The Lesser Eastern Churches/Chapter 3

by Adrian Henry Timothy Knottesford Fortescue

 

CHAPTER III

 

NESTORIANISM

 

Nestorius was not an East Syrian. He was a Greek-speaking Antiochene, who proclaimed his heresy at Constantinople. He had nothing whatever to do with Edessa or Persia; there is no evidence that he could even speak Syriac.^[1] It seems, then, strange that his ideas, denounced and rooted out in their home, should become the official form of East Syrian Christianity for so many centuries. What is the special attraction of Nestorianism for East Syrians? Is there any inherent tendency towards "dividing Christ" in the Edessene mind? Hardly. We shall see reasons for this phenomenon as we go on. Meanwhile, here are two points to note at once and remember throughout: (1) the acceptance of Nestorianism in the East and in Persia was very largely a corollary of its rejection by the Empire; (2) Monophysism, the extreme contrary heresy, began almost as soon as Nestorianism. A great deal of East Syrian Nestorianism is at first only a vehement denial of Monophysism. In Syria these two often seemed the only alternatives between which a man must choose. During the centuries of discussion that come before crystallization in two lifeless heresies, while these were burning questions and not (as now) the mere shibboleths of rival "nations," a Nestorian considered all his opponents Monophysites, a Monophysite called his contradictor a Nestorian. So in Syria the two heresies struggled and argued, while far away to the West the decrees of Chalcedon obtained without question, and Rome taught the faith of the Apostles, which is neither Nestorianism nor Monophysism.^[2]

 

1. Nestorius and the Council of Ephesus (431)

It is not necessary to tell yet again all the details of the story of Nestorius and his heresy. This forms a prominent chapter in every Church history. Our purpose is rather to leave the main stream, so often described, to explore the less-known backwaters, namely, these schismatical Churches after they had left the Catholic body, during the long centuries they have lingered in their pathetic isolation. Still, one must begin somewhere: we can hardly do so otherwise than by outlining the original Nestorian story.

The story of a heresy is that of certain theological ideas, though often other factors enter into it very considerably.^[3] We must remember that these two great heresies of the 5th century, Nestorianism and Monophysism, together make up one story; they are one controversy about the nature of the union of divinity and humanity in Christ. That controversy followed the Trinitarian discussion (Arianism) at once. At its head stands Apollinaris of Laodicea; St. Athanasius had not yet done with the Arians when he heard of and refuted Apollinaris.

At the head of this long and bitter controversy I put the statement of Mgr. Duchesne: "Since the curiosity of men would investigate the mystery of Christ, since the indiscretion of theologians laid on the dissecting-table the Blessed Saviour, who came to be the object of our love and of our imitation rather than of our philosophical investigation, at least this investigation should have been made peaceably by men of approved competence and prudence, far from the quarrelsome crowd. The contrary happened. An unloosing of religious passion, a series of quarrels between metropolitans, of rivalries between ecclesiastical prelates, of noisy councils, imperial laws, deprivements, exiles, riots, schisms—these were the circumstances under which Greek theologians studied the dogma of the Incarnation. And if we look for the result of their work, we see at the end of the story the Eastern Church incurably divided, the Christian Empire broken up, the successors of Mohammed crushing under foot Syria and Egypt. This was the price of those metaphysical exercises."^[4]

Let us also notice this: supposing there had been no such discussion, supposing we could entirely forget the storms that raged around Ephesus and Chalcedon, any reasonable person now would admit that the Catholic solution is the only possible one, on the basis of the divinity of our Lord. Jesus Christ is God and man. That is the old faith held in peace by the Christian commonwealth long before these fatal discussions began. "The Word was God. The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us." It follows, then, inevitably that in him divinity and humanity both exist, "in whom dwells all the fulness of divinity in the body."^[5] That was enough for earlier generations. But, if the prying Greek philosopher must ask further, what then? Plainly that these two, divinity and humanity, are as intimately joined as they can be without destroying each other. They are as intimately joined as they can be. There is only one Jesus Christ. He, the same he, died on the cross who reigned with the Father before all ages; the Jews "crucified the Lord of Glory."^[6] He, the same Jesus Christ, who was born of Mary, said: "Before Abraham was made, I am."^[7] To divide our Lord, then, into two destroys the whole idea of who he is. If there were two, the Lord of Glory would not have been crucified, he (the same Jesus) would not himself be God and man; there would be he who is God, and (another person) he who is man. Shall we say that the Word of God dwelt in Jesus? No, because then Jesus would be not the Word, but only the dwelling-place of the Word. The Holy Ghost dwells in us;^[8] what man dares say that he is the Holy Ghost? But Christ is "God above all, blessed for ever."^[9] So there is one Christ, God and man, having Godhead and manhood in one, joined in one, with no division or separation.

Can one go too far in this direction? Is there any conceivable limit to the close unity of our Lord's Godhead and manhood? Yes; however closely joined they are, we must not conceive these two as fused by a kind of amalgamation into one new substance; because then both, or at least one, would cease to exist. If you combine oxygen and hydrogen to make water, what results is neither oxygen nor hydrogen but a new substance, water. So our Lord's divinity and humanity both would cease to be, forming some new impossible thing that is neither divinity nor humanity. Instead of having both, he would have neither; he would be neither God nor man. The Monophysite rather conceived one as absorbed, not both. The divinity in this idea remained unchanged, but the humanity was absorbed into it, the human nature was, so to speak, swamped, lost in the infinite ocean of divinity. Then our Lord would have no true humanity; he would not be really man. All his human life, his birth, pain, death, would be a mere appearance, an illusion, a fraud—as the old Docetes had imagined. No; both divinity and humanity remain real, essentially different, though joined so closely in one Jesus Christ. We come, then, exactly to the faith of Chalcedon: "one and the same Christ, the only-begotten Lord, in two natures unconfused, unchanged, undivided, inseparable … keeping the property of each nature in one person."^[10] In other words, if our Lord is really God and man, he is one person (one single individual) in two natures, that of God and that of man. Is this the prejudice of a modern person who is anxious to avoid the pitfalls of Nestorius and Eutyches? I cannot conceive how it is possible to describe otherwise that Jesus Christ is God and man. It seems (supposing that one does not refuse to discuss the question altogether) the only possible way of saying it; and just this is the faith of the Catholic Church.^[11] This exposition of the principle should be a useful reminder that after the bitter controversies of the 5th century, after all the mutual accusations, the unholy violence and unchristian methods of that time, the Catholic Church finally settled down in possession of the obviously right solution, the one to which a reasonable man must come in any case. Unhappily, the issue did not seem so clear then. Greek philosophical terms—essence, hypostasis, person—are hurled about by people who use them in different meanings; the confusion becomes still greater when even more difficult Syriac words take their place; we have the spectacle of a vast amount of energy (which might have been so much better spent) used in deposing bishops, appealing to Cæsar, raising an appalling turmoil with anathemas and counter-anathemas, all about an issue that ought not really to have caused any trouble at all.

The question of Nestorianism and Monophysism is often represented as one between the schools of Antioch and Alexandria. Antioch was the school of literal interpretation of the Bible;^[12] so, naturally, it insisted on our Lord's real humanity. This would perhaps lead to making him a merely human person, in whom the Word of God dwelt; that is Nestorianism. Alexandria was the centre of the defence of his divinity (St. Athanasius); so at Alexandria the divinity would be insisted on, till at last his humanity would be conceived as lost in it; so we have Monophysism.^[13] The beginning of the whole question is in the heresy of Apollinaris of Laodicea († c. 390). He is the first cause of all these Christological speculations. It was almost inevitable that during the Arian controversy people should begin to ask how we are to conceive God the Son as being both God and man. Apollinaris imagined an ingenious answer. Starting from the Platonic idea that man consists of three elements, body (σῶμα), soul (ψυχή which gives us life and all we have in common with brutes and plants), and then spirit (πνεῦμα, our special prerogative, which gives us intellect and will), he explained that in Christ there are a human body and soul, but that the divinity takes the place of the spirit. Nearly all the Fathers of the 4th century enter the lists against this theory. Apart from its questionable basis of three principles in man, it denies to our Lord an element of perfect human nature. But he was like us in all things, except sin;^[14] perfect God and perfect man. St. Athanasius († 373) wrote a treatise against Apollinaris.^[15] A phrase attributed to him, but apparently really of Apollinaris himself, "One nature incarnate of the Word of God,"^[16] afterwards became a kind of watchword, first to St. Cyril of Alexandria, then to Monophysites. Its orthodoxy depends, of course (as in so many of these declarations), on the sense in which "nature" (φύσις) is used.

