Nestorius

This article is about the Archbishop of Constantinople. For other notable people called Nestor, see Nestor (disambiguation).
Mar Nestorius

Nestorius as envisioned by the 17th century dutch printmaker Romeyn de Hooghe, in the book History of the church and heretics
Archbishop of Constantinople
Born c. 386
Germanicia, Syria (now Kahramanmaraş, Turkey)
Died c. 450
Great Oasis of Hibis (al-Khargah), Egypt
Venerated in Assyrian Church of the East, Syro-Malabar Church, Ancient Church of the East
Feast October 25
Controversy Christology, Theotokos
Servant of God
Nestorius
Born c. 386
Germanicia, Syria (now Kahramanmaraş, Turkey)
Died c. 450
Great Oasis of Hibis (al-Khargah), Egypt
Occupation Monk, Archbishop of Constantinople
Known for Christological Controversy, Nestorian Schism
Title Servant of God
Religion Christianity

Nestorius (/ˌnɛsˈtɔːriəs/; in Greek: Νεστόριος; c. 386 – 450[1]) was Archbishop of Constantinople (now Istanbul) from 10 April 428 to August 431, when Emperor Theodosius II confirmed his condemnation by the Council of Ephesus on 22 June.

His teachings included a rejection of the long-used title of Theotokos, "Mother of God", for Mary, mother of Jesus, and they were considered by many to imply that he did not believe that Christ was truly God. That brought him into conflict with other prominent churchmen of the time, most notably Cyril of Alexandria, whom he accused of heresy.

Nestorius sought to defend himself at the First Council of Ephesus in 431 but instead found himself formally condemned for heresy by a majority of the bishops and was subsequently removed from his see. On his own request, he retired to his former monastery, in or near Antioch. In 435, Theodosius II sent him into exile in Upper Egypt, where he lived on until 450, strenuously defending his orthodoxy. His last major defender within the Roman Empire, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, finally agreed to anathematize him in 451 during the Council of Chalcedon.

From then on, he had no defenders within the empire, but the Church of the East never accepted his condemnation. That led later to western Christians giving the name Nestorian Church to the Church of the East where his teachings were deemed Orthodox and in line with its own teachings. Nestorius is revered as among three "Greek Teachers" of the Church (in addition to Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia). Parts of the Church of the East's Eucharistic Service, which is know to be the oldest in the world, is contributed to with prayers attributed to Nestorius himself.

The Second Council of Constantinople of AD 553 confirmed the validity of the condemnation of Nestorius, refuting the letter of Ibas of Edessa that affirms that Nestorius was condemned without due inquiry.[2]

The discovery, translation and publication of his Bazaar of Heracleides at the beginning of the 20th century have led to a reassessment of his theology in western scholarship. It is now generally agreed that his ideas were not far from those that eventually emerged as orthodox, but the orthodoxy of his formulation of the doctrine of Christ is still controversial.

Life

Sources place the birth of Nestorius in either 381 or 386 in Germanicia in the Roman province of Syria (now Kahramanmaraş in Turkey).[3]

He received his clerical training as a pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia in Antioch. He was living as a priest and monk in the monastery of Euprepius near the walls, and he gained a reputation for his sermons that led to his enthronement by Theodosius II, as Patriarch of Constantinople, following the 428 death of Sisinnius I.

Nestorian controversy

Shortly after his arrival in Constantinople, Nestorius became involved in the disputes of two theological factions, which differed in their Christology. Nestorius tried to find a middle ground between those that emphasized the fact that in Christ, God had been born as a man and insisted on calling the Virgin Mary Theotokos (Greek: Θεοτόκος, "God-bearer") and those that rejected that title because God, as an eternal being, could not have been born. Nestorius suggested the title Christotokos (Χριστοτόκος, "Christ-bearer"), but he did not find acceptance on either side.

"Nestorianism" refers to the doctrine that there are two separate hypostases in the Incarnate Christ, the one Divine and the other human. The teaching of all churches that accept the Council of Ephesus is that in the Incarnate Christ is a single hypostasis, God and man at once.[4] That doctrine is known as the Hypostatic union.

