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Marian Piety and the Nestorian Controversy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Richard M. Price
Richard M. Price*
Affiliation:
Heythrop College, University of London
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Extract

Conventional wisdom on the Nestorian controversy has long held that the dispute was over Christ rather than Mary, that the attribution of the title Theotokos (or God-bearer) to the Virgin became a battlefield not because the status of Mary was a lively issue but because of its implications for the doctrine of the Incarnation. Associated developments in Marian piety have been seen as a consequence of the approval of the title at the ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431) rather than its cause. The confidence with which this has been repeated reflects, one may suspect, both a prejudice that Christology was a more worthy subject for debate than Mariology and a presumption that theological debate among bishops must be more important than developments in popular piety where lay women played a leading role. We may therefore be grateful to a series of recent writers who have called the conventional wisdom into question and argued that the main cause of the controversy, as it developed in Constantinople, was a development in Marian devotion during the preceding quarter century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 39: The Church and Mary , 2004 , pp. 31 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

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References

1 ‘Contesting the Nativity, wives, virgins, and Pulcheria’s imitatio Mariae, Scottish Journal of Religious Studies, 19 (1998), 31-43. A more recent treatment, that reached me too late for discussion in this paper, is John A. McGuckin, ‘The paradox of the Virgin-Theotokos: evangelism and imperial politics in the fifth-century Byzantine world’, Maria, 2 (2001), 8-25. He does not address the critical questions raised here.

2 Nau, F., ‘Documents pour servir a l’histoire de l’eglise nestorienne’, Patrologia Orienlalis, 13 (Paris, 1919), 279 Google Scholar.

3 Holum, 153 n. 35. Nau (‘Documents’, 273) dated the main section of die letter (containing the Pulcheria episodes) to ‘peu apres 43 5’.

4 Nestorius, ed. Nau, F., Le Liure d’Heraclide de Damas (Paris, 1910), 89 Google Scholar. The often repeated argument that the summoning of the council of 431 to Ephesus is proof diat die emperor intended it to condemn Nestorius, since Ephesus was a centre of Marian devotion, must be rejected in the light of the more direct evidence for Theodosius Il’s intentions at die time he convened the council. In fact the evidence for Marian devotion at Ephesus before the council is slight; the only solid fact is the dedication of its cathedral to the Virgin.

5 ACO, 1.5, 40, 11. 13-14.

6 J.D. Mansi, Sacromm conciliorum amplissima collectio, 53 vols in 58 (Paris, 1759-1827), 5:987-9 (Epiphanius to Maximian of Constantinople); Nau, Le Livre, 367-9 (which lists various bribes, including fifty pounds of gold to one of Pulcheria’s cubiculariae ‘ut Augustam rogando persuadeat’).

7 Ibid., 89.

8 The Syrian historian Barhadbeshabba (late sixth century) tells a conflation of both stories: F. Nau, ‘Documents pour servir a l’histoire de l’eglise nestorienne: La seconde partie de l’histoire de Barhadbesabba ‘Arbaäa et Controverse de Theodore de Mopsueste avec les Macedoniens’: Patrologia Orientalis, 9 (Paris, 1913), 565-6.

9 Holum, 138-9.

10 Ibid., 139-41.

11 The Slavonic text, with translation and discussion, is in Francis J. Thomson, The Slavonic translation of the hitherto untraced Greek Homilia in nalivilatem domininostrijesu Christi by Atticus of Constantinople’, Analecta Bollandiana, 118 (2000), 5-36.

12 Proclus, Homilies on the Life of Christ, tr. with an introduction and notes by J.H. Barkhuizen (Brisbane, 2001).

13 Nicholas P. Constas, ‘Weaving the body of God: Proclus of Constantinople, the Theotokos, and the loom of the flesh’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 3 (1995), 169-94, brings out the significance and innovatory character of Proclus’ Mariology, but its dominance in his thought remains questionable.

14 Limberis, 87.

15 Holum, 142-3.

16 Studies on Constantinople (Aldershot, 1993), p. 4 of the Addenda to The development of Constantinople as an urban centre’.

17 F. Nau, ‘Jean Rufus, eveque de Maäouma, “Plerophories. temoignages et revelations contre la Concile de Chalcedoine”, version syriaque et traduction française’, Patrologia Orientalis, 8 (Paris, 1912), n-12.

18 ACQ, 1.2, 12-14.

19 Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica, 7.32: G.C. Hansen ed., Socrates: Kirchengeschichte, Die griechischen christhchen Schriftsteller der erstcnjahrhunderte, n.f. 1 (Berlin, 1995).

20 ACO 2.1.1,123.

21 Some scholars find this incredible, and strained attempts have been made to give a different interpretation to the page of the Acts quoted here. But the omission can be accounted for by reference to the sources used in the final section of the Definition. See G.D. Martzelos, Genesê kai pêges ton orou tes Khalkêdonas (Thessalonica, 1986), 94-8.