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Between 410 and 424, the Church of the East organised itself in a way that would have been familiar in the West. The Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was, if grudgingly, accepted as the Metropolitan, by the other five five sees into which the Church was ordered. But, as the Creed showed, the Church was autonomous, with its own liturgical language – Syriac – and its own liturgy. Any idea that all churches were in some way under the authority of Rome was an idea unknown in the East. It was the collision with the ecclesiastical and theological problems of the Church in the West which was to decisively shape the future, and fate, of the Church of the East.
My co-author has written on St Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius and on the controversy over the nature of Christ, so I will not trespass on that here, except to say that the Church of the East was not involved in the controversy either at Ephesus in 431, or Chalcedon in 451, although it was profoundly effected by both.
Geographically, the Church of the East was closest to Antioch, and thus to its theological school. Although, as scholars now emphasise, one should not over-emphasise the term, the School of Antioch ’ held a ‘Word/Man’ (Logos/Anthropos) Christology, which emphasised the complete humanity of Our Lord, including a soul; it tended to see the perfection and obedience of Our Lord as man as the root of our salvation; the Incarnation was ‘the word’ with a human body and soul. It grew out of a struggle against Appolinarian and Docetist notions of Christology, which tended to mean that at its extreme it could sound as though it was ‘adoptionist’ in the manner of Paul of Samosata; its classical representatives are often taken to be Diodore of Tarsus (c.330-390), Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350-430) and Nestorius of Constantinople. Because of its emphasis upon the two natures, it could be (and was by those in Alexandria on the look out for it) taken as preaching a doctrine of ‘two Sons’.
Because the Church of the East knew the West mainly through Antioch, and because its own Christology drew on the same roots – that is an historical approach with close-reading of the texts – it came under the same suspicion as they did at Ephesus and then at Chalcedon.
Nestorius, a pupil of Theodore, took the Antiochene view that it was the child of Mary who suffered and died on the Cross, and that therefore it was better to make this clear by calling her ‘Anthropotokos’ – mother of the man Jesus. That opened up several large chests of worms: the tendency of Antioch to write about two natures in a Dyophysite manner, and the fear of Alexandria, where the cult of the Theotokos was strong, that Constantinople was trying to push the Church in an heretical direction.
Here, if we are to understand what happened next, and why the Church of the East ended up being called ‘Nestorian’, it is necessary to say something about the theological terms used and about the languages in which they were expressed.
Keeps being fascinating, competing sort of theologies, ambition and human drama-what could be better.
Thank you – we’ll see. Tomorrow’s involves some wrestling with language, and I can only hope I get it right
I’m going to be spending some dictionary time, I fear, hope I can figure out what you’re talking about.
It is taking me a lot of time – and I hope I have provided a set of definitions which will make sense
You are, it’s nearly a different vocabulary for me, which is not a bad thing using the proper word cuts down on misunderstanding, after all.
I hope so – tomorrow’s one is a right tongue-twister
Sometimes it’s necessary, and you work in a field with an unusually high percentage of somewhat obscure terms-which of course is why I rarely blog professional electrical things, it takes three posts to make sense of one- but yours are of far greater interest and so worth the effort.
Thank you for the encouragement – I have tried hard to make it clear. We’ll see tomorrow
Looks like I will be at home tomorrow as heavy snow is forecast.
Certainly beats being stuck along the road. You’re making it clear to me, anyway. If you’re not to others they can certainly chime in.
Let’s see how it goes.
Indeed
I’m on the verge of searching for a “Church of the East for dummies” write at Amazon over here…
I am thoroughly enamored by this, Jess. I literally had no clue of all of this history. As soon as I’ve concreted a better understanding of how the canon was established, I’m headed for a better grasp of this. Really enjoying this series, although time hasn’t allowed me to keep up… hoping to catch up though. A quick question of curiosity, if you know? When one reads from works such as the Ante-Nicene Fathers, is there no coverage of the East? I’ve downloaded some of these volumes, but have yet to spend time in them. Thanks for your revealing work.
Mike, Jess will probably add more but Dr. Wilmshurst’s book is available over here at least from Amazon, although not in electronic form. I looked and it is on my wish list, although I need to budget a bit for it, like all good things, it’s not terribly inexpensive an around $60-70, which is not bad for a limited audience book.