A quote in an in-class essay by one of my students

[Macarius]

Thought it might be good for a chuckle:

'Nestorians... basically did not believe God died on the cross or that Mary was the "otokos" or mother of God.'

 

[Greg the byzantine]

Theotokos, Christotokos, Anthropotokos, all the -tokos'. At least one of them would have been an actual word.

 

[sequins]

Okay. Was that acceptable to you? Or did you mark this one off....

 

[ClementofRome]

Hey, it was a good effort!

 

[Michael G]

Atleast he did not say what I accidentally said in philosophy class in Seminary!

 

[cassc]

Atleast he did not say what I accidentally said in philosophy class in Seminary!

which was???

 

[MariaRegina]

Perhaps the student is partially deaf as the "th" unvoiced fricative consonant is harder to hear than a vowel.

Like Uncle Clem says, it was a good effort.

 

[E.C.]

Thought it might be good for a chuckle:

'Nestorians... basically did not believe God died on the cross or that Mary was the "otokos" or mother of God.'

Are you sure that wasn't about General Theology?

 

[Michael G]

which was???

I meant to say "You can prove God's existence but you can not justify it." What I said was the opposite, "You can justify God's existence but you can not proove it." The professor replied "Michael, I could agree with you, but in agreeing with you I would be disagreeing with some of the greatest minds in all of history. Perhaps you would like to reconsider your statement." So I changed my statement to "You can prove God's existence but you can not justify it." The professor responded "Thank you for agreeing with us."

 

[Kristos]

Thought it might be good for a chuckle:

'Nestorians... basically did not believe God died on the cross or that Mary was the "otokos" or mother of God.'

Something to build on.

 

[Macarius]

Oh I marked it right. But it was part of a larger essay that was, more or less, well written. The question was dealing with the monophysite schism, and so they had to dip back into why Cyril used his monophysite language against Nestorianism to answer the question.

For an in-class essay, one has to look at least somewhat to the intentions (and the student DID explain the terms correctly). I just found it to be an easy-to-make and amusing error. I had never noticed before that theotokos and The Otokos had the same spelling.

 

[Chesterton]

Oh I marked it right. But it was part of a larger essay that was, more or less, well written. The question was dealing with the monophysite schism, and so they had to dip back into why Cyril used his monophysite language against Nestorianism to answer the question.

For an in-class essay, one has to look at least somewhat to the intentions (and the student DID explain the terms correctly). I just found it to be an easy-to-make and amusing error. I had never noticed before that theotokos and The Otokos had the same spelling.

The ology can be difficult.

 

[Macarius]

I always get stuck at the "O'paschism" - I think it's an Irish saint...

Maybe the brother of the "O'Legumenon"