Nestorius

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NESTORIUS (381?–451?), Christian bishop after whom was named one of the major heresies concerning the doctrine of Christ. The figure of Nestorius is much less significant than the teachings associated with his name and the theological developments after his deposition. He was born in Germanicia in Cilicia, a Roman province in southeastern Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). In the Syrian city of Antioch, he distinguished himself by his asceticism and skill in preaching. When the clergy of the capital city of Constantinople could not agree on a replacement for the patriarch Sisinnius, the emperor invited Nestorius to accept the post. As bishop he was zealous in stamping out heresy, particularly Arianism and Novatianism. He soon became embroiled in controversy, however, initially because of the preaching of his assistant Anastasius, a presbyter he had brought with him from Syria, but later through his own lack of judgment.

Nestorius criticized the term theotokos ("God bearer"), a slogan for the idea that Mary, in giving birth to Jesus Christ, had given birth to God. He preferred christotokos ("bearer of Christ," i.e., the human being Jesus Christ). Since the term theotokos had become a sign of orthodox teaching, Nestorius's imprudence made him vulnerable to the charge of heresy, as his opponents swiftly recognized. Cyril of Alexandria, the ambitious patriarch of a rival see and the exponent of the theological ideas behind the concept of theotokos, obtained copies of Nestorius's sermons and initiated proceedings against him.

Nestorius was deposed, and in 436, after spending several years in a monastery in Constantinople, he was exiled to Egypt, where he remained for the rest of his life. He lived until the Council of Chalcedon (451), which he and others saw as a vindication of his views and a repudiation of Cyril. Nestorius was not, however, rehabilitated. His name has been associated with the view that there are two separate persons in Christ, the one divine and the other human (orthodox teaching is that there were two "natures"), but his theological contribution is insignificant. Of his writings a few sermons remain, as well as some fragments from theological works and an amorphous and difficult book, Bazaar of Heracleides, a defense of his views written long after the controversy and discovered in 1895 in a Syriac translation from the original Greek. He is revered by the Nestorian church, and his tomb in Egypt was venerated by his followers for centuries.

Nestorian Church; Nestorianism.

Driver, G. R., and Leonard Hodgson, eds. and trans. Nestorius: The Bazaar of Heracleides. Oxford, 1925.

Loofs, Friedrich. Nestoriana: Die Fragmente des Nestorius. Halle, Germany, 1905.

Scipioni, Luigi I. Nestorio e il concilio di Efeso. Milan, 1974.