A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

These heretics, keeping the mean between the Jews and the Christians, pretended to be friends alike to both: nevertheless, the Christians treated them as abominable heretics, and the Jews detested them more than the other Christians, because they acknowledged Jesus Christ to be the Messiah. Epiphanius says, they cursed and anathematized them three times a day in their synagogues.—Broughton.

NEHEMIAH, THE BOOK OF. A canonical book of the Old Testament. Nehemiah was born at Babylon during the captivity, and succeeded Ezra in the government of Judah and Jerusalem; whither he came with a commission from Artaxerxes Longimanus, authorizing him to repair and fortify the city in the same manner as it was before its destruction by the Babylonians.

Nehemiah was a Jew, and was promoted to the office of cup-bearer to the Persian king; and the opportunities he had of being daily in the king’s presence, together with the favour of Esther the queen, procured him the privileges he obtained for building the city, and the settlement of his country. When he came to Jerusalem, he finished the rebuilding of the walls in fifty-two days, and dedicated the gates of the city with great solemnity. Then he reformed some abuses, which had crept in among his countrymen, particularly the extortion of the usurers, by which the poor were so oppressed, as to be forced to sell their lands and children to support themselves and their families. Then he returned to Persia, and came back again with a new commission, by virtue of which he regulated everything relating both to the state and religion of the Jews. The history of these transactions is the subject matter of this Book of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah died at Jerusalem, having governed the people of Judah for about thirty years.

NEOLOGIANS. German Rationalists are so designated; from νέος, new, and λόγος, doctrine. They are distinguished from mere deists and pantheists, by admitting the principal facts of the Bible, though they attempt to explain away what is miraculous, while they treat the Scriptures with no more of reverence than they would show to any other ancient book, and regard our Lord himself as they would regard any good and wise philosopher.

NESTORIANS. (See Mother of God.) The followers of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, who lived in the fifth century. They believed that in Christ there were not only two natures, but two persons; of which the one was Divine, even the Eternal Word, and the other, which was human, was the man Jesus; that these two persons had only one aspect; that the union between the Son of God and the Son of man was formed in the moment of the Virgin’s conception, and was never to be dissolved; that it was not, however, an union of nature or of person, but only of will and affection; that Christ was therefore to be carefully distinguished from God, who dwelt in him as in his temple; and that Mary was to be called the mother of Christ, and not the mother of God.

This heresy was condemned by the fourth general council, that of Ephesus, A. D. 431; in which all are anathematized who refuse to call the Virgin Mary the mother of God. For a full account of this people, see Mr. Badger’s Nestorians and their Rituals.

NEWEL. The central column round which the steps of a winding stair are disposed. They are sometimes designed with considerable taste, and carefully executed.

NICENE CREED; sometimes called the Constantinopolitan Creed. This creed was chiefly composed by the orthodox fathers of the first general Council of Nice, A. D. 325, to define the Christian faith, in opposition to the heresy of Arius. As sanctioned by this assembly it ended with “I believe in the Holy Ghost.” The remainder was added by the second general council, held at Constantinople, A. D. 381, in which the heresy of Macedonius, with regard to the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, was condemned. In the fifth century, the Western churches added to this creed the words filioque, in conformity with the doctrine, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, as well as from the Father.

The Church for three hundred years had been content to profess in her creed, that Christ was the Lord; comprehending, under this title, the highest appellations given to him in Scripture, without stating minutely, or scrutinizing too narrowly, a doctrine proposed rather to us as an object of faith than of understanding. Happy had it been for the Christian world, if this moderation of the Church had been suffered to continue; but Arius, a discontented priest of Alexandria in Egypt, either having conceived a different opinion, or wishing to bring himself into notice by the assertion of a novelty, took upon him to maintain that Christ was not a Divine person, in the highest sense, but a creature, superior indeed to human nature, but not a partaker of the supreme Godhead.