Pater Noster

“ As a most cheering illustration of what Nestorians may yet become, through the grace of God in the Gospel, I quote largely from an account of the venerable man, by Mr. Rhea. [1] "While our good old bishop was not an educated man,—his knowledge in books extending little beyond the Word of God,—and had but ordinary intellectual ability, he was still one of the most interesting characters among the Nestorians. There is no name among them that will be more fragrant; none that deserves a more honored place in the annals of his Church. ”

“ The distinguishing tenet of Nestorianism, which owes its origin to Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431, is the assertion that in Christ there are two persons—the human and the divine—and the denial that the Mother of Christ is the Mother of God. The Catholic doctrine, as defined by the third Œcumenical Council held at Ephesus in 431, is that in Christ there is but one person—the person of the Son of God—and that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of God—Θεοτόκος. ”

“ There is such a thing as attempting too much. Many a missionary has attempted such great things, and so many, in a new field, that he has accomplished little, and perhaps nothing as he ought. Your surveys may extend over a great surface; but a richer and speedier harvest will crown your labors, if your cultivation is applied to a single field."
The Nestorians are a branch of the ancient Christian Church, and derive their name from Nestorius, a native of Syria and Bishop of Constantinople, who was excommunicated by the third General Council at Ephesus, in the year 431. ”

“ But after the incarnation, the Trinity is the triad of the merely spiritual Father, of the crucified (i.e. the Logos united with human flesh, soul and intellect) , and of the Spirit [134] . This understanding of the Trinity is represented by the terrible mediaeval pictures of the Trinity which show an old man holding tip the Crucifix by the arms of the cross with a dove hovering above. That is certainly not the one God of the Christian belief! Nestorius, like Augustine, was convinced that the opera trinitatis sunt indivisa [135] . ”

“ The third sect which confesses two Natures and two Persons in Christ is called the sect of the Nestorians. As to the Easterns, however, because they never changed their faith, but kept it as they received it from the Apostles, they 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. ”

“ But whatever was the extent of the error of Nestorius, from him is derived that system concerning the incarnation of Christ, which is held by a large body of Christians in Chaldea, Assyria, and other regions of the east, and which is known in the ecclesiastical history of the west by the name of the Nestorian heresy. The object of the Nestorians is to avoid every appearance of ascribing to the divinity of Christ the weakness of humanity; and therefore they distinguish between Christ, and God who dwelt in Christ as in a temple. ”

“ That the Nestorians further believe the union of the Divine and Human natures in the Person, or Parsopa of the Son to be indissoluble is equally plain. Thus in § 1 we read, "Therefore, O Lord, we worship Thy Divinity and Thy Humanity without dividing them; for the power of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is one, the sovereignty is one, and the will is one." And in § 6, par. s. "The life-giving Spirit was the agent in His pure conception, and gave a body and members to the Infant by the power of God, and joined it to Him in one inimitable parsopal dignity, not to be changed for ever and ever." ”

“ In a matter of such importance as that which it is now proposed to investigate, it is by far the safer and more satisfactory way for all parties, to allow the Nestorians to speak for themselves. As in the former ages of the Church's history, so now, there are many who look upon this sect as holding doctrines, not only erroneous, but destructive of the soul's salvation,—doctrines vitally affecting the atonement of our Blessed Saviour, that great corner-stone of the Christian's faith and hope, and without which Christianity is but a name. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Nestorian clergy, however, have great influence over the people, by whom they are highly venerated, and who seek their advice in every affair of importance connected with their political and domestic concerns. On meeting a priest, or in taking leave of him, laymen always kiss his hand, and then lift it to their foreheads, and not unfrequently remove their caps or turbans partly off the head with the left hand whilst they take his in their right to raise it to their lips. ”

“ At last, in 433, John, bishop of Antioch, sent the creed given below to Cyril of Alexandria, who signed it. The creed expresses accurately the position of Nestorius. In this way a union was patched up between the contending parties. But the irreconcilable Nestorians left the Church permanently. This creed in the form in which it had been presented to the Emperor was at the beginning and the end worded somewhat differently, cf. Hahn, loc. cit., note. We therefore acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, complete God and complete man, of a rational soul and body ”

“ The Chaldeans, however, who have adopted the doctrine of the Church of Rome on this sacrament, offer masses every day.
6. The canons of the Nestorians forbid the priests to celebrate the liturgy more than once in the day, except in cases of urgent necessity; and although there be two or more priests attached to a church, not more than one can celebrate on the same day.42 On the contrary, whatever number of Chaldean priests may belong to a single church, every one of them offers up a solitary mass, for which he is paid by the relatives of the deceased in whose behalf this service is performed. ”

“ The Nestorian clergy of the present day make no objection whatever to the reading of the Scriptures by their people; on the contrary, the more intelligent evince a laudable anxiety that the word of God may have free course among them, and be glorified. ”

“ As all believe that the sufferings of the departed may be shortened by the merit of good works performed by surviving relatives and imputed to them, prayers for the dead are frequent in churches and over graves, and masses are celebrated in their name.
Though the Nestorians renounced auricular confession, they no more looked to the redemption of Christ for pardon, than did their neighbors, and they knew of no other regeneration than baptism.
There is no need of entering here on the practical influence of such a religion on the lives of the people. ”

“ Even infallibility can be no great stumbling-block to people who have a very definite idea of an infallible Church, of which Patriarchs are the authentic mouthpiece. They do not admit the Immaculate Conception of our Lady, because the Pope has defined it. If he had not done so, they probably would. Nestorians, of course, will not call her Mother of God. But they have unbounded veneration for the all-holy, most pure and sinless Virgin; they keep her feasts, and their liturgies surpass ours in glowing praise of her. If they do not all go to confession, they all know they ought to. ”

“ More than fourteen centuries have elapsed since the sentence of the Church cut off from the privileges of her communion all those who followed the dangerous error, that in Jesus Christ our Blessed Saviour, there are two distinct persons, as well as two natures. Nestorius constantly denied that he held this doctrine ”

“ From our point of view, we should say that, short of becoming Chaldees, the Nestorians can do no better than profit by the instruction, accept the guidance, follow the edifying example of their generous Anglican guests. We, too, may wish the Anglican mission God-speed in its noble work, with the additional wish that their instructions may open Nestorian eyes even more than they themselves intend; so that their pupils may at last seek reunion, not with the Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, but with a greater Patriarch, whose authority reaches further and is more firmly based. ”

“ The habits and manners of life of the Nestorians are so primitive, that their simplicity has become proverbial in the East. Their belief differs from the Orthodox Eastern Church, by declaring the existence of two p. 316persons in the Saviour, as was propounded by their founder, Nestorius, in the beginning of the fifth century. The sacrament of bread and wine is administered to all by the officiating priest, in almost the same way as this ceremony is performed in the Greek Eastern churches. They are most hostile to the Roman Catholics, whom they hate. ”

“ The new patriarchate thus formed, and which could lay claim to no other authority, than that of being founded by the Papal see, since it was neither recognized by the Nestorian bishops, nor by the Sublime Porte, did not at first extend beyond the city of Diarbekir, where most of the Nestorians had become proselytes to Rome, and were thenceforth styled "Chaldeans," The Latin missionaries, however, did not suspend their exertions, but continued to disseminate the peculiar doctrines of the Papacy among the Nestorians around Mosul. ”

“ How many of the far-off eastern nations in Tartary, India, and China among whom they preached the Gospel, and among whom their efforts were sometime blessed, might this day have been numbered among the triumphs of the Cross? Placed in the van of Christianity, and where the baneful heresy of the False Prophet made its first conquests, the Nestorians, had they not been cut off from the Church Catholic, might through the Divine blessing, have driven back the impious Invader, and saved the Church from this devastating scourge. ”

“ The Nestorians, however, maintain that the Church founded by Christ can never fail from off the earth. On this subject the author of the Warda, in a poem on the Resurrection, writes: "Let the believing Church rejoice, because He Who has affianced her has truly risen, and has so raised her and her children that they cannot fall." ”

“ That the Anglicans do not print heretical matter for the Nestorians is, so far, good; it would be still worse if they did. But this is not enough to justify all they do. Once you admit that the Nestorian Church (or "Assyrian" Church) is a heretical sect (and how can anyone who acknowledges the Council of Ephesus do otherwise?) , it is wrong to co-operate with it in sacris at all. It has no rights as a religious body; its Patriarch and bishops have no lawful jurisdiction, no claim to anyone's loyalty or obedience. Each member should come out of his sect into the Catholic Church [43] at once. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many persons piously disposed retire to a corner of the church to pray in privacy, and I have often observed that such persons adhere also to the old oriental practice of frequent prostrations, a form not observed by the clergy; [the priests are directed to stand between the porch and the altar in the Nestorian rituals, as the ministers often do in our own church while the people kneel: within the sanctuary they often prostrate themselves:] but there is no plain distinct enunciation of the precepts and practice of our Saviour or of His Apostles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”