Nestorius and His Place in the History of Christian Doctrine/Lecture 3

by Friedrich Loofs

III

 

In the last lecture we spoke about the tragedy of the life of Nestorius. Was it really a tragedy? His enemies regarded his sufferings as deserved punishment for his impiety. Were they wrong? Was Nestorius really the guiltless victim of a tragic fortune? He was. It is this which I wish to prove in this and the next lecture.

I do not mean that Nestorius was altogether guiltless in his life's misfortune. He was incautious, passionate and reckless, and this, as we saw in the preceding lecture, was not without unfavourable influence upon the course of events. But no hero of a tragedy is quite guiltless. And we Christians know that we all have the old Adam in us as long as we live.

Only by understanding the word "guiltless" in a broader sense I am able to say that Nestorius was guiltless. His guilt was very slight in comparison with the heavy weight of his sufferings.

Socrates, the church historian, regarded, as we saw^[1], the dogmatic charges against Nestorius as essentially unfounded. He thought the fault of Nestorius was his lack of knowledge^[2]. But I must decline to accept for Nestorius this privilegium ignorantiae. It is true that Nestorius at first did not know that the term θεοτόκος was used by some of the orthodox Fathers of the fourth century. But this lack of knowledge is not a sign of ignorance. I won't say that Nestorius was a learned man. Neither the fragments of his works nor his Treatise of Heraclides show patristic or philosophical erudition. But his education was not in any way a merely rhetorical one. The Treatise of Heraclides and many of the earlier known fragments of Nestorius prove that, in spite of some inaccuracies in his terminology^[3], he was a theologian well educated in dogmatics.

Luther thought that, besides his want of learning, it was fatal for Nestorius that he was a boorish and proud man^[4]. This judgment was based on a very insufficient knowledge of the sources. But it may give us occasion to enquire whether the personal character of Nestorius was the cause of his tragic fortune.

Nestorius was passionate and dogmatic. John of Antioch reminds him in a letter of a scene from their earlier life in common, which may prove this^[5]. And even an account, which is friendly to Nestorius, tells about him, that he was lacking in courtesy and amiability^[6]. This characteristic is really shown in his letters to Cyril. Also his letters to Rome are not exactly models of courtesy. And even from the pulpit he sometimes declaimed against his enemies in a rough and passionate manner^[7].

The account, which denied him amiability, points in explanation of this characteristic to the fact that Nestorius, as a monk, had no experience of worldly affairs^[8]. Indeed, it was an unpolished nature he showed. But the merits of this naturalness came out as clearly as the demerits. Even now we see something straight and open in the letters and in the polemics of Nestorius. And comparing his writings with those of Cyril, which overflow with so-called piety, and even with some of the letters of John of Antioch^[9], we are agreeably impressed by observing that Nestorius did not wrap up his thoughts in pious phrases. It is also deserving of mention that Nestorius, where he had confidence, showed nothing of narrow-minded sensitiveness. His answer to the above-mentioned letter of John of Antioch is proof enough of this^[10]. I think he was also sincere when he asked Cyril the reproachful question: Why did you not write me a friendly letter and inform me of the troubles in Egypt, their cause and the manner of settling them, instead of writing to the monks about my doctrine^[11]?

And it would be quite wrong to presume that Nestorius had also in his intellect something rough and blunt. He is, on the contrary, acute in his thinking, not without ability in his polemics, and here and there, by the use of fitting images, he shows that he was capable of fine observation^[12].

The reproach that he was proud is still less well grounded. He seems to have had an exalted idea of the bishop's position to which he was called^[13]. This will explain why he wrote to the Roman bishop with a self-conscious assurance and agreed without hesitation to become the judge of Cyril. But this self-consciousness of office was something other than pride and greed of power and glory. This is convincingly proved by the fact, that Nestorius himself offered the emperor to return to his monastery^[14]; and he did not only offer this, but he proved by the deed, that he easily gave up his episcopal honours^[15]. One cannot call him proud who regarded nothing more blissful than the calm stillness of the monastery^[16]. And when in his exile he surrendered himself to the governor, as we saw^[17], he showed himself not only straightforward and honest, but also proved that he did not set a high value on himself and his life. Finally his remark that he did not write to Leo of Rome lest he should bring him into discredit^[18], may be taken as proof that striving after glory and honour and esteem was far from him. May we now realise that, nevertheless, in the personal character of Nestorius are to be found the grounds for the tragic course of his life? It is intelligible that a man with such characteristics was not exactly suited to the taste of the court and especially of the circle of that most pious lady, the Augusta Pulcheria; he was not cut out for a courtier. But even if the ground of his misfortune were to be found here, his life should nevertheless be called a tragedy, for his sufferings would have been too harsh a punishment. We can, however, hardly assume that the characteristics we discussed were the cause of Nestorius' unhappy fate. For he enjoyed the favour of the court as long as he lived in Constantinople and even longer, and his enemies never pretended, as far as I know, that his guilt rested in his personal character.

His enemies condemned him for his teaching. It is, therefore, his teaching that we must examine.

Nestorius was an Antiochian as regards his theological upbringing. I do not believe that he was a personal pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia—the chronology contradicts this, and there are no convincing arguments for this assumption^[19]. But that he was educated in the traditions of the Antiochian school is without doubt.

The Antiochian Christology is most easily comprehended, if we contrast it with Apollinarism, condemned by the church about fifty years before Nestorius became bishop of Constantinople. Apollinaris of Laodicea is well known to have taught that a real incarnation and a real unity of the historical person of Christ was only intelligible, if the Logos took on himself not a perfect man, that is body and animal soul and intellectual soul or intellect, but joined himself with a human body and a human soul in such a manner that he himself became the intellect, the moving principle, in the new and united being. This idea of a substantial unity between the Logos and the human nature which resulted in the new and composite nature of the incarnate Logos seemed to the Antiochians to do away with the true manhood of Christ and with the possibility of his moral development. They taught, therefore, that the divine and the human nature in Christ were to be regarded as perfect each in itself, a human free will, too, having to be assumed in Christ. To maintain this, they laid stress on the assertion that the two natures in Christ were not altered by their union as substances which are chemically combined. Hence they did not think the union to be a substantial one.

Before going further I will make a short remark about the term nature, deferring discussion of the term substance till later. I can do it by quoting Professor Bethune-Baker. For this scholar is right in saying that the term nature at that time meant all the attributes or characteristics attached to a substance and as a whole always associated with it^[20]. Apollinaris saw in Christ but one substance, viz. the substance of the Logos, to which in addition to its own characteristics those of the imperfect human nature were attached.

