Christian theologian (c. 386?c. 451)
This article is about the Archbishop of Constantinople. For other notable people called Nestor, see
Nestor (given name)
.
Nestorius
(
;
Ancient Greek
:
Νεστ?ριο?
;
c.
386
?
c.
451
) was an early
Christian
prelate
who served as
Archbishop of Constantinople
from 10 April 428 to August 431. A
Christian theologian
from the
Catechetical School of Antioch
, several of his teachings in the fields of
Christology
and
Mariology
were seen as controversial and caused major disputes.
In 431, he was condemned and deposed from his
see
by the
Council of Ephesus
, presided over by his archrival
Cyril of Alexandria
,
but the counter-council led by
John of Antioch
vindicated him and deposed Cyril in return. Nestorius refrained from attending both of these councils and instead sought retirement from the
Byzantine Emperor
.
[2]
His teachings included rejection of the title
Theotokos
(
God ? Bearer
), used for
Mary, mother of Jesus
, which indicated his preference for the concept of a loose
prosopic union
of two natures (divine and human) of Christ, over the concept of their full
hypostatic union
. That brought him into conflict with
Cyril of Alexandria
and other prominent churchmen of the time, who accused him of heresy.
Nestorius sought to defend himself at the
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 about 451, strenuously defending his views. 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
in the Persian empire never accepted his condemnation. That led later western Christians to give 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 so-called Nestorian Church (in addition to
Diodorus of Tarsus
and
Theodore of Mopsuestia
). The Church of the East's Eucharistic Service, which is known to be among the oldest in the world, incorporates prayers attributed to Nestorius himself.
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
[
edit
]
Sources place the birth of Nestorius in either 381 or 386 in the city of
Germanicia
in the
Province of Syria, Roman Empire
(now
Kahramanmara?
in
Turkey
).
A Syriac source mentioned that Nestorius was of
Persian
origin, while others have stated he was of
Antiochian
origin.
[5]
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
[
edit
]
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
:
Θεοτ?κο?
, "God-bearer") and those that rejected that title because God, as an eternal being, could not have been born. He never divided Christ into two sons (Son of God and Son of Mary), he refused to attribute to the divine nature the human acts and sufferings of the man Jesus Christ. Nestorius suggested the title
Christotokos
(
Χριστοτ?κο?
, "Christ-bearer"), but he did not find acceptance on either side.
"
Nestorianism
" refers to the doctrine that there are two distinct
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. 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,
but the most forceful opponent of Nestorius was Patriarch
Cyril of Alexandria
. This naturally caused great excitement at Constantinople, especially among the clergy, who were clearly not well disposed to Nestorius, the stranger from Antioch.
Cyril appealed to
Pope Celestine I
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 through Cyril of Alexandria, and was served on Nestorius.
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 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.
Later events
[
edit
]
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
).
Nestorius died shortly after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, in
Thebaid
, Egypt.
[
citation needed
]
Writings
[
edit
]
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).
There is an English translation of this work,
but it was criticized as inaccurate, as well as the older French translation.
Further scholarly analyses have shown that several early interpolations have been made in the text, sometime in the second half of the 5th century.
Bazaar of Heracleides
[
edit
]
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
Qudshanis, 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
.
[13]
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 450, 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.
Legacy
[
edit
]
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.
Patriarch
Mar Dinkha IV
repudiated the exonym
Nestorian
on the occasion of his accession in 1976.
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
.
References
[
edit
]
Sources
[
edit
]
- Anastos, Milton V. (1962).
"Nestorius Was Orthodox"
.
Dumbarton Oaks Papers
.
16
: 117?140.
doi
:
10.2307/1291160
.
JSTOR
1291160
.
- Bethune-Baker, James F.
(1908).
Nestorius and His Teaching: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
9781107432987
.
- Bevan, George A. (2009).
"The Last Days of Nestorius in the Syriac Sources"
.
Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies
. 7 (2007): 39?54.
doi
:
10.31826/9781463216153-004
.
ISBN
9781463216153
.
- Bevan, George A. (2013).
"Interpolations in the Syriac Translation of Nestorius' Liber Heraclidis"
.
Studia Patristica
.
68
: 31?39.
- Braaten, Carl E.
(1963).
"Modern Interpretations of Nestorius"
.
Church History
.
