Nestorius tried to find a middle ground between those that emphasized the fact that in Christ God had been born as a man, insisted on calling the Virgin Mary Theotokos ( Greek: Θεοτόκος, " God-bearer "), and those that rejected that title because God as an eternal being could not have been born.

The main issue that prompted this dispute between Cyril and Nestorius was the question which arose at the Council of Constantinople: What exactly was the being to which Mary gave birth?

Philip, as papal legate, opened the proceedings by commenting that the present question regarding Nestorius had already been decided by Pope Celestine as evidenced by his letter which had been read to the assembled bishops in the first session.

* 435 – Deposed Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius, considered the originator of Nestorianism, is exiled by Roman Emperor Theodosius II to a monastery in Egypt.

Despite three separate summons, Nestorius refused to acknowledge Cyril's authority to stand in judgment of him and considered the opening of the council before the arrival of the Antiochene contingent as a " flagrant injustice ".

As different denominations of Christianity developed, differing lists of saints began as the same individual may be considered ( as an extreme ) a saint or doctor by one denomination and a heretic by another, as in the case of Nestorius.

He seems to have been the same Byzantine presbyter Philip, who was commended by Cyril of Alexandria for avoiding the company of Nestorius, whom Cyril considered heretical.

Cyril of Alexandria considered Nestorius ' doctrine to be contrary to Orthodox teaching, and encouraged measures to condemn it.

One famous example is Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople who so vigorously defended Jesus ' humanity that he undermined Jesus ' divinity ; A brief definition of Nestorian Christology can be given as: " Jesus Christ, who is not identical with the Son but personally united with the Son, who lives in him, is one hypostasis and one nature: human .".

Nestorius, on the other hand, saw the incarnation as primarily a moral and ethical example to the faithful, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

Nestorius spoke of the distinct ' Jesus the man ' and ' the divine Logos ' in ways that Cyril thought were too dichotomous, widening the ontological gap between man and God in a way that some of his contemporaries believed would annihilate the person of Christ.

Another theological dispute in the 5th century occurred over the teachings of Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople who taught that God the Word was not hypostatically joined with human nature, but rather dwelt in the man Jesus.

Nestorius developed his Christological views as an attempt to rationally explain and understand the incarnation of the divine Logos, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity as the man Jesus Christ.

The Church of the East was associated with the doctrine of Nestorianism, advanced by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 – 431, which emphasized the disunion between the human and divine natures of Jesus.

Nestorius rejected this proposition, answering that, because the human soul was based on the archetype of the Logos, only to become polluted by the Fall, Jesus was " more " human for having the Logos and not " less ".

The Council denounced Nestorius ' teaching as erroneous and decreed that Jesus was one person, not two separate people: complete God and complete man, with a rational soul and body.

The purpose of the condemnation was to make plain that the Imperial, Chalcedonian ( that is, recognizing the hypostatic union of Christ as two natures, one divine and one human, united in one person with neither confusion nor division ) Church was firmly opposed to all those who had either inspired or assisted Nestorius, the eponymous heresiarch of Nestorianism — the proposition that the Christ and Jesus were two separate persons loosely conjoined, somewhat akin to adoptionism, and that the Virgin Mary could not be called the Mother of God ( Gk.

Nestorius ' rejection of the term Theotokos (' God-bearer ', or ' Mother of God ') has traditionally been held as evidence that he asserted the existence of two persons – not merely two natures – in Jesus Christ, but there exists no evidence that Nestorius denied Christ's oneness.

In the late 420s the newly appointed patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius, and a presbyter named Anasthasius ( both from Antioch ) had been preaching on the Greek word theotókos (“ mother of God ”) as it is used referring to Mary, mother of Jesus ; they were imploring the people that Mary should not be worshiped or referred to as such.

Theotokos is the Greek title of Mary, the mother of Jesus used historically by non-Ephesians followers of Nestorius.

One such theory of how the human and divine interact in the person of Jesus was put forward by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius ( c. 386 – 451 ).

