Nestorianism

This paper is an abject lesson in how communal memory can be formed hundreds of years after the fact through substituting knowledge with organized religion. A curious visitor read back the content of the dedicatory inscription inside the Dome of the Rock and took a transcript in Arabic – only that it happens in unexpected ways during a time far from any suspicion of a monumental fraud.

The primary evidence in this presentation demonstrates that mosaics and inscriptions are creations during the Ottoman era. It also shows that architects of olden times achieved what modern architects long deemed impossible: they completely replaced the inner drum from the ground up to the cupola.

Cyrille, archevêque d'Alexandrie en Égypte (vers 375-444), est un des plus grands exégètes et théologiens de son temps. Il est également un des plus célèbres représentants de l'école théologique alexandrine. Il nous a légué un immense héritage écrit, dont la majeure partie est constituée d‘analyses exégétiques. Dans ses nombreuses oeuvres, il polémique avec les ariens, les païens, les juifs et les nestoriens. Le Commentaire de Cyrille d’Alexandrie sur l’Épître aux Hébreux (CPG 5209 (3)) ne nous est parvenu que dans les fragments contenus dans des chaînes bibliques, des florilèges dogmatiques et chez des auteurs postérieurs. Nous avons traduit de manière critique du grec ancien en français les fragments grecs et latins du Commentaire de Cyrille d’Alexandrie sur l’Épître aux Hébreux tels que les présente l‘édition de P.E. Pusey. Nous avons également traduit en français, à partir de la traduction latine, les fragments arméniens du Commentaire publiés par J. Lebon, qui contribuent beaucoup à l‘étude des fragments grecs et latins.

وضع نسطور أثناء وجوده بالمنفى رسالة قام فيها بتبرير نفسه ونسبها إلى هيراقليدس الدمشقي، احتراساً من إحراقها. فعرف ايفاغريوس سكولاستيكوس (594–536) بوجودها14. فلم يسلم الكتاب على أصله اليوناني الى أيامنا هذه. بيد ان جاثليق كنيسة المشرق مار أبا الاول الذي ذكره كوزماس انديكوبليفتس باسم باتريكيوس، ساح في رحاب بيزنطية كثيراً في أعوام 525-533 وجلب منها مؤلفات نسطور الى بلاد فارس. وفي اعوام539 -540 تمت ترجمة »كتاب هيراقليدس «الى السريانية فأصبح قسماً من تراث كنيسة المشرق على حين نسيه الغرب نسياناً مطلقا. ...

I shall argue that the combination of classical theism and a traditional three-part dyothelite Christology runs afoul of the Two Sons Worry because it cannot offer an account of the hypostatic union. After offering some preliminary remarks, I shall discuss the details of classical theism. Then I shall explain the Two Sons Worry that plagued the traditional three-part dyothelite Christology. After explaining the Two Sons Worry, I shall consider two accounts of the hypostatic union. I shall argue that each account of the hypostatic union fails to avoid the Two Sons Worry.

On Monday, September 11, 2017, we shall meet in St George's Round Church to begin our discussion of The Descent of the Dove. I shall very briefly introduce the work and the character of our consideration of it. We shall move on to consider the Preface and Chapter One, which everyone should have read by then. In particular I shall try to cover the parts of the text I list below. Before giving them, I provide an indication of the approach we shall take.
The Descent of the Dove is, in fact, close to being a complete history of the Christian church. It does not, however, tell the reader that history, but rather reflects on it poetically and theologically. These reflections depend upon a poet’s transformative use of language; this provides the wonderful pleasure and stimulation of thought and imagination the book gives. Understanding all Williams’ reflections depends on two things, one of which we can all bring: slow puzzling contemplative reading. I have been doing that since a wonderful high school teacher from Bedford, Joan Boutilier, a pious member of All Saints Bedford when the Rev’d Walter Harris, the father of Peter and Susan, was Rector, introduced me to Charles Williams when I was 14; she taught English at Halifax West High School. I owe her infinite and unrepayable thanks for this, for getting me to read The Cloud of Unknowing and other classics of Christian mysticism, as well as The White Goddess by that splendid neopagan Robert Graves. This list and the directions of my subsequent work will indicate how much I owe to her. To her this series of talks and discussions is dedicated.

The other requisite is a knowledge of the whole history of the Christian Church, of Christendom, and of Christian theology. This takes a life of study. I shall help with the second.

