§ 139. THE NEST0EIAN8 729
sioiKis upon his supposed gi-avc in Upper Egypt, and have spread the tradition that it has never been moistened by the rain of heaven, which yet falls upon the evil and the good. The emperor, who had formerly favored him, but was now turned entirely against him, caused all his writings to be burned, and his followers to be named after Simon Magus, and stigmatized as Simonians.'
The same orthodox zeal turned also upon the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the long deceased teacher of Nestoriua and father of his error. Bishop Rabulas of Edessa (f 435) pronounced the anathema upon him and interdicted his writings ; and though his successor Ibas (436-457) again interested himself in Theodore, and translated several of his writings into Syriac (the ecclesiastical tongue of the Persian church), yet the persecution soon broke out afresh, and the theological school of Edessa where the Antiochian theology had longest maintained its life, and whence the Persian clergy had proceeded, was dissolved by the emperor Zeno in 489. Tliis was the end of I^estorianism in the Eomau empire.
§ 139. The Nestorlans.
Jos. Sim. AssemanI: De Syris ISTestorianis, in his Bibliotheca Orientalis. Rom. 1719-1728, fol. torn, iii. P. ii. Ebedjesd (Nestorian metropolitan of Nisibis, 1 1318) : Liber Margarita de veritate fidei (a defence
' For his sad fate and liis upright character Nestorius, after having been long abhorred, has in modern times, since Luther, found much sympathy ; while Cyril by his violent conduct has incurred much censure. Walch, 1. c. v. p. Sl7 ff., has collected the earlier opinions. Gieseler and Neandertake the part of Nestorius agamst Cyril, and think that he was unjustly condemned. So also Milman, who would rather meet the judgment of the Divine Redeemer loaded with the errors of Nestorius than with the barbarities of Cyril, but does not enter into the theological merits of the controversy. (History of Latin Christianity, i. 210.) Petavius, Baur, Hefele, and Ebrard, on the contrary, vindicate Cyril against Nestorius, not as to his personal conduct, which was anythmg but Christian, but in regard to the particular matter in question, viz., the defence of the unity of Christ against the division of his personality. Dorner (li. 81 ff.) justly distributes right and wrong, truth and error, on both aides, and considers Nestorius and Cyril representatives of two equally one-sided ;onceptions, which complement each other. Cyril's strength lay ou the rehgiouj an d speculative side of Christology, that of Nestorius on the ethical and practicaJ Kahnis gives a similar judgment, Dogmatik, ii. p. 86.
730 THIRD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
of N'estoriani-ra), ia Ang. MaVs Scrip, vet. nova collect, x. ii. 317 GinBON: Chap, xlvii., near the end. E. Smith and H. G. O. Dwigut Researches in Armenia; with a visit to the Nestorian and Ciialdeau Christians of Oormiah and Salinas. 2 vols. Boat. 1830. Justin Perkins: A Residence of eight years in Persia. Andover, 1843. "WiLTScn: Kirchliche Geographie u. Statistik. Berl. 184G, i. 214 If. Geo. Percy Badgee: The Ncstoriaus and their Rituals. Illustrated (with colored plates), 2 vols. Lond. 1852. H. Newoomb: A Cyclopaedia of Missions. New York, 1856, p. 553 ff. Petermaxn: Article Nestorianer, in Herzog's Theol. Encykl. vol. x. (1858), pp. 279-288.
While most of the heresies of antiquity, Arianism not excei)ted, have been utterly obliterated from history, and only raise their heads from time to time as individual opinions under peculiar modifications, the Christological heresies of the fifth century, Nestorianism and Monophysitism, continue in organized sects to this day. These schismatic churches of the East are the petrified remains or ruins of important chapters in the history of the ancient church. They are sunk in ignorance and superstition ; but the}'- are more accessible to Western Christianity than the orthodox Greek church, and offer to the Roman and Protestant churches an interesting field of missions, especially among the ISTestorians and the Armenians.
The Xestorians difier from the orthodox Greek churcli in their repudiation of the council of Ephesus and of the worship of Mary as mother of God, of the use of images (though they retain the sign of the cross), of the doctrine of purgatory (though they have prayers for the dead), and of trans ubstantiation (though they hold the real presence of Christ in the eucharist), as well as in greater simplicity of worship. They are subject to a peculiar hierurcliical organization with eight orders, from the catholicus or patriarch to the sub-deacon and reader. The five lower orders, up to the ]u-iest9, may marry ; in former times even the bishops, archbishops, and patriai-chs had this privilege. Their fasts are numerous and strict. Tlie feast-days begin with sunset, as among the Jews. The patriarch cats no flesh ; he is chosen always from the same family ; he is ordained by three metropolitans. Most of the eccl© siastical books are written in the Syi'iac language.
After ISTestorianism was exterminated from the Romac