Nestorius is a fairly famous character in Christian history given that it is to his name that we attach one of the major Christian sects of the late Roman era: the Nestorians. This description is however problematic in part because so-called Nestorian Christianity was not really that different from orthodox Christianity: the difference was rather meekly that the orthodox Christians rejected Nestorius' teachings (which anticipated a significant number of Protestant arguments especially in around the so-called 'Marian Cult') en toto while the Nestorian Christians accepted him as one of their many teachers but did not elevate him to a position of intellectual primary within their sect. (1)
Nestorius himself was the fifth century archbishop of Byzantium/Constantinople, but only held the position for five years before being deposed by the Emperor Theodosius II in 431 AD. Perhaps predictably we have very little of Nestorious' voluminous writings have come down to us with one only of his works 'The Bazaar of Heracleides' has come down to us more or less complete in addition to a few of his short missives to Pope Celestine I.
The concern of most writers on the subject of Nestorius is usually in and around his rivalry with Saint Cyril (the famous Bishop of Alexandria) - who was also responsible for the murder (quite possibly conducted by a converted jew) of the pagan neo-Platonic philosopher and mathematician Hypathia - as well as what of his theological ideas we can discern from his few extant works and what his ecclesiastical enemies claimed about his arguments and intellectual positions.
However, what has been almost universally ignored is Nestorius' several comments on the jews in his work, which I shall highlight and analyze in this article. For ease of reference for the reader I have used the commonly available edition of Nestorius' 'The Bazaar of Heracleides' by Driver and Hodgson. (2)
Nestorius in fact mentions the jews in the first few lines of 'The Bazaar of Heracleides' when he is outlining what he believes enemies of orthodox Christianity argue. To wit:
'Wherefore the Jews do not admit that he is Christ.
But the Jews do not confess that he is Christ because of the Cross and the death, in that they look for the advent of Christ in all great glory and dominion.' (3)
This is then clarified by what Nestorius says a few pages later:
'The Sabellians. Among them indeed are also those who deny that God the Word exists in ousia and who say only that the name 'God the Word' is that command: He spoke and it became. But thus also they predicate the Father and the Holy Spirit in name alone; so in short they agree rather with the Jews than with Christians.' (4)
Now what does Nestorius seem to be saying here?
Well very simply Nestorius is trying to add a qualification to the orthodox view of the fact that jews rejected Christ and then crucified him: thus making them responsible en bloc for the crimes of deicide (the murder of a God). What he is pointing out is that the jews killed Jesus because they simply did not believe that he was their long awaited Messiah and that when Christ comes again in the last days then; Nestorius believed, the jews would correct their error.
That is perhaps the obvious interpretation of what Nestorius is saying, but I would correct Driver and Hodgson's translation here because they have unintentionally altered the meaning of what Nestorius is saying by using the Greek rather the Hebrew term (i.e., 'Christ' rather than 'Messiah'). The term 'Christ' effectively chastens what Nestorius is saying, because of its generally positive connotation in Western thought compared to the generally neutral one for the term 'Messiah'.
This is because when we use the correct term 'Messiah' then the simple interpretation changes from Nestorius saying that the jews will realise their error when Christ comes again (which is a relatively benign message) to the far more Orthodox Christian message that the jews rejected Jesus because he did not fit in their notion of what the Messiah should be (which is a somewhat anti-jewish message).
To prove that all we need do is but look at the rather unusual wording that:
'Jews do not confess that he is Christ because of the Cross and the death, in that they look for the advent of Christ in all great glory and dominion.'
Which then changes (per my correction) to:
'Jews do not confess that he was the Messiah because of the Cross and the death, in that they look for the advent of the Messiah in all great glory and dominion.'
We should note that the precise wording that the jews 'look for the advent of the Messiah in all great glory and domination' is actually a fairly accurate rendering of jewish - not Christian - conceptions of the Messiah.
