were appeased by the choice of the emperor, who, on this occasion, consulted the voice of fame, and invited the merit of a stranger. Nestorius,30 a native of Germanicia and a monk of Antioch, was recommended by the austerity of his life and the eloquence of his sermons; but the first homily which he preached before the devout Theodosius betrayed the acrimony and impatience of his zeal. "Give me, O Cæsar!" he exclaimed, give me the earth purged of heretics, and I will give you in exchange the kingdom of heaven. Exterminate with me, the heretics; and with you, I will exterminate the Persians." On the fifth day, as if the treaty had been already signed, the patriarch of Constantinople discovered, surprised, and attacked a secret conventicle of the Arians; they preferred death to submission; the flames that were kindled by their despair soon spread to the neighbouring houses, and the triumph of Nestorius was clouded by the name of incendiary. On either side of the Hellespont, his episcopal vigour imposed a rigid formulary of faith and discipline; a chronological error concerning the festival of Easter was punished as an offence against the church and state. Lydia and Caria, Sardes and Miletus, were purified with the blood of the obstinate Quartodecimans; and the edict of the emperor, or rather of the patriarch, enumerates three and [A.D. 428] twenty degrees and denominations in the guilt and punishment of heresy.31 But the sword of persecution, which Nestorius so furiously wielded, was soon turned against his own breast. Religion was the pretence; but, in the judgment of a contemporary saint, ambition was the genuine motive of episcopal warfare.32 A.D. 429-431 In the Syrian school, Nestorius had been taught to abhor the His heresy. confusion of the two natures, and nicely to discriminate the humanity of his master Christ from the divinity of the Lord Jesus.33 The Blessed Virgin he revered as the mother of Christ, but his ears were offended with the rash and recent 30 His elevation and conduct are described by Socrates (1. vii. c. 29, 31); and Marcellinus seems to have applied the loquentiæ satis, sapientiæ parum, of Sallust. 31 Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. v. leg. 65, with the illustrations of Baronius (A.D. 428, No. 25, &c.), Godefroy (ad locum), and Pagi (Critica, tom. ii. p. 208). 32 Isidore of Pelusium (1. iv. epist. 57). His words are strong and scandalousτί θαυμάζεις, εἰ καὶ νῦν περὶ πρᾶγμα θεῖον καὶ λόγου κρεῖττον διαφωνεῖν προσποιοῦνται ὑπὸ piλapxías éκBakɣevóμevo; Isidore is a saint, but he never became a bishop; and I half suspect that the pride of Diogenes trampled on the pride of Plato. 33 La Croze (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 44-53; Thesaurus Epistolicus La Crozianus, tom. iii. p. 276-280) has detected the use of à deonórns and & Kúplos Inoous, which in the ivth, vth, and vith centuries discriminates the school of Diodorus of Tarsus and his Nestorian disciples. title of mother of God,34 which had been insensibly adopted since the origin of the Arian controversy. From the pulpit of Constantinople, a friend of the patriarch, and afterwards the patriarch himself, repeatedly preached against the use, or the abuse, of a word 35 unknown to the apostles, unauthorised by the church, and which could only tend to alarm the timorous, to mislead the simple, to amuse the profane, and to justify, by a seeming resemblance, the old genealogy of Olympus.36 In his calmer moments Nestorius confessed that it might be tolerated or excused by the union of the two natures and the communication of their idioms; 37 but he was exasperated, by contradiction, to disclaim the worship of a new-born, an infant Deity, to draw his inadequate similes from the conjugal or civil partnerships of life, and to describe the manhood of Christ as the robe, the instrument, the tabernacle of his Godhead. At these blasphemous sounds, the pillars of the sanctuary were shaken. The unsuccessful competitors of Nestorius indulged their pious or personal resentments; the Byzantine clergy was secretly displeased with the intrusion of a stranger; whatever is superstitious or absurd, might claim the protection of the monks; and the people were interested in the glory of their virgin patroness.38 The sermons of the archbishop and the service of the altar were disturbed by seditious clamour; his authority and doctrine were renounced by separate congrega 34 @COTÓKOS-Deipara: as in zoology we familiarly speak of oviparous and viviparous animals. It is not easy to fix the invention of this word, which La Croze (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 16) ascribes to Eusebius of Cæsarea and the Arians. The orthodox testimonies are produced by Cyril and Petavius (Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. 