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Armor on the Field: The NFL's Headlong Race to Build the Unbreakable Linebacker
Rob Vito stood at the front of a hotel conference room in Phoenix one day last August, a custom Kevlar vest strapped over his blue dress shirt. Vito is a large man, and the shiny black suit of armor strained to cover his belly. But he wasn't concerned about fashion, or even looking good. He had a point to make, and wanted to make it with flair.
He raised a carbon-fiber hockey stick over his head, looked out over the 150 or so members of the Professional Hockey Athletic Trainers Society gathered before him and challenged any one of them to whack him with it.
A murmur went through the crowd. People looked at each other. These were professional trainers, and they knew what a shot to the gut could do to a man. But Vito had just spent 10 minutes telling anyone in shouting distance that Kevlar is a miracle material capable of stopping a .44 caliber bullet. Finally, two members of the Edmonton Oilers training staff took the bait.
"Are you serious?" one of them asked from the middle of the room.
"Dead serious," Vito replied, waving the stick as if to taunt them. "I want you to hit me with this hockey stick as hard as you can."
One of the men stepped up and hit Vito with a tepid cross-check. Vito didn't flinch. "Come on," he barked. "Harder." The trainer obliged, hitting Vito so hard the stick nearly snapped in two. Vito's belly shook and quaked as he doubled over. The crowd gasped. But after hamming it up a moment, Vito stood up and roared with laughter.
"Is that all you've got?" he asked the trainer. "No wonder you guys lose so much."
The room erupted with laughter, but the trainers from Edmonton were all business. They placed an order for Vito's Kevlar pads on the spot.
"If Kevlar can stop a bullet, it can damn sure stop a blitz."
Vito has been taking a lot of orders lately. He's the charismatic CEO of Unequal Technologies, a Philadelphia company that manufactures military-grade Kevlar padding for sports equipment. Since 2010, Vito has been touting Kevlar as the best shock-suppression material in the world and boasting that his patented "EXO Skeleton CRT" — CRT for "concussion reduction technology" — absorbs as much as a quarter of the force a player takes to the head or chest, significantly reducing the risk of injury.
"If Kevlar can stop a bullet, it can damn sure stop a blitz," Vito told Wired.
Over the past year, his pitch has convinced more than 20 NFL and NHL teams to use his pads in their equipment. Two dozen professional players are using EXO Skeleton CRT pads in their helmets, and more than 100 are wearing it in shoulder pads, elbow pads and other gear. As the NHL and NFL grapple with an epidemic of concussions, Kevlar-reinforced helmets are increasingly viewed as a magic bullet. The technology is proving particularly attractive to players who have sustained head trauma and desperately want to keep playing. And later this summer, Vito plans to take his product mainstream, unveiling a multi-million dollar advertising campaign aimed at the hundreds of thousands of youth league players around the U.S.
But in the rush to make their players unbreakable, pro teams aren't asking many questions of Vito beyond how quickly he can do the job. Neurologists intimately familiar with sports-related concussions warn that there is no scientific evidence that Kevlar can reduce the risk of head trauma. Worse, they fear the pads could make the problem worse by masking symptoms. The leagues have yet to independently test the effects of Kevlar, and neurologists – including one who has treated many concussed NFL and NHL players — expressed surprise when told it was being installed in helmets.
"We need to look at this scientifically and come up with some process of examination on whether this works," says Dr. Michael Collins, director of the UPMC Sports Medicine program. "At this point in time, to my knowledge, I don't know of a fully controlled study that shows the effectiveness of [Kevlar] in mitigating the instance or severity of concussions."
"You only get one brain," Harrison said,
"And once you damage it, it's impossible to repair."
Nonetheless, pro sports teams are racing to reinforce their players. By the time the Oilers signed up last summer, six other teams, including the championship-winning Boston Bruins, already had been using Unequal Technologies' products throughout the 2010-2011 season. The Bruins used customized protective skate liners that allowed players to step in front of 100 mph slapshots without fear. That likely contributed to the team's playoff-leading 377 blocked shots. Players also wore reinforced chest protectors, elbow pads and helmets with amazing results.
"[Center] Patrice [Bergeron] had a concussion in the second round," said Bruins trainer Don Delnegro. "So we put some extra EXO Skeleton pads in his helmet. Obviously, the best part is that nothing happened to him. He returned and hasn't had a concussion since. I'm very confident that Kevlar does protect the brain a little better than some of the other foams that are available."
Despite what the Bruins called a "mild concussion," Bergeron missed only two playoff games and tallied 20 points, second only to teammate David Krejci. Delnegro sent Vito a letter thanking Unequal Technologies for helping the team win the Stanley Cup. That is just one of the many glowing testimonials for EXO Skeleton CRT. Southern Methodist University football coach June Jones called the material "bulletproof silk" and says every player in every sport should be required to wear it.
The ballistic-grade DuPont Kevlar sandwiched between two layers of proprietary elastomers might look like it was cut from old tires, but it cost Unequal Technologies several million dollars in R&D. EXO Skeleton CRT is made of Kevlar fibers that stretch on impact, dispersing the shock of a blow. Kevlar is exceptionally good at spreading force evenly across a surface and directing energy away from the point of impact, which is why Vito claims a piece of EXO Skeleton just a quarter-inch thick can stop a .44-Magnum bullet.
"We do with one layer of Unequal what used to be done by 10 layers of traditional Kevlar," Vito said. "If you opened up a soldier's equipment, you'd find the same stuff we're using in our gear."
The pads needed to reinforce a football helmet weigh just 2 ounces and are flexible enough to be rolled into a ball. They cost a surprisingly cheap $69.95 (plus shipping and handling.) This is key, because Vito's long-term target isn't pro athletes with big money to spend. It's youth sports, and parents worried about their kids taking a blow to the head. The company says the pads "may reduce the possibility of head injury for most sports, games and activities using a helmet."
Youth sports is a huge and potentially lucrative market. The Centers for Disease Control found concussion-related ER visits by those under 20 climbed 60 percent to 248,418 between 2001 and 2009. Unequal Technologies is about to unleash a marketing blitz aimed squarely at those athletes – and their parents. But to make it work, Vito needs a big name to back up his claims. He got one in James Harrison, the Pittsburgh Steelers' All-Pro linebacker.
It was November 2011, and Vito's focus was protecting rib cages, not skulls. He caught the NFL's attention by reinforcing the chest pads worn by Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, allowing him to return to the field one week after cracking his ribs and puncturing a lung. The Cowboys' brass were so impressed they asked Vito to retrofit the entire team's chest pads.
Then Harrison called. The most feared man in football wasn't interested in protecting his chest. He had something much more fragile in mind: His head.
Just five weeks earlier, doctors had used wire mesh and screws to rebuild Harrison's fractured right orbital bone. He had no business playing football. "There was a chance that if I blew my nose too hard or inhaled too hard, it would cause the mesh they put underneath my eye to get infected," Harrison said.
But Harrison didn't want to watch from the sidelines when the Steelers met their arch rivals, the Baltimore Ravens, on Nov. 6. Two days before the game, Vito got to work in the Steelers' locker room. Armed with scissors and glue, he pulled sheets of thin, gunmetal grey material from his bag. He carefully cut them into hexagons, then pasted them inside Harrison's Riddell helmet. "This stuff is glorified couch foam," Vito said of the pads he was bolstering.
Despite being listed as doubtful just 24 hours before the bi-annual Steelers-Ravens bloodletting, Harrison took to the field and, wearing Vito's padding, made a team-leading eight tackles and three sacks. It was arguably his best game of the season. He called Vito the next day in disbelief. The head pain he typically felt after every game had vanished. The stars that normally lingered in his peripheral vision after big hits had disappeared. It was the first time in ages he hadn't heard ringing in his ears. "This stuff is like Novocaine for the brain," he told Vito.
"It was a tremendous turnaround from what I felt in any other game," Harrison told Wired. "Usually you get three or four hits a game that give you head-ringers, and I haven't gotten that since I started using Kevlar. It's night and day."
With that, a long line of Steelers players queued up. They included cornerback Ike Taylor, wide receiver Hines Ward and safety Troy Polamalu. They'd all been suffering nebulous "concussion-like symptoms" and wanted that Novocaine.
"I couldn't do the helmets fast enough," Vito said.
Then the San Francisco 49ers called. So did the Oakland Raiders and New York Giants. In all, 14 NFL teams signed on by the end of the season. Unequal Technologies never claimed EXO Skeleton CRT completely prevents concussions, but no one seemed to mind. Everyone wanted the ringing to stop.
No one wants that more than the NFL front office, which is facing an epidemic it long ignored.
