RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Nestorians
Frits V. Holm, who had a replica made of it which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (cf. The Nestorian Monument: an ancient Record of Christianity in China, ed. P. Carus, Chicago, 1909, which contains an account of the securing of the replica, the Chinese text of the inscription, A. Wylie's Eng. transl., and historical notes). The first metropolitan for China was appointed by Selibhazecha (714-726), and about the same time Herat and Samarcand received metropolitans. At Balkh, whence several bishops were sent to China, a bishopric had early been erected; and Nestorianism later spread through Tartary.
The fortune of the Nestorians varied widely.
Expelled by the emperors of the East, they enjoyed
protection under the Parthian Arsacids, but with
the revival of Zoroastrianism by the
3. Varying Sassanids, their persecution began
Fortunes, anew, though seldom except when wars broke out with the Greek emperors. Toward the end of the reign of Kobad (488-531) a twelve years' schism broke out among the Nestorians, two patriarchs, Nerses (see Nersbs II.) and Elisaeus, being elected by rival factions and each appointing his own bishops. The schism was ended by the death of Nerses in prison and the deposition of his rival. Mar Aba I. (536-562), a convert from Zoroastrianism, translated from Greek into Syriac the Nestorian liturgy still in use. Among his many activities, he held a synod in 544 at which the rule, still in force, was adopted that neither the patriarch nor the bishops might marry. Here the former canons were confirmed, and strict adherence to the Nicene Creed was required, while the standard of exegesis was declared to be Theodore of Mopsuestia. Various local schisms, moreover, caused by anti-patriarchs and anti-bishops were ended by deposition of the disturbing clerics. A second synod was held in 577 by the patriarch Ezekiel (577-580), the chief result being an edict against the Messalians. After repeated persecutions by Chosroes I. (who is said by tradition to have become a Christian in his later years), the Nestorians were highly favored by Hormizd IV and Chosroes II., the latter even forcing all Christians to adopt Nestorianism. Nevertheless, the latter monarch also persecuted them for choosing Gregorius patriarch against his will, and after the death of this prelate in 608 the patriarchate remained vacant twenty years until the accession of Siroes. Under this ruler and his successors the Nestorians enjoyed peace.
Mohammedan persecutions of the Nestorians were
rare, especially as Mohammed was traditionally
said to have received his knowledge of Christian
doctrines from a Nestorian monk named Sergius;
and the Nestorians claim to have re-
4. Under ceived letters of protection from the Mohamme- prophet, Omar Ali, and others. They
dans and held high posts as governors of cities
Mongols, and districts, secretaries of califs and emirs, and physicians in ordinary; while they were also distinguished translators into Syriac and Arabic. Such was their influence that Qa'im bi'amr Allah and Muqtadir Billah subjected the Catholic Christians, the Melchites, and the Jacobites to the jurisdiction of the patriarchs. Ex-
cept for a brief persecution by Harun al-Rashid, only two occurred during the entire period — one by Mutawakkil, and the other by Hakim bi'amr Allah, the latter including all Christians and the Jews, but restricted to Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. After the foundation of Bagdad, the patriarchs were chosen and had their residence there, though consecrated in Seleucia. Under the Mongols, in like manner, the conditions of the Nestorians were generally peaceful. Hulagu Khan, who took Bagdad in 1268, and most of his successors favored the Nestorians not only because they were opposed to the Mohammedans, the political foes of the Mongols, but also on account of the superficial similarities between Nestorian Christianity and the Mongol type of Buddhism and through the Christian wives of some of the khans. Certain Mongol rulers, indeed, became converts to Christianity, particularly in the district of the Keraites south of the Lake of Baikal; and the dynastic title of these latter khans, Unk-khan or Owang-khan, corrupted to Joan or Johannes, seems to have given rise to the legend of Prester John (q.v.), which was later transferred to the hitherto unknown Christian king in Ethiopia (i.e., Abyssinia). In 1292 the Minorite Johannes de Monte Corvino converted a descendant of Unk-khan and several of his court from Nestorianism to Catholicism; but the Roman Catholic community thus founded proved of short duration, the converts returning to Nestorianism in 1299 (see Mongols, §2).
The first direct persecution of the Nestorians, after their centuries of peace under Arabs and Mongols, was by Timur, who oppressed Christian and Mohammedan alike. The Nestorian con- 5. Persecu- nections with the Far East now came tions ; Rap- to an end and the churches there fell prochement into decay. The advance of Islam opwith pressed or destroyed the Christians in Rome. Tartary and India, and a like course was pursued by the Shiites in Persia and by the Mohammedan dynasties in Hither Asia. In addition to all this, the popes, especially after the advent of the pro-Christian Mongols, sent many missionaries to counteract Nestorianism. Their efforts were largely successful, the first distinguished convert being the metropolitan Sahaduna in 628, and shortly afterward Heraclius , in his j ourney to Assyria, converted numbers of Nestorians and Monophysites. During the pontificate of Eugene IV., Timotheus of Tarsus, metropolitan of the Nestorians in Cyprus, attended the synods of Florence and Rome in hopes of union. Innocent IV. sent certain bishops with a letter to Rabban Ara, vicar of the Nestorian East, and in his reply was included a creed prepared by the archbishop of Nisibis and signed by two other archbishops and three bishops, in which Mary was designated "the Mother of Christ " (1247). Similar letters were written at the same time by the Jacobite patriarch Ignatius and the Mafrian Johannes. Nicolas IV- addressing a letter with a creed to the patriarch Yahballaha in 1288, his successor Benedict XI. received an answer in 1304 in which the Roman Catholic Church was termed "the mother and teacher of all others" and the Pope was called " the chief shepherd of all Chris-
Nestorians Nestorius