Yet the term Theotocos had been in such familiar use by every school for nearly two centuries, that the aversion of Nestorius to it can hardly have been simple ignorance. It was probably the instinctive aversion of heresy to the term which condemns it. Socrates himself mentions that it was used by Origen and Eusebius: it was used alike by Alexander, the predecessor of S. Athanasius , whose Council first condemned Arius; by |xlvii S. Athanasius himself ; by the Arian Eusebius ; and by S. Cyril of Jerusalem , who did not use the word Homoousion. The Apostate Emperor Julian said, in controversy with the Christians, ' Did Isaiah say that a Virgin should bear God? but ye do not cease calling Mary Theotocos,' attesting that the word was in the mouths of all Christians. A little later it was used by the two S. Gregories . It was used also by the great predecessor of Nestorius in the see of Constantinople, S. Chrysostom, as also by Ammon Bishop of Adrianople in Egypt, and by Antiochus Bishop of Ptolemais in Phoenicia . The corresponding title, Mater Dei, was used in the Latin Church by S. Ambrose , Cassian , and Vincent of Lerins .
John of Antioch, at a later period, entreating Nestorius to accept the term, in order to prevent the impending schism, said to him,
'This name no one of the ecclesiastical teachers has declined. For those who have used it have been many and eminent, and those who have not used it have never imputed any error to those who used it.' |xlviii
John endeavoured to smoothe to him the adoption of the word.
' The ten days, which Celestine allowed, are very short, but it might be made matter of a single day, perhaps only of a few hours. For to use a convenient word in the dispensation of our Sovereign Ruler Christ for us, which has been used by many of the fathers, and is true as to the saving Birth of the Virgin, is easy; which thy holiness ought not to decline, nor take that into account, that one ought not to do things contrary. For if thy mind is the same as that of the fathers and teachers of the Church (for this, my lord, I have heard from many common friends), what grief has it, to utter a pious thought in a corresponding word?'
Nestorius seems to have thought it to have been his office to convert the Church to his misbelief. He says,
' I see in our people much reverence and most fervent piety, but that they are blinded as to the dogma of the knowledge of God. But this is not the fault of the people, but (how shall I say it courteously?) that the teachers had not opportunity to set before you aught of the more accurate teaching.'
This was strong language, that the people of Constantinople were in error as to the faith through the fault of its former Bishops; but he also owned thereby, that his faith was different from theirs. 'Art thou then,' Cassian apostrophises him, 'the amender of former Bishops, the condemner of former Priests? art thou more excellent than Gregory, more approved than Nectarius, surpassing John?' |xlix
Nestorius seems to have chosen for himself the office of arbiter between ideal parties. In his third Epistle to S. Celestine he says,
It is known to your Blessedness, that if two sects stand over against one another, and one of them only uses the word Theotocos, and the other only Anthropotocos, and each sect draws the other to its own confession, so that, if it do not obtain this, there is peril lest it fall from the Church, it will be necessary, that one deputed to the consideration of this matter, having care for each sect, should remedy the peril of either party, by a word delivered by the Evangelist which signifies both natures. For that word, Christotocos, tempers the assertion of both, because it both removes the blasphemy of the Samosatene which is spoken of Christ, the Lord of all, as if He were a pure man, and also puts to flight the malice of Arius and Apollinarius.'
It is strange that he did not see (if indeed he did not see what every one else saw), that Christotocos, as opposed to Theotocos, could only mean 'mother of the Messiah,' i. e. mother of Him who should be the Messiah. Vincent of Lerins uses the homely illustration,
' as we speak of the mother of a Presbyter or a Bishop, not that she bare one who was already a Presbyter or a Bishop, but a man who was afterwards made a Presbyter or Bishop.'
S. John Damascene says,
' We do not call the holy Virgin Christotocos, because Nestorius invented it to deny the word Theotocos.'
The name 'Anthropotocos' must have been a fiction of his own, in order to make room for his |l own term Christotocos, as an intermediate term. No one would give the name as a descriptive name, however they may have held our Lord to be a mere man; and Nestorius speaks of those, who called the Blessed Virgin Anthropotocos, as in the Church.
However, in his own Patriarchate, for three years Nestorius had his own way. S. Cyril names that period in his full letter of explanation to Acacius of Beroea, who must have been cognizant of the accuracy of the statement.
' But when we all waited for Nestorius, while he spent a period of three years in blaspheming, and we and your holiness and the whole Council with us tried to bring him back from them, and to those doctrines which appertain to rightness and truth.'
Peter, the notary, rehearsed the same in the first session of the Council. ' Not many days having elapsed' [after his consecration]. S. Cyril in his letter to S. Celestine says,
During the past I have kept silence and have written absolutely nothing either to your Religiousness, or any of our Fellow-ministers, about him who is now at Constantinople and ruleth the Church, believing that hastiness in these things is not without blame.'
Within Constantinople, Nestorius, twice apparently, gave occasion to a great expression of popular feeling by utterances which he sanctioned, absolutely denying the doctrine of the Incarnation. The first was by Anastasius, a priest whom he had brought from Antioch, whom 'he held in great honour, and employed as a counsellor; a fiery |li lover of Nestorius and his Jewish dogmas.' He burst out in a sermon openly, ' let no one call Mary theotocos: for Mary was human; but it is impossible that one human should bear God.' This the people could ill-endure. Nestorius supported it with vehemence.
The other statement which reached S. Cyril, and which he mentioned to some at Constantinople, who blamed him for his letter to the monks , was by Dorotheus Bishop of Marcianopolis, who said openly, 'Anathema, if any call the holy Mary, Theotocos.'
This went much further than the former. It pronounced Anathema (as S. Cyril saw) upon all who held what all held and expressed, upon the whole Catholic Church. Nestorius at once received him to Communion.
Nestorius supported the denial of the Theotocos. In his first Sermon he says, that he had been asked whether the Blessed Virgin was to be called 'Anthropotocos or Theotocos.' He appealed to his hearers,
Has God a mother? Then heathendom may be excused, bringing in mothers to its gods. Then Paul is a liar, who saith of the Deity of Christ, 'without father, without mother, without descent.' Mary bore not God, my good friends. For that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The creature bare not the Uncreated: the Father did not beget God the Word. For 'in the beginning was the Word,' as John saith. The creature did not bear the Creator, but she bare a Man, the instrument of Deity: the Holy Spirit did not create God the Word; for that |lii which was born of her was of the Holy Spirit; but He framed of the Virgin for God the Word a temple wherein He should dwell.'
Nestorius continued to preach the same, sometimes in terms, in themselves sound, but in the context of what is unsound.