Nestorius and Cyril: Divergent Christological Language

How their battles over words alerts us to the need to distinguish concepts from judgments.

The Christological controversies of the fifth century centered significantly on terminology, with theologians using similar terms in different ways to express the relationship between Christ's divinity and humanity. This article examines how Nestorius and Cyril of Alexandria employed key theological terms and how their differing philosophical commitments shaped the controversy.

Nestorius on Hypostasis and Nature

Nestorius objected to a single hypostasis view of Christ because "those natures are deprived of the hypostases which they solely possess, being mingled with one another" (Frag 225). In other words, the two natures of Christ have their own hypostasis And Nestorius accuses Cyril of mingling two natures by mingling together respective hypostasis, which he believes each nature has. In his Bazaar, he says they have their prosopa as well. So for Nestorius, every nature (and every ousia) has its own hypostasis and prosopon, a word we usually translate as person.

In this regard, his philosophical commitments prevented him from seeing how out of line he was with Constantinople (381) in which the treis hypostases of God refer to the concrete persons of the one ousia of God. Had Nestorius used the term hypostasis in ways similar to the Creed, then he would have, I think, not been so keen to align hypostasis and nature as more-or-less equivalents to ousia.

What adds even more complication is that in his Bazaar, Nestorius will also speak of a prosopic union out of two prosopa, using the same term (prosopon) for two different ends.

Cyril's Terminology

Cyril for his part would use ousia, physis, hypostasis, and prosopa in more agreeable ways. Basically, physis and hypostasis and prosopon take similar meanings in Cyril, with some nuances. Hence, he speaks of a hypostatic union, one Incarnate nature of the Word, or of a single person in Christ, the One Lord Jesus Christ. Admittedly, he will also use physis in two ways (Nestorius does the same with prosopon). Sometimes physis means something like ousia and at others like prosopon. That is par for the course during the 300s and 400s.

Conclusion

The terminological fluidity that characterized the Christological debates of the fifth century would only be resolved decades later. It was probably not until years after Chalcedon when this language became fairly uniform. Physis comes to mean something like ousia in Christological debates, especially after Constantinople II in 553. This standardization helped clarify the orthodox position on Christ's dual nature and single person, resolving many of the communicative challenges that had fueled earlier controversies.

Knowing these terminological confusions will help us read both figures more sympathetically. But it should also show clearly, once we move past the concepts to the actual judgments made about Christ, that Nestorius indeed taught Nestorianism, a position rightly condemned in 431, 451, and 553.