Matters were soon ripe for foreign intervention, and the notorious Cyril (q.v.) of Alexandria, in whom the antagonism between the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools of theology, as well as the perhaps inevitable jealousy between the patriarchate of St Mark and that of Constantinople, found’an exponent of unexampled determination and unscrupulosity, did not fail to make use of the opportunity. He stirred up his own clergy, he wrote to encourage the dissidents at Constantinople, and he addressed himself to the sister and wife of the emperor (Theodosius himself being known to be still favourable to Nestorius). Nestorius himself, on the other hand, having occasion to write to Pope Celestine I. about the Pelagians (whom he was not inclined to regard as heretical), gave from his own point of view an account of the disputes which had recently arisen within his patriarchate. This implied appeal, however, was the reverse of successful, for the pope, in a synod which met in 430, decided in favour of the epithet Θεοτόκος, and bade Nestorius retract his erroneous teaching, on pain of instant excommunication, at the same time entrusting the execution of this decision to the patriarch of Alexandria. On hearing from Rome, Cyril at once held a synod and drew up a doctrinal formula for Nestorius to sign, and also twelve anathemas covering the various points of the Nestorian dogmatic. Nestorius, instead of yielding to the combined pressure of his two great rivals, merely replied by a counter excommunication.

In this situation of affairs the demand for a general council became irresistible, and accordingly Theodosius and Valentinian III. issued letters summoning the metropolitans of the catholic church to meet at Ephesus at Whitsuntide 431, each bringing with him some able suffragans. Nestorius, with sixteen bishops and a large following of armed men, was among the first to arrive; soon afterwards came Cyril with fifty bishops. Juvenal of Jerusalem and Flavian of Thessalonica were some days late. It was then announced that’ John of Antioch had been delayed on his journey and could not appear for some days; he, however, is stated to have written politely requesting that the opening of the synod should not be delayed on his account. Cyril and his friends accordingly assembled in the church of the Theotokos on the 2 2d of June, and summoned Nestorius before them to give an account of his doctrines. The reply they received was that he would appear as soon as all the bishops were assembled; and at the same time the imperial commissioner, Candidian, presented himself in person and formally protested against the opening of the synod. Notwithstanding these circumstances, Cyril and the one hundred and fifty-nine bishops who were with him proceeded to read the imperial letter of convocation, and afterwards the letters which had passed between Nestorius and his adversary. Almost immediately the entire assembly with one voice cried out anathema on the impious Nestorius and his impious doctrines, and after various extracts from the writings of church fathers had been read the decree of his exclusion from the episcopate and from all priestly communion was solemnly read and signed by all present, whose numbers had by this time swelled to one hundred and ninety-eight. When the decision was known the populace, who had been eagerly waiting from early morning till night to hear the result, accompanied the members with torches and censers to their lodgings, and there was a general illumination of the city. A few days afterwards (June 26 or 27) John of Antioch arrived, and efforts were made by both parties to gain his ear; whether inclined or not to the cause of his former co-presbyter, he was naturally excited by the precipitancy with which Cyril had acted, and at a “conciliabulum” of forty-three bishops held in his lodgings shortly after his arrival he was induced by Candidian, the friend of Nestorius, to depose the bishops of Alexandria and Ephesus on the spot. The efforts, however, to give effect to this act on the following Sunday were frustrated by the zeal of the Ephesian mob. Meanwhile a letter was received from the emperor declaring invalid the session at which Nestorius had been deposed unheard; numerous sessions and counter-sessions were afterwards held, the conflicting parties at the same time exerting themselves to the utmost to secure an effective superiority at court. In the end Theodosius decided to confirm the depositions which had been pronounced on both sides, and Cyril and Memnon as well as Nestorius were by his orders laid under arrest. Representatives from each side were now summoned before him to Chalcedon, and at last, yielding to the sense of the evident majority, he gave a decision in favour of the “orthodox,” and the council of Ephesus was dissolved. Maximian, one of the Constantinopolitan clergy, a native of Rome, was promoted to the vacant see, and Nestorius was henceforward represented in the city of his former patriarchate only by one small congregation, which also a short time afterwards became extinct. The commotion which had been thus raised did not so easily subside in the more eastern section of the church; the Antiochenes continued to maintain for a considerable time an attitude of antagonism towards Cyril and his creed, and were not pacified until an understanding was reached in 433 on the basis of a new formula involving some material concessions by him. The union even then met with resistance from a number of bishops, who, rather than accede to it, submitted to deposition and expulsion from their sees; and it was not until these had all died out that, as the result of stringent imperial edicts, Nestorianism may be said to have become extinct throughout the Roman empire. Their school at Edessa was closed by Zeno in 489. As for Nestorius himself, immediately after his deposition he withdrew into private life in his old monastery of Euprepius, Antioch, until 435, when the emperor ordered his banishment to Petra in Arabia. A second decree, it would seem, sent him to Oasis, probably the city of the Great Oasis, in Upper Egypt, where he was still living in 439, at the time when Socrates wrote his Church History. The invasions of savage tribes compelled him to seek refuge in the Thebaid, where, however, the governor caused him to be dragged to Elephantis and subsequently to Panopolis. The time, place, and circumstances of his death are unknown; but zeal for theological truth and retributive justice has led at least one historian to exercise his invention in providing a fit end for the friendless heretic. The followers of Nestorius found toleration under the rulers of Persia, from which empire they gradually spread into India and even into Arabia and China. They also succeeded in securing a foothold among the Tartars. Their patriarch had his see for a considerable time at Seleucia-Ctesiphon, afterwards in Baghdad, and then in Alkôsh. In the 13th century he is said to have had twenty-five metropolitans under him. The sect was almost extirpated by Timur.