Nestorius was as strong an opponent of this Apollinaristic doctrine as any other Antiochian. Regarding his zeal in opposing it, it is characteristic that he almost always named Apollinaris in the same breath with Arius and Eunomius or placed the Apollinarists and the Arians side by side^[21]. He had a right to do so; for the Arians were the first who looked at the incarnation, like Apollinaris, in a—I do not say serious—but mythical light. The pre-existent son of God, so was their teaching, really changed into man, taking the body from the virgin as his body so that he himself became the soul of this body and the subject of all experiences which are told of Jesus: he hungered, suffered, died. Hence the Arian Eudoxius expressly said that there were not in Christ two natures, the whole being one combined nature^[22]. Nestorius knew of course that Apollinaris, differing from the Arians, regarded the pre-existent Son of God, following the decree of the Nicene synod, as ὁμοούσιος τῷ πατρί, and, at least in the second period of his development, conceded that this λόγος took on a human body with a soul^[23]; but he was right in minimising this difference. Here and there, he argued, the peculiar human nature of Christ became perfect only when the Logos was added to it, neither here nor there is Christ a real man as we^[24]; and with acute perception he brings to light the weakness of Apollinaris' theory. Even if, he says, the incarnation was thought by Apollinaris to be a voluntary action of the Logos, nevertheless as soon as the unity between the Logos and the body with human soul was perfected, the union was after the manner of a substantial one, not voluntary: the Logos was forced nolens volens to suffer what his body and soul suffered^[25]. And a second difficulty, too, is seen by Nestorius, a difficulty which afterwards gave trouble to the scholastics. If the Son, so Nestorius argues, was united substantially with the human nature, the same must be assumed also of the Father and the Holy Spirit because of the unity of substance in the Godhead, but if the Father and the Spirit had not, in the same measure as the Son, partaken in the sufferings of the historic Jesus, then the unity of substance with the Father and the Spirit is taken from the Son^[26].

But these difficulties of thinking are not the chief stumbling-block for Nestorius as regards the Apollinaristic teaching. The chief cause of offence for him is, that the Logos appeared here as capable of suffering and dying and, therefore, his divine nature as altered in itself. In opposition to these thoughts Nestorius held by the Antiochian doctrine, afterwards also acknowledged by the council of Chalcedon, that the two natures in Christ were each perfect in itself and unaltered.

This was also conceded by Cyril. In his epistola dogmatica to Nestorius he had written: The natures which are brought together into a true union are different, but of the two there is one Christ and one son, the difference of the natures not being destroyed by the union^[27], and in contradiction to Apollinaris he, too, contended that the Logos took on a perfect human nature, not only body and animal soul, but also an intellectual soul or a human intellect^[28]. Where then was the difference between this Alexandrian exponent of the two natures and Nestorius? Cyril's formula, also in the quotation which I have given, was: one Christ out of both, out of two natures. This formula is at the first glance unintelligible, since Cyril would not assert a mixture of the natures and, apart from some incautious utterances^[29], really did not do so; but it is explained in Cyril by another term, viz. that of hypostatic union: Cyril teaches a ἕνωσις καθ' ὑπόστασιν. Nestorius, on the contrary, protested against this phrase. In his Treatise of Heraclides he deals much with the question of this phrase and openly says that he did not understand it then (when he first heard it) and did not understand it now^[30].

Indeed this term has its difficulties. If we wish to comprehend in which sense Cyril made use of it and Nestorius opposed it, we must, as Professor Bethune-Baker rightly remarks^[31], put out of the question that meaning of the term which is taught by the council of Chalcedon and adopted by the orthodoxy of later times, for this meaning is a result of a development, which was not yet completed when Cyril and Nestorius wrote. Originally ὑπόστασις is a synonym of οὐσία, if this latter is understood in the sense of real being; both words then may be translated by substance. As synonymous with οὐσία the term ὑπόστασις appears in the Nicene creed, because the Logos here is deduced ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός and the assertion is anathematised, that he was ἐξ ἑτέρας οὐσίας ἢ ὑποστάσεως. And Athanasius said even about the end of his life: ἡ ὑπόστασις οὐσία ἐστι καὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο σημαινόμενον ἔχει ἢ αὐτὸ τὸ ὀν^[32]. Αὐτὸ τὸ ὄν, the being itself—that is the meaning of ὑπόστασις. The term means^[33] τὸ ὑποκείμενον, as Aristotle said, the ultimate reality which is the bearer of all the attributes which are called the nature of a thing, the substance in the sense in which the earlier philosophy, that of the middle ages included, made use of this term and which was afterwards criticised by Locke and Hume. The term οὐσία could also be used in a generic sense and then received a meaning similar to kind or nature, but ὑπόστασις means only that which οὐσία could mean in addition to its other meaning, viz., a single and really existing being, whether material or immaterial.

As regards the doctrine of the Trinity these two terms, originally synonymous to some extent, were differentiated: one spoke of μία οὐσία and τρεῖς ὑποστάσεις in the Trinity; but, as Professor Bethune-Baker rightly observed^[34], there is not any clear evidence that a similar usage, a similar differentiation between οὐσία and ὑπόστασις, had been extended in the time of Cyril to the christological problem. Hence in the discussion between Cyril and Nestorius on the relation of the Godhead and manhood in Christ the term ὑπόστασις must be understood as essentially synonymous with οὐσία. Now Nestorius, just as the earlier Antiochians, believed that the natures of Christ, as both really existing in him, had each their ὑπόστασις: he spoke of two ὑποστάσεις with as little scruple as of two natures in Christ^[35]. Cyril, on the contrary, expressly condemned the διαιρεῖν τὰς ὑποστάσεις ἐπὶ τοῦ ἑνὸς Χριστοῦ^[36], the ἕνωσις καθ' ὑπόστασιν excluded for him the existence of two ὑποστάσεις in Christ. In explaining this theory he is not always fortunate, and in his terminology he is not always consistent. Professor Bethune-Baker is right in saying: "His use of the expression ἕνωσις φυσική gives strong support to the view that he used the parallel expression ἕνωσις καθ' ὑπόστασιν in the sense of substantial rather than in the sense of personal oneness^[37]." Nevertheless his real theory is clearly to be perceived. The divine Logos, he thinks, who naturally has his ὑπόστασις or is an ὑπόστασις, remained the one and the same that he was before the incarnation, also after having assumed human nature. He took in his ὑπόστασις a human body, soul and intellect as his own body, soul and intellect, so that his human nature had, therefore, no ὑπόστασις. Christ's human nature was, according to Cyril, nothing more than all the human characteristics taken as a whole, which the λόγος σεσαρκωμένος had as such. It existed, so to speak, before the incarnation as the nature or substance of the human race; but after the incarnation, because of the ἕνωσις καθ' ὑπόστασιν, it cannot be regarded apart from the ὑπόστασις of the Logos. That is meant by Cyril's ἐκ δύο φύσεων εἷς.

