Chapter 3 Section 1 The Eastward Spread of Nestorianism

The first branch of Christianity introduced into China was the Nestorian sect, a "heresy" of Christianity, which was once called Nestorianism in the Tang Dynasty.The faction calls itself the Eastern Church, and the West is commonly known as the Syrian Church or the Persian Church. Nestorius (about 380-451 AD) was originally a monk in a monastery in the suburbs of Antioch, and was appointed as an elder by the priest. In 428, he was promoted to Patriarch of Constantinople by Emperor Theodosius II of the Eastern Roman Empire.He was deeply influenced by Diodorus and Deodoro in theology, denying that the divinity and humanity of Christ were fused into a "noumenon", and believed that the "incarnate" Christ had true divinity and integrity. humanity.The unity of divinity and humanity in him is a spiritual unity, not a physical unity.Therefore, the virgin Mary is only the physical mother of Christ, not the "Mother of God".Anastasius, the priest of the mansion who followed him, attacked the local Madonna worship with sharp words when explaining the doctrine, which caused fierce controversy, and Nestorius came forward to defend him.Patriarch Xilier of Alexandria in Egypt took the opportunity to attack Nestorius and wrote a letter asking him to renounce his 12 remarks, otherwise he should be excommunicated.At the Sanhedrin in AD 431, his theology was accused by his opponents of dual personality theory, that is, the theory of the separation of the two sexes of Christ. Nestorius and his supporters were "absently condemned" by the Xilier faction who attended the meeting in advance. Excommunication.A few days later, Patriarch John of Antioch, who supported Nestorius, also convicted Xilier and others.Both parties appealed to the emperor, and Nestorius was finally dismissed because he lost power in the court struggle and retired to a monastery.He was exiled and died a tragic death in an oasis in the Libyan desert.

The background of this struggle is the struggle between the two churches and schools of Antioch and Alexandria.The late founder of the Antioch school was Diodorus.He served as the elder of the Antioch church for a long time, and served as the bishop of Tarsus from 378 to 394 when he died, and revived the Antioch school.This school sticks to the literal meaning of the Bible, which is in contrast to the tendency of the Alexander School to use metaphors to understand the meaning of the Bible.In philosophy, the school was deeply influenced by Aristotle, while the Alexandrian school followed Platonism.In addition, the school preferred to use Syriac, which represented an orientalized Christian theology, and thus had subtle differences in semantics with the Alexandrian school, which used Greek.In this controversy over Christology, the Antioch School focused more on the early life and humanity of Christ, trying to make the humanity of Christ have real value, and thus tended to think that the two persons of Christ are Moral unity, not essential unity.Since the Logos is eternal, and like can only produce like, Mary can only beget man.The incarnation is the Logos entering into a complete man, the union of divinity and humanity just as the union of body and soul.In contrast, the Alexandrian school emphasized the divinity in the person of Christ, reducing the humanity of Christ to an almost impersonal level.They believe that humanity completely becomes divinity in Christ, because both humanity and divinity should be a complete nature, and the two natures are combined into one, that is, Logos combined with humanity becomes the core or essence of the person of Christ.The incarnation is God becoming flesh and descending into the world as a man.What Mary gave birth to was the body with Logos as the core, so she was called the mother of God.Nestorius was the victim of this school controversy due to political intervention, but the theological differences were not really resolved.

After Nestorian supporters were convicted of heresy, they severed ties with the church that accepted the Ephesian Council and still existed as an independent church.One of their important strongholds is.Bishop of Edessa La Blei originally supported Nestorius, but was won over by Xi Lier.However, the city's Christian catechism school still insisted on using Diadolu's works as orthodox theological textbooks.The teacher of the school, Ishibha (or Hibha, called Ibas in Greek), was the Syriac translator of the works of Diadolu. In 436, he served as bishop of Edessa after the death of La Blaise, which contributed to the momentum of the Nestorians.Twice he was condemned, but never changed his views, and as the chief theologian of the school of Antioch, his prestige in the Syriac-speaking Christian community was unshakable. In 457, after his death a new bishop appointed by the empire began to persecute the Nestorians.A group of teachers from Edessa, led by the theologian Basauma, crossed the border into Persian territory and were welcomed by the Persian church.

The origin of the Persian Church is very early.Christianity was introduced into Edessa around the 2nd century AD.By the 3rd century A.D., Christianity had spread throughout Mesopotamia, probably from Edessa to Beijing and other places. When the Roman Empire captured Nisibis in 297, there was already a Christian catechism school there, and it was working on the translation of Syriac. In 363, Nisibis was ceded to Persia, and the teachers of this school moved to Edessa under Roman control to rebuild the catechism school, but Syriac was used as the church language like the Persian church.The bishop of Seleucia, the capital of Persia, is called "Kadolicos", which originally meant "universal special envoy", referring to the special envoy sent by the Patriarch of Antioch to Seleucia. In 410, with the consent of the King of Persia, the Persian Church held a religious meeting, passed a creed-like canon, and determined strictly divided bishopric districts, placing each district under the jurisdiction of the Seleucian bishop who exercised the authority of the patriarch.Nestorian teachers of Edessa came to Persia and asked for protection because they were persecuted as heretics in the Roman Empire.The King of Persia once again recognized the Nestorians as the only legal Christians in Persia and the owners of all churches, monasteries and other church properties, while Christians who supported the Ephesian Council were expelled.In this way, the Persian Church actually became a religious community headed by the Bishop of Seleucia and enjoying partial autonomy.Religiously, it severed ties with the Byzantine Empire Church and became an independent church with Kadolicos as its patriarch. In 484, Barsauma enacted new regulations that allowed priests to marry after being ordained, but required monks to live in monasteries far away from towns.The Persian Church has always prohibited priests from getting married after conferring the priesthood, and generally chooses celibate monks or married priests.This is done now not only to oppose the Western Church, but also to adapt to Persian cultural traditions.The new regulations came into effect after the Synod of 486 passed them.Barsauma became bishop of Nisibis in 485.Another Edessa teacher, Narsey, presided over the Nisibis Doctrine College. Aqag, who was Kadolicos in 485, was also from Edessa.They actively spread the theological propositions of Nestorianism and regarded Diadolu as the theological authority of the orthodox doctrine.

From 497 to 540, the Persian church was facing various crises due to the hereditary teaching position caused by the marriage of priests, and the corruption became more and more serious.During Malabar's tenure as Cadolicus (540-542 AD), priests were prohibited from marrying again, the church was vigorously rectified, and missionary activities were actively carried out, which led to the revival of Nestorianism. After the Arabs conquered Persia in 637, Nestorianism enjoyed certain autonomy as a protected religious society.The residence of Kadolicos was also moved from the original capital of the Persian Empire to Baghdad, the capital of the Caliphate Empire.By the end of the 10th century, Nestorianism had established 15 metropolitan dioceses in the original Persian territory, and five metropolitan dioceses in Central Asia to India and China.They went west into Egypt controlled by the monosexual church, and spread eastward to the vicinity of Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia. They had a missionary foundation for many years among some nomadic tribes in Central Asia. In the middle of the 13th century, the number of Nestorian dioceses increased to 25, including four in China.Although Nestorianism has spread widely in the East, it is a religion believed by minorities everywhere.Nestorianism was unable to reverse the trend of internal decline, and it was even more difficult to resist external competition from Islam and others. In the middle of the 14th century, when Timur's cavalry swept across West Asia, the Nestorian churches in various places were almost destroyed.The remaining Nestorians in Mesopotamia, commonly known as the Assyrian Church, have only about 100,000 people.

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