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scriptions. Without a dissenting voice, they recognized in the epistles of Cyril, the Nicene creed and the doctrine of the fathers: but the partial extracts from the letters and homilies of Nestorius were interrupted by curses and anathemas: and the heretic was degraded from his episcopal and ecclesiastical dignity. The sentence, maliciously inscribed to the new Judas, was affixed and proclaimed in the streets of Ephesus: the weary prelates, as they issued from the church of the mother of God, were saluted as her champions; and her victory was celebrated by the illuminations, the songs, and the tumult of the night.

CHAP.

XLVII.

of the

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On the fifth day, the triumph was clouded by the Opposition arrival and indignation of the eastern bishops. In Orientals, a chamber of the inn, before he had wiped the dust June 27, from his shoes, John of Antioch gave audience to Candidian the imperial minister; who related his ineffectual efforts to prevent or to annul the hasty violence of the Egyptian. With equal haste and violence, the oriental synod of fifty bishops degraded Cyril and Memnon from their episcopal honours, condemned, in the twelve anathemas, the purest venom of the Apollinarian heresy, and described the Alexandrian primate as a monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church. His throne was distant and inaccessible; but they instantly resolved to bestow on the flock of Ephesus the blessing of a faithful shepherd. By the vigilance of Memnon, the churches were shut against them, and a strong gar

* Μεμφόμενον μη κατα το δεον τα εν Εφεσῳ συντεθηναι ὑπομνήματα πανουργια δε και τινι αθεσμῷ καινοτομια Κυρίλλου τεχνάζοντος. Evagrius, l. i. c. 7. The same imputation was urged by count Irenæus (tom. iii. p. 1249); and the orthodox critics do not find it an easy task to defend the purity of the Greek or Latin copies of the Acts.

* Ο δε επ' ολέθρῳ των εκκλησίων τεχθεις και τραφεις. After the coalition of John and Cyril, these invectives were mutually forgotten. The style of declamation must never be confounded with the genuine sense which respectable enemies entertain of each other's merit (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1244).

XLVII.

He

CHAP. rison was thrown into the cathedral. The troops, under the command of Candidian, advanced to the assault; the outguards were routed and put to the sword, but the place was impregnable: the besiegers retired; their retreat was pursued by a vigorous sally; they lost their horses, and many of their soldiers were dangerously wounded with clubs and stones. Ephesus, the city of the Virgin, was defiled with rage and clamour, with sedition and blood; the rival synods darted anathemas and excommunications from their spiritual engines; and the court of Theodosius was perplexed by the adverse and contradictory narratives of the Syrian and Egyptian factions. During a busy period of three months, the emperor tried every method, except the most effectual means of indifference and contempt, to reconcile this theological quarrel. attempted to remove or intimidate the leaders by a common sentence of acquittal or condemnation; he invested his representatives at Ephesus with ample power and military force: he summoned from either party eight chosen deputies to a free and candid conference in the neighbourhood of the capital, far from the contagion of popular frenzy. But the Orientals refused to yield, and the Catholics, proud of their numbers and of their Latin allies, rejected all terms of union or toleration. The patience of the meek Theodosius was provoked, and he dissolved in anger this episcopal tumult, which at the distance of thirteen centuries assumes the venerable aspect of the third œcumenical council. " "God is my witness,' said the pious prince, "that I am not the author of this confusion. His providence will discern and

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" See the Acts of the Synod of Ephesus in the original Greek, and a Latin version almost contemporary (Concil. tom. iii. p. 991-1339. with the Synodicon adversus Tragœdiam Irenæi, tom. iv. p. 235—497), the Ecclesiastical Histories of Socrates (1. vii. c. 34) and Evagrius (1. i. c. 3, 4, 5), and the Breviary of Liberatus (in Concil. tom. vi. p. 419–459. c. 5, 6), and the Memoires Eccles. of Tillemont (tom. xiv. p. 377-487).

XLVII.

punish the guilty. Return to your provinces, and CHAP. may your private virtues repair the mischief and scandal of your meeting." They returned to their provinces; but the same passions which had distracted the synod of Ephesus were diffused over the eastern world. After three obstinate and equal campaigns, John of Antioch and Cyril of Alexandria condescended to explain and embrace: but their seeming re-union must be imputed rather to prudence than to reason, to the mutual lassitude rather than to the Christian charity of the patriarchs.

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Cyril,

-435.

The Byzantine pontiff had instilled into the royal Victory of ear a baleful prejudice against the character and con- A. D. 431 duct of his Egyptian rival. An epistle of menace and invective, which accompanied the summons, accused him as a busy, insolent, and envious priest, who perplexed the simplicity of the faith, violated the peace of the church and state, and, by his artful and separate addresses to the wife and sister of Theodosius, presumed to suppose, or to scatter, the seeds of discord in the imperial family. At the stern command of his sovereign, Cyril had repaired to Ephesus, where he was resisted, threatened, and confined, by the magistrates in the interest of Nestorius and the Orientals; who assembled the troops of Lydia and Ionia to suppress the fanatic and disorderly train of the patriarch. Without expecting the royal licence, he escaped from his guards, precipitately embarked, deserted the imperfect synod, and retired to his episcopal fortress of safety and independence. But his artful emissaries, both in the court and city, successfully laboured to appease the resentment, and to con

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* Ταραχην (says the emperor in pointed language) το γε επι σαυτῳ και χωρισμον ταις εκκλησίαις εμβεβληκας . ὡς θρασυτερας ὁρμης πρεπούσης μαλλον η ακρίβειας

....

