first general principle about the name for anything at all is to follow common use. We speak in order to be understood. A name is only a label; as long as there is no doubt as to the thing labelled, it does not much matter which it is. Secondly, no reasonable man wants to call any body or institution by a gratuitously offensive name. It is the most childish idea that you gain anything merely by calling people ugly names. It follows then that, whatever you may think about an institution, you should, as a general rule, call it by its own name for itself. This becomes, of course, merely a technical label; no one thinks that you mean really to concede what the name may imply.
In the case of the Churches here described we have this result:—The Nestorians must be so called. It is the name used universally for them since the fifth century. They do not resent it in the least. They glory in the memory of the Blessed Nestorius, and they use it for themselves.[1] A fashion is growing up among their Anglican friends of avoiding the word because (it is alleged) they do not really hold the heresy associated with Nestorius's name, nor were they founded by him. As for the heresy, it is now urged that Nestorius himself did not teach it; so the name need not in any case connote any theory about our Lord's personality. They do not admit that they were founded by Nestorius. Of course not. They claim that their religion was founded by Jesus Christ. So do all Christians. We can hardly call them Christians as a special name. What is certain is that they went into schism, broke with the rest of Christendom, as defenders of the theory condemned by Ephesus. And what other name are we to use? Chaldee will not do. It is always used for the Uniates. People have tried "the Persian Church"; "the Turkish Church" would be as good. Or the "East Syrian Church": that is better; but there are so many East Syrian Churches. Jacobites, Orthodox, Uniates of various kinds, all abound in East Syria, besides this one little sect. The favourite name now among their Anglican sympathizers seems to be "the Assyrian Church." This is the worst of all. They are Assyrians in no possible sense. They live in one corner of what was once the Assyrian Empire. Their land was also once covered by the Babylonian Empire.