It is easy to perceive that this theory is not conceivable. If it meant that the Logos became man in the manner of a mythical metamorphosis, this would be, although a false, yet a somewhat intelligible theory, and I am convinced that thousands of Cyril's adherents took this to be the meaning of his theory, and that even in our day thousands of simple Christian people understand the incarnation in this mythical interpretation. Cyril, however, asserted that this was not his meaning. Then, as I said, his theory is not conceivable. For what is a nature which has no real existence of its own? Is then the Logos not thought of as suffering and dying, in spite of Cyril's protest? or can one speak of sufferings and death where there is no suffering or dying subject, but only an impersonal nature? And is it still possible to say that Christ was a man as we are, if the human nature existed in him only as assumed in the ὑπόστασις of the Logos and as having become his human nature? Nestorius is quite right in reproaching Cyril that his doctrine resulted in a suppression of the manhood of Christ, for, according to Cyril's doctrine, the human intellect of Christ cannot be realised as operating in him^[38]. The Christ of Cyril, as Nestorius rightly observed, did not think with the intellect of manhood, but with the intellect of the God-Logos; he did not feel by means of a human soul but in unity with his Godhead etc.^[39]

Nobody can doubt that the doctrine of the Antiochian school, which Nestorius held, was a clearer one. Christ, according to them, was really a man who thought and felt as a man and had his bodily, intellectual and moral development as other men. Nevertheless they asserted that Christ was also perfect in his Godhead, as the Logos is ὁμοούσιος τῷ πατρί. But they were blamed by their opponents for not having brought these two ideas to such an agreement, that the oneness of the person of Christ became comprehensible. They were said to have divided Christ into two persons and two sons—the eternal son of God and the son of Mary,—the first being son of God by nature and the other only by adoption.

Nestorius, too, is reproached for this, but he again and again protested against this reproach. Christ, as he continually says, was one: one Christ, one son of God, one Lord, one πρόσωπον^[40]. Also in the Treatise of Heraclides there are numerous explanations of this kind. If you, so he says to Cyril, understand by the ἕνωσις καθ’ ὑπόστασιν the union in the πρόσωπον of Christ, then I agree with you^[41]. And with the formulas which he saw proposed by Flavian of Constantinople^[42] or found in Leo's letter to Flavian^[43] he showed himself well contented^[44].

Thus apologising for himself, Nestorius was not fortunate in his own time but he is in our time. For Professor Bethune-Baker has in his book on Nestorius and his teaching a particular chapter with the heading: "Two persons not the teaching of Nestorius^[45]," and here we find Professor Bethune-Baker asserting: "It is impossible to doubt that Nestorius was clear in his own mind that his doctrine of the incarnation safeguarded absolutely the unity of the subject. He did not think of two distinct persons joined together, but of a single person, who combined in Himself the two distinct substances, Godhead and manhood, with their characteristics (natures) complete and intact though united in Him^[46]." Of course Professor Bethune-Baker does not fail to recognise that the use of the term πρόσωπον in Nestorius is somewhat "puzzling^[47]," but nevertheless, without much discussion of the term πρόσωπον—some remarks are given^[48]—he arrives at the conclusion that Nestorius "used the term person (πρόσωπον) to express that in which both the Godhead and manhood of our Lord were one"^[49]; and his final judgment is, that Nestorius, though not sharing the later orthodox phraseology which declares the human nature of the Lord impersonal in itself but personal in him only, nevertheless seems to have made an attempt to express the same conception in other terms^[50].

Here, I am afraid, I cannot agree with Professor Bethune-Baker, however much I sympathise with him in his doing justice to the miserable exile of Oasis.

First, it must be emphasised that πρόσωπον is for Nestorius not the same as what we call person. For our notion of person the main thing is the oneness of the subject or of the internal self. We can, therefore, use the term person only for rational beings or at least those living beings, in which—as in the case of the higher animals—we see some analogy to human thinking, feeling and willing. For Nestorius, who in this respect was influenced by the manner of speaking common at that time, the main thing in his notion of πρόσωπον, according to the etymology of the word and to the earlier history of its meaning^[51], was the external undivided appearance^[52]. He was, therefore, able to call a bishop preaching from the pulpit the πρόσωπον of the church (because the church appeared in him)^[53] and to say that Christ had exhibited in himself the πρόσωπον of the human nature as being sinless^[54]. In his opinion, I believe, everything had its πρόσωπον, that is its appearance, its kind of being seen and judged. In not a few places in Nestorius, it is true, the meaning of πρόσωπον coincides with our understanding of the term person, e.g. "Cyril's πρόσωπον"^[55] means Cyril, "these πρόσωπα" means these persons^[56], and εἷς καὶ ὁ αὐτός and ἓν πρόσωπον may be used alternately^[57]. Nevertheless, before we go further, I must lay stress on the fact that the notion of πρόσωπον in Nestorius grew upon another soil and, therefore, had a wider application than our term person.

Coming now to the matter itself I must firstly remark that the places in which Nestorius, just as Theodore of Mopsuestia^[58], speaks about two πρόσωπα in Christ, viz. the πρόσωπον of the Godhead and the πρόσωπον of the manhood, are more numerous^[59] than Professor Bethune-Baker's book^[60] leads us to suppose. Nestorius as an adherent of the Antiochian school could as little realise a really existing nature without πρόσωπον as without ὑπόστασις^[61], for the whole of the characteristics which make the nature must, in his opinion, as necessarily have a form of appearance, i.e. a πρόσωπον, as a real being by which they are borne, i.e. an ὑπόστασις. One place in the Treatise of Heraclides is very characteristic in this respect. Here Nestorius is asking Cyril: Which of the natures do you think is without πρόσωπον, that of the Godhead or that of the manhood? Then you will no longer be able to say that the God-Logos was flesh and that the flesh was Son^[62]. That is: if you think the Godhead without πρόσωπον then there will be lacking the form of appearance which the manhood could take on, and if the manhood, then the form of appearance of the flesh which the Logos could take on.

Nevertheless the number of those places in which Nestorius asserts that there was one πρόσωπον in Christ is much greater than that of those in which he speaks about the πρόσωπα in Christ. The former are found in great number already in the earlier known fragments^[63] and in a still greater in the Treatise of Heraclides^[64]. This formula is to be held as characteristic of the teaching of Nestorius. He repeats again and again that the natures were united in the one πρόσωπον of Christ. But what does he understand by this?

