History of the missions of the American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions to the oriental churches, Volume I.

by Rufus Anderson

CHAPTER XI.

THE NESTORIANS.

1833-1836.

The facts brought to light by Messrs. Smith and Dwight respecting the Nestorians, made it the duty of the American Board to commence a mission among them. Accordingly in January, 1833, the Rev. Justin Perkins, then a tutor in Amherst College, was appointed the first missionary to that people; and Mr. Smith, being ready to return to the Mediterranean, having published his "Researches in Armenia and Persia," it was decided that Mr. Perkins should accompany him as far as Malta. They received their official instructions together, in the chapel of the Theological Seminary at Andover, on a Sabbath evening in September, and the two brethren embarked, with their wives, on the 21st of that month. Mr. Perkins, in the interval, had been prostrated by a fever, but it was deemed safe for him to proceed, and his recovery was so rapid that he was soon able to administer to the comfort of his associates at sea.

"Your first duty among the Nestorians," said the Prudential Committee in their instructions to Mr. Perkins, "will be to cultivate an intimate acquaintance with the religious opinions and sentiments of the Nestorians. You are aware that, excepting the information collected by Messrs. Smith and Dwight, during the few days they were at Oroomiah, almost all we know concerning that sect in modern times, is derived from papal writers. The learned investigations of some of these entitle them to high honor, and may be of great use to you, in the way of furnishing topics for inquiry, but the Committee wish the information which you communicate concerning the present state of the Nestorian Church, to be the result of your own personal investigations; at least to be thus corroborated. The churches of this country ought to be accurately informed as to the number of the Nestorians, their places of residence, their doctrines, rites, morals, education, etc. Whether you will be able at present, with a due regard for personal safety, to penetrate the Koordish mountains, and visit the Nestorian Patriarch, is very doubtful. But the journey should be performed as soon as may be, lest interested and perverse men should prejudice his mind against you."

After stating that they should take pains to show the Nestorians, that they had no intention of subjecting them to any foreign ecclesiastial power; and showing that the acknowledgment of the New Testament, as the only authoritative standard of religious truth, made them stand on common ground with the people to whom they were sent; it was stated, that their main object would be to enable the Nestorian Church, through the grace of God, to exert a commanding influence in the regeneration of Asia.

"Concentrated effort," it was added, "is effective effort. There is such a thing as attempting too much. Many a missionary has attempted such great things, and so many, in a new field, that he has accomplished little, and perhaps nothing as he ought. Your surveys may extend over a great surface; but a richer and speedier harvest will crown your labors, if your cultivation is applied to a single field."

The Nestorians are a branch of the ancient Christian Church, and derive their name from Nestorius, a native of Syria and Bishop of Constantinople, who was excommunicated by the third General Council at Ephesus, in the year 431. The cause of his condemnation was probably the desire to humble the occupant of the see of Constantinople, which had begun to eclipse its sister patriarchates, rather than any real doctrinal errors. He was banished to Arabia Petræa, then to Libya, and finally died in Upper Egypt. But his cause was the cause of his countrymen, and he had influential friends in the patriarchate of Antioch, who denied the fairness of his trial and the justice of his condemnation. His case was ardently espoused by many young men from Persia in the famous school of Edessa (now Oorfa), and though these were expelled, and the school itself was destroyed in the year 489, by order of the Emperor Zeno, the banished youths carried home with them a warm sympathy for Nestorius, and various causes combined to extend it among the Persian ecclesiastics. In the year 498, the sect had so multiplied, as to have the appointment of the Archbishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, who then declared himself Patriarch of the East.

"This sect continued to flourish, though occasionally persecuted, under the Persians, the Saracens, and the Tartars. They had celebrated schools for theology and general education. For centuries they maintained missions in Tartary, China, and other eastern regions. Their churches were scattered from Syria and Cyprus to Pekin, and from the coast of Malabar and Ceylon to the borders of Siberia. Early in the eleventh century, Unkh Khan, a Tartar prince on the northern borders of China, invited Nestorian missionaries among his people, and himself became the famous Prester John. Gengis Khan and several of his sons and grandsons, who conquered China and almost all Asia and a part of Europe, were connected with Prester John by marriage. Several of them had Christian wives, and one of them at least professed himself a Christian. Under some of this dynasty, Central Asia was comparatively a civilized country; and Christian travellers passed with safety from the banks of the Euphrates to Samarcand and Pekin. Some of the Chinese emperors favored Christianity, and ordered the erection of numerous churches. Meanwhile the sword of Moslem fanaticism was advancing eastward. Bagdad fell before it, and all the country on the Euphrates; then Persia, then Cabul, and the regions of the north. The Nestorian Church being thus crushed at home, its missions languished. And finally, about the year 1400, Tamerlane, who has been called 'the greatest of conquerors,' swept like a whirlwind over the remains of Nestorian Christianity, prostrating everything in his course."1

1 Tracey's History, p. 312. See also Missionary Herald for 1838, pp. 289-298. Narses on being expelled from Edessa, opened a school at Nisibis, A. D. 490, which became celebrated. About the same time, Acacius, also from Edessa, established a school at Seleucia. It was revived in 530, and was in existence as late as 605. A school was established at Dorkena, A. D. 585. At Bagdad were two schools in 832, and two others were in its neighborhood. Schools existed at Terhana, Mahuza, Maraga, and Adiabene, in Assyria, and at Maraga, in Aderbijan. There were also schools in Elam, Persia, Korassan, and Arabia. The school at Nisibis had a three years' course of study. The studies to a great extent were theological; but to the study of the Bible, they added, in the schools generally, the study of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, dialetics, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy, medicine, etc.