Nestorius and the Council of Ephesus

johnbugay · #41 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 08:46 AM

Thank you for posting this information from your professor. I'd like to make a couple of responses.

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1) Yes, Cyril was a jerk in the way he treated Nestorius.

It is not only Cyril being "a jerk." It is an entire church council following his lead, and writing a condemnation of a man based on Cyril's misattribution of what Nestorius actually said. An entire council ratified, under Nestorius's name, a false witness. And, of course, it caused a huge schism in a church which had not previously been split.

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2) But Cyril did not treat Nestorius any worse than Nestorius treated Cyril at the time that Nestorius thought he had the upper hand. In his Book of Heraclidis, written much later from exile, Nestorius seems to have forgotten this fact and he whines incessantly about the way Cyril treated him. But he does not back down on his Christology at all, and he does not seem to remember how badly he treated Cyril.

I am aware of Nestorius's prior reputation of being a self-proclaimed hunter of heretics. In that regard, he ticked off a lot of people, and was not well liked. But I don't recall Nestorius's "whining" getting written into church dogma. Nestorius did not lead armed gangs in the street, compelling people and voting bishops to "see things my way."

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3) The way Cyril treated Nestorius would have been inexcusable IF a major truth of the gospel were not at stake.

I don't see how you can say "we accept Cyril's treatment because he defended a major truth of the gospel." And again, it turned out to be a mixed bag in the end. Cyril's Christology at Epheusus was overturned to some degree at Chalcedon and Nestorius's "one person, two natures" formulation did make it into the final definition at Chalcedon. It took "the sword" of an emperor to make all parties sit down and make nice. That, I think, is one good explanation for all the inconsistencies that came out of that council. (For example, Cyril is lauded, but his theology gets whacked; Nestorius is still condemned, but his theology makes it into the definition, etc.)

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4) Modern scholars don’t think that a major truth of the gospel was at stake, because they believe Nestorius adequately affirmed the “deity of Christ.”

This is vague. Who are the "modern scholars"? Moffett, whom I've quoted most extensively, cites Loofs, who did most of the "modern" work on Nestorius. I'm not able to find any personal background about him. But he also cites A.R. Vine. Perhaps your professor could be more careful to say which scholars are the "modern scholars," and how precisely how that affected their reading of history. McGuckin is not "modern" by any stretch, in fact, he is a devout Eastern Orthodox partisan.

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6) Modern scholars generally speaking hold to a Christology very much like that of Nestorius. Their notion of the “deity of Christ” means little more than some sort of divine spirit dwelling in this man. It certainly does not mean that he was the eternal Second Person of the Trinity. Since the modern scholars believe that, and want that to be acceptable, they assume Nestorius’ thought was acceptable, and they assume that Cyril’s vehemence toward Nestorius was only the result of politics. It wasn’t. Behind the politics and the mistreatment of Nestorius lay the fundamental, correct recognition that Nestorius’ Christ could not save us, because he was not God the Son incarnate.

Moffett clearly says Nestorius's theology was "weak". But Nestorius was not in the category of a gnostic, or a docetic, for example. He adhered to the doctrine of the Trinity as espoused at Nicea and Constantinople. He was from the school of Antioch, which used Scripture in a grammatico-historical way (in contrast with the allegorical style of Alexandria.) In my reading, I'm constantly coming across Nestorius citing Scriptures to make his point.

Even so, this is perhaps the only point of the six that really has some merit; with that said, I'm not convinced that any Reformed scholar has ever given this whole period the thorough kind of treatment it deserves. It was, after all, the occasion of the first and probably the deepest schism in church history.

And it is true that other parts of the theology of Theodore and Nestorius were not what we as Reformed believers would accept. But it was legitimate enough in that day. (In the early church, there were wide variations in what people believed, and the fact that an early believer was orthodox in one area of his teaching was no protection that other things he taught or believed were orthodox.)

