THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
NESTORIANS.
Rise in Persia (§1).
Diffusion in Arabia, India, and China (§ 2).
Varying Fortunes (§ 3).
Under Mohammedans and Mongols (§ 4).
Persecutions; Rapprochement with Rome (§ 5).
History from the Sixteenth Century (§ 6).
Kurdish Nestorians (§ 7).
Nestorians of India (§ 8).
In the Christological controversies of the fifth century (see Christology, V., and references given there) the East Syrian Church adopted and developed independently the doctrines ascribed to Nestorius (q.v.), broke all connection with the monophysite and Catholic churches of West Syria, and became a mighty church party which was called by his name and extended its missionary
influence as far as China. The first
i. Rise in extension of Nestorianism was from
Persia. the eastern boundary of the Roman
Empire over Persia. The prime impulse was the letter of the Presbyter Ibas of Edessa (q.v) to Bishop Mari of Hardashir in Persia, written shortly after the reconciliation of Patriarch John of Antioch and Cyril of Alexandria (q.v.), evidently inclining more to the former, but at the close expressing his joy at the reconciliation between Cyril and the Antiochian bishops. This letter and the Syriac translations of Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia spread the doctrines of Nestorius throughout Persia. The movement was aided by the expulsion of the Nestorian teachers from the school at Edessa and by their settlement in Nisibis, the most noteworthy of these scholars being Barsumas, who, as bishop or metropolitan of Nisibis (435^89), where he established a celebrated theological school, zealously sought to extirpate the adherents of Cyril. Christianity was established in Persia apparently in the post-apostolic age, but its primitive history is wrapped in obscurity. Under the Arsacids the Christians were apparently unmolested, except for one brief persecution and Traj an's invasion of the Parthian kingdom. Though the Christians were widely spread and well organized in Persia in the third and fourth centuries (cf. A. Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, ii. 295 sqq., New ¥ork, 1905), as is clear from the writings of the pseudo-Bardesanes, Aphraates, and the older Acta martyrum, they did not yet form a distinct church with catholicos, bishops, and other clergy. Nevertheless, the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon gradually rose to be primate of the Christians in the Seleucid kingdom and the entire orient, though his claims were long contested by the bishop of Persia. In 313 the bishop of Persia was still independent of the bishop of Seleucia, and the former was considered at the Nicene Council the representative of all Persia and India; nor was it until the episcopate of Timotheus (778-820) that Seleucia definitely became the metropolitan see. Both bishoprics were first actually, and then nominally, subject to the patriarch of Antioch, but the frequent wars between the Romans and Persians rendered it practically impossible for the prelates to be consecrated at Antioch. Shahlufa (d. 244) seems to have been the first to be consecrated by the oriental bishops at Seleucia. This see thus early gained a certain
measure of independence. His successor, Papa, was called archbishop; later prelates, beginning with Bab«us (Syr. Babhai) in 499, assumed the title of patriarch, or catholicos, and ranked themselves after the patriarch of the West. While his predecessors Dadhisho, Babffius, and Acacius wavered between Catholicism and Nestorianism, Babseus II. was the first to break entirely with the Occidental Church. At a synod held by him in 499 he enacted, among other things, that unconditional obedience should be rendered to the patriarch of Seleucia; that the bishops should assemble for consultation on ecclesiastical affairs with their metropolitan annually instead of semi-annually and with their patriarch quadrennially instead of biennially; and that the patriarch, bishops, priests, and monks should be permitted to marry one wife each and that the presbyters should be required to marry another wife on the death of the first, the object of this canon being to do away with immoral relations of the clergy with several wives at once. The successors of Babffius followed in his course, placing Nestorians in all episcopal vacancies and eagerly seeking to extend their domain in all directions. Nestorianism was also advocated by numerous writers, especially the monks of several monasteries in Assyria, as well as by the pupils of various schools, of which the oldest and most famous was that of Nisibis.
Christianity had also spread at a very early time to Arabia, to the wide districts south of Palestine, Damascus, and to Mesopotamia (cf. Gal. i. 17). Though these Arabic communities, including such bishoprics as that of Bostra, were connected with those of Rome, both Nestorians and 2. Diffusion Jacobites later sought to introduce in Arabia, their doctrines. The former were the India, and more successful. Under the califs they China. extended through Syria and Palestine, and during the patriarchate of Mar Aba II. (742-752) there was a bishop of the Nestorians in Egypt under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan of Damascus. The Arabian bishops were originally subject to the metropolitan of Persia, who also had jurisdiction over India, the western coast of which must have been partly Christianized by the beginning of the seventh century. A very ancient tradition, given in the third century Acts of Thomas (Eng. transl. in ANF, viii. 535-539), makes Thomas the apostle to India, so that the Indian Christians are commonly termed Christians of St. Thomas. Many Christians seem to have fled to India from the persecutions in Persia; and in 345 a bishop with priests from Jerusalem are said to have gone to Malabar. Cosmas Indicopleustes (q.v.; about 530) mentions churches at Malabar, there was one in Ceylon, as well as a bishop at Calliana; and in 570 the presbyter Bodh was sent to inspect the Indian churches. After a period of ecclesiastical declension, Timotheus (778-820) appointed a metropolitan for India. China received Christianity from Chorassan, and a long inscription in Syriac and Chinese at Si-ngan-fu, giving a lengthy list of Nestorian clergy, testifies to the prosperity and wide extension of Nestorianism in China in 781. This famous Nestorian monument was visited in 1907 by