Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Excerpts from the Works of Nestorius in Jurgens, Faith of the Early Fathers, volume 3

  

Among ourselves there is frequent discussion, and they will ask, “Is Mary the Theotókos, and is, the Deipara or Mother of God or she she rather the Anthropotókos, that is, Mother of Man?”

 

Does God have a Mother? A Greek would introduce mothers of god would be blameless. . . . A creature did not bring forth the Creator, but bore a Man, an instrument of divinity. (θεοτητος οργανον) (Nestorius, Sermon 9, The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3 vols. [trans. William A. Jurgens; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1979], 3:203)

 

There is a division of the divinity and the humanity. Christ, inasmuch as He is Christ, is undivided; the Son, inasmuch as He is the Son, is undivided. For we do not have two Christs, nor do we have two Sons. With us there is not a first Christ and a second, nor this Christ and another one, nor this Son now, and again another Son; rather, the same one is twofold (αλλαυτος ο εις εστι διπλους), not by divinity but by nature. (Sermon 12, Ibid., 203-4)

 

The Word of God is the God of Christ. . . . For the same was both Infant and Master (δεσποτης) of the Infant. You have approved what I said; but do not clap your hands for it without examining it. For I said, “The same was Infant and Inhabitant (οικητωρ) of the Infant.” (Sermon 15, ibid., 204)