Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

812 27. the definition and enforcement of orthodoxy
one nature of the divine Logos made flesh, and the Antiochene school,
which favoured a more literal reading of scripture and stressed the two
natures in Christ after the union. It was Nestorius’ rejection of the title
Theotokos (God-bearer) as applied to Mary and his substitution of the word
Christotokos (Christ-bearer) which particularly drew the ire of Cyril and the
Alexandrians. Celestine, bishop of Rome, was also disquieted by the contents
of Nestorius’ sermons. When a complete dossier of the correspondence
which had passed between the two eastern patriarchs reached him,
including Cyril’s first and second letters to Nestorius, he and his synod condemned
Nestorius and charged Cyril with overseeing the doctrinal capitulation
of Nestorius or else putting into effect his condemnation (August 430).
On 19 November 430, however, the emperor Theodosius intervened – on
behalf, as he thought, of his protégé – and convoked a council which was to
meet at Ephesus on 7 June the following year. Meanwhile Cyril delivered his
ultimatum to Nestorius in the form of a third letter, in which he accused the
patriarch of Constantinople of having ‘injected the ferment of bizarre and
outlandish heresy into congregations not only at Constantinople but all over
the world’. 1 To this document were attached twelve anathemata (Twelve
Chapters) for his enemy to subscribe. Together with his first two letters to
Nestorius, they came to be regarded as a touchstone of orthodoxy in subsequent
theological debate. 2
Nestorius’ refusal to accept the Twelve Chapters meant that at Ephesus
he would be on trial. As it was, he was condemned and deposed by Cyril
and the Alexandrians in the absence both of John of Antioch and his party,
and of the Roman delegation. Furthermore, Cyril’s third letter and the
Twelve Chapters were inserted into the official proceedings of the council,
and Mary was proclaimed Theotokos. The faith of Nicaea was upheld. The
fact that Cyril and his colleague Memnon of Ephesus were in their turn
anathematized by the Antiochene party when the latter finally arrived did
not help the cause of Nestorius, who was forced to return to Antioch.
Ephesus I was not only a triumph for Cyril and implicitly for orthodoxy
as defined in Cyril’s third letter to Nestorius, but also a defeat for Nestorius
and his christology in Syria. By imperial legislation in 435 Nestorius was
banished from the patriarchate of Antioch; 3 in 448 another imperial edict
ordered all his works to be burnt. 4 While Nestorian Christianity was to take
root beyond the Roman empire in Persia, Nestorius himself was added to
the list of names regarded by orthodox Christians as heresiarchs.
After the demise of Nestorius, the Antiochenes and Alexandrians reestablished
unity between their two patriarchates based on a compromise
christological document which became known as the Formula of Reunion.
1 Greek text in Wickham (1983) 12, lines 13–14. The translation is Wickham’s (13).
2 For the text of these anathemata see Wickham (1983) 28–33; on their significance see ibid.
xxxv–xliii. 3 C.Th. xvi.5.66. 4 CJ i.1.3.
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