In Syria there was also a great opposition to Apollinarism. This took the form of insisting on our Lord's humanity. He is perfect man, has all that we have, except sin. Now it seems that the remote origin of Nestorianism is to be found in anti-Apollinarist zeal in Syria. Such an insistence might easily become an assertion that Christ had a human personality as well as his divine personality—was two persons, a man and the Son of God joined in some kind of moral union, the Son of God dwelling in a man. At any rate, the Nestorians, constantly reproach their opponents with being Apollinarists, and the opposite heresy, Monophysism, really is a kind of Apollinarism. It gathered up what was left of the Apollinarist sect.

Two Syrian doctors, masters of Nestorius, are always quoted as the remote source of his heresy. They are Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Diodore, founder of the Antiochene dogmatic school, was a contempory of Apollinaris and one of his chief opponents. First priest at Antioch, then Bishop and Metropolitan of Tarsus in Cilicia (378–c. 394), he was a famous defender of Nicene orthodoxy during the Arian troubles. But in discussing the union of the consubstantial Logos with the man Jesus Christ, he evolved what we should describe as pure Nestorianism. There are two persons, the Logos (Son of God) and the Son of David. Not the Logos, but the Son of David, was born of Mary. The Son of David is the temple of the Son of God. The mystery of the Incarnation consists in the assumption of a perfect man by the Logos. The Logos dwells in this man as in a temple or a garment.^[17] These ideas then became the usual ones in this school of Antioch. Its greatest representative, Theodore, took them up and defended them. Theodore, an Antiochene by birth, became Bishop of Mopsuestia^[18] in 392, and died in 428.^[19] He was an old and faithful friend of St. John Chrysostom. His "Nestorianism" is open and avowed. The ideas of Diodore reappear in his works quite plainly: the man Jesus is only the temple of the indwelling Logos, and so on. He even anticipated the very point around which the quarrel of Nestorius turned, by objecting to the word θεοτόκος.^[20] For all that, he is one of the greatest exegetes in Greek theology, and his influence, especially in Syria, was enormous.^[21]

We see then that, as often happens, Nestorius only gave his name to a heresy which existed before his time, which he himself had learned from his masters. His opponents knew this. Cyril sees Diodore and Theodore behind Nestorius clearly, and insists continually on their condemnation.^[22] So also the later Monophysites recognize in these doctors the source and origin of the doctrine (in its extreme form) which they abhor.^[23] On the other hand, it was especially the popularity of these two which caused the spread of Nestorianism in East Syria. Of Nestorius himself the theologians of Edessa and Nisibis knew little; nor did they care much about him. But in the movement against him, in the decrees of Ephesus, they saw an attack against their revered masters, Diodore and Theodore; they were (rightly) conscious of defending these. Often in later ages the Nestorians have protested that they are not the school of Nestorius, they are the school of Diodore and Theodore, of which Nestorius was also a pupil They stand for the old school of Antioch; it is a mere coincidence that one disciple of that school once became Patriarch of Constantinople, and there got into trouble with Cyril of Alexandria and his council at Ephesus. Still, among the Nestorians "Theodore the Interpreter" is the honoured master against whom they will allow no accusation.

Nestorius came to Constantinople from Antioch. He brought with him the ideas of his native city; it was the clash of these with the traditions of Alexandria^[24] that caused the Nestorian controversy. Now that we have cleared the ground, we may pass more quickly over the well-known incidents of the story. Nestorius had been a monk at the monastery of Euprepios; then deacon, priest and preacher at the chief church of Antioch. He had a beautiful voice, was a famous preacher, and was known as an ardent disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia. When Sisinios I of Constantinople (425–427) died, Nestorius's already great reputation secured to him the succession of the Imperial See. The people thought they had secured from Antioch a second Chrysostom. Hardly was he consecrated when he showed great zeal against heretics—Arians, Macedonians, Novatians, Quartodecimans, and such like,—little thinking that his own name was to go down to history as that of a notorious arch-heretic. Already he had managed to offend many people^[25] when the storm began. A priest, Anastasius, brought by Nestorius from Antioch, preached against our Lady's title θεοτόκος. His arguments produced trouble in the city; Nestorius defended him. The title "Mother of God" was by no means new. St. Gregory of Nazianzos (†390) particularly had said: "If anyone does not receive the Holy Mary as Mother of God, he is separated from the Godhead."^[26] It was well suited to be the test of belief in our Lord as one person, and it became, as everyone knows, the immediate object of this controversy. The sermons in which Nestorius attacks this word show his heresy, his assertion of two persons (the mere man Jesus who was born of Mary, and the Word of God who dwelled in him), plainly.^[27]

The dispute between the attackers and defenders of the word theotókos now became the chief question at Constantinople. Soon it spread throughout the East. It came to Egypt and disturbed the peace of the Alexandrine Patriarchate. St. Cyril of Alexandria (412–444), nephew and successor of the Theophilus (385–412) who had been St. John Chrysostom's enemy, predecessor of the future Monophysite leader Dioscor (444–451), appears as the champion of the Theotókos, the chief enemy of Nestorius. In his Paschal homily of 429 he explained that the Blessed Virgin is Mother of God,^[28] and then discussed the question again very clearly in a letter to the monks of the Nitrian desert. So far he refuted Nestorius's heresy without naming him. Nestorius made one of his priests answer this letter, and Cyril wrote to Nestorius blaming him for the disturbance, telling him that if only he would cease attacking our Lady's title peace would soon be restored. Nestorius answered back, and other circumstances helped to aggravate the quarrel.^[29] Cyril's second letter to Nestorius (Feb. 430) is the classical statement of the Catholic attitude on this subject. Dom H. Leclercq describes it as "Saint Cyril's masterpiece";^[30] it became the most important document in all the later controversy.^[31]

Nestorius had already written to the Pope (St. Celestin I, 422–432) about the affair. Cyril wrote too, exposing all that had happened and enclosing a number of documents as evidence.^[32] Both sides were now heated by the quarrel and were saying strong things about each other. Cyril also wrote to the Emperor (Theodosius II, 408–450), to his wife and sister. The Pope in a synod held in August 430 decided that Nestorius's teaching was heretical; he must retract in ten days or be deposed. Cyril was to carry out this sentence.^[33] However, the dispute continues, and is further embittered. Cyril in a synod at Alexandria (430) drew up twelve anathemas against doctrines held by Nestorians: "If anyone does not acknowledge that Emmanuel is truly God, that therefore the Holy Virgin is Mother of God, because she gave birth, according to the flesh, to the Word begotten of God the Father, let him be anathema," and so on.^[34] Nestorius answered with twelve counter-anathemas.^[35] In many of these he denounces opinions which he attributes falsely to Cyril.

At last the Emperor decided to summon a great council to settle the matter finally. He was inclined towards Nestorius, but saw that nothing but so extreme a measure as a general council could pacify the parties. It was to meet on Whitsunday (June 7) 431, at Ephesus. This is the third general council (Ephesus, 431) which condemned Nestorius. Nestorius arrived first with sixteen bishops and many soldiers. Then came Cyril with fifty bishops. Memnon of Ephesus had already assembled his forty suffragans and twelve Pamphylian bishops. Juvenal of Jerusalem and Flavian of Thessalonica arrived a few days late. On June 22 one hundred and ninety-eight bishops began the council. But John of Antioch and his suffragans had not yet arrived. The fact that they did not wait for him is the great difficulty of the story of this council. It is said that Cyril knew he was friendly to Nestorius and hurried on the proceedings, so as to have Nestorius condemned before he came. On the other hand, John had written a friendly letter to Cyril; two of his suffragans had hurried forward and brought a message that the council was not to wait for him, but was to begin and do its best without him.^[36] Perhaps Cyril thought that John delayed on purpose, so as not to be present at his friend's humiliation. And they had already waited sixteen days for him. Cyril presided, expressly as Papal legate.^[37] The Pope had sent other representatives to Ephesus—two bishops, Arcadius and Proiectus, and a deacon, Philip, with orders to follow Cyril's guidance in everything; but they did not arrive till the second session. The Emperor's Commissioner Candidian wanted to wait for John of Antioch; but the Fathers rejected his proposal. The first session was held in the famous double church of Ephesus. Nestorius refused to appear. Cyril's second letter to him was read and judged conformable to the faith of Nicæa. A great number of texts of Fathers were read, and then passages from Nestorius which contradicted them. The Pope's condemnation of Nestorius was read too. Nestorius was condemned and deposed. Candidian, who had come from the Emperor hoping to save Nestorius, was much disappointed.