At first we must answer: Nestorius has in his mind the undivided appearance of the historic Jesus Christ. For he says, very often, that Christ is the one πρόσωπον of the union^[65]. And he argued with Cyril: You start in your account with the creator of the natures and not with the πρόσωπον of the union^[66]. It is not the Logos who has become twofold^[67]; it is the one Lord Jesus Christ who is twofold in his natures^[68]. In him are seen all the characteristics of the God-Logos, who has a nature eternal and unable to suffer and die, and also all those of the manhood, that is a nature mortal, created and able to suffer, and lastly those of the union and the incarnation^[69]. To understand this idea of Nestorius all thoughts of a substantial union ought to be dismissed. A substantial union—so Nestorius argues—including a confusion, a mixture, a natural composition, would result in a new being^[70]. Here the natures are unmixed: the Logos ὁμοούσιος τῷ πατρί is bodyless^[71] and is continually what he is in eternity with the Father^[72], being without bound, without limit^[73], but the manhood has a body, is mortal, limited etc.^[74] These different natures are united not substantially but in the it πρόσωπον of the union^[75]; and it is to be noticed, that for Nestorius there is nothing singular in such a union in itself, that is apart from the very natures which are united here. I know, he says, nothing which would suit a union of different natures except a single πρόσωπον by which and in which the natures are seen, while they are giving their characteristics to this πρόσωπον^[76].

For the detailed explanation of this thought an idea is important which Professor Bethune-Baker has already noted^[77] in the Treatise of Heraclides, viz. the idea that in Christ the manhood is the πρόσωπον of the Godhead, and the Godhead the πρόσωπον of the manhood^[78]. Reading Professor Bethune-Baker's book one could think that this idea appeared only once or at least seldom. Really, however, it recurs again and again^[79]. It is the leading idea of Nestorius that the natures of Christ made reciprocate use of their πρόσωπα^[80], the Godhead of the form of a servant, the manhood of the form of God^[81]. In this sense in the one πρόσωπον of Christ, according to Nestorius, a union of the πρόσωπα took place^[82] so that this is that and that is this^[83]. Professor Bethune-Baker, who did not enter into a discussion of the last quoted formulas, says in reference to the former (viz.: The manhood is the πρόσωπον of the Godhead and the Godhead is the πρόσωπον of the manhood^[84]): "These words come near to eliminating 'personality,' as we understand it, altogether, or at all events they suggest the merging of one personality in the other, each in each. This in fact seems to be the meaning of Nestorius. He is in search of the real centre of union and he finds it here. He uses the term πρόσωπον to express that in which both the Godhead and manhood of our Lord were one, even while remaining distinct from one another, each retaining its own characteristics^[85]." I think that Professor Bethune-Baker is here still striving to find a metaphysical centre of union. In my opinion the idea of Nestorius is most easily^[86] understood by us, if we look at Philippians ii, 6 ff. The form of a servant and the form of God here spoken about do not, according to Nestorius, succeed each other, they are co-existent, i.e. the one Christ shows us as clearly the form of God as the form of a servant, and it is once expressly said by Nestorius that the form is the πρόσωπον^[87]. The statement, that the πρόσωπα interchange, means, therefore, that the Logos shows himself in the form of a servant and the man in the form of God, this one by humbling himself, the other by being exalted^[88], or as Nestorius says^[89] with Gregory of Nazianzen^[90]: θεοῦ μὲν ἐνανθρωπήσαντος, ἀνθρώπου δὲ θεωθέντος.

Let us examine these two thoughts further. First, that the union takes place in the πρόσωπον of the man.

The Logos humbled himself in willing obedience unto death, yea, the death of the cross, taking on the πρόσωπον of the man, who suffered and died, as his own πρόσωπον^[91]. From the annunciation, the birth and the manger till death^[92] he was found in outward being as a man, without having the nature of a man; for he did not take the nature but the form and appearance of a man as regards all which the πρόσωπον includes^[93]. But how can the Logos himself have the form of a servant if he did not have the human nature? An answer may be found in the following words of Nestorius: God the Logos is said to have become flesh and son of man as regards the form and the πρόσωπον of the flesh and of the man, of which he made use in order to make himself known to the world^[94]. It was the flesh, in which he manifested himself, in which he taught, in which and through which he acted, and that not as being absent; he made use of His πρόσωπον in the flesh, because he wished that he himself might be the flesh and the flesh He himself^[95]. God had a beginning and development by manifestation^[96]. Nestorius takes this so earnestly that he says: Christ is also God and he is no other than God the Logos^[97].

The second side of the idea we are discussing, viz. that the manhood in Christ shows itself in the form of God, is already partly explained by the preceding quotations, as they assert that it was the Logos who was to be seen in the man. But we need to have a clearer understanding of this second side of the idea also. Because the Logos manifested himself in the form of servant, the man appeared in the form of God. No one ever saw before that a man in his own πρόσωπον made use of the πρόσωπον of God^[98]. The prophets, it is true, were to a certain extent the representatives of God^[99], for delegates are substitutes of the persons of those who sent them and because of this they are their πρόσωπα by virtue of their ministry^[100]. But in Christ the man in the real sense used the πρόσωπον of God, for Christ has said: "My father and I are one," and: "He who has seen me, has seen the father^[101]," and all honour due to the Logos is partaken of by the manhood, because it has become the πρόσωπον of the Logos^[102]. Likewise, however, as the Logos did not become man by nature, so also the manhood in Christ is not deified by nature. He who had a beginning, grew and was made perfect, so Nestorius often declares with Gregory of Nazianzen, is not God by nature, although he is called so on account of the manifestation which took place gradually^[103]. He is God by manifestation because he was man by nature^[104]. As regards the manhood he is not divine by nature but by manifestation^[105].

But this is not all that is to be said; for the manhood in Christ, according to Nestorius, has really through the union with the Logos become something which it would not be otherwise. The man in Christ has the πρόσωπον of the son of God not only in the sense we have already discussed. For when Nestorius says that the union took place in the πρόσωπον of the son^[106], then this does not mean only that aspect of the interchange of the πρόσωπα, on account of which the manhood as really bore the πρόσωπον of the Logos as the latter took up the πρόσωπον of the man^[107]. Here a new idea is to be noticed. Although—so Nestorius says—the Logos was the son of God even before the incarnation, nevertheless after having taken on the manhood, he can no more alone be called the sow, lest ive should assert the existence of two sons^[108]. The manhood has become the son of God because of the son, united with it^[109]. Again and again Nestorius repeats that two sons of God was not his doctrine.

