Mary: Theotokos or Christotokos?Elizabeth Ann PotitoTHEO 5525 – Christ and His ChurchDr. John FroulaFebruary 18, 2020

Written for Christ and His Church with Dr. John Froula, February 18, 2020

The Church teaches that Christ is two natures, true and perfect God, and true and perfect man. The natures are united in one person, Jesus, who is thus both God and man. St. Augustine says this is not through the confusion of the natures but through the unity of the person.[1] This was clarified at the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), largely in response to the heresy of Aryanism, and that clarification is memorialized in the Nicene Creed. Nestorius did not simply repeat the Aryanist error, but took a different tact: where Aryanism questioned whether Christ was begotten or created, Nestorius rejected the hypostatic union. Nestorius held that the two natures of Christ were separate; he was not true God and true man, but a sort of amalgam of a person named Jesus and a divine person, the Word. His position was that Mary was the mother of Jesus, but not the mother of the Word.

Nestorius became patriarch of Constantinople in 428. At that time, the title Mother of God, or Theotokos, was widely used. He repeatedly preached that that the title ought be dropped in favor of Mother of Christ (Christotokos). “Although it is not easy, from the documents from that period, to be quite sure what Nestorius’ thinking was, there is no doubt that an error in Christology was the cause of his error about Mary.” [2] Nestorius’ heresy may have been caused by a poor understanding of Christology, but he compounded his error by refusing to accept correction.

It ought be noted that Nestorius did not set out to commit heresy. He felt he was preaching against a heresy. In Nestorius’ first letter to Celestine, he states: “They even dare to treat of the Christ-bearing Virgin in a way as along with God, for they do not scruple to call her theotokos, when the holy and beyond-all-praise Fathers at Nicaea said no more of the holy Virgin than that our Lord Jesus Christ was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary – not to mention the Scriptures, which everywhere, both by angels and apostles, speak of the Virgin as mother of Christ not of God the Word.”[3] However, it is not difficult for us to see how the various early heresies could arise. The dispute between Nestorius and Cyril happened approximately 1,600 years ago. In the early fifth century, the theology of the Church was still being codified. This is not to say dogma changed, but simply that theology had not developed around all issues. Today, we are fortunate to have a long history of theology, and almost instant access to hundreds (if not thousands) of documents from Synods, Councils, and other church teachings throughout the ages.

The two natures of Christ are not easily explained. Nicea teaches that he is true God and true man. While Nestorius does not explicity deny this, his error stems from a misunderstanding of how the two natures are united. He posited that the two natures of Christ actually exist as two persons, the divine being the Word and the human being Jesus, which are “so closely linked to one another that in practice it is as if there were only one person…It is not a matter of there being just a man in whom God dwells, but something between that and a physical and substantial union.”[4]

Bauerschmidt, discussing Aquinas, explains this error further: “On the other side were those who said that since Jesus was two “whats” (divine and human) he must in some sense be two “whos” (a divine being and a human being who are somehow conjoined). In Aquinas, this view is usually represented by Nestorius.”[5] Bauerschmidt explains that Aquinas’ stand against Nestorianism, and errors that relate or draw from it, centers on salvation: “Salvation grows out of the fact that, in Christ, God’s eternal act of existence becomes an act of existence of a human nature.”[6] If Christ were not true God and true man, then that statement is not true. Nestorius’ position, therefore, is not simply a misunderstanding of Christology, but a misunderstanding of the central act of salvation.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria, on the other hand, held the established view that the Word became man. The Word did not inhabit a person named Jesus, but was both Word and man. The Word did not transform to flesh, but remained divine. The Word did not change from divine to human; the Word did not change into a body and soul. The Word became united with “flesh animated by a rational soul.”[7]

If Nestorius were correct, and Jesus were both two “whats” and two “whos,” then Mary would be the mother of the human Jesus, that is, of only the human “what” and “who”, and she would thus be Christotokos, not Theotokos. According to at least one source, Nestorius first preached this soon after becoming Patriarch, “at the end of 428, or at latest in the early part of 429.”[8] Saint Cyril of Alexandria reacted quickly; Ocáriz dates his Second Letter to Nestorius to about “January/February 430.”[9] Later that year, in conjunction with calling a synod, Cyril sent Nestorius a third letter, in which he set forth twelve anathemas denouncing the Nestorian position. Nestorius countered that with twelve anathemas of his own, and accused Cyril of Appolianism, that is, denying Jesus’ full humanity.

