Theotokos - A Fourth Century Controversy Relevant today

To the modern-day Protestant, use of the term Theotokos is likely to produce quizzical looks and perhaps questions of “Theo-what?”  Were one to use the term’s rough English translation, “Mother of God”, people would not likely be as confused and, whether they were inclined to be congenial, indifferent, or hostile to its use, they would at least know that Mary, the mother of Jesus was being referred to.  Marian doctrine and theology has however, been an important topic of discussion since at least the fourth century, and is currently experiencing a renewed interest among many in both the Protestant and Roman Catholic camps.  Many protestant theologians “have begun to reflect on [Mary] in distinctively devotional ways and for distinctively evangelical concerns.”[1]  In the fourth-century Mediterranean world, the term Theotokos was instantly recognizable to all within the Church and became the subject of what may have been the fiercest theological debate since the Arian controversy was decided at Nicaea.  As bishops on opposing sides vehemently defended their respective positions, the fate of what had become a central theological term to many, as well as the makeup of orthodox Christology and Mariology hung in the balance.  In this paper, I will show that the controversy between St. Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius over the use of the term Theotokos is not as simple an issue as modern readers may suppose, but is shrouded in misconception, tradition, and  well-intended dogmatism on both sides.  I will also contend that a proper understanding of Mariology is critical to a proper Christology.  Before discussing the conflict itself, it is important to identify three elements of the historical and ecclesiological backdrop against which this drama played out.

Firstly, the council of Constantinople in 381 resulted in changes to the ecclesiastical structure that did not sit well with all concerned.  Prior to the rise of the papacy and Rome’s assertion that it was the head of the ecumenical Church, the major sees of the Church were seen as a confederation of bishoprics with Rome having a position of primacy among the western sees and Alexandria being chief among those in the east.  The council’s decision at Constantinople elevated Constantinople and moved Alexandria down in rank.  Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev gave insight into the way the bishoprics viewed their relationship to each other:

The primacy of the bishop of Constantinople was consolidated in the east . . . however, the patriarch of Constantinople was never perceived as the head of the ecumenical Church: he was only the second in rank after the Roman bishop and the first in honor among the eastern patriarchs.[2]

It has been suggested that jealousy may have set in in Alexandria which contributed to the theological hostilities that were to break out between Nestorius (bishop of Constantinople) and Cyril (bishop of Alexandria) some forty-eight years later.[3]  Whether or not there was any ecclesiastical jealousy involved, the tensions between the two cities had definitely increased since the council.

The second and possibly most significant contributing factor in the conflict was the fact that, over the years, markedly different theological traditions had developed in Antioch and Alexandria.  Those of the Antiochene school (including Nestorius) traced their theological legacy through such thinkers as Diodore, John Chrysostom, and John of Antioch, back to Ignatius of Antioch and the apostle Peter.  They placed great emphasis on Christ’s human nature,  thought views ranged from traditional orthodoxy on one end of the spectrum to Arianism on the other (indeed, several Antiochene bishops were deposed for their positions for or against Arianism as the political tide changed throughout the fourth and fifth centuries).  The Alexandrian school, on the other hand, focused more on the divinity of Christ.  They traced much of their theological tradition back to such teachers as Philo, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and the apostle Mark, focusing more on a life of contemplative piety in contrast to the critical, rational inquiry of the Antiochenes.  Tradition, though it almost seems a dirty word in many Protestant ears, possessed great significance in the early Church as it served as a safeguard against improper biblical interpretation.  Indeed, even today tradition holds great sway in the decisions and theology of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic confessions.  It is important to note that in the ensuing battle, both sides would appeal to tradition in support of their cause.  The problem with this is that each bishop “believed that he had received from his predecessors this tradition handed over by the apostles.”[4]  Cyril, in his letter anathematizing Nestorius’ teaching appealed to tradition in saying, “For it is not possible for us to overlook the churches thus troubled, and the people scandalized, and the right faith set aside, and the sheep scattered by you, who ought to save them, if indeed we are ourselves adherents of the right faith, and followers of the devotion of the holy fathers.”[5]  Nestorius, in making his case appealed to the fathers in the same way, “These are the traditions of the holy fathers. These are the precepts of the Holy Scriptures.”[6]

A third difference helped set the stage for the Theotokos controversy and grew out of the traditions mentioned above.  This disparity manifested itself in the way that each group responded to the threat of Arianism in the early fourth century.  In treating the Arian assertion that passages limiting the abilities or knowledge of Christ indicate that he is subordinate to the father the Alexandrians proposed that these passages only “applied to the Son of God in his incarnate state.”[7]  Theologians from the Antiochian mindset did not feel that this position was a strong enough defense against Arianism and suggested that the passages “referred not to the divine logos, but only to the man Jesus.”[8]  To the Antiochenes, the idea that God could suffer implied that God was changeable.  In keeping with this point of view, Nestorius viewed the idea that the logos could suffer as an affront not only to accepted tradition (in the Antiochene sense), but to Scripture as well.