Nestorius, a student of the Antiochene school of theology, taught that in the incarnation two distinct hypostases (" substances " or, as Nestorius ' critics such as John Cassian and Cyril of Alexandria employed the term, " persons ") were conjoined in Jesus Christ — one human ( the man ) and one divine ( the Word ).

Nestorius argued that Mary was neither a " Mother of Man " nor " Mother of God " as these referred to Christ's two natures ; rather, Mary was the " Mother of Christ ".

Christ, according to Nestorius, was the conjunction of the Godhead with his " temple " ( which Nestorius was fond of calling his human nature ).

Nestorius ' opponents found his teaching too close to the heresy of adoptionism – the idea that Christ had been born a man who had later been " adopted " as God's son.

Irenaeus the friend of Nestorius, with the cooperation of Theodoret, became bishop of Tyre, in spite of the protests of Dioscorus, Cyril's successor, who now turned specially against Theodoret ; and, by preferring the charge that he taught two sons in Christ, he secured the order from the court confining Theodoret to Cyrrhus.

Nestorius emphasized the dual natures of Christ, trying to find a middle ground between those that emphasized the fact that in Christ God had been born as a man, insisted on calling the Virgin Mary Theotokos ( Greek: Θεοτόκος, " God-bearer "), and those that rejected that title because God as an eternal being could not have been born.

Consequently, Nestorius argued that the Virgin Mary should be called Christotokos, Greek for " Birth Giver of Christ ", and not Theotokos, Greek for " Birth Giver of God ".

If such a union of human and divine occurred, Nestorius believed that Christ could not truly be con-substantial with God and con-substantial with us because he would grow, mature, suffer and die ( which Nestorius argued God cannot do ) and also would possess the power of God that would separate him from being equal to humans.

If such a union of human and divine occurred, Nestorius believed that Christ could not truly be con-substantial with God and con-substantial with us because he would grow, mature, suffer and die ( which he said God cannot do ) and also would possess the power of God that would separate him from being equal to humans.

In the Bazaar, written towards the end of his life, Nestorius denies the heresy for which he was condemned and instead affirms of Christ " the same one is twofold " – an expression that some consider similar to the formulation of the Council of Chalcedon.

Nestorius ' earlier surviving writings, however, including his letter written in response to Cyril's charges against him, contain material that suggest that at that time he held that Christ had two persons.

The Archbishop of Constantinople — Nestorius, having asserted that Mary ought not to be referred to as the " Mother of God " ( Theotokos in Greek, literally " God-bearer "), was denounced as a heretic ; in combating this assertion of Patriarch Nestorius, Eutyches declared that Christ was " a fusion of human and divine elements ", causing his own denunciation as a heretic twenty years after the First Council of Ephesus at the 451 AD Council of Chalcedon.

According to Nestorius, all the human experiences and attributes of Christ are to be assigned to ' the man ', as a distinct personal subject from God the Word, though united to God the Word from the moment of his conception.

The Council condemned as heretical the Christology of Nestorius, whose reluctance to accord the Virgin Mary the title ' Theotokos ' (' God-bearer ' or ' Mother of God ') was taken as evidence that he believed two separate persons ( as opposed to two united natures ) to be present within Christ.

He agreed to anathematize Nestorius as a heretic in 451, during the Council of Chalcedon, as the price to be paid for being restored to his see ( after deposition at the Council of Ephesus of 449 ).

McGuckin ascribes Nestorius ' importance to his being the representative of the Antiochene tradition and characterizes him as a " consistent, if none too clear, exponent of the longstanding Antiochene dogmatic tradition.

He first came to notice in 431 at the First Council of Ephesus, for his vehement opposition to the teachings of Nestorius ; his condemnation of Nestorianism as heresy precipitated his being denounced as a heretic himself.

Harmony being restored, John of Antioch and the other Eastern bishops wrote Maximian a letter of communion indicating their consent to his election and to the deposition of Nestorius.

His Christology is built in great part on sound exegesis and an interesting anthropology and is far less dualistic than the one Nestorius seems to have presented.

The Acoemetae took a prominent part — and always in the sense of orthodoxy — in the Christological discussions raised by Nestorius and Eutyches, and later, in the controversies of the Icons.