What is technically and conventionally meant in dogmatic theology by “the Nestorian heresy” has been briefly indicated elsewhere (vol. xiii. p. 671). As Eutychianism is the doctrine that the Godman has only one nature, so Nestorianism is the doctrine that He has two complete persons. So far as Nestorius himself is concerned, however, it is certain that he never formulated any such doctrine; nor does any recorded utterance of his, however casual, come so near the heresy called by his name as Cyril’s deliberately framed third anathema (that regarding the “physical union” of the two hypostases or natures) approaches Eutychianism. It must be remembered that Nestorius was as orthodox at all events as Athanasius on the subject of the incarnation, and sincerely, even fanatically, held every article of the Nicene creed. Hefele himself, one of the most recent as well as most learned and acute of Cyril’s partisans, is compelled to admit that Nestorius accurately held the duality of the two natures and the integrity of each, was equally explicitly opposed to Arianism and Apollinarianism, and was perfectly correct in his assertion that the Godhead can neither be born nor suffer; all that he can allege against him is that “the fear of the communicatio idiomatum pursued him like a spectre. n But in reality the question raised by Nestorius was not one as to the communicatio idiomatum, but simply as to the proprieties of language. He did not refuse to speak of Mary as being the mother of Christ or as being the mother of Emmanuel, but he thought it improper to speak of her as the mother of God. And there is at least this to be said for him that even the most zealous desire to frustrate the Arian had never made it a part of orthodoxy to speak of David as θtoπ<Lτωρ or of James as aδeλφ6θeos. The secret of the enthusiasm of the masses for the analogous expression Theotokos is to be sought not so much in the Nicene doctrine of the incarna-nation as in the recent growth in the popular mind of notions as to the dignity of the Virgin Mary, which were entirely unheard of (except in heretical circles) for nearly three centuries of the Christian era (see Maiiy. vol. xv. p. 590-1). (J. 8. BL.) Modern Nestorians. —The remnants of the Aramaean Nestorians are to be found in diminishing numbers partly on Turkish, partly on Persian territory. Since the close of the 17th century the Roman Catholic mission, with its headquarters at Aleppo, has, through the powerful support of the French consuls, met with great success among the Nestorians, and has formed the converts into the so-called Chaldaeans, or Nestorians connected with the Roman Catholic Church. Those Nestorians who still adhere to their ancient creed are settled on Turkish soil mainly in the wild and inaccessible regions of eastern Kurdistan, and on Persian soil in the highly fertile plain to the west of the Lake of Urmia. In the former district Nestorians have lived along with the uncivilized Kurds (Iranians) from a very early period, and their numbers have probably been increased by immigrants driven from the lowlands of the Euphrates and Tigris by Moslem persecution. Till quite recently they have maintained there a comparative independence in spite of the perpetual hostility of the Kurds. In those districts where the Kurds are numerically superior they have the ascendency over the scattered Nestorian communities; but there were formerly districts mainly or, as in the case of Tiyâri (Tyari), almost completely occupied by Nestorians, and in these the Kurds were the subject race. As in those regions the conditions of life are the same for both, there is little difference between Christians and Mohammedans; the Nestorians wear nearly the same garb as their Kurd neighbours, the most noteworthy article being the breeches. The mountain Nestorians have generally striped jackets and felt caps, and frequently a staff (the stony mountain roads being mere footpaths, or at best only available for mules). Stock-breeding is the chief occupation; and in summer the herds are taken up to the higher regions, where, however, sheep and goats are exposed to the attacks of wild animals, especially bears and wolves. The alpine character of some of those districts has been greatly admired by the few travellers who, in spite of risks from brigands, have ventured to visit them. In certain valleys, as, for instance, in that of the Zab, there is luxuriant vegetation: the chief trees are the willow and the poplar; rice is cultivated, though at the risk of intermittent fever. To avoid the mosquitoes the people spend the summer nights in the open air on the top of a scaffolding of poles. Their ordinary houses are generally very wretched, often consisting of but a single room, and sometimes even being formed underground, after a fashion that becomes common in Armenia. Besides making most of their own utensils, the mountaineers work certain copper and sulphur mines, and