victory, and since there existed now in the East a theology which was able to master difficult formulas by means of scholastic distinctions and arguments.
Also the Occident, as far as it belonged to the East-Roman Empire, Rome included, had had to accept the Cyrillian-Chalcedonian orthodoxy of the council of 553; and Rome led the young nations of the mediaeval world in the same direction. When in the Adoptianism of Spain old western tradition, not consistent with the Cyrillian-Chalcedonian orthodoxy, emerged once again, the Carolingian theologians with the agreement of Rome rejected them, and Alcuin in conformity with the Cyrillian-Chalcedonian orthodoxy contended: in assumptione carnis a deo persona perit hominis, non natura[1].
There cannot, therefore, be the least doubt, that Nestorius was an exponent of a doctrine which even if not through the decree of Chalcedon, at least through the decisions of later time, was condemned by the church. Hence, measured by the standard of church-orthodoxy, Nestorius—in spite of all Professor Bethune-Baker's attempts to save him—must be regarded as a heretic.
Nevertheless his doctrine has more historical right than the Cyrillian orthodoxy. That is what remains for me to show.
Nestorius was a pupil of the Antiochian school; all
- ↑ adv. Felicem 2, 12, Migne, ser. latina 101, 156 a.
