Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/141

Rh mediaeval pictures of the Trinity which show an old man holding tip the Crucifix by the arms of the cross with a dove hovering above. That is certainly not the one God of the Christian belief! Nestorius, like Augustine, was convinced that the opera trinitatis sunt indivisa. And only if we go back to the old economic-trinitarian tradition, will the trinitarian doctrine be compatible with monotheism.

The same is to be said about the doctrine of the incarnation. Cyril thought he had treated the idea of incarnation in a serious manner. He, too, however, did not assume that the Logos was confined by the body of Jesus during his earthly life; the Logos remained, according to him, pervading the world, and this by his Godhead alone. As regards the time after the ascension, the same must be assumed. Then also in Cyril something heterogeneous is added to the Trinity by the manhood of Christ and, what is still more noticeable, the idea of incarnation appears as not sharply distinguished from that of inspiration. Mythological and popular thought may imagine an incarnation perfectly distinguished from inspiration, but the theology of the ancient church did not dare to do so. Luther was the first, who endeavoured to think out such a doctrine