If your standard of successful reading is to understand what you read when you read it, then you are misplaced in this group. If you are patiently content to begin a process of understanding by rejoicing in the pleasure and stimulation given by flashes of knowledge (on this as the method in theology see Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed) and visions of beauty, then you should be at home. In this spirit I shall sometimes provide indications which very few of you will want, and many of you will not be able, to take up. Substitution, Exchange, Pardon, Co-inherence, life in the City, that into which Williams is attempting to draw you, requires this patience which rejoices in what others understand and loves all the forms of joy including those of ignorance.

The Lake Urmia region in northwest Iran is one often overlooked not
only in terms of Syriac studies, but also when it comes to Eastern Christianity
and especially art and architecture – not the least because many western
scholars have found the area to be inaccessible. Prior to the First World War
this region was an Assyrian Christian cultural centre and, especially from the
1830s onwards, it witnessed an unprecedented renaissance in terms of original
cultural and literary output. Indeed, the Urmia region stands out as one
where the Assyrians were sufficiently numerous and well off enough to develop
excellent skills as stonecutters, copyists, and builders – especially from the sixteenth century onwards.

Peter Yoshirō Saeki was an eminent Japanese scholar who devoted much of his career to the study of Nestorian/Syriac Christianity in China. One overlooked aspect of his work is the development of the concept that Nestorians had both missionary and secular contacts with Japan throughout its premodern history. These controversial theories were taken up by his peers, transported into Western scholarship, and have trickled down to this day in historical, theological and conspiratorial works which are riddled with confusion, truth, and untruth. This paper provides a chronological and contextual history of the genesis and development of Saeki's theories throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries within his own work and in the work of others. It is argued that such theories have been utilised in three broad schools of thought; historical, religious and pseudo-historical. Furthermore, it is suggested that to develop more rigorous theories on a Nestorian presence in Japan it is essential for contemporary scholars to abandon Saeki's paradigm to address the topic with greater clarity and historicity, and to shift away from a reliance on an inherently erroneous set of theories.

The Eucharist is central to Christian doctrine. This may be seen by comparing Oriental Orthodox and Reformed doctrines of the Eucharist.
The Eucharist and debates over it have never simply involved how we speak of the Sacrament in itself. They are always connected to Christological debates as well. This is because our belief about Christ’s Person and Nature lie behind and are revealed in our Eucharistic doctrines.

Cyrille, archevêque d'Alexandrie en Égypte (vers 375-444), est un des plus grands exégètes et théologiens de son temps. Le Commentaire de Cyrille d’Alexandrie sur l’Épître aux Hébreux (CPG 5209 (3)) ne nous est parvenu que dans les fragments contenus dans des chaînes bibliques, des florilèges dogmatiques et chez des auteurs postérieurs. À partir des versets de l‘Épître aux Hébreux, Cyrille réfute l‘arianisme et surtout le dualisme christologique. Dans le Commentaire, Cyrille emploie sa triadologie élaborée avant la controverse nestorienne, il cherche à prouver la divinité du Fils et son égalité avec le Père par nature. Cyrille interprète également les versets de l‘Épître aux Hébreux à partir de sa doctrine christologique, selon laquelle le Verbe est l‘unique sujet des actions et des propriétés divines et humaines du Christ. Lorsque Cyrille s‘oppose aux ariens, il montre la supériorité du Christ en recourant au plan divin. Pour réfuter le dualisme christologique, Cyrille attribue les actions humaines du Christ (le sacerdoce, la naissance de Marie, l‘hérédité, l‘onction par l‘Esprit Saint, les souffrances et la mort, l‘abaissement et l‘exaltation) au sujet du Verbe, mais dans l‘état de kénose.

Prior to the sixteenth century, the Assyrian communities of Hakkari were hardly an important part of the Church of the East which, at that time, was a successful missionary institution strongly rooted in the urban centres of Mesopotamia and Persia. With the subsequent emergence, however, of the Hakkari highlands as the Church’s main stronghold, and the home of its sole Patriarchate, the region’s inhabitants additionally began to increase their significance and dominance in its ecclesiastical organisation, literary output and scribal activity. This was more successfully achieved after the traditionalist Patriarchate of Alqosh united with the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1830, severing the reliance of many Hakkari villages upon that major centre. Nevertheless, as isolated and inconsequential as it had been in its earlier history, the Hakkari region produced some of the most interesting and prolific writers of not only the Church of the East, but also the Syriac world as a whole. These were people who penned treatises and discourses, wrote letters, and composed superb metrical homilies of exquisite quality, as well as vital relevance to the ecclesiastical and spiritual corpus not only of the Church of the East, but also of other Christian denominations. This paper will explore the most well-known Assyrian writers and theologians from Hakkari, from Sahdona of Halmon in the seventh century to Rabban Yonan of Tkhuma (died 1886), briefly detailing what little is known of their lives, achievements and literary works, as well as their historical and cultural significance.