The Council of Chalcedon was called largely to refute the teaching of Nestorius. Leading up to the Council, there were synods and correspondence exchanged, with each side claiming the better argument. At one of these, the synod at Alexandria (430 AD), a warning was issued to Nestorius, but this did not resolve the issue. For the early church, having two Patriarchs embroiled in such a controversy caused much confusion, so further discussion followed. The Council of Ephesus was called in 431 AD by Emperor Theodosius II, and was presided over by Saint Cyril. That Council read and approved the Second Letter. That letter specifically states “This expression, however, ‘the Word was made flesh,’ can mean nothing else but that he partook of flesh and blood like to us; he made our body his own, and came forth man from a woman, not casting off his existence as God, or his generation of God the Father, but even in taking to himself flesh remaining what he was… This was the sentiment of the holy Fathers; therefore they ventured to call the holy Virgin, the Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word or his divinity had its beginning from the holy Virgin, but because of her was born that holy body with a rational soul, to which the Word being personally united is said to be born according to the flesh.”[10]

Pope Celestine had sent representatives to the Council and he approved the decision to depose Nestorius. However, the controversy still continued. In 433 AD, a document called the Formula of Union was accepted by both Antioch and Alexandria, including Saint John of Antioch and Saint Cyril. That document states “We confess, then, our Lord Jesus Christ, the unique Son of God, perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and body; begotten of the Father before [the]ages… the same consubstantial with the Father in the Godhead, and consubstantial with us in manhood, for a union of two natures took place…”[11] It continues, “According to this understanding of the unconfused union we confess the holy Virgin to be theotokos, because God the Word was made flesh and lived as man, and from the very conception united to himself the temple taken from her.”[12] The temple here, as explained by a footnote, is the “’the temple of his body,’ John 2:21, a text which Nestorius had rather overworked.”[13]

With so many letters and councils, the deposition of a Patriarch, and yet another document drafted and accepted, you would think the Nestorian heresy had been laid to rest. However, more was to come. The Monophysite heresy arose in response to Nestorian’s position. Monophysitism holds that Jesus has only one nature. Some who believed this held that the human nature was subsumed into the divine, and thus obliterated. Others held that Jesus’ two natures formed a special combined divine-human nature, found only in him. Another, held by Apollinaris, was that the divinity of Christ entered into a sort of composite with his body, and thus operated as a spiritual soul.

The Tome of St. Leo (451 AD) addresses this issue, in responding to Eutyches, who had opposed Nestorius, but in doing so, fell into heresy himself. The Tome was debated at the Council of Chalcedon and became the accepted doctrine position on the nature of the person of Jesus. The Chalcedonian Decree states “we all teach harmoniously [that he is] the same perfect in Godhead, the same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, the same of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father in Godhead and consubstantial with us in manhood, like us in all things except sin; begotten before ages of the Father in Godhead, the same in the last days before us; and for our salvation [born] of Mary the virgin theotokos in manhood, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, unique; acknowledged in two natures without confusion without change, without division, without separation - …”[14] Ocáriz gives a translation differing slightly in words, but not in meaning, stating that the Chalcedonian Decree teaches that Christ is true God and true man, has a rational soul and body, is consubstantial with the Father, and has two natures which are “unconfused, unchangeable, undivided and inseparable,” [15] and that the Son in his divinity was born before time, and as a human was born “in recent times.”[16] The Council was held in 451 AD, so, in current terms, we might not say recently, but about 2,000 years ago.

Aquinas, writing in the early 13th century, deemed the heresy important enough to address in his Summa Theologica, and quotes on Cyril, specifically in both Summa Theologica Part III, Question 7, Article 1, and again in Summa Theologica Part III, Question 35, Articles 2 and 4. In ST III, Q 17 A1, Aquinas states that the Nestorians “asserted two Persons in Christ, said that Christ is two not only in the neuter, but also in the masculine. . . we say that Christ is one not merely in the masculine, but also in the neuter.”[17] In ST III, Q 35, A2, Aquinas asks “Whether a temporal nativity should be attributed to Christ?”[18] He responds using as Epistle of Cyril: “We do not say that the Son of God had need, for His own sake, of a second nativity, after that which is from the Father: for it is foolish and a mark of ignorance to say that He who is from all eternity, and co-eternal with the Father, needs to begin again to exist. But because for us and for our salvation, uniting the human nature to His Person, He became the child of a woman, for this reason do we say that He was born in the flesh.”[19] This has also been translated as “So then he who had an existence before all ages and was born of the Father, is said to have been born according to the flesh of a woman, not as though his divine nature received its beginning of existence in the holy Virgin, for it needed not any second generation after that of the Father (for it would be absurd and foolish to say that he who existed before all ages, coeternal with the Father, needed any second beginning of existence), but since, for us and for our salvation, he personally united to himself an human body, and came forth of a woman, he is in this way said to be born after the flesh; for he was not first born a common man of the holy Virgin, and then the Word came down and entered into him, but the union being made in the womb itself, he is said to endure a birth after the flesh, ascribing to himself the birth of his own flesh.”[20]

