Nestorius and Nestorianism
Nestorius and Nestorianism
I. THE HERESIARCH
Nestorius, who gave his name to the Nestorian heresy, was born at Germanicia, in Syria Euphoratensis (date unknown); died in the Thebaid, Egypt, c. 451. He was living as a priest and monk in the monastery of Euprepius near the walls, when he was chosen by the Emperor Theodosius II to be Patriarch of Constantinople in succession to Sisinnius. He had a high reputation for eloquence, and the popularity of St. Chrysostom’s memory among the people of the imperial city may have influenced the Emperor’s choice of another priest from Antioch to be court bishop. He was consecrated in April, 428, and seems to have made an excellent impression. He lost no time in showing his zeal against heretics. Within a few days of his consecration Nestorius had an Arian chapel destroyed, and he persuaded Theodosius to issue a severe edict against heresy in the following month. He had the churches of the Macedonians in the Hellespont seized, and took measures against the Qrartodecimans who remained in Asia Minor. He also attacked the Novatians, in spite of the good reputation of their bishop. Pelagian refugees from the West, however, he did not expel, not being well acquainted with their condemnation ten years earlier. He twice wrote to Pope St. Celestine I for information on the subject. He received no reply, but Marius Mercator, a disciple of St. Augustine, published a memoir on the subject at Constantinople, and presented it to the emperor, who duly proscribed the heretics. At the end of 428, or at latest in the early part of 429, Nestorius preached the first of his famous sermons against the word Theotokos, and detailed his Antiochian doctrine of the Incarnation. The first to raise his voice against it was Eusebius, a layman, afterwards Bishop of Dorylaeum and the accuser of Eutyches. Two priests of the city, Philip and Proclus, who had both been unsuccessful candidates for the patriarchate, preached against Nestorius. Philip, known as Sidetes, from Side, his birthplace, author of a vast and discursive history now lost, accused the patriarch of heresy. Proclus (who was to succeed later in his candidature) preached a flowery, but perfectly orthodox, sermon, yet extant, to which Nestorius replied in an extempore discourse, which we also possess. All this naturally caused great excitement at Constantinople, especially among the clergy, who were clearly not well disposed towards the stranger from Antioch. St. Celestine immediately condemned the doctrine. Nestorius had arranged with the emperor in the summer of 430 for the assembling of a council. He now hastened it on, and the summons had been issued to patriarchs and metropolitans on 19 Nov., before the pope’s sentence, delivered though Cyril of Alexandria, had been served on Nestorius (6 Dec.). At the council Nestorius was condemned, and the emperor, after much delay and hesitation, ratified its finding. It was confirmed by Pope Pope Sixtus III.
The lot of Nestorius was a hard one. He had been handed over by the pope to the tender mercies of his rival, Cyril; he had been summoned to accept within ten days under pain of deposition, not a papal definition, but a series of anathemas drawn up at Alexandria under the influence of Apollinarian forgeries. The whole council had not condemned him, but only a portion, which had not awaited the arrival of the bishops from Antioch. He had refused to recognize the jurisdiction of this incomplete number, and had consequently refused to appear or put in any defence. He was not thrust out of his see by a change of mind on the part of the feeble emperor. But Nestorius was proud: he showed no sign of yielding or of coming to terms; he put in no plea of appeal to Rome. He retired to his monastery at Antioch with dignity and apparent relief. His friends, John of Antioch, and his party, deserted him, and at the wish of the Emperor, at the beginning of 433, joined hands with Cyril, and Theodoret later did the same. The bishops who were suspected of being favourable to Nestorius were deposed. An edict of Theodosius II, 30 July, 435, condemned his writings to be burnt. A few years later Nestorius was dragged from his retirement and banished to the Oasis. He was at one time carried off by the Nubians (not the Blemmyes) in a raid, and was restored to the Thebaid with his hand and one rib broken. He gave himself up to the governor in order not to be accused of having fled.
The recent discovery of a Syriac version of the (lost) Greek apology for Nestorius by himself has awakened new interest in the question of his personal orthodoxy. The (mutilated) manuscript, about 800 years old, known as the “Bazaar of Heraclides”, and recently edited as the “Liber Heraclidis” by P. Bedjan (Paris, 1910), reveals the persistent odium attached to the name of Nestorius, since at the end of his life he was obliged to substitute for it a pseudonym. In this work he claims that his faith is that of the celebrated “Tome”, or letter of Leo the Great to Flavian, and excuses his failure to appeal to Rome by the general prejudice of which he was the victim. A fine passage on the Eucharistic Sacrifice which occurs in the “Bazaar” may be cited here: “There is something amiss with you which I want to put before you in a few words, in order to induce you to amend it, for you are quick to see what is seemly. What then is this fault? Presently the mysteries are set before the faithful like the mess granted to his soldiers by the king. Yet the army of the faithful is nowhere to be seen, but they are blown away together with the catechumems like chaff by the wind of indifference. And Christ is crucified in the symbol [kata ton tupon], sacrificed by the sword of the prayer of the Priest; but, as when He was upon the Cross, He finds His disciples have already fled. Terrible is this fault,–a betrayal of Christ when there is no persecution, a desertion by the faithful of their Master’s Body when there is no war” (Loofs, “Nestoriana”, Halls, 1905, p. 341).
The writings of Nestorius were originally very numerous. As stated above, the “Bazaar” has newly been published (Paris, 1910) in the Syriac translation in which alone it survives. The rest of the fragments of Nestorius have been most minutely examined, pieced together and edited by Loofs. His sermons show a real eloquence, but very little remains in the original Greek. The Latin translations by Marius Mercator are very poor in style and the text is ill preserved. Batiffol has attributed to Nestorius many sermons which have come down to us under the names of other authors; three of Athanasius, one of Hippolytus, three of Amphilochius, thirty-eight of Basil of Sellleucia, seven of St. Chrysostom; but Loofs and Baker do not accept the ascription. Mercati has pointed out four fragments in a writing of Innocent, Bishop of Maronia (ed. Amelli in “Spicil. Cassin.”, I, 1887), and Armenian fragments have been published by Ludtke.
II. THE HERESY
Nestorius was a disciple of the school of Antioch, and his Christology was essentially that of Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, both Cilician bishops and great opponents of Arianism. Both died in the Catholic Church. Diodorus was a holy man, much venerated by St. John Chrysostom. Theodore, however, was condemned in person as well as in his writings by the Fifth General Council, in 553. In opposition to many of the Arians, who taught that in the Incarnation the Son of God assumed a human body in which His Divine Nature took the place of soul, and to the followers of Apollinarius of Laodicea, who held that the Divine Nature supplied the functions of the higher or intellectual soul, the Antiochenes insisted upon the completeness of the humanity which the Word assumed. Unfortunately, they represented this human nature as a complete man, and represented the Incarnation as the assumption of a man by the Word. The same way of speaking was common enough in Latin writers (assumere hominem, homo assumptus) and was meant by them in an orthodox sense; we still sing in the Te Deum: “Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem”, where we must understand “ad liberandum hominem, humanam naturam suscepisti”. But the Antiochene writers did not mean that the “man assumed” (ho lephtheis anthropos) was taken up into one hypostasis with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. They preferred to speak of synapheia, “junction”, rather than enosis, “unification”, and said that the two were one person in dignity and power, and must be worshipped together. The word person in its Greek form prosopon might stand for a juridical or fictitious unity; it does not necessarily imply what the word person implies to us, that is, the unity of the subject of consciousness and of all the internal and external activities. Hence we are not surprised to find that Diodorus admitted two Sons, and that Theodore practically made two Christs, and yet that they cannot be proved to have really made two subjects in Christ. Two things are certain: first, that, whether or no they believed in the unity of the subject in the Incarnate Word, at least they explained that unity wrongly; secondly, that they used most unfortunate and misleading language when they spoke of the union of the manhood with the Godhead — language which is objectively heretical, even were the intention of its authors good.
