Theological Term of the Week: Nestorius

Nestorius
“[A] famous preacher at Antioch,” who reacted against Apollinarius’s teaching by emphasising “the completeness of Christ’s human nature and its distinctness from His divine nature.”1 He also rejected the title theotokos (birth-giver of God) for Mary. He lived from 381-451 and became patriarch of Constantinople in 428.

• From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. H. Needham, page 272: 

Nestorius rejected the title theotokos for Mary. This was not because he was protesting against the exaltation of Mary, which was then only in its very early stages. He protested because he was a committed Antiochene. Nestorius made a sharp distinction between Christ’s human and divine natures, and tended to speak about Jesus as a man with whom the divine Son had united Himself. According to Nestorius, Mary gave birth to the human person Jesus, not to the divine Son Who joined Himself to Jesus. Nestorius therefore rejected the title “birth-giver of God” for Mary. He suggested that Mary should be called Christotokos, “birth-giver of Christ”.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is Nestorianism?
2. Ligonier Ministries: Cyril and Nestorius
3. Banner of Truth: The Great Heresies:Nestorius and Eutyches

Related terms:

• Ambrose of Milan
• Apollinarius
• Athanasius
• Augustine of Hippo
• Basil of Caesarea
• Cappadocian fathers
• Gregory of Nanzianzus
• Gregory of Nyssa
• Hilary of Poitiers
• Irenaeus of Lyons
• Jerome
• John Chrysostom
• Justin Martyr
• Monica
• Origen
• Pelagius
• Sabellius
• Tertullian

Filed under Christian History

1From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. R. Needham.

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Sunday Hymn: Break Thou the Bread of Life

Break thou the bread of life,
Dear Lord, to me,
As thou didst break the loaves
Beside the sea;
Throughout the sacred page
I seek thee, Lord,
My spirit pants for thee,
O living Word.

Bless thou the truth, dear Lord,
To me, to me,
As thou didst bless the bread
By Galilee;
Then shall all bondage cease,
All fetters fall;
And I shall find my peace,
My All in all.

Thou art the Bread of Life,
O Lord, to me,
Thy holy Word the truth
That saveth me;
Give me to eat and live
With thee above;
Teach me to love thy truth,
For thou art love.

O send thy Spirit, Lord,
Now unto me,
That he may touch mine eyes,
And make me see:
Show me the truth concealed
Within thy Word,
And in thy Book revealed
I see the Lord.

—Ma­ry A. Lath­bu­ry

Other hymns of worship songs for this Sunday:

• A Mighty Fortress Is Our God at The Happy Wonderer 

Sunday Hymn: His Mercy Is More

What love could remember no wrongs we have done;
Omniscient, all-knowing, He counts not their sum.
Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore;
Our sins, they are many, His mercy is more.

Chorus
Praise the Lord!
His mercy is more.
Stronger than darkness; new every morn;
Our sins, they are many, His mercy is more.

What patience would wait as we constantly roam;
What Father, so tender, is calling us home.
He welcomes, the weakest, the vilest, the poor;
Our sins, they are many, His mercy is more.

What riches of kindness He lavished on us;
His blood was the payment, His life was the cost.
We stood ‘neath a debt we could never afford;
Our sins, they are many, His mercy is more.

—Matt Boswell and Matt Papa

© 2016 Getty Music Hymns and Songs (ASCAP), Love Your Enemies Publishing (ASCAP), Getty Music Publishing (BMI), and Messenger Hymns (BMI) (all adm. by MusicService.org)

Other hymns of worship songs for this Sunday:

• I Think When I Read That Story of Old at The Happy Wonderer