What is Nestorianism? Who were the Nestorians?

Of Kenoticism as a theory to account for the relation between the two natures in the one person of Christ it may quite safely be predicted that it shall only have its day. The face of things is in fact undergoing a change even now, and this fashionable theory is now beginning to be tainted and tinctured with new and ever newer ideas. This is not the first attempt by any means to construe into intelligibility the question of how Christ could be God and man in one person, and to set out in rational fashion how the two natures were related. To take what are generally regarded as the most conspicuous points in the history of Christology, there was in Apollinarianism a sort of pruning away of the humanity of Christ, excluding a rational human soul, principally with the idea of maintaining intact the singleness of His personality. Nestorianism, again, brought the two natures into no more than sympathetic harmony with one another, and by holding them too far apart the person was no longer an irrefragible unity. Eutychianism, in the very opposite direction, merged the two natures into one compound, a confusion not at all counterbalanced by the singleness of personality still retained. The statement of the Council of Chalcedon propounds no theory; but merely asserts the unity of personality and duality of natures. Not so the next landmark, Lutheran doctrine, which by almost a deification of His humanity approximates to Eutychianism. After all these comes Kenoticism, with its attempt to adjust the relation between the two natures, as we have seen, by the idea of a kenosis or self-emptying on Christ's part in the sphere of His divinity, not in the relative way legitimately following from the scripture supplying the term, but in an absolute and universal fashion unsupported by it, and inconsistent with all that otherwise scripture reveals of Him.

N*. Well, we will go on with Dr. Milner. He quotes Pope Stephen as referring to tradition. But this is just the tradition on which St. Cyprian opposed him; and all the African churches and Firmilian and those of Asia Minor opposed him, saying his tradition was false. It is just an additional proof of the uncertainty of tradition, and it is the very case which makes Augustine say that, if the doctors of the church go wrong, he is not bound by them. Dr. Milner's statement as to the agreement of the Greek, Nestorian, Eutychian, and other bodies in the East along with Romanists (save on the pope's supremacy — a pretty important point when infallibility is in question) is simply untrue. They are corrupt enough, God knows; but they reject a quantity of Romanist doctrine and discipline too: as, to name no others, purgatory is wholly rejected in the Greek church, and the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. And as to Eutychians, they held that Christ had not really two distinct natures, but that the Godhead was as the soul of Christ; the Nestorians, on the other hand, divided the Person, though at first it was merely a very just refusal to call Mary the mother of God. Nestorius wished to say the mother of Him who is God. However, intrigues had the upper hand.

Anastasius, a presbyter who had accompanied Nestorius from Antioch, and was his intimate friend, attacked, in a public discourse, the use of the expression, Mother of God, as applied to the Virgin Mary. The term thus violently opposed had on its side the authority of ancient usage, and many names of great weight with the people. Nestorius approved the discourse, supported his friend, and in several addresses explained and defended his attack. Many were pleased with these discourses, and many were stirred up against Nestorius and his friend: the excitement at Constantinople was immense, but the cry of heresy, heresy, arose, and the flames of a great and painful controversy were kindled.

The Difference Between Nestorius and His Opponents

Never was there a doctrinal strife in which the contending parties approximated so closely. Both subscribed, both appealed to, the Nicene creed: both believed in the absolute Godhead and the perfect manhood of the Lord Jesus; but it was inferred by the enemies of Nestorius, especially by Cyril, that he was unsound as to the incarnation from his objecting to the term, "mother of God." The meaning or import of the disputed term, as used by the doctors in the preceding century, was not to imply that the Virgin communicated the divine nature to the Saviour, but to affirm the union of Godhead and manhood in one Person — that "the child born, the son given," was God incarnate. It was attributed to Nestorius, that he maintained the mere humanity of the Redeemer, and that the Spirit only dwelt in Him after He became a man, as of old in the prophets. But Nestorius, as long as he lived, professed himself utterly opposed to such sentiments. Nor does it appear that such sentiments were ever directly made by him, but only inferred by his adversaries from his rejection of the epithet, Mother of God, and from some incautious and ambiguous terms which he used in his public discourses on the subject.

These we have already glanced at; we will now look at the third. In A.D. 431, the third general council was held at Ephesus. It was called by the emperors Theodosius the Younger and Valentinian, on account of Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, who, in condemning the expression "the mother of God" as applied to Mary, which was then common in the church, had concluded that in our Lord there were two persons as well as two natures. This shews the danger of being wise above what is written touching the deep mystery of the Person of Christ, which it is not possible for any one to fathom; and, as we have seen, all fall into error who will try to grasp and put into words what is infinite and known to God only. Nestorius was condemned, 198 subscribing to his condemnation.

The Nestorians

As the sect, called Nestorians, occupies an important place in church history, we must briefly notice its formation. They are sometimes called Syrians, their founder being a Syrian. They are numerous, we believe in Syria at the present time but they have not received from the Turkish government that protection to which they are entitled, and hence they have been exposed to frequent assaults from the predatory tribes. Thousands of the Nestorians in the mountains of Kurdistan, including men, women, and children, were massacred in 1843, and their villages utterly destroyed, by the Kurdish tribes. Since the year 1834 an interesting mission has been established among them by the American Board of Foreign Missions. The character and proceedings of the mission are highly spoken of. Dr. Grant, one of the missionaries, who resided among the Nestorians for a considerable time, and had studied their manners and customs with the greatest minuteness and care, published a treatise with the view of proving that this interesting class of people are the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. But his conclusions, like others on the same subject, may well be doubted.*

Nestorius, a Syrian monk, became a presbyter of the church at Antioch. He was esteemed and celebrated on account of the rigid austerity of his life, and the impressive fervour of his preaching. He attracted large and attentive audiences, and soon became a great favourite with the people. In the year 428 he was consecrated patriarch of Constantinople. But the discipline of the cloister had ill-prepared him for so important a position in public life. No sooner was he promoted to this elevation than he began to display an intemperate zeal against the various descriptions of heretics, which partook more of the bigotry of the monk than of the gentle forbearing spirit of genuine Christianity. In his inaugural discourse, addressing the Emperor, Theodosius the younger, he gave utterance to these violent expressions, "Give me a country purged of all heretics, and in exchange for it I will give you heaven. Help me to subdue the heretics, and I will help you to subdue the Persians." But it was not long till Nestorius himself was also accused of heresy.

The rise of the Nestorians in the fifth century and their great missionary zeal have been already mentioned. At their head stood a bishop, known by the title of Patriarch of Babylon. His residence was originally at Seleucia. From Persia, it is said, they carried the gospel to the North, the East, and the South. In the sixth century they preached the gospel with great success to the Huns, the Indians, the Medes, and the Elamites: on the coast of Malabar, and the isles of the ocean, great numbers were converted. Following the course of trade, the missionaries made their way from India to China, and penetrated across the deserts to its northern frontier. In 1625 a stone was discovered by the Jesuits near Singapore, which bears a long inscription, partly Syriac and partly Chinese, recording the names of missionaries who had laboured in China, and the history of Christianity in that country from the year 636-781. But the propagation of Christianity, it is thought, awakened the jealousy of the State, and, after witnessing the success of the gospel, and experiencing persecution, they probably were exterminated, or fled, about the close of the eighth century. The Nestorians were patronised by some of the Persian kings, and under the reign of the caliphs they were protected and prospered greatly. They assumed the designation of Chaldean Christians, or Assyrians, and still exist under that name.*

The diffusion of Christianity in this century far exceeded its former bounds both in the Eastern and Western countries. We have seen something of its triumphs in the West. In the East the Nestorians are said to have laboured with incredible industry and perseverance to propagate the truth of the gospel in Persia, Syria, India, and among the barbarous and savage nations inhabiting the deserts and the remotest shores of Asia. In particular, the vast empire of China was illumined by their zeal and industry with the light of Christianity. During several succeeding centuries, the patriarch of the Nestorians sent out a bishop to preside over the churches then in China. These interesting people reject image worship, auricular confession, the doctrine of purgatory, and many other corrupt doctrines of the Roman and Greek churches.

143 The Nestorians established a patriarchate at Seleucia, were favoured by the Persians in opposition to the Roman Empire, and spread over all the East, Christianity becoming very nearly the established religion of China at that time. And the Eutychians, raising their head through the activity of a monk, Jacobus, spread too; and the patriarchates of Alexandria and Antioch, such as they are since Mahometanism overran the East, are in their hands, spread as far as India, and have a primate in Abyssinia. Both subsist. Not long ago violent persecutions were set on foot against the Nestorians, it is said, at the instigation of the so-called bishop of Babylon in connection with Rome, the Consul of France.