Nestorius, as well as Theodore, repeatedly insisted that he did not admit two Christs or two Sons, and he frequently asserted the unity of the prosopon. On arriving at constantinople he came to the conslusion that the very different theology which he found rife there was a form of Arian or Apollinarian error. In this he was not wholly wrong, as the outbreak of Eutychianism twenty years later may be held to prove. In the first months of his pontificate he was implored by the Pelagian Julian of Eclanum and other expelled bishops of his party to recognize their orthodoxy and obtain their restoration He wrote at least three letters to the pope, St. Celestine I, to inquire whether these petitioners had been duly condemned or not, but he received no reply, not (as has been too often repeated) because the pope imagined he did not respect the condemnation of the Pelagians by himself and by the Western emperor, but because he added in his letters, which are extant, denunciations of the supposed Arians and Apollinarians of Constantinople, and in so doing gave clear signs of the Antiochene errors soon to be known as Nestorian. In particular he denounced those who employed the word Theotokos, though he was ready to admit the use of it in a certain sense: “Ferri tamen potest hoc vocabulum proper ipsum considerationem, quod solum nominetur de virgine hoc verbum hoc propter inseparable templum Dei Verbi ex ipsa, non quia mater sit Dei Verbi; nemo enim antiquiorem se parit.” Such an admission is worse than useless, for it involves the whole error that the Blessed Virgin is not the mother of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. It is therefore unfortunate that Loofs and others who defend Nestorius should appeal to the frequency with which he repeated that he should accept the Theotokos if only it was properly understood. In the same letter he speaks quite correctly of the “two Natures which are adored in the one Person of the Only-begotten by a perfect and unconfused conjunction”, but this could not palliate his mistake that the blessed Virgin is mother of one nature, not of the person (a son is necessarily a person not a nature), nor the fallacy: “No one can bring forth a son older than herself.” The deacon Leo, who was twenty years later as pope to define the whole doctrine, gave these letters to John Cassian of Marseilles, who at once wrote against Nestorius his seven books, “De incarnatione Christi”. Before he had completed the work he had further obtained some sermons of Nestorius, from which he quotes in the later books. He misunderstands and exaggerates the teaching of his opponent, but his treatise is important because it stereotyped once for all a doctrine which the Western world was to accept as Nestorianism. After explaining that the new heresy was a renewal of Pelagianism and Ebionitism, Cassian represents the Constantinoplitan patriarch as teaching that Christ is a mere man (homo solitarius) who merited union with the Divinity as the reward of His Passion. Cassian himself brings out quite clearly both the unity of person and the distinction of the two natures, yet the formula “Two Natures and one Person” is less plainly enunciated by him than by Nestorius himself, and the discussion is wanting in clear-cut distinctions and definitions.
Meanwhile Nestorius was being attacked by his own clergy and simultaneously by St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who first denounced him, though without giving a name, in an epistle to all the monks of Egypt, then remonstrated with him personally by letter, and finally wrote to the pope. Loofs is of the opinion that Nestorius would never have been disturbed but for St. Cyril. But there is no reason to connect St. Cyril with the opposition to the heresiarch at Constantinople and at Rome. His rivals Philip of Side and Proclus and the layman Eusebius (afterwards Bishop of Dorylaeum), as well as the Roman Leo, seem to have acted without any impulse from Alexandria. It might have been expected that Pope Celestine would specify certain heresies of Nestorius and condemn them, or issue a definition of the traditional faith which was being endangered. Unfortunately he did nothing of the kind. St. Cyril had sent to Rome his correspondence with Nestorius, a collection of that Patriarch’s sermons, and a work of his own which he had just composed, consisting of five books “Contra Nestorium”. The pope had them translated into Latin, and then, after assembling the customary council, contented himself with giving a general condemnation of Nestouris and a general approval of St. Cyril’s conduct, whilst he delivered the execution of this vague decree to Cyril, who as Patriarch of Alexandria was the hereditary enemy both of the Antiochene theologian and the Constantinoplitan bishop. Nestorius was to be summoned to recant within ten days. The sentence was as harsh as can well be imagined. St. Cyril saw himself obliged to draw up a form for the recantation. With the help of an Egyptian council he formulated a set of twelve anathematisms which simply epitomize the errors he had pointed out in his five books “Against Nestorius”, for the pope appeared to have agreed with the doctrine of that work. It is most important to notice that up to this point St. Cyril had not rested his case upon Apollinarian documents and had not adopted the Apollinarian formula mia physis sesarkomene from Pseudo-Anathasius. He does not teach in so many words “two natures after the union”, but his work against Nestorius, with the depth and precision of St. Leo, is an admirable exposition of Catholic doctrine, worthy of a Doctor of the church, and far surpassing the treatise of Casssian. The twelve anathematisms are less happy, for St. Cyril was always a diffuse writer, and his solitary attempt at brevity needs to be read in connection with the work which it summarizes.
The Anathematisms were at once attacked, on behalf of John, Patriarch of Antioch, in defence of the Antiochene School, by Andrew of Samosata and the great Theodoret of Cyrus. The former wrote at Antioch; his objections were adopted by a synod held there, and were sent to Cyril as the official view of all the Oriental bishops. St. Cyril published separate replies to these two antagonists, treating Andrew with more respect than Theodoret, to whom he is contemptuous and sarcastic. The latter was doubtless the superior of the Alexandrian in talent and learning, but at this time he was no match for him as a theologian. Both Andrew and Theodoret show themselves captious and unfair; at best they sometimes prove that St. Cyril’s wording is ambiguous and ill-chosen. They uphold the objectionable Antiochene phraseology, and they respect the hypostatic union (enosis kath hypostasin) as well as the physike enosis as unorthodox and unscriptural. The latter expression is indeed unsuitable, and may be misleading. Cyril had to explain that he was not summarizing or defining the faith about the Incarnation, but simply putting together the principal errors of Nestorius in the heretic’s own words. In his books against Nestorius he had occasionally misrepresented him, but in the twelve anathematisms he gave a perfectly faithful picture of Nestorius’s view, for in fact Nestorius did not disown the propositions, nor did Andrew of Samosata or Theodoret refuse to patronize any of them. The anathematisms were certainly in a general way approved by the Council of Ephesus, but they have never been formally adopted by the Church. Nestorius for his part replied by a set of twelve contra-anathematisms. Some of them are directed against St. Cyril’s teaching, others attack errors which St. Cyril did not dream of teaching, for example that Christ’s Human Nature became through the union uncreated and without beginning, a silly conclusion which was later ascribed to the sect of Monophysites called Actistetae. On the whole, Nestorius’s new programme emphasized his old position, as also did the violent sermons which he preached against St. Cyril on Saturday and Sunday, 13 and 14 December, 430. We have no difficulty in defining the doctrine of Nestorius so far as words are concerned: Mary did not bring forth the Godhead as such (true) nor the Word of God (false), but the organ, the temple of the Godhead. The man Jesus Christ is this temple, “the animated purple of the King”, as he expresses it in a passage of sustained eloquence. The Incarnate God did not suffer nor die, but raised up from the dead him in whom He was incarnate. The Word and the Man are to be worshipped together, and he adds: dia ton phorounta ton phoroumenon sebo (Through Him that bears I worship Him Who is borne). If St. Paul speaks of the Lord of Glory being crucified, he means the man by “the Lord of Glory”. There are two natures, he says, and one person; but the two natures are regularly spoken of as though they were two persons, and the sayings of Scripture about Christ are to be appropriated some of the Man, some to the Word. If Mary is called the Mother of God, she will be made into a goddess, and the Gentiles will be scandalized.