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7) One of the sad ironies of this is that evangelicals emphatically hold to Cyril’s Christology, but we do not realize that we are doing so. And we often passionately defend Nestorius and defame Cyril, not realizing that in doing so we have bought into a liberal, 19th-century way of viewing the controversy that has nothing in common with our own faith.

We do not hold to Cyril's Christology. We hold to Chalcedonian Christology, which is not exactly Cyril's Christology. In his 433 "formulary" with John of Antioch, Cyril made major concessions. Kelly says, "The anathemas which he had made so much of had dropped into the background, and even his favorite expressions, "one nature" and "hypostatic union" had disappeared. Instead he found himself accepting the Antiochene language of "one prosopon" and "union of two natures," while one phrase emphasized the duality of the natures after the union. "Theotokos" was admitted, but only with safeguards which satisfied the Antiochenes, and it was balanced by the admission of their traditional description of the humanity of the Word's "Temple."

This formulary, along with Leo's Tome, were the primary sources for the definition of Chalcedon. Cyril was an opportunist; in the end, on his "christology", he licked his finger, stuck it in the air, and checked the direction of the wind. (And in the end, he accepted what was much closer to Chalcedon, while his Alexandrian school, steeped in "one nature, hypostatic union" did break off and become the Monophysite, Coptic church of Egypt.)

So where do we really stand?

No Reformed scholar really has looked with the depth needed to produce a study which is mentioned in the same breath as Grillmeier or McGuckin. So we really don't know.

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P.S. – Nestorius’ use of Christological language was not the problem. The problem was his view of salvation and the view of Christ that came out of it.

What was his "View of salvation"? He was very careful to keep to the parallel of "First Adam / Second Adam", and follow through the implications of that.

Re. Jenkins, I've not cited him here, except for such things as measuring the size and the scope of the "Nestorian" church.

If your professor's work is available online anywhere, I'd be happy to take a look at it.

**Marrow Man** · #42 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 09:10 AM

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Originally Posted by johnbugay

What was his "View of salvation"? He was very careful to keep to the parallel of "First Adam / Second Adam", and follow through the implications of that.

Re. Jenkins, I've not cited him here, except for such things as measuring the size and the scope of the "Nestorian" church.

If your professor's work is available online anywhere, I'd be happy to take a look at it.

The professor's work is available in the two published works I mentioned. In addition, he has a book published by Oxford Press, but I do not recall the name. It is very expensive if I recall ($60 or more for a book less than 300 pages), which is probably why he didn't include that.

As far as Nestorious' view of salvation, it seems it was a sort of proto-Pelagianism, IIRC. He did not delve into a denial of original sin, but taught a view that very much bordered on "Christ as our example," in the sense that in Adam we lost our way and got off track, but in Christ we have our example who shows us our way back.

Of course, that is from memory. The prof did include something of this in class notes, but I do not have them with me at present. I will try to post on this later in the day.

And with all due respect, let me add one more item to this post: this is my professor's area of expertise (his doctorate was specifically on Cyril), so to simply brush off most of his comments as having little or no merit because you don't happen to agree with them or prefer to agree with your own sources instead, is not very helpful. Speaking as a moderator, this is one reason that discussions like this begin to devolve into shouting matches. While expertise does not mean that one cannot err in one's conclusions, it is something to consider. Also, presuppositions need to factor into this (which is why he mentioned modern scholarship; I do not know of whom he spoke, as I copied the response "as is" -- it was an email response and not meant to be a theological treatise). The professor in question is Westminsterian in his theology. I know nothing of the predilections of Moffett, et al.

johnbugay · #43 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 09:23 AM

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The professor's work is available in the two published works I mentioned. In addition, he has a book published by Oxford Press, but I do not recall the name. It is very expensive if I recall ($60 or more for a book less than 300 pages), which is probably why he didn't include that.

You never gave his name. I'm happy to look up those works, and even to consider buying a $60.00 Oxford Press work that's done by a Reformed scholar.