One will understand this better if a new line of thought is followed, which in Nestorius is clearly shown to us only by the Treatise of Heraclides. To Adam the Logos as his creator gave his image in all glory and honour^[110], but Adam lost it for himself and for his descendants^[111]. Hence the Logos became man in order to efface the fault of the first man and to give back to his nature the original image^[112]. Only he could do it: apart from him there was nothing divine or honourable^[113], and only in the manhood could this renovation take place^[114]. Nestorius gives in this connection a complete answer to the question: Cur deus homo^[115]? and it is not only by physical categories as in Athanasius' de incarnatione^[116] that Nestorius argues. The idea is further not exhausted by the thought that the Logos took such a form of a servant, as was without sin in its creation^[117]. The main thing is that the Logos in the form of a servant brought into existence a sinless man^[118]; hence the stress is laid on the moral and religious development of Jesus.

The man alone, even the second Adam, would not have been able to remain sinless^[119]; but God was acting in him, and observed the commandments in his place because he was in this nature^[120]. Christ had all that belongs to a true man, but without being deprived of the union with God the Logos^[121]. God's will was his own will^[122]; he raised his soul to God conforming his volitions to those of God, so that he was an image of the archetype of the image of God^[123], viz. the Logos. So he renewed our nature in himself by means of a perfect obedience^[124] till the death, to which he was condemned for us^[125] and through which he, as being sinless, gained the victory over the devil^[126]. By means of this renewal humanity received the form of the sonship of him who had created it^[127]. And together with and by virtue of the gift of sonship there was given to the manhood also a share in the position of power and dominion of the son of God^[128].

Now I come to the question: Did Nestorius really make the unity of the natures in the one person of Christ intelligible? As long as one starts by pointing to the Logos on the one side and the man on the other, it is comprehensible that a negative answer should have been given. The Antiochian formulas, which are found in Nestorius, e.g. διὰ τὸν φοροῦντα τὸν φορούμενον σέβω, διὰ τὸν κεκρυμμένον προσκυνῶ τὸν φαινόμενον^[129] and: ὁμολογῶμεν τὸν ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ θεόν, σέβωμεν τὸν τῇ θείᾳ συναφείᾳ τῷ παντοκράτορι θεῷ συμπροσκυνούμενον ἄνθρωπον^[130], seem again and again to force us to such a negative answer. Besides the one πρόσωπον of Christ we find the two πρόσωπα^[131], one of each nature, asserted. There is, as Nestorius himself says, a difference between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Logos^[132]; or: the terms God-Logos and Christ do not have the same meaning^[133]. For, though Christ is not outside the Logos^[134], nevertheless the Logos is not limited by the body^[135]. Christ spoke of the Logos as of his πρόσωπον and as if he were one and had the same πρόσωπον^[136]; there appeared one spirit, one will, one inseparable and indivisible intellect as in one being^[137]; we regard this one as that one and that one as this one, although this one and that one remain^[138]. But if one keeps in mind that Nestorius rejected the idea of a substantial union which would include an alteration of the Logos, then one must say that he came as near as possible to the idea of a union. Where a substantial union is excluded, there the union can only come about on a spiritual plane. Hence Nestorius says that the incarnation took place through an intelligent and rational soul^[139]. By means of the soul a relation is set up between the Logos and the man, and this relation is on both sides one of free will^[140], a relation of love^[141], a relation of giving on the one side and of taking on the other^[142], a relation that becomes so close, that the one presents himself as the other, and that the form of God shows itself in the form of a servant and the form of a servant is teaching, acting, etc. in the form of God.

We must observe, it is true, that the man is God not by nature, but only because God reveals Himself in him, and that the Logos is not flesh by nature, but only manifests himself in the flesh^[143]. But also my late colleague Dr Martin Kähler (†Sept. 7th, 1912), who was regarded as orthodox, held it to be a vain attempt to combine two independent beings or two persons in an individual life^[144]. He himself thought that the union of the Godhead and manhood will become intelligible if understood as a reciprocity of two personal actions, viz. a creative action on the part of the eternal Godhead and a receiving action on the part of the developing manhood^[145]. If thus justice is done to the idea of the unity of the natures in one person, then Nestorius, too, made it intelligible, even where he, dealing with the Logos on the one side and the man on the other, tries to understand the union as the result of the incarnation. His understanding of , it is true, does not coincide with what we mean by "person"—we cannot free ourselves from metaphysics—but we, too, can sympathise with him when he took the incarnation as meaning this, that in the person of Jesus the Logos revealed himself in human form so that the Logos exhibited himself as man and that the man of history was the manifestation of the Logos in such a way that he exhibited himself to us as the eternal Logos^[146]. We, too, therefore, understand what Nestorius means when he said that the of the one is also that of the other.

Still more intelligible does the christology of Nestorius become to us, if, following his advice, we start from the one of the union, i.e. from the one Jesus Christ of history^[147]. As regards him we are able to speak of one person in our sense of the word also. This one person, it is true, is not simply the Logos, as this is not limited by the body, but still less is he a mere man. This Jesus Christ of history is the beginner of a new humanity and at the same time the personal revelation of God, and he is the one because he is the other. Only the renewed manhood could become the image of God, but even this was only possible because the God-Logos was acting here in the manhood by means of a union of giving and taking^[148].

Is this orthodox? The answer I will give in the next lecture.

 