Then, on June 26, the caravan of John of Antioch with his thirty bishops rolled into the streets of Ephesus. The Council at once sent to him to inform him of what had been done; but now he refused to have anything to do with it. With Nestorius, Candidian, and altogether forty-three bishops he holds a rival synod at his own house. This rival synod excommunicates Cyril and his followers; these denounce John and his. Both sides appeal to the Pope and Emperor, and a long quarrel follows. I pass over the details of this quarrel. The Emperor tried to reconcile the parties; then affected to depose John, Nestorius, Cyril and Memnon of Ephesus. Eventually he was persuaded that Cyril was right, he let him go back to Egypt, and allowed a new Bishop of Constantinople, Maximian (431–434), to be ordained in place of the deposed Nestorius.^[38] This means the triumph of St. Cyril's theology in the great Church. From now Nestorianism is a heresy condemned by a general council,^[39] soon to become the teaching of a schismatical sect.

 

2. The End of Nestorius. Was he a Heretic?

After his deposition Nestorius practically disappears from history. In 435 he was banished to a distant monastery at the bottom of the Libyan desert. Here he spent his last years writing his defence under a pseudonym; and he died on the eve of the Council of Chalcedon.^[40]

Among Protestant writers there is often a tendency to rehabilitate people whom the Church has condemned, to declare that an alleged heretic was grossly misrepresented, was really a person of irreproachable views falsely accused of heresy because of some political intrigue. Of no one has this been said so persistently as of Nestorius. His defence is not a new idea. For many years it has been the fashion either to ridicule the whole controversy or to say that he and Cyril really agreed entirely—the question was only one of words; or that what Cyril taught was exactly the same thing as the later Monophysite heresy.^[41] Then, it is alleged, the real reason of all this controversy was Cyril's jealousy of Nestorius; it is one incident in the long rivalry between Alexandria and Constantinople (and Antioch). Nestorius's disgrace and deposition is merely a point gained for Alexandria. Cyril deposing Nestorius is a parallel case to Theophilus deposing St. John Chrysostom at the Oak Tree Synod in 403, and again to Dioscor of Alexandria deposing Flavian of Constantinople at Ephesus in 449 (p. 174); only, the first and third times Alexandria failed.

These ideas are not new: indeed, the defence of Nestorius has long been almost a commonplace of Protestant Church history.^[42] They have received a new impetus, and have become one of the questions of the day, by the discovery and publication of Nestorius's apology. In exile at the end of his life he wrote this and called it The Book^[43] of Heraklides of Damascus. Why Heraklides? Because Nestorius's own name was dangerous; his works were to be destroyed or burnt. He hoped, then, under this pseudonym to pass his apology. He wrote in Greek. The original is lost; but a Syriac version is preserved in the house of the Nestorian Patriarch. This is what has lately been published. The first we heard of it was in a book by Mr. Bethune Baker, Nestorius and his Teaching, a fresh examination of the evidence.^[44] In this he did not publish the whole text, but used a copy procured by Mr. D. Jenks, formerly of the Anglican Mission at Urmi (translated by a friend), from which he makes extracts. On the strength of this, Mr. Baker produces an apology of Nestorius. Admitting the dogmatic decrees of Ephesus, he claims that Nestorius did not hold anything really opposed to them. What Nestorius attacked was Monophysism; he was completely in accord with the faith of Chalcedon. And the technical terms used were ambiguous, understood differently on either side. This theory made some commotion. At first there were only Mr. Baker's deductions from the book as matter of discussion. Now the whole original text is published in Syriac by Fr. Bejān, a Lazarist missionary and recognized authority on Syriac literature,^[45] and in a French translation by M. F. Nau, with introduction and notes,^[46] so that anyone can test Mr. Baker's conclusions for himself. The conclusion will be, as both Nau and Bejān say, that this new defence of Nestorius is a failure as much as the older ones. The Book of Heraklides shows its author to hold just what his enemies said he held; whatever may be said about the personal treatment of Nestorius by the Fathers of Ephesus, they did not misrepresent his doctrine; if we accept the faith of Ephesus and Chalcedon, then Nestorius was a heretic.

In the first place, it is a mistake to suppose that the whole question depends on what he says in the Heraklides book. That was written at the end of his life, long after Ephesus. We have plenty of authentic earlier works by Nestorius^[47] in which his heresy is abundantly evident. The Council judged and condemned him on these; it could not foresee what he would write years later. So, even if his Book of Heraklides were unimpeachable, we should only conclude that he had modified his doctrine at the end of his life. As a matter of fact, it confirms what he had said earlier. Nor is the whole dispute merely a quarrel about words. It is perfectly true that technical words, especially philosophical terms, may change their meaning or be understood by different people in different senses. It is always a mistake to judge a man's theory merely by the technical words he uses. We must study his context, the deductions he draws from them, his own explanations, to be sure of what he means. Nestorius is a heretic, not because he speaks of two hypostases, or even of two prosopa, in Christ, but because he explains this language in such a way as to make clear that he means just what we mean by two persons, two Christs—namely, Jesus Son of Mary, and the Word of God who dwelt in him.

The philosophical terms certainly need explanation; our judgement as to their correctness will depend on how the people who use them do explain them. Those which occur in this controversy are: οὐσία, φύσις, ὑπόστασις, πρόσωπον. In our later scholastic use these are simple enough. οὐσία is essence, φύσις is nature, ὑπόστασις or πρόσωπον mean person. Therefore, in our Lord we see two natures (or essences)^[48]—that is, two οὐσίαι, two φύσεις,^[49] but one person (one ὑπόστασις, one πρόσωπον). In the 5th century it was not quite so clear. Οὐσία and φύσις meant the same thing, normally "essence" or "nature." Yet St. Cyril makes the phrase "one incarnate nature (μία φύσις σεσαρκωμένη) of the Word of God" his axiom. Was he, then, a Monophysite? No, because the Word of God has one nature proper to himself, one infinite divine nature. And that nature is incarnate, σεσαρκωμένη, made flesh, itself undestroyed—as we should say, assumes a human nature. St. Cyril means what we mean. Then, does hypostasis necessarily mean person? By no means. The Latin persona originally meant an actor's mask;^[50] then the part you play in a drama, as we say "dramatis personæ"; then the part you play in life, the responsible individual who eats, drinks, studies, marries and dies. When there is a collective individuality we talk about a "persona moralis," as in the case of a corporation. The exact Greek equivalent of this is not ὑπόστασις but πρόσωπον.^[51] Φύσις (nature) and πρόσωπον (person), then, are fairly clear. Hypostasis is one of those words which lie between two others and may be understood of either. Etymologically it is nearer to φύσις. Ὑπόστασις exactly equals the Latin substantia, and substance (in scholastic use) is nature. Suppose, then, that a man or a school of philosophy uses φύσις of nature in general, of what we should call the "universal," the abstract idea of humanity or whatever it may be; and uses ὑπόστασις of the particular concrete nature of one man. Then he is quite right in saying that our Lord had two hypostases. He had two individual perfect natures, in either of which nothing was wanting. He was perfect God and perfect man. And if you insist very much on his manhood as complete and perfect, if you are specially on your guard against Docetism or Apollinarism, you will perhaps insist that in him, besides the divinity, there was a second human hypostasis, meaning a complete and perfect individual (not merely abstract or theoretical) human nature. So many orthodox Fathers speak of two hypostases in our Lord; this was particularly the language of Antioch; Nestorius might have said that, if that had been all, without offence. Eventually, it is true, hypostasis was considered the equivalent of the Latin persona; so that now the Orthodox would consider it as scandalous to say there are two hypostases in Christ as to speak of his one φύσις:^[52] It would be much more difficult to excuse Nestorius's expression: two prosopa in our Lord. But, even here, a word might be explained away. It is his perfectly clear explanation of what he means, his elaborate deductions and long arguments, that show him to be a heretic. First, there is his denial of the title θεοτόκος. Mary was not Mother of God; her son was not God; he was a man in whom God dwelt. So also Nestorius refused to admit such phrases as that God was born, God suffered.^[53] He defended the idea of Theodore of Mopsuestia that necessarily every perfect human nature is a person, a man; that therefore our Lord's humanity was a man, distinct from the Son of God.^[54] He refused to admit of a "union" (ἕνωσις) between the divinity and humanity, and would only allow a "conjunction" (συνάφεια)^[55] between God and man. He taught that the man Jesus was only the organ, instrument, temple, vessel, garment, of the Son of God.^[56] His counter-anathemas to Cyril (p. 63) are quite enough to show his heresy; for instance, No. VII: "If anyone say that the man who was created from the Virgin is himself the Only-begotten who was born of the Father before the day-star, instead of confessing that he has a share in this name of Only-begotten only because of his being united to him who is by nature the Only-begotten of the Father … let him be anathema."^[57] At the beginning of the Council of Ephesus, during the preliminary discussions, Nestorius said: "Never will I call a child two or three months old God; because of this I will not communicate with you (Cyril)."^[58]