The NFL's concussion problem first started surfacing 10 years ago. In 2002, an autopsy of Steelers' Hall of Fame center Mike Webster found his brain mottled by the dark tangles of protein, called tau, typical of those with Alzheimer's disease. But Webster, who died of a heart attack at 50, didn't have Alzheimer's. Tests conducted by Dr. Bennet Omalu at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine showed Webster had a degenerative brain disease that has come to haunt the league: Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
In some ways, modern helmets do no more to protect the brain than those worn during the Harding administration.
The neurological disease, found in athletes who have sustained repetitive head trauma, is marked by progressive degeneration of brain tissue. The buildup of tau can be identified only by autopsy, but early signs of CTE are appearing in athletes in their 20s. They include memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, poor impulse control, aggression, depression, and eventually progressive dementia.
Webster showed all the symptoms. After retiring from the Kansas City Chiefs in 1990, he began a steep decline that ended with him living out of his truck and forging prescriptions for Ritalin to ease his brain's involuntary spasms. His family would find him lying in the fetal position for days on end. Webster was hardly an anomaly. In 2005, another Steelers lineman, Terry Long, committed suicide by drinking antifreeze. He was 45. The next year, Philadelphia Eagles standout Andre Waters killed himself at age 44. His autopsy revealed a brain resembling that of a man almost twice his age.
None of this garnered much more than passing notice until 2009, when Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry died after falling from a truck during a domestic dispute. Like Webster, Henry had suffered from mood swings and forgetfulness. But he was just 26, a lanky speed receiver who rarely initiated contact. Yet when researchers at West Virginia's Brain Injury Research Institute examined his brain, they found the same dark web of protein that plagued Webster.
The alarm finally sounded in May 2011 when NHL enforcer Derek Boogaard, once voted the second most intimidating man in the league, died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol. He was 28. Researchers at Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encepthalopathy examined his brain. It, too, was going dark.
The message was clear. CTE isn't confined to the leagues' middle-aged pensioners. It was striking men in their prime, men for whom concussions had been an occupational hazard, not a life-threatening injury.
"We're seeing evidence, in football and hockey especially, of the risk of brain degeneration following repetitive concussions," said Dr. Charles Tator, a brain surgeon at Toronto Western Hospital and an expert on concussions. "This is serious, because we don't have a treatment for it, or even a test to diagnose it during life. We don't even know why this tau protein accumulates in the brain."
It's reached a point where even players are worried, which is why they're calling Vito.
"You only get one brain," Harrison said, "And once you damage it, it's impossible to repair."
It's hard to hear about guys like Webster and Henry and the 300 former players suing the NFL for negligence and not want desperately to believe in the miracle of Kevlar. But the evidence Kevlar protects players from brain injury is, so far, slim. Unequal Technologies is not, under the rules, modifying padding already installed in approved equipment. It is only bolstering the existing pads, and so Kevlar has not been subject to testing by the NFL or NHL.
"Kevlar has come up at some of our meetings, but nothing substantial," said Dr. Henry Feur, a member of the NFL's Head Neck and Spine Committee and a team physician for the Indianapolis Colts. "Reducing the G-forces in a collision may help with concussions, but it has yet to be proven. I don't think Kevlar is going to address the ultimate problem, which is the brain crashing against the skull."
The strongest data point in favor of the Kevlar solutions comes from the Southern Impact Research Center, which tests equipment from Riddell, Nike, Schutt and others. The lab found that, compared to conventional helmets, EXO Skeleton pads reduce the G-force generated by an impact by as much as 25 percent.
The Kevlar solution comes as the NFL confronts a new, surprising wave of scientific evidence that the most advanced standard helmets available — indeed, the very concept of protecting a player's head — may offer no protection against concussions.
Last year, as concussion reduction became the buzzword in sports equipment manufacturing, researchers at The Cleveland Clinic made a troubling discovery: Although football players' skulls are well protected, their brains aren't. In some ways, modern helmets do no more to protect the brain than those worn during the Harding administration.
The researchers set out to test helmets under real-world conditions. The current benchmark, the NOCSAE standard established in 1973, focuses exclusively on high-impact linear acceleration — think of your skull hitting the steering wheel in a rear-end collision. The test involves dropping a helmeted headform onto an elastomer-padded anvil. Specific ratings are not publicized, and helmets must only pass a "Severity Index" threshold for concussion "tolerance" to get the certification sticker required of every helmet in the NFL. But the threshold is based on ensuring protection against skull fractures, even though there hasn't been a skull fracture in the NFL for more than 30 years, and it does not take into account a crucial variable — the angular acceleration of the brain.
"Twenty years ago, seat belts were optional, too."
The Cleveland Clinic took a more sophisticated approach that included "on-field traumatic neuromechanics injury risk parameters" like angular acceleration, angular velocity, acute subdural hematoma and brain contusion. Angular acceleration (sometimes called rotational acceleration) typically occurs when a player is hit on the side of the head, resulting in rapid turning of the head and neck. Rotational acceleration can be devastating, stretching and even shredding brain tissue.
The researchers gathered 11 helmets from four manufacturers, including the Riddell VSR-4, the league's most popular helmet, and tested them against two leatherhead helmets from the 1920s. Each was subjected to multiple impacts, from multiple directions, using a pendulum calibrated to deliver blows in the range of 95 to 99 percent of hits on the field. Data captured by accelerometers and angular velocity sensors was fed to a computer running the SIMon Model (.pdf), a 3-D skull and brain with white-gray matter, bridging veins and more than 10,000 nodes — essentially a digitized neurosystem. The results were stunning.
"In many instances the head impact doses and head injury risks while wearing vintage leatherheads were comparable to or better than those while wearing several widely used 21st-century varsity helmets," the researchers said in a study published in November in The Journal of Neurosurgery. "These findings were in stark contrast to those in published works touting the 10 to 20 percent lower risks and 31 percent decreased relative risk of concussion when using 21st-century varsity helmets in comparable dose on-field impacts."
The lines of the graphs mapping the angular impact response data from leading-edge helmets and vintage leatherheads sync almost perfectly.
Even if Kevlar does protect the player wearing it, it could exacerbate the risk for players who aren't.
"To use an analogy, what we're doing is really akin to a crash test with a Model T versus a 2012 BMW," said lead researcher Adam Bartsch. "You would absolutely expect that with any safety parameter, any way you slice it, it wouldn't even be close. And yet we found that at common impact severities, there really wasn't much difference. It's not that the leather helmets were protecting, it's that none of the helmets were protecting." (Riddell did not respond to requests for comment.)
Although Bartsch believes the NFL and helmet manufacturers are placing enormous emphasis on concussion prevention, they must completely rethink the basic engineering involved. Helmets, he said, are optimized for protecting the skull, not necessarily the brain.
"I think we'd be wise to take a step back and ask a fundamental question," he said. "Let's imagine that today we don't have any football helmets and we have to design one from scratch. How can we take an egg and throw it against the wall and design a protective enclosure that not only protects the shell from cracking, but also protects the yolk from being scrambled? That's an engineering problem that I don't think is solved by the current polycarbonate hard shell with interior padding."
Biomechanic tests on hockey helmets performed by the Southern Impact Research Center are even more startling. The NHL does not require testing helmets to the NOCSAE standard, so Vito sent a CCM Vector helmet, a model popular in both youth and pro hockey, to Southern Impact for testing. The helmet failed the NOCSAE test, although one fitted with Exo Skeleton CRT pads passed. A blow to the top of the standard helmet produced a Severity Index of 1397, well above the 1200 threshold for protecting against concussion. (The NHL did not respond to multiple requests for comment.) Unequal Technologies claims its pads provide up to a 50 percent reduction in severity index.
But the NOCSAE test deals with linear acceleration. Can Kevlar help with angular acceleration, which is the real problem?
"It's the jiggle of the brain inside the skull that causes a concussion," said Tator, the Toronto brain surgeon and head of the Canadian Sports Concussion Project. "I don't see how putting a piece of Kevlar in a helmet can prevent the jiggle or the rotational acceleration. It doesn't seem biomechanically sound. Piling on material inside the helmet is going to do nothing."
Even if Kevlar does protect the player wearing it, it could exacerbate the risk for players who aren't.
Last season, during a broken play late in the fourth quarter of the Steelers-Cleveland Browns matchup, Harrison launched himself into Browns quarterback Colt McCoy. The crown of his Kevlar-lined helmet drove squarely into McCoy's facemask, a hit so brutal the referee behind McCoy winced. McCoy writhed on the sod for a minute or two, then retreated to the sidelines. Two plays later, he was back in the game. The following day, he admitted having no recollection of the game after being hit. He was promptly diagnosed with a concussion and missed the remainder of the season.
