other · 428 · Constantinople
Nestorius came from Antioch to be archbishop of Constantinople in 428 with a reputation as a preacher and, by every account including friendly ones, no political sense at all. Within weeks he had objected to the popular title Theotokos, God-bearer, and proposed Christotokos instead, on the ground that a creature cannot be the mother of the divine nature. The objection is not absurd and the tradition he came from had a real point to protect: that the humanity of Christ is complete and is not swallowed by the divinity. But the title was old, it was popular, and denying it seemed to say that the one born of Mary is not the one who is God — that there are two subjects in Christ, a man and the Word, joined rather than one. Cyril of Alexandria answered, Rome agreed with Cyril, and Ephesus condemned Nestorius in 431 before his own supporting bishops had arrived. He died in exile in Upper Egypt. Whether he held what was condemned is disputed to this day: the Bazaar of Heracleides, recovered in 1895, has him rejecting the position in his own words, and the churches of the East that kept his name have signed common declarations with Rome in our own time saying the quarrel was in large part about language.
Was the argument about Mary?
No. It was about whether the one who was born is the same one who is God, and Mary's title was where that became sayable.