Nestuiiiui Monk.
There are some other monasteries in Persia, the most considerable of which is that near Tauris. Thej' have about twenty double convents, that is, both for monks and nuns, who have separate habitations, though but one common church. While the monks are employed in bodily labor the nuns prepare their victuals. The ' religious Nestorians eat no fish, drink no wine. Their Lents are six in number; viz., the grand Lent of the universal Church; that of the Apostles, which begins fifteen days before the festival of St. Peter; that of ' the Assumption of Our Lady; that of the Exaltation of j the Holy Cross, each of fifteen days; that of Elias, or j the Ninevites,which lasts eight days; and that of Christ's Nativity, which continues twenty-five days. The Nes- torian monks are habited in a black gown tied with a leathern girdle. They wear, instead of a capuche, a blue turban. The nuns arc habited after the same man- ner, excepting that they tic a kind of black veil about their heads and under their chins. They must be forty years old before they take the monastic habit. If a monk desires to quit his convent to marry, he asks leave of the pasha, and the bishop is obliged to consent to it for fear the monk might turn Mohammedan. See Bru- nei, Ilisloire des Clergis ISeculier et Regidier, ii, 44-47. (J.H.W.)
Nestorians, a sect of early Christians, so called after N\>t(iiius ( q. v. i, arc gtnfrally regarded as the Prot- estants iu J'.asHTn Christianity, they having always opposed the regard for ^Lary as more than woman, and having in many other respects preserved the orthodox doctrines and authorized usages of the early Church of Christ. As a sect they claim to be of earlier origin than the age of Nestorius, and date their conversion back to the preaching of the apostle Thomas, hence some of them are called Thomas Christians (see below\ There is besides a tradition prevalent among the Nestorians which makes them of Jewish descent, and claims for their ancestry L^r of the Chaldees, and Abraham, the patriarch ; hence they sometimes call themselves Chal- dmins (see below). But though these claims may have no foimdation, it is yet to be conceded that tlie Nesto- rians are probably the oldest, as they certainly are the purest, of the Oriental churches, although, as we shall presently see, they are guilty of more or less Cliristo- logical heresy, and hold some absurd superstitions, and maintain, as a sect, a service which is little more than mere formalism.
L Doctrinal Position. — In the article Nkstorius is set forth the controversy which agitated the Eastern Church in the 4th and 5th centuries regarding the person and nature of Christ, arising out of the use of ambiguous terms — vTroarnaiQ and irpoaMirov [see IIvrosTASis] — and how peace was finally restored between the Syrian and Egy])tian churches by the confession drawn up by Theodoret. It remains now to point out how the opposi- tion organized in order to sustain Nestorius in his course, after deposition from the patriarchate, finally developed such strength as to prove a formidable antagonism to the Cyrillites, making necessary further action on the part of the emperor, who finally caused the expulsion of all Nestorians from the Roman emi)ire. and by this action only gave development to Ncstorianisui in the East, by an independent and new sect, as is generally Ijelieved in the West, or by auxiliarizing an already existing sect of like tendency, as the Nestorians of to-day generally claim.
It will be seen in the article on Nestorius that, not- withstanding his deposition, liis devoted and persistent adherents favored the doctrines Nestorius had taught. Including the diocesan synoils and the schismatical as- semblies, there were not less than nineteen or twenty meetings during the first twenty years of the controversy. Mercator gives them in order: he makes out that there were four at Home, at Alexandria, and Constantinople; two at Ephesus; I wo at least held by the Orientals; and others at Antioch, Beriea, and elsewliere. Jlost of these we treat under their respective I it Us. The second at Con-
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stantinople, held Oct. 25, 43 1 , was for the election of 5Iax- iniin in succession to Nestorius; and the third, which was rather a consultation of bishops with the emperor, was for considering the best means of re-establishing the peace of the Church. The Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) was assembled to condemn the opposite heresy, that of Eutyches. It not only did so, but incidentally confirmed the decision of the Council of Ephesus, and expressly adapted the term ^eotokoc. Two years later a council at Constantinople, among other things, com- demned a letter of Ibas of Edessa that had renounced the term ^loruKoc. Gelasius, bishop of Eome (A.D. 492-49G), also synodically condemned the Nestorians. But whatever their favor or condemnation at papal Komc, so troublesome did these faithful Nestorians be- come to the government that the emperor saw himself obliged to second the efforts of the special Church coun- cil which he had called, to settle this great Christolog- ical question advisedly and finally by the expulsion from his dominions of all who failed to accept the Ephesian decision. It was thus that Nestorianism was transplanted to Assyria, and especially to Persia, where it has ever since maintained its ground, finding immediately ujion its appearance there protection from the government- such favors being prompted, probably, bj' political oppo- sition to Constantinople.