No one can say for sure that Harrison's Kevlar helmet increased the severity of his hit or of McCoy's concussion. But the question is obvious: What happens when a Humvee smashes into a Volvo.
When it comes to concussions, "severe injuries are mild and mild injuries are severe."
This is of particular concern in the NHL, where most concussions are the result of an elbow or shoulder striking the head or, worse, chin. During the 2011-2012 regular season, more than 14 percent of the league's active roster missed games due to concussions. As head trauma rates have spiked, many players and general managers have bemoaned the increasing rigidity and strength of the protective gear. When players wore thinner pads, the theory goes, they were less likely to engage in brutal mid-ice collisions because everyone involved got hurt.
"We call that the risk-compensation theory," Tator said. "Hockey equipment used to be defensive equipment, but they've turned into offensive equipment to actually inflict damage on the opponent."
The bigger danger is that reinforcing helmets with Kevlar – providing "Novocaine for the brain" – could compound the epidemic of concussions by providing athletes with a false sense of security. Two weeks after sustaining "concussion-like symptoms," both Polamalu and Bergeron returned to the field with Kevlar in their helmets.
"My number one concern is that if these guys are retrofitting their helmets, are there other things going on that would indicate they're at higher risk," said UPMC's Michael Collins. "Are there lingering concussion symptoms that need to be dealt with medically?"
An expert in the field, Collins treats more than 4,000 concussions annually, and his patients have included NFL stars Ben Roethlisberger, Tim Tebow and Brian Westbrook, as well as NHL superstar Sidney Crosby. He notes that when it comes to concussions, "severe injuries are mild and mild injuries are severe." When someone is knocked out, it's treated as an emergency and the player usually recovers. It's the smaller hits that Collins fears, because a player might be concussed and not realize it. A study released in April by the University of Calgary found one in five NHL players concussed during the 1997-2004 seasons returned to the ice (.pdf) before the end of the game.
Further and more sophisticated testing may well prove Kevlar disperses shock, protects the brain from angular force and reduces the risk of concussion. But neurologists say technology will never eliminate the threat of head trauma as long as our brains are encased in fluid.
"What causes a concussion is the brain moving inside the skull," Collins said. "Unless we can put something around the brain itself, it's hard to imagine how technology is ever going to mitigate this injury. There's no helmet out there that will ever prevent a concussion from happening. The main focus should be treating athletes as soon as the symptoms appear."
Vito's heard the criticism and is aware of the doubts. He says he isn't promising miracles, just offering players a little more protection.
"I don't want to claim we're the cure-all," he said. "But I think we are the beginning. Twenty years ago, seatbelts were optional, too."
Page design: Ross Patton
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Oliver Platt explains his mysterious X-Men character, plus details on the film's dark opening, a newly announced actor, and a surprise cameo. Plus a sci-fi legend voices a Transformer, Zack Snyder talks Superman effects, and an insane Doctor Who rumor!
Spoilers from here on out!
Top image from Falling Skies.
Avatar 2 and 3
James Cameron revealed that he seriously intends to shoot the sequels in a much higher frame rate than the standard 24-30 frames per second that the human visual system requires for a moving image to appear continuous. He says he's looking at either 48 or 60 frames per second, and he explains why he wants to do this:
"When you author and project a movie at 48 or 60, it becomes a different movie. The 3D shows you a window into reality; the higher frame rate takes the glass out of the window. In fact, it is just reality. It is really stunning."
X-Men: First Class
According to an edit bay report from Empire, the movie begins with young Magneto in the Auschwitz concentration camp, similar to what was seen briefly in the original X-Men movie. This time, however, the flashback lasts longer, and a graying, mustachioed Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon, who plays an apparently younger version of the character in the main 1962 segments) is pushing Erik Lensherr to use his full mutant powers. Another opening scenes deals with the child Charles Xavier, who discovers a similarly young Mystique pawing through his trash and decides to let her stay with him. The Lensherr scenes in particular are supposed to be quite intense and disturbing, a marked departure from most superhero movies. In fact, director Matthew Vaughn says of the scene:
"I can't imagine Thor or Green Lantern starting like that! That's the fun of it. I can imagine people going 'What the ****?' But I didn't want to make the kiddie version of X-Men."
The movie also reportedly features a cameo from Total Recall and Terminator Salvation actor Michael Ironside (who is also, lest we forget, the definitive voice of Darkseid) will have a small role in the movie in an as yet undisclosed role. The movie also features a "surprise fun cameo." We don't know whether the cameo is fun because of the actor playing the part or the character itself, but the obvious - thought not necessarily correct - guess is that Wolverine will indeed be showing up. That said, my money's on Dazzler, just because. [Empire via ScreenRant]
Oliver Platt took to the movie's Facebook page to explain who his mysterious character the Man in Black really is:
The Man In Black runs a super secret division of the CIA devoted to investigating the application of mental telepathy and paranormal power in military defense. He has long been a laughing stock of the Agency because of this. His department is known as 'Division X'. When Charles and Mystique become ensnared with the Agency, the Man in Black diverts them to his division with a deft bureaucratic sleight of hand. Erik soon joins them and The X-Men flourish under MIB's protection.
Captain America
Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely discussed their comic book influences, pointing to Ed Brubaker's acclaimed run and the more obscure Sentinel of Liberty book that they say informs the origin story aspects of the movie. They also discussed how they are structuring the movie so as to leave room for potential World War II set sequels, as McFeely explains:
Generally, the first act is what most people think the first act is going to be, and the third act, most people kind of know how we're going to get him to "The Avengers," so it's the second act where you do a million drafts. You have to ask what story is being told, and how you're going to tell that World War II story while also leaving it baggy enough to go back - in case you want to imply that he had more than the one adventure in the first movie.
There's more at the link, including some perhaps not entirely serious discussion of the characters they would want to feature in potential sequels. [MTV Splash Page]
Green Lantern
Oscar-winner and all-around awesome actor Geoffrey Rush is reportedly set to voice the alien Green Lantern Tomar Re. [Hero Complex]
Superman Reboot
Zack Snyder explains how he wants Superman's power to feel as realistic as possible:
"Let me just say one thing about Superman: he can't do anything that's not a visual effect. He can walk around and talk, but if he's going to do something physical, that's a visual effect, because he's Superman. I think in the past people have tried to figure out how to do that with strings and putting cars on hydraulics and having him stand under it, but we're really trying to work on a way of doing this that really makes that feel real. [We're] trying to understand the actual physics of what would have to happen for those things to happen. It just brings reality to that whole concept of picking up a car or whatever. That's gotta be completely based on reality."
The Wolverine
Hugh Jackman offered another comment on Darren Aronofsky's departure:
"He would have made a great film. But it wasn't the right time for him personally...[Filming in Japan is] in limbo as well. Who knows what the situation is on the ground?...All we need to do is find a new director, but we won't settle for anyone who isn't as good as Darren."
Considering how much critical acclaim Aronofsky has received of late, I'm just going to wildly speculate and assume this means they'll be getting one of the other best director nominees to take over. How about The King's Speech director Tom Hooper? King George VI overcoming his stutter is practically the exact same story as Wolverine becoming a Yakuza assassin, if you think about it. [Hero Complex]
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Leonard Nimoy will reportedly voice Sentinel Prime - the ancient Transformer discovered by the Apollo 11 astronauts in the trailers - in the upcoming movie. Nimoy previously voiced Galvatron in 1986's Transformers: The Movie, so we only need Eric Idle and zombie Orson Welles to consider this a full-on reunion. [Entertainment Weekly]
And here's a new photo.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Here's a set photo that definitely shows Dominic Cooper as the ageless mentor Henry, and that may be Ben Walker to his right as Abraham Lincoln. [On Location]
Men in Black 3
[gallery 5787815] Here are some recent set photos of Will Smith, suggesting production has resumed in some form or another. [SpoilerTV]
Doctor Who
There's this utterly insane rumor going around that Paul McGann is "very likely" going to make an appearance as the Eighth Doctor in the upcoming series. Much as I would love to see a return appearance by his Doctor - and I still hold out some hope this will happen in a fiftieth anniversary special in 2013 - this rumor is completely bonkers, patently untrue, and doesn't make even the slightest bit of sense.
The main evidence for this seems to be the fact that the latest trailer appears to feature the previous console room - the one used by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, and not the Eighth, just so we're clear about how ridiculous this entire thing is - and the fact that the Doctor mentions the Time War, which was most likely fought by the Eighth Doctor. This of course will be like all the previous times the Doctor mentioned the Time War in the new series, and every time we then cut to a flashback of Paul McGann...or, you know, nothing even remotely like that ever happened. And I thought the David Tennant rumor was ridiculous... [Big Shiny Robot]
Executive producers Jeff Pinkner and J.H. Wyman discuss the mystery of the First People in this video. [Fringe Television]
Wonder Woman
Presented without comment, here are some photos of Wonder Woman fighting Darth Vader and the Tin Man, courtesy of WENN.com.
