Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/40

28 transactions, in which the emperor made great concessions to the monkish party and its leader, the archimandrite Dalmatius. The monks themselves, according to the narration of Nestorius, finally asked for the decision of the court. They, too,—later the most embittered enemies of Nestorius—had at first no ground for being discontented with his election. And, apart from the heretical parties, which experienced the antiheretical zeal of the new bishop soon after his enthronement, this contentment was at first general.

But already before the end of Nestorius' first year of office, the controversy began. Nestorius asserts in the Treatise of Heraclides in just the same manner as in a letter of December 430 to John of Antioch and in his Tragedy, that he was not its beginner—he had found a quarrel over the question as to whether Mary was to be called or, when he arrived at Constantinople, and in order to settle it, he had suggested the term. When did Nestorius do this? I think it was common opinion that it took place in his "first sermon on the ," which dates perhaps as far back as 428, perhaps only from the beginning of 429. But in the fragments of this sermon