The patriarch of Alexandria in ancient times possessed much more power than the others, and the church ruled by him was much more centralized. He had no metropolitans. His hundred suffragans were ordinary bishops. This perhaps in part accounts for the decay of the Orthodox church in Egypt; at present there is no bishop but the patriarch. The Christians in Egypt are for the most part Monophysites. The church of Nubia has been blotted out. The church of Æthiopia or Abyssinia is Monophysite, and acknowledges the Jacobite patriarch of Cairo.
History.—Controversies and Schisms.—To describe the controversies of the Greek Church is to write the history of the church of the first five centuries; in a short sketch like this all that can be done is to mention those causes of division which led (1) to the formation of the schismatic churches of the East, and (2) to the open rupture with Latin Christianity. The great dogmatic work of the Greek Church was the definition of that portion of the creed of Christendom which concerns theology proper, the doctrines of the essential nature of the Godhead, and the doctrine of the Godhead in relation with manhood in the incarnation, while it fell to the Latin Church to define anthropology, or the doctrine of man's nature and needs. The controversies which concern us are all about the person of Christ, the Theanthropos, for they alone are represented in the schismatic churches of the East. These controversies are most easily described, at least for our purpose, by reference to the œcumenical councils of the ancient and undivided church.
Rise of Sects.—All the churches of the East, schismatic as well as orthodox, accept unreservedly the decrees of the first two councils. The schismatic churches protest against the additions made to the creeds of Nicæa and Constant inople by succeeding councils. The Nicæo-Constantin- opolitan creed declared that Christ was consubstantial (ὁμοούσιος) with the Father, and that He had become man (ὲνανθρωπἠσας). Disputes arose when theologians tried to explain the latter phrase. These differences took two separate and extreme types, the one of which forcibly separated the two natures so as to deny anything like a real union, while the other insisted upon a mixture of the two, or an absorption of the human in the divine. The former was the creed of Chaldæa and the latter the creed of Egypt; Chaldæa was the home of Nestorianism, Egypt the land of Monophysitism. The Nestorians accept the decisions of the first two councils, and reject the decrees of all the rest as unwarranted alterations of the creed of Nicæa, The Monophysites accept the first three councils, but reject the decree of Chalcedon and all that come after it.
The council of Ephesus, the third œcumenical, had insisted upon applying the term Theotokos to the Virgin Mary, and this was repeated in the symbol of Chalcedon, which says that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, "according to the manhood." The same symbol also declares that Christ is "to be acknowledged in two natures, . . . indivisibly and inseparably." Hence the Nestorians, who insisted upon the duality of the natures to such a degree as to lose sight of the unity of the person, and who rejected the term Theotokos, repudiated the decrees both of Ephesus and of Chalcedon, and upon the promulgation of the decrees of Chalcedon formally separated from the church. Nestorianism had sprung from an exaggeration of the theology of the school of Antioch, and the schism weakened that patriarchate and its dependencies. It took root in Chaldæa, and became very powerful. No small part of the literature and science of the Mahometan Arabs came from Nestorian teachers, and Nestorian Christianity spread widely. "It was successfully preached to the Bactrians, the Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, the Elamites. The barbaric churches from the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea were almost infinite. . . . The Malabar coast and the Isles of the Ocean, Zocotra and Ceylon, were peopled with an increasing number of Christians. The missionaries of Balkh and Samarcand pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into the valleys of the Imaus and the banks of the Selinga." Their principal bishop took the title of patriarch of Babylon. His seat was later removed to Baghdad and then to Mosul; it is now at Julamerik in Kurdistan. In the 11th century he ruled over twenty-five metropolitans, and his jurisdiction extended from the Tigris to China, from Lake Baikal to South India. Persecutions weakened the church, Timur almost extirpated it. In the 16th century a schism occurred; many of the Nestorians yielded obedience to Rome. The Roman Nestorians are usually called Chaldæans, though all lay claim to the title. At present the patriarch rules over two metropolitans and sixteen suffragan bishops. The Nestorians dwell principally in Kurdistan, though many are found in Mesopotamia and in India. In the latter country they are numerous on the Malabar coast, and are called Thomas Christians.
The council of Chalcedon, the fourth œcumenical, declared that Christ is to be acknowledged "in two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably," and therefore decided against the opinions of all who either believed that the divinity is the sole nature of Christ, or who, rejecting this, taught only one composite nature of Christ (one nature and one person, instead of two natures and one person). The advocates of the one nature theory were called Monophysites, and they gave rise to numerous sects, and to at least three separate national churches — the Jacobites of Syria, the Copts of Egypt, and the Abyssinian Church.
The term "Jacobite" (from Jacobus Baradæus, a Syrian theologian) is properly confined to the Syrian Monophysites, but is sometimes used to denote all the various divisions of this heresy. The Jacobites therefore accept the first three councils and reject those that follow. The Armenian Church does the same, and it is common to class the Armenians with the Jacobites, while some theologians have made them more heretical than the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt (Neale, Holy Eastern Church, Patriarchate of Alexandria, pp. 8-10). This, however, seems a wrong opinion, and the Armenians ought to be reckoned as Orthodox (see Armenian Church). Apart, however, from theological criticism, the Jacobites are arranged under three patriarchates — Antioch, Alexandria, and Armenia. Antioch and Alexandria have intercommunion, but Armenia, in spite of times of reconciliation, stands apart. Under the patriarch of Alexandria is the metran or metropolitan of Abyssinia, and under the patriarch of Antioch the maphrian or primate of the East. The Jacobites or Copts of Egypt greatly outnumber the members of the Orthodox Greek Church there. The patriarch assumes jurisdiction over Egypt, Jerusalem, Nubia, Abyssinia, and the Pentapolis. He now resides in Cairo, and is chosen by lot in a council of all the bishops from a number of monks recommended by four convents to whom belongs this privilege. He has for suffragans the bishops of Menouf, Sherkeyeh, Behnese, Fayoum, Miniyeh, Senabau, Manfalout, Siout, Abuteg, Aschumin, Esne, Kauss and Nekada, and Khartoum. He has besides jurisdiction over twenty-six monasteries, and rules nominally over the Church of Abyssinia.
The Syrian Jacobites also form a patriarchate — the patriarchate of Antioch. While Antioch belonged to the empire the persecution of the state drove the Jacobite patriarch from the city. He settled at Amida, now called Caramit, which is still the ecclesiastical centre. The second dignitary is the maphrian (fruitbearer) of the East, who was originally a missionary bishop to the regions east of the Tigris. He is now settled at Mosul. The Syrian Jacobites