Here are some photos and a plot synopsis for episode 17, "My Heart Will Go On." [multipleverses.com]
SAM AND DEAN TEMPT FATE - After Balthazar (guest star Sebastian Roche) changes history and keeps the Titanic from sinking, Fate (guest star Katie Walder) intervenes and begins killing those that would have died on the ship. Castiel (Misha Collins) tells Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) that Fate is very upset with the two of them and the only way they can stay alive is to kill her.
And here's a synopsis for episode 18, "Frontierland":
AM AND DEAN RETURN TO THE WILD, WILD WEST - While searching for a way to defeat Eve, Dean stumbles upon Samuel Colt's (guest star Sam Hennings) journal in the Campbell library. Realizing Samuel might have the answer to their problems, Sam and Dean ask Castiel (Misha Collins) to send them back in time so they can meet the man himself. While Sam is a bit reluctant to time travel, Dean is beside himself with excitement to return to the Wild, Wild West.
Falling Skies
Here are some new promo posters. [ComingSoon.net]
Tron Uprising
Title character Bruce Boxleitner confirmed that he just finished recording the second episode of this spinoff animated series, and he gave some sense of what to expect on the show:
"In this story, Tron is a much more battle-hardened warrior than you've seen before. It's like 'The Mask of Zorro' where he's looking for a young one to train and to have that master-student relationship. Tron's rough; scarred up. So when I'm recording the voice I do what I can to relay that different than in previous works."
Here's a lengthy synopsis for the April 22 episode "Booster":
DC COMICS CHARACTER BOOSTER GOLD ARRIVES FROM THE FUTURE; THE BLUE BEETLE IS BORN! - After everything that happened with the VRA, Lois (Erica Durance) tells Clark (Tom Welling) it's best to make "Clark Kent" forgettable and awkward so people don't suspect he's The Blur. However, the two are stunned when a fame-hungry superhero from the future, Booster Gold (guest star Eric Martsolf, "Days of Our Lives"), sweeps into town and begins making saves and posing for press ops, completely winning over the city of Metropolis. Booster begins his campaign to take The Blur's place as the "World's Greatest Superhero" and tries to charm Lois into writing a story about him, but she's not having his antics and begins her own campaign for The Blur. During one of Booster's saves, an alien weapon in the form of a scarab falls from a truck and fuses itself to a boy named Jaime Reyes (guest star Jaden Brandt Bartlett), turning him into the Blue Beetle. Unfortunately... Jaime is unable to control the suit and Blue Beetle starts attacking Metropolis.
Allison Mack is now definitely confirmed for a final return appearance as Chloe in the series finale. [Zap2It]
Additional reporting by Katharine Trendacosta and Charlie Jane Anders.

subset: commoncrawl


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text:
CHOCOLAT - our very first Food 'n Flix pick!
13 comments
This is awesome! My chocolate-walnut cake was inspired by 'Chocolat'. Great film. Great premise. I was thinking about putting something together myself where I cook food based on some of my favorite movies, but you've done the work, so that's even better! LOL. I can just follow your lead. =)ReplyDelete
Here it is:
This is a fantastic idea Heather!! I love movies and I certainly watch a lot of them :-)ReplyDelete
The site looks great!!
Brilliant!!! I'm in! :o)ReplyDelete
Very fun--count me in! I just re-watched a bunch of these titles (it's scary how many of them I actually own) ;-) and moved Chocolat up to the top of my "watch next" pile so your choice and timing are perfect.ReplyDelete
I love this idea, so count me in, I will get my friend Alisandra to come over and do it with me!ReplyDelete
I just became a follower...but I'm not sure if that links to blog at Squirrel Head Manor, or it's my "test" blog. Either way, I look forward to joining in.ReplyDelete
What a great idea Heather! And you couldn't of picked a more appropriate or more charming movie - one of my all-time favorites.ReplyDelete
I love the idea of this - can't wait to join in. Thanks for another great idea.ReplyDelete
Can't wait to see what everyone is working up for September's selection, 'Chocolat'. Mine is all ready Heather. =)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 25, 2010 at 6:27 AM
Nice idea! I just added the movie to my to-rent list so I can participate in September. Don't know about the next months, though, because not all movies you guys choose might be available in Germany... But still, I'll follow this blog and participate whenever I can ;o).ReplyDelete
I'll just hop in and drool over the delicious chocolate recipes you are sure to get here! Would love to participate if I could get hold of a copy of the movie.ReplyDelete
What a fantastic idea! Can't wait to join in next month.ReplyDelete
Bella idea di connettere il cibo ai film...ReplyDelete


text:
It's not exactly news that Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Michael Oher had a movie made about his early life.
It was called "The Blind Side," adapted from a book written by Michael Lewis. It became the primary narrative surrounding Oher's arrival in the NFL in 2009.
Kinkhabwala: Oher's new role
Oher went through a period when all anyone wanted to talk about was "The Blind Side." That has died down in recent years, but the Super Bowl has a way of bringing old stories back to life.
Oher isn't thrilled about that part.
"I'm tired of the movie," Oher said at Super Bowl Media Day on Tuesday, according to The Baltimore Sun. "I'm here to play football. Football is what got me here, and the movie, it wasn't me. I always knew how to play football growing up. It was different personalities, stuff like that. Playing football is what got me to this point.
"It was a little different, but I've been through a lot in my life, some rough times. Being here in New Orleans for the Super Bowl is truly unbelievable."
Oher, an honor student who graduated from Ole Miss, was asked if it bothered him that his character in the film was portrayed as somewhat dim-witted.
"I only watched the movie one time," he said. "If they did that, it was definitely wrong."
That's pretty amazing. A movie about Oher's life that grossed more than $300 million at the box office and won Sandra Bullock an Oscar ... and Oher practically has no connection to it.
Yes, it's safe to say he has moved on.


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Acta Theologica
On-line version ISSN 2309-9089
Print version ISSN 1015-8758
Acta theol. vol.32 n.2 suppl. Bloemfontein Dec. 2012
Cyril of Alexandria's critique of the term THEOTOKOS by Nestorius Constantinople
Eirini Artemi
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Athens. E-mail: email@example.com
The God Word became truly human. He had the real human nature (body and soul), but without propensity to sin. Jesus Christ was the incarnate Word of God. He was born of the Virgin Mary and conceived by the Holy Spirit. His divinity is manifest in the extraordinary circumstances of His birth and, in particular, in the preservation of the virginity of the Theotokos. His humanity is guaranteed in that He was born of a woman, a real historical person. Nestorius of Constantinople rejected the title Theotokos for the mother of the incarnated Word. He insisted that Mary as a human being could give birth only to a human being, and not to God. He persisted in calling the Virgin Mary Christotokos. This teaching jeopardised the salvation of the human race. Cyril of Alexandria disproved this erroneous belief and supported the reason why the mother of God should be called Theotokos.
Keywords: Theotokos; Cyril of Alexandria; Virgin Mary
Trefwoorde: Theotokos; Cyril van Aleksandria; Maagd Maria
In his sermon, Nestorius of Constantinople refused to give Mary, Mother of Christ, the predicate Theotokos, God - bearer, Mother of God. The reaction to this sermon and, in particular, to the condemnation of Theotokos was immediate and unfavourable: "He disturbed many of the clergy and all of the laity in this matter" (πολλούς κληρικούς τε καί λαϊκούς έν αύτω πάντας έτάραξεν). Everywhere he forbade the word Theotokos (Socrates Scholasticus PG 67:7.32). His heretical teaching led to a dispute about his conception of the unity of the human and divine natures of Christ. When Cyril of Alexandria was informed about Nestorius's teaching, he tried to explain to him why Mary should be called Theotokos. Unfortunately, he did not succeed in his explanation. A correspondence with Nestorius followed in a rather moderate tone. The Bishop of Constantinople insisted on refusing to use the term Theotokos for the mother of Jesus.