This is all bad enough as far as words go. But did not Nestorius mean better than his words? The Oriental bishops were certainly not all disbelievers in the unity of subject in the Incarnate Christ, and in fact St. Cyril made peace with them in 433. One may point to the fact that Nestorius emphatically declared that there is one Christ and one Son, and St. Cyril himself has preserved for us some passages from his sermons which the saint admits to be perfectly orthodox, and therefore wholly inconsistent with the rest. For example: “Great is the mystery of the gifts! For this visible infant, who seems so young, who needs swaddling clothes for His body, who in the substance which we see is newly born, is the Eternal Son, as it is written, the Son who is the Maker of all, the Son who binds together in the swathing-bands of His assisting power the whole creation which would otherwise be dissolved.” And again: “Even the infant is the all-powerful God, so far, O Arius, is God the Word from being subject to God.” And: “We recognize the humanity of the infant, and His Divinity; the unity of His Sonship we guard in the nature of humanity and divinity.” It will probably be only just to Nestorius to admit that he fully intended to safeguard the unity of subject in Christ. But he gave wrong explanations as to the unity, and his teaching logically led to two Christs, though he would not have admitted the fact. Not only his words are misleading, but the doctrine which underlies his words is misleading, and tends to destroy the whole meaning of the Incarnation. It is impossible to deny that teaching as well as wording which leads to such consequences as heresy. He was therefore unavoidably condemned. He reiterated the same view twenty years later in the “Bazaar of Heraclides”, which shows no real change of opinion, although he declares his adherence to the Tome of St. Leo.
After the council of 431 had been made into law by the emperor, the Antiochene party would not at once give way. But the council was confirmed by Pope Pope Sixtus III, who had succeeded St. Celestine, and it was received by the whole West. Antioch was thus isolated, and at the same time St. Cyril showed himself ready to make explanations. The Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria agreed upon a “creed of union” in 433 (see EUTYCHIANISM). Andrew of Samosata, and some others would not accept it, but declared the word “Theotokos” to be heretical. Theodoret held a council at Zeuguma which refused to anathematize Nestorius. But the prudent bishop of Cyrus after a time perceived that in the “creed of union” Antioch gained more than did Alexandria; so he accepted the somewhat hollow compromise. He says himself that he commended the person of Nestorius whilst he anathematized his doctrine. A new state of things arose when the death of St. Cyril, in 444, took away his restraining hand from his intemperate followers. The friend of Nestorius, Count Irenaeus had become Bishop of Tyre, and he was persecuted by the Cyrillian party, as was Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, who had been a great teacher in that city. These bishops, together with Theodoret and Domnus, the nephew and successor of John of Antioch, were deposed by Dioscorus of Alexandria in the Robber Council of Ephesus (449). Ibas was full of Antiochene theology, but in his famous letter to Maris the Persian he disapproves of Nestorius as well as of Cyril, and at the Council of Chalcedon he was willing to cry a thousand anathemas to Nestorius. He and Theodoret were both restored by that council, and both seem to have taken the view that St. Leo’s Tome was a rehabilitation of the Antiochene theology. The same view was taken by the Monophysites, who looked upon St. Leo as the opponent of St. Cyril’s teaching. Nestorius in his exile rejoiced at this reversal of Roman policy, as he thought it. Loofs, followed by many writers even among Catholics, is of the same opinion. But St. Leo himself believed that he was completing and not undoing the work of the Council of Ephesus, and as a fact his teaching is but a clearer form of St. Cyril’s earlier doctrine as exposed in the five books against Nestorius. But it is true that St. Cyril’s later phraseology, of which the two letters to Succensus are the type, is based upon the formula which he felt himself bound to adopt from an Apollinarian treatise believed to be by his great predecessor Athanasius: mia physis ton Theou Logou sesarkomene. St. Cyril found this formula an awkward one, as his treatment of it shows, and it became in fact the watchword of heresy. But St. Cyril does his best to understand it in a right sense, and goes out of his way to admit two natures even after the union en theoria, an admission which was to save Severus himself from a good part of this heresy.
That Loofs or Harnack should fail to perceive the vital difference between the Antiochenes and St. Leo, is easily explicable by their not believing the Catholic doctrine of the two natures, and therefore not catching the perfectly simple explanation given by St. Leo. Just as some writers declare that the Monophysites always took physis in the sense of hypostasis, so Loofs and others hold that Nestorius took hypostasis always in the sense of physis, and meant no more by two hypostases than he meant by two natures. But the words seem to have had perfectly definite meanings with all the theologians of the period. That the Monophysites distinguished them, is probable (see MONOPHYSITES AND MONOPHYSITISM), and all admit they unquestionably meant by hypostasis a subsistent nature. That Nestorius cannot, on the contrary, have taken nature to mean the same as hypostasis and both to mean essence is obvious enough, for three plain reasons: first, he cannot have meant anything so absolutely opposed to the meaning given to the word hypostasis by the Monophysites; secondly, if he meant nature by hypostasis he had no word at all left for “subsistence” (for he certainly used ousia to mean “essence” rather than “subsistence”); thirdly, the whole doctrine of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Nestorius’s own refusal to admit almost any form of the communicatio idiomatum, force us to take his “two natures” in the sense of subsistent natures.
The modern critics also consider that the orthodox doctrine of the Greeks against Monophysitism — in fact the Chalcedonian doctrine as defended for many years — was practically the Antiochene or Nestorian doctrine, until Leontius modified it in the direction of conciliation. This theory is wholly gratuitous, for from Chalcedon onwards there is no orthodox controversialist who has left us any considerable remains in Greek by which we might be enabled to judge how far Leontius was an innovator. At all events we know, from the attacks made by the Monophysites themselves, that, though they professed to regard their Catholic opponents as Crypto-Nestorians, in so doing they distinguished them from the true Nestorians who openly professed two hypostases and condemned the word Theotokos. In fact we may say that, after John of Antioch and Theodoret had made peace with St. Cyril, no more was heard in the Greek world of the Antiochene theology. The school had been distinguished, but small. In Antioch itself, in Syria, and in Palestine, the monks, who were exceedingly influential, were Cyrillians, and a large proportion of them were to become Monophysites. It was beyond the Greek world that Nestorianism was to have its development. There was at Edess a famous school for Persians, which had probably been founded in the days of St. Ephrem, when Nisibis had ceased to belong to the Roman Empire in 363. The Christians in Persia had suffered terrible persecution, and Roman Edessa had attracted Persians for peaceful study. Under the direction of Ibas the Persian school of Edessa imbibed the Antiochene theology. But the famous Bishop of Edessa, Rabbûla, though he had stood apart from St. Cyril’s council at Ephesus together with the bishops of the Antiochene patriarchate, became after the council a convinced, and even a violent, Cyrillian, and he did his best against the school of the Persians. Ibas himself became his successor. But at the death of his protector, in 457, the Persians were driven out of Edessa by the Monophysites, who made themselves all-powerful. Syria then becomes Monophysite and produces its Philoxenus and many another writer. Persia simultaneously becomes Nestorian. Of the exiles from Edessa into their own country nine became bishops, including Barsumas, or Barsaûma, of Nisibis and Acacius of Beit Aramage. The school at Edessa was finally closed in 489.
At this time the Church in Persia was autonomous, having renounced all subjection to Antioch and the “Western” bishops at the Council of Seleucia in 410. The ecclesiastical superior of the whole was the Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, who had assumed the rank of catholicos. This prelate was Babaeus or Babowai (457-84) at the time of the arrival of the Nestorian professors from Edessa. He appears to have received them with open arms. But Barsaûma, having become Bishop of Nisibis, the nearest great city to Edessa, broke with the weak catholicos, and, at a council which he held at Beit Lapat in April, 484, pronounced his deposition. In the same year Babowai was accused before the king of conspiring with Constantinople and cruelly put to death, being hung up by his ring-finger and also, it is said, crucified and scourged. There is not sufficient evidence for the story which makes Barsaûma his accuser. The Bishop of Nisibis was at all events in high favour with King Peroz (457-84) and had been able to persuade him that it would be a good thing for the Persian kingdom if the Christians in it were all of a different complexion from those of the Empire, and had no tendency to gravitate towards Antioch and Constantinople, which were not officially under the sway of the “Henoticon” of Zeno. Consequently all Christians who were not Nestorians were driven from Persia. But the story of this persecution as told in the letter of Simeon of Beit Arsam is not generally considered trustworthy, and the alleged number of 7700 Monophysite martyrs is quite incredible. The town of Tagrit alone remained Monophysite. But the Armenians were not gained over, and in 491 they condemned at Valarsapat the Council of Chalcedon, St. Leo, and Barsaûma. Peroz died in 484, soon after having murdered Babowai, and the energetic Bishop of Nisibis had evidently less to hope from his successor, Balash. Though Barsaûma at first opposed the new catholicos, Acacius in August, 485, he had an interview with him, and made his submission, acknowledging the necessity for subjection to Seleucia. However, he excused himself from being present at Acacius’s council in 484 at Seleucia, where twelve bishops were present. At this assembly, the Antiochene Christology was affirmed and a canon of Beit Lapat permitting the marriage of the clergy was repeated. The synod declared that they despised vainglory, and felt bound to humble themselves in order to put an end to the horrible clerical scandals which disedified the Persian Magians as well as the faithful; they therefore enacted that the clergy should make a vow of chastity; deacons may marry, and for the future no one is to be ordained priest except a deacon who has a lawful wife and children. Though no permission is given to priests or bishops to marry (for this was contrary to the canons of the Eastern Church), yet the practice appears to have been winked at, possibly for the regularization of illicit unions. Barsaûma himself is said to have married a nun named Mamoé; but according to Mare, this was at the inspiration of King Peroz, and was only a nominal marriage, intended to ensure the preservation of the lady’s fortune from confiscation.
The Persian Church was now organized, if not thoroughly united, and was formally committed to the theology of Antioch. But Acacius, when sent by the king as envoy to Constantinople, was obliged to accept the anathema against Nestorius in order to be received to Communion there. After his return he bitterly complained of being called a Nestorian by the Monopohysite Philoxenus, declaring that he “knew nothing” of Nestorius. Nevertheless Nestorius has always been venerated as a saint by the Persian Church. One thing more was needed for the Nestorian Church; it wanted theological schools of its own, in order that its clergy might be able to hold their own in theological argument, without being tempted to study in the orthodox centres of the East or in the numerous and brilliant schools which the monophysites were now establishing. Barsaûma opened a school at Nisibis, which was to become more famous than its parent at Edessa. The rector was Narses the Leprous, a most prolific writer, of whom little has been preserved. This university consisted of a single college, with the regular life of a monastery. Its rules are still preserved (see NISIBIS). At one time we hear of 800 students. Their great doctor was Theodore of Mopsuestia. His commentaries were studied in the translation made by Ibas and were treated almost as infallible. Theodore’s Canon of Scripture was adopted, as we learn from “De Partibus Divinae Legis” of Junilius, (P.L., LXVIII, and ed. By Kihn), a work which is a translation and adaptation of the published lectures of a certain Paul, professor at Nisbis. The method is Aristotelean, and must be connected with the Aristotelean revival which in the Greek world is associated chiefly with the name of Philoponus, and in the West with that of Boethius. The fame of this theological seminary was so great that Pope Agapetus and Cassiodorus wished to found one in Italy of a similar kind. the attempt was impossible in those troublous times; but Cassiodorus’s monastery at Vivarium was inspired by the example of Nisibis. There were other less important schools at Seleucia and elsewhere, even in small towns.
Barsaûma died between 492 and 495, Acacius in 496 or 497. Narses seems to have lived longer. The Nestorian Church which they founded, though cut off from the Catholic Church by political exigencies, never intended to do more than practise an autonomy like that of the Eastern patriarchates. Its heresy consisted mainly in its refusal to accept the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. It is interesting to note that neither Junilius nor Cassiodorus speaks of the school of Nisibis as heretical. They were probably aware that it was not quite orthodox, but the Persians who appeared at the Holy Places as pilgrims or at Constantinople must have seemed like Catholics on account of their hatred to the Monophysites, who were the great enemy in the East. The official teaching of the Nestorian Church in the time of King Chosroes (Khusran) II (died 628) is well presented to us in the treatise “De unione” composed by the energetic monk Babai the Great, preserved in a MS. From which Labourt has made extracts (pp. 280-87). Babai denies that hypostasis and person have the same meaning. A hypostasis is a singular essence (ousia) subsisting in its independent being, numerically one, separate from others by its accidents. A person is that property of a hypostasis which distinguishes it from others (this seems to be rather “personality” than “person”) as being itself and no other, so that Peter is Peter and Paul is Paul. As hypostases Peter and Paul are not distinguished, for they have the same specific qualities, but they are distinguished by their particular qualities, their wisdom or otherwise, their height or their temperament, etc. And, as the singular property which the hypostasis possesses is not the hypostasis itself, the singular property which distinguishes it is called “person”.
It would seem that Babai means that “a man” (individuum vagum) is the hypostasis, but not the person, until we add the individual characteristics by which he is known to be Peter or Paul. This is not by any means the same as the distinction between nature and hypostasis, nor can it be asserted that by hypostasis Babai meant what we should call specific nature, and by person what we should call hypostasis. The theory seems to be an unsuccessful attempt to justify the traditional Nestorian formula: two hypostases in one person. As to the nature of the union, Babai falls on the Antiochene saying that it is ineffable, and prefers the usual metaphors — assumption, inhabitation, temple, vesture, junction-to any definition of the union. He rejects the communicatio idiomatum as involving confusion of the natures, but allows a certain “interchange of names”, which he explains with great care.
The Persian Christians were called “Orientals”, or “Nestorians”, by their neighbours on the west. They gave to themselves the name Chaldeans; but this denomination is usually reserved at the present day for the large portion of the existing remnant which has been united to the Catholic Church. The present condition of these Uniats, as well as the branch in India known as “Malabar Christians”, is described under CHALDEAN CHRISTIANS. The history of the Nestorian Church must be looked for under PERSIA. The Nestorians also penetrated into China and Mongolia and left behind them an inscribed stone, set up in Feb., 781, which describes the introduction of Christianity into China from Persia in the reign of T’ai-tsong (627-49). The stone is at Chou-Chih, fifty miles south-west of Sai-an Fu, which was in the seventh century the capital of China. It is known as “the Nestorian Monument”.
