Ephesus in June 431, it is important to briefly explain the theology of Cyril of Alexandria.  Cyril's theology can best be described as incarnational and sacramental, and for him these two ideas interpenetrate each other.  His theology also involves the concepts of "self‑emptying" (kenosis) and "deification" (theosis).  The eternal person of the Word of God empties Himself (kenosis) and condescends to become man by being conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit.  His miraculous conception is a sign that Jesus' human nature never subsists as a human person; instead, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, assumes into Himself a human nature and becomes real man.  Therefore, Christ is one divine person in two natures.  This in a nutshell is Cyril's doctrine of the incarnation and the connected doctrine of the kenosis of God, both of which he expresses in fairly traditional terms.  Now as a consequence of the incarnation Christ establishes what Cyril would call the sacramental economy of salvation.

          The sacraments are an extension of the incarnation through time, especially the sacrament of the Eucharist, which is the very Body and Blood of Christ rendered present under the signs of the bread and wine.  When the Eucharist is consumed by the Christian faithful while in a state of grace it begins the process of deification (theosis) in them, and elevates them into a participation in the life of the Triune God.  The whole purpose of the sacraments is to extend the incarnation and its effects to successive generations of people.  As Pope St. Leo the Great, a contemporary of Cyril and Nestorius, said, "Our Redeemer's visible presence has passed into the sacraments.  Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high." [5]  So the sacraments are looked on as personal encounters with the Christ, and so they effect what they signify.  They prepare man's body for the resurrection, which is not understood to be an eradication of man's corporeal nature, but is seen by Cyril as an elevation in man to an altogether higher principle of life.  In Cyril's sacramental theology, the whole man is redeemed, both body and soul, by the infusion of God's Holy Spirit in the sacraments of the Church, and through them human beings really "become partakers of the divine nature." [6]  All of this is possible because God the Son emptied Himself (kenosis)  and became man in all things but sin, and did this so that man could be elevated into God.  Thus it can be said, that the kenosis of God brings about the theosis of man, and in the process of man's theosis, he experiences his own form of kenosis.

          Cyril, unlike Nestorius, accepted the traditional doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum, and so he held that Mary must be called the theotokos.  He did not call her this in order to honor her specifically, though he obviously held her in very high regard, but he saw the term theotokos as vital in his defense of the full divinity of Christ and the unity of His person.  In his response to Nestorius' view that Christ, although in some way one, was somehow also two persons and two natures, Cyril explained that Nestorius was confusing the concept of “nature” (physis) or “essence” (ousia) with the concept of “person” (hypostasis).  The term for person in the Greek is hypostasis, which can also be translated as subsistence, that is, something which exists in its own right and not as the part of another being.  Cyril believed that Nestorius was confusing the terms physis and hypostasis, and so he was unable to see how Mary could be described as the theotokos.

          Cyril pointed out that Mary is not to be conceived of as the mother of the divine nature, but as the mother of the divine person of the Word made flesh.  He explains that no woman ever gives birth simply to a "nature" (physis); instead, a woman gives birth to a person.  Now as it concerns the birth of Christ, the divine person of the Word assumed a human nature from Mary, uniting humanity to Himself through a personal mode of existence.  Clearly for Cyril the human nature of Christ receives its personal act of existence from God the Son and so it does not possess a human act of existence, and is not a human person.  As Fr. Henri Renard explains from a philosophical viewpoint, "It is evident that from the composition of two beings that are in act, a perfect unit can never result.  To say the opposite is to deny the principle of contradiction.  Consequently a being may never be communicated or assumed because it already exists in act; a nature however, may be." [7]  So Christ can be described as one divine person because the "to be," that is, the act of existence for the human nature of Christ, is received from the pre‑existent person of the Word.  The result of all of this is that Mary gives birth to the divine person of the Word, which is personally (hypostatically) united to the human nature which it receives from her, and thus Mary can properly be called the Mother of God. 