The Nestorian controversy was fundamentally Christological (Nikephoros Kallistos PG 146:1160-1164), but Mary, the mother of Christ, was the focus of this dispute between Cyril and Nestorius (Evagrius Scholasticus PG 86:2424A-D). The Bishop of Constantinople was an Antiochian in Christology. He was influenced by the teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia (PG 66:981BC). Early in his reign, he was called upon to give his opinion on the suitability of Theotokos (the woman who gave birth to God) as a title for the Blessed Virgin, and he would support the doubtful nature of this term unless Anthropotokos (the woman who gave birth to man) was added to compensate for it. He insisted that the title Christotokos (the one who gave birth to Christ) was preferable as it did not beg questions. God did not originate from a creaturely human being and, for this reason, the word Christotokos would be preferred. In support of his theory, Nestorius told his congregation that Mary bore a mere man, the vehicle of divinity, but not God (Cyril PG 76:25-28, 72-77, 120). He argued that, in the case of the term Theotokos, he was not opposed to those who wanted to use it, unless it would lead to confusion, as in the case of the insanity of Apollinarius or Arius. Nonetheless, he had no doubt that the term Theotokos was inferior to the term Christotokos, as the latter was mentioned by the angels and the gospels (Loofs 1980:181-182). Nestorius also mentioned that "the term Christotokos kept the assertion by both parties to the proper limits, because it both removed the blasphemy of Paul of Samosata, who had claimed that Christ the Lord of all was simply a human being, and also flees the wickedness of Arius and Apollinarius" (Loofs 1980:181-182).
To Nestorius, the Catholic doctrine of Incarnation, the manhood united by God the Son to His own self, was Apollinarianism or a heretic mixture. In his letter to Pope Celestine, he told of the "corruption of orthodoxy among some" and thus described it:
It is a sickness not small, but akin to the putrid sore of Apollinarius and Arius. For they mingle the Lord's union in man to a confusion of some sort of mixture, insomuch that even certain clerks among us, of whom some from lack of understanding, some from heretical guile of old time concealed within them are sick as heretics, and openly blaspheme God the Word Consubstantial with the Father, as though He had taken beginning of His Being of the Virgin mother of Christ, and had been built up with His Temple and buried with His flesh, and say that the flesh after the resurrection did not remain flesh but passed into the Nature of Godhead, and they refer the Godhead of the Only-Begotten to the beginning of the flesh which was connected with it, and they put it to death with the flesh, and blasphemously say that the flesh connected with Godhead passed into Godhead (Concilium Ephesus P.i.c. 16).
Similar thoughts were expressed in Nestorius's second letter to Cyril:
But to use the expression 'accept as its own' as a way of diminishing the properties of the conjoined flesh, birth, suffering and entombment, is a mark of those whose minds are led astray, my brother, by Greek thinking or are sick with the lunacy of Apollinarius and Arius or the other heresies or rather something more serious than these (Nestorius PG 77:56A).
It is obvious that, behind the description of Mary as Theotokos, he professed to detect the Arian tenet that the Son was a creature, or the Apollinarian notion that the manhood was incomplete. When Cyril read it, he realised that he had found the scandal he was seeking. Cyril was greatly disappointed with Nestorius' teaching. Initially, he tried to refute Nestorius's (Socrates PG 67:810CD) heretic teaching about the mystery of the Word's Incarnation by sending letters (Cyril PG 77:40C-41D, 44C-49A, 106C-121D) to the Bishop of Constantinople. Unfortunately, he was not successful.
2.1 Cyril's first letter to Nestorius and the latter's reply to the Bishop of Alexandria
When Cyril was informed that, during the Divine Liturgy and in front of the Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius, Bishop Dorotheos cursed those who accepted Mary, Mother of Christ, as Theotokos. Nestorius remained silent and decided to react. This disturbed the thoughts of some of the Monks of Egypt to such an extent that Saint Cyril wrote a letter to them, pointing out that the Incarnation meant that God the Son united to Him His own human nature which He took, as completely as soul and body are united in each of us, and in this way His Passion and Death were His own, though He, as God, could not suffer. This letter was circulated extensively and reached Constantinople. It irritated Nestorius. He wrote to the monks of Egypt mentioning his dissatisfaction with Cyril's letter
Initially, Cyril wrote this letter (PG 77:40C) in a style that showed his anger with Nestorius. He explained that the letter to the Monks of Egypt was written in order to dispute the confusion concerning doctrine caused by the preaching of Nestorius or Anastasius. Anastasius, a presbyter who accompanied Nestorius to Constantinople, delivered a sermon in which he criticised, or rather, attacked the term Theotokos. It is claimed that Anastasius proclaimed:
Let no one call Mary Theotokos, for Mary was but a woman and it was impossible that God should be born of a woman (Socrates PG 67:7,32).
Whether this attack on the terminology and meaning of Theotokos began with the presbyter Anastasius or with Nestorius is not the issue. Nestorius strongly supported this attack and preached on the subject, regardless of whether he preached the first sermon. Thus began what Saint Cyril referred to as the "scandal" of the household of the Church - σκάνδαλον οίκουµενικόν. Cyril indirectly asked Nestorius: "How is it possible for you to stay quiet when the doctrine of our faith is perverted?" (Socrates PG 67:7,32; Cyril PG 77:41A). In his letter, Cyril explained to Nestorius that anything that was taught distorted the truth of the Christian faith, and he urged him to accept the term Theotokos for the Holy Virgin Mary in order to end the theological dispute relating to the refusal of the term Theotokos for the Virgin Mary. This would mean the end of the "ecumenical scandal" within the Church: "Και ούχι µάλλον έπανορθοϊτόν εαυτής λόγον, ϊνα παύση σκάνδαλον οίκοµενικόν; Εί γαρ και παρερρύη λόγος, ώς έπι λαοϋ τρέχων, άλλ' έπανορϋούσϋω ταϊς έπισκέψεσι, και λέξιν χαρίσασϋαι τοις σκανδαλιζοµένοις καταξίωσον, Θεοτόκον όνοµάζων τήν άγίαν Παρϋένον" (Cyril PG 77:41B).
The Christological argument was mainly about soteriology, redemption and worship, and this was the reason why Cyril reacted so strongly against Nestorius's teaching. Cyril believed that Nestorius's teaching, epitomized in his attack on Theotokos, presupposed a merely external association between an ordinary man and the Word. From this point of view, the Incarnation was not a real fact. It was a simple illusion, a matter of "appearance" and "empty words" (Cyril PG 76:324AB). If Christ's passion, suffering and saving acts were not those of the Word incarnate, but of a mere man, there was no redemption for mankind (Cyril PG 76:129C, 189BC, 220C). Nestorius's refusal of the term Theotokos was a "scandal" for the entire Christian world. For this reason, Cyril mentioned to Nestorius that the Pope of Rome Celestine had been informed of his heretic teaching (Cyril PG 77:41AB). Finally, Saint Cyril asked him to redress the dispute by using one word, Theotokos, for the Holy Virgin.
With an excellent knowledge of church history, Cyril realised that Nestorius's heretic falsehoods would not be solved by means of discussions or letters between him and Nestorius. A Regional Council or even an Ecumenical Council should be convened. The Patriarch of Alexandria was absolutely certain that Nestorius had made a dogmatic error. Cyril mentioned to Nestorius that he always advocated the same on the Church's doctrine. For fear of misapprehension, he invoked as irrefutable witness the book written earlier about holy and consubstantial Trinity. In this book, which he called "The Treasure", he refuted the whole system of Arianism. In it, he answered all the objections by those heretics, and established from Holy Scripture the divinity of the Son of God, and of the Holy Ghost. He also explained the Incarnation of the Word (Cyril PG 77:41C). He described that in this book he had interwoven some issues on the Incarnation.
This holy doctor emphasised that the rejection of the term Theotokos was tantamount to a refutation of Christ's divinity and a falsification of the Divine Incarnation. Then, Christ would not be true and simultaneously "perfect" God and "perfect" man; he would be a mere tool of the Deity, a God-bearing man (Cyril PG 77:41C). He passionately emphasised that Christ was not a God-clad man, nor did the Word of God merely dwell in a man, but rather that He was made flesh, or perfect man, according to the Scriptures.
Cyril supported the fact that "the holy Virgin is able to be called the Mother of God. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God", he wondered, "how should the holy Virgin who bore Him not be the Mother of God", adding:
They say that God the Word hath taken a perfect man from out the seed of Abraham and David according to the declaration of the Scriptures, who is by nature what they were of whose seed he was, a man perfect in nature, consisting of intellectual soul and human flesh: whom, man as we by nature, fashioned by the might of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin and made of a woman, made under the law, in order that he might buy us all from the bondage of the law, receiving the sonship marked out long before, He in new way connected to Himself, preparing him to make trial of death according to the law of men, raising him from the dead, taking him up into Heaven and setting him on the Right Hand of God (Cyril PG75:1273AD).
Nestorius avoided answering Cyril's letter. He referred to Cyril's attitude against him and presented himself as a victim of Cyril's misunderstanding and empathy (PG 77:44C). Nestorius avoided exacerbating the already critical ecclesiastical state and, at the same time, he gave no apologies to Cyril's charges on the rejection of the name Theotokos for the mother of Christ.