Nestorius's opponents charged him with detaching Christ's divinity and humanity into two persons existing in one body, thereby denying the reality of the Incarnation. It is not clear whether Nestorius actually taught that.

Eusebius, a layman who later became the bishop of the neighbouring Dorylaeum, was the first to accuse Nestorius of heresy[5] but his most forceful opponent was Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria. All that naturally caused great excitement at Constantinople, especially among the clergy, who were clearly not well disposed to the stranger from Antioch.[5]

Cyril appealed to Celestine of Rome to make a decision, and Celestine delegated to Cyril the job of excommunicating Nestorius if he did not change his teachings within 10 days.

Nestorius had arranged with the emperor in the summer of 430 for the assembling of a council. He now hastened it, and the summons had been issued to patriarchs and metropolitans on 19 November, before the pope's sentence, delivered though Cyril of Alexandria, had been served on Nestorius.[5]

Emperor Theodosius II convoked a general church council, at Ephesus, itself a special seat for the veneration of Mary, where the Theotokos formula was popular. The Emperor and his wife supported Nestorius, but Pope Celestine I supported Cyril.

Cyril took charge of the First Council of Ephesus in 431, opening debate before the long-overdue contingent of Eastern bishops from Antioch arrived. The council deposed Nestorius and declared him a heretic.

In Nestorius' own words,

When the followers of Cyril saw the vehemence of the emperor... they roused up a disturbance and discord among the people with an outcry, as though the emperor were opposed to God; they rose up against the nobles and the chiefs who acquiesced not in what had been done by them and they were running hither and thither. And... they took with them those who had been separated and removed from the monasteries by reason of their lives and their strange manners and had for this reason been expelled, and all who were of heretical sects and were possessed with fanaticism and with hatred against me. And one passion was in them all, Jews and pagans and all the sects, and they were busying themselves that they should accept without examination the things which were done without examination against me; and at the same time all of them, even those that had participated with me at table and in prayer and in thought, were agreed... against me and vowing vows one with another against me.... In nothing were they divided.

While the council was in progress, John I of Antioch and the eastern bishops arrived and were furious to hear that Nestorius had already been condemned. They convened their own synod, at which Cyril was deposed. Both sides then appealed to the emperor.

Initially, the imperial government ordered both Nestorius and Cyril to be deposed and exiled. Nestorius was made to return to his monastery at Antioch, and Maximian was consecrated Archbishop of Constantinople in his place. Cyril was eventually allowed to return after bribing various courtiers.[6]

Later events

In the following months, 17 bishops who supported Nestorius's doctrine were removed from their sees. Eventually, John I of Antioch was obliged to abandon Nestorius, in March 433. On August 3, 435, Theodosius II issued an imperial edict that exiled Nestorius from the monastery in Antioch in which he had been staying to a monastery in the Great Oasis of Hibis (al-Khargah), in Egypt, securely within the diocese of Cyril. The monastery suffered attacks by desert bandits, and Nestorius was injured in one such raid. Nestorius seems to have survived there until at least 450 (given the evidence of The Book of Heraclides), but there is no knowledge of when after then that he died.[7]

Writings

Very few of Nestorius' writings survive. There are several letters preserved in the records of the Council of Ephesus, and fragments of a few others. About 30 sermons are extant, mostly in fragmentary form. The only complete treatise is the lengthy defence of his theological position, The Bazaar of Heraclides, written in exile at the Oasis, which survives in Syriac translation. It must have been written no earlier than 450, as he knows of the death of the Emperor Theodosius II (29 July 450).[8][9]

Legacy

Though Nestorius had been condemned by the church, there was a faction loyal to him and his teachings. Following the Nestorian Schism and the relocation of many Nestorian Christians to Persia, Nestorian thought became ingrained in the native Christian community, known as the Church of the East, to the extent that it was often known as the "Nestorian Church".

In modern times, the Assyrian Church of the East, a modern descendant of the historical Church of the East, reveres Nestorius as a saint, but the modern church does not subscribe to the entirety of the Nestorian doctrine, as it has traditionally been understood in the West. Parts of the doctrine were explicitly repudiated by Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV, on the occasion of his accession in 1976.[10]

During the process of restoration of the Syro-Malabar Qur'an in 1957, Pope Pius XII of Rome requested the restoration of the Anaphorae of Mar Theodore and Mar Nestorius. The Syro-Malabar Church had historically made use of the Anaphora of Mar Nestorius until it was forcibly latinized by the Portuguese in the Synod of Diamper in 1599 against the expressed will of the Pope.

In the Roman Empire, the doctrine of Monophysitism developed in reaction to Nestorianism. The new doctrine asserted that Christ had but one nature, his human nature being absorbed into his divinity. It was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon and was misattributed to the non-Chalcedonian Churches. Today, it is condemned as heresy in the modern Oriental Orthodox churches.

Bazaar of Heracleides

In 1895, a 16th-century book manuscript containing a copy of a text written by Nestorius was discovered by American missionaries in the library of the Nestorian patriarch in the mountains at Konak, Hakkari. This book had suffered damage during Muslim conquests, but was substantially intact, and copies were taken secretly. The Syriac translation had the title of the Bazaar of Heracleides.[11] The original 16th-century manuscript was destroyed in 1915 during the Turkish massacres of Assyrian Christians. Edition of this work is primarily to be attributed to the German scholar, Friedrich Loofs, of Halle University.

In the Bazaar, written about 451, Nestorius denies the heresy for which he was condemned and instead affirms of Christ "the same one is twofold"—an expression that some consider similar to the formulation of the Council of Chalcedon. Nestorius' earlier surviving writings, however, including his letter written in response to Cyril's charges against him, contain material that has been interpreted by some to imply that at that time he held that Christ had two persons. Others view this material as merely emphasising the distinction between how the pre-incarnate Logos is the Son of God and how the incarnate Emmanuel, including his physical body, is truly called the Son of God.

References

  1. ↑ Nestorius Ecumenical Patriarchate
  2. ↑ Anathematism XIV, Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta
  3. ↑ Andrew Louth, 'John Chrysostom to Theodoret of Cyrrhus', in Frances Young, Lewis Ayres and Andrew Young, eds, The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, (2010), p348, states 381; Nestorius – Britannica Online Encyclopedia states 386. Both are based on Socrates Scholasticus 7.29, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf202.ii.x.xxix.html.
  4. ↑ "Nestorius", Oxford Reference
  5. 1 2 3 Chapman, John. "Nestorius and Nestorianism." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 21 Jan. 2014
  6. ↑ John I., McEnerney (1998). St. Cyril of Alexandria Letters 51–110. Fathers of the Church Series. 77. Catholic University of America Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-8132-1514-3.
  7. ↑ Andrew Louth, 'John Chrysostom to Theodoret of Cyrrhus', in Frances Young, Lewis Ayres and Andrew Young, eds, The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, (2010), p348
  8. ↑ Andrew Louth, 'John Chrysostom to Theodoret of Cyrrhus', in Frances Young, Lewis Ayres and Andrew Young, eds, The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, (2010), p. 349.
  9. ↑ There is an English translation of this work, Godfrey Rolles Driver and L. Hodgson, trans., Nestorius, The Bazaar of Heraclides, (Oxford, 1925), but it is notoriously inaccurate. The older French translation by F. Nau, La livre d'Héraclide de Damas, avec la concours du R. P. Bedjan et de M. Brière: suivi du texte grec des trois Homélies de Nestorius sur les tentations de Notre-Seigneur, et de trois appendices, Lettre à Cosme, Présents envoyés d'Alexandrie, Lettre de Nestorius aux habitants de Constantinople, 1969 reprint, Farnborough, England: Gregg International Publishers, is a better substitute.
  10. ↑ Henry Hill, Light from the East, (Toronto Canada: Anglican Book Centre, 1988) p107.
  11. ↑ http://www.tertullian.org/fathers#Nestorius

Sources

Titles of the Great Christian Church
Preceded by
Sisinnius I		 Archbishop of Constantinople
428–431 		Succeeded by
Maximianus
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