Now, the Book of Heraklides only confirms all this. M. Jugie says it is one of the dullest books that ever came from the hand of man.^[59] In reading F. Nau's excellent French version I did not find it so: indeed, it produces a good deal of sympathy with Nestorius. He protests with dignity against the way he had been treated; one has the impression of a respectable, well-meaning man, plainly always in good faith, who had been hardly used. The haste with which he was condemned and deposed at Ephesus, before his friend John of Antioch arrived, certainly seems regrettable. His keen interest in the later developments is curious. He is strongly in favour of his successor St. Flavian, and rightly indignant against the Monophysite Robber-Synod at Ephesus in 449 (see p. 173). Perhaps he might have accepted the decrees of Chalcedon and so have rehabilitated himself, had he lived. But meanwhile, in his Heraklides Book, in spite of all this, Nestorius is still emphatically a Nestorian. Throughout he assumes that hypostasis, person (πρόσωπον), and nature (individual and concrete nature) are exactly the same thing. If you start from this philosophic basis, you cannot possibly admit one person having two natures. Nor does he. In this book, as before, to Nestorius "Christ" denotes a composite being, or rather two beings, two persons joined together in a merely moral union, working together, much as we conceive the Spirit of God working with a prophet. There are two persons in the strict sense, two prosopa: "I say two natures, and he who is clothed is one, he who clothes is another; and there are two prosopa, of him who clothes and of him who is clothed."^[60] There then emerges an artificial (double) prosopon of union, as a servant who represents his king may be said to be the king's prosopon, to act in the king's person.^[61] The union of God and man in Christ is only a moral union, a union of love and will (not a natural, inseparable, physical union); the prosopon of union is one of "economy" (presumably as members of a corporation form one artificial person, a "persona moralis" by "economy"): "The natures^[62] joined by will receive their union, not in one nature, but to produce the union of will in a prosopon of economy."^[63] The body and the human nature of Christ are the temple and garment only of the Word of God.^[64] God and man in him are like the fire in the burning bush—fire and bush distinct.^[65] "Christ" (the morally united being), not the Word of God, has two natures.^[66] It cannot be admitted that the Word of God was born of a woman, died, was buried, rose again, and so on.^[67] Lastly, Heraklides gives the same insufficient compromise about the θεοτόκος as we have already noted in his earlier writings.^[68] "Show me," he says, "that God the Word was born in the flesh of a woman."^[69] "The Virgin is by nature mother of a man, but by manifestation Mother of God."^[70]

Enough of these dogmatic discussions. We must go on to our proper subject, the history of the Nestorian sect. This rather long dogmatic excursus is inserted because of the discussion now going on as to whether after all Ephesus and the Catholic Church did not make a mistake from the beginning in excluding that sect. We have said perhaps enough to show that it is not so. Nestorius (one feels no animus against a respectable man whose cause, to us, is buried since fifteen centuries), in spite of the harsh treatment he received and his good qualities, taught a doctrine which cut away the very root of Christianity; namely, that God the Son himself, for us men and for our salvation, came down from Heaven, and was made flesh of the Holy Ghost from the Virgin Mary, and was made man; was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried. Nestorius's doctrine had to be rejected; the man who persisted in it could not remain a Catholic: and the people who glory in the fact that they hold his doctrines are, at least implicitly, heretics."^[71]

 

3. Nestorianism in Syria

We left St. Cyril, having gained his cause, returning to Alexandria from Ephesus. Nestorius was deposed and banished, his successor was ordained. But the quarrel between Cyril and John of Antioch was not yet healed. John had gone back, still a partisan of Nestorius, sore and angry with Cyril. There was enmity between the two chief Eastern sees. The Emperor was distressed about this. From now the great question was the reconciliation of the Pontiffs of Alexandria and Antioch. The Pope also (Sixtus III, 432–440, successor of Celestin I) wrote and took steps to bring about this reconciliation. At first John would have nothing to say to it. The Eastern bishops on their way home held a synod at Tarsus in Cilicia, in which they renewed their excommunication of Cyril and his adherents. In 432 the Emperor (Theodosius II) wrote to John imploring him to make peace,^[72] and to St. Simon Stylites, at that time venerated by everyone,^[73] asking him to try and bring about a reconciliation. The imperial notary Aristolaus went to Antioch with the letter and found John more tractable. Then he went to Alexandria and discussed matters with Cyril. The basis of his proposals was that Cyril should not insist on his twelve anathemas (p. 63), and that John should drop Nestorius. It was on this general basis that union was at last achieved. Cyril's anathemas were felt to be harsh and offensive by many Syrian bishops; very sensibly, then, he let them be ignored, when John and his friends had agreed to an entirely sufficient and orthodox declaration. The negotiations took some time; we need not go into the details here.^[74] But two points may be noted. First, throughout the discussion Cyril appears as the superior. This is right and natural for several reasons; among others, Alexandria was then the second see in Christendom, superior to Antioch the third. So it is John who approaches Cyril and offers explanations and a creed to him, which Cyril eventually accepts. Secondly, in these discussions Cyril makes it clear that he does not deny two natures in our Lord. He denies that he in any way teaches Apollinarism, he acknowledges a perfect human soul in Christ, he says that the Logos in his own nature is certainly unchanging, not subject to human conditions.^[75] He explains that he never meant that our Lord's humanity came from heaven (is identified with the divinity): "One nature of the Son, that is the nature of one (μίαν φύσιν, ὡς ἑνός) yet made human and incarnate."^[76] So Cyril is in agreement with the later decisions of Chalcedon; he did not, as after his death the Monophysites pretended, belong to them.

The efforts of Aristolaus were crowned with success. John of Antioch sent to Cyril an orthodox declaration of his faith. He acknowledges the title θεοτόκος, with a correct explanation of it.^[77] Further, he "recognized the deposition of Nestorius and anathematized his bad and pernicious novelties."^[78] This is all that could be expected. Cyril was satisfied. John writes again a pleasant letter, beginning: "Behold, again we are friends."^[79] Cyril answered him in a famous letter announcing complete reconciliation, beginning, "Let the heavens rejoice,"^[80] and in April 433 announced to the faithful of Alexandria that peace was now restored with Antioch.^[81] That is the happy end of this quarrel.

But not everyone was satisfied. In Syria three parties remained. First, the great majority, with the Pope, the Emperor, the faithful in the West and at Constantinople, were delighted that there was now peace. They accepted the Council of Ephesus and the word θεοτόκος. Nestorius had disappeared; they rejoiced at the agreement between the two great Patriarchs—an agreement blessed by a still greater Patriarch far away, where the sun set over the Imperial City and the throne of Peter; they argued reasonably that professions of faith that satisfied Cyril, John and Sixtus could satisfy a plain Christian man too. These are the great bulk of Christians, Catholic and Orthodox, till, alas! long centuries later, Cerularius casts his shadow between them and Peter of Antioch vainly tries to prevent the great schism.^[82] Then there were extremists on either side. In Syria there were some who held, with what was already a formidable party in Egypt, that Cyril ought not to be reconciled with John. They saw in Cyril's explanations a concession to the cause of Nestorius. They had declaimed so vigorously against the theory of two persons in Christ that they had come to suspect any distinction in him at all. 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,^[83] rather a famous person. Rabbulâ was a convert, son of a Mazdæan priest. He had married a Christian wife, then had been made a Christian himself by Acacius of Berrhœa. His wife went to be a nun and he became a monk. In 412 he was ordained Bishop of Edessa. At Ephesus he took the side of his Patriarch, and was a member of John's anti-synod. But in 431 and 432, while at Constantinople on a visit, he was entirely converted to St. Cyril; from then he becomes one of the chief supporters of the genuine Council of Ephesus. He saw the danger of Theodore's works and wrote to Cyril denouncing them.^[84] It was Rabbulâ who procured a decree from the Emperor ordering all books of Diodore and Theodore to be burnt. So there was great opposition to the bishop among the Nestorians at Edessa. The opposition was led by two men, Ibas^[85] and Bar Ṣaumâ.^[86]

