George Bevan's re-examination of the life and theology of Nestorius, along with the machinations swirling about him, joins a renewed impetus to lay aside traditional assessments and sift carefully through all available sources to understand the complexity of what really happened and who really did it. Bevan's fluid narrative of Nestorius's travails parallels the recent studies of Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford University Press, 2004), and Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (Wm. B. Eerdmanns, 2002).

Bevan employs several kinds of sources: the voluminous Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum (11 vols. [Berlioni, W. de Gruyter, 1914–1940]) compiled by Eduard Schwartz, providing council acts and correspondence during this period of 428–451; Greek historians—Socrates, writing extensively about Nestorius and his era, and Evagrius Scholasticus, documenting many citations of Nestorius; the bishop's own Liber Heraclides—extant only in Syriac—presenting an intimate, often self-serving picture; and the Ecclesiastical History of Barhadbeshabba, a sixth-century Church of the East historian. Bevan directs the reader to what can authentically be known about the Nestorius affair, which interpretations reflect his opponents’ biases, and which circumstances and decisions are beyond our ability to ascertain.

Bevan's driving question is how did Nestorius, this singularly condemned man, the New Judas, end up being vindicated twenty years later in the Chalcedonian definition? The issue is not only was Nestorius ever a ‘nestorian,’ but even more, is the Western Christian tradition actually ‘nestorian’—as non-Chalcedonian and miaphysite theologians consistently charged after 451?

One cannot discuss Nestorius without reference to Theodore of Mopsuestia. Bevan notes that there is no solid proof Nestorius ever studied under the latter, although there are reports that he visited the Blessed Interpreter on his way to Constantinople in 428, a few months before Theodore's death. Nestorius was certainly a devotee of Theodore's theology and biblical interpretation, but Bevan indicates critical points where Nestorius did not exercise the same discernment and theological caution as his reputed mentor. Theodore pre-figured the concept of the two natures of Christ, intent on preserving Christ's humanity, and Nestorius followed a similar trajectory, yet was prone to uttering slogans that scandalized many hearers. Accused by Cyril of Alexandria of advocating “Two Christs” and discarding the use of Theotokos (‘Mother of God’) in favor of Anthropotokos or Christotokos, Nestorius advocated neither. The Theotokos controversy was not initiated by Nestorius himself but by several followers, though he did not reprimand them and he quickly add his own fuel to the fire. Once he appreciated that popular tradition behind the term was too deep, Nestorius openly stated he would accept its use. The “Two Sons” concept—a logical reading of Nestorius's insistence on one prosopon (‘person’) for each nature—he denied vehemently at Ephesus. That did not stop his opponents from slandering him with sensationalist caricatures of his thought. Bevan observes that Theodore always began his Christological thinking from the one person of the union, while Nestorius started from the analysis of the duality of Christ's person.

Bevan spends the central section of his study tracing the labyrinth of Ephesus's events that crushed Nestorius and initiated a continuing controversy. While he went to Ephesus confidently expecting to be vindicated, Nestorius assessed the physical and theological forces against him and withdrew, refusing to attend the sessions, even with the anti-Council of John of Antioch, his strongest supporter, an unfortunate strategy. Rather than be deposed from his see, Nestorius resigned from his position to retreat to his monastery outside Antioch for five years before finally being exiled to Egypt in 436.

Following Ephesus, Nestorius disappeared, his name rarely invoked. Yet Bevan indicates that the following decade would witness a reaffirmation of Nestorius's ideas. The Theotokos also dropped out of the discussions, while Cyril's motives and theology in his Twelve Anathemas against Nestorius raised suspicions of Apollinarianism, the theological forerunner to the “One Nature” understanding of Christ. Pressed to forge with John of Antioch the Peace or Formula of Reunion of 433, Cyril's summary of faith was a virtual affirmation of Nestorius's conception of the two natures of Christ, “a secret victory” for Nestorius as Bevan calls it (224, 236), of which Cyril was oblivious.

As the 430s waned, Cyril realized the consequences of the bitter debates of one and two natures and became more conciliatory, and gradually the guard was changing as key players in Ephesus and the Peace of 433 were exiled or died—John of Antioch in 441, Cyril himself in 444. Bevan sees their successors lacking conciliatory skills, so slowly the debates regained their edge. Eutyches attempted a compromise theology, essentially a “One Nature” proposal intended to thwart new Nestorianist approaches, which would be affirmed in the so-called Latrocinium or Robber Council, Ephesus 449, assisted by heavy-handed police force. Throughout Bevan's narrative, Theodoret of Cyrrhus keeps appearing in the thick of matters as the dyophysite leader, defending Nestorius, grudgingly accepting the Peace of 433, and subsequently effecting a moderate response among the Eastern bishops, and then becoming the target and victim of the Robber Council.

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, Nestorius was barely surviving, reliving the fate of John Chrysostom with whom he had initially been favorably compared, being shifted from place to place, captured by barbarian raiders who later released him, and finally landing in Panoplis. Through colleagues he kept in touch, and resumed writing his major work. Nestorius liked what he was hearing, especially regarding the Tome of Leo and the news of a general council in the works. Hoping for vindication akin to Chrysostom's, he wisely kept his name out of conversations.

Then, per several sources, though not recorded explicitly in Chalcedon's records, Nestorius was invited back to Chalcedon. All he would have to do to be rehabilitated was renounce his errors regarding the Theotokos, so that, as Bevan perceives the strategy, ‘nestorianism’ would be erased, opening the way to the Two Natures Christology of Leo's Tome. Regretfully, Nestorius died before he could begin the journey to Chalcedon, and the Council—including Theodoret—would reaffirm his anathematization to cast off the Nestorian albatross. A dead man cannot be rehabilitated, the Emperor Marcian ruled. The dead man, nonetheless, had other voices to speak for him, and Bevan has made certain we have heard them clearly.