1. Above, p. 20.
2. h. e. 7, 32, 8: ἀγνοοῦντα ἐφευρίσκω τὸν ἄνδρα.
3. Comp. below, p. 90, note 1.
4. Comp. above, p. 21.
5. Mansi, iv, 1064 d.
6. ep. ad Cosmam, Nau, p. 364, 9: C'était un homme excellent et jalousé, qui n'avait pas l'expérience des affaires du monde et qui manquait de ce qu'on appelle amabilité.
7. In a sermon (Nestoriana, p. 300) he addressed Cyril: Quid perturbationes ferinis rugitibus adferre conaris?
8. Comp. above, note 3.
9. Comp. e.g. his letter to Cyril, mentioned above p. 47, Mansi, iv, 1121.
10. ep. vii, Nestoriana, pp. 163–186.
11. Liber Heraclidis, Bedjan, p. 158 f.; Nau, p. 96.
12. Comp. Liber Heracl., Bedjan, p. 188, Nau, p. 113 (cuttlefishes), B. p. 189 = N. 114 (fights with children), p. 204 = 123 (timid dogs), p. 338 = 217 (drowsy men), p. 438 = 280 f. (wounded snakes).
13. I do not point here to the famous apostrophe, which, according to Socrates (7, 29, 4 f.), he gave to the king in his first sermon at Constantinople: Δός μοι, ὦ βασιλεῦ, καθαρὰν τὴν γῆν τῶν αἱρετικῶν, κάγώ σοι τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀντιδώσω. For here, I think, Nestorius is to be assumed as having spoken in the name of God.
14. Comp. above, p. 48.
15. Comp. ep. ix, Nestoriana, p. 194, 14 f.: a me, teste deo, episcopalis honor facillime respuatur.
16. l.c. p. 194, 22.
17. Above, p. 18.
18. Above, p. 22.
19. Comp. Walch, Ketzerhistorie v, 315 f.
20. Comp. Bethune-Baker, Nestorius and his teaching, p. 48.
21. Comp. Nestoriana, p. 166, 19; 170, 30; 179, 4; 181, 18; 182, 8; 184, 15; 185, 12; 194, 16; 208, 16; 267, 16; 273, 6 f .; 300, 20; 301, 4. 5. 16; 305, 15 f.; 312, 7; Liber Heracl., e.g. B. 252 = N. 152; B. 261 = N. 157.
22. Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln, 3rd edition, Breslau, 1897, § 191 p. 262: οὐ δύο φύσεις, ἐπεὶ μὴ τέλειος ἧν ἄνθρωπος, ἀλλ' ἀντὶ ψυχῆς θεὸς ἐν σαρκὶ· μία τὸ ὅλον κατὰ σύνθεσιν φύσις. Comp. Nestorius, Liber Her. B. 12 = N. 6, 5.
23. Liber Her. B. 50 = N. 31.
24. l.c. B. 50 f., 52 ff. = N. 31, 32 ff.
25. l.c. B. 55 f. = N. 35.
26. l.c. B. 56, 58 = N. 35, 36.
27. ep. 4 Migne, 77, 45 c: διάφοροι μὲν αἱ πρὸς ἑνότητα τὴν ἀληθινὴν συναχθεῖσαι φύσεις· εἶς δὲ ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων Χριστὸς καὶ υἱός· οὐχ ὡς τὴν τῶν φύσεων διαφορᾶς ἀνῃρημένης διὰ τὴν ἕνωσιν κ.τ.λ..
28. l.c. p. 45 B.
29. Comp. e.g. de recta fide ad Theodos. 40, Migne, 76, 1193 b: Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς … εἰς ἕν τι τὸ μεταξὺ συγκείμενος.
30. Liber Her. B. 228 = N. 138.
31. Nestorius and his teaching, p. 47.
32. ad Afros 4, Migne, 26, 1036 b.
33. Comp. Bethune-Baker, l.c. p. 48 ff.
34. l.c. p. 50.
35. Comp. e.g. Liber Her. B. 291 = N. 184, B. 302 = N. 192, B. 305 = N. 193: On ne doit pas concevoir une essence sans hypostase, comme si l'union avait eu lieu en une essence.
36. ep. 17, anath. 2, Migne, 77, 120 c.
37. Bethune-Baker, l.c. p. 174.
38. Liber Herac. B. 341 = N. 218, comp. B. 295 = N. 187: Qu'est ce que l'homme parfait qui n'agit pas et qui n'est pas mû selon la nature de l'homme? Il n'est homme que de nom, corps de nom, âme rationnelle de nom, celui qui n'est pas mû selon la nature de son être, etc.
39. l.c. B. 251 = N. 152.
40. Comp. Nestoriana Index s.v. Christus (p. 397 b), κύριος (p. 402 a), υἱός (p. 407 a), πρόσωπον (p. 405 a).
41. Liber Heracl. B. 229 = N. 138 (condensed translation).
42. Comp. Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, 3rd edition, § 223, p. 321: ἐν δύο φύσεσιν … ἐν μιᾷ ὑποστάσει καὶ ἐν ἑνὶ προσώπῳ ἕνα Χριστόν, ἕνα υἱόν, ἕνα κύριον ὁμολογοῦμεν.
43. Hahn, l.c. § 224, pp. 321–330; unitas personae in utraque natura intelligenda (c. 5, p. 326).
44. Comp. above, p. 22 and 25.
45. pp. 82–100.
46. l.c. p. 87.
47. l.c. p. 97.
48. l.c. p. 97.
49. l.c.
50. l.c. p. 98.
51. Comp. Siegmund Schlossmann, Persona und Πρόσωπον im Recht und im christlichen Dogma, Kiel and Leipsic, 1906, p. 11 ff.
52. Comp. Liber Heracl. B. 89 = N. 58: L'homme est reconnu en effet au πρόσωπον humain, c'est à dire à l'apparence du corps et à la forme ⟨du serviteur⟩; comp. B. 31 ff. = N. 18 ff., where Nestorius is regarding a soldier's uniform as his πρόσωπον. This conception of πρόσωπον makes intelligible the phrasings we find B. 241 = N. 145 (dans tout ce que le prosôpon comporte) and B. 276 = N. 174 (en tout ce qui forme le prosôpon).
53. Nestoriana, p. 332, 13.
54. l.c. p. 239, 18 f.: δείξας ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὸ τῆς φύσεως πρόσωπον ἁμαρτίας ἐλεύθερον.
55. Liber Heracl. B. 195 = N. 117.
56. l.c. B. 197 = N. 118.
57. l.c. B. 323 = N. 206.
58. Comp. de incarn. ed. H. B. Swete, Theodori episc. Mops. in epistolas B. Pauli etc., ii, 299, 18 ff.: ὅταν μὲν γὰρ τὰς φύσεις διακρίνωμεν, τελείαν τὴν φύσιν τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου φαμὲν καὶ τέλειον τὸ πρόσωπον· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀπρόσωπον ἔστιν ὑπόστασιν εἰπεῖν· τελείαν δὲ καὶ τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου φύσιν καὶ τὸ πρόσωπον ὁμοίως. ὄταν δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν συνάφειαν ἀπίδωμεν, ἓν πρόσωπον τότε φαμέν.
59. e.g. B. 78 = N. 50; B. 94 = N. 61; B. 106 = N. 69; B. 305 = N. 194: les natures subsistent dans leurs prosôpons et dans leurs natures; B. 341 = N. 218.
60. p. 97 f.
61. Comp. Liber Heracl. B. 316 = N. 202: pour ne pas faire … les prosôpons sans hypostase.
62. B. 305 = N. 194.
63. Comp. Nestoriana, Index, s.v. πρόσωπον, p. 405 a.
64. Comp. Nau's translation, Index, s.v. prosôpon, p. 388 b.
65. e.g. B. 212 = N. 128: C'est donc le Christ qui est le prosôpon de l'union; B. 223 = N. 134 f.: le prosôpon d'union est le Christ; B. 250 = N. 151; B. 307 = N. 195.
