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Nestorianism
Nestorianism is the error that Jesus
is two distinct persons. The heresy is named after Nestorius, who
was born in Syria and died in 451 AD, who advocated this doctrine.
Nestorius was a monk who became the Patriarch of Constantinople and he
repudiated the Marian title "Mother of God." He held that
Mary was the mother of Christ only in respect to His humanity. The
council of Ephesus was convened in 431 to address the issue and pronounced
that Jesus was one person in two distinct and inseparable natures:
divine and human.
Nestorius was deposed as Patriarch and sent
to Antioch, then Arabia, and then Egypt. Nestorianism survived until
around 1300.
The problem with Nestorianism is that it
threatens the atonement. If Jesus is two persons, then which one
died on the cross? If it was the "human person" then the
atonement is not of divine quality and thereby insufficient to cleanse us
of our sins.
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