Chalcedon before it was held. Was his doctrine really in harmony with that of this council? Was this heretic a rudely maltreated exponent of orthodoxy?

These questions, you see, are not only raised by Professor Bethune-Baker; but we, too, have to raise them, when we are considering the material we find in the sources.

Hence I hope that, while dealing with these questions, I shall succeed in gaining your further interest during the course of the next three lectures.

In the next lecture we shall see that really to no other heretic has been done such great injustice as to Nestorius. The last two lectures will deal with the doctrine of Nestorius and his position in the history of dogma.

II

IN the preceding lecture we saw that by the increased knowledge of the works of Nestorius and especially by his lately rediscovered Treatise of Heraclides, written not long before his death, and by his still later letter to the inhabitants of Constantinople, the question is raised whether this heretic was a rudely maltreated exponent of orthodoxy.

About his doctrine we shall speak in the next lecture, to-day it will only occasionally be mentioned. For what now will occupy us is the fact that he was

indeed so rudely maltreated that his life really became what he himself called it-a tragedy. This tragedy is composed of five acts: first the undivided affection of his parish was robbed from him, then the sympathies of the Occident, then the favour of the court and his episcopal office; then he was brought into disfavour as a heretic also amongst the majority of his friends, and finally as an exiled and forgotten man he was exposed to common condemnation.

1

It is well known that Nestorius in April 428 was called out of the monastery of Euprepios, in the neighbourhood of Antioch, to the vacant bishopric of Constantinople1. We knew before the discovery of the Treatise of Heraclides that it was the aversion of the court to the election of a Constantinopolitan which caused the decision to be in his favour2. Now we are told more about this by an address which Nestorius in his Treatise of Heraclides puts into the mouth of the Emperor Theodosius3. Of course this address cannot be regarded as given by the Emperor in these very words; but it is certainly trustworthy in what it tells about the events in Constantinople. We see here that the sentiment of the court was the result of lengthy 1 Comp. Hauck's Real-Encyklopädie, xIII, 737, 45 ff.

2 1.c. p. 737, 37 ff.

3 Bedjan, p. 377 ff.; Nau, p. 242 ff.; comp. Bethune-Baker, Nestorius and his teaching, p. 6 ff. note 3.

transactions, in which the emperor made great concessions to the monkish party and its leader, the archimandrite Dalmatius. The monks themselves, according to the narration of Nestorius, finally asked for the decision of the court1. They, too,-later the most embittered enemies of Nestorius-had at first no ground for being discontented with his election. And, apart from the heretical parties, which experienced the antiheretical zeal of the new bishop soon after his enthronement2, this contentment was at first general3.

But already before the end of Nestorius' first year of office, the controversy began. Nestorius asserts in the Treatise of Heraclides in just the same manner as in a letter of December 430 to John of Antioch and in his Tragedy, that he was not its beginner-he had found a quarrel over the question as to whether Mary was to be called θεοτόκος or ἀνθρωποτόκος, when he arrived at Constantinople, and in order to settle it, he had suggested the term χριστοτόκος. When did Nestorius do this? I think it was common opinion that it took place in his "first sermon on the coтókos," which dates perhaps as far back as 428, perhaps only from the beginning of 429. But in the fragments of this sermon 5

1 Bedjan, p. 379; Nau, p. 243 f.; Bethune-Baker, p. 8, note. 2 Comp. Hauck's Real-Encyklopädie, xïí, 738, 1 ff.

3 1.c. p. 737, 53 ff.

4 Bedjan, p. 151; Nau, p. 91; ep. ad Joann., Nestoriana, p. 185, Tragoedia, Nestoriana, p. 203.

5 Nestoriana, pp. 249-264; comp. pp. 134-146.

the term XPLOTOтÓKOS does not occur. Now Nestorius in his Treatise of Heraclides tells us that the quarrelling parties, which abusively designated each other by the names of "Manicheans" and "Photinians", came into the bishop's palace and begged his counsel. He recognised that neither the friends of the OEоTÓKоs were Manicheans nor were the upholders of the term άνθρωποτόκος adherents of the heresy of Photinus, and he declared that both terms, when rightly understood, were not heretical, but as a safer one he suggested the term χριστοτόκος. In this way, Nestorius narrates, the parties were reconciled, and they were at peace with one another until Cyril of Alexandria intruded himself in the matter2.

In this account, three points are worthy of consideration. First the notice that Nestorius advised the quarrelling parties in his home. This report is undoubtedly trustworthy, for in his first sermon on the OеOTÓKOS Nestorius directly makes mention of such persons, who shortly before in his presence argued against each other the question whether Mary should be called θεοτόκος or ἀνθρωποτόκος. This extension of our knowledge as regards the place where Nestorius advised the contending parties seems to be very unimportant. But that this is not the case we shall now 1 Bedjan, p. 151 f.; Nau, p. 91 f. 21.c. pp. 152 and 92.

3 Nestoriana, p. 251, 21 ff.: Audiant haec, qui..., sicut modo cognovimus, in (ex?) nobis invicem frequenter sciscitantur: EOTÓKOS... Maria, an autem ȧv0ρwжотÓкоS?

see, if we discuss the second point which in the abovequoted narration of the Treatise of Heraclides seems to be worthy of consideration.

Nestorius, as I mentioned, says here he had declared that both terms, θεοτόκος as well as ἀνθρωποτόκος, rightly understood, were not heretical, but that he recommended as more safe the term χριστοτόκος'. This account of Nestorius seems to be untrustworthy; for his well-known first sermon on the Geoтókos, preserved in long fragments2, seems wholly to exclude the term coтóKOS; and it is likewise well known that Nestorius was continually reproached for interdicting or at least refusing to give to Mary the title θεοτόκος. Even his afterwards unfaithful friend, John of Antioch, asked him in a letter of the autumn of 430 to give up his opposition against this designation of Mary. Is Nestorius, therefore, telling a falsehood when he narrates that he had declared the OcOTÓKOS, when rightly understood, to be non-heretical? Here the place of meeting between Nestorius and the quarrelling parties becomes important. For, while I do not believe that Nestorius even in his first sermon on the coтókos, in spite of his criticism, declared the term to be nevertheless tolerable, yet it is not quite improbable that he did so previously in the

1 Comp. above, p. 29.

2 Comp. above, p. 28, note 5.

3 Comp. sermo 18, Nestoriana, p. 300, 15: Non dicit, inquiunt, TÒ EоTÓKOS, et hoc est totum, quod nostris sensibus ab illis opponitur. 4 Mansi, IV, 1065 B.