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As far as Nestorious' view of salvation, it seems it was a sort of proto-Pelagianism, IIRC. He did not delve into a denial of original sin, but taught a view that very much bordered on "Christ as our example," in the sense that in Adam we lost our way and got off track, but in Christ we have our example who shows us our way back.

I can accept, too, that Nestorius (and Theodore) had some similarities with Pelagius. But Soro (at least) goes to some lengths to distance Theodore from Pelagius. On the other hand, Cyril's entire school went off into Monophysitism. I don't think "guilt by association" is helpful here.

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And with all due respect, let me add one more item to this post: this is my professor's area of expertise (his doctorate was specifically on Cyril), so to simply brush off most of his comments as having little or no merit because you don't happen to agree with them or prefer to agree with your own sources instead, is not very helpful. Speaking as a moderator, this is one reason that discussions like this begin to devolve into shouting matches. While expertise does not mean that one cannot err in one's conclusions, it is something to consider.

I did not "brush off" his comments. I addressed each one of them with factual content, and everything I said in that post addressed a particular point of substance. I have no desire to get into a shouting match. But nor do I care to listen to something along the lines of "Ephesus said it, that settled it."

I can understand that you are passing along a much-abbreviated response. It seems to me that that $60.00 work from Oxford is precisely the place to begin, in order to have the right kind of discussion.

**Marrow Man** · #44 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 09:29 AM

You said, "Even so, this is perhaps the only point of the six that really has some merit..." Sorry, but that sounds like a brush off. I understand and accept that this may not have been the intent.

I have withheld the prof's name because I was posting private correspondence. Also, I do not know the exact title of the Oxford work (but I do believe it is a distillation of his thesis). He was giving me the more accessible works, I believe. If you wish, I can ask him for the title of the work and then PM you with it.

johnbugay · #45 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 09:45 AM

Pastor Phillips, I intended no disrespect at all. I'm writing quickly, getting kids off to school, and perhaps I could have been more precise with that one. But I had addressed each of the points up till then, in a fair way, I think, and it wasn't my intention to brush anyone off.

I've already tracked down the works on Amazon, and the Oxford work is "only" $35.00. I would still disagree (from what I know) with this statement from the back cover, that "Cyril's understanding of ... Christology was not merely his own, but was in fact the consensus of the early church." Between the council of Ephesus and the agreement with John of Antioch in 433, Cyril made some major concessions in his Christology, and those who held to his earlier Christology, clearly did not understand what he was saying, as they split off into Monophysitism. Perhaps there is some good explanation for this, but I'd like to see it.

**Marrow Man** · #46 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 11:43 AM

John, thank you for your comments/explanation. It is appreciated. Emotions and intents are not always conveyed nor interpreted well in these sorts of forums. Which is why all Christians need to go the extra mile (myself included, of course), imho.

I had a question with the prof concerning the last point. This was his reply. Perhaps this will explain certain things further:

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I did mean to say that we hold to Cyril’s Christology. But what I meant by that was that in terms of what we actually believe, we are affirming Cyril’s Christology. Unfortunately, our theological language is very ambiguous, in that we don’t define what we mean by deity or humanity, and we don’t explain how we believe the incarnation happened. Schleiermacher affirmed that Christ was fully divine and fully human, and that there was a union of two natures. But he did not mean anything like what we mean. So we need to say what we mean, which is that God the Son took a full human nature into his own person at the incarnation, so that humanity was united to him (and thus to his divine nature). Notice the very good language of the WCF here. First it says that the Son became man, and THEN it says that the result of that action was that there was a union of two natures. It explicitly rules out the possibility that deity (as a quality) was united to a man, which is what Schleiermacher and company believed. It affirms instead that humanity was united to the person of God the Son (and thus to his divine nature that he had always possessed). In so far as I can tell (and I have checked a lot of them), ALL confessional statements prior to 1800 (Orthodox, Catholic, and all stripes of Protestant statements) say the same thing as the WCF, but the 19th century has so colored the way we STATE our Christology that we don’t say that anymore. We still MEAN that, but we don’t SAY it anymore.