32
(3): 251?267.
doi
:
10.2307/3162772
.
JSTOR
3162772
.
S2CID
162735558
.
- Brock, Sebastian P.
(1996).
"The 'Nestorian' Church: A Lamentable Misnomer"
(PDF)
.
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library
.
78
(3): 23?35.
doi
:
10.7227/BJRL.78.3.3
.
- Brock, Sebastian P.
(1999). "The Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh Centuries: Preliminary Considerations and Materials".
Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity
. New York and London: Garland Publishing. pp. 281?298.
ISBN
9780815330714
.
- Brock, Sebastian P.
(2006).
Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy
. Aldershot: Ashgate.
ISBN
9780754659082
.
- Burgess, Stanley M. (1989).
The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions
. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers.
ISBN
9780913573815
.
- Chapman, John (1911).
"Nestorius and Nestorianism"
.
The Catholic Encyclopedia
. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- Chesnut, Roberta C. (1978).
"The Two Prosopa in Nestorius' Bazaar of Heracleides"
.
The Journal of Theological Studies
.
29
(2): 392?409.
doi
:
10.1093/jts/XXIX.2.392
.
- Edwards, Mark (2009).
Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church
. Farnham: Ashgate.
ISBN
9780754662914
.
- Gonzalez, Justo L.
(2005).
Essential Theological Terms
. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
ISBN
9780664228101
.
- McGuckin, John A.
(1994).
St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy: Its History, Theology, and Texts
. Leiden: Brill.
ISBN
9789004312906
.
- Grillmeier, Aloys
(1975) [1965].
Christ in Christian Tradition: From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451)
(2nd revised ed.). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
ISBN
9780664223014
.
- Hill, Henry, ed. (1988).
Light from the East: A Symposium on the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Churches
. Toronto: Anglican Book Centre.
ISBN
9780919891906
.
- Hodgson, Leonard
;
Driver, Godfrey R.
, eds. (1925).
Nestorius: The Bazaar of Heracleides
. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
ISBN
9781725202399
.
- Kuhn, Michael F. (2019).
God is One: A Christian Defence of Divine Unity in the Muslim Golden Age
. Carlisle: Langham Publishing.
ISBN
9781783685776
.
- Loon, Hans van (2009).
The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria
. Leiden-Boston: Brill.
ISBN
9789004173224
.
- Loofs, Friedrich
(1914).
Nestorius and his Place in the History of Christian Doctrine
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
9781107450769
.
- Louth, Andrew
(2004). "John Chrysostom to Theodoret of Cyrrhus".
The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 342?352.
ISBN
9780521460835
.
- McEnerney, John I. (1987).
St. Cyril of Alexandria Letters 51?110
. Washington: Catholic University of America Press.
ISBN
9780813215143
.
- Meyendorff, John
(1989).
Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450?680 A.D.
Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.
ISBN
9780881410563
.
- Nau, Francois
;
Bedjan, Paul
; Briere, Maurice, eds. (1910).
Nestorius: Le livre d'Heraclide de Damas
. Paris: Letouzey et Ane.
- Norris, Richard A., ed. (1980).
The Christological Controversy
. Minneapolis: Fortess Press.
ISBN
9780800614119
.
- Pasztori-Kupan, Istvan (2006).
Theodoret of Cyrus
. London & New York: Routledge.
ISBN
9781134391769
.
- Reinink, Gerrit J. (1995). "Edessa Grew Dim and Nisibis Shone Forth: The School of Nisibis at the Transition of the Sixth-Seventh Century".
Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-modern Europe and the Near East
. Leiden: Brill. pp. 77?89.
ISBN
9004101934
.
- Reinink, Gerrit J. (2009).
"Tradition and the Formation of the 'Nestorian' Identity in Sixth- to Seventh-Century Iraq"
.
Church History and Religious Culture
.
89
(1?3): 217?250.
doi
:
10.1163/187124109X407916
.
JSTOR
23932289
.
- Seleznyov, Nikolai N. (2010).
"Nestorius of Constantinople: Condemnation, Suppression, Veneration: With special reference to the role of his name in East-Syriac Christianity"
.
Journal of Eastern Christian Studies
.
62
(3?4): 165?190.
- Wessel, Susan (2004).
Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The Making of a Saint and of a Heretic
. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ISBN
9780199268467
.
External links
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]
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