He was one in every sense, one in nature too. These are the first Monophysites. We shall come back to them in Chap. VI. And, lastly, there were those who thought that John should not have been reconciled to Cyril. These are the old guard of incorruptibles from John's anti-synod at Ephesus. John had now condemned Nestorius and accepted the θεοτόκος. These would do neither. Their Patriarch had given in to "that Egyptian"; but they would not. They still held Nestorius for an injured saint, still denied our Lady's title, still clung to the theology of Diodore and Theodore. And these people, at last, are our Nestorian sect. From now the discussion within the Catholic Church is over; these Syrian anti-theotokians are condemned by a general council, they break communion with their Patriarch. Already they are a local heretical sect. So, leaving the further story of the great Church, we follow their fortunes down to the pathetic little body which still lingers in Kurdistan.
The Nestorian party, now in schism against its Patriarch John of Antioch, soon found its centre in the theological school of Edessa. When Nisibis was ceded to Persia in 363 a great number of Christians there came across the frontier to Roman territory at Edessa (p. 40). Here they greatly strengthened the old theological school, so that in 363 it became almost a new foundation. This school was already greatly devoted to the theology of Theodore of Mopsuestia. We can, then, understand how, when the excommunicate Nestorians from Antioch came to Edessa, and told the Edessenes that Cyril of Alexandria had condemned Theodore's doctrine, had deposed a certain blameless Bishop of Constantinople because he held it; that John of Antioch, at first firm, had now given way to the Egyptian,—we can understand with what indignation the teachers and scholars at Edessa declared that they would not obey Cyril and John, that they were for Theodore and Nestorius. From now till it is closed in 489, the school of Edessa is the centre of Nestorianism in the empire. But the Bishop of Edessa was no Nestorian. Strangely enough, the authorized pastor of the Nestorian city was a strong adherent to Cyril. He was Rabbulâ,[1] rather a famous person. Rabbulâ was a convert, son of a Mazdæan priest. He had married a
- ↑ Ῥαβουλᾶς.
