Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/38

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26
THE TRAGEDY

Chalcedon before it was held. Was his doctrine really in harmony with that of this council? Was this heretic a rudely maltreated exponent of orthodoxy?

These questions, you see, are not only raised by Professor Bethune-Baker; but we, too, have to raise them, when we are considering the material we find in the sources.

Hence I hope that, while dealing with these questions, I shall succeed in gaining your further interest during the course of the next three lectures.

In the next lecture we shall see that really to no other heretic has been done such great injustice as to Nestorius. The last two lectures will deal with the doctrine of Nestorius and his position in the history of dogma.


II

In the preceding lecture we saw that by the increased knowledge of the works of Nestorius and especially by his lately rediscovered Treatise of Heraclides, written not long before his death, and by his still later letter to the inhabitants of Constantinople, the question is raised whether this heretic was a rudely maltreated exponent of orthodoxy.

About his doctrine we shall speak in the next lecture, to-day it will only occasionally be mentioned. For what now will occupy us is the fact that he was