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Translated by P. E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 115 Pages
Page 20
The hereditary title of the Mother of the Lord, which even Theodoret, when his strife with S. Cyril was over, recognised as '[86] the Apostolical tradition,' excluded this humanising of our Lord. And so Nestorius (a grave historian says [87]) continuously teaching hereon in the Church, endeavoured in all ways to expel the term Theotocos, and dreaded the term as they do hobgoblins [88]. This he did, Socrates adds, 'out of great ignorance.'
'Being by nature fluent of speech, he was thought to have been educated; but in truth, he was ill-trained, and disdained to learn the books of the ancient interpreters. For being puffed up for his fluency of speech, he did not attend accurately to the ancients, but thought himself superior to all.'
Yet the term Theotocos had been in such familiar use by every school for nearly two centuries, that the aversion of Nestorius to it can hardly have been simple ignorance. It was probably the instinctive aversion of heresy to the term which condemns it. Socrates himself mentions that it was used by Origen and Eusebius: it was used alike by Alexander, the predecessor of S. Athanasius [89], whose Council first condemned Arius; by S. Athanasius himself [90]; by the Arian Eusebius [91]; and by S. Cyril of Jerusalem [92], who did not use the word Homoousion. The Apostate Emperor Julian said, in controversy with the Christians, '[93] Did Isaiah say that a Virgin should bear God? but ye do not cease calling Mary Theotocos,' attesting that the word was in the mouths of all Christians. A little later it was used by the two S. Gregories [94]. It was used also by the great predecessor of Nestorius in the see of Constantinople, S. Chrysostom, as also by Ammon Bishop of Adrianople in Egypt, and by Antiochus Bishop of Ptolemais in Phoenicia [95]. The corresponding title, Mater Dei, was used in the Latin Church by S. Ambrose [96], Cassian [97], and Vincent of Lerins [98].
John of Antioch, at a later period, entreating Nestorius to accept the term, in order to prevent the impending schism, said to him,
'This name no one of the ecclesiastical teachers has declined. For those who have used it have been many and eminent, and those who have not used it have never imputed any error to those who used it.'
John endeavoured to smoothe to him the adoption of the word.
' [99] The ten days, which Celestine allowed, are very short, but it might be made matter of a single day, perhaps only of a few hours. For to use a convenient word in the dispensation of our Sovereign Ruler Christ for us, which has been used by many of the fathers, and is true as to the saving Birth of the Virgin, is easy; which thy holiness ought not to decline, nor take that into account, that one ought not to do things contrary. For if thy mind is the same as that of the fathers and teachers of the Church (for this, my lord, I have heard from many common friends), what grief has it, to utter a pious thought in a corresponding word?'
86. [q] Theod. Haeret. Tab. iv. 12.
89. [t] Ep. ad Alex. in Theod. H. E. i. 3.
90. [u] Against Arians Orat. iii. n. 14, 29, 30. Orat. iv. 32. Incarn. c. Ar. 8, 22. quoted in Newman's S. Athanasius ag. the Arians. Disc. iii. 25. 8. p. 420. n. 1. Oxf. Tr.
91. [x] Vit. Const, iii. 43. in Ps. 109, 4 p. 703. Montf. Nov. Coll.
93. [z] in S. Cyril c. Jul. L. 8. p. 262.
94. [a] S. Greg. Nyss. Ep. ad Eustath. p. 1093. S. Greg. Naz. Orat. 29, 4. Ep. 101. p. 85. Ben.
95. [b] both quoted by S. Cyril de recta fide 49, 50.
97. [d] de Incarn. ii. 5. vii. 25.
98. [e] Common. ii. 21. The above are all quoted in Newman's notes on S. Athanasius against the Arians Disc. iii. 26. nn. u and x. Dr. Bright adds Tertullian, de patientia n. 3, 'Nasci se Deus in utero patitur Matris,' and S. Irenaeus, 'ut portaret Deum,' v. 19. See further Dr. Bright's History of the Church p. 312. ed. 3.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius.asp?pg=20