Scheda di approfondimento sul martirio di quattro francescani in India. Thāṇe è una citta oggi compresa nell'area metropolitana di Mumbai (Bombay). Questo martirio è particolarmente interessante sia per la sua rappresentazione da parte di Ambrogio Lorenzetti, sia per l'attestazione di una presenza cristiana siro-orientale nella costa nord-occidentale dell'India nel XIV secolo.

Il file pdf include anche la bibliografia generale di tutti i testi inclusi nel catalogo.

This paper engages with the Christology presented by the Old English poem 'The Dream of the Rood', comparing it to that presented by homilies penned contemporaneously to when we know the poem to have existed in manuscript form. It examines particularly the role of inculturation in presenting the theology in the texts and the challenges and opportunities it presents to authors, and seeks to develop existing readings of the poem in new directions. It is appendixed by a verse translation of 'The Dream of the Rood'.

The objective of the present article is to give a brief, introductory description of some Neo-Aramaic manuscripts belonging to a private collection authored and compiled by Khivron ‘Azīzī (Urmia) that has remained completely unknown to scholars. This collection consists now of 12 manuscripts in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, which are housed together in my own library in Melbourne, Australia. Furthermore, I hope that this description will draw the attention of scholars to the collection, especially for the contents of the manuscripts. More important, maybe, is that this collection gives insight into a most unknown and not well studied period in the history of the Assyrians in Iran, namely the mid to late twentieth century. This encompasses the later years of Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi’s rule as well as the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, and their effects on the Assyrians remaining in Urmia.

Il-Ḵh̲ānid Tabrīz became not only a nodal point in the spatial imagination of Christian merchants and missionaries, but was promoted even to a significant landmark in the Biblical and apocalyptic topography of 13th and 14th century Christianity. As this processes were very much connected to the rise of the city as centre of Mongol Iran, its prominence on the (mental) maps dwindled with its political and mercantile importance; yet, the case of Tabrīz provides a most interesting example for the imagination and organisation of space respectively the modification and adaption of these phenomena within the Christian communities confronted with the rise and fall of Mongol power in Iran.

“Nestorianism”, “Syrian Eastern Church”, “Church of the East”, “East Syrian Christianity”, “Religion of Light” – these are just some of the many names of early Christianity, which reached the Tang empire during the first half of the 7th century. In the Syriac sources it is known as the Eastern Church (in Syriac ʿĒdtāʾ d-Maḏnḥāʾ) or the Assyrian Church of the East (in Syriac ʿĒdtāʾ d-Maḏnḥāʾ d-Āturāyē). In Chinese sources we find that religion named as jǐngjiào 景教 (Luminous Religion, Illustrious Religion, or Brilliant Religion). Spread of the Christian religion to China during the Tang dynasty is one of the most important products of the contacts between Europe and East Asia along the Silk Road. Eastern Christianity in China was present in two periods: the Tang Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty. First Christian presence in China is reliably proven with the existence of a Nestorian community in the 7th century. However, there are indications that Christianity spread to China earlier. In my paper I will focus on some Tang Dynasty Nestorian sources.

The present study examines the social history of the Graeco-Arabic translation movement from the perspective of the Christian communities that participated in it. Special attention is given to Melkite and Nestorian translators active in ʿAbbāsid Baghdad from the late eighth-century Melkite translator al-Biṭrīq to the famous ninth-century Nestorian translator Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and to the complex interactions between Melkites and Nestorians, which involved both competition and scholarly collaboration.

For nearly fifteen centuries, the rugged highlands of Hakkari served as a cradle of Syriac Christianity and a refuge for adherents of the Church of the East, from which they could protect themselves from persecution. The mountain stronghold of Qudshanis served as the patriarchate of this Church and, from there, its catholicos-patriarchs served as both the spiritual and temporal leaders of the semi-independent Assyrian tribes. This situation, however, was ended entirely with the expulsion of Hakkari’s Assyrians to Iran in 1915 and Iraq in 1924. With this, some 265 churches, monasteries, chapels, and shrines within the current boundaries of Hakkari province alone were left behind to their fate.

Since the dispossession of the Assyrians and their subsequent abandonment of their places of worship, these have undergone various stages of desecration. These entailed their slow conversion into stables, storage spaces, houses and mosques, with a small minority completely destroyed to build new residences, mosques or military bases. In the last twenty years, however, the trend has been toward outright damage and destruction as treasure hunters search in vain for fabled gold in the remaining structures. Of the 103 churches that have been located and photographed or studied, 68 are somewhat intact or in various stages of collapse, while 35 have been completely destroyed, with some of them requiring archaeological excavation.

