Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/118

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106
NESTORIUS' PLACE IN THE HISTORY

standard of these decisions, the christology of Nestorius is to be called heterodox. It was the main purpose of all the anathematisms of the council to show the Nestorian understanding of the ἕνωσις, of the ἓν πρόσωπον, and of the θεοτόκος, to be heretical.

And these decisions remained valid. The sixth ecumenical council, it is true, in opposition to the Greeks, who were drawing back gradually and too openly from the formulas of Chalcedon, sanctioned the Dyotheletism, asserting, under the strong influence of the western church, the difference between the natures of Christ also as regards the ἐνέργειαι and the φυσικὰ θελήματα[1], but it left the Cyrillian interpretation of the Chalcedonian creed untouched and even gave to the dyotheletic statement a look suited to the Cyrillian tradition; for it said that the human will became in the same sense the real will of the Logos as the human flesh became his flesh, the human soul his soul, the human intellect his intellect[2], and that the Logos had his being also in the human ἐνεργεῖν and θέλειν[3]. Even if some other parts were added to the apparatus of flesh, soul, intellect, energy, will, which was regarded as composing the human nature, it would not have mattered, since the Cyrillian doctrine had won the

  1. Comp. the creed of the council (approved the 16th of September 861), Mansi, xi, 631–640, the main section of which is to be found also in Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole etc., 3rd edition, pp. 172–174.
  2. Mansi, xi, 637 c d.
  3. l. c. xi, 637 e sq.