NESTORIANS, a sect of ancient Christians, who held that Mary was not the mother of God. They received their name from Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, whose doctrines were spread with much zeal throughout Syria, Egypt, and Persia. One of the chief promoters of the Nestorian cause was Barsumas, who appears to have been created Bishop of Nisibis in the year 435. Such were his zeal and success, that the Nestorians considered him alone as their parent and founder. By him Pherozes the Persian monarch was persuaded to expel those Christians who had adopted the opinions of the Greeks; to admit the Nestorians in their place; and to put the latter in possession of the principal seat of ecclesiastical authority in Persia, namely, the see of Seleucia. Barsumas also erected at Nisibis a school, from which proceeded those Nestorian doctors who in the fifth and sixth centuries spread their tenets throughout Egypt, Syria, Arabia, India, Tartary, and China. He differed considerably from Nestorius, in holding that there are two persons in Jesus Christ, as well as that the virgin was not his mother as God, but only as man. The abettors of this doctrine refuse the title Nestorian«, alleging that it had been handed down from the earliest times of the Christian church. In the tenth century, the Nestorians in Chaldaea, whence they were sometimes called Chaldaeans, extended their spiritual conquests beyond the Imaus, and introduced the Christian religion into Tartary properly so called, espe [7:16:105] cially into the country bordering on the northern part of China. The prince of that country, whom the Nestorians converted to the Christian faith, is said to have assumed, after his baptism, the name of John, to which, from a principle of modesty, he added the surname of presbyter; and hence it is said that his successors were each of them called Prester John until the time of Ghengis Khan. But Mosheim observes, that the famous Prester John did not begin to reign in that part of Asia before the conclusion of the eleventh century. The Nestorians formed so considerable a body of Christians, that the missionaries of Rome were industrious in their endeavours to reduce them under the papal yoke; and for this purpose Innocent IV. in 1246, and Nicoas IV. in 1278, employed their utmost efforts, but without success. Till the time of Julius III. the Nestorians acknowledged but one patriarch, who resided first at Bagdad, and afterwards at Mosul; but a division having arisen amongst them, in the year 1551 the patriarchate became divided, at least for a time, and Julius consecrated a new patriarch, whose successors fixed their residence in the city of Ormus, in the mountainous part of Persia, where they were distinguished by the name of Simeon. The great Nestorian pontiffs, who form the opposite party, and look with a hostile eye on this patriarch, have since the year 1559 been distinguished by the name of Elias, and reside constantly in the city of Mosul. Their spiritual dominion is very extensive, including a great part of Asia, and comprehending also within its circuit the Arabian Nestorians, and the Christians of St Thomas, who dwell along the coast of Malabar. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the Catholic missionaries gained over to the communion of Rome a small number of Nestorians, whom they formed into a congregation or church, the patriarchs or bishops of which resided in the city of Amida, or Diarbekir, and all assumed the denomination of Joseph. But the Nestorians in general persea'ered in their refusal to enter into the communion of the Church of Rome.