**Marrow Man** · #47 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 11:50 AM

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Originally Posted by johnbugay

I've already tracked down the works on Amazon, and the Oxford work is "only" $35.00.

Just to make sure you have the correct book (as the one I'm seeing on Amazon is actually $39.32, but I do see some others available for $34.44), the title should be Grace and Christology in the Early Church. It is in paperback now, which is the reason for the lower price (a good thing, and I may get a copy now). If you look at the Amazon page, it looks like a new hardcover would now cost well over $150!

johnbugay · #48 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 12:24 PM

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Originally Posted by Marrow Man

John, thank you for your comments/explanation. It is appreciated. Emotions and intents are not always conveyed nor interpreted well in these sorts of forums. Which is why all Christians need to go the extra mile (myself included, of course), imho.

I really do appreciate this; and I too need to be very careful with what I say.

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Originally Posted by Marrow Man

I had a question with the prof concerning the last point. This was his reply. Perhaps this will explain certain things further:

Quote:

I did mean to say that we hold to Cyril’s Christology. But what I meant by that was that in terms of what we actually believe, we are affirming Cyril’s Christology. Unfortunately, our theological language is very ambiguous, in that we don’t define what we mean by deity or humanity, and we don’t explain how we believe the incarnation happened. Schleiermacher affirmed that Christ was fully divine and fully human, and that there was a union of two natures. But he did not mean anything like what we mean. So we need to say what we mean, which is that God the Son took a full human nature into his own person at the incarnation, so that humanity was united to him (and thus to his divine nature). Notice the very good language of the WCF here. First it says that the Son became man, and THEN it says that the result of that action was that there was a union of two natures. It explicitly rules out the possibility that deity (as a quality) was united to a man, which is what Schleiermacher and company believed. It affirms instead that humanity was united to the person of God the Son (and thus to his divine nature that he had always possessed). In so far as I can tell (and I have checked a lot of them), ALL confessional statements prior to 1800 (Orthodox, Catholic, and all stripes of Protestant statements) say the same thing as the WCF, but the 19th century has so colored the way we STATE our Christology that we don’t say that anymore. We still MEAN that, but we don’t SAY it anymore.

I have really not looked deeply at all into the theological aspects of this; I'm primarily looking at historians, I think. I have said all along that I have no problem with the way that the Reformed confessions state their Christology. Except that each and every one of them stubbornly refuses to affirm Cyril's anathema on those who don't say "Theotokos."

Second Helvetic, too, "detests the heresy of Nestorius, which makes two Christs of one and dissolves the union of the person..." But this, too, does not seem to be what Nestorius actually taught. Nestorius's work, in fact, is full of "one prosopon after the union." So I do see some disconnect there.

But consider Nestorius's words from that council:

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I could say much on this subject and first of all that those holy fathers, when they discuss the economy, speak not of the generation but of the Son becoming man. But I recall the promise of brevity that I made at the beginning and that both restrains my discourse and moves me on to the second subject of your reverence. In that I applaud your division of natures into manhood and godhead and their conjunction in one person. I also applaud your statement that God the Word needed no second generation from a woman, and your confession that the godhead is incapable of suffering. Such statements are truly orthodox and equally opposed to the evil opinions of all heretics about the Lord's natures. If the remainder was an attempt to introduce some hidden and incomprehensible wisdom to the ears of the readers, (This is Nestorius's counter-charge -- not sure what "the remainder" is -- maybe it is "Mother of God" language? At any event he is not dogmatic about it -- JB) it is for your sharpness to decide. In my view these subsequent views seemed to subvert what came first. They suggested that he who had at the beginning been proclaimed as impassible and incapable of a second generation had somehow become capable of suffering and freshly created, as though what belonged to God the Word by nature had been destroyed by his conjunction with his temple or as though people considered it not enough that the sinless temple, which is inseparable from the divine nature, should have endured birth and death for sinners, or finally as though the Lord's voice was not deserving of credence when it cried out to the Jews: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.'' He did not say, "Destroy my godhead and in three days it will be raised up."

