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 in kind from that by which God was pleased to dwell in the prophets and other holy men of old. If, they contended, there were any union of natures in Christ, it was not a personal union, but an ἕνωσις σχετική (a union of things diverse in a close relation). Such teaching had a dangerous tendency to humanitarianism, and to the division of Christ into two hypostases [ F], as well as implying the existence in Him of two separate and possibly antagonistic sources of will and action.

The ferment caused by these injudicious utterances spread far and wide, and soon reached Alexandria. Cyril, the patriarch, who had succeeded his uncle Theophilus, was by no means disinclined to lower the credit of a rival whose elevation he at once envied and despised. We must not suppose, however, that Cyril had no convictions of his own on the point, for, as Dorner very properly reminds us, he had already published his opinions on it. Not content, however, with assailing with rare theological ability the opinions of Nestorius, he condescended to less worthy expedients. Not only did he exaggerate and misrepresent the language of his antagonist, but he tried to involve him in charges of Apollinarianism [] and Pelagianism []. Theodore, from whom Nestorius had imbibed his theology, was in the most direct antagonism to Apollinaris, whose teaching, while insisting strongly on the Godhead of Christ, involved the denial of His Perfect Manhood. And the divines of all schools of thought in the East, in the opinion of the disciples of Augustine, were more or less tinged with Pelagianism. As Nestorius had shewn some kindness to Pelagians who had fled to him from the West, the accusation of Pelagianism suited Cyril's purpose.

Before entering into the history of the controversy, we must pause for a moment and endeavour to understand the questions involved, and the different aspects from which they were approached by the disputants. The Syrian school, as we have seen, approached these questions from the human side, and favoured inductive methods. The starting-point of Theodore was man, in the sphere of the visible and tangible. The starting-point of Cyril was God, in the sphere of the mysterious and unknown. The development (for of such a development Scripture unquestionably speaks) of the Manhood of Christ when inhabited by the Godhead seems to have been the prominent idea on the part of the Syrian school. It inquired whether the indwelling of the Godhead in Jesus Christ was one of Nature or simply of energy, and it undoubtedly leaned too much toward the assertion of a dual personality in Christ. The watchword (as Neander calls it) of the Alexandrians, on the other hand, was the ineffable and (to human reason) inconceivable nature of the inhabitation of the Man Christ Jesus by the Divine Logos. We must not forget that the Syrians, though not of course unacquainted with Greek, habitually thought in Syriac, and used a Syrian version of the Scriptures, which had been in existence in their churches in one form or another ever since the 2nd cent. The use of the term θεοτόκος had been approved by Theodore himself, under certain limitations, which makes the passionate protest of Nestorius against it the more unfortunate. Nestorius, unfortunately for himself, was not a clear thinker or reasoner, and was therefore no match for his antagonist Cyril. Great confusion, it should be remarked in passing, has been caused by the inaccurate translation of θεοτόκος into modern languages by the words Mother of God. Whether the soul of an infant is derived from its parents is an old and still debated question. But the term "mother" unquestionably involves in many minds the idea of transmission of essence, whereas the title θεοτόκος, as Theodoret does not fail to point out in his reply to Cyril's anathemas, simply means that she to whom it was applied was the medium through which a Divine Being was introduced into this world in human form. The controversy raised the question whether the term συνάφεια (connexion or conjunction) or ἕνωσις (union) were the better fitted to denote the nature of the relation between the Godhead and the Manhood in Christ. The Syrians inclined to the former, the Alexandrians to the latter. Some confusion of thought continued to exist about the use of the terms πρόσωτον and ὑπόστασις to signify what we in English express by the one inadequate word "person." These two Greek words [ ] were, from the council of Constantinople onward, usually understood to signify respectively the appearance, as regarded by one outside it, and the inward distinction, or, as Gregory of Nazianzus puts it, "speciality" (ιδιότης), which distinguishes one individual of a genus or species from another. But when the word ὑπόστασις is applied to the conditions of Being in God, the caution of our own Hooker is verb necessary (Eccl. Pot. V. lvi. 2), that the Divine Nature is itself unique. It seems pretty plain that even so clear a thinker as Cyril, in his defence of his anathemas as well as elsewhere, does not distinguish sufficiently between the use of the word ὑπόστασις at Nicaea, and the signification which had come to be attached to it in the first council of Constantinople. Nor should it be forgotten that though many modern divines are wont to represent Theodore of Mopsuestia as a dangerous heretic, he was rather, like Origen at an earlier period, a pioneer of theological inquiry [], and that, like Origen, he lived and died m the communion of the church, though some of the propositions laid down by him were afterwards shewn to be erroneous. It may not be amiss to sum up these remarks on the question at issue in the words of Canon Bright, who certainly cannot be charged with undue tenderness for Nestorius, on the title θεοτόκος. "It challenged objection; it was open to misconstruction; it needed some theological insight to do it justice; it made the perception of the true issue difficult; it stimulated that 'cultus' which has now, in the Roman church, attained proportions so portentous."

History of the Controversy.—There was considerable ferment in Constantinople in