It like what **title says** it simple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshitta didn't explain well

In classes earlier on in my life I was taught that Nestorius was a false teacher since he taught what some have called the "two board" theory. In this theory, There's two Jesuses *(what's the Plural of Jesus in English?)* glued together. These two Jesuses (one human and the other divine) do not interact with each other. Instead, they take turns. Before I continue on, please let me apologize if that illustration is somewhat crass. I'm just simply handing down what was handed down to me. In Nestorius, The Bazaar of Heracleides , it seems as if the issue was far more that he was very vague in his explanations than that his Christology was heretical. In one of the final quotes (of the earlier cited book) there is this assessment: > “The difference between Nestorius and Cyril is that whereas Nestorius is throughout perfectly consistent, and his theory a brilliant attempt to solve the problem on the basis of a principle which renders a solution impossible, Cyril's greatness lies in the very fact of his inconsistency. He would no more question the antithesis between godhead and manhood than would Nestorius, but where the truth was too much for his system, he preferred the truth to the system, and by his self-contradiction (which Nestorius exposes again and again) left room for further development of Christological doctrine in the future. What, then, will be our judgement on Nestorius? If the above interpretation of his teaching be true, he surely represents a very gallant and ingenious attempt to explain the Incarnation without giving up the belief that in Christ is to be found a complete human person as well as a complete divine person. He could not think of humanity except as existing in a distinct human person; for him, to deny the human ⲩⲡⲟⲥⲧⲁⲥⲓⲥ of Christ was to teach an Apollinarian maimed humanity.' Cyril boldly gave up belief in a distinct human ⲩⲡⲟⲥⲧⲁⲥⲓⲥ in Christ. Nestorius saw at once that this was inconsistent with the belief of both as to the relation between God and man, but in Cyril's inconsistency we have still a challenge to thought and to the search for a perfect Christology which is not to be found in the barren coherence of Nestorius.” (Appendix IV) My question is this, then: Did Nestorius *deny* key aspects of Christology? Or was he just sloppy in his treatment of it? Or is there some other explanation? As a gentle reminder, I'd appreciate citations from credible sources, especially from primary sources. I do read Greek, Hebrew, some Latin, and some Syriac. So those sources are welcome, in case the sources are only present in the original languages.

In a sense, related to https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/96803/what-is-the-controversy-that-is-leading-the-syro-malabar-catholics-into-schism See [Wikipedia: Nestorius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorius) and observe the churches that venerate Nestorius. How is it that Nestorius is venerated (presumably as a Saint) in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church when the Catholic Church had formally condemned Nestorius as a heretic at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in the fifth century? Is this possible?? Could there be a mistake here?

What is the understanding of the (Assyrian or Ancient) Church of the East on the Passion, considering their unique Christological doctrine? Do they believe that God suffered on the cross?

Are 'Nestorians' (Church of the East) still viewed as heretics by the Catholic Church? I asked this question because of the *Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East *.

>But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? [Luke 1:43, NIV] A secondary question in the Chalcedonian/Nestorian debate was whether it was more fitting to refer to Mary as the Theotokos (God-Bearer) or the Christotokos (Christ-Bearer). The passage from Luke just quoted seems to suggest a third option: Mary as the Kyriotokos, or Lord-Bearer. Of course, if being the Lord is tantamount to being God, this resolves to a defense of the Theotokos description. Now, rather later, one of the saints spoke of Mary in terms of a [quasi-Incarnation of the Third Person of the Trinity](https://saintmaximiliankolbe.com/who-are-you-o-immaculate-conception/) . My question is: does Nestorianism, ironically, give us a technical avenue for parsing this quasi-Incarnational thesis? What I mean is: modulo Nestorianism, might we say that whereas Christ was one person with two natures, Mary was two persons with two natures? It is specifically "by the power of the Holy Spirit" (c.f. Matthew 1:18) that the strict Incarnation proper was brought about; if Mary was the quasi-Incarnate Spirit, would such a Nestorian stature of hers be the very thing that "allowed" the Spirit to effect the strict Incarnation, through her? (Objection I anticipate: the Spirit could have effected this even if Mary were not the Spirit's own quasi-Incarnate estate. At any rate, though, the question of whether and how Mary had to be sufficiently sinless, to serve as the vessel of the Second Person of the Trinity, seems caught up in this other question.)

There exist many modern (say, 20th century or later), English language systematic theology textbooks from a Western Christian perspective. For example, *Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma* by Ludwig Ott from a Catholic perspective and *Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine* by Wayne Grudem from a Reformed perspective would surely count as being such. Does there exist analogous, English language texts that take the perspective of Nestorian or Jacobite Christians?

In another question, @Daи excellently explained the differences between Western and Eastern Christianity . But what are the differences between the Eastern Christianity itself, particularly between Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Nestorianism? One difference is that they have different stance on Christology. But do they have other differences? Maybe like different rituals, or different theology?