I would like to know what is detestable in this. Note that he qualifies his own belief with Scripture.

The Council of Ephesus

As for the price of the book, yes, I was looking at the used book section. (Not sure what's up with those prices. Must be a supply/demand thing -- they only print a very small first run; once those are sold, then you're dealing with an aftermarket kind of pricing.)

**Marrow Man** · #49 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 12:50 PM

If I remember, the reason for the excessive pricing has to do with the publishing house. You pay more for better editors.

P. F. Pugh · #50 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 03:44 PM

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We do not hold to Cyril's Christology. We hold to Chalcedonian Christology, which is not exactly Cyril's Christology. In his 433 "formulary" with John of Antioch, Cyril made major concessions. Kelly says, "The anathemas which he had made so much of had dropped into the background, and even his favorite expressions, "one nature" and "hypostatic union" had disappeared. Instead he found himself accepting the Antiochene language of "one prosopon" and "union of two natures,"

Just to note that Chalcedon did adopt the hypostatic union terminology. I'll also say that the Antiochenes were starting to become more comfortable with this language by Chalcedon (even Nestorius makes use of hypostasis to describe the unity of Christ in the Bazaar).

It should also be noted that the Coptic Church is not monophysite: it is miaphysite.

johnbugay · #51 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 04:30 PM

Philip, thank you for those corrections.

Pastor Phillips: If you go Amazon and search the book "Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Introductory Christology," you will see the following:

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We can no longer legitimately view the Christological controversy as a clash between two equally represented "schools," leading to a compromise at Chalcedon that settled the matter in a largely negative way. Rather, the Christological controversy was an expression of the outrage that most of the church felt woard the unacceptable Christology of a tiny minority of people, one of whom (Nestorius, the catalyst for the controversy) happened to be in a very influential position as bishop of Constantinople. That outrage expressed itself negatively in Nestorius's condemnation at the Chouncil of Ephesus in 431 and led positively to the consistent doctrinal formulations at Chalcedon in 451, Constantinople II in 553, and Constantinople III in 680-81." (This is from Fairbairn's chapter in that work, beginning on page 80)

Later he says, "When one recognizes that the fundamental issue of the controversy was who the one person of Christ was, and when one accepts the centrality of Cyril's place in the controversy, then it becomes clear that the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 were consistent with each other and were Cyrillian in substance, even though they did not use Cyril's terminology." (82)

Now, that last statement is something that is completely the opposite of what my understanding is of those two last councils. C-II was a largely negative condemnation (again) of Nestorius, Theodore, Theodoret, and others.

Reymond (614) says, "and the Second Council of Constantinople, convoked by [the emperor], while it did not repudiate the Definition of Chalcedon, did attempt by its Twelve Anathemas to make the Definition more palatable to the Alexandrian interpretation...." Later he says that the controversies of the next two centuries "must be judged, then, to be at heart relapses into contradictions that Chalcedon had already substantially overcome."

Your professor seems to be adopting the Eastern Orthodox view of all of this. I'm sure it's not going to be the last word on it.

**Marrow Man** · #52 (**permalink**) 10-22-2009, 09:15 AM

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Originally Posted by johnbugay

I would like to know what is detestable in this. Note that he qualifies his own belief with Scripture.

I'm sure you have heard this before, John, but every heretic quotes Scripture. The fact that someone quotes verses is no guarantee of orthodoxy (the Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons who come to my door do that). Arius did that. It should be no surprise that Nestorius would do so as well.

