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ARAMAIC BRANCH
285 writing, rather than from the Greek strongyle, the "round (script)." Estrangela was employed almost exclusively until about the middle of the first millennium. Two styles of writing can be distinguished: (1) a very beautiful current hand, known as majuscule, which appears in the early manuscripts--the earliest belonging to the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.; and (2) the lapidary style, which is known from some early inscriptions of Edessa (Fig. 137, 6).
After the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) and the schism in the Church (see below), the Syriac language and script split into two branches, Of these, the western, termed Serta or Serto "linear" (Fig. 136, 4), is the less important. This developed later into two varieties, the "Jacobite" and the "Melkite." A particular characteristic of the western branch is its vocalization, which, as mentioned, consists of small Greek letters added above or below the Syriac letters.
The eastern Syriac branch, called Nestorian, had greater importance in the history of writing.
"Alphabet follows Religion" (See also under Arabic Script and the next chapter.)
The splitting up of the Syriac alphabet into the various secondary branches was a direct result of the religious and political situation of eastern Christianity.
Eastern Christendom is riddled with sects, "heresies" and schisms, bur nearly all spring from the two great "heresies" of the fifth century, Nestorianism, condemned by the Council of Ephesus, in 431, and its extreme opposite, Monophysism, condemned by the Council of Chalcedon, in 431.
Nestorians
Nestorius was not the founder of the "Nestorian" Church. The term "Nestorians" is a nickname given to this Christian community, which had been in existence long before Nestorius was bom. Nestorius was a Greek, born and reared in the Byzantine Empire, educated at Antioch, and in 4.D. 428 created Patriarch of Constantinople. The eastern Church was called "Nestorian," because of their hospitality offered to the Christian refugees to Persia who were condemned is "heretics" and banished from the Roman Empire.
However, the Nestorian Church asserted that it was possible to distinguish the two persons as well as the two natures in Christ, as opposed to the western Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. After the secession of the Nestorian Church from the Imperial Orthodox Church of Byzantium, the Nestorian faith became the official religion of the then flourishing Persian Church.
The tension between the opposing parties became so great that it shook the very foundations of the Church throughout the Christian world; it widened the breach between East and West and ultimately caused the decline of Christianity in the East.
"The coincidence of the opening of the trade routes into Further Asia with the ascendancy of the Nestorian Church offered a ready outlet for missionary effort.