          The time for the ecumenical council had finally come.  Cyril and many of the Bishops supporting him arrived in Ephesus, and immediately convened the council even though Nestorius and his supporters were still in transit to the council.  Cyril successfully manipulated the Bishops present in order to get them to condemn and excommunicate Nestorius in his absence.  Shortly after this Nestorius and his friends, including John the Bishop of Antioch and the man who had succeeded him as Bishop of that Episcopal See, entered the city and they established a council of their own.  Cyril's council had about two hundred Bishops in attendance, while the council under John of Antioch had about fifty.  The latter council had condemned Cyril for the heresy of blending the human and divine natures in Christ.  It was not until the Papal legates arrived from Rome that all of the Bishops finally gathered in one council, and this was the beginning of the end for Nestorius.  The Pope clearly had sided with Cyril in the theological dispute over the nature incarnation, and the Roman See had always been a major supporter of the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum.

          With the arrival of the Pope’s representatives Nestorius' cause collapsed and the council accepted Cyril's letter to Nestorius as an expression of the faith of the Church, but the Council did not approve the twelve anathemas themselves, although they were held to be fully orthodox.  What the Council proclaimed was that the incarnation did not alter the nature of the Word of God because the union took place within His person.  In other words, it did not change the immutable divine nature into flesh, because the union of the Word of God with human nature took place in the person of the Word, and not in the divine nature itself.  The Council, quoting Cyril's letter, declared that in the incarnation both natures came "together in a real union, but that out of both in one Christ and Son, not because the distinction of natures was destroyed by the union, but rather because the divine nature and the human nature formed one Lord and Christ and Son for us, through a marvelous and mystical concurrence in unity.  . . . [and ] Thus the holy Fathers did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God." [8]  Cyril's victory was complete, Nestorius was deposed and the followers of the Antiochene School were discredited.  Two years later in 433, the Antiochene's were reconciled to the Church when they signed a document called "The Formula of Union," which basically confirmed Cyril's triumph but did so without any polemical attacks against the Antiochene theology.

          In conclusion, it cannot be argued that the victory of Cyril over Nestorius was simply the result of Cyril's political abilities; instead, it must be attributed to the strength of his theological insights.  His views were faithful to the theological tradition that preceded him, while at the same time he was able to clarify certain obscure points of doctrine.  Nestorius on the other hand was not only politically inept, but his theological formulations, based on his writings that have survived, lacked precision.  Thus when judging this dispute at the theological level, one must not confuse the matter by bringing in judgments about Cyril’s moral character.  He won the day not because he was morally superior to Nestorius, but because his theological ideas were stronger and better represented the faith of the Church.  While it is admittedly difficult to form a solid opinion about Nestorius’ views, because many of his writings were destroyed in the centuries after the Council of Ephesus, it is nevertheless clear that his theology was muddled and thus hard to follow.

          In the light of recent discoveries of documents from Nestorius' teacher Theodore of Mopsuestia some scholars have begun to reexamine the theology of Nestorius by using the teaching of his master.  It is possible that Nestorius was misunderstood by contemporaries and that this misunderstanding has been perpetuated by succeeding generations.  It is clear from Theodore's writings that he did affirm the unity of Christ's person, but he did not possess the terminological clarity of Cyril.  It just is not clear at the present time, based on the texts available, whether Theodore accepted that a substantial as opposed to a moral union of the two natures in the one person of Christ had taken place in the incarnation.  But even with the discovery of Theodore’s writings one cannot positively attribute his views to Nestorius, because there is not enough evidence to show that Nestorius followed his master faithfully.  The triumph of Cyril based on the present state of the evidence can be seen as inevitable, because his doctrine of the incarnation assured the unity of Christ, while clearly safeguarding the possibility of man's salvation in a way that Nestorius' views could not.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Christology:  The theology of the nature of the person of Christ.  It concerns how the Church understands that God has become man.