2.2 Cyril's second letter to Nestorius and the latter's answer to the Patriarch of Alexandria
Cyril's answer to Nestorius's letter was quite clever. He did not attack Nestorius, but simply explained to him that he was accused of doubting Nestorius's piety, so that his accusers could hide their wrong actions:
[H]ear that some are rashly talking of the estimation in which I hold your holiness, and that this is frequently the case especially at the times that meetings are held of those in authority. And perchance they think in so doing to say something agreeable to you, but they speak senselessly, for they have suffered no injustice at my hands, but have been exposed by me only to their profit; this man as an oppressor of the blind and needy, and that as one who wounded his mother with a sword. Another because he stole, in collusion with his waiting maid, another's money, and had always laboured under the imputation of such like crimes as no one would wish even one of his bitterest enemies to be laden with (PG 77:44C).
He took little notice of the words of such people, because ultimately they would give an account to the Judge of all, Jesus Christ (PG 77:44C). The holy doctor also mentioned to Nestorius their obligation that their teaching as bishops should be in accordance with the teaching of the Fathers of our church. They should be in the faith according to that which is written, and conform their thoughts (Cyril and Nestorius) to their honest and irreprehensible teaching (PG 77:44C, 45C). If they did not accurately teach the word and the doctrine of the faith to the people, they would tempt their flock. This would be a great sin, because the giving of scandal to one even of the least of those who believe in Christ, exposes a body to the unbearable indignation of God (Math. 18:6).
Following this letter, Cyril made a short reference to the symbol of Nice - Constantinople. He spoke of the Incarnation of the Son and the Word of God. He explained clearly that the only begotten Son, born according to the nature of God the Father, came down, and was incarnate; he partook of flesh and blood like us; he made our body his own, and there came forth a man from a woman, not casting off his existence as God, nor his generation of God the Father (PG 77:45B). Cyril insisted on the Incarnation, because this was the sentiment of the holy Fathers; therefore, they ventured to call the holy Virgin Theotokos, not as if the nature of the Word or his divinity had its beginning from the holy Virgin, but because of her was born that holy body with a rational soul, to which the Word, being personally united, is said to be born according to the flesh (PG 77:45C). Christ became perfect man and remained perfect God, the two natures being brought together in a true union; there was of both one Christ and one Son; for the difference in their nature was not taken away by the union, but rather the divinity and the humanity make the one Lord perfect for us (PG 77:45C).
Cyril purposely used the words "Christ" and "Son" in order to make obvious to Nestorius that the first one referred to the humanity of Jesus and the second expressed his deity as the Word of God. There was a real union of two natures, "hypostatic union". This term was introduced for the first time by Cyril's Christological teaching, in order to expose Nestorius' falsehoods (Theodorou 1955:81).
As had been the case earlier with the Trinitarian doctrine, Cyril was fully conscious of the necessity of positing the union of Incarnation at the level of person, not that of nature. As in the Trinity, there were not three natures and three persons - which would be tritheism - or one nature and one person in three different modes (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) - which would be modalistic monarchianism. In the Incarnation, there was one person, but two natures. The Bishop of Alexandria tried to explain that neither the divine nature overwhelmed the human nature, nor were the human and divine natures juxtaposed. The two natures found their union in the one divine hypostasis and yet maintained their distinction. In Cyril's words:
The natures, however, which combined into this real union were different, but from the two together is one God the Son, without the diversity of the natures being destroyed by the union. For a union of two natures was made, and therefore we confess One Christ, One Son, One Lord ... two natures, by an inseparable union, met together in him without confusion, and indivisibly (Cyril PG 77:304A, 152AB, 200A, 232AC, 260C).
In Christ's person, there was a true union - hypostatic - of the two natures and this followed from the Exchange of Properties or Communion of Idioms. As such, one could understand that Christ suffered and rose again; not as if God the Word suffered in his own nature (the piercing of the nails, or any other wounds), for the Divine nature is incapable of suffering, in as much as it is incorporeal. However, since that which had become his own body suffered in this way, he is also said to have suffered for us; for he who is in himself incapable of suffering was in a suffering body. Similarly, he himself had suffered death for people, not as if he had any experience of death in his own nature (for it would be madness for someone to say or think this), but because his flesh tasted death. Likewise, his flesh being raised again implies his resurrection, not as if he had fallen into corruption (God forbid), but because his own body was raised again (Cyril PG 77:48B; Heb. 2:9).
The divine Word became true human with flesh and blood "not merely as willing or being pleased" ('ού κατά ϋέλησιν µόνην ή εύδοκίαν) (Cyril PG 77:45C). On this point, Cyril referred to Theodorus of Mopsuestia's teaching, which was adopted by Nestorius. Cyril wrote that it would be "absurd and foolish" to say that the Word that existed before all ages, coeternal with the Father, needed a second beginning of existence as God (Cyril PG 77:45C). Mary did not give birth to a mere holy human, but she gave birth to Christ, the one person of the incarnate deity. In Christ, there was a hypostatic union of Godhead and manhood. This meant that Godhead and manhood took place dynamically, because there was only one individual presiding over them both, the person of Christ.
Cyril proposed the concept of hypostatic union to summarise his key objections to Nestorius's theories:
Rather do we claim that the Word in an unspeakable, inconceivable manner united to himself hypostatically flesh enlivened by a rational soul, and so became man and was called son of man, not by God's will alone or good pleasure, nor by the assumption of a person alone. Rather did two different natures come together to form a unity, and from both arose one Christ, one Son. It was not as though the distinctness of the natures was destroyed by the union, but divinity and humanity together made perfect for us one Lord and one Christ, together marvellously and mysteriously combining to form a unity. So he who existed and was begotten of the Father before all ages is also said to have been begotten according to the flesh of a woman ... If, however, we reject the hypostatic union as being either impossible or too unlovely for the Word, we fall into the fallacy of speaking of two sons. We shall have to distinguish and speak both of the man as honoured with the title of son, and of the Word of God as by nature possessing the name and reality of sonship, each in his own way. We ought not, therefore, to split into two sons the one Lord Jesus Christ (Cyril PG 77:48B).
On this point, Cyril rejected Diodorus of Tarsus's teaching about the two Sons. Diodorus claimed that the divinity, comprised of the Word and the flesh, formed a substantial (or hypostatic) unity analogous to that formed by body and (rational) soul in man. In his reaction, his own theory made him view the divine and the human as separate, leading him to distinguish the Son of God and the Son of David. He stated that the Holy Scriptures draw a sharp contrast between the activities of the two Sons. Otherwise, why should those who blaspheme against the Son of Man receive forgiveness while those who blaspheme against the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) do not? Diodorus stated that the Son of God is not the son of David; there are two sons. He relied on the teaching of Jesus Christ when He said: "And anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven" (Lk 12:10). Diodorus mentioned that blasphemy against the Son of Man is not considered blasphemy against the Son of God, because, according to Jesus, blasphemy against the Son of Man will be forgiven, and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not. The Holy Spirit is God; the Lord Jesus Christ explained that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven because it is blasphemy against God. Since Jesus is not God, blasphemy against the son of man is forgiven. With this cunning interpretation, he subordinated the Son of God to the son of man. They have a relationship together, or they are linked to each other by some kind of conjoining or indwelling. Blasphemy against the son of man is not against the Son of God. This distinction between the two sons forms the core of Diodorus of Tarsus's teaching.
In his second letter to Cyril (PG 77:49-57), the Bishop of Constantinople remained steadfast in his dogmatic teaching. He did not reply to "the insults" against him as contained in Cyril's second letter (PG 77:49CD). He believed that these insults would in time be redressed by his patience and by events (PG 77:49D). It is obvious that he referred to the audacity of the Patriarch of Alexandria to challenge the reverence and appropriateness of Nestorius's teaching. He replied to Cyril's accusations of heretic teaching, arguing that everything was based on the previous patristic tradition of the Church. He insisted that Cyril had superficially understood the words of his teaching and of the Fathers. Nestorius urged:
By reading in a superficial way the tradition of those holy men (you were guilty of a pardonable ignorance), you concluded that they said that the Word who is coeternal with the Father was passible (PG 77:49D, 52B; Filipp. 2:5-8).
He asked Cyril to scrutinise their language and he would discover that
the divine fathers never mentioned that the consubstantial godhead was capable of suffering, or that the whole being that was coeternal with the Father was recently born, or that it rose again, seeing that it had itself been the cause of resurrection of the destroyed temple (Nestorius PG 77:52C).
