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The Use of Scripture in the Nestorian Controversy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Rowan A. Greer
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Extract

The first half of the fifth century saw the emergence of the christological controversy which led to the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The two chief protagonists were Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius, the Antiochene monk who became patriarch of Constantinople in 428. There are several different ways of regarding the conflict. On one level it involved the political and ecclesiastical rivalry between Alexandria and Constantinople. From another point of view it was a struggle between the Alexandrian and Antiochene Christologies. This essay will attempt to present some reflections upon a third aspect, the exegetical dimension of the Nestorian controversy. The two words currently used to describe patristic exegesis are ‘typology’ and ‘allegorism’. I shall argue that, although there is good reason for supposing the two methods to have been antipathetic, they do not come into direct conflict with one another in the Nestorian controversy. This judgment can be made, first, because Antiochene hostility to allegorism cannot be connected with the christological controversies and, second, because the exegetical differences which marked the Nestorian controversy cannot be described as differences of method. Such a conclusion demands redefinition of the exegetical dimension of Nestorius' struggle with Cyril, and I shall conclude by suggesting some lines upon which redefinition might proceed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , December 1967 , pp. 413 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1967

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References

page 414 note 1 Harper and Brothers (New York, 1958).

page 414 note 2 A. and C. Black (London, 1965; original ed., 1948).

page 414 note 3 Studies in Biblical Theology (Naperville, I11., 1957); see especially p. 72.

page 415 note 1 I plead guilty to drawing this conclusion in a particularly gross fashion; see Theodore of Mopsuestia, Faith Press (London, 1961), p. 91Google Scholar: ‘In the fifth century this Alexandrian method came into conflict with the more literal school of Antiochene exegesis.… Much of the theological argument can be explained in terms of two differing approaches to Scripture.’

page 415 note 2 Migne, PG 18.613ff.

page 415 note 3 Suidas mentions a treatise by Diodore On the Difference between Theory and Allegory; Facundus (Pro def. 3.6) cites Theodore's treatise Against the Allegorists.

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page 421 note 1 Hanson, R. P. C., Tradition in the Early Church, S.C.M. Press (London, 1962)Google Scholar; see especially chapter 6, ‘Tradition as Interpretation’.x