66. B. 225 = N. 136; comp. B. 255 = N. 154: Pourquoi donc m'avez-vous condamné? Parce que je lui ai reproché de … commencer par celui-ci (Dieu le Verbe) et de lui attribuer toutes les propriétés, and B. 131 = N. 85: C'est pourquoi celui-là (Cyrille), dans l'incarnation, n'attribue rien à la conduite de l'homme, mais (tout) a Dieu le Verbe, en sorte qu'il's'est servi de la nature humaine pour sa propre conduite.
67. B. 213 = N. 128; B. 215 = N. 130; B. 248 = N. 150; B. 296 = N. 188.
68. B. 213 = N. 128; Nestoriana, p. 283, 13; 341, 2.
69. B. 249 f. = N. 151.
70. B. 250 f. = N. 151; comp. B. 236 = N. 142.
71. B. 70 = N. 45.
72. B. 265 = N. 160.
73. B. 304 = N. 193; comp. B. 239 = N. 144.
74. B. 265 = N. 160.
75. e.g. B. 213 = N. 129: L'union est en effet dans le prosôpon, et non dans la nature ni dans l'essence; B. 230 = N. 139: C'est pour quoi je crie avec insistance en tout lieu que ce n'est pas à la nature, mais au prosôpon, qu'il faut rapporter ce qu'on dit sur la divinité ou sur l'humanite.
76. B. 230 = N. 138 f.
77. p. 97.
78. B. 144 = N. 168.
79. Comp. e.g. B. 78ff. = N. 50 ff.; B. 289 = N. 183; B. 305 = N. 193 f.; B. 334 = N. 203, etc.
80. Comp. e.g. B. 341 f. = N. 219: Pour nous, dans les natures, nous disons un autre et un autre, et, dans l'union, un prosôpon pour l'usage de l'un avec l'autre (ou: pour leur usage mutuel); B. 289 = N. 183: l'humanité utilisant le prosôpon de la divinité et la divinité le prosôpon de l'humanité; B. 307 = N. 195: Ils prennent le prosôpon l'un de l'autre; B. 334 = N. 213: Elles (les natures) se servent mutuellement de leurs prosôpons respectifs.
81. e.g. B. 81 = N. 52; B. 90 f. = N. 59; B. 241 = N. 145.
82. B. 305 = N. 193: L'union des prosôpons a eu lieu en prôsopon. Comp. B. 213 = N. 129: L'union est en effet dans le prosôpon et non clans la nature; B. 275 = N. 174: Il n'y a pas un autre et un autre dans le prosôpon; B. 281 = N. 177: Nous ne disons pas un autre et un autre, car il n'y a qu'un seul prosôpon pour les deux natures.
83. B. 331 = N. 211: C'est dans le prosôpon, qu'a eu lieu l'union, de sorte que celui-ci soit celui-là et celui-là, celui-ci. These last words are to be found very often.
84. Comp. p. 81 with note 3. Similar sentences recur again and again.
85. p. 97.
86. About the difficulties which remain see below, p. 90, note 1.
87. B. 244 = N. 147.
88. B. 84 f. = N 54 f.; B. 244 = N. 147; B. 341 = N. 218.
89. e.g. B. 280 = N. 177; B. 307 = N. 195; B. 315 = N. 201; B. 330 = N. 210 f.; B. 332 = N. 212; B. 360 = N. 231.
90. ep. 101, Migne, 37, 180 a.
91. Comp. B. 84 f. = N. 55; comp. B. 131 = N. 85: La forme de Dieu était en apparence comme un homme.
92. B. 132 = N. 85; B. 118 = N. 76: Parce qu'il était Dieu et immortel, il a accepté dans son prosôpon—lui qui n'était pas coupable—la mort, c'est à dire ce qui est mortel et capable de changement.
93. B. 241 = N. 145; comp. B. 252 = N. 152: Un et le même (est le) prosôpon, mais (il n'en est pas de même pour) l'essence; car l'essence de la forme de Dieu et l'essence de la forme du serviteur demeurent; and B. 262 = N. 158: Il a pris la forme du serviteur pour son prosôpon et non pour sa nature ou par changement d'essence.
94. B. 230 = N. 139.
95. B. 80 = N. 51.
96. B. 274 = N. 173; comp. below, p. 85, note 6.
97. B. 218 = N. 132.
98. B. 76 = N. 49.
99. l. c.; comp. B. 82 = N. 53.
100. B. 83 = N. 54.
101. B. 76 = N. 49.
102. B. 348 = N. 223: Dieu était aussi en lui ce qu'il était lui-même; de sorte que ce que Dieu était en lui pour la formation de son être a son image, lui aussi l'était en Dieu: le prosôpon de Dieu; B. 350 = N. 224: L'homme … est Dieu par ce qui est uni.
103. Gregory, ep. 101, Migne, 37, 18: τὸ γὰρ ἠργμένον ἢ προκόπτον ἢ τελειούμενον οὐ θεός, κἂν διὰ τὴν κατὰ μικρὸν ἀνάδειξιν οὕτω λέγηται; Nestorius, Liber Herac. e.g. B. 273 = N. 173; B. 280 = N. 177; B. 283 = N. 179; B. 286 = N. 181; B. 332 = N. 212; B. 349 = N. 224; B. 360 = N. 231.
104. B. 349 = N. 224.
105. B. 288 = N. 182.
106. B. 231 = N. 140.
107. Comp. B. 331 = N. 211: A cause de celui qui l'a pris pour son prosôpon, celui qui a été pris obtient d'être le prosôpon de celui qui l'a pris.
108. Nestoriana, p. 275, 1–5 (condensed).
109. Nestoriana, p. 274, 17: υἱὸς διὰ τὸν συνημμένον υἱόν; Liber Heracl. B. 145 = N. 168: Cette humanité est dite le Fils de Dieu par l'union avec le Fils (et non par la nature); B. 80 = N. 51: … et il a donne à la forme du serviteur (qui est) sa forme, un nom qui l'emporte sur tous les noms, c'est à dire le nom de Fils, auquel tout genou, etc.
110. B. 90 = N. 58.
111. B. 91 = N. 59; B. 107 f. = N. 70.
112. B. 91 = N. 59.
113. l.c.
114. e.g. B. 267 = N. 161: On avait besoin de la divinité adhérente pour … refaire la forme de l'image qui avait été détruite par nous; (on avait besoin) aussi de l'humanité qui fut renouvelée et qui reprit sa forme; l'humanité était nécessaire pour observer l'ordre, qui avait existé.
115. e.g. B. 297 = N. 188: Dieu le Verbe s'est incarné pour faire de l'humanité la forme de Dieu en lui, et pour le renouveler en lui dans la nature de l'humanité …, parce que lui seul pouvait rénover celui qui était tombé en premier lieu par la transgression de l'inobservance des préceptes; et il donna sa vie pour lui, pour les observer, parce qu'il ne suffisait pas qu'il se conservât sans péché; sinon, notre chute serait demeurée sans guérison comme le paralytique qui se soigne et qui reste sans marcher, mais pour qui le médecin marche, et qui le porte, mais qui ne lui dit pas: "Lève toi (et) marche, car tu a été guéri pour marcher." C'est pourquoi il a pris une forme de serviteur qui etait sans peche dans sa création, au point de recevoir dans les observances des préceptes un nom supérieur à tous les noms, et de fortifier, par les observances et par la vigilance, ce qui etait dans la rénovation de sa créature.
