The propensity of the swallow to affix its nest to human edifices, and of the sparrow to bring up its young in the haunts of men, is elegantly glanced at by the Psalmist, when he contrasts their familiarity with his own exile from the sanctuary (Psa. Ixxxiv, 2, 3). — Fairbairn. See Bird.
Nesterfield, Ecclesiastical Council of (Cow- cilium Nesterfehhnse), was held about the year 703, under Bertwald, archbishop of Canterbury, in which Wilfred of York was a second time deposed ; he appeal- ed to Rome, and his case was considered in a council held there in that year. See Inett, Orig. Anglicana, i, 133. See also Wilfred of York.
Westor, or Letopis Nesterova, the Eussian Ven- erable Bede, the most revered name in the whole com- pass of his country's literature, was born in 1056. At the age of seventeen he entered the convent of Pecze- rich, at Kiew, where he remained until his death, about 1116. But little is known of his personal history. In the Palericon of his convent there is this beautiful tes- timony to his life: "Nestor labored industriously on his annals, thought of eternity, served and pleased his Creator, and died at a good old age peacefully." His Chronicle of Russia, \\\\\c\i is his life-work, comes down to 1115; it has been continued by Sylvester, a monk of Kiew, afterwards bishop of Perejaslaw, and others, to 1206. There are several manuscript copies of it, and they differ somewhat from each other, so that they have become the subject of many interesting investiga- tions both to Russian and foreign historians. They w-ere published by Radziwill or Konigsberg at St. Pe- tersburg (1767, 4to), from a manuscript found at Ko- nigsberg, and considered by the critics as the most trustworthy extant. The first critical edition, how- ever, was published in Germany, with a German trans- lation by Schlozer (Gott. 1802-1809, 5 vols. 8vo), carry- ing the work up to the year 980 ; a German translation of the whole work was brought out at Leipsic in 1774, but it is faulty. The latest and best edition, entitled Chronicon Nestoris textus, rersio Latina et glossarium (ed. Miklosisch), was brought out at Vienna (1860 sq.). This Chronicle is highly prized by the Russians as the oldest annals of their history. Nestor wrote also a Patericiim Peczericum, which is a sort of biography of some of the abbots and saints of the convent of Kiew, and verj' valuable as the oldest document treating of Russian ecclesiastical history. Though interspersed with many absurdities and superstitions, it was first published in 1661, and has been reproduced since in divers forms. Nestor was a very learned man in his time. He understood perfectly the Greek language, and read the Byzantine historians, from whom he trans- lated many passages, and inserted them in his Ckron-
NESTORIAN MONASTICS
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NESTORIANS
icle. His information he obtained from contemporaneous traditions (probably also from still more ancient Liito- pisses), and he derived great advantage from the recol- lections of his brother in the cloister, the monk Jan, who died in HOG, at the age of ninety-one years, and who was bom consequently in lOlo, i. e. one year previous to the death of grand-prince Waldimir. !Mucli, how- ever, of Nestor's work consists of what he was enabled to record as a contemporary and an eye-witness. Truth shines evidently in all his writings. His style is equal, and resembles the Biblical books. The persons whom he mentions are made to speak in the language of the liistorical books of the Old Testament. He frequently interweaves sentences taken from Holy Writ, and sub- joins pious moral reflections. His illustrious editor, .Schliizer, says of him: "Without this brother of the cloister, what should we ever have known about the entire history of the Upper North down to the 11th century? But this Chronicle is still more important in relation to the people for which it was written ; who, by following the example of its author, acquired a taste for reading and writing, and never lost those arts again through all the melancholy times and centuries of act- ual barbarism that followed." See Karamsin, Gesch. des russk-hen Rtiches, vol. viii; Strahl, Gesch. ties j-iis- sichen Staates, i, 458 sq. ; id. Beitrdtje z. russ. Kirchen- fjeschichie (Halle, 1827), i, 90 sq. ; GOttinger gel. A nzeigen, 1807, p. 203 sq. ; Schlijzer, Prvhen russicher A nnalen, p. 27 sq. ; and the biography in his edition of Nestor, i, 9 sq. ; I'ijK'r, FAnhitumi in die Monumentale Theologie, § 95; Stanley, Led. I'list. Ea^t. Church, p. 388 ; Otto, Hist, of Russian Literature, p. 300 sq. (J. H.AV.)
Nestorian Monastics are a class of devotees among the Xcstorians (q. v.), claiming to be of the Order of St. Autliony, though they do not strictly adhere to the ni'.di of that or any other order, and are but insigniti- cant in number. They probably were quite powerful as a monastic body at one time, for ther? are a large num- ber of monasteries now extant in the Nestorian country which these devotees named and su|)|)orted. Most of these monasteries are now deserted, especially those upon the River Tigris; the rest have but few inmates except that of Ormuz, which is the most considerable, and in that there are only about fifty monks. This monastery is the residence of the patriarchs, and takes its name from Horniisdas, one of the Nestorian saints.