of Mopsuestia[1], speaks about two πρόσωπα in Christ, viz. the πρόσωπον of the Godhead and the πρόσωπον of the manhood, are more numerous[2] than Professor Bethune-Baker's book[3] 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[4], 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[5]. 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
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ p. 97 f.
- ↑ Comp. Liber Heracl. B. 316 = N. 202: pour ne pas faire … les prosôpons sans hypostase.
- ↑ B. 305 = N. 194.