The situation now is dire. If something is not done to preserve what remains, the entire memory of Hakkari’s Assyrians, and their historical contributions to the region, will be lost forever. Without a valid presence in Turkey since 1924, the Church of the East is unable to do enough to legally contest their current state, or work on an international agreement for their preservation. Since the eruption of hostilities between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish government in 1984, the Turkish Culture Ministry has been reluctant to authorize or contribute to any restoration efforts for threatened Christian places of worship in Hakkari, citing that they are in war zones and such efforts could be wasted in the end. This paper, after providing a background, will go through this current state of confusion, attempts at finding solutions, and possible options available to all stakeholders.

This article offers a historical analysis of different attitudes toward Nestorius of Constantinople which became "traditional" and which formed opposing tendencies in various branches of Christianity. The main focus of the article is on the origins of veneration of Nestorius in the East-Syriac tradition as well as on the frequent attempts of those who condemn Nestorius to erase his name from the books of the Church of the East.

本文章以对聂斯脱利不同的态度为研究对象。随着时间所有的态度成了“传统的”， 而在不同的基督教的宗派里形成了互相对立的立场。文章关注聂斯脱利在东方亚述教会里的所给予的尊敬、经常责备聂斯脱利的人士 怎样试图在东方亚述教会的课文上取消他的名字的问题。

The text and translation of the selected letters presented here (twenty-one in all) forms part of a hitherto unpublished corpus of letters in Syriac, Neo-Aramaic and Arabic written and sent during the 1880’s from Mosul to Berlin by Gabriel Jeremiah Shāmīr to Carl Eduard Sachau. The former was a local Assyrian book-collector and copyist whilst the latter was a renowned Orientalist and prolific scholar who edited and translated many Syriac and Arabic works.

La question d’image reste un sujet sensible dans le dialogue entre les chrétiens et les musulmans. Pour l’aborder, l’article commence par une courte présentation des principales caractéristiques de
l’attitude des musulmans à l’égard des images et de l’art en général. Afin de brosser un tableau assez complet des réactions chrétiennes à cette attitude, l’article présente les textes écrits par les auteurs chrétiens qui représentent les trois traditions syriaques: les melkites, les syriaques occidentaux (monophysites) et les orientaux (nestoriens). Les auteurs syriaques ont élaboré des théologies de l’image peu connues, mais particulièrement originales. Leurs réponses reflètent un éventail des conceptions chrétiennes de l’image, héritées du judaïsme, élaborées au long des confrontations avec le polythéisme anthropomorphe des
Grecs et à partir du 8e siècle soumises à des vérifications théologiques par la crise de l’iconoclasme byzantin. Cet héritage théologique est déployé
en faveur du culte des images, mais de manière la mieux adaptée qui soit à l’interlocuteur musulman et avec toujours une plus grande connaissance de l’islam.

St. John Damascene’s writings on heresies – specifically those texts against Nestorianism and Monophysitism – demonstrate a careful consideration of how thin the line is between schism and heresy. In the texts on heresies, Damascenus endeavors to reread the separation of certain Churches as an ecclesial problem and not only a theological problem. His writings blur the lines between heresy, normally a theological concern, and schism, an ecclesiastical term normally reserved for the separation of Christian Churches.

St. John Damascene’s teachings against heresies fit well within the culture of florilegia and compilations. John’s goal, particularly in the De haeresibus, seems to have been to contribute scholarly to the growing world of anti-heretical texts. His texts add to the already large list of known heresies, providing heresies that arose after the council of Chalcedon.

Yet John’s texts against heresies are not meant simply to combat false teachings. In some cases, particularly Monophysitism, Damascenus contends that the terms used by orthodox (pro-Chalcedonian) Christians and Monophysite Christians mean the same thing. We must read the Liber de haeresibus in the context of his other writings (e.g. Contra Jacobitas or Contra Nestorianos) in order to determine his true purpose. These definitions aim not to divide Christians based only on teachings, but to show the common understanding present in Christology in spite of different vocabulary. With a proper understanding of heresy, John of Damascus is able to provide a more complete description of the schisms in the Church of his time.

