The Ancient Doctrine of God’s Mother

The early Church wrestled with many issues regarding the identity of Christ. Unfortunately, some churchmen would take a piece of scripture and develop a whole theology around it without properly examining it or considering what other scriptures say on an issue.

In modern terms, what they did was called proof texting, but on a grandiose scale.  A scale in which souls were at stake.  This came to the fore at the Council of Ephesus (431 AD), where churchmen discussed the unity of Christ.

Christology and a Dilemma

More specifically, the council fathers debated the question of how Christ could be truly God and truly human at the same time.  As if this issue were not enough to cause division, there was a political component as well.  The Christian patriarchs of Antioch, Constantinople, and Alexandria had a rivalry which stemmed from Constantinople calling itself the “New Rome”.  At the center of the council were two bishops, Nestorius and St. Cyril of Alexandria.

Nestorius was a priest who became the patriarch of Constantinople.  He was trained in Antioch which had a very good reputation for defending the humanity of Christ. Nestorius started with diversity in Christ (two natures) then got into trouble when trying to explain how those two natures came together.  In attempting to explain the humanity of Christ, Nestorius looked at the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Theotokos and Nestorius

Most churches at the time called Mary the Theotokos; it is a Greek term, meaning “God-bearer” or Mother of God.  Nestorius made the suggestion that Mary should have the title of theodochos, that is, the recipient of God.  Later on he would suggest calling her Christotokos, the mother of Christ.

By doing this, Nestorius was attempting to preserve the authentic humanity of Christ, but the way he did so was complex and, in the end, he failed to preserve the unity of Christ’s two natures.

In his argument, Nestorius used a Stoic concept of what makes an individual. Nestorius believed that Christ should exist as two individuals (hypostasis) or two separate persons (prosopon), only loosely connected with each other. That opened the door for denying either Jesus’s divinity or His humanity, or both, which were forms of early heresies in the Church.

The council taught that Christ has two natures, divine and human, united by one divine Person. This is the teaching we profess in our Creed at Mass every Sunday to this day.

St. Cyril and Christology

Hearing the argument of Nestorius, Cyril took the opportunity to say that Christ was one individual, both God and man.  To Cyril, the view of Nestorius implied that there were two different Christs, one who is the Son of God and the other who was the son of Mary. This was ridiculed by Cyril and other council fathers as the “two sons” doctrine.

However, by affirming that Christ is one Person, Cyril was not saying that Christ did not have a human nature.  He was saying that Christ’s human soul was perfectly united to His divinity. This term is known as the hypostatic union and is still a theological term used today.

Nestorius was eventually condemned at the Council of Ephesus for his “two sons” doctrine. Cyril, who was rather uncharitable to Nestorius, called him a “New Judas” and had him deposed from his position as archbishop of Constantinople.

The Mother of God

The Council of Ephesus in 431 upheld the human and divine natures coexisting in the one Person of Jesus as well as the term Theotokos as applied to Mary.

In short, calling Mary the Mother of God has less to do with Mary than with understanding Jesus properly.  Regarding this, the Catechism states,

Called in the Gospels “the mother of Jesus”, Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as “the mother of my Lord”. In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father’s eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly “Mother of God” (Theotokos)” (CCC, 495).

Jesus was fully God and fully man from the time of His conception.  Mary gave birth to the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, not a boy who would latter take on a divine nature, which is a heresy known as adoptionism.

The divine nature was there from the moment of conception.  Since Mary gave birth to Jesus, who we affirm to be God incarnate, she gave birth to God.

Yes, my friends, it really is that simple.  Nestorianism is the logical consequence for those who deny the Theotokos.

Holy Mary, Mother of God pray for us.