In my copy of _Readings in World Christian History Volume 1: Earliest Christianity to 1453_, edited by John W. Coakley & Andrea Sterk, the 35th text, starting on page 175, entitled "Definition of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon", is a text regarding the Council of Chalcedon, and in it, the author says that "for it [Truth, as best I can tell] opposes those who would render the mystery of the dispensation [i.e. the Incarnation] in a **Daud of Sons**;" (emphasis mine) My question is, what is a "Daud of Sons," and how would false teachers make the Incarnation into such a thing? Here's a link to an online copy I found that seems to be the same translation Definition of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon

In St. John Cassian's work "On the Incarnation: Against Nestorius" he claims that Pelagius believed > that Jesus Christ had lived as a mere man without any stain of sin, they actually went so far as to declare that men could also be without sin if they liked. ... They added as well that our Lord and Saviour became the Christ after His Baptism, and God after His Resurrection." *On the Incarnation of the Lord Book I Chapter III. Page 552 or 553 of the second series of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers.* The author of this answer (https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/52958/27623) takes issue with that claim. Is this actually what Pelagius himself, or Pelagians in general believed? It seems logical that the patristic teaching of the incarnation implicitly teaches an indwelling of grace in mankind brought about by the union of God and Man within the person of Jesus Christ and therefore this is something that the Pelagians want to deny, so they explain that Jesus Christ was simply a man that through his own will and efforts obtained the indwelling of God (sort of like a Christian version of Nietzsche's super-man) and is gracious to us by giving an example.

I am reading the book *The First Seven Ecumenical Councils * by Leo Donald Davis. This is my first introduction to Trinitarian and Christological disputes within the Early Church. It appears to me: - that Nestorians believed that Christ had two natures, two wills, and two hypostasis; - that Chalcedonians believed that Christ had two natures and two wills, but in one hypostasis; - that Monophysites believed that Christ had one (or two, dependent on sub-sect) nature, one will, and one hypostatsis. A) Is my assessment accurate? (This isn't the crux of my question: B is.) B) Regardless of my assessment's veracity, is it fair to state that the Chalcedonian position is a moderate position in between the Nestorian position and the Monophysite position? Why or why not?

Both Nestorius and Pelagius believed in a composite subject Christology that the person of Christ is a divine-humane person, the Logos and His tabernacle. Their Christology were condemned at Ephesus (431) and later repeated at Constantinople (553) where both Ss. Cyril of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo are declared as the Doctor of the Church. Nestorius teaches that the Logos is united with a perfect man. While Pelagius teaches that the perfect humanity of Christ is united to the Logos. So that both teach the Logos unites Himself with a perfect tabernacle as a composite subject. St. John Cassian under a request by Pope St. Leo the Great which at that time was an archdeacon wrote seven volume treatises to combat Nestorianism by connecting it with Pelagianism. >[T]he error of Pelagius ... that in saying that Jesus Christ lived as a mere man without any stain of sin, they actually went so far as to declare that men could also be without sin if they [chose]. > >John Cassian, On the Incarnation against Nestorius, 1:3, in The Works of John Cassian, trans. with preface Edgar C. S. Gibson, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. 11, ed. Philip Schaff. In similar fashion from a different perspective Marius Mercator accuses Theodore of Mopsuestia of being the father of the Pelagian heresy for teaching, >[T]hat the progenitors of the human race, Adam and Eve, having been created mortal by God, did not wound any of their descendants when they strayed by their transgression, but harmed only themselves; that they made themselves guilty of the command before God, but absolutely no one else. > >Marius Mercator, Commonitorium, Patrologia Latina, vol. 48, 110D-111A. Both John Cassian and Marius Mercator linked Nestorianism with Pelagianism. Richard Norris in his study Manhood and Christ observed that Antiochene Christology is aptly enough expressed in the dictum that, “The Nestorian Christ is a fit Savior for the Pelagian man.”1 So how are their Christologies differentiated from one another? ---------- 1 Richard Norris, Manhood and Christ, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, p. 246.

