NESTORIUS, from whom the sect of Nestorian Christians derive their name, was born in Germanica, a city of Syria. He received his education at Antioch, where he was likewise baptized; and soon afterwards he withdrew to a monastery in the suburbs of that city. Upon being admitted into the order of priesthood, he acquired so great reputation, by the eloquence of his preaching, and the regularity of his life, that the Emperor Theodosius deemed him a fit person to fill the second see in the Christian church; and he was accordingly consecrated Bishop of Constantinople in the year 429. In one of his first sermons after his promotion, he publicly declared his intention to make war upon heretics, and called upon the emperor to free the earth from heretics, promising to give him heaven as a reward for his zeal; and adding, ∙ ζ Join with me in war against them, and I will assist you against the Persians.” Although the wiser and better part of his audience were amazed to see a man, before he had tasted the water of his city, as an historian expresses it, declare that he would persecute all who were not of his opinion, yet the majority of the people approved of this discourse, and encouraged him to execute his purpose. Accordingly, five days after his consecration, he attempted to demolish the church in which the Arians secretly held their assemblies; and he succeeded so far in his design, that these people, rendered desperate, set it on fire of their own accord, by which means it was consumed, along with some of the neighbouring houses. This fire excited great commotions in the city, and Nestorius was ever afterwards called an incendiary.

From the Arians he turned his persecution against the Novations, but was checked in his career by the interposition of the emperor. He then let loose his fury upon those Christians of Asia, Lvdia, and Caria, who celebrated the feast of Easter upon the fourteenth day of the moon; and for this unimportant deviation from the Catholic practice, many of these people were murdered by his agents, both at Miletum and Sardis. One can scarcely regret that such a relentless persecutor should himself have been afterwards condemned as a heretic, for holding an opinion which no man out of the church of Rome will now venture to controvert. The obnoxious tenet which produced a schism in the church, and was condemned by a general council, consisted in maintaining that the Virgin Mary cannot with propriety be called the mother of God. The people being accustomed to hear this expression, were much inflamed against their bishop, imagining that he had revived the error of Paul of Samosata and Photinus, who taught that Jesus Christ was a mere man. The monks declared openly against him, and, along with some of the most considerable men of Constantinople, separated themselves from his communion. Several bishops wrote to him, earnestly urging him to acknowledge that Mary was the mother of God; and when he refused to comply,* they procured his condemnation in the council of Ephesus, which deprived him of his see. He then withdrew to his former retreat at Antioch, whence, four years afterwards, he was removed by the emperor’s order, and in 435 banished to Tarsus; and when that city was taken and destroyed by the barbarians, he was transferred to Panopolis, a city of Thebais. But he was not suffered to remain long there, and being compelled to wander from place to place, having received a severe bruise in one of his journeys, death soon relieved him from the rage of his persecutors.

If we examine such of his writings as remain, we shall find that he was unjustly condemned. It appears that he rejected the errors of Ebion, Paul of Samosata, and Photinus; that he maintained in express terms, that the Divine Word was united to the human nature in Jesus Christ in the most strict and intimate sense possible; that these two natures, in this state of hypostatical union, make but one Christ and one person; that the properties of the divine and human natures may both be attributed to this person; and that Jesus Christ may be said to have been born of a virgin, to have suffered and died. But he would never admit that God could be said to have been born, to have suffered, or to have died.