Ibas was an ardent student of Theodore the Interpreter; he too had been at the anti-synod of Ephesus in Rabbulâ's following, but he was never converted to Cyril. Instead, he becomes a keen Nestorian and opponent of his bishop. Writing to a certain Mari in Persia,^[87] he denounces Rabbulâ as a turncoat and a tyrant. One of these letters of Ibas to Mari afterwards became the third of the famous "Three Chapters" condemned by Justinian to please the Monophysites.^[88] Ibas was excommunicated by Rabbulâ and remained leader of a schismatical party at Edessa till Rabbulâ died. Bar Ṣaumâ was the Rector or President of the Theological School; he, too, shared Ibas's ideas and took part in the schism against the bishop. For the rest, Rabbulâ was a zealous and deserving pastor of this troublesome flock. He was an enthusiast for right order and ecclesiastical discipline, though he had little enough of either in his distracted diocese. It is believed to be Rabbulâ who abolished the Diatessaron and substituted for it the four separate Gospels, in conformity with the rest of Christendom.^[89] He died in 435. At once the Nestorians got their champion Ibas ordained as his successor. Now, there was naturally an anti-Nestorian party^[90] opposed to him. They tried several times to get him deposed by the Emperor or the Patriarch, but did not succeed till the Robber-Synod of Ephesus in 449.^[91] This deposed him and set up one Nonnus in his place. It was at the Robber-Synod that Dioscor of Alexandria quoted Ibas as saying, "I do not envy Christ for becoming God, for I could do so too, if I wanted to"—probably a lie of Dioscor. Ibas was not altogether Nestorian as bishop; he was willing to admit the crucial word Theotokos, with an explanation. Besides, whatever the Robber-Synod did was bad, so Chalcedon restored him in 451.^[92] He died in peace in 457, and Nonnus then succeeded him lawfully. Ibas is one of the persons of this time whom one remembers with mixed feelings. First we think of him as a Nestorian, a schismatical opponent of Rabbula. Then when he has become bishop and has attracted the hatred of the Monophysites, we rather sympathize with him, and are glad that Chalcedon restored him. He is a typical case showing how difficult in Syria it is to draw the fine line between the two opposite heresies. Constantly we see that the men who oppose Nestorius are Monophysites, and the opponents of Monophysism take their stand by Theodore and Nestorius. After 451 the situation theoretically becomes clearer. Chalcedon gives a standard that is neither the one heresy nor the other. Unfortunately, hardly anyone in Syria was Chalcedonian; the two sides were Nestorian and Monophysite.

Bar Ṣaumâ, too, was exiled by the Robber-Synod and came back after Chalcedon. But after Ibas's death (457) a violent Monophysite reaction (under Nonnus) took place at Edessa; all the "Persian School" (the friends of Theodore and Nestorius) were expelled; Bar Ṣaumâ crossed the frontier, became Bishop of Nisibis, and was the chief agent in making the Church of Persia Nestorian (p. 80). This is almost the end of Nestorianism in the empire. The other party, the Monophysites, now became enormously powerful in Syria. The long story of the troubles caused by them and the various attempts of the Government to reconcile them begins. We come back to this in Chap. VI. One of these attempts was that the Emperor Zeno (474–491) in 489 finally closed the School of Edessa (still a hotbed of Nestorianism) and banished all Nestorians from the Empire. They then went to swell the ranks of the heresy in the country which had already become its home—Persia. From now the story of Nestorianism is that of the Church of Persia. Before leaving Edessa, we may note that it now became largely Monophysite (Jacobite) and was the see of a Jacobite bishop. But the Nestorians had at intervals bishops there too, especially after the Moslem conquest of all the land put an end to the Roman law of banishment against them. The old line of bishops, Chalcedonian and Catholic, lasted till the 11th century. According to a common confusion, these are called the Greek bishops by the natives, as sharing the views of the Emperor at Constantinople. And the Crusaders for a time set up a Latin bishop there too; so there was a Bishop of Edessa for every taste. This is the usual development in Syria and Egypt. At first the various sees were handed about between the parties, fought for by each, and we have alternate bishops of each side, depositions and banishments. Then the sects settle down as organized bodies, and, instead of a struggle between rivals for the one see, we have two or more lines going on at the same time, each, of course, claiming to be the only lawful pastor of the place. And it is often very difficult to say which is the old line.

 

4. Nestorianism in Persia

We left the national Persian Church in 424, having proclaimed herself independent of Antioch, already schismatical, open to any heresy that might attack her (p. 51). The heresy that did so was Nestorianism. It was natural that a Church which had so long looked to Edessa for guidance should share Edessa's heresy. All this Persian Church was East Syrian in language and character; her bishops had been brought up on Theodore and his ideas. So, almost as soon as the Nestorians made Edessa their centre, the effect of their teaching reached over the border to the daughter Church. Already the Persian bishops had learned to sympathize with Nestorius and hate Cyril. When, therefore, the empire became impossible for Nestorians, they found a fertile soil waiting for them across the frontier. Bar Ṣaumâ was the man who made Christian Persia Nestorian. He and the other exiles from Edessa poured into the country, hot with indignation against the Roman Government and the Council of Ephesus.

We saw how the School of Nisibis had been formed again at Edessa when the Persians took Nisibis in 363 (p. 75). Now the exact opposite took place. The Nestorian School of Edessa, driven from the empire, was reformed under Bar Ṣaumâ at Nisibis. Bar Ṣaumâ became Bishop of Nisibis, and lost no time in propagating his heresy. He was helped by the attitude of the Government. We have seen that the beginning of persecution in Persia was that the State feared co-religionists and friends of the Romans in its territory. As soon as it discovered that Bar Ṣaumâ and the Nestorians held a form of Christianity which was not that of the enemy, that they had been expelled from the empire just because of this new teaching of theirs, that they were bitterly hostile to Cæsar and Cæsar's religion, naturally, it welcomed the spread of this anti-Roman doctrine among its subject Christians. From now the Persian Government becomes the protector of Nestorians; when the Persian Church turned Nestorian, there was hardly any more persecution. The king at this time was Pīrūz (457–484). Barhebræus^[93] tells a story which, though plainly calumnious, represents very well the kind of thing that happened. He says that Bar Ṣaumâ went to the king and said: "Unless the faith of Christians in your lands be different from the faith of Christians in Greek regions, they will never have a sincere heart and affection towards you. … If, then, you will give me soldiers I will make all Christians in your territory followers of that man (namely, Nestorius)."^[94] Barhebræus then represents Bar Ṣaumâ as going about Persia with soldiers, persecuting and massacring all Christians who would not adopt his heresy.

It is certain the Bar Ṣaumâ was the chief propagator of Nestorianism in Persia, mightily aided by the refugees from Edessa in 489 (p. 78). Two other factors complicate the situation. The first is Bar Ṣaumâ's quarrel with the Katholikos. The See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was then held by Babwai (457–484). He is said to have ruled badly; in any case the domineering Bishop of Nisibis fell foul of him and led an opposition against him. Then Babwai was caught holding treasonable correspondence with the Emperor Zeno,^[95] and was hanged by his fingers till dead, in 484. Bar Ṣaumâ is believed to have had a hand in his death. In the same year Bar Ṣaumâ held a synod at Beth Lapaṭ,^[96] which is generally counted the first Nestorian assembly in Persia. It made much of Theodore the Interpreter, declared that all should follow him, and denounced the faith of the Roman Empire. As the faith of the empire, or at least of that part of it known to Persians, was then largely Monophysite, it is difficult to say how far this means that the Fathers of Beth Lapaṭ were Nestorian. We have here a case of what recurs throughout this period—vehement opposition to what seemed the only alternative (Monophysism), but some doubt to us whether that opposition meant to go as far as Nestorius. This synod introduces a second factor of considerable importance. All kinds of asceticism, especially celibacy, were very repugnant to Mazdæans (p. 25). So they much disliked vows of celibacy among Christians. Now, when a small Church is surrounded by unbelievers who are particularly opposed to one of its principles, one of two things will happen. Either the Christians in opposition insist all the more firmly on that very point, or, on the other hand, they may be influenced by their neighbours and may modify or discard the practice or doctrine in question. This is what happened in Persia. The Christians imbibed Mazdæan ideas against celibacy. Side by side with Nestorianism comes a second taint on the Church of Persia—the total abolition of celibacy of the clergy. Alone among the old Churches that of Persia dropped all laws of celibacy. This Synod of Beth Lapaṭ began. It declared marriage lawful for everyone, even for priests after ordination, even for bishops. And Bar Ṣaumâ set the example by marrying a nun.^[97]