116. Migne, ser. graeca 25, 96–197; comp. A. Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 4th edition, Tübingen, 1909, ii, 159–162.
117. Liber Heracl. B. 297 = N. 188 (see p. 87, note 6).
118. Nestoriana, p. 239, 19: δείξας ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὸ τῆς φύσεως πρόσωπον ἁμαρτίας ἐλεύθερον.
119. Liber Heracl. B. 298 = N. 189.
120. l.c.
121. B. 133 = N. 86.
122. B. 102 = N. 67; compare the preceding sentence: Parce que donc il s'est humilié en toute chose d'une façon incompréhensible par une humiliation sans pareille, il est apparu encore un seul esprit, une seule volonté, une seule intelligence inséparable et indivisible, comme dans un seul être. Comp. also Nestoriana, fragments, 197, 198, 201 and 202 (pp. 65 f. and 219 f. and 224) the genuineness of which perhaps may be defended with more confidence than I showed, in my Nestoriana (p. 65 f.).
123. B. 96 = N. 62; comp. B. 102 = N. 66: La forme de serviteur l'a servi absolument comme il le voulait.
124. B. 342 = N. 219.
125. B. 102 = N. 66.
126. Comp. B. 297 = N. 188; B. 299 = N. 189; Nestoriana, p. 344 6 ff.
127. B. 299 = N. 189.
128. Nestoriana, p. 361, 22; comp. above, p. 86 f., note 6.
129. Nestoriana, p. 262, 3 f.
130. l.c. p. 249, 2 ff.
131. Comp. above, p. 78, and B. 348 = N. 223: les prosôpons de l'union. Nestorius was even able to write: Nous ne disons pas union des prosôpons, mais des natures (B. 252 = N. 152), and as it is not the translator who is to be blamed for the contradiction to other statements of Nestorius which is to be seen here (comp. above, p. 82, note 1), it must be conceded that Nestorius in his terminology was not quite free from inaccuracy (which is to be observed also in his position toward the comparison of the union in Christ to the union of body and soul, comp B. 236 = N. 142 and B. 292 = N. 185). Nevertheless there is no real contradiction in Nestorius' thoughts. What he is denying (B. 252 = N. 152) is one natural prosôpon: C'est pourquoi l'union a lieu pour le prosôpon et non pour la nature. Nous ne disons pas union des prosôpons, mais des natures. Car dans l'union il n'y a quhin seul prosôpon, mais dans les natures un autre et un autre, de sorte que le prosôpon soit reconnu sur l'ensemble (B. 252 = N. 152). This is clearly to be seen also in other passages, e.g. B. 304 f. = N. 193: Ce n'est pas sans prosôpon et sans hypostase que chacune d'elles (viz. natures) est connue dans les diversités des natures. On ne conçoit pas deux prosôpons des fils, ni encore deux prosôpons des hommes, mais d'un seul homme, qui est mu de la même manière par l'autre. L'union des prosôpons a eu lieu en prosôpon et non en essence ni en nature. On ne doit pas concevoir une essence sans hypostase, comme si l'union avait eu lieu en une essence et qu'il y eut un prosôpon d'une seule essence. Mais les natures subsistent dans leurs prosôpons et dans leurs natures et dans le prosôpon d'union. Quant au prosôpon naturel de l'une, l'autre se sert du même en vertu de l'union; ainsi il n'y a qu'un prosôpon pour les deux natures.—B. 239 = N. 144: … le prosôpon de l'une est aussi celui de l'autre et réciproquement.—B. 333 f. = N. 212 f.: La divinité se sert du prosôpon de l'humanité et l'humanité de celui de la divinité; de cette manière nous disons un seul prosôpon pour les deux.—B. 340 = N. 218: Ne comprends tu pas, comment les pères confessent un prosôpon de deux natures? et que les différences des natures ne sont pas supprimées à cause de l'union parce qu'elles se réunissent en un seul prosôpon, qui appartient aux natures et aux prosôpons.—We need however, a more exhaustive examination of Nestorius' terminology, especially of the meaning of πρόσωπον in his works. In B. 240 f. = N. 145 (Ces choses [corps et âme] s'unissent en une nature et en prosôpon naturel. Dieu prit pour lui la forme du serviteur et non d'un autre pour son prosôpon et sa filiation; ainsi sont ceux qui sont unis en une nature. II prit la forme du serviteur, etc.) the words ainsi sont ceux qui sont unis en une nature must have been inadvertently transposed: their place, in my opinion, is before Dieu prit pour lui, etc.
132. B. 120 = N. 133.
133. B. 254 = N. 153.
134. l.c.
135. B. 239 = N. 144.
136. B. 79 = N. 51.
137. B. 102 = N. 67 (see above, p. 88, note 7: comme).
138. B. 348 = N. 223.
139. B. 128 = N. 83.
140. B. 264 f. = N. 159: … une union volontaire en prosôpon et non en nature.
141. B. 81 = N. 52: unies par l'amour et dans le mime prosôpon; B. 275 = N. 174: réunies en égalité par adhésion (συνάφεια) et par amour.
142. B. 299 = N. 189 f.: … afin que le prosôpon fût commun à celui qui donnait la forme et à celui qui la recevait à cause de son obéissance; B. 348 = N. 223: Par les prosôpons de l'union l'un est dans l'autre et cet 'un' n'est pas conçu par diminution, ni par suppression, ni par confusion, mais par l'action de recevoir et de donner et par l'usage de l'union de l'un avec l'autre, les prosôpons recevant et dormant l'un et l'autre.
143. Comp. above, p. 83 f. and 85.
144. Kähler, Die Wissenschaft der christlichen Lehre, 3rd edition, Leipsic, 1905, § 388, p. 339.
145. l.c.
146. Comp. Liber Heracl. B. 362 = N. 233: l'incarnation est conçue comme l'usage mutuel des deux (prosôpons) par prise et don.
147. Liber Heracl. B. 230 = N. 139 and in many other places the prosôpon of the union evidently is the prosôpon of the flesh. Comp. B. 304 f. = N. 193 (above p. 90, note 1): On ne conçoit pas deux prosôpons des fils, ni encore deux prosôpons des homines, mais d'un seul homme, qui, etc.
148. Comp. above, p. 88.