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For bibliography see CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA; EPHESUS, COUNCIL OF; DIOSCURUS, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA. Here may be added, on I: GARNIER, Opera Marii Mercatoris, II (Paris, 1673); P.L., XLVII, 669; TILLEMONT, Memoires, XIV; ASSEMANI, Bibliotheca Orient., III, pt 2 (Rome, 1728); LOOFS in Realencyklopadie, s.v. Nestorius; FENDT, Die Christologie des Nestorius (Munich, 1910); BATIFFOL in Revue Biblique, IX (1900), 329-53; MERCATI in Theolog. Revue VI (1907), 63; LUDTKE in Zeitschr. Fur Kirchengesch. XXIX (1909), 385.
On the early struggle with Nestorianism: ASSEMANI, Bibliotheca Orentalis, III, parts 1 and 2 (Rome, 1728); DOUCIN, Histoire du Nestorianisme (1689).
On the Persian Nestorians: the Monophysite historians MICHAEL SYRUS, ed. CHABOT (Paris, 1899) and BARHEBRAEUS, edd. ABBELOOS AND LAMY (Paris, 1872-77); the Mohammedan SAHRASTANI, ed. CURETON (London, 1842); and especially the rich information in the Nestorian texts themselves; GISMONDI, Maris Amri et Slibae de patriarchis Nestoranis commentaria, e codd. Vat.; the Liber Turris (Arabic and Latin, 4 parts, Rome, (1896-99); BEDJAN, Histoire de Mar Jab-Alaha (1317), patriarche, et de Raban Saumo (2nd ed., Paris, 1895); Synodicon of Ebedjesu in MAI, Scriptorum vett. Nova. Coll., X (1838); BRAUN, Das Buch der Synhados (Stuttgart and Vienna, 1900); CHABOT, Synodicon Orientale, ou recueil de Synodes Nestoriens in Notes of Extraits, Synhados (Stuttgart and Vienna, 1900); Chabot Synodicon Orentale, ou recueil de Synodes Nestoriens in Notes et Extraits, XXXVII (Paris, 1902); GUIDI, Ostsyrische bischofe und Bischofsitze in Zeitschrift der Morgen landl. Gesellsch., (1889), XLII, 388; IDEM, Gli statuti della scuola di Nisibi (Syriac text) in Giornaale della Soc. Asiatica Ital., IV; ADDAI SCHER, Chronique de Seert, histoire Nestorienne (Arabic and French), and Cause de la fondation des ecoles (Edessa and Nisibis) in Patrologia Orentalis, IV (Paris, 1908). -See also PETERMANN AND KESSLER in Realencyklop., s.v. Nestorianer; FUNK in Kirchenlex., s.v. Nestorius und die Nestorianer; DUCHESNE, Hist. Ancienne de l’eglise, III (Paris, 1910). -On the “Nestorian Monument”, see PARKER in Dublin review, CXXXI (1902), 2, p. 3880; CARUS AND HOLM, The Nestorian Monument (London, 1910).
JOHN CHAPMAN Transcribed by John Looby
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XCopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Nestorius and Nestorianism
Nestorius (3) and Nestorianism. One of the most far-reaching controversies in the history of the church is connected with the name of Nestorius, who became patriarch of Constantinople in A.D. 428, in succession to Sisinnius. So protracted has it been that even to the present day Nestorian churches, as they are called, exist in Assyria and India, and their members are not in communion with those of the other Christian churches in the East. The history of the form of thought which produced such far-reaching results must be interesting to every student of theology. Nestorius himself was brought up in the cloister, and had, as Neander remarks, imbibed the tendencies to narrowness, partisanship, impatience, and ignorance of mankind which are not unfrequently found among those who have been educated apart from their fellows. He was brought from Antioch, we are told-a fact of which the significance will presently be seen. He appears to have been eloquent and sincere, and his austerity of life had won for him the admiration of man. Socrates, a specially well-informed contemporary, and a layman of judgment and fairness, speaks with some severity of his first steps after he became patriarch (H. E. vii. 29). He is described as addressing the emperor (Theodosius II.) immediately after his appointment, “before all the people,” with the words, “Give me, O prince, a country purged of heretics, and I will give you heaven as a recompense. Assist me in destroying heretics, and I will assist you in vanquishing the Persians.” Such language was more enthusiastic than wise. It was no doubt pleasing to the multitude, but (Socr. l.c.) it made a very bad impression on thoughtful hearers. “Before he had tasted of the waters of the city,” the historian proceeds, using a proverbial phrase, he had flung himself headlong into acts of violence and persecution. On the fifth day after his consecration, he resolved to destroy the oratory in which the Arians were wont to celebrate their worship, and thereby he not only drove them to desperation, but, as Socrates adds, he alienated thinking men of his own communion. He next attacked the Quartodecimans and the Novatianists with equal violence, although neither sect was involved in heresy by its schism from the church, and the Novatianists had steadily supported the church in its controversy with the Arians. He then turned his attention to the Macedonians. [See MACEDONIUS.] For his treatment of this sect there is more excuse. The bp. of Germa, on the Hellespont, had treated them with such severity that, driven to desperation, they had sent two assassins to murder him. For this rash act they were deprived of their churches in Constantinople and the neighbourhood. It was at least unwise to convert the members of four “denominations,” as we should now call them, into bitter antagonists, and it was not very long before an occasion arose for them to display their hostility.
The development of theology in Syria had for some time taken a different direction from that which it had taken in Egypt, where the tendency had been to lay stress on the divine, and therefore mysterious, side of Christianity. But in Syria a school had arisen, of which Diodorus of Tarsus and the celebrated Theodore of Mopsuestia were the leaders, which devoted itself to the critical interpretation of Scripture, and favoured the application of logical investigation to the facts and doctrines of Christianity. These two tendencies were certain some day to come into collision, and when reinforced by the personal jealousy felt by successive patriarchs of Alexandria at the elevation in 381 of Constantinople, as New Rome, to the second place among the patriarchates, over the head of a church which could boast of St. Mark as its founder, there was plenty of material for a conflagration. Already premonitions of the approaching conflict between Alexandria and Constantinople had appeared in the successful intrigues of THEOPHILUS, patriarch of Alexandria, against the renowned JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, patriarch of Constantinople. The violence of Nestorius and his supporters set fire to the material already provided; the immediate occasion being the sermon of a presbyter named Anastasius, whom Nestorius had brought with him from Antioch, and in whom he reposed much confidence. Anastasius is said to have used the words (Socr. H. E. vii. 32), “Let no man call Mary , for Mary was human, and it is impossible that God could be born from a human being.” This utterance naturally caused amazement and distress, for the word had been applied to the Virgin by authorities as high as Origen, Athanasius, and Eusebius of Caesarea, and it was insisted on with some vehemence by Gregory of Nazianzus. It is also found in the letter of Alexander of Alexandria to Alexander of Constantinople. [See ARIUS.] Nestorius supported his protg, and delivered several discourses, in which he maintained the thesis of his subordinate with ability and energy, and with some heat. He was promptly charged with having involved himself in the heresies of Photinus or Paul of Samosata. Socrates denies that this was the case. But he remarks on the unreasonable antipathy of Nestorius to a word to which orthodox churchmen were well accustomed. This antipathy may partly, perhaps, be explained by a dislike on the part of Nestorius to the tendency to undue honour to the Virgin which had already displayed itself. But it was still more due to the teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia and his school, which had laid undue stress on the humanity of Christ, and had not shrunk from representing the inhabitation of the Man Christ Jesus by the Divine Logos as differing rather in degree than in kind from that by which God was pleased to dwell in the prophets and other holy men of old. If, they contended, there were any union of natures in Christ, it was not a personal union, but an (a union of things diverse in a close relation). Such teaching had a dangerous tendency to humanitarianism, and to the division of Christ into two hypostases [See ARIUS, FOLLOWERS OF], as well as implying the existence in Him of two separate and possibly antagonistic sources of will and action.