But the Synod of Beth Lapaṭ was a schismatical act of Bar Ṣaumâ against the Katholikos. He hoped to become Katholikos himself after Babwai's execution. Probably, he would have done so; but in that year his protector King Plruz died (484), and he lost his chance. Instead Acacius^[98] was appointed, as usual, by the king (Balash, 484–488). Bar Ṣaumâ would not recognize him. But in 485 another synod was held at Beth ‘Adrai, and here he had to submit to him. The Synod of Beth Lapaṭ was annulled; it has no place among the canons of the Nestorian Church. However, at Beth ‘Adrai a confession was drawn up which is at least suspect of Nestorianism,^[99] and the abolition of celibacy was maintained. From now these two things go hand in hand throughout Persia. We may also notice that Zeno's Henotikon (482, below, p. 193) had just been published, so that, more than ever, Monophysism seemed the religion of the empire, and the only alternative. In 486 Acacius held another synod at Seleucia, in which he condemned Monophysism^[100] and renewed the abolition of celibacy. Soon after this Acacius was sent on an embassy to Constantinople. Here he declared that he was no Nestorian, had only rejected Monophysism, and was quite willing to excommunicate Bar Ṣaumâ. When he came back, Bar Ṣaumâ was dead (between 492–495), killed, it is said, by monks with the keys of their cells.^[101] He was certainly a Nestorian, and had done all he could to propagate his heresy in Persia. Only, we may question how far during his life he had succeeded in committing the Church officially as far as he was prepared to go himself. Acacius, too, died in 495 or 496, and was succeeded by Babwai II^[102] (497–502). This man marks almost the lowest degradation of the Persian Church. He could not even read, and he had a wife. In his time flourished Narse, one of the great lights of the Nestorians. The Jacobites call him Narse the Leper; to Nestorians he is the "Harp of the Holy Ghost." He was a friend of Bar Ṣaumâ, helped to found the school of Nisibis, and became its President. He died in 507. He wrote a great number of poems and sermons.^[103] Narse is quite openly a Nestorian. In his homily on the "three Doctors," Diodore, Theodore and Nestorius,^[104] he declares that our Lord is in two natures, two hypostases, and one prosopon. He undertakes a vehement defence of the virtuous Nestorius, who was betrayed for gold by enemies of the truth. For a time this state of things goes on. The Persian Church is vehemently anti-Monophysite; many of her bishops and writers are clearly Nestorian. Such was Rḥimâ of Arbela, who denounced Cyril and the "sacrilegious Synod of Ephesus."^[105] There was general sympathy with Nestorius and strong feeling in favour of all the theology of Theodore the Interpreter. But it is perhaps not till we come to formal rejection of the Council of Chalcedon that we can fairly brand the whole Church of Persia as Nestorian.

After the death of Babwai II in 502 follows another period of confusion. There are again rival Patriarchs^[106] and mutual excommunications. At last we come to Mârabâ^[107] (540–552) and a reform. Mârabâ was of the school of Nisibis. He came to Constantinople between 525 and 533, and there refused to condemn Theodore and the Nestorian teachers. Having returned to Persia, he travelled about his Patriarchate, put down abuses, notably that of incest, which the Christians had begun to copy from Mazdæans, and held reforming Synods. But for his doubtful attitude about the heresy, he was in every way an excellent prelate. During his reign there was another persecution, result of a war against the empire in 540–545, but less fierce than that of Shapur II. Mârabâ himself was arrested, imprisoned a long time, and finally died of the treatment he had received (552). Labourt describes him as a "glorious confessor of the Faith, the light of the Persian Church, to which he left the double treasure of blameless doctrine and a model life."^[108]

In order to finish this account of the introduction of Nestorianism in Persia let us go at once to the 7th century. It was the time when Islam overturned the old Persian kingdom, when also Persian Christianity definitely received the form it has kept down to our own time. Mâr Babai, called the Great, was abbot of the monastery of Izla (569–628) . During one of the constant vacancies of the Patriarchate especially, he had enormous influence, most of all in the North. Already the Persian Church had long been troubled by various heresies (p. 89); the condemnation of the Three Chapters in the empire (202) was to Persians an unpardonable attack on their heroes, Theodore and Ibas. Babai was a theologian and a writer. Against Monophysites and other heretics he wrote treatises which his countrymen have accepted ever since as representing faithfully their doctrine. His Book of the Union (namely, the union of Godhead and manhood in Christ)^[109] represents the teaching of this Church as it was fixed finally in the early 7th century, as it is still. It is Nestorian. Babai admits a certain communicatio idiomatum,^[110] but only because of the "prosopon of union." He will not admit one united (συνθετός) hypostasis. The hypostasis of the Logos cannot assume another hypostasis. Our Lord's human nature is the garment, temple of the Logos. He will not admit the term θεοτόκος, nor the Council of Chalcedon.^[111]

That is still the position of the Nestorian Church. They never allow the word θεοτόκος; it has no place in their liturgy. It is not easy to say when they rejected the Council of Chalcedon. Perhaps it is more true to say that they never accepted it.^[112] The present Nestorians reject Ephesus and Chalcedon. This, then, is enough to show that they deserve their name. Further, they honour Nestorius as a saint in their liturgy, together with Diodore and Theodore.^[113] So it is clear that if they are to become Catholics they must not only give up their schismatical claim of independence from any earthly authority over their self-styled Patriarch; they must also be converted to the faith of Ephesus and Chalcedon, they must accept the term θεοτόκος, and renounce Nestorius at least, if not Diodore and Theodore. In a word, this unhappy little sect is not only schismatical but heretical too.^[114]

We saw that the Greek words used in the Nestorian controversy are sometimes ambiguous and add to the confusion by the fact that we are not always sure what the people who use them mean (p. 68). Much more is this the case when these already ambiguous terms are translated into what are supposed to be, more or less, their Syriac equivalents. There is so much discussion as to these technical Syriac words that we may end this chapter by a summary explanation of them.

From the root īth (esse)^[115] we have īthyâ and īthuthâ. These mean simply essence, nature (οὐσία).^[116] Only a Monophysite would deny that there are two īthuthe in Christ.

Parṣufâ is πρόσωπον transcribed, a foreign word used only to represent the Greek. We saw that Nestorius admitted one "prosopon of union" in our Lord (p. 71). So the Syrian Nestorians speak of one parṣufâ, keeping rather the idea of a mask which covers the two personalities.^[117] The meaning of these two words, then, is fairly clear. There is nothing to complain of in their use by these people. Nor is there any particular difficulty about the word kyânâ.^[118] This means nature, and corresponds exactly to φύσις. The Monophysite, of course, says that there is one kyânâ in Christ; we shall not quarrel with the Nestorian who says there are two. The last word, the most difficult, is ḳnumâ.^[119] They use this for the Greek ὑπόστασις; and just as that word is the difficult and ambiguous one in Greek (p. 68), so is ḳnumâ the great contention in Syriac. All Nestorians say there are two ḳnume in our Lord. That is their formula: two kyâne, two ḳnume, one parṣufâ. The question, then (just as in the case of hypostasis), is what they mean by their ḳnumâ. If it means merely a real, individual nature (as opposed to a universal concept), they agree with us; if it means what we mean by "person," their phrase "two ḳnume" is pure Nestorianism.^[120] But, once more, it is not because of their use of abstruse Syriac terms that we called modern Syrians heretics. It is because they reject the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, because they deny the standard Catholic word θεοτόκος,^[121] because they abhor the teaching of Cyril the Egyptian and glory in their faithfulness to that of the blessed Mâr Nestorius, that we say they are Nestorians.

 

Summary

In this chapter we have considered the rise and spread of the Nestorian heresy. Nestorius of Constantinople taught the new theory that our Lord Jesus Christ was not one person, that Jesus was a man in whom dwelt the Word of God. So, consistently, he denied that our Lady is Mother of God. His opponent was St. Cyril of Alexandria. The third general council (at Ephesus in 431) condemned his heresy, affirmed our Lady's title, deposed and banished Nestorius. He died in exile, keeping his ideas to the end. For a time the Patriarch John of Antioch supported him and was an enemy of Cyril. Eventually John accepted the decrees of Ephesus and was reconciled. But Nestorius had left a party in Syria, chiefly because of the great influence of his masters Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia. This party, then, in schism against their patriarch (John of Antioch) and all the rest of Christendom, formed the beginning of the Nestorian sect. For a time they were strong at Edessa, and from Edessa already began to influence the Church of Persia. In 489 the Emperor Zeno closed their headquarters, the theological school of Edessa, and banished Nestorians from the empire. They then went over the frontier into Persia and spread their teaching there. Bar Sauma, Bishop of Nisibis, was the chief propagator of Nestorianism in Persia; at Nisibis the heresy made a new school and new headquarters. So step by step the Church of Persia (already in schism) fell a victim to this teaching. By the 7th century at latest it is officially committed to the doctrine of Diodore, Theodore and Nestorius. From that time what was once the Catholic Church of Persia has become the Nestorian sect. To estimate this it is not really necessary to discuss the exact meaning of obscure Greek and Syriac terms. These people are Nestorians because they admit, they glory in the fact, that they stand by what Nestorius taught.^[122]

 

