of God here spoken about do not, according to Nestorius, succeed each other, they are co-existent, i.e. the one Christ shows us as clearly the form of God as the form of a servant, and it is once expressly said by Nestorius that the form is the πρόσωπον[1]. The statement, that the πρόσωπα interchange, means, therefore, that the Logos shows himself in the form of a servant and the man in the form of God, this one by humbling himself, the other by being exalted[2], or as Nestorius says[3] with Gregory of Nazianzen[4]: θεοῦ μὲν ἐνανθρωπήσαντος, ἀνθρώπου δὲ θεωθέντος.
Let us examine these two thoughts further. First, that the union takes place in the πρόσωπον of the man.
The Logos humbled himself in willing obedience unto death, yea, the death of the cross, taking on the πρόσωπον of the man, who suffered and died, as his own πρόσωπον[5]. From the annunciation, the birth and the manger till death[6] he was found in outward being as a man, without having the nature of a man; for he did not take the nature but the form and appearance of
- ↑ B. 244 = N. 147.
- ↑ B. 84 f. = N 54 f.; B. 244 = N. 147; B. 341 = N. 218.
- ↑ e.g. B. 280 = N. 177; B. 307 = N. 195; B. 315 = N. 201; B. 330 = N. 210 f.; B. 332 = N. 212; B. 360 = N. 231.
- ↑ ep. 101, Migne, 37, 180 a.
- ↑ Comp. B. 84 f. = N. 55; comp. B. 131 = N. 85: La forme de Dieu était en apparence comme un homme.
- ↑ B. 132 = N. 85; B. 118 = N. 76: Parce qu'il était Dieu et immortel, il a accepté dans son prosôpon—lui qui n'était pas coupable—la mort, c'est à dire ce qui est mortel et capable de changement.
