Nestorius

“ 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. ”

“ A fashion is growing up among their Anglican friends of avoiding the word because (it is alleged) they do not really hold the heresy associated with Nestorius's name, nor were they founded by him. As for the heresy, it is now urged that Nestorius himself did not teach it; so the name need not in any case connote any theory about our Lord's personality. They do not admit that they were founded by Nestorius. Of course not. They claim that their religion was founded by Jesus Christ. So do all Christians. We can hardly call them Christians as a special name. ”

“ A priest began to celebrate in private, an abbot and a monk told Nestorius to his face that he was in error, and were savagely beaten and imprisoned for so doing. A monk who dared to denounce him as a heretic was scourged and exiled. Among his supporters a bishop named Dorotheus was the chief. When he preached his heresy, the congregation uttering a cry of indignation, rushed out of church, but Nestorius proceeded with the service, and administered Communion to the preacher.
The careful circulation of the archbishop's sermons brought them into the hands of the Egyptian monks. ”

“ We saw [42] that Nestorius here quoted and discussed the last part of Cyril's letter to his agents, which by ancient scholars was held to be a supplement to it; and the French translator of the Treatise of Heraclides really is of the opinion that Nestorius quoted only the mere conclusion of this letter [43] . But in no words of Nestorius is there a hint that he deals with a part of a letter [44] . And more: if he had known the beautiful phrase which we found in a preceding section of the letter: That wretched man shall not hope that he can be my judge etc. ”

“ From that time, however, they branded Nestorius as an ‘incendiary,’ and it was not only the heretics who did this, but those also of his own faith. For he could not rest, but seeking every means of harassing those who embraced not his own sentiments, he continually disturbed the public tranquillity. He annoyed the Novatians also, being incited to jealousy because Paul their bishop was everywhere respected for his piety ”

“ May we now realise that, nevertheless, in the personal character of Nestorius are to be found the grounds for the tragic course of his life? It is intelligible that a man with such characteristics was not exactly suited to the taste of the court and especially of the circle of that most pious lady, the Augusta Pulcheria ”

“ Nestorius raised this reproach against Cyril as early as in the late summer of 430 in a letter to the bishop of Rome [26] ; and that this reproach was well grounded, I tried to show as far back as 1903 by pointing to a letter, written by Cyril to his clerical agents in Constantinople [27] . After long explanations about the perverted doctrine of Nestorius he says in this letter: I had till now no quarrel with him and wish him betterment; but for supporting my enemies he shall give answer before God. No wonder if the dirtiest persons of the city, Chairemon, Victor and others, speak ill of me. ”

“ Nestorius the patriarch wrote many excellent books which the blasphemers (viz. the Antinestorians) have destroyed. As those which evaded destruction he mentions, besides the liturgy of Nestorius, i.e. one of the liturgies used by the Nestorians, which without doubt is wrongly ascribed to Nestorius, five works of the patriarch. The first of these is the book called Tragedy, the second the Book of Heraclides, the third the Letter addressed to Cosmas, the fourth a Book of letters and the fifth a Book of homilies and sermons. ”

“ Is the reception of the Pelagians in Constantinople a sufficient ground for this prejudice? Hardly. For as regards these Pelagians Nestorius demanded advice of the Roman bishop in his very first letter [59] . He would doubtless have sent them away if the pope had asked this. But Celestine of Rome had left unanswered at least three letters of Nestorius. The reason he afterwards gave, viz. that the letters of Nestorius had first to be translated into Latin [60] , deserves to be met by us with an incredulous shake of the head. Was the real reason perhaps plottings of Cyril? ”

“ And as to the Council of Ephesus, the thing is clear. The innovation of Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, is known; how, by denying to the Virgin Mary the title of 'Mother of God,' he divided into two the person of Christ. Pope St. Cœlestine, watchful, according to his office, over the affairs of the Church, had charged the blessed Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, to send him a certain report of the doctrine of Nestorius, already in bad repute. Cyril declares this in his letter to Nestorius ”

“ All the bishops cried out together: Whoever does not anathematize Nestorius let him be anathema. Such an one the right faith anathematizes; such an one the holy Synod anathematizes. Whoever communicates with Nestorius let him be anathema! We anathematize all the apostles of Nestorius: we all anathematize Nestorius as a heretic: let all such as communicate with Nestorius be anathema, etc., etc.
Juvenal, the bishop of Jerusalem said: Let the letter of the most holy and reverend Cælestine, archbishop of the Church of Rome, be read, which he wrote concerning the faith. ”

“ And moreover, our father Saint Cyril, Archbishop of the city of Alexandria, rebuked him, and admonished him, and said unto him, “Natures cannot be separated after they have become one in their unity, on the contrary, and we believe and declare that the Word of God that became man is One Nature only.” And Nestorius the unbeliever would not believe this, and he would not turn from his unbelief, and the whole General Council rebuked him and threatened him that they would cut him off from his priesthood and office unless he turned from his evil counsel. ”

“ Nestorius then sent for Cyril's clerical agents and asked them to explain the situation. But these, to use Nestorius' own words, were annoyed and said to me: What, you admit an accusation against the patriarch of Alexandria and do not at once condemn the accusers as calumniators without trial? ... We contest your right and with good ground; for that would be a dangerous encouragement of accusers, while it will be a profit to you to keep him (Cyril) as your good friend and not to turn him, who is famous because of his importance and who is among the great, into an enemy. ”

“ THE NESTORIANS.
Nestorius was a Greek, born in the latter part of the fourth century near Germanicia. He became a monk in the Roman Catholic church and was ordained an elder by the patriarch of Antioch. Being learned in literature and an orator of power, he became patriarch of Constantinople in 428. Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, was jealous of Nestorius as he desired to become patriarch of Constantinople himself. He attacked the teachings of Nestorius, claiming that he taught that there are in Christ two distinct persons and two natures ”

