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Essay / The Importance of the Doctrine of the Incarnation
Four movements, now heresies, of the past have each adopted one of these four previously mentioned views. These are: Nestorianism, Eutychianism, Apollinarianism and Arianism. Nestorianism and Eutychianism arise from the controversy over the relationship between the two natures. The Nestorian controversy arose over the appropriateness of the term theotokos (“God-bearer”) to describe Mary. At the Council of Chalcedon in 428, Nestorius gave his vision of the Theotokos to which he held and a too divergent vision of the two natures of Christ. Nestorius considered the term to be of doubtful propriety unless the term anthropotokos ("human-bearer") was also used. Nestorius was later condemned when Cyril of Alexandria; who believed that Christ had one nature got involved. Nestorius' declaration regarding the birth of Christ caused Cyril to oppose him. Nestorius said that God cannot have a mother; no woman can give birth to God. Cyril of Alexandria suggested that Nestorius proposed that Jesus had two natures united in a purely moral union. After Nestorianism came Eutychianism. Eutyches, who was summoned several times to the permanent synod of Constantinople in 448, finally appeared and stated his position that Christ had two natures before the incarnation, who had only one after. The result of the Synod was that Eutyches was deposed and excommunicated and the doctrine of oneness rejected. Arianism and Apollinarianism fall under the controversy over whether Christ is fully divine and fully human. Arianism is the teaching of the Alexandrian priest Arius and his followers. Arius denied the full divinity of Christ. He taught that the Son of God did not have the same substance as the father and was created "...... middle of paper ......Bible Institute Colportage Ass'n., 1934 .Gore, Charles. The Incarnation of the Son of God. London: J. Murray, 1891. Kelly, JND. Early Christian Doctrines. New York: Harper, 1960. Lawson, Penelope. The Incarnation of the Word of God, being the Treatise of Saint Athanasius, De Incartione Verbi Dei; New York: Macmillan, 1946. Print. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: The Seven Ecumenical Councils, vol 14. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Peabody, Mass. : Hendrickson Publishers, 1994.4. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Socrates, Sozomenus, Church Histories, vol 2. eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994. 274. Streatfeild, George Sidney. The Incarnation. London: Longmans, Green, 1910. Verball, Wim. “The Council of Sense Reconsidered: Masters, Monks or Judges?.” In Church History, vol 74. Cambridge University Press, 2005.