12.

 In what way did Nestorius precipitate the controversy which led to the Third Ecumenical Council?

            Nestorius declined to call the Virgin Mary Theotokos (Greek for Birthgiver of God or God-Bearer). To him, this popular title seemed to imply a confusion of the manhood and Godhood of Christ. He argued that Mary can only be called the Mother of Man (Anthropotokos), or at most the Mother of Christ (Christotokos), since she is the mother of Christ's humanity but not His Divinity. History shows that for this blasphemy, worms devoured the tongue of this God-fighting heresiarch while he was still alive.

            Modern fellow-travelers with Nestorius include some Protestants, who deny that God could have a mother, and who can only bring themselves to acknowledge that Mary was the mother of Christ's human nature. Michael Whelton points out that Protestant reaction to the title of Theotokos runs from a self-conscious uneasy acceptance to outright denial. He adds that the respective responses clearly demonstrate a graded scale within the Protestant community, from superficial to outright Nestorianism. However, the denial of the title Theotokos centers not on Mary, he explains, but on Christ Himself and the Incarnation. He further explains that when most of these people think it through, they readily understand that Christ's human and divine nature cannot be separated.