into apprehensions for the cause of truth itself, which seemed to be now in danger of betrayal by the man who had been esteemed as one of its ablest defenders. Nestorius did not propound his doctrine fully at the outset, but commenced by an attack upon a custom in many respects certainly questionable in itself, and liable to serious abuses; and the discussion of which naturally led to the more complete developement of his own opinions; the usage, namely, which had become established in the Greek and Latin churches, of applying to the blessed Virgin the title of Θεοτόκος, or "Mother of God." The reverence and honour so undeniably due to the memory of her who was "most blessed among women," had even at that period been exaggerated far beyond its proper limits, and was rapidly verging upon that absurd and guilty creature-worship, which soon became one of the distinctive features of the church's apostasy. How justifiable soever might have been such a title upon abstract theologic principles, yet, inasmuch as it had been neither used in the apostolic age, nor warranted by direct scripture-precedent, and as it was, moreover, capable of leading to injurious misapprehensions in the minds of the simple and unlearned, as well as of presenting a distorted view of Christianity to the eyes of the numerous philosophic spiritualists of the Platonic and Alexandrine schools, so as to create an invincible objection to their reception of the gospel, the choice of it at the first, and the subsequent maintenance of it as a sort of catholic "shibboleth," must be rightly considered only as a calamity.
Nestorius did not commence the aggressive in person, but employed a monk, named Anastasius, an early friend of his at Antioch, to attack from the pulpit the favourite title of the Virgin. By this plan the bishop first appeared in the matter, not as the direct impugner of the popular prejudice, but as an authoritative judge on a subject of
