ANNOTATIONS ON THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THEODORE OF ...

372 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
the New Testament, is more likely to draw on the New Testament
for his language than on a theological definition of terms of which he
had never heard.
Sullivan remarks 77 that a question of the justice of Theodore's
condemnation by the Fifth Ecumenical Council arises because of the
Council's employment of evidence which was distorted, and on this
page he promises that he will return to the question of the justice of
the condemnation. Later, however, he professes that he is not dealing
with the justice of the condemnation; 78 and I find no fulfilment of
the promise to return to the question except almost at the end of the
book:
The ultimate point of contradiction comes down to this: is the one subject, of
whom all these verbs of the Creed are predicated, really God the Word or not?
Theodore certainly would agree with Nestorius that it is not. But the fathers of
Ephesus agreed with Cyril of Alexandria that it is. Nestorius, as well as Theodore,
thought that the two natures are united in one prosopon. But neither understood
that this one prosopon, this one subject of whom one can predicate what belongs
to both divinity and humanity, is actually the Divine Person of the Word. Here
is the basic defect of Nestorianism. It is likewise the basic defect of the christology
of Theodore of Mopsuestia. For all the positive and sound elements which are to
be found in his thinking, one cannot deny the essential agreement between the
doctrine of Theodore and the doctrine of that letter of Nestorius which was condemned
at Ephesus. We believe this fact is ample justification for the verdict of
the "Doctor of the Incarnation": that Theodore of Mopsuestia was the Father of
Nestorianism. 79
From this I deduce that the justice of the condemnation is upheld because
Theodore actually was the father of Nestorianism, although
not for the reasons which were adduced before the Council.
But this is the conclusion of Sullivan's thesis which I cannot accept.
It is misleading to put the question as if the unity of subject was
already settled when the Nestorian controversy arose. Nestorius did
not assert simply that the two natures are united in one prosopon,
but that each of the natures before the union constituted a distinct
prosopon. Of such a view Sullivan has adduced no evidence whatever
in the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia; and I have adduced passages
in this article which are in direct contradiction to such a view.
The contradiction is not explicit because the question did not arise in
Theodore's mind in these terms; but these passages are enough to
77 Sullivan, p. 112.
78 Ibid., p. 158.
79 Ibid., p. 284.