Nestorianism and The Church of The East

My previous post on the subject of the Nestorian Schisim was a bit mistaken.  The actual Council of Calchedon happened after Cyril of Alexandria and Theodosius II had died.  And Miaphysite Christians tend to identify themselves as being the true followers of Cyril.

YouTuber Ryan Reeves has a series of informative videos on Church History, but they reflect his bias as a Protestant of the Reformed tradition.  He also reflects the very Western Bias in how we tend to view Church History, including when he talks about Nestorius as if the opposing side was the one vindicated by History.  Because the Church that did not condemn Nesotrius may well have actually been larger then all of Calchedonian Christendom at some points during the Middle Ages.

Catholic Apologists will often attempt to smear Protestants by associating them with Nestorianism, chiefly because of the refusal to call Mary by the title Theotokos (Mother of God or God Bearer).  Protestants will respond by saying something like "Nesotrius was disputing the title's technical accuracy while we're concerned with quasi deification".  The thing is it's not like the Nesotrian controversy was already raging and then the Theotokos dispute was a symptom, it was the inciting incident, that's how it started.  And there are other ways in which Nestorians have been compared to Protestants.

In my opinion the core disagreement between Calchedonians, Miaphysites and Nestorians is semantical.  They all view Jesus as both Divine and Human, and as not being one more then He is the other.  Critics of Nestorius have greatly exaggerated the implications of what he taught, there is nothing "Schizophrenic" about the Nestorian view of Jesus because the issue in mind is His Nature(s) not His Personality.  Still, if I had to choose, the Nestorian position on this is the least likely to be the one I'd take, I prefer to think of Deity and Humanity as united or made one in Christ.  So I'm going to defend Nestorians not out of intellectual agreement but out of respect for their Labor for The Gospel.

Ryan Reeves seems to feel that the Nestorian view is a problem for the doctrine of Salvation, specifically of Jesus dying as our substitute. Jesus was our substitute because He was of Adam's flesh and blood, but was without Sin, He was tempted but never sinned.  And it was only His Divinity that made that Sinslessness possible.  The semantic technicalities of how they relate are irrelevant to that.  So no, what Nestorius taught was not inherently related to the Pelagian Hersey.  It is also wrong to suggest that Nestorius believed in something bordering on Adoptionism as Ryan Reeves makes it sound.

The Ancient Church of the East or Assyrian Orthodox Church, does not really call themselves Nestorian.  They refused to condemn him as a Heretic and for that reason rejected the 3rd and all following Ecumenical Councils, but his teachings are not considered core defining doctrines of their Church.  Now there are people who would call themselves Nestorians both within and without that Church, but that position is not the definition of the Church itself.  And I've seen Church of the East followers say they agree that the doctrine that was condemned at Ephesus 1 was Heresy, they just view it as wrong to attribute that to Nestorius.

Before the Council of Ephesus even happened the Christians who were east of what the Roman Empire controlled were already becoming isolated from the Roman Church, partly because the persecutions they faced from the Persian Government were often politically justified by their being associated with a foreign rival nation.

The Council of Ephesus in 431 was really two Councils, one lead by Cyril, who started it before most Bishops likely to be sympathetic to Nestorius arrived, that excommunicated Nestorius without him even being there.  And then when the other Bishops arrived they held their own council that excommunicated Cyril.  The Anti-Nestorius ruling became the official position of the Roman Church essentially because Theodosius II decided they were the valid one, because his sister was good friends with Cyril sharing her immense hatred of The Jews.  So the Christians outside the Roman Empire had very good justification to simply reject those proceedings altogether.

Christianity had reached Iraq and Persia very early on.  Acts 2:9 lists Jews and Proselytes of Mesopotamia, Elam, Media and Parthia as present at Pentecost.  I also firmly believe Peter was exactly where he said he was when he wrote his First Epistle, and in response to some criticism of that I am going in the future to argue he may have wrote it there before 41 AD.  I also have my theory that Helena, Izates II and Monobaz II of Adiabene may have been Christians.  And Osroene/Edessa was definitely a Christian region before 200 AD because of the Conversion of Abgar VIII also sometimes called Abgar IX.  Traditions also say Simon Zelotes and Thaddeus/Jude of the 12 may have come to Edessa and other parts of Mesopotamia.

So the Christian Communities that rejected Ephesus had deeper roots then those in Rome, Alexandria and Constantinople.

And then the Fifth Ecumenical Council/Second Council of Constantinople's condemnation of the previously consistently viewed as Orthodox Theodore of Mopsuestia as well as certain writings of Theodoret and Ibas of Edessa for their tenuous association with Nestorius, further drove many more Christians of the Schools of Antioch and Edessa out of the Roman Church.  If any Ecumenical Council was the product of the then Roman Emperor asserting his will it was this one.  Justinian had the idea in his head that the way to bring the Calchedonian and Miaphysite Churches back together was to crack down even harder on the Nestorians, it of course didn't work, it only created more divisions.

Antioch was kind of Paul's base of operations in the Book of Acts.  But it's also interesting how the region where Antioch is was part of the Assyrian Empire in the time of Isaiah.  So one could argue it's Antioch and Mesopotamia becoming Christian that partly fulfilled the later part of Isaiah 19.

Nestorianism is thought to have had some presence in Pre-Islamic Arabia, with figures in the biography of Muhammad sometimes said to be either Nestorians or Ebonites depending on who you read.
 http://www.tentmaker.org/books/Retribution/retribution26.htm
But one figure of the Church of the East who definitely was born in Arabia was Isaac of Nineveh, born in the region of Beth Qatraye in Eastern Arabia in 613 AD, three years after Muhammad has his first vision.  He lived to the year 700 AD.

Actually it may be much of the reason for this association is how many Christian Communities of Arabia were moved to Mesopotamia by early Caliphs.  So they became part of the Assyrian Communion and basically merged with them making their background also part of the Eastern Church's background.

I recommend this YouTube Video.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhdLKBKNf0I

It talks about a Monument in China erected in about 780 AD commemorating Christians of the Church of the East coming to China in about 635 AD.  One thing it suggested was that by the time this monument was erected the Church of the East may have been twice the Size of the Western Church.

Claims of the Church of the East reaching Japan are more controversial.  They tend to get tied into speculation about the Hata Clan which in turn gets tied into Lost Tribes coming to Japan theories.  Those theories I have an interest in, but the thing left out is that the Hata Clan arrived and become prominent in Japan before when the Nestorians reached China according to the above video.

Also difficult to investigate are the claims of a Maru Toma who was in Japan during the time of Prince Shotoku (574-622).

However a claim I do find fairly plausible is that a Persian Missionary known as Rimitsui arrived in Nara in 735 AD during the reign of Emperor Shomu (724-749) and that his wife Empress Komyu might have converted.  However these Christians were probably always a small Minority in Japan just as the Catholics have been since they arrived.

Another important factor in the History of Nestorian Christianity in Asia were the Keraites, a Turkic-Mongol Tribe who converted about 1000 AD.  For a time they were the dominant political force in what we today call Mongolia until they were conquered by Genghis Kahn.  The adoptive father of Genghis Kahn Toghrul was a ruler of the Keraites.

So if either side of the 431 Schism should be viewed as the Heretics who broke off from the true Church, it would be the Roman side.