In ST III, Q 35, A4, Aquinas tackles the question of “Whether the Blessed Virgin should be called the Mother of God?”[21] His Objections state, inter alia, that Scripture does not title her such, not does the Christ’s divinity originate from her. In his Response to his Objections, Aquinas again turns to Cyril: "If anyone confess not that the Emmanuel is truly God, and that for this reason the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God, since she begot of her flesh the Word of God made flesh, let him be anathema."[22] This is the first of Cyril’s Twelve Anathemas against Nestorius, and is translated in another source as “If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Θεοτόκος), inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [as it is written, The Word was made flesh] let him be anathema.”[23] In fact, Aquinas specifically states “Therefore it is heretical to deny that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God.”[24]

Aquinas notes that Nestorius had argued the scriptural point, and resolved this “although we do not find it said expressly in Scripture that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God, yet we do find it expressly said in Scripture that "Jesus Christ is true God," as may be seen 1 John 5:20, and that the Blessed Virgin is the "Mother of Jesus Christ," which is clearly expressed Matthew 1:18. Therefore, from the words of Scripture it follows of necessity that she is the Mother of God.”[25]

Regarding Christ’s origination, Aquinas again turns to Cyril: “For the Word of God was born of the substance of God the Father: but because He took flesh, we must of necessity confess that in the flesh He was born of a woman."[26] In Cyril’s letter to Nestorius, as quoted in the documents of the Council of Ephesus, he stated “And since the holy Virgin brought forth corporally God made one with flesh according to nature, for this reason we also call her Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh.”[27] Aquinas concludes that “Consequently we must say that the Blessed Virgin is called the Mother of God, not as though she were the Mother of the Godhead, but because she is the mother, according to His human nature, of the Person who has both the divine and the human nature.”[28]

Nestorius and Cyril’s struggle over this issue remains memorialized in Church documents. The Catechism of the Catholic Church addresses the heresy and quotes from the documents of the Council of Ephesus (431 AD): “The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed ‘that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man.’[29] Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: ‘Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh.’ [30] … After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ's human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that “‘there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity.’ Thus everything in Christ's human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death…”[31]

The Tome of St. Leo, in correcting Eutyches, reminds us to not simply accept our own ideas as dogma, but to search for the correct answers: “But what more iniquitous than to hold blasphemous opinions , and not to give way to those who are wiser and more learned than ourself. Now into this unwisdom fall they who, finding themselves hindered from knowing the truth by some obscurity, have recourse not to the prophets' utterances, not to the Apostles' letters, nor to the injunctions of the Gospel but to their own selves: and thus they stand out as masters of error because they were never disciples of truth. For what learning has he acquired about the pages of the New and Old Testament, who has not even grasped the rudiments of the Creed? And that which, throughout the world, is professed by the mouth of every one who is to be born again, is not yet taken in by the heart of this old man.”[32] That is advice we should all follow, not just in theology, but in all things.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologica. http://www.newadvent.org, accessed January 28, 2020

Bauerschmidt, Frederick Christian. Holy Teaching: Introducing the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2005.

Catechism of the Catholic Church. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000.

Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431). http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3810.htm, accessed January 28, 2020

Hardy, Edward R., ed. Christology of the Later Fathers. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006

Letter 28 - "The Tome." http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3604028.htm, accessed January 28, 2020.

Nestorius and Nestorianism. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10755a.htm, accessed February 18, 2020

Ocáriz, Fernando Brańa, Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco, and José Antonio Riestra. The Mystery of Jesus Christ: a Christology and Soteriology Textbook. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011.

Session 1 of the Council of Ephesus. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3811.htm, accessed January 28, 2020

[1] Fernando Brańa Ocáriz, Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco, and José Antonio Riestra. The Mystery of Jesus Christ: a

Christology and Soteriology Textbook. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011: 95

[2] Ocáriz 91

[3] Edward R. Hardy, ed. Christology of the Later Fathers. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006: 348

[4] Ocáriz 91

[5] Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt. Holy Teaching: Introducing the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2005. 177

[6] Bauerschmidt 202

[7] Ocáriz 91-92

[8] Nestorius and Nestorianism. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10755a.htm, accessed February 18, 2020

[9] Ocáriz 91