137 Meanwhile matters went against Nestorius at court. A mob of monks had beset the palace. Cyril found means to escape and get to Alexandria. Nestorius' mainstay at court died. The Emperor sent Nestorius back to his monastery at Antioch, and let the bishops go home. Cyril had already gone back, having escaped from his confinement; the Emperor peremptorily refused to condemn John and the Easterns, and they went home. Cyril spent all the treasures of the church of Alexandria, which was very wealthy, and brought it into considerable debt in bribing the courtiers, and even the Emperor's sister. This we know, not only from the accusations of his enemies, but from the statements of John of Antioch, of Acacius of Berea; and the letter of his archdeacon and Syncellus states that Cyril had sent the presents, and the list is given to whom the presents should be made. This sister of the Emperor, made a saint of afterwards, married a nobleman, on condition of not living with him as a husband, to raise him to the throne. But Cyril and Memnon remained excommunicated by the East, which denounced his anathemas as heretical. The Emperor sent an officer to make peace. The Easterns refused to the end the anathemas of Cyril, and would not condemn Nestorius, nor indeed say anything about him. The Emperor's officer finally succeeded as to John and the majority. But they would not accept Cyril's doctrines. They drew up a document which condemned Cyril's anathemas; he explained, then he would not retract them, but signed the Eastern confession of faith which set them aside. Then John and most of the Easterns came into communion with him, and they condemned Nestorius. But a great many, firmer than John, would not, and two or three whole provinces separated from Antioch. Then John got the Emperor to persecute. Those who would not yield were driven from their sees. These provinces after some time were reunited with Antioch, and the greater part of the unyielding bishops went into Persia, where the Emperor's authority did not reach, and Nestorianism remained a large body with a hierarchy, and, though now overrun by Mahometanism, still subsists. In the sixth century it had christianized large tracts of Asia, and China itself was in the main nominally Christian. Nor was this all.

138 The successors of Cyril held that Christ, after the union of the divine with the human, had only one nature, and this has subsisted with its hierarchy in Alexandria ever since, and constitutes the Jacobite or Coptic church of Egypt, Abyssinia, etc., though also oppressed by Mahometanism, but having its hierarchy like Nestorianism, with the patriarch of Alexandria for its head. Nor was this the only result. The term "mother of God" pleased the heathens as Nestorius alleged. And in the West they flocked in swarms into the paganised church, the heathen temples and worshippers being turned into Christian churches and congregations without more trouble.

I add the account given by a Roman Catholic of this result in the West, in an essay crowned by the French Royal Academy: "They [the peoples] received this new devotion [to the Virgin] with a sometimes too great enthusiasm, since for many Christians it became the whole of Christianity. The pagans did not even endeavour to defend their altars against the progress of this worship of the mother of God. They opened to Mary the temples they had kept shut against Jesus Christ. It is true they mingled often with the adoration of Mary their pagan ideas, their vain practices, those ridiculous superstitions from which they seemed unable to separate themselves; but the church rejoiced to see them enter into her bosom, because she knew well that it would be easy, with the help of time, to purify from its alloy a worship whose essence was purity itself. Thus some prudent concessions [he had before spoken of these] temporarily made to heathen manners (or morals), and the influence exercised by the worship of the Virgin — such are the two elements of force which the church used to overcome the resistance of the last pagans." He adds in a note, "Amongst a multitude of proofs, I choose only one to shew with what ease the worship of Mary swept before it the remains of paganism, which still covered Europe. Notwithstanding the preaching of St. Hilarion, Sicily had remained faithful to the ancient worship. After the Council of Ephesus, we see its eight most beautiful pagan temples, in a very short space of time, become churches under the invocation of the Virgin." He then gives the list, "The ecclesiastical annals of each country furnish similar testimonies." (Beugnot, Histoire de la destruction du Paganisme en Occident, 54, 12, chap. 1, vol. 2, 270-1.)

N*. There were hidden ones all through, no doubt, who took no part in all these painful and ambitious contests; some in the midst of them who mourned over them. At the time we are speaking of mysticism began to come in, that is, the seeking for a hidden life of God and love to Him in the soul, and leaving outward things to go on as they may, with very little clearness as to redemption. The propagation of the gospel was chiefly carried on in the East, indeed almost exclusively by the Nestorians, whom the so-called Catholic church had cast out, and by the Scotch, who were entirely independent of Rome. What was done elsewhere was done by force of arms, as the Saxons, conquered by Charlemagne, and forced to become Christians in name, and the Saxons in England still earlier through Ethelbert. This was from Rome, but with distinct orders to leave them their heathen habits in many things and to connect them with Christian profession. Bulgaria and Hungary were brought in by the Greek church, and it was the dispute about that with Rome which brought about finally the division which ended the history of a Catholic church, and constituted a Roman and a Greek one.