“ The Antiochians continued to hold Nestorius in esteem and to treat as heretical the anathematisms of Cyril; the latter, for his part, regarded Nestorius as a condemned heretic and had grounds for thinking that his council had proved his anathematisms [104] . The church of the East was divided. The emperor, assisted by Maximian, the new bishop of Constantinople, forced the parties to a peace by means of the union of 433. ”

“ Before the third of the Ecumenical Synods was called to meet, Pope Celestine had already convicted Nestorius of heresy and deposed and excommunicated him. When subsequently the synod was assembled, and before the papal legates had arrived, the Council met, treated Nestorius as in good standing, entirely ignoring the sentence already given by Rome, and having examined the case (after summoning him three times to appear that he might be heard in his own defence) , proceeded to sentence Nestorius, and immediately published the sentence. ”

“ From that time forth one could speak in ecclesiastical phraseology of the holy ecumenical council of Ephesus, which had condemned Nestorius. Nestorius could have accepted the confession of faith on which the union was based. It was, therefore, really tragic that the anathema against him was the price of the peace. He was now also robbed of his former friends, and there cannot be the least doubt that for this painful experience, too, he had to thank Saint Cyril.
5
The last act of our tragedy may be treated shortly, but it stretches over a much longer period than any of the others. ”

“ And now I am already on the point to depart, and daily I pray to God to dismiss me—me whose eyes have seen his salvation. Farewell Desert, my friend, mine upbringer and my place of sojourning, and thou Exile, my mother, who after my death shalt keep my body until the resurrection comes in the time of God's pleasure! Amen.
We knew previously that Nestorius had to endure many sufferings during his exile. Evagrius, as I said above, hands down to us fragments of two letters of Nestorius to the governor of Thebais [34] . ”

“ But even if the ground of his misfortune were to be found here, his life should nevertheless be called a tragedy, for his sufferings would have been too harsh a punishment. We can, however, hardly assume that the characteristics we discussed were the cause of Nestorius' unhappy fate. For he enjoyed the favour of the court as long as he lived in Constantinople and even longer, and his enemies never pretended, as far as I know, that his guilt rested in his personal character.
His enemies condemned him for his teaching. It is, therefore, his teaching that we must examine. ”

“ We inveighed also against the wicked presumption of Nestorius in boasting that he was the first and the only one who understood holy Scripture, and that all those teachers were ignorant, who before him had expounded the sacred oracles, forsooth, the whole body of priests, the whole body of Confessors and martyrs, of whom some had published commentaries upon the Law of God, others had agreed with them in their comments, or had acquiesced in them. ”

“ As bishop of Constantinople Nestorius naturally looked to the emperor for support, while Cyril turned to Rome. A Roman synod in 430 found Nestorius heretical and decreed his excommunication unless he should recant. Shortly afterwards an Alexandrian synod condemned his doctrines in twelve anathemas, which only provoked counter-anathemas. The emperor now intervened and summoned a council, which met at Ephesus on the 22nd of June 431. Nestorius was present with an armed escort, but refused to attend the council on the ground that the patriarch of Antioch (his friend) had not arrived. ”

“ The apology of Mar Abd Yeshua conveys their sentiments on this head most fully: "The Easterns, however, who never changed their faith, but kept it as they received it from the Apostles, were unjustly styled 'Nestorians,' since Nestorius was not their Patriarch, neither did they understand his language; but when they heard that he taught the doctrine of the two Natures and two Persons, one Son of God, one Christ, and that he confessed the orthodox faith, they bore witness to him, because they themselves held the same faith. ”

“ In A.D. 410 the great dissension between Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and St Cyril, upon various points of doctrine, arose, and resulted in the split which gave birth to the new sect called the Nestorians. Throughout the controversy—resulting in the General Council at Ephesus in 431—Nestorius had been supported by the Eastern Bishops, and it was natural that after the rupture, the Chaldeans, who sent them, should join the ranks of, or rather become themselves, the Nestorians. ”

“ And because he could not reply to what the Patriarch had written, he spread abroad the report that the Easterns were one with Nestorius, and therefore were to be called 'Nestorians.' And this name has been applied to them from that day up to the present time, and they find it difficult to cast it off, and cannot get rid of it, although they dislike it, because it takes its rise from a man who was not one of them, whom they never saw, one who was not of their language, neither their Patriarch, who was young and they old in the faith. ”

“ Badger is throughout an advocate for the Nestorians, and (naturally, perhaps laudably) takes an advocate's view of his client's side. Few, I suppose, would be satisfied with the concordat he proposes, in which the character and sentiments of Nestorius are left an open question. ”

“ But Nestorius, Bishop of the royal city, possessed such influence, had deceived men's minds with such an appearance of piety, had gained so many Bishops, and enjoyed such favour with the younger Theodosius and the great men, that he could easily throw everything into commotion; and thus there was need of an Ecumenical Council, the question being most important, and the person of the highest dignity; because many Bishops, amongst these almost all of the East, that is, of the province of Antioch, and the Patriarch John himself, were ill disposed to Cyril, and seemed to favour Nestorius ”

“ Three remarks only shall be made. Firstly: The Syriac fragments gave us knowledge of a book of Nestorius not mentioned by Ebed-Jesu, which was written in the form of a dialogue and which was certainly a comprehensive work, although the number of the fragments handed down to us is very small. The title of this work is The Theopaschites, that is, the man who thinks God had suffered, a title certainly chosen because Nestorius in this dialogue opposed the Cyrillian party, which he accused of holding a doctrine which imagined the God in Christ suffering. ”