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CHAPTER II

THE SYRIAN NESTORIANS

 

Zachariah of Mitylene, Chronicle (Eng. trans. in "Byzantine Texts," 1899); Asseman, Biblioth. Oriental. tome iv.; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap, xlvii.; Badger, Nestorians and their Ritual, 1862; The Book of Governors; The Historia Monastica of Thomas, bishop of Marga, a.d. 840, edited from Syrian manuscripts, etc., by G. Wallis Budge, 1893; Etheridge, Syrian Churches, 1846; Nöldeke Geschichte der Persen.

 

The rise and progress of the Nestorians offers us one of the greatest surprises in history. By condemning them as heretics the council of Ephesus (a.d. 431) unwittingly gave them their opportunity. Church councils have succeeded in crushing movements which had not obtained much popular support. But no decree of a council has ever destroyed a powerful heresy. The great days of Arianism came after it had been anathematised by the Nicene Council. The case of Nestorianism is even more significant. The triumph of the Arians was due to imperial patronage; but the Nestorians were not favoured with that encouragement. Cast out of the empire, they brought fresh life to the Syrian Church beyond its borders, and stimulated an enthusiastic missionary movement which rapidly spread eastward like a prairie fire, covering wide areas of Central Asia.

Cyril of Alexandria had snatched a victory at Ephesus by a stroke of smart tactics;^[1] but he was too astute a politician to deceive himself with the supposition that this had ended his difficulties. Having secured the condemnation of Nestorius, he was not unwilling to conciliate the

1. See p. 96.

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