Nestorianism

it was there that the Virgin Mother was declared to be θεοτόκος, the Mother of God — five days before the delegates from Antioch arrived. Nestorius had refused to attend. He was condemned and deprived of his see.

Campbell argues that the Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorius and proclaimed Mary Theotokos under the archetypal influence of the ancient goddess Artemis whose chief temple site Ephesus had long been, implying that unconscious mythological forces shaped the doctrinal outcome.

Campbell, Joseph, Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume III, 1964thesis

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his doctrine had a life course of its own. It split off eastward, away from the church of Rome and Constantinople, to flourish through Persia and as far as to Madras and to Peking.

Campbell documents Nestorianism’s geographical spread eastward as evidence that suppressed heterodox traditions find alternative cultural channels rather than simply disappearing, a pattern consonant with depth-psychological notions of the return of the repressed.

Campbell, Joseph, Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume III, 1964supporting

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