By reading in a superficial way the tradition of those holy men (you were guilty of a pardonable ignorance), you concluded that they said that the Word who is coeternal with the Father was passible. Please look more closely at their language and you will find out that that divine choir of fathers never said that the consubstantial godhead was capable of suffering, or that the whole being that was coeternal with the Father was recently born, or that it rose again, seeing that it had itself been the cause of resurrection of the destroyed temple. If you apply my words as fraternal medicine, I shall set the words of the holy fathers before you and shall free them from the slander against them and through them against the holy scriptures.[9]

Ironically, each side ended up thinking that the other was giving away too much theological ground to the Arians.  As a result, while both camps were opposed to Arius, and accepted the Nicene and Constantinopolitan decrees, they “each had received a different tradition of how to get to it.”[10]

The year 428 AD marks the rise of Nestorius to the archbishopric of Constantinople.  Having been schooled in the doctrine of Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350-428), he had learned well a Christology that said the man Jesus served as a temple in which the Word dwelt.

In essence, Theodore spoke of God the Word and the man Jesus as two subjects, whose union in the one person is not so much ontological or essential as it is conditional . . . existing in our perception: in worshipping Christ, we unite the two natures and confess not “two sons,” but one Christ – God and man.[11]

While this wording may seem to us, as it did to the Alexandrians, to be very Arian, the Antiochian school did not see it that way.  In fact, they staunchly opposed Arianism in all its forms that persisted after the decision at Nicaea.  While this method was destined to be condemned as heretical, in a historical irony it was developed in an attempt to repudiate heresy.  Church historian Socrates of Constantinople recounts measures taken by both John Chrysostom and Nestorius to stamp out the remainders of Arianism that they found in their jurisdictions.[12]  Socrates wrote of Nestorius that he “cannot concede . . . that he denied the divinity of Christ, but that he seemed scared of the term Theotokos.”[13]  The Antiochene school as a whole, and Nestorius, did hold that Mary did not in fact give birth to the divine nature of Christ, but only to the human nature, and so Theotokos was not an accurate portrayal of the mystery of the incarnation.[14]  In analyzing the Christology of some of Nestorius’ pre-controversy sermons, Robert Wilken concluded that Nestorius “is first and foremost interested in refuting the Arians rather than in developing a proper understanding of the person of Christ.”[15]  This assessment is reasonable in light of Nestorius writing, for he declared, “It is clear that God the Word was not the son of David,”[16] and cites a variety of biblical passages from which he concluded that, “Ten thousand other expressions witness to the human race that they should not think that it was the godhead of the Son that was recently killed but the flesh which was joined to the nature of the godhead.”[17]  Nestorius then, though developing patently heretical ideas, did so with the best of intentions. 

Though it may seem easy to a modern observer to dismiss what seems to be slight differences in terminology, the question of whether to call Mary Theotokos or Christotokos (or Anthropotokos, as was suggested as a third alternative) was seen by the fourth century Church as a critical aspect of orthodox theology.  While Nestorius’ theology was eventually condemned as heretical, it appears that his intentions may have been partially well-founded.  From the standpoint of Nestorius, Theotokos lent itself far too easily to Mary worship and, indeed, he felt this was already occurring.  Phillip Dancy noted that, “there is little room for debate concerning the view of Theotokos in the fifth century social context” and “Theotokos as interpreted by theologians, even if Christological in focus, may not have been so readily understood as such by the common layman.”[18]  So, to the bishop from Constantinople, changing the term to one not as easily misunderstood was a logical and prudent matter.  In the Bazaar of Heracleides, a late writing, Nestorius defended his cause as a noble one, saying that he was attempting to negotiate a middle-ground between those who were using differing terms for Mary, but actually had the same underlying orthodox Christology.  He wrote, “And by things such as these we confess that Christ is God and man, for of them was born in the flesh Christ, who is God above all.”[19]  Based on this late Nestorian writing, it has been suggested that Nestorius was not a heretic, but a victim of a grave misunderstanding.  Philip Dancy concluded:

