CEN T. was this opinion ever proposed by him in any of PART II. his writings, but was only charged upon him by

V.

his iniquitous adverfaries, as a confequence drawn from fome incautious and ambiguous terms he ufed, and particularly from his refusing to call the virgin MARY, the mother of God [p]. Hence many, nay, the greateft part of writers both ancient and modern, after a thorough examination of this matter, have pofitively concluded that the opinions of NESTORIUS, and of the council which condemned them, were the fame in effect; that their difference was in words only, and that the whole blame of this unhappy controversy was to be charged upon the turbulent fpirit of CYRIL, and his averfion to NESTORIUS [q].

This judgment may be juft upon the whole; but it is however true, that NESTORIUS Committed two faults in the courfe of this controverfy. The first was his giving offence to many Chriftians by

which are to be found in Jos. SIM. ASSEMAN. Biblioth. Oriental. Vatican. tom. ii. p. 40, 41.

[] It is remarkable, that CYRIL would not hear the explanations which NESTORIUS offered to give of his doctrine. Nay, the latter offered to grant the title of Mother of God to the Virgin MARY, provided that nothing else was thereby meant, but that the man born of her was united to the divinity. See Socrat. lib. vii. cap. xxxiv.

[9] LUTHER was the firft of the modern writers who thought thus. And he inveighed against CYRIL, with the greatest bitterness, in his book De conciliis, tom. viii. opp. Altenb. p. 265, 266, 273. See alfo BAYLE's Di&ionary, at the articles NESTORIUS and RODON. CHRIST. AUGUST. SALIG, De Eutychianifmo ante Eutychen, p. 200. OTTO FRID. SCHUTZIUS, De vita Chytræi, lib. ii. cap. xxix. p. 190, 191. Jo. VOIGT. Biblioth. Hiftoria Hærefiologica, tom. i. part III: P. 457. PAUL.ERNEST. JABLONSKY, Exerc. de Neftorianifmo, published at Berlin, A. D. 1720. Thefaur. Epiftolic. Croziamus, tom. i. p. 184. tom. iii. p. 175. La Vie de la Croze, par JORDAN, p. 231, and many others. As to the faults that have been laid to the charge of NESTORIUS, they are collected by ASSEMAN, in his Biblioth. Orient. Vatican. tom. iii. part II. p. 210.

abrogating

V.

abrogating a trite and innocent term [r]; and CENT. the fecond, his prefumptuously attempting to PART H. explain, by uncouth comparisons and improper expreffions, a mystery which infinitely furpafles the extent of our imperfect reafon. If to these defects we add the defpotic spirit and the exceffive warmth of this perfecuted prelate, it will be dif ficult to decide who is moft to be blamed, as the principal fomenter of this violent conteft, CYRIL or NESTORIUS [s].

grefs of Ne

after the

X. The council of Ephefus, instead of healing The prothefe divifions, did but inflame them more and ftorianifm more, and almoft deftroyed all hope of reftoring council of concord and tranquillity in the church. JOHN of Ephesus. Antioch and the other eastern bifhops, for whofe arrival CYRIL had refufed to wait, met at Ephefus, and pronounced against him and MEMNON, the bishop of that city, who was his creature, as fevere a sentence as they had thundered against NESTORIUS. Hence arose a new and obftinate diffenfion between CYRIL and the Orientals, with JOHN the bishop of Antioch at their head. This flame was indeed fomewhat abated, A. D. 433, after CYRIL had received the articles of faith drawn up by JoнN, and abandoned certain phrafes and

[r] The title of Mother of God, applied to the Virgin MARY, is not perhaps fo innocent as Dr. MOSHEIM takes it to be. To the judicious and learned it can prefent no idea at all, and to the ignorant and unwary it may present the moft abfurd and monstrous nations. The invention and use of such myfterious terms, as have no place in fcripture, are undoubtedly pernicious to true religion.

[] There is no difficulty at all in deciding this queftion. NESTORIUS, though poffeffed of an arrogant and perfecuting spirit in general, yet does not feem to deferve, in this particular cafe, the reproaches that are due to CYRIL. ANASTASIUS, and not NESTORIUS, was the first who kindled the flame; and NESTORIUS was the fuffering and perfecuted party from the beginning of the controversy to his death. His offers of accommodation were refused; his explanations were not read; his fubmiffion was rejected, and he was condemned unheard. expreffions,

F 4

V.

CENT. expreffions, of which the litigious might make a PART II. pernicious ufe. But the commotions, which arofe from this fatal controverfy, were more durable in the east [t]. Nothing could oppose the progress of Neftorianifm in those parts. The difcipline and friends of the perfecuted prelate carried his doctrine through all the Oriental provinces, and erected every where congregations which profeffed an invincible opposition to the decrees of the council of Ephefus. The Perfians, among others, oppofed CYRIL in the molt vigorous manner, maintained that NESTORIUS had been unjustly condemned at Ephesus, and charged CYRIL with removing that diftinction which fubfifts between the two natures in CHRIST. But nothing tended fo much to propagate with rapidity the doctrine of NESTORIUS, as its being received in the famous fchool which had for a long time flourished at Edessa. For the doctors of this renowned academy not only inftructed the youth in the Neftorian tenets, but tranflated from the Greek into the Syriac language the books of NESTORIUS, of his master THEODORUS of Mopfueftia, and the writings alfo of DIODORUS of Tarfus, and fpread them abroad throughout Affyria and Perfia [u].