earn a little money by gathering gall-nuts. Their basket-work, for which the district of Tchelu is particularly famous, deserves to be specially mentioned; travelling basketmakers from this region are to be found in all parts of western Asia. The montaineers do a good deal of hand-spinning and stocking-working, even their priests engaging in these forms of industry as well as in tillage. Wooden spoons are made in the mountains. The people as a rule are very poor; many of them migrate for a time (to Mesopotamia for the most part), but come back with their petty gains to their homes, to which they are much attached. This applies, however, only to certain districts; from the central highlands of Tiyâri, for instance, emigration is rare. The supply of food in the mountains is very meagre; wheat does not thrive well, and the people depend on millet-bread, roasted meal, and dried mulberries. Great labour has to be expended in carrying soil up to the terraces which they cultivate on the mountain sides. Milk and its preparations are largely used; and bee-keeping receives some attention. The hospitality of the mountaineers stands high; they willingly share their last morsel with a stranger. Intellectually they are not unlike the Kurds: the latter are proverbially stupid, and these Nes j torians also are reproached not only with ignorance but with lack of capacity. The clergy, ignorant to an extraordinary degree, live a miserable life, and give themselves little concern about the education of their flocks. They receive, however, no small respect from their people, who also show a touching and reverential attachment to their creed. Even the churches are objects of peculiar devotion. The accusation sometimes brought against the mountain Nestorians that they resemble the Kurds in a tendency to raiding and brigandage is not altogether without foundation; but this may be at once explained and excused by the fact that they live in the midst of a hostile and rapacious population, from whose attacks they can defend themselves only by reprisals. In warlike courage they are not behind the Kurds. Among both races the women, judged by Oriental standards, occupy a high position. The mountain Nestorians are governed by hereditary village sheikhs called meliks (“kings”; compare the “kings” of the Canaanites). Great influence is possessed by the patriarch residing at Kotchannes near Julamerg, who always bears the name of Mar Shimun (i.e., Lord Simeon); the civil jurisdiction over the independent tribes is in his hands. The patriarchal dignity is hereditary in one family; the woman destined to be the mother of the future patriarch must refrain during her pregnancy from eating flesh, a diet which is absolutely forbidden to the patriarch himself. It may sometimes happen that the patriarch resorts to ecclesiastical excommunication against those who have opposed him in secular affairs; but the Nestorians are quite contented under their theocratic government, and have always shown a strong feeling of independence. Things went hard with them in 1846, when their independence was destroyed. In concert with the Turkish pasha in Mosul, to whom the freedom of the mountaineers was a perpetual offence, three powerful Kurdish chieftains (of whom Nurulla of Revandiz and Bedr Khan of Buhtan have attained unenviable celebrity) decided to make a common attack upon the Christians. Taken completely by surprise, and basely deserted by their patriarch, these could offer but a feeble resistance; their property was pillaged, and more than 10,000 of their number were massacred. On a small scale similar proceedings are repeated from time to time; and the Turkish Government not only remains powerless to prevent them, but if any advantage accrues to itself looks on with malignant approval. Frequently the Kurdish beys make raids with comparative impunity even in the richer lowland regions, as, for example, to Azerbijan in 1882.

The Nestorians on Persian territory (in Azerbijan) live, even the few who inhabit the mountains, under essentially different conditions; the greater proportion, however, dwell on the rich and fruitful plain which lies round the city of Urmia (Urmi). The date of their settlement in this district is not known, but Urmia is mentioned as early as 1111 as the see of a Nestorian bishop. Nestorians from the mountains may have gradually advanced eastwards into the plain, where they found more favourable conditions of life. If not particularly healthy, it is abundantly watered, and the fruit which it produces in profusion forms their principal means of subsistence. Even here, indeed, they are subject to poverty, for the soil belongs in great part to Mohammedan proprietors. Catholic missions have had some success among them, and there is a Chaldaean bishopric at Khosrava; but since 1831 the field has been more especially worked by the American Board, which has sought to accomplish its purpose by utilizing...