. . . . και ποικιλιας μαλλον τουτων ἡμιν αρκούσης ηπερ απλότητος . . . . παντος μαλλον η ἱερέως τα τε των εκκλησίων, τα τε των βασιλέων μελλειν χωρίζειν βουλεσθαι, ὡς οὐκ ουσης αφορμης έτερας ευδοκιμήσεως. I should be curious to know how much Nestorius paid for these expressions, so mortifying to his rival.

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CHAP. ciliate the favour, of the emperor. The feeble son of Arcadius was alternately swayed by his wife and sister, by the eunuchs and women of the palace : superstition and avarice were their ruling passions; and the orthodox chiefs were assiduous in their endeavours to alarm the former, and to gratify the latter. Constantinople and the suburbs were sanctified with frequent monasteries, and the holy abbots, Dalmatius and Eutyches," had devoted their zeal and fidelity to the cause of Cyril, the worship of Mary, and the unity of Christ. From the first moment of their monastic life, they had never mingled with the world, or trod the profane ground of the city. But in this awful moment of the danger of the church, their vow was superseded by a more sublime and indispensable duty. At the head of a long order of monks and hermits, who carried burning tapers in their hands, and chanted litanies to the mother of God, they proceeded from their monasteries to the palace. The people was edified and inflamed by this extraordinary spectacle, and the trembling monarch listened to the prayers and adjurations of the saints, who boldly pronounced, that none could hope for salvation, unless they embraced the person and the creed of the orthodox successor of Athanasius. At the same time every avenue of the throne was assaulted with gold. Under the decent names of eulogies and benedictions, the courtiers of both sexes were bribed according to the measure of their power and rapaciousness. But their incessant demands despoiled the sanctuaries of Constantinople and Alexandria; and the authority of the patriarch was unable to silence the just murmur of his clergy, that a debt of sixty thousand pounds had already been contracted to support the expense

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Eutyches, the heresiarch Eutyches, is honourably named by Cyril as a friend, a saint, and the strenuous defender of the faith. His brother, the abbot Dalmatius, is likewise employed to bind the emperor and all his chamberlains terribili conjuratione. Synodicon, c. 203. in Concil. tom. iv. p. 467.

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XLVII.

of this scandalous corruption. Pulcheria, who re- CHAP. lieved her brother from the weight of an empire, was the firmest pillar of orthodoxy; and so intimate was the alliance between the thunders of the synod and the whispers of the court, that Cyril was assured of success if he could displace one eunuch, and substitute another in the favour of Theodosius. Yet the Egyptian could not boast of a glorious or decisive victory. The emperor, with unaccustomed firmness, adhered to his promise of protecting the innocence of the oriental bishops; and Cyril softened his anathemas, and confessed, with ambiguity and reluctance, a twofold nature of Christ, before he was permitted to satiate his revenge against the unfortunate Nestorius.y

Nestorius,

The rash and obstinate Nestorius, before the end Exile of of the synod, was oppressed by Cyril, betrayed by the A. D. 435. court, and faintly supported by his eastern friends. A sentiment of fear or indignation prompted him, while it was yet time, to affect the glory of a voluntary abdication: his wish, or at least his request, was readily granted; he was conducted with honour from Ephesus to his old monastery of Antioch; and, after a short pause, his successors, Maximian and Proclus,

* Clerici qui hic sunt contristantur, quod ecclesia Alexandrina nudata sit hujus causâ turbelæ: et debet præter illa quæ hinc transmissa sint auri libras mille quingentas. Et nunc ei scriptum est ut præstet; sed de tuâ ecclesia præsta avaritiæ quorum nosti, &c. This curious and original letter, from Cyril's archdeacon to his creature the new bishop of Constantinople, has been unaccountably preserved in an old Latin version (Synodicon, c. 203. Concil. tom. iv. p. 465— 468). The mask is almost dropped, and the saints speak the honest language of interest and confederacy.

y The tedious negotiations that succeeded the synod of Ephesus are diffusely related in the original Acts (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1339-1771. ad fin. vol. and the Synodicon, in tom. iv.), Socrates (1. vii. c. 28. 35. 40, 41), Evagrius (1. i. c. 6, 7, 8. 12), Liberatus (c. 7-10), Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 487— 676). The most patient reader will thank me for compressing so much nonsense and falsehood in a few lines.

* Αυτού τε αυδεηθέντος, επετράπη κατα το οικείον επαναζευσαι μοναστηριον. Εvagrius, 1. i. c. 7. The original letters in the Synodicon (c. 15. 24, 25, 26) justify the appearance of a voluntary resignation, which is asserted by Ebed-Jesu, a Nestorian writer, apud Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 299. 302.

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