The ferment caused by these injudicious utterances spread far and wide, and soon reached Alexandria. Cyril, the patriarch, who had succeeded his uncle Theophilus, was by no means disinclined to lower the credit of a rival whose elevation he at once envied and despised. We must not suppose, however, that Cyril had no convictions of his own on the point, for, as Dorner very properly reminds us, he had already published his opinions on it. Not content, however, with assailing with rare theological ability the opinions of Nestorius, he condescended to less worthy expedients. Not only did he exaggerate and misrepresent the language of his antagonist, but he tried to involve him in charges of Apollinarianism [See APOLLINARIS] and Pelagianism [See PELAGIUS]. Theodore, from whom Nestorius had imbibed his theology, was in the most direct antagonism to Apollinaris, whose teaching, while insisting strongly on the Godhead of Christ, involved the denial of His Perfect Manhood. And the divines of all schools of thought in the East, in the opinion of the disciples of Augustine, were more or less tinged with Pelagianism. As Nestorius had shewn some kindness to Pelagians who had fled to him from the West, the accusation of Pelagianism suited Cyril’s purpose.
Before entering into the history of the controversy, we must pause for a moment and endeavour to understand the questions involved, and the different aspects from which they were approached by the disputants. The Syrian school, as we have seen, approached these questions from the human side, and favoured inductive methods. The starting-point of Theodore was man, in the sphere of the visible and tangible. The starting-point of Cyril was God, in the sphere of the mysterious and unknown. The development (for of such a development Scripture unquestionably speaks) of the Manhood of Christ when inhabited by the Godhead seems to have been the prominent idea on the part of the Syrian school. It inquired whether the indwelling of the Godhead in Jesus Christ was one of Nature or simply of energy, and it undoubtedly leaned too much toward the assertion of a dual personality in Christ. The watchword (as Neander calls it) of the Alexandrians, on the other hand, was the ineffable and (to human reason) inconceivable nature of the inhabitation of the Man Christ Jesus by the Divine Logos. We must not forget that the Syrians, though not of course unacquainted with Greek, habitually thought in Syriac, and used a Syrian version of the Scriptures, which had been in existence in their churches in one form or another ever since the 2nd cent. The use of the term had been approved by Theodore himself, under certain limitations, which makes the passionate protest of Nestorius against it the more unfortunate. Nestorius, unfortunately for himself, was not a clear thinker or reasoner, and was therefore no match for his antagonist Cyril. Great confusion, it should be remarked in passing, has been caused by the inaccurate translation of into modern languages by the words Mother of God. Whether the soul of an infant is derived from its parents is an old and still debated question. But the term “mother” unquestionably involves in many minds the idea of transmission of essence, whereas the title , as Theodoret does not fail to point out in his reply to Cyril’s anathemas, simply means that she to whom it was applied was the medium through which a Divine Being was introduced into this world in human form. The controversy raised the question whether the term (connexion or conjunction) or (union) were the better fitted to denote the nature of the relation between the Godhead and the Manhood in Christ. The Syrians inclined to the former, the Alexandrians to the latter. Some confusion of thought continued to exist about the use of the terms and to signify what we in English express by the one inadequate word “person.” These two Greek words [See ARIUS, FOLLOWERS OF] were, from the council of Constantinople onward, usually understood to signify respectively the appearance, as regarded by one outside it, and the inward distinction, or, as Gregory of Nazianzus puts it, “speciality” (), which distinguishes one individual of a genus or species from another. But when the word is applied to the conditions of Being in God, the caution of our own Hooker is verb necessary (Eccl. Pot. V. lvi. 2), that the Divine Nature is itself unique. It seems pretty plain that even so clear a thinker as Cyril, in his defence of his anathemas as well as elsewhere, does not distinguish sufficiently between the use of the word at Nicaea, and the signification which had come to be attached to it in the first council of Constantinople. Nor should it be forgotten that though many modern divines are wont to represent Theodore of Mopsuestia as a dangerous heretic, he was rather, like Origen at an earlier period, a pioneer of theological inquiry [See ARIUS], and that, like Origen, he lived and died m the communion of the church, though some of the propositions laid down by him were afterwards shewn to be erroneous. It may not be amiss to sum up these remarks on the question at issue in the words of Canon Bright, who certainly cannot be charged with undue tenderness for Nestorius, on the title . “It challenged objection; it was open to misconstruction; it needed some theological insight to do it justice; it made the perception of the true issue difficult; it stimulated that ‘cultus’ which has now, in the Roman church, attained proportions so portentous.”
History of the Controversy.-There was considerable ferment in Constantinople in consequence of the utterances of Nestorius and his followers, even before the intervention of Cyril. One Proclus, who had been appointed bp. of Cyzicus but had not been accepted by the church there, was residing in Constantinople, and raised a storm by inveighing not a little indecently, in the very presence of the patriarch, against the doctrines promulgated by him. Proclus was probably giving expression to real convictions, but was clearly not in a position which justified him in undertaking the task. Nestorius replied, and attacked the extravagant laudation of the Virgin by Proclus, describing it as derogatory to the honour of her Son. But, as was usual with him, he deprecated all noisy applause on the part of his hearers-therein displaying better taste than most of his contemporaries-and went on to declare that he did not object to the term , provided Mary were not made into a goddess. The dispute grew warm. Placards were affixed to the walls of the churches in Constantinople, and sermons preached against the patriarch. The opportunity thus given was not one which Cyril was likely to neglect. Though a man of ability and a theologian far above the average, he was ambitious, violent, and unscrupulous. Socrates does not conceal his sense of Cyril’s unfairness toward Nestorius, strongly as he animadverts on the lack of judgment and self-control displayed by the latter. Cyril wrote to the monks of Constantinople commenting severely on the action of Nestorius, and insisting strongly that the union of the Godhead and Manhood in Jesus Christ was a real union, and not a mere conjunction. When he learned that his letter was resented, he wrote one to Nestorius himself. He complained that the unfortunate language of Nestorius had reached Celestine of Rome, and was thus throwing the whole church into confusion. The affected moderation of his language did not deceive Nestorius, who defended himself with spirit and moderation, and maintained that would be a more suitable appellation for the Virgin than . Approached by an Alexandrian presbyter named Lampon, who came to Constantinople in the interests of peace, Nestorius professed himself much touched by Lampon’s tone, and wrote to Cyril in a more friendly spirit. But it was too late. Cyril had already taken action against Nestorius, and when the latter suggested a council at Constantinople, took measures to undermine still further the influence of his antagonist. He wrote two treatises on the controversy, one addressed to the emperor and empress (Eudocia), and the other to Pulcheria and the other sisters of the emperor. Then he wrote to Celestine of Rome an unfair account of what had occurred. He contended that Nestorius had represented the Logos as two separate beings, knit closely together. Nestorius complained that Cyril garbled his quotations He was, however, pronounced a heretic by two synods held at Rome and Alexandria (430). Whether Cyril acted as craftily as Neander supposes, or whether Nestorius maintained too lofty a tone in his letter to Celestine, and thus offended one who was anxious to secure his supremacy over the church of God, must be left undecided. Certain it is that the high-handed action of Celestine in requiring that Nestorius should at once readmit to communion the presbyters whom he had repelled from it, and that he himself should sign a written recantation within 12 days, was quite unprecedented in the history of the church. Another patriarch, John of Antioch, now appears on the scene. Cyril had endeavoured to intimidate him by representing that the whole West was united in condemnation of Nestorius, and John wished to act as a mediator. Cyril next issued 12 anathemas against the teaching of Nestorius. In one of these he seems to unite the flesh of Christ with the Logos, according to His Person ( ), and in the 3rd he appears to speak of the union of the two hypostases in Him. Nestorius replied by 12 counter-anathemas. It is unfortunate for our full comprehension of the position that these are only to be found in a Latin translation by Marius Mercator, a layman from N. Africa, who was at Constantinople while the controversy was going on. But, as usual in theological controversy, each of the disputants replies rather to the inferences he himself draws from the propositions of his antagonist than to the propositions themselves. The famous Theodoret, bp. of Cyrus, now (430) came forward, at the request of John of Antioch, in defence of Nestorius. He laid his finger on the weak spot of Cyril’s anathemas-his union of two hypostases in Christ; and condemned them as “foreign to Christianity.” Cyril seems also to have contended that nothing could be unknown to the humanity of Christ which was known to Him as God. The doctrine, too, of the (natural union) maintained by Cyril seemed perilously near to Monophysitism. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that Nestorius publicly stated that he had no objection to the word , provided it was properly explained. The emperor at last resolved to call a council. Ephesus was chosen as the place of meeting (probably because of the excitement prevalent at Constantinople), and the meeting was fixed for Whitsuntide 431. The assembly was confined to the bishops of the more important sees (metropolitans, as they were now called), and the emperor sent a warning letter to Cyril, condemning his intemperate proceedings. Nestorius came at the appointed time, but fearing the violence of his adversary, requested a guard from the emperor. His request was granted. Cyril and his adherents were also present. But some 40 Syrian bishops were detained by floods, famine, and the riots consequent on the latter. Cyril, seizing the opportunity, and supported by Memnon, bp. of Ephesus, opened the synod, which consisted of some 200 metropolitans, and proceeded to condemn and depose Nestorius in the absence of the Syrian contingent. This sentence of deposition was affixed to the public buildings and proclaimed by the heralds. Meanwhile Cyril had contrived to remove from the emperor’s mind the unfavourable impression his previous action had produced. Nestorius declined, though thrice summoned, to attend the synod in the absence of his Syrian supporters, and sent a complaint to the emperor of the illegality and unfairness of Cyril’s proceedings, which was supported by ten bishops and the imperial commissioner. (Socrates, however, says that Nestorius attended one meeting, and left it after having expressed himself in somewhat unfortunate language.) Cyril pretended that the Syrian bishops had purposely stayed away. But this is neither probable in itself nor consistent with the subsequent conduct of the patriarch John.
When John and the Syrian bishops arrived, they, though only between 30 and 40 in number, held a counter-synod, which was ridiculed by Cyril and his party for its great inferiority in numbers. John, however, persisted, alleging that the rest of the bishops were simply creatures of Cyril and Memnon. John’s party then excommunicated Cyril and Memnon, posted up their sentence and transmitted their report to the emperor. A letter had meanwhile arrived from Celestine in condemnation of Nestorius. This letter was read by Cyril to the bishops of his party, but Nestorius replied that it had only been obtained by gross perversions of his language. Cyril now resorted to other means of attaining his purpose. He endeavoured to gain over the emperor, a task which was only too easy. He contrived to bring the ladies of the court, including Pulcheria, over to his side. To attain this end, there is evidence extant-though Canon Bright has failed to notice it-(in a letter from Epiphanius, Cyril’s archdeacon and syncellus, to the patriarch Maximian, see below), that he made a lavish use of money and presents of other kinds. He also stirred up the monks at Constantinople to tumult through an agent of his, one Dalmatius, who had immured himself in his cell for 48 years, and was in high repute for his ascetic practices. Dalmatius now represented himself as drawn from his retirement by a voice from heaven, in order to rescue the church from the peril of heresy. A torchlight procession to the emperor was organized. The excitement in Constantinople was general. The emperor was terrified at the furious riots which broke out, in which many persons were injured. So the influence of the court was now openly exerted in favour of Cyril, and the Oriental bishops began to waver. Nestorius himself lost heart. Even at the council he had gone so far as to say, “Let Mary be called , and let all this tumult cease.” He had throughout been less illiberal than his antagonists, and he was probably terrified at their violent and unscrupulous proceedings. He may also have discovered, when it was too late, that he had rushed into controversy without having been sufficiently sure of his ground. Therefore although a deputation of 8 bishops from each side were sent to Constantinople, the result was a foregone conclusion. A compromise was arrived at. Cyril and Memnon were reinstated in their sees. John of Antioch signed a condemnation of Nestorius, while Cyril consented in 432 to sign an Antiochene formulary which had been submitted by Theodoret to the Syrian bishops at Ephesus and was afterwards transmitted to the emperor. It is worth noting that this formulary contains the (see above), but guards it by a definite assertion of both the divinity and humanity of Christ. The sentence on Nestorius was carried out. He was deposed, and Maximian became patriarch in his stead, but soon died, and was succeeded by Proclus, the old antagonist of Nestorius. The controversy continued to rage, Rabbulas, bp. of Edessa, went so far as to attack Theodore of Mopsuestia, and raised a storm of opposition in the East by so doing. Cyril, writing to Acacius of Melitene (not to be confounded with the aged Acacius of Beroea), declared that though it was possible theoretically ( ) to conceive of the two natures in Christ as distinct, yet after their union in His Person they became but one nature. This doctrine, essentially Monophysite as it was, he did not scruple to attribute to his Syrian opponents in order to magnify the concessions he made to them (Neander, iv. p. 176). Meanwhile Theodoret still held out, though he offered to condemn those who denied the divinity of Christ, or divided Him into two Sons. And he implored John of Antioch and count (comes) Irenaeus, a friend of the emperor, to accept the word . But he maintained that to condemn Nestorius would be unjust. Yet even he had become weary of the controversy, and was at last prevailed upon to exert himself in favour of a reconciliation. He had great difficulty in bringing over the Oriental bishops. So he went so far as to beseech Nestorius to yield for the sake of peace. It has been felt that the extent to which he carried his submission has left a stain on his otherwise high character. In his Commentary on the Psalms (written c. 433) he calls Nestorius , and a worshipper of a foreign and new God, and classes his followers with Jews, Arians, and Eunomians; but he earnestly begged that the venerable age of Nestorius might be exempt from violence or cruelty, and besought the patriarch John to use his influence to prevent this; and [See MONOPHYSITISM] he retrieved by his later conduct his reputation for courage and impartiality.
John, however, was not to be softened. He had thrown his influence on the side of the court, and he was determined to persevere in his policy. Nestorius was banished to a convent just outside the gates of Antioch, and Meletius of Mopsuestia, Alexander of Hierapolis, and Helladius of Tarsus, strong supporters of the school of Theodore, were involved in the fate of Nestorius. In 435 it was thought that Nestorius was nearer the patriarch of Antioch than was convenient, so his exile to Petra in Arabia was decreed, though he was actually taken to Egypt instead. An assault was made on his place of residence by a horde of Libyan barbarians, who carried him off. When released, he made his way to the Thebaid, and gave himself up to the prefect, begging for kindness and protection. This modest request was not granted. He was dragged about from place to place, with every sign of contempt and hatred. The historian Evagrius, who loses no opportunity of loading his memory by the use of opprobrious language and represents his fate as a judgment of God analogous to that which befel Arius, gives us a sketch of a second and most pathetic letter addressed by Nestorius to the prefect and known as his “Tragedy.” In this he implores the protection of the Roman laws, and enlarges on the reproach which would fall on the Roman name if he received better treatment from barbarians than when seeking the protection of the Roman government. He gives a moving picture of the hardships to which, though “afflicted by disease and age,” he had been subjected. But all was in vain. He obtained no mercy, and only death released him from his sufferings.