Was John Calvin a Nestorian? I ask because of the (at least superficial similarity) between the *extra calvinisticum* and Nestorian thought, and because his theology of the Lord's Supper has historically gotten him accused of Nestorianism. Read on for more on each of these reasons. # Background on Nestorius # Nestorius , patriarch of Constantinople, was condemned as a heretic at the council of Ephesus in 431 for his over-emphasis on the distinction of Christ's natures, which practically made those natures persons in their own right. Nestorius' difficulties at Constantinople in 428-431 with St. Cyril of Alexandria over the issue of the term Theotokos ("Mother of God") were related most basically to his fear that the Cyril, in stressing the unity of Christ, was endangering the essential distinction between created nature and the Creator. In the person of Christ, Nestorius feared any mixing of the human and the divine natures, for the term Christ properly "designates the impassible and the passible in only one person.... impassible with respect to the Divinity, and passible as regards the bodily nature."1 # The extra calvinisticum # Nestorius repeated the fear to Pope St. Celestine that the error that he was opposing at Constantinople was similar to that of Apollinaris and Arius, namely, the "blending together of the Lord's appearance as man into a kind of confused combination."2 And later, just prior to the council of Ephesus, in answer to Cyril's twelve anathemas against him, Nestorius himself condemned anyone who, >asserts that, at the union of the Logos with the flesh, the divine Essence moved from one place to another; or says that the flesh is capable of receiving the divine nature ... or ascribes to the flesh by reason of its reception of God. an extension to the infinite and the boundless. > >Nestorius' Counter Anathemas to Cyril, in C. J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, III (1883), p. 35, Anathema 2. Meanwhile, Calvin says, >For even if the Word in His immeasurable essence united with the nature of man into one person, *we do not imagine that He was confined therein*. Here is something marvelous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, He willed to be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet He continuously filled the world even as He had done from the beginning! > >John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols., (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1:481 . This belief of Calvin's is what Lutherans and others call the *extra calvinisticum *, a Christological belief that the finite is incapable of the infinite (*finitum non capax infiniti*). "In other words, the finite humanity of Christ is incapable of receiving or grasping infinite attributes such as omnipresence, omnipotence, or omniscience."3 # Consequences for Eucharistic theology # In Cyril's third letter to Nestorius he explained why proper hypostatic union Christology is crucial for Orthodox view of Eucharistic Adoration , >[W]e offer *the unbloody worship*4 in the churches and so proceed to the mystical thanksgivings and are sanctified having partaken of the holy flesh and precious blood of Christ, the Saviour of us all. This we receive not as ordinary flesh, heaven forbid, nor as that of a man who has been made holy and joined to the Word by union of honour, or who had a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and real flesh of the Word. For being life by nature as God, when He became one with His own flesh, He made it also to be life-giving, as also He said to us: "Amen I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood." For we must not think that it is the flesh of a man like us (for how can the flesh of man be life-giving by its own nature?), but as being made the true flesh of the one who for our sake became the son of man and was called so. > >Cyril of Alexandria, Third Letter to Nestorius . In relation to what he just explained, the twelve anathemas are appended to his third letter connecting the denial of Real Presence in Eucharistic Adoration as a denial of incarnation.5 >If anyone does not confess that the flesh of the Lord is life-giving and belongs to the Word from God the Father, but maintains that it belongs to another besides Him, united with Him in dignity or as enjoying a mere divine indwelling, and is not rather life-giving, as we said, since it became the flesh belonging to the Word who has power to bring all things to life, let him be anathema. > >Cyril of Alexandria, Anathema 11 . With these in mind we can compare Council of Ephesus Christology with Calvin's unique Christology on the Lord's Supper which is that of a real spiritual presence with Christ in heaven where the saints feed on Christ's body and blood spiritually.6 >Away, then, with those who, on the view of a missal-god of wafer, bend their knees in hypocritical adoration, and allege that they sin the less because they worship an idol under the name of God! As if the Lord were not doubly mocked by that nefarious use of His name, when, in a manner abandoning Him, men run to an idol, and He Himself is represented as passing into bread, because enchanted by a kind of dull and magical murmur! > >Calvin, On Shunning the Unlawful Rites of the Ungodly, and Preserving the Purity of the Christian Religion, 1537; translated by Henry Beveridge, 1851; reprinted in Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters, Vol. 3: Tracts, Part 3, edited by Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983; citations from pp. 386-387 . I'd like to understand how Calvin's denial of Eucharistic Adoration relates to Cyril's affirmation of it. It was, after all, Calvin's view of the Supper that resulted in the Lutherans calling him a Nestorian. Calvin also admitted that his view was different from the early church fathers'.7 He believed that the early church practices and beliefs were corrupted. So, was John Calvin a crypto-Nestorian ? --- 1 Nestorius, Letter II to Cyril, in F. Loofs, Nestoriana, pp. 175f.; for the French tr., see F. Nau, Revue de L ’Orient Chretien, XVI (1911), pp. 182f. 2 Nestorius' First Letter to Celestine, Library of Christian Classics, III, p. 347. 3 Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), 111 4 In Latin text sacrificii servitutem and in Greek text τελοῦμεν λατρείαν. 5 "Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God.... They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes." St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 6. 6 Unlike what allegedly accused of Calvin, he has in mind a higher view of the Lord's Supper than merely a memorial view. 7 Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1559 ed., translation of Ford L. Battles, edited by John T. McNeill, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 2 volumes, 1960, from vol. II, pp. 1439-1440