I asked (one final time) for the prof to give a summary of what he termed 2-act and 3-act salvation schemes in this early church folks. In an earlier post, I mentioned that Nestorius apparently held to a scheme that was form of proto-Pelagianism, and that was what was wrong with his view of salvation. In other words, his faulty view of the nature of Christ led to a faulty view of redemption in Christ. This is what the professor said concerning those views:

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Those models have been criticized a lot, and they may be too simplistic to be useful in all that many cases. (For example, neither one fits Augustine very well.) But they fit Theodore and Cyril marvelously. Theodore sees the human calling as one of advancing from the first age to the second age. So creation (act 1 or stage 1) is a condition of the possibility for fellowship with God, NOT the actuality of it. Humanity is then called to advance from possibility to actuality (this is act 2). And Christ (the divinely-inspired man) is the leader who goes before us and leads us upward. (Notice how much like 19th-century thought this sounds.) Theodore does not see the fall as an actual event. Rather, it is a metaphorical way of describing the fact that we have always been mortal, sinful, and separated from God. (Again, notice the parallels to 19th-century liberalism.) In my opinion, this creates insoluble theodicy problems, and I remember talking to you about this one day after class.

In contrast, Cyril (3-act scheme) sees creation (act 1) as placing humanity in fellowship with God, the fall (act 2) as the loss of that fellowship as humanity fell into a predicament from which it could not extricate itself, and redemption (act 3) as more-or-less a restoration to the original condition of fellowship with God. I write “more-or-less” because Cyril (and everyone else) sees what we have in Christ as being, in some ways, more than what we had in Adam. But the point is the basic similarity of the two conditions—Rev. 21-22 parallels Genesis 1-2.

So the basic idea is like this: 2-act – creation, elevation

3-act – creation, fall, restoration

Thus, the 3-act scheme automatically places more emphasis on God’s action (we could not get out of the pit we fell into), and the 2-act automatically places more emphasis on human action (it is our job to rise up to God). That’s why the 2-act shows up in pure form only in heretics like Arius, Theodore, and Pelagius.

My advice is that, beyond this, you procure the works of the prof and then after digesting them, you correspond with him with further questions. That will be far more effective than having me play intermediate.

johnbugay · #53 (**permalink**) 10-23-2009, 11:50 AM

Pastor Phillips -- I do appreciate you running this past Dr. Fairbairn; There is no need for you to follow up with him any further. I do hope to try and purchase his work on Cyril. But in the meantime, I do have a few comments:

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Originally Posted by Marrow Man

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnbugay

I would like to know what is detestable in this. Note that he qualifies his own belief with Scripture.

I'm sure you have heard this before, John, but every heretic quotes Scripture. The fact that someone quotes verses is no guarantee of orthodoxy (the Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons who come to my door do that). Arius did that. It should be no surprise that Nestorius would do so as well.

I have heard that "every heretic quotes Scripture." But in the present context, I don't think that's a sufficient response. It should be possible, through exegesis, to show precisely what it is that Nestorius is saying that is heretical.

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I asked (one final time) for the prof to give a summary of what he termed 2-act and 3-act salvation schemes in this early church folks. In an earlier post, I mentioned that Nestorius apparently held to a scheme that was form of proto-Pelagianism, and that was what was wrong with his view of salvation. In other words, his faulty view of the nature of Christ led to a faulty view of redemption in Christ. This is what the professor said concerning those views:

Quote:

Those models have been criticized a lot, and they may be too simplistic to be useful in all that many cases. (For example, neither one fits Augustine very well.) But they fit Theodore and Cyril marvelously. Theodore sees the human calling as one of advancing from the first age to the second age. So creation (act 1 or stage 1) is a condition of the possibility for fellowship with God, NOT the actuality of it. Humanity is then called to advance from possibility to actuality (this is act 2). And Christ (the divinely-inspired man) is the leader who goes before us and leads us upward. (Notice how much like 19th-century thought this sounds.) Theodore does not see the fall as an actual event. Rather, it is a metaphorical way of describing the fact that we have always been mortal, sinful, and separated from God. (Again, notice the parallels to 19th-century liberalism.) In my opinion, this creates insoluble theodicy problems, and I remember talking to you about this one day after class.