Barfumas, a

zealous pro

Neftorian

ilm.

XI. Of all the promoters of the NESTORIAN moter of cause, there was none to whom it has fuch weighty obligations as to the famous BARSUMAS, who was ejected out of his place, in the school of Edessa, and created bishop of Nifibis, A. D. 435. This zealous prelate laboured with incredible affiduity

[t] See CHRIST. AUG. SALIG, De Eutychianifmo ante Eutychen, p. 243.

[ See Jos. SIMON. ASSEMANNI Biblioth. Oriental. Clement. Vatican. tom. i. p. 351. tom. iii. part II. p. 69. This learned author may be advantageously used to correct what EUSEBIUS RENAUD. has faid (in the second tome of his Liturgia Orientales, p. 99.) concerning the first rife of the Neftorian doctrine in the eastern provinces. See alfo the Ecclefiaftical Hiftory of THEODORUS the reader, book ii. p. 558.

and

V.

and dexterity, from the year 440 to 485, to pro- CENT. cure, for the Neftorians, a folid and permanent PART IL fettlement in Perfia; and he was vigorously feconded in this undertaking by MAANES bishop of Ardafcira. So remarkable was the fuccefs which crowned the labours of BARSUMAS, that his fame extended throughout the eaft; and the Nefto rians, which still remain in Chaldea, Perfia, Afy ria, and the adjacent countries, confider him alone, and not without reason, as their parent and founder. This indefatigable ecclefiaftic not only perfuaded PHEROZES, the Perfian monarch, to expel out of his dominions fuch Chriftians as had adopted the opinions of the Greeks, and to admit the Neftorians in their place, but he even engaged him to put the latter in poffeffion of the principal feat of ecclefiaftical authority in Perfia, the fee of Seleucia, which the Patriarch or Catholic of the Neftorians has always filled even down to our time [w]. The zeal and activity of BARSUMAS did not end here: he erected a famous fchool at Nifibis, from whence iffued thofe Nestorian doctors, who, in this and the following century, spread abroad their tenets through Egypt, Syria, Arabia, India, Tartary, and China [x].

ons of the

XII. The Neftorians, before their affairs were The divifi thus happily fettled, had been divided among Neftorians themselves with refpect to the method of explain

[z] The bishop of Seleucia was, by the twenty-third canon of the council of Nice, honoured with peculiar marks of diftinction, and among others with the title of Catholic. He was invefted with the power of ordaining archbishops (a privilege which belonged to the patriarchs alone), exalted above all the Grecian bishops, honoured as a patriarch, and in the cecumenical councils was the fixth in rank after the bishop of Jerufalem. See A&ta Concilii Nicæni Arab. ALPHONS. PISAN. lib. iii. can. xxiii. xxxiv.

[x] See, for an ample account of this matter, Jos. SIM. ASSEMANNI Biblioth. Oriental. Clement. Vatican. tom. iii, part II. p. 77.

ceafe.

V.

CEN T. ing their doctrine. Some maintained, that the PART II. manner in which the two natures were united in CHRIST, was abfolutely unknown others, that the union of the divine nature with the man JESUS was only an union of will, operation, and dignity [y]. This diffenfion, however, entirely ceased when the Neftorians were gathered together into one religious community, and lived in tranquillity under their own ecclefiaftical government and laws. Their doctrine, as it was then determined in feveral councils affembled at Seleucia, amounts, to what follows: "That in the Saviour of the "world there were two perfons, or inosáveis; of "which the one was divine, even the eternal "WORD; and the other, which was buman, was "the man JEsUs; that these two perfons had "only one afpect [x]; that the union between "the fon of God and the son of man was formed "in the moment of the Virgin's conception, and " was never to be diffolved; that it was not, however, an union of nature or of perfon, but only of will and affection; that CHRIST was, therefore, to be carefully diftinguifhed from God, who dwelt in him as in his temple; "and that MARY was to be called the mother of "CHRIST, and not the mother of GOD."

The abettors of this doctrine hold NESTORIUS in the highest veneration, as a man of fingular and eminent fanctity, and worthy to be had in perpetual remembrance: but they maintain, at the fame time, that the doctrine he taught was much

[] LEONTIUS BYZANT. adverfus Neftorian. et Eutychian. P. 537. tom. i. Lection. Antiquar. HENR. CANISII. Jac. BASNAG. Prolegomen. ad Canifium, tom. i. cap. ii. p. 19.

[x] This is the only way I know of tranflating the word barfopa, which was the term ufed by NESTORIUS, and which the Greeks render by the term pow. The word perfon would have done better in this unintelligible phrafe, had it not been ufed immediately before in a different fenfe from that which NESTORIUS would convey by the obfcure term aspect.

older