Nestorianism: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Nestorianism is commonly portrayed as the belief that Jesus Christ consisted of two separate persons, one human and one divine. It is also referred to as "the theology of the indwelling Logos", since Christ is viewed as a man in whom the Logos dwelled.

The term Nestorianism is eponymous, even though the person who lend his name to it always denied the associated belief. The Assyrian Church of the East is commonly called Nestorian, but it too does not teach Nestorianism. The reason for this confusion is mostly historical and linguistical. For example, the Greeks had two words for 'person', which did NOT translate well into Syriac. The meanings of these terms was not even quite settled during Nestorius's lifetime.

Nestorius

Nestorius (c.386-c.451) was a pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia in Antioch and later became Patriarch of Constantinople. He preached against the use of the title Mother of God for the Virgin Mary and would only call her Mother of Christ. He also argued that God could never be a helpless child, and could not suffer on the cross. His opponents accused him of thereby dividing Christ into two persons, one Jesus Christ the human son of Mary, and another, the Divine Word, 2nd person of the Trinity. Nestorius responded that he believed that Christ was indeed one person (Greek: prosopon).

He was opposed by Cyril of Alexandria and finally condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, which held that Christ is one person, and that the Virgin Mary is the mother of God. The pronouncement of the Council is available [1]. The condemnation resulted in the Nestorian schism and the seperation of Assyrian Church of the East from the Byzantine Church. But even Ephesus could not settle the issue, and the Byzantine Church was soon split again by the Monophysite schism over the question whether Christ had one or two natures.

Even though what Nestorius is supposed to have taught might sound trivial to modern theologians, yet it has important consequences that deal with soteriology and the theology of the Eucharist. During the Protestant Reformation, when some groups denied the Real Presence, they were accused of reviving the error of Nestorius.

Some western theologians still argue that Nestorius is dividing Jesus's experiences, and that arguing that God the Word did not suffer on the cross, while Jesus the man did, or that God the Word was omniscient, while Jesus the man had limited knowledge, effectively divides Jesus into two separate persons with separate experiences.

Today Alexandrian, Byzantine, and Roman theology have settled on the Communicatio idiomatum, which means that properties of the Divine Word can be ascribed to the man Jesus Christ, and vice versa. For the position of the Assyrian Church look at this page.

Cyril of Alexandria worked hard to remove Nestorius and his supporters and followers from power. But in the Syriac speaking world Theodore of Mopsuestia was held in very high esteem, and the condemnation of his pupil Nestorius was not received well. His followers were given refuge. The Persian kings, who were at constant war with Byzantium, saw the opportunity to assure the loyalty of their Christian subjects and supported the Nestorian schism:

• They granted protection to Nestorians (462).
• They executed the pro-Byzantine Catholicos Babowai who was then replaced by the Nestorian Bishop of Nisibis Bar Sauma (484).
• They allowed the transfer of the school of Edessa to the Persian city Nisibis when the Byzantine emperor closed it for its Nestorian tendencies (489).

At Nisibis the school became even more famous than at Edessa. The main theological authorities of the school have always been Theodore and his teacher Diodorus of Tarsus. Unfortunatelly, close to nothing of their writings has survived. The writings of Nestorius himself were only added to the curriculum of the school of Edessa-Nisibis in 530, shortly before the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia as Nestorius's predecessors.

At the end of the 6th century the school went through a theological crisis when its director Henana of Adiabene tried to replace Theodore by his own doctrine, which followed Origen. Babai the Great (551-628), who was also the inofficial head of the Church at that time and revived the Assyrian monastic movement, refuted him and in the process wrote the normative Christology of the Assyrian Church, based on Theodore of Mopsuestia.

A small sampling of Babai's work is available in English translation here. The Book of Union is his principle surviving work on Christology. In it he explains that Christ has two qnome (essences), which are unmingled and eternally united in one parsopa (personality). This, and not Nestorianism, is the teaching of the Assyrian Church.

See also: Nestorius, Christology, Assyrian Church of the East, Babai the Great, Daqin Pagoda, Nestorian Stele