Communicatio idiomatum:  The doctrine of the communication of properties in the one person of Christ.  This doctrine allows one to predicate operations of either of Christ’s two natures to the person of the incarnate Word.  

Deification:  See Theosis.

Divinization:  See Theosis.

Hypostasis:  This term literally means, "subsistence" or "existence," which makes it a more concrete term than "prosopon" to indicate "person."  The term "hypostasis" is used by the Fathers and Councils in order to rule out a Sabellian understanding of the Trinity, while simultaneously excluding a Nestorian approach to Christology.

Incarnation:  The doctrine that God has become man in Christ, that the eternal Word of God has assumed a full and complete human nature.  In the words of the Gospel of John, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” [John 1:14].

Kenosis:  This is the Greek term for “self-emptying.”  It is used by St. Paul in reference to the incarnation in particular, where God takes on the form of man, allowing His glory to be hidden, and suffering humiliation willingly in order to redeem mankind.

Participation:  This is the technical term used to explain how man is understood as deified.  Man’s essence is not changed through the process of deification; instead, he shares in the divine nature, and he becomes a participant in the divine life.

Prosopon:  The Greek word "prosopon" is literally translated into English as "face," but means person or personal countenance.

Theosis:  This is the Greek term that is translated as deification or divinization.  It is the doctrine that deals with the possibility that man by grace can be elevated to a participation in the divine glory, or to put it another way, that man can be so united to God that it can be said that he truly becomes God.

Theotokos:  Literally “the God-bearer,” normally translated as “The Mother of God.”  This is a christological title that is applied to the Virgin Mary; it is an affirmation of the divinity of Christ and of the doctrine of the incarnation.

Union:  This term along with the term participation is used to describe the relationship of man to God after man has been deified.  It must not be understood as an absorption of man by God, but as a communion in love between two personal beings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Roy J. Deferrari.  The Sources of Catholic Dogma.  (St. Louis:  B. Herder Book Company, 1957).

Aloys Grillmeier.  Christ in Christian Tradition.  (Atlanta:  John Knox Press, 1975).  Volume 1.

Philip Hughes.  A History of the Church.  (New York:  Sheed and Ward, 1952).  Volume 1.

William A. Jurgens.  The Faith of the Early Fathers.  (Collegeville:  The Liturgical Press, 1979).  Volume 3.

Kenneth Scott Latourette.  A History of Christianity.  (Peabody:  Prince Press, 1997).  Volume 1.

Henri Renard.  The Philosophy of Being.  (Milwaukee:  The Bruce Publishing Company, 1948).

St. Cyril of Alexandria.  The Fathers of the Church:  St. Cyril's Letters.  (Washington, DC:  CUA Press, 1987).  Volume 77.

The Liturgy of the Hours.  The Office of Readings, According to the Roman Rite.  (Boston:  St. Paul Editions, 1983). 

The Christological Controversy of the Fifth Century

by Steven Todd Kaster

San Francisco State University

History 300:  Historical Analysis

Professor Pi-ching Hsu

5 December 2001

_____________________________________

End Notes:

[1]  Philip Hughes, A History of the Church, (New York:  Sheed and Ward, 1952), 1:240.

[2]  William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, (Collegeville:  The Liturgical Press, 1979), 3:203.

[3]  Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, (Atlanta:  John Knox Press, 1975), 1:452.

[4]  John 1:1 and 14 (Revised Standard Version).

[5]  The Office of Readings, (Boston:  St. Paul Editions, 1983), 621.

[6]  2 Peter 1:4 (Revised Standard Version).

[7]  Henri Renard, The Philosophy of Being, (Milwaukee:  The Bruce Publishing Company, 1948), 232.

[8]  Roy J. Deferrari, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, (St. Louis:  B. Herder Book Company, 1957), 49.

Copyright © 2001-2025 Steven Todd Kaster