Draft for the workshop: “Linking the Mediterranean. Regional and Trans-Regional Interactions in Times of Fragmentation (300 -800 CE)”, Vienna, 11th-13th December 2014 (see: https://www.academia.edu/9238221/Linking_the_Mediterranean_Regional_and_Trans-Regional_Interactions_in_Times_of_Fragmentation_300_-800_CE_)

While Michael McCormick in his “Origins of the European Economy” has highlighted the dynamics of connectivity between Western Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and thus also ultimately confuted the thesis of Henri Pirenne on a destruction of the unity of the Mediterranean in this period, a similar approach towards the connections within the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond would provide equally significant results for the “Origins of Eurasian Economy”. In my paper, I will focus especially on the mobility of individuals, objects, technologies and ideas between the spheres of Byzantium respectively Persia and Central Asia and the “Far East”, traditionally connected with the master narrative of the “Silk Road”.
The notion of the “Silk Road” suggests linear routes between two localities, while recent scholarship has illuminated the “multiplexity” of commercial, political or religious ties among places on the local, regional and trans-regional level. Within these complex and dynamic networks over several spatial and temporal scales emerged processes of religious, intellectual or artistic diffusion.
I survey some selected developments and intensities of long-distance connectivity, especially from the perspective of some important intermediary regions, for the period between 550 and 850 CE. Second, I focus on what C. A. Bayly in his “Birth of the Modern World” (2003) has called the lateral and the vertical dimension of phenomena of “global” diffusion and exchange: the spatial range of mobility and communication of individuals and objects which connected localities and clusters of localities along the “Silk routes” – and the vertical dimension of the impact of the material and immaterial artefacts of these exchange in the respective local societies. Finally, I link these observations with some discussions on the character of exchange and socio-economic integration in the Roman and Post-Roman world as well as with some general models of connectivity.

A look into the Judeo-Dravidian origins of the native Malankara Nasrani Christians, otherwise known as St. Thomas Christians of Malabar.

Probably Malankara Nazranies(St.Thomas Christians for the western world ) have long been wrongly identified by Christendom.B ut thanks to new researches and evidence based on scientific methodology followed in modern historiography ,we are on the right track in identifying one of the oldest Christians(probably more suitable term is Religion of Yeshu or Followers of Yeshu) of the world.

Syriac Christianity always quarreled to take custodianship of Malankara Nazranies, especially Nestorians and Syriac Orthodox. Colonialist churches like Roman Catholics were later day entrant to this race. Unfortunately far away from the Roman or Persian empire, Malankara Nazranies kept their identity and heritage entirely different and intact from these colonial /subjugating churches of the western world.

Though much damage has been done by these colonizers, Malankara Nazranies are on their path to identify their self-respect and original history.

This is one of the articles describing( though peripherally ) the subject well for initial reading.

This thesis studies the fifth-century christological controversy surrounding Cyril of Alexandria (c. 378-444) and Nestorius of Constantinople (c. 381-451) and their debate around the person and nature of Jesus Christ, sparked by the theotokos dispute. At the First Council of Ephesus (431) the christologies of these two bishops and theologians were pitted against each other, and have since been studied in contrast to one another. The goal of this study is to examine the christologies of Cyril and Nestorius with the intention to seek reconciliation between the two. In the Introduction I first orient the reader to the problem and issues at stake, then examine issues of source material used, and finally I define the sources which formulated the christologies of Cyril and Nestorius. Chapter One begins the effort to determine the roots each theologian’s christology by examining the hermeneutical, soteriological, and philosophical underpinnings of their respective “schools” of Alexandria and Antioch. In Chapter Two I carefully develop the core christology of Cyril and Nestorius, highlighting their major features and points of contention. In Chapter Three I begin the move towards reconciling the two diverging christologies by noting the strengths and weaknesses of each, as well as points of agreement, finally setting each as the “edges” of an orthodox description of the Incarnation. In the Conclusion I summarize my thesis statement, while noting areas to improve this study and needs of further contribution to the field of Cyrilline and Nestorian studies.

Since his autocracy to his death, Constantine the Great helped the Christianity to be the main religion to all over the empire. This period of time many heresies appeared. They put the unity of Christianity and its teaching in a great danger. Educated people as Arius, Apollinarius, Marcellus, Eunomius and Macedonius tried to explained the nature of God, His actions and His names according to human relationships, their thoughts and their beliefs. The result was a catastrophe, because new heresies were introduced to the Empire. Orthodox Fathers, as Athanasius the Great and Cappadocians Fathers tried to disprove the heresies with success. Upon to these fathers teaching, the First and the Second Ecumenical Councils managed to base their doctrines and to preserve the true teaching and doctrines of Christianity.

The “Book of Sessions” (Kitāb al-majālis) of Elias of Nisibis, Metropolitan of the Church of the East (975–1046), with his Muslim vis-à-vis, vizier Abū ʾl-Qāsim al-Maghribī (981–1027), is a remarkable example of the Christian Arabic literature of the 11th c.—the time of the flowering of the Arabic culture. In the present edition, it is compared with the “Epistle” of Elias to the vizier and some documents that reveal the history of the creation of the “Book” are also taken into consideration.