Never have two theologians more completely misunderstood one another's meaning. They approached the subject from widely different angles, but in substance they were not wholly or irreconcilably opposed; the trouble arose chiefly because, instead of conferring together on the purpose, meaning, and associations of their terms, each drew inferences, and assumed that the other meant what he himself might have intended to convey, had he himself employed similar language. Nestorius therefore deduced that Cyril was Apollinarian, and Cyril deduced that Nestorius was Adoptionist.[20]

This assessment, however, does not line up with the fact that Cyril’s main arguments against Nestorius are that he is a theological innovator (something the early fathers frowned upon) and that “the titles Nestorius suggests as helpfully describing the incarnate Son actually twist or distort what is taking place in the incarnation.”[21].  Here were two important points made by Cyril.  First, he said that Nestorius erred in refusing to “welcome the tradition of all the initiates throughout the world.”[22]  That is, when interpreting scripture and creating doctrine, one ought to give great credence to what has been believed and taught by the Church as a whole throughout the ages.  Secondly, Cyril’s contention was that Mariology begets Christology.  Cyril wrote in his first Anathema against Nestorius, “If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the holy virgin is the mother of God, let him be anathema.”[23]  In fact, Dancy revealed Nestorius faulty Christology in his citing of Richard Kyle’s Nestorius: The Partial Rehabilitation of a Heretic,

Nestorius believed that the incarnation cannot have involved the impassible Word in any change of suffering.  Hypostatic union is the union of the Logos with the flesh, which took place in the womb of the virgin Mary at the moment when Christ’s human nature was conceived.  Cyril’s theory of hypostatic union, Nestorius believed, made the Word subject to the God-man’s sufferings.[24]

A redefining of the status of Mary, then, was intertwined with a redefining of the very nature of Christ.  By saying that she was not the mother of God, Nestorius was saying that Christ was not God in the womb of Mary, but was something less.  This idea was simply unacceptable. In his third epistle, through which he delivered the Council of Ephesus’ anathemas against Nestorius, Cyril systematically reveals the faults in Nestorius’ Christology, citing a misreading of the Nicene Creed and of Scripture itself.  Cyril affirms that the divine Word and the fleshly Christ are one, repudiating Nestorius’ assertion that the Word “tabernacled”[25] in the man Christ.  Cyril writes that the only begotten Word of God

was incarnate and made man; that is, taking flesh of the holy Virgin, and having made it his own from the womb, he subjected himself to birth for us, and came forth man from a woman, without casting off that which he was; but although he assumed flesh and blood, he remained what he was, God in essence and in truth. Neither do we say that his flesh was changed into the nature of divinity, nor that the ineffable nature of the Word of God has laid aside for the nature of flesh; for he is unchanged and absolutely unchangeable, being the same always, according to the Scriptures. For although visible and a child in swaddling clothes, and even in the bosom of his Virgin Mother, he filled all creation as God, and was a fellow-ruler with him who begat him[26]

It is very clear from both the writings of Nestorius and Cyril that Nestorius was not simply opposed to a perceived worship of Mary, but was promoting a dangerous and unorthodox Christology that undermined the Church’s understanding of the nature and person of Christ.

            What, then, is to be made of Nestorius’ writings in Bazaar?  Given the fact that the position presented was so far deviated from that which was clearly understood by Cyril and the other bishops who condemned Nestorius, it is likely that Bazaar either represents a change of heart in Nestorius, whose theology may have regained its orthodoxy at some point after his excommunication, or that the document is not authentic.  At any rate, the assertion that Bazaar proves that Nestorius maintained an orthodox theology of the two natures of Christ seems poorly founded when compared with his extant writings attesting to the contrary.

Conclusion

            The centrality of the term Theotokos to proper Christology was affirmed at the council of Ephesus, as was the heretical label for Nestorius’ teaching on the matter.  For these early fathers, as well as for later fathers such as Luther and Zwingli[27], Mary

became the mother of God, in which work so many blessings and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass a man’s understanding. . . So, according to the dogma of the ancient church, Mary stands for God’s being made fully human in Jesus Christ, without which there would be no salvation for humankind, in accordance with the ancient and honored dictum, ‘what is not assumed cannot be saved’.[28]