In contrast, Cyril (3-act scheme) sees creation (act 1) as placing humanity in fellowship with God, the fall (act 2) as the loss of that fellowship as humanity fell into a predicament from which it could not extricate itself, and redemption (act 3) as more-or-less a restoration to the original condition of fellowship with God. I write “more-or-less” because Cyril (and everyone else) sees what we have in Christ as being, in some ways, more than what we had in Adam. But the point is the basic similarity of the two conditions—Rev. 21-22 parallels Genesis 1-2.

So the basic idea is like this: 2-act – creation, elevation

3-act – creation, fall, restoration

Thus, the 3-act scheme automatically places more emphasis on God’s action (we could not get out of the pit we fell into), and the 2-act automatically places more emphasis on human action (it is our job to rise up to God). That’s why the 2-act shows up in pure form only in heretics like Arius, Theodore, and Pelagius.

My advice is that, beyond this, you procure the works of the prof and then after digesting them, you correspond with him with further questions. That will be far more effective than having me play intermediate.

I do find this "two-act" and "three-act" comparison helpful. But again, Nestorius and Theodore were not condemned for "Pelagianism". To do so now completely misses the point of what was argued at the time. And there are many other theologians in the early church who held to various forms of what later became "Pelagian". In fact, there is not, to my knowledge, a single church father who held what any of us would consider to be a totally orthodox theology.

So concerning what I have seen from the Professor, he condemns Nestorius and Theodore for Pelagianism, which the councils did not do.

**Marrow Man** · #54 (**permalink**) 10-23-2009, 02:32 PM

The comment about "every heretic quotes Scripture" is simply to point out that simply because someone quotes Scripture (which virtually every heretic has done) lends nothing little to the discussion. If Arius wants to point out that Christ is the firstborn of all creation in order to justify claiming Him to be less than God, that does mean he is using Scripture accurately. You are right, that does not address the issues; it was simply to state that just because Nestorius points to the Scriptures does not mean he is using them correctly.

Also, no one is specifically accusing them of "Pelagianism" (which dealt with the denial of original sin). However, there an aspect of human nature that runs through all centuries that follows the two-stage paradigm. Pelagianism, Finneyism, Social Gospel liberalism, etc. seem to follow after this type of thinking with regard to salvation (though for different reasons sometimes). I believe the point of the good doctor is that because Nestorius' view of the natures of Christ was erroneous, this affected his doctrine of salvation, which led to the two-act view.

I have often told people that no doctrines are held in isolation. If someone holds to a faulty view of the Trinity, for instance, this leads to serious problems in other areas of their theology. In Pelagius' case, his heretical anthropology led to an incorrect view of salvation. The argument here, if I am not overstating, is that Nestorius' view of the natures of Christ did something very similar.

P. F. Pugh · #55 (**permalink**) 10-23-2009, 02:36 PM

Two things should be noted:

1) Ephesus actually did confirm the Council of Carthage's condemnation of Pelagianism. There was a second article of business on the agenda: a retrial of Caelestius, a disciple of Pelagius, which ended in a condemnation of CaelestiusN and Pelagianism.

2) Eastern Orthodoxy in general is semi-Pelagian, so calling Nestorius such is to state the obvious.

johnbugay · #56 (**permalink**) 10-24-2009, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by P. F. Pugh

Two things should be noted:

1) Ephesus actually did confirm the Council of Carthage's condemnation of Pelagianism. There was a second article of business on the agenda: a retrial of Caelestius, a disciple of Pelagius, which ended in a condemnation of CaelestiusN and Pelagianism.

2) Eastern Orthodoxy in general is semi-Pelagian, so calling Nestorius such is to state the obvious.

Thank you, I will have to look this up.