Greeks were the better theologians; that is, to say, their expressions of infinite truths in finite words appear to us to be the least unsatisfactory and misleading. Of course every human expression intended to explain or describe the mystery of the Incarnation becomes false if its inadequacy is forgotten; and each party, as a rule, only half remembered this fact as regards their own terms, and quite forgot it as regards those of their opponents. Thus each usually insisted on stretching the language used by the other to its full logical conclusion; forgetting that logic does not apply to the case, and that this reductio ad absurdum line of argument, if used at all, was applicable equally to both. Each side vehemently asserted that the other was teaching a doctrine which the other as vehemently denied that he taught. A. stretched B.'s tenets (usually misunderstood, and sometimes misstated) to their full logical conclusion, and presented them to B. as B.'s doctrines. B. returned the compliment to A. Each denied holding the views that the other attributed to him, and anathematized what he insisted that the other must hold.[1]
Whether "heretics" of any variety really intended to deny the truths which the Greek theologians asserted, and which they intended their expressions to guard, is another and very difficult question. We shall have to examine it later as far as one variety is concerned. They very certainly
- ↑ For instance, the "Orthodox" said to the "Nestorian," "You call the B.V.M. 'Mother of Christ.' You must mean by that, 'Mother of a mere Man.'"
"We mean nothing of the kind," said the "Nestorian" to the "Orthodox," "but you call her 'Mother of God,' and that can only mean, 'Mother of the God-head.'"
Both were quite logical, particularly when the varying nuances of the technical words in the different languages used are remembered, and both were wrong.