Though his enemies might remove him from this world, they could not so easily destroy his influence. The extent of his error had been much exaggerated. His opponents went ultimately to greater extremes than he had ever done, though it must be confessed that his utterances were often ill-considered, as when he denied without qualification that the Son could be said to have suffered. For the history of the immediate results of their victory see MONOPHYSITISM. Cyril, in his Ep. to Acacius of Melitene, had, before his death in 444, committed himself to the doctrine that the two natures () of Christ became one after the union had been effected. This doctrine, in the days of his successor, brought about a strong reaction in favour of the Syrian interpretation of the word . Meanwhile the party of Nestorius was very rigorously treated by the emperor. In 435 laws were enacted ordaining that the Nestorians should be called Simonians (their own name for themselves was Chaldeans); that the writings of Nestorius should be burnt; that all bishops who defended his opinions should be deposed; punishments were decreed against any one who should copy, keep, or even read his writings or those of his supporters; and all meetings of Nestorians for public worship were rigorously proscribed.
The after-history of Nestorianism is extremely interesting, but cannot be treated in detail here. The rigorous measures above mentioned were fiercely resisted in Syria and Babylonia, and when Rabbulas sought to prohibit the reading of the works of Diodorus and Theodore, the Nestorian teachers crossed the border into Persia. Barsumas, bp. of Nisibis from 435 to 489, did much to spread Nestorianism in the far East, and his work received an additional impulse from the policy of the emperor Zeno, who persecuted Nestorians and Monophysites alike. [See MONOPHYSITISM.] Thence Nestorianism spread to Chaldea, India, and even China. It has even been stated that there was a time when the disciples of Nestorius outnumbered the members of all the other communions in the Christian church. Of the progress of Nestorianism in China there can be no doubt, for the Jesuits found a monument there, recording the fact. Their statement has been disputed, but it is hardly likely that they would have pretended to have made a discovery which tended to glorify what they regarded as a deadly heresy. The Nestorian doctrines, however, in the extreme form they assumed when interpreted by their later exponents, did not contain the “seeds of eternity.” The spread of Mohammedanism ultimately destroyed the once flourishing Nestorian churches outside the limits of the Roman empire, though the Arab caliphs, as distinguished from the Turks, shewed them some favour. At present only a few down-trodden communities in Assyria (to the assistance of which the Anglican church has lately sent a mission), and the so-called Christians of St. Thomas on the Malabar coast, remain to represent the church once dominant in the far East. The latter were harassed and all but destroyed in the 16th cent. by Portuguese Romanists, with the aid of the Inquisition; and the object of the Anglican mission to the struggling churches of Assyria-a purely educational one-has been very seriously hindered by the political protection promised, and often afforded, by Roman Catholic powers on the one hand, and by adherents of the Orthodox Russian church on the other. [See NESTORIAN CHURCH.]
The revival of the persecution of the Nestorian churches still existing in the Eastern empire in the reign of Justinian (527-565) must be briefly mentioned. The empress Theodora favoured Monophysitism; the emperor inclined to the doctrines of Origen. The two parties, after having been in conflict for some years, agreed to put an end to their mutual hostility, and to turn their efforts against the remnant of the Nestorians. In 544 Justinian issued an edict against what were called the Three Chapters, a series of extracts from the writings of Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas. This step led to a prolonged controversy, which in 547 brought Vigilius, bp. of Rome, to Constantinople. Justinian ordered him to take an oath condemning the Three Chapters. He consented to do this, but afterwards retracted his consent. In 551 the relations between Vigilius and the emperor had become so strained that the former, who had for some time been detained in Constantinople, was compelled to take sanctuary in a church. A council, known as the fifth oecumenical council, was summoned at Constantinople, in which the Three Chapters were condemned. Vigilius refused to submit to the decision on the grounds (1) that Theodore had died in full communion with the church, and (2) that the doctrines of Theodoret and Ibas had been approved by the council of Chalcedon. He afterwards yielded to pressure, submitted to the decrees of the council, and was released from captivity, but died on his way back to Rome. This was the last attack on Nestorianism on the part of members of the Christian church. As in the original controversy, a strong reaction followed, and Monotheletism, an offshoot of MONOPHYSITISM, was condemned at another council held at Constantinople, and Nestorianism henceforth ceased to attract the attention of the rulers of the Catholic church.
Bibliography.-Of contemporary writers the historians Socrates and Evagrius may be mentioned. The former is thoughtful, impartial, and generally accurate, and his History was published while Nestorius was still living. Evagrius published his History in the 12th year of the reign of the emperor Maurice, i.e. in 594. He is painstaking and accurate, and a devout believer in the decisions both of Ephesus and Chalcedon. But his language is often violent, and he is credulous as regards the miraculous. Cyril and Theodoret, who were actively engaged in the controversy, have left abundant details of what took place; their own letters are especially valuable, and with the writings of Theodoret are pub. a collection of important letters from most of the principal persons concerned in it. Marius Mercator, who was at Constantinople when the conflict was at its height, has left an account of it in Latin. Of later authorities Mansi, Hardouin, and Hefele have handed down the proceedings of the council of Ephesus, and commented upon them. Assemani’s learned work, pub. in the 18th cent., is a mine of information on Nestorianism. Neander and Dorner [See ARIUS, FOLLOWERS OF] give full accounts of the struggle. Gieseler passes over the events more briefly. Mr. Percy Badger published a useful work on Nestorians and their ritual in 1852. Loof’s Nestoriana ( Halle, 1905) should also be consulted. Canon Bright’s Age of the Fathers gives a most valuable account of the controversy, though he is somewhat inclined to favour Cyril. Mr. Bethune-Baker’s recent work on the early heresies contains much useful information, imparted with great clearness and impartiality.
[Since these words were written, the Editor has called the attention of the writer to a work by Mr. Bethune-Baker, entitled Nestorius and his Teaching, pub. in 1908. It is strange that the discovery which it has made public has not elicited the enthusiasm which greeted the previous discoveries of the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles and the Apology of Aristides. It is nothing less than a resurrection of Nestorius from the dead to plead his cause before a fairer tribunal than that which pronounced upon him when living. A treatise has lately come to light called the Bazaar (or more properly Emporium or Store, i.e. a collection of merchandize) of Heracleides. This treatise appears to have been written in Greek, and translated into Syriac. It is this Syrian translation which has recently been recovered. The work is evidently that of the patriarch Nestorius himself, and its somewhat strange title is explained by the fact that all copies of the works of Nestorius were ordered to be seized and destroyed. The treatise has a peculiar interest for us, because it shews, as Mr. Bethune-Baker puts it, and as has been suggested in the above article, that “Nestorius was not a Nestorian.” Thus the doctrinal decision reached at Ephesus is vindicated, while its personal application to the patriarch himself is shewn to be unfair. In his preface Mr. Bethune-Baker expresses the same respect for the decisions of the four great oecumenical councils which has been expressed by the writer in his summary of their general doctrinal bearing at the end of the art. MONOPHYSITISM-namely, that they were “more likely to give us a true theory of the relation between God and man than are the reflexions of any individual thinker or school of theologians.” They do this because they” express the communis sensus fide licun,” and “their decisions need to be confirmed by subsequent acceptance by the church as a whole.”]
[J.J.L.]