A key lesson that may be gleaned from the events culminating at the council of Ephesus was stated a few decades earlier by Caesarean bishop Basil the Great.  Basil contended that a proper understanding of God necessarily employs proper terminology about God.  As he put it, “we cannot become like God unless we have knowledge of Him, and without lessons there will be no knowledge.  Instruction begins with the proper use of speech.”[29]  The term Theotokos, therefore, is not an arcane convention or a worship-inducing, non-biblical label, but is a statement of the orthodox understanding of the person and nature of Christ.    Changing the wording changes the meaning and results in a skewed communication of right doctrine.  The council of Ephesus, then, was right to condemn the Nestorian heresy and protect the undivided nature of Christ,

the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father, that is, of the substance of the Father; God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both those in heaven and those in the earth. Who for us men and for our salvation, came down, and was incarnate, and was made man. He suffered, and rose again the third day.[30]

Secondly, the confrontation between Cyril and Nestorius speaks to the danger of theological innovation.  While innovation is commendable in many arenas, in that of theology, where so many great exegetes have gone before, it often leads to heretical ideas and teaching as can be seen in so many of the cults in the world today.  A solid footing in the teaching of the Church over the centuries is essential in maintaining an orthodox theology.

Finally, an understanding of Mariology and its Christological implications is important to the theology of evangelical believers.  A Christology devoid of Mary except at Christmas is a gross overreaction to abuses in historical Marian piety and leaves much room for theological error.  Tim Perry wrote:

evangelical Protestantism will not be able to maintain its insistence on a Chalcedonian Christology as a definer of Christian orthodoxy while continuing to say almost nothing about the woman in whom divine and human natures united without division, without separation, without confusion, and without change.[31]

If a proper understanding of Mary is to prevail, the Theotokos controversy spearheaded by Cyril and Nestorius stands tall as educator par-excellence.  Its issues of proper terminology, appropriate devotion, and the importance of correct doctrinal language are as relevant today as they were a millennium and a half ago.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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[1] Tim Perry, "Evangelicals and Mary." Theology Today 65, no. 2 (July 1, 2008): 226-238. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed June 6, 2012), 226.

[2] Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, Orthodox Christianity (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimirs Seminary Pr, 2011), 108-109.

[3] Everett Ferguson, Church History (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2005), 256.

[4] Robert L. Wilken, Tradition, exegesis, and the christological controversies. Church History 34, no. 2 (June 1, 1965): 123-145. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed June 6, 2012)., 123.

[5] "Monachos.net - Cyril of Alexandria, Third epistle to Nestorius, including the twelve anathemas." Monachos.net - Orthodoxy through Patristic and Monastic Study. http://www.monachos.net/content/patristics/patristictexts/135-cyril-of-alexandria-third-epistle-to-nestorius-including-the-twelve-anathemas (accessed June 15, 2012).

[6] "Monachos.net - Nestorius of Constantinople, Second epistle to Cyril of Alexandria." Monachos.net - Orthodoxy through Patristic and Monastic Study. http://www.monachos.net/content/patristics/patristictexts/34-patrtexts/189-nestorius-to-cyril2 (accessed June 15, 2012).

[7] Ferguson, Church History, 257.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Nestorius, Second Epistle.

[10] Wilkin, Tradition, 127.

[11] Alfeyev, Orthodox Christianity, 97.

[12] Wilkin, Tradition, 126.

[13] Christopher A. Hall, Learning Theology with the Church Fathers (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2002), 86.

[14] Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church: the Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 235.

[15] Wilkin, Tradition, 133.

[16] Nestorius, Second Epistle.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Dancy, Phillip Andrew. "Nestorius and the rejection of Theotokos: his political and social condemnation." Fides Et Historia 37, no. 2-1 (2006): 151-163. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed June 6, 2012)., 153-154.

[19] Dancy, Nestorius, 157.

[20] Ibid., 161.

[21] Christopher A. Hall, Learning Theology with the Church Fathers (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2002), 89.

[22] Hall, Learning Theology, 89.

[23] Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (New Haven, Ct.: Yale University Press, 1998), 56.

[24] Dancy, Nestorius, 162.

[25] Nestorius,Second Epistle.

[26] Cyril, Third Epistle.

[27] Perry, Evangelicals and Mary, 227-228.

[28] Harding Meyer, The ecumenical unburdening of the mariological problem: a Lutheran perspective,  Journal Of Ecumenical Studies 26, no. 4 (September 1, 1989): 681-696. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed June 6, 2012), 685..

[29] Hall, Learning Theology, 104.

[30] Cyril, Third Epistle.

[31] Perry, Evangelicals and Mary, 232.