1. v. c. 15, p. 254, &c.); but the veracity of the saint is questionable, and the epithet of GeoTókos so easily slides from the margin to the text of a Catholic Ms. 35 Basnage, in his Histoire de l'Eglise, a work of controversy (tom. i. p. 505), justifies the mother, by the blood, of God (Acts xx. 28, with Mill's various readings). But the Greek Mss. are far from unanimous; and the primitive style of the blood of Christ is preserved in the Syriac version, even in those copies which were used by the Christians of St. Thomas on the coast of Malabar (La Croze, Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 347). The jealousy of the Nestorians and Monophysites has guarded the purity of their text. 36 The Pagans of Egypt already laughed at the new Cybele of the Christians (Isidor. 1. i. epist. 54): a letter was forged in the name of Hypatia, to ridicule the theology of her assassin (Synodicon, c. 216, in iv. tom. Concil. p. 484). In the article of NESTORIUS, Bayle has scattered some loose philosophy on the worship of the Virgin Mary. 37 The ȧvridoris of the Greeks, a mutual loan or transfer of the idioms or properties of each nature to the other-of infinity to man, passibility to God, &c. Twelve rules on this nicest of subjects compose the Theological Grammar of Petavius (Dogmata Theolog. tom. v. l. iv. c. 14, 15, p. 209, &c.). 38 See Ducange, C. P. Christiana, l. i. p. 30, &c tions; every wind scattered round the empire the leaves of controversy; and the voice of the combatants on a sonorous theatre re-echoed in the cells of Palestine and Egypt. It was the duty of Cyril to enlighten the zeal and ignorance of his innumerable monks in the school of Alexandria, he had imbibed and professed the incarnation of one nature; and the successor of Athanasius consulted his pride and ambition when he rose in arms against another Arius, more formidable and more guilty, on the second throne of the hierarchy. After a short correspondence, in which the rival prelates disguised their hatred in the hollow language of respect and charity, the patriarch of Alexandria denounced to the prince and people, to the East and to the West, the damnable errors of the Byzantine pontiff. From the East, more especially from Antioch, he obtained the ambiguous counsels of toleration and silence, which were addressed to both parties while they favoured the cause of Nestorius. But the Vatican received with open arms the messengers of Egypt. The vanity of Celestine was flattered by the appeal; and the partial version of a monk decided the faith of the pope, who, with his Latin clergy, was ignorant of the language, the arts, and the theology of the Greeks. At the head of an Italian synod, Celestine weighed the merits of the cause, approved the creed of Cyril, condemned the sentiments and person of Nestorius, degraded the heretic from his episcopal dignity, allowed a respite of ten days for recantation and penance, and delegated to his enemy the execution of this rash and illegal sentence. But the patriarch of Alexandria, whilst he darted the thunders of a god, exposed the errors and passions of a mortal; and his twelve anathemas 39 still torture the orthodox slaves who adore the memory of a saint, without forfeiting their allegiance to the synod of Chalcedon. These bold assertions are indelibly tinged with the colours of the Apollinarian heresy; but the serious, and perhaps the sincere, professions of Nestorius have satisfied the wiser and less partial theologians of the present times.