After the condemnation of his doctrine and of his person by the general council at Ephesus, Nestorius had still a multitude of obstinate abettors; particularly in the diocese of Constantinople, and in the provinces that lay contiguous to Mesopotamia. Proscribed and exiled by the Eastern emperors, they retired into the territories of the Persian kings; and were patronised by them out of enmity to their lawful sovereigns. A certain Barsumas, bishop of Nisibis, by his extraordinary influence at the Persian court, effected the establishment of Nestorianism over the different provinces of that extensive kingdom. Its sectaries, since the conquest of the Persian monarchy by the Mahometans in the seventh century, have uniformly enjoyed a larger portion of religious liberty than the catholics. This may be easily accounted for from the striking conformity between the Nestorian manner of speaking of Jesus Christ, and that of Mahomet in the Alcoran; a circumstance which they did not fail themselves to notice, in order to curry favor with the conquerors. (See Perpet. de la Foi, t. 4, 1. 1, c. 5. and Assemani's Biblioth. Orient. t. 3, 4.)

Positive documents assure us that-so early as the year 540— Nestorianism had already reached the coasts of Malabar; and in the seventh age its missionaries penetrated into China; where the christianity introduced by them, subsisted, it is said, till the thirteenth century. The sect was also established at Samarcand and in other parts of Tartary, till the mighty and not less barbarous conqueror Tamerlane, planted on the ruins of all other systems of religion, the impious doctrines of Mahometism throughout the greatest part of Asia.

About the year 1500, when the Portuguese after having doubled the Cape of Good Hope, penetrated into the Indies, they were much surprised to find numberless small cantonments of Christians: nor were the latter less astonished at the arrival among them—of fellow christians from so remote a region. They called themselves Christians of St Thomas, and were then distributed in fourteen hundred boroughs along the coast of Malabar. They had but one pastor, who was a bishop or archbishop sent them by the Nestorian patriarch of Babylon, or rather, of Mozul, whom the sect had complimented with the epithet of catholic. Oppressed and persecuted by certain pagan princes of those parts, they implored the protection of the Portuguese, and notified to their patriarch the arrival of these strangers, as a very providential and extraordinary event. They ascribe their origin to the apostle St Thomas, from whom, they say-and not without some plausibility-they first derived their christian name and religion, and have constantly professed it down to the present time. They had been implicated in the errors of Nestorianism ever since the fifth century. The Portuguese missionaries conceived the design of reuniting them to the catholic church, from

which they had been separated upwards of a thousand years. The work was undertaken by Don John d'Albuquerque first archbishop of Goa, and prosecuted with success by his successor Don Alexis, aided by the society of St Ignatius. (See Govea's Hist. Orient. &c.)

Had the Portuguese continued peaceable possessors of Malabar, the whole christian population of those parts, it is more than probable, would have been catholic. But while the Dutch were in possession of it, they promoted the division-instead of seconding the efforts of catholic missionaries. M. Anquetil who travelled through that district in 1758, found the churches of Malabar divided into three partitions; the first catholic, of the Latin rite; the second also catholic, of the Syriac rite; the third was that appropriated to the use of the Syrian schismatics. Fifty thousand only, of two hundred thousand christians, were schismatics. P. Le Brun and La Croze had severally brought down their histories of these churches only to the year 1663, the epoch of the Dutch conquest of Cochin. M. Anquetil (Disc. Prelim. du Zend Avesta, p. 179) has continued it to the year 1758. He informs us, that in 1685 the schismatic Malabarians had been accommodated by their Dutch masters successively-with two archbishops, one bishop and one monk, from Syria; who were all Syrian Jacobites, and sowed their own errors among these ignorant people. Thus they exchanged their former heresy of above a thousand years prescription-for that of Jacobitism or Eutychianism, without seeming aware of it themselves-notwithstanding the formal opposition of these two systems. In 1758 their archbishop was a Syrian monk-extremely ignorant-attended by a chorepiscopus little more enlightened than himself, who favored M. Anquetil with the sight of the Syriac liturgies, and allowed him to take down in writing the words of consecration. He afterwards delivered to him his profession of the Jacobite faith in the same language.