1. He speaks and writes Greek always.
2. E.g.: Joh. i. 14; 1 Joh. ii. 22; iv. 3, 15; Phil. ii. 6–7; Rom. ix. 5; 1 Cor. ii. 8; Acts iii. 15, deny Nestorianism. Luke xxiv. 36 seq.; 1 Tim. ii. 5; 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22; Heb. iv. 15, etc., deny Monophysism.
3. For instance, all through the Nestorian and Monophysite quarrel there is the old rivalry between Egypt on the one hand and Antioch and the East on the other—Constantinople generally taking sides with Antioch. So St. Cyril of Alexandria, who deposed Nestorius (of Antioch and Constantinople) at Ephesus in 431, was the nephew, pupil and successor of Theophilus of Alexandria, who deposed St. John Chrysostom (of Antioch and Constantinople), Nestorius's predecessor, at the Oak-tree Synod in 403. But Rome, in spite of her old alliance with Alexandria, kept clear of this political issue. She opposed Alexandria in Theophilus's time, defended her in that of St. Cyril, opposed her again when Dioscor took up and exaggerated Cyril's cause.
4. Histoire ancienne de l'Église (Paris, 1910), iii. 323–324.
5. Col. ii. 9.
6. 1 Cor. ii. 8.
7. Joh. viii. 58.
8. 1 Cor. viii. 19; iii. 16; 2 Cor. vi. 16.
9. Rom. ix. 5.
10. Denzinger, No. 148.
11. Harnack thinks that "the conception of a divine nature in Christ leads either to Docetism or to a double personality" (Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, Tübingen, 1910; iii. p. 277, n. 3). Nineteen centuries of Christian theology have not yet felt the force of this dilemma.
12. Orth. Eastern Church, p. 18.
13. So, e.g., Dr. W. F. Adeney: The Greek and Eastern Churches, p. 94, and many others.
14. Heb. iv. 15.
15. Contra Apollinarium, lib. ii. (P.G. xxvi. 1093–1166). For Apollinaris see H. Lietzmann: Apollinaris von Laodicea u. seine Schule (Tübingen, 1904; Texte u. Unters. i.); G. Voisin: L'Apollinarisme (Louvain, 1901); Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (Edinburgh, 1908), i. 606–608.
16. Μία φύσις τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου σεσαρκωμένη. It occurs in the probably pseudo-Athanasian work, "Of the Incarnation of the Word of God." See Hefele-Leclercq: Histoire des Conciles, ii. 224.
17. Marius Mercator (P.L. xlviii. 1146–1147), and Leontius Byzantinus: adv. Incorrupt. et Nest. (P.G. lxxxvi. 1385–1389), quote excerpts from Diodore containing these views.
18. A small town in Cilicia, about twenty-three miles east of Adana.
19. Theodoret: Hist. Eccl. v. 39 (P.G. lxxxii. 1277).
20. Leontius Byz.: op. cit. iii. 10 (P.G. lxxxvi. 1364); Cyril Alex.: Ep. 69 (P.G. lxxvii. 340).
21. For the Christology of Antioch, of Diodore and Theodore, see Harnack: Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (Tübingen, 1909), ii. 338–349; Tixeront: Histoire des dogmes (Paris, 1909), ii. 112–130.
22. E.g. Ep. 45 (P.G. lxxvii. 229); Ep. 69 (ib. 340); Ep. 60 (ib. 341).
23. The person and works of Theodore of Mopsuestia formed the first of the famous "Three Chapters" condemned by Justinian to please the Monophysites, and by the Second Council of Constantinople in 553.
24. St. Cyril was very conscious that he only maintained and applied the principles of his great predecessor Athanasius (328–373). So he always appeals to and quotes Athanasius.
25. Nestorius's tactlessness was one cause of his fall. He had offended the Pope (St. Celestine I, 422–432), by receiving the Pelagian leaders and demanding explanations of their condemnation.
26. Ep. 101 (P.G. xxxvii. 177).
27. Translated by Marius Mercator, P.L. xlviii. 699–862. See quotations in Hefele-Leclercq: Hist. des Conciles, ii. i. pp. 240–247.
28. Hom. pasch. 13 (P.G. lxxvii. 768–790). People who think that there is some subtle difference between "θεοτόκος" and "Mother of God" should notice that at the very beginning of the controversy Cyril uses the words "μήτηρ θεοῦ" as equivalent to "θεοτόκος" (ib. 777). We may surely assume that St. Cyril of Alexandria understood these words.
29. Nestorius undertook the defence of certain excommunicate Alexandrine clerks who had come to Constantinople.
30. Hist. des Conciles, ii. i. p. 253.
31. It is in P.G. lxxvii. 43–50; or see the summary in Hefele-Leclercq, l.c.
32. Ep. 11 (P.G. lxxvii. 79–86); Hefele-Leclercq: op. cit. pp. 256–257.
33. From this time Cyril considers himself the Pope's representative in the East. He is formally recognized as such by the Council of Ephesus; Mansi iv. 1123: "The Alexandrine Cyril, who also holds the place of Celestin, most holy and most blessed Archbishop of the Roman Church." The Pope's letter had explicitly given to Cyril "the authority of our See." P.G. lxxviii. 93.
34. The twelve anathemas are quoted and explained in Hefele-Leclercq: op. cit. ii. i. pp. 269–278.
35. Ib. pp. 280–284.
36. Ib. p. 296. The fact that John of Antioch had begged the synod not to wait for his arrival, but to begin without him, is of great importance in judging the Council of Ephesus. It is examined and proved by many texts in M. Jugie: Nestorius, p. 49.
37. Above, p. 63, n. 4.
38. There were altogether seven sessions of Cyril's council at Ephesus. In the second the Roman legates appeared and made the famous declaration about the primacy which was accepted by the council (Orth. Eastern Church, p. 77). All the details of the Council of Ephesus will be found at length in Hefele-Leclercq: Hist. des Conciles, ii. i. pp. 295–377. The story of Nestorius is summarized by Mgr. Duchesne: Hist. ancienne de l'Église, iii. chap. x. pp. 313–388.
39. Whatever one may think about the absence of John of Antioch when Nestorius was condemned, taking all bishops at Ephesus together, there was an overwhelming majority for St. Cyril—198 against 43. Even if John had come to Cyril's council and had done all he could, he could not have saved Nestorius.
40. The date and place of his death are uncertain—perhaps June 451, at Panopolis. His place of exile was changed several times. For the last years of Nestorius see M. Jugie: Nestorius, 56–62.
41. This is the best of these ideas. Certainly you may slide easily from Cyril into Monophysism. The later Monophysites thought they were merely continuing his war against Nestorius.
42. So Harnack: Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (4th ed., Tübingen), ii. 339–368. He thinks that Cyril's theology is really Monophysite or Apollinarist (pp. 352–355).
43. Mr. Bethune Baker and others call it The Bazaar of Heraclides. Fr. Bejān, who first edited the Syriac text, and M. Nau, who first translated it, point out that this is a mistake. The Syriac word Tēgurtâ corresponds to Greek πραγματεία, meaning affairs, treatise, book.
44. Cambridge, 1908.
45. Le livre d'Héraclide de Damas (Paris, 1910).
46. Nestorius: le livre d'Héraclide de Damas (Paris, 1910).
47. Collected by Loofs: Nestoriana (Halle a. S., 1905); to these add the three homilies found by F. Nau, published in the appendix of his translation of the Book of Heraklides.
48. In scholastic language, essence, nature, substance are the same thing.
49. Or dual? δύο οὐσία, δὐο φύσεε.
50. The thing through which you speak or shout (personare).
51. Also originally an actor's mask or a face.
52. In the Greek translation of the Athanasian Creed: εἶς πάντως, οὐ συγχύσει φύσεων, ἀλλ’ ἑνώσει ὑποστάσεων (in the Horologion, Venice, ed. vii., 1895, p. 520). Mgr. Duchesne has a good note on the Antiochene, Alexandrine, and Western attitudes and terminology in his Hist. anc. de l'Église, iii. 319–323.
53. In his answer to Cyril's second letter (Loofs: Nestoriana, Halle, 1905, p. 176). Certainly if Nestorius only meant that Mary was not the mother of the divinity, that the divinity was not born of her, and did not suffer, he is quite right. Mgr. Duchesne (op. cit. iii. 325) points out that the word θεοτόκος needs explanation. But Nestorius's detailed explanation makes his meaning clear enough: the man Jesus who was born and suffered was not God. Sometimes he was prepared to compromise about the θεοτόκος (Hefele-Leclercq: Hist. des Conciles, ii. i. p. 263, and Loofs: Nestoriana, pp. 181, 184, 273, 302, 309, etc.).
54. See the text in Hefele-Leclercq, ii. i. p. 240.
55. See the text in Hefele-Leclercq, ii. i. p. 239–240.
56. Loofs: Nestoriana, pp. 168, 175, 205, 303, etc.
57. Hefele-Leclercq: ib. p. 282 ; but see the whole list.
58. Ib. p. 293. Mr. Bethune Baker says that in this sentence θεόν is the subject, and tries to excuse Nestorius, not, I think, with much success (Nestorius and his Teaching, pp. 79–80).