In other words, to a Christian: Jesus was the Messiah who died on the cross to save the world, but to the jews the Messiah is judged not by his death and the saving of souls. Rather the Messiah is judged by the fact that when he comes as Elijah reborn: he was to lead the jews to great military glory and thus dominion over the world (hence 'great glory' [i.e., conquering the non-jews] and [great] 'dominion' [i.e., conquering the world]). If a person claiming to be the Messiah didn't do that then according to the jews then he simply wasn't the Messiah in the first place.
This is reinforced by the fact that Nestorius is trying to place the fundamental beliefs of Christian sects and opponents of Christianity in their proper context so that they can be objectively examined. This would mean that interpreting the passage in the sense of the jews realizing their error when the Second Coming of Christ occurred would be necessarily be out of place, but interpreting the passage as to why the jews refused to credit the fact that Jesus was the Messiah fits the rest of Nestorius' text perfectly.
Thus, we can already see that Nestorius - in spite of appearances - was not exactly complimentary towards the jews. While in the second of the two passages we can also see that Nestorius is effectively if concisely berating a Christian sect called the Sabellians for believing as jews do and not as Christians do.
Nestorius' general hostility to the jews is further confirmed by another comment he makes about their responsibility for the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. To wit:
'But by those who pass for orthodox these things are said, that he is of the very nature of the Father, impassible and without needs and unchangeable and immutable, and then, as the Jews mocked, calling him Christ, and surely crucified him.' (5)
It should be noted that this particular comment is buried in a lengthy discussion of the 'divine nature' of the Father and the Son by Nestorius and in which he signally fails - while attacking just about everything else the orthodox Christians of the time argued (i.e., those who agreed with Saint Cyril) - to dispute or even criticise the comment that the jews mocked and crucified Jesus.
This isn't a positive statement of Nestorius' opinions on the jews of course (in spite of believing Jesus to have been a jew), (6) but the notable absence of criticism of that particular orthodox proposition directly suggests that Nestorius found nothing to criticise in it, because that is what he himself believed and argued was the case.
That said Nestorius - like Martin Luther in his 'On the Jews and their Lies' - did allow the possibility - which was required by the basic tenants of Christianity - that jews could turn against their nature per se, because they were first men and that if a prophet of old were to rise up among them (in which role he envisions the Christian clergy) then some of them could be saved. (7)
But once again Nestorius clearly regards the jews as the bitter enemies of Christianity as he tells us that:
'For not even Paul, when he was stoning Stephen with the stoning Jews, was then an Apostle but when he removed himself afar from stoning.' (8)
We can see clearly in the above that jews in Nestorius' view were the great persecutors and enemies of Christians and hardly their friends as some have wished to read Nestorius' thinking. Add to that the fact that we have a reference to a homily that Nestorius explicitly composed against jews (although not the actual text) (9) then it is clear that Nestorius was actually a strident enemy of the jews albeit something of a moderate in the fifth century world of fervently anti-jewish Christianity.
References
(1) Charles Freeman, 2009, 'A New History of Early Christianity', 1st Edition, Yale University Press: New Haven, p. 306
(2) G. Driver, Leonard Hodgson (Eds. and Trans.), 1925, 'The Bazaar of Heracleides', 1st Edition, Clarendon Press: Oxford
(3) Ibid., p. 8
(4) Ibid., pp. 43-44
(5) Ibid., p. 94
(6) Ibid., pp. 99; 202
(7) Ibid., pp. 376-377
(8) Friedrich Loofs, 1905, 'Nestoriana: Die Fragmente des Nestorius', 1st Edition, Max Niemeyer: Halle, Frg. 253 (cf. Friedrich Loofs, 1904, 'Die Überlieferung und Anordnung der Fragmente des Nestorius', 1st Edition, Max Niemeyer: Halle and Friedrich Loofs, 1914, 'Nestorius and His Place in the History of Christian Doctrine', 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge for good general background on the fragments and Nestorius respectively)
(9) Loofs, 'Nestoriana', Op. Cit., Frg. 254