The creed and practice of the Nestorians are more sim- i pie and more scriptural than those of the Greek or any other Oriental Church. They entertain the deepest abhorrence of image Avorship, auricular confession, and purgatory. Their doctrinal tenets lie under suspicion ; yet the American missionaries do not hesitate to vouch for their correctness. !Mr. Perkins was sent out by the American Board of Foreign Missions, and lived among them six years, laboring with considerable success. " On i the momentous subject of the divinity of Christ," he ' says, "in relation to which the charge of heresy is so j violently thrown upon them by the papal and other Oriental sects, their belief is orthodox and scriptural." Mr. Badger also judges favorably of their orthodoxy. I He thinks that, although in error with respect to the • language in which they express their belief \vith regard [ to the second person in the Trinity, the Nestorians hold, nevertheless, in effect the true Catholic doctrine as it is . revealed in Holy Scripture, and as it was set forth by the Council of Ephesus.
Several Avriters have lately made English transla- tions of the Xestorian rituals. These are so overlaid with Oriental figure and sentiment that to ascertain their exact meaning on the points at issue is, however, bj- no means an easy task. We make a single extract | from a service for the Holy Nativity : '• Blessed art thou, O Virgin, daughter of David. Since in thee all the promises made to the righteous have been fulfilled, and in the race of prophecy has found rest; for after a won- i derfid manner thou didst conceive as a virgin without marriage, and in a wonderful way thou didst bring forth the ^Messiah, the Son of God ; as it is written, the , Holy Spirit formed him in thee, and the Word dwelt in [ him by union, without conversion or confusion, the natures continuing to subsist unchanged, and the per- sons also, by their essential attributes, the divinity and humanity subsisting in one parsopa of filiation. For the Lord is one, the power is one. the denomination ruling over all is one, and he is the ruler and disposer I of all by the mysterious power of his divinity, whom we ought ever to thank and worship, saying, Blessed is the righteous One who clothed himself with Adam's [humanity], and made him Lord in heaven and earth" (Badger, it, 34). But though the ritual does not clearly develop the Christological dogmas, it is certain that the | Nestorian Church is the only body outside of Protes- tantism (excepting the Moravians and Waldensians) j which acknowledges, as do the churches which appeared at the Reformation, or came out of these, the supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures, and holds no doctrine or practice essential to salvation which may not be proved from Holy Writ. Indeed, tlie reverence in which the Nestorians hold the inspired volume has ' made them the fortunate possessors of some of the most ancient and valuable MSS. in existence. Their ancient ' language was the Syriac, of which the modern vernacu- !
lar is a dialect, corrupted by contractions and inversions and a great number of Persian and Turkish words. Among their books are some very ancient copies of the Scriptures in Syriac. Several of these are at least six hundred years old. They also possess a copy of the N. T. which purports to be fifteen hundred years old. These copies are regarded by them with much vci. ora- tion, and are used with great care; they are wraipcd in several covers, and when taken into the hands are as reverently kissed as the Jews do their MSS. of the O. T. used for synagogal service. It must not be -sup- posed, however, that they are the possessors of very large numbers of :MSS. Dr. Grant found in the librarj' of the patriarch not more than sixty volumes, all iii manuscript, and a part of these were duplicates. In- deed, they have no works of value, except on devotion- al subjects. Once an educated people, the Nestorians are now perfectly illiterate. Very little attempt has been made to reduce the vernacular language to writ- ing, and the printing-press was unknown to them until the advent of the American missionaries. The only books they possess are the Church rituals ; to be able to read these, and to write fairly, is considered a high education, and is all that is desired, even from candi- dates for holy orders. Except the priests, few or none can read ; and even of these but few can do more than merely repeat their devotions in an unknown tongue, while neither they nor their hearers know any- thing of the meaning. The N. T. is read in the old Syriac ; but this differs considerably from the dialect in common use, and it is read withal in such a manner as to be almost unintelligible. The laity are regular in attendance at church, where they hear a liturgy of great beauty, parth- chanted and partly miuiiblcd. Cer- tain prayers are familiar to all ranks, and persons de- voutly disposed are often seen retiring to a corner of the church to pray in secret. There is no sermon to arouse reflection or to sustain faith, by impressing the conscience and the understanding; no lecture to ex- pound the difficulties of Scripture. Thus the main body of the Nestorians are only nominal Christians, and sucli thej' must probabh' remain until more favored nations come to their relief. True, their religious principles are more simple and scriptural than those of other Ori- ental churches, and they are not guilt}' of so many cor- rupt practices as the Papal and Greek churches. But the life and power of Christianitj' are departed in a large measure, and scarcely a symptom of spiritual vi- tality was apparent when the American missionaries first met them. The existence of such a jjcople for seventeen hundred years, among hostile nations and circumstances so disastrous, is a matter of astonish- ment ; and their own preservation, too, of so much of the pure doctrine of the Gospel as they still retain is remarkable. Their liturgical books recognise seven sacraments, but confession is infrequent, if not altogether disused. Marriage is dissoluble by the sentence of the patriarch; communion is administered in both kinds; and although the language of the liturgy plainly im- plies the belief of transubstantiation, yet it is said not to be popularly held among them. The fasts are strict, and of very long duration, amounting to very nearly one half the entire year. Thej^ pray for the dead, but are said to reject the notion of purgatory. Jlonasteries and convents do not exist among this branch of the Nestorians. " They have no relics such as are common in the Church of Rome," says Mr. Badger (Xestoi-iiins and their Ritual, ii, 136), yet " they believe the remains of the martyrs and saints to be endowed witli super- natural virtues;" and they invoke the Virgin and the saints, asking for their prayers to Christ. They have no pictures or images in their churches, and are much opposed to the use of them. The only symbol among them is a plain Greek cross, which they venerate high- ly. The sign of the cross is used in baptism and in prayer; a cross is engraved over the low entrances of their churches, and kissed by those who enter, and the