Scripture and God in Christianity

their identity "There the person exist not without ousia, nor here again does the ousia exist without
the person, nor also the nature without person, nor yet the person without ousia." 684 His
watchword was that "I hold the natures apart, but unite the worship". 685 He, following Theodore
of Mopsuestia who held that "When we distinguish the natures, we say that the nature of the Divine
Logos is complete that His person also is complete...[likewise we say] that man's nature is
complete and his person also is complete. But when we consider the union, we say there is one
person only", 686 argued that after incarnation there resulted a new person, namely the person of
Jesus, of which the Logos and man were two component parts. He believed that for true redemption,
the second Adam must have been a real man. Kelly observes that "It was all-important in his
eyes that the impassability of 'the God' should be preserved, and that `the man' for his part should
retain his spontaneity and freedom of action. Hence, though speaking on occasion of a `union'...,
the term he preferred was `conjunction'..., which seem to avoid all suspicion of a confusion or
mixing of the natures." 687 To Nestorius it was a "perfect", "exact" and "continuous" union.
Unlike the Alexandrian Christological view that upheld "hypostatic or natural" union, his view of
union was "voluntary". By this he meant "the drawing together of the divine and human by gracious
condescension on the one hand, and love and obedience on the other. As a result of their
mutual adhesion, Christ was a single being, with a single will and intelligence, inseparable and
indivisible." 688 Addressing Cyril of Alexandria he said, "I said and affirmed that the union is in
the one person of the Messiah... but thou [actest] in the reverse way, because thou wishest that in
the two natures God the Word should be the person of the union." 689
It is, observes Wolfson, "because of this conception of Jesus as being one person composed of
the person of the Logos and the person of the man in him that at the Fifth Ecumenical Council at
Constantinople (533) the Nestorians are anathematized on the ground that they "name the man
separately Christ and Son, and so clearly speak of two persons, and hypocritically speak of one
person and of one Christ only according to designation and honor and dignity and worship." 690
Cyril in his letter of 430, which was used as one of the sources in the Council, had already written
12 anathemas which were specifically pointed towards Nestorius. Cyril wrote: "(1) If anyone
does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore the holy Virgin is theotokos- for
she bore in the flesh the Word of God became flesh- let him be anathema. (2) If anyone does not
confess that the Word of God the Father was united by hypostases to the flesh and is one Christ
with his own flesh, that is, the same both God and man together, let him be anathema. (3) If any
one divides the hypostases in the one Christ after his union, joining them only by conjunction in
dignity, or authority or power, and not rather by coming together in a union by nature, let him be
anathema." 691
Cyril on the other hand, as Fisher observes, "asserted a physical (or metaphysical ) uniting of the
two natures. God becomes man. After the incarnation, there are two natures abstractly considered,
but in the concrete reality but one,- namely, the one incarnated nature of the divine Logos."
692 He contended in his letter to Nestorius that "So confessing the Word united hypostatically
to flesh, we worship one Son and Lord Jesus Christ, neither putting apart and dividing man
and God, as joined with each other by a union of dignity and authority-for this would be an
empty phrase and no more-nor speaking of the Word of God separately as Christ, but knowing
only one Christ, the Word of God the Father with his own flesh." 693 His formula, "out of two natures,
one" led to a theanthropic person, not just God, nor just man, but throughout both in them.
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