Mosheim and some other protestant writers, have in vain attempted to justify Nestorius and his sect from heretical opinions. The catholic doctrine declares, that in Jesus Christ there are two natures, the Divine and the human; but only one person : that in him the humanity subsists-not by itself, but by the person of the Word to which it is substantially united; so that Jesus Christ is not a human, but a Divine person: otherwise he could not be denominated God-Man or Man-God; nor would it be true to say that the Word was made flesh; was born of a woman'; died, and redeemed us with his sacred blood, &c. Hence no sophistical explanations, no subtilty of logic will ever reconcile the opinions of the Nestorians, or their language, with Holy Scripture. Mosheim adds, that--to the immortal honor of the Nestorians-they alone, of all the christians of the East, have been always clear of that multitude of superstitious practices and & q

notions which have infected the Greek and Latin churches, They are however, accused of teaching with the Greeks-that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only, and not from the Son of denying with Theodorus of Mopsuestia original sin, &c. Would it not then have been for their immortal honor, to have first vindicated them from these serious charges? Mosheim doubtless wished to insinuate, that the Nestorians had never held the same doctrine with the church of Rome-concerning the seven sacraments, the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, or Transubstantiation; the Veneration and Invocation of Saints, Prayer for the Dead, &c. But the learned Renaudot in the fourth book of the Perpetuitè de la Foi ; Assemani in his Biblioth. Orient. 1. 3, part 2; Le Brun in his Explic. des cerem. de la Messe, t. 6, and Dr Hawarden in his Church of Christ,have proved the contrary by documents the most incontrover tible; documents against which their adversaries are unable to produce even the shadow of an argument. Upon their first separation from the catholic church, the Nestorians used, and have continued to use down to the present times, the liturgy of Constantinople, which they translated into the Syriac tongue. Besides this they have other two; the first of which they term the liturgy of the apostles; and it appears, in fact, to be more aneient than Nestorius ; the other is that of Theodorus of Mopsuestia. That of Nestorius or of Constantinople-is the only one into which they have introduced their error concerning the Incarnation: the two former remain orthodox. In them, as in all the other Oriental liturgies without exception, we find the doctrines of the real Presence, Transubstantiation, the Commemoration of the blessed Virgin and of the Saints, Prayer for the Dead, &c. unequivocally noticed. These schismatics have always celebrated mass in Syriac-not in their vulgar tongue wherever they have been established; and have always admitted the same number of sacred books with catholics. Whence it evidently follows, that in the fifth century when the Nestorian schism first commenced, the whole christian church professed the identical dogmas of belief, which protestants are now pleased to stylenew doctrines unknown to antiquity, and-the mere inventions of the church of Rome.

In every age there have not been wanting zealous catholic missionaries who have attempted to reclaim these deluded people, and frequently with very great success. Many even of their patriarchs have at different periods declared themselves catholics, and have formally abjured their errors. Some indeed, it is to be feared, were not sincere: but it is by no means the case of all. One of these patriarchs called Abjesu or Abedjesu, went twice to Rome, repeated each time his abjuration, and sent his profession of faith to the council of Trent. He received the archiepiscopal pallium at the hands of the sovereign pontiff,

and on his return into Syria applied himself successfully to the conversion of his people. He was a person well skilled in the Oriental languages, and composed himself many useful treatises. In the year 1304, the patriarch Jaballah had caused an orthodox profession of faith to be presented, in his name, to pope Benedict XI. and in the sixteenth century John Sulaka, patriarch alsoof the Nestorians, had done the same under the popes Julius III. and Pius IV. Abedjesu was his immediate successor. According to the gazette of France, (1771, 5th June, art. Rome) -the Dominican missionaries in Asia reconciled to the church the schismatical patriarch of Mozul, with other five Nestorian bishops of the same province. As to the invidious remarks of the Lutheran historian so often quoted, they are for the most part equally slanderous and groundless. But slander and misrepresentation, we are sorry to observe, are the usual weapons of those that quarrel with the catholic church.

NICOLAITES ancient heretics, who scrupled not to eat meat offered to the idols, and held prostitution to be an act of virtue. (Apocalype, c. 2. St Iren. 1. 1, c. 27. Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. 3.) Whether these sectaries really owed their origin to Nicolas the deacon, one of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord,-or only, like some other heretics, wished to add authority to their errors by fathering them upon a man of apostolic sanctity and character, ecclesiastical writers do not agree. Some authors have even expressed their doubts-whether any such sect had ever been in existence. This, however, is a notion diametrically opposed to all antiquity. They were a sensual race of men-ignorant and superstitious; who believed equally in evil spirits, and in the mysteries of christianity; and, for fear of offending the demons, they eat of meats consecrated to the heathen gods. The Nicolaites afterwards adopted the opinions of the Gnostics -respecting the primary origin of the universe. (See their article.) There was a species of Nicolaites so late as the seventh century; but, as their errors are not detailed, it is very possible the name may have been given to those clergymen, who after their ordination retained their wives-a practice not unusual in that age, though never sanctioned by the western church. (See Conc Galliæ. t. p. 330.)

NOETIANS-SO called from their author Noëtus, a native of Smyrna. About the year 240 this man began to teach-that there was but one person in God, who sometimes took the name of Father, sometimes that of Son,-and himself assumed our human nature ;—was born of the Virgin, and died upon the cross. Being cited before his superiors, Noëtus disavowed his errors; but soon relapsed. He called himself Moses, and his brother Aaron. Praxeas and Sabellius afterwards maintained

the same errors with Noëtus; (See their articles) though it does not appear that the Noëtians were ever very numerous. They were solidly refuted by St Hypolitus of Porto, who flourished at that period. Beausobre pretends (Hist. du Manich. t. 1, p. 535) that SS. Hypolitus and Epiphanius ascribed to Noëtus opinions which he never taught. But Mosheim (Hist. Christ. sæc. 3, p. 686) shows, that these two fathers of the church were perfectly right in their inferences; that Noëtus's system evidently destroyed all distinction of persons in the Blessed Trinity, and that he held it inconsistent to admit three persons-without admitting also three Gods. What the English translator Mr Maclaine says upon this subject, is not less unreasonable than it is untheological. This gentleman, always excessively liberal in regard of sectarists, but ever the reverse when the conduct of the catholic church and its pastors is to be censured, blames the primitive fathers for opposing innovators with their own weapons, and giving by the aid of that philosophy which the latter abused, true and orthodox explanations-in opposition to their captious and sophistic arguments pointed against the chief mysteries of catholic faith! Such is the injustice of some protestant writers; such their obstinate and indecent enmity to their mother-church!

NON-CONFORMISTS-are the sects in Globo-so called from their non-conformity with the protestant church of England, established by law:-Puritans, Anabaptists, Quakers, &c. &c. See their articles.

NOVATIANS-the adherents of the first anti-pope Novatian. He had been a Stoic philosopher, and had acquired a considerable reputation for eloquence. At length he embraced the christian faith; but deferred his baptism-till, in a dangerous fit of illness, he received the sacrament of regeneration lying on his sickbed. He was afterwards ordained priest. During the persecution of Decius, instead of assisting his suffering brethren—as was expected of him--he kept himself in close retirement; and, to do away all unfavorable impressions on the public mind from such a conduct, he afterwards affected an extreme of rigorism, and complained that some who had fallen in the persecution, were too easily readmitted to communion. By this pharisaical zeal he formed a small party, and counted some among the confessors who had been imprisoned for the faith, in his interest. He was much emboldened in his cabals by one Novatus a wicked priest of Carthage, who having strenuously abetted the deacon Felicissimus-in the schism which he raised against St Cyprian about the beginning of the year 251-to avoid the sentence of excommunication threatened by his bishop, fled to Rome, and there either first excited Novatian to commence an open schism, or