# 39 Concil. tom. iii. p. 943. They have never been directly approved by the church (Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiv. p. 368-372). I almost pity the agony of rage and sophistry with which Petavius seems to be agitated in the vith book of his Dogmata Theologica. His 40 Such as the rational Basnage (ad tom. i. Variar. Lection, Canisii in Præfat. c. ii. p. 11-23) and La Croze, the universal scolar (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 16-20. De l'Ethiopie, p. 26, 27. Thesaur. Epist. p. 176, &c. 283, 285). free sentence is confirmed by that of his friends Jablonski (Thesaur. Epist. tom. i. p. 193-201) and Mosheim (idem, p. 304: Nestorium crimine caruisse est et mea 8 VOL. V. First council Yet neither the emperor nor the primate of the East were disposed to obey the mandate of an Italian priest; and a synod of the Catholic, or rather of the Greek, church was unanimously demanded as the sole remedy that could appease or decide this ecclesiastical quarrel.41 Ephesus, on all sides accessible by sea and land, was chosen for the place, the festival of Pentecost for the day, of the meeting; a writ of summons was despatched to each metropolitan, and a guard was stationed to protect and confine the fathers till they should settle the mysteries of heaven and the faith of the earth. Nestorius appeared, not as a criminal, but as a judge; he depended on the weight rather than the number of his prelates; and his sturdy slaves from the baths of Zeuxippus were armed for every service of injury or defence. But his adversary Cyril was more powerful in the weapons both of the flesh and of the spirit. Disobedient to the letter, or at least to the meaning, of the royal summons, he was attended by fifty Egyptian bishops, who expected from their patriarch's nod the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. He had contracted an intimate alliance with Memnon bishop of Ephesus. The despotic primate of Asia disposed of the ready succours of thirty or forty episcopal votes; a crowd of peasants, the slaves of the church, was poured into the city to support with blows and clamours a metaphysical argument; and the people zealously asserted the honour of the virgin, whose body reposed within the walls of Ephesus.42 The fleet which had transported Cyril from Alexandria was laden with the riches of Egypt; and he disembarked a numerous body of mariners, slaves, and fanatics, enlisted with blind obedience under the banner of St. Mark and the mother of God. The fathers, and even the guards, of the council were awed by this martial array; the adversaries of Cyril and Mary were insulted in the streets sententia); and three more respectable judges will not easily be found. Asseman, a learned and modest slave, can hardly discern (Bibliothec. Orient. tom. iv. p. 190-224) the guilt and error of the Nestorians. 41 The origin and progress of the Nestorian controversy, till the synod of Ephe sus, may be found in Socrates (1. vii. c. 32), Evagrius (l. i. c. 1, 2), Líberatus (Brev. c. 1-4), the original Acts (Concil. tom. iii. p. 551-991, edit. Venise, 1728), the Annals of Baronius and Pagi, and the faithful collections of Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiv. p. 283-377). 42 The Christians of the four first centuries were ignorant of the death and burial of Mary. The tradition of Ephesus is affirmed by the synod (évea o Ocoλóyos 'Iwávvns, Kain bеOTÓKOS Taρlévos ǹ ȧyía Mapía. Concil. tom. iii. p. 1102); yet it has been superseded by the claim of Jerusalem; and her empty sepulchre, as it was shewn to the pilgrims, produced the fable of her resurrection and assumption, in which the Greek and Latin churches have piously acquiesced. See Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 48, No. 6, &c.) and Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. i. p. 467-477). 44 or threatened in their houses; his eloquence and liberality made a daily increase in the number of his adherents; and the Egyptian soon computed that he might command the attendance and the voices of two hundred bishops.43 But the author of the twelve anathemas foresaw and dreaded the opposition of John of Antioch, who with a small, though respectable, train of metropolitans and divines was advancing by slow journeys from the distant capital of the East. Impatient of a delay which he stigmatized as voluntary and culpable, Cyril announced the opening of the synod sixteen days after the festival of Pentecost. Nestorius, who depended on the near approach of his Eastern friends, persisted, like his predecessor Chrysostom, to disclaim the jurisdiction and to disobey the summons of his enemies; they hastened his trial, and his accuser presided in the seat of judgment. Sixty-eight bishops, twenty-two of metropolitan rank, defended his cause by a modest and temperate protest; they were excluded from the counsels of their brethren. Candidian, in the emperor's name, requested a delay of four days; the profane magistrate was driven with outrage and insult from the assembly of the saints. The whole of this Condemna momentