the form of appearance of the flesh which the Logos could take on.
Nevertheless the number of those places in which Nestorius asserts that there was one πρόσωπον in Christ is much greater than that of those in which he speaks about the πρόσωπα in Christ. The former are found in great number already in the earlier known fragments[1] and in a still greater in the Treatise of Heraclides[2]. This formula is to be held as characteristic of the teaching of Nestorius. He repeats again and again that the natures were united in the one πρόσωπον of Christ. But what does he understand by this?
At first we must answer: Nestorius has in his mind the undivided appearance of the historic Jesus Christ. For he says, very often, that Christ is the one πρόσωπον of the union[3]. And he argued with Cyril: You start in your account with the creator of the natures and not with the πρόσωπον of the union[4]. It is not the
- ↑ Comp. Nestoriana, Index, s.v. πρόσωπον, p. 405 a.
- ↑ Comp. Nau's translation, Index, s.v. prosôpon, p. 388 b.
- ↑ e.g. B. 212 = N. 128: C'est donc le Christ qui est le prosôpon de l'union; B. 223 = N. 134 f.: le prosôpon d'union est le Christ; B. 250 = N. 151; B. 307 = N. 195.
- ↑ B. 225 = N. 136; comp. B. 255 = N. 154: Pourquoi donc m'avez-vous condamné? Parce que je lui ai reproché de … commencer par celui-ci (Dieu le Verbe) et de lui attribuer toutes les propriétés, and B. 131 = N. 85: C'est pourquoi celui-là (Cyrille), dans l'incarnation, n'attribue rien à la conduite de l'homme, mais (tout) a Dieu le Verbe, en sorte qu'il's'est servi de la nature humaine pour sa propre conduite.