59. Échos d'Orient, 1911 (xiv.), p. 65.
60. Ed. Nau, p. 193; cf. pp. 268, 274, 183, etc.
61. Ib. p. 52.
62. He always supposes nature and person as the same thing.
63. Ib. p. 35; cf. 53, 63.
64. Ib. pp. 139, 159.
65. Ib. p. 141.
66. Ib. p. 150.
67. Ib. p. 148. This point (a favourite with Nestorius) should make the issue, and his heresy, clear. We say: the Word of God certainly was born of a woman and died, though not in his divine nature. We adore him who was born of Mary and died on the Cross. But we could not adore him unless he were God. The Word was made flesh (that is, was born of a woman), and dwelt amongst us till he died, was buried, rose again.
68. Above, p. 69, n. 2.
69. Heraklides, ed. cit. p. 131. An unaccountably rash challenge. We have only to show him the fourth Gospel, i. 14.
70. P. 173. She is by nature mother of one person, who is God and man, though, of course, her motherhood comes only from that person's human nature. No Catholic ever imagined that she gave birth to the divine nature.
71. Many more quotations from the Book of Heraklides will be found in M. Jugie's article: "Nestorius jugé d'après le Livre d'Héraclide," in the Échos d'Orient for 1911 (vol. xiv.), pp. 65–75. For his life in general see F. Nau: Nestorius d'après les sources orientales (Paris, Bloud, 191 1). Father Jugie has since examined the whole question in Nestorius et la controverse Nestorienne (in the "Bibliothèque de Théologie historique," Paris, 1912). See also J. P. Junglas: Die Irrlehre des Nestorius, Trier, 1912.
72. The letter is in Hefele-Leclercq: Hist. des Conciles, ii. i. p. 385.
73. St. Simon (Simeon) Stylites, †459, the most famous of the hermits who lived on a column. His column was about one day's journey from Antioch on the way to Aleppo, where the great monastery called after him (Ḳal‘at Sim‘ān) stands.
74. A full account will be found in Hefele-Leclercq; loc. cit. chap. iii. pp. 378–422.
75. So his letter to Acacius of Berrhœa; Mansi, v. 831.
76. From Cyril's letter to Acacius (Ep. 40; P.G. lxxvii. 192–193).
77. Ib. 172–173, quoted by Hefele-Leclercq, loc. cit. p. 396.
78. P.G. lxxvii. 173.
79. P.G. lxxvii. 247.
80. Ep. 39: Lætentur cœli (P.G. lxxvii. 173–182).
81. Mansi, v. 289–290.
82. Orth. Eastern Church, pp. 188–192.
83. Ῥαβουλᾶς.
84. Rabbulâ's letter is among those of St. Cyril (Ep. 73; P.G. lxxvii. 347–348).
85. Yihībâ ("given," Donatus).
86. "Son of Fasting"; in Greek Βαρσουμᾶς.
87. There is considerable doubt as to who this Mari (Ibas's correspondent) was. He is called Bishop of Beth Ardashīr. Ardashīr is the Persian name for Seleucia; so he would be the Katholikos. But the Katholikos at this time was Dadyeshu‘ (p. 50). Labourt suggests that the word Mari in the address of Ibas's famous letter is not a proper name at all, but merely Mâr (Lord) with the suffix (= "my Lord"). The address might well be: "luth mâri efisḳufâ dbēth ardashīr" (to my Lord Bishop of Ardashīr), which would be transcribed in Greek, εἰς Μάριν ἐπίσκοπον Βηθαρδασιρηνῶν, and Μάρις would be taken for a proper name. So the Maris of the "epistola Ibæ ad Marin" may be Dadyeshu‘ (Le Christ. dans l'emp. perse, p. 134, note).
88. See p. 202, below. It is in Mansi, vii. 241–250.
89. Above, p. 35; and Burkitt: Early Eastern Christianity, p. 77.
90. Rabbulâ's party. One hesitates to call them Catholic, because already they tend strongly towards Monophysism. It is the tragedy of this controversy in Syria that the opponents of Nestorianism nearly all go to the other extreme and defend pure Monophysism. Continually in Syria and Persia we see two, and only two, parties, Nestorians and Monophysites.
91. See p. 174.
92. He accepted the Theotokos, and denounced Nestorius at Chalcedon.
93. For Barhebræus see p. 330. His great work is the Syrian Chronicle (ed. by Bejān: Gregorii Bar Hebræi Chronicon Syriacum, Paris, 1890; the second part only ed. by Abbeloos and Lamy: Chronicon ecclesiasticum, 2 vols., Louvain, 1872–1876). This is a most important source for Nestorian and Jacobite history. We shall often have to refer to it. But his ardent Jacobite feeling makes him sometimes rather unfair to Nestorians.
94. Ed. Abbeloos and Lamy, iii. col. 66–68.
95. He wrote the letter quoted on p. 46.
96. A metropolitan see over to the east, north of Susa.
97. In 499 another synod declared that "the Katholikos and the minor priests and monks may marry one wife and beget children according to the Scriptures," Wallis Budge: The Book of Governors, i. p. cxxxii.
98. Aḳaḳ, a fellow-disciple of Ibas at Edessa, also one of the Persians who fled from the empire. They all had wonderful nicknames; Acacius was the "Strangler of Oboles," Bar Ṣaumâ the "Swimmer among Nests," and so on (see Labourt, op. cit., for a collection of these names, p. 132).
99. Quoted in Labourt: op. cit. p. 262–263.
100. The formula is in Labourt, pp. 147–148; it is correct from a Catholic point of view.
101. Barhebræus, ed. cit. iii. 78.
102. Babai or Babwai, really the same name.
103. Cf. Duval: Littérature syriaque, pp. 346–347.
104. Published by Martin in the Journal asiatique (July 1900).
105. Mshīḥâzkâ, ed. cit. p. 144.
106. We may use this title from now as that of the Katholikos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.
107. Mâr-abâ, "Lord Father."
108. Le Christianisme dans l'empire perse, p. 191. For Mârabâ's life and reign, see ib. 163–191.
109. It will be published in Chabot's Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium. Meanwhile it is resumed in Labourt: op. cit. 280–287.
110. The communicatio idiomatum, admitted by the Catholic Church, means ascribing to the one person, Christ our Lord, the properties of both natures, as when we say that God the Son was born of Mary, died on the cross, the immortal became mortal, a man is Almighty God, and so on. To deny such language was always, obviously, a test of Nestorianism.
111. See the texts quoted by Labourt, loc. cit.
112. Yeshū‘yab II (628–643) declared Chalcedonians to be heretics; see p. 90.
113. See, e.g., Brightman: Eastern Liturgies, p. 279.
114. Let us note at once that in the case of all these Eastern Churches, indeed as a general rule, it is the schism that matters really more than the heresy. It is schism that makes heresy so great an evil. For you may think what you like about theological questions, as long as you do not deny what is a condition of communion with the Catholic Church. It is preferring your own opinion to communion with the Church of Christ which forms the essential guilt of heresy. Heresy is wrong because it causes schism. The schism which results is the root evil of heresy. If there were no schism it would be not heresy but a harmless theological mistake. And the schism is what lasts and is deplorable for centuries. No one now gets hot over prosopon and hypostasis; but the Nestorians suffer still from their tragic isolation, their schism from the rest of Christendom. A convert gives up his heresy because it involves schism: he wants not to be in schism, and for that reason he accepts all that is a condition of communion with the Catholic Church.
115. Hebr. Yeš.
116. Except that īthyâ is originally (and generally) concrete, īthuthâ always abstract.
117. So Babai the Great. See his explanation quoted by Labourt, op. cit. 284–285.
118. From kân, "to be" (Arabic kāna, Hebr. kān).
119. Derivation very doubtful. The Syrians treat ḳ-n-m as a root, and form stems of a verb from it; so Ethp. ethḳanam. Ar. ’aḳnūm, is simply derived from Syriac.
120. An explanation of these terms, with illustrations of their use by Syriac writers, will be found in the appendix of J. F. Bethune Baker: Nestorius and his Teaching, pp. 212–232.
121. Syriac Yâldath allâhâ; Ar. wālidatu-llah. These are the corresponding terms used in the Semitic liturgies.
122. If it be said that they do this under a misunderstanding, that they do not themselves understand what Nestorius taught, this is no doubt true in most cases. A modern Nestorian priest, or even bishop, probably understands very little about the philosophy of nature and person. But this does not save their position. They know quite well that all Christendom outside their body accepts Ephesus and rejects Nestorius, that they are in schism with everyone else because they will not do so. And they prefer the teaching of this one man to that of all the rest of Christendom; they prefer to be in schism rather than give up Nestorius. That is the very essence of heresy.