Nestorius emphasised that Cyril's belief was that the coeternal Word of God - Father was passible. This was impossible and he used the passage from Paul's letter to the Philippians:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, and so on until, he became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Nestorius PG 77:52A)
to explain that in Christ, in one person, there were both the impassible and the passible natures, in order that Christ might be called both impassible and passible - impassible in godhead, passible in the nature of his body (Nestorius PG 77:52C). The "conjunction of the two natures of Christ in one person" was a superficial union and not a hypostatic, a real one (Nestorius PG 77:52C). In Nestorius's opinion, it was crucial that God's impassibility be preserved, and that the man retain his spontaneity and freedom of action. Hence, although he occasionally mentioned a union (ενωσις), he preferred the term conjunction (συνάφεια), which seemed to avoid all suspicion of a confusing or mixing of the natures.
The term "conjunction" (synapheia) had been used by the holy Fathers, Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom and by Cyril himself, but now its meaning was heretic. We must not forget that the term "conjunction" was technicus terminus for the Antiochians who supported the two natures of Christ. If the union had the same meaning as the conjunction, then there would be two prosopa of Christ. This was wrong. In the earlier patristic tradition, the term "conjunction" was generally used to explain the perception of human nature by the Only-begotten Word of God during the Incarnation. It meant the true union of two natures rather than welding them (Artemi 2004:237). In Nestorius's letter it did not mean the real, natural union of the two natures of Christ. Cyril wrote:
One therefore is Christ both Son and Lord, not as if a man had attained only such a conjunction with God as consists in a unity of dignity alone or of authority. For it is not equality of honour which unites natures; for then Peter and John, who were of equal honour with each other, being both Apostles and holy disciples [would have been one, and], yet the two are not one. Neither do we understand the manner of conjunction to be apposition, for this does not suffice for natural oneness (πρός ενωσιν φυσικήν). Nor yet according to relative participation, as we are also joined to the Lord, as it is written 'we are one Spirit in him'. Rather we deprecate the term of 'conjunction' (synapheia) as not having sufficiently signified the oneness (Cyril, PG 77:112BC).
Nestorius insisted that each nature had its own prosopon. In order to avoid the assumption that, if the Son had two natures, he would also have two prosopa, he referred the conjunction of the natures to one person, Christ (Nestorius PG 77:52C): "... division of natures into manhood and godhead and their conjunction in one person". He spoke ironically about the Word's second generation from Virgin Mary (Nestorius PG 77:52C). He did not allow the birth of Word as a human, because he supported the fact that Mary gave birth to Christ and not to God:
Holy scripture, wherever it recalls the Lord's economy, speaks of the birth and suffering not of the godhead but of the humanity of Christ (Nestorius PG 77:52C).
The conjunction of Christ's natures resulted in the rejection of the title Theotokos for the Virgin Mary: "... the holy virgin is more accurately termed mother of Christ (Christotokos) than mother of God (Theotokos)" (Nestorius PG 77:52C; PG 77:53B). He quoted biblical passages which were misinterpreted, and referred only to Christ's human nature (PG 77:53B-D; Math. 1:16, 18, 20; Math. 2:13; Jo 2:1; Act. 1:14; Rom. 8:3; I Cor. 15:3; I Pet. 4:1; Lk 22:19). He wrote that Holy Gospels proclaimed only Christ and not God, as the son of David, the son of Abraham (Nestorius PG 77:53B; Math. 1:1). The Son of God was sent by his Father "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Nestorius PG 77:53B). By this phrase he explained that the Son of God had never become perfect human, but that he was only perfect God. Thus, he proved that Christ was a man, in whom the Word of God dwelt. Consequently, if something different was claimed, it would be the
mark of those whose minds were led astray by Greek thinking or were sick with the lunacy of Apollinarius and Arius or the other heresies or rather something more serious than these (Nestorius PG 77:56A).
The use of this term clarifies Nestorius's hatred of Apollinarius and his teaching and his fear of any potential resurgence of Apollimarism.
The Bishop of Constantinople was so confident of the correctness of his teaching that he urged Cyril to reconsider his assertion for Christ. In closing his letter, he pointed out:
If anyone is disposed to be contentious, Paul will cry out through us to such a one, 'we recognize no other practice, neither do the churches of God' (Nestorius PG 77:56A; I Cor. 11:16).
Nestorius's fear of confusing the two natures of Christ led to his reluctance to call Mary Theotokos. He believed that Mary was a human being and that God cannot be born of a human being (Cyril PG 77:41C). Cyril denied the rejection of the term Theotokos for the Virgin Mary and its replacement with the words Christotokos or Anthropotokos. Mary bore the Only-begotten Word of God made flesh (body and soul). The Logos was united with human nature hypostatically, and with his human nature (his flesh) is one Christ, Emmanuel, the same God and man. The refusal to use the term Theotokos and its replacement only with Christotokos caused problems regarding the salvation of the human race. If Mary bore only human Christ, in an indirect way there was a denial that Christ was also God (Cyril PG 75:1273A). On this point, Christ would be another saint of Israel. From this perspective, the Incarnation became an illusion and the redemption of the human race was undermined, since Christ's sufferings were not those of the Word God incarnate, but of one who was a mere man (Cyril PG 77:236A-C). In the Incarnation of the Son of God, the most important role belonged to Theotokos.
Cyril used the term Theotokos for the Virgin Mary as the Great Athanasius, predecessor to the throne of Alexandria had done previously: "Our father Athanasius of the church of Alexandria ... called the Virgin Mary as Theotokos" (Cyril PG 77:13BC; Athanasius PG 28:1272B; Athanasius PG 26:349C, 385AB).
A common man was not first born of the holy Virgin, and then the Word came down and entered into him, but the union being made in the womb itself, he is said to endure a birth after the flesh, ascribing to himself the birth of his own flesh (Cyril PG 77:45C).
Because the two natures are brought together in a true union, there is of both one Christ and one Son; for the difference of the natures is not removed by the union, but rather the divinity and the humanity make perfect for us the one Lord Jesus Christ by their ineffable and inexpressible union(Cyril PG 77:45C).
By this presupposition, the term Theotokos declared the hypostatic union of the godhead and the manhood in one person, Jesus Christ. It is known that from the time of Gregory of Nazianzus at least the bishops of the capital seemed generally to have accepted Theotokos without any doubt (Bethune-Baker 1908:56-59). Theotokos was a powerfully evocative term which belonged to the "language of devotion". Of course, he claimed that the Virgin Mary should be called Christotokos only if this term was related to Theotokos - simultaneously Christotokos and Theotokos. Cyril's letter to the Monks of Egypt emphasised the unity of Christ as divine and human to justify the term Theotokos (Cyril PG 77:20D).
Cyril rejected Nestorius's accusation of not understanding the real meaning of the Incarnation according to the patristic teaching (Nestorius PG 77:49B-57B). He stressed that the Only-begotten Word of God was incarnate and made man:
That was, taking flesh of the holy Virgin, and having made it his own from the womb, he subjected himself to birth for us, and came forth man from a woman, without casting off that which he was; but although he assumed flesh and blood, he remained what he was, God in essence and in truth (Cyril PG 77:109C).
He was a perfect man with a body (sarx) and a soul (nous), and he was borne by the Virgin Mary. It was obvious that the holy Virgin Mary did not give birth to a common man in whom the Word of God dwelt (Cyril PG 77:112A), lest Christ be thought of as a God-bearing man. For all this, the holy Virgin should be called Theotokos.
Finally, when Cyril had managed to refute Nestorius's teaching by means of his letters and theological works, he emphasised that in Christ his two natures were united hypostatically. And, since the holy Virgin brought forth corporally God made one with flesh, for this reason the Virgin Mary should be called Theotokos, not as if the nature of the Word had its origin in the flesh. Cyril instructed Nestorius to accept the 12 Anathemas, proposed by Cyril and accepted by the Council of Ephesus. The first anathema was:
If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the holy virgin is Theotokos (for she bore in a fleshly way the Word of God become flesh), let him be anathema (Cyril PG 77:112A, 120C).
The fact that Cyril's first anathema was the acceptance of the title Theotokos, shows clearly that the term Theotokos was very significant in the teaching of Christology. The rejection of the term jeopardized the teaching or the hypostatic - natural union of the two natures in Christ. If there was no hypostatic union of the Godhead and the manhood in Christ, the redemption of the human race from the shackles of death and sin would be impossible. Man could not come near to God again.
For every Christian, Theotokos Mary is not only the mother of God, but also his/her mother. For this reason, Christians beg her with tears in their eyes to help them: "O all-praised Mother Who didst bear the Word, holiest of all the saints, accept now our offering, and deliver us from all misfortune, and rescue from the torment to come those that cry to Thee: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!" (Akathist Hymn to the holy Virgin, Kontakion 13). In concluding this short essay, we will chant: "More honourable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, without corruption Thou gave birth to God the Word: True Theotokos, we magnify Thee".
In his letters, Cyril explained to Nestorius why the Virgin Mary should be called Theotokos. He stressed that, if Nestorius refuted the title Theotokos for the Mother of God, it would be clear that Christ was not God in flesh (Theos sesarkomenos). Christ would be only a divine person and not the incarnate God. Cyril declared that Christ was at once God and man, and that the union was a real and concrete event, or we might say "a substantive reality", not a cosmetic exercise. In his third letter to Nestorius, Cyril mentioned the hypostatic union as a "natural union", whereby he meant a radically concrete union "such as the soul of man has with its own body" (Mcguckin 1994:212). Nestorius' heretic teaching jeopardized the salvation of the human race. The term Theotokos had been used by both Athanasius the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus. The term Christotokos for the Virgin Mary should be accepted only if it is related to the term Theotokos. Nestorius's denial of the title Theotokos, with its inherent denunciation of the communication of idioms, negated, for him, an authentic understanding of the Incarnation and so the efficacy of Christ's salvific work (Weinandy & Keating 2003:31). Mary gave birth to Emmanuel (God and man) and, for this reason, she deserves the title Theotokos.
AKATHIST HYMN TO THE HOLY VIRGIN. KONTAKION 13. [ Links ]
ARTEMI, E. 2004. The mystery of the incarnation into dialogues of Cyril of Alexandria: Quod unus sit Christus and De incarnation unigeniti. Ecclesiastic Faros OE:237. [ Links ]
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CONCIL. EPH. P. i. c. 16. [ Links ]
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GREGORY OF NYSSA. Contra Apollinarium, PG 45:1156A. [ Links ]
GREGORY OF NYSSA. Contra Eunomium, V, PG 45:705C. [ Links ]
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM. Homiliae super Johannem, XII, PG 59:80BC. [ Links ]
KELLY, J.N. 1968. Early Christian doctrines. London: Harper Collins. [ Links ]
KRIKONIS, CH. 1999. Cyril of Aleaxandria and his Christological teaching. Proceedings of the 19th Theological Conference "Saint Cyril of Alexandria". Thessalonika. Pp. 213-284. [ Links ]
MCGUCKIN, J.A. 1994. St Cyril of Alexandria, the Christological controversy. Its history, theology and texts. New York: E.J. Brill. [ Links ]
MCGUCKIN, J.A. 2005. Cyril of Alexandria. In: initials and surname of author(s)?, The SCM Press A-Z of patristic theology (London: SCM), pp. 93-105. [ Links ]
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PAPADOPOULOS, CHR. 1993. History of the church of Alexandria. Alexandria: P. Pournaras. [ Links ]
PAPADOPOULOS, S. 1990. Patrologia 2. Athens: Parousia. [ Links ]
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PG: Patrologia Graeca. Ed. J.P. Migne


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Snoop Dogg Presents Dubb Union (Feat. BJ & Daz Dillinger) - Westurn Union
Snoop Dogg World Premiere's His New Group Dubb Union For Their First Single "Westurn Union Featuring BJ & Daz Dillinger" Off Their First Studio Album Which Will Be In Stores September 2nd.
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Last summer PC peripheral maker Razer introduced the world to the Razer Blade, a device CEO Min-Liang Tan boldly described as "the world's first gaming laptop." Well now the world's first gaming laptop is in my dining room. Let's open this baby up, shall we?
Of course we shall.
As the Blade's promised Christmas release came and went without a unit shipping, I started to wonder if this $2,800 dedicated gaming machine would ever see the light of day.
Now that it's in my dining room I can't say it'll get much sun, but it will definitely get a vigorous going over before Razer pries it forcibly out of my hands. Good luck with that, Razer. They told me investing in an automatic turret defense system was silly, but I'll show them.
Look for my initial impressions of the Blade on Monday, after I've had some time to futz about with the unit, and should you want a specific game tested out with the system, drop it in comments and I'll see what I can do.


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Kabocha Squash - This sweet, starchy, Japanese favorite is like butternut squash's way-cooler cousin. (Sorry b-nut. You know we love you.) It tastes AMAZING and is now our all-time FAVORITE potato swap. A 3-oz. serving (about 3/4 cup of cubes) has just 30 calories, 0g fat, 0mg sodium, 7g carbs, 1g fiber, 3g sugars, and 1g protein (PointsPlus® value 0*). Find it at select grocery stores and Asian markets. Then try it in all your favorite b-nut squash recipes!
Ocean Spray Craisins Juice Infused Dried Cranberries - Cranberries are good. Dried cranberries are REALLY good. As for dried cranberries that kind of taste like... other fruit?! Madness! Check out these single-serve packs of the sweetened dried berries infused with the juice of blueberries, cherries, or pomegranates. A 100-calorie pouch has no fat, 0mg sodium, 24g carbs, 2g fiber, 18g sugars, and 0g protein (PointsPlus® value 2*). Time to chew!
Dave's Gourmet Red Heirloom Organic Pasta Sauce - HOLD EVERYTHING! We have a new favorite tomato sauce on the planet. This stuff is out of this world! A half-cup serving has only 45 calories, 1.5g fat, 280mg sodium, 7g carbs, 2g fiber, 4g sugars, and 1g protein (PointsPlus® value 1*). How great is that?! The company also makes other pasta sauces that sound fantastic, like Wild Mushroom and even Butternut Squash. We're intrigued...
PointsPlus® Values Everywhere: From Packaged Foods to the HG Book Site! If the new Weight Watchers PointsPlus® plan still has you worked into a tizzy, it's time to... um, un-tizzy. WW's branded and endorsed packaged foods are making the change from POINTS® to the new PointsPlus® values. (Look for sales on the old packages!) You can scope out the new values for WW-endorsed Boca products and the rest of the WW-endorsed items online now. Speaking of online updates... PointsPlus® values for ALL the recipes in the HG cookbooks are NOW available over at the HG book site! (Well, all except for the cocktails. We're working on those.) Click here, here, and here to check 'em out!
Uh-Oh, Galeos! Salad Dressing Draws Lawsuit Remember the dressing we mentioned a few weeks ago, the one that lab results found to have nearly TEN times as many calories as listed on the bottles? The company, Galeos, has since been slapped with a class-action lawsuit alleging it committed fraud and lied to consumers. OUCH! (Click here to check out all the legalese.) What have we learned from this, people? Number one: HELLO, lying is bad! And two: You can't always trust the labels on packaged foods -- if something seems too good to be true (like this stuff), it probably is too good to be true. And to answer all of you out there who have emailed us asking if we've seen test results from a reputable lab confirming the inaccuracy... The answer, sadly, is yes.
Live sponsored HG video event alert! TODAY (Monday, 12/13) at 7pm ET/4pm PT we'll be chewing and chatting about guilt-free snacks, featuring some favorites from The Laughing Cow! CLICK HERE to watch. Pssst... There'll be a very special guest! ***"Spotted Off Shelves" news: Two of our favorite varieties of Wish-Bone Salad Spritzers, Asian Silk and Honey Mustard, have been discontinued. WAAH! If you see 'em, stock up. And click here to BEG the Wish-Bone people to bring back these flavors. ***The beginning of the year is a pretty popular time to jump-start a healthier lifestyle, and apparently, Ronald McDonald has already announced his big New Year's resolution. On January 3rd, Mickey D's will have its nationwide launch of the Fruit & Maple Oatmeal, which has been in test-market phase for most of 2010. FINALLY! The b-fast item without brown sugar added has 260 calories, and the with-sugar version has 290. Happy (early) New Year! ***A recent study found that although nearly half of consumer respondents said they want healthier menu items at restaurants, less than 25 percent of those polled said they actually think about nutrition when dining out. PEOPLE! You know what you should be ordering! You asked for it; so eat it! ***Yes, peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth, but did you know that eating it could be good for your gums? New research from Harvard suggests that including peanut butter, salmon, and other foods with polyunsaturated fatty acids in your diet could reduce the risk of gum disease. We recommend consuming PB in moderation, though... That's all we've got. HG out!
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Happy Ice Cream and Violins Day (a.k.a. December 13th)! After years and years, we still have no idea what this holiday is all about. Celebrate the confusion with a low-fat ice cream cup from The Skinny Cow!
SmartPoints® value not what you expected? Click here for more info on how the values are calculated, plus more FAQs about PointsPlus® and SmartPoints® values on our website.


text: Living Textiles is about individual and collective acts of form giving and place making. Collaboration between individuals is explored through the creation of textile objects made with unconventional processes, such as dance and using the body as an instrument for knitting. The textile pieces are ambiguous in function, resulting in multiple ways of usage and collaborative interaction. All textile materials are wool from local farms in the Hudson Valley.