astray
by the false notion that Person may be applied to every nature. For on
this assumption, understanding that there were in Christ two natures, he
declared that there were likewise two persons. And although the
definition which we have already given is enough to prove Nestorius
wrong, his error shall be further declared by the following argument. If
the Person of Christ is not single, and if it is clear that there are in
Him two natures, to wit, divine and human (and no one will be so foolish
as to fail to include either in the definition), it follows that there
must apparently be two persons; for Person, as has been said, is the
individual substance of a rational nature.

What kind of union, then, between God and man has been effected? Is it
as when two bodies are laid the one against the other, so that they are
only joined locally, and no touch of the quality of the one reaches the
other--the kind of union which the Greeks term [Greek: kata parathesin]
"by juxtaposition"? But if humanity has been united to divinity in this
way no one thing has been formed out of the two, and hence Christ is
nothing. The very name of Christ, indeed, denotes by its singular number
a unity. But if the two persons continued and such a union of natures as
we have above described took place, there could be no unity formed from
two things, for nothing could ever possibly be formed out of two
persons. Therefore Christ is, according to Nestorius, in no respect one,
and therefore He is absolutely nothing. For what is not one cannot exist
either; because Being and unity are convertible terms, and whatever is
one is. Even things which are made up of many items, such as a heap or
chorus, are nevertheless a unity. Now we openly and honestly confess
that Christ is; therefore we say that Christ is a Unity. And if this is
so, then without controversy the Person of Christ is one also. For if
the Persons were two He could not be one; but to say that there are two
Christs is nothing else than the madness of a distraught brain. Could
Nestorius, I ask, dare to call the one man and the one God in Christ two
Christs? Or why does he call Him Christ who is God, if he is also going
to call Him Christ who is man, when his combination gives the two no
common factor, no coherence? Why does he wrongly use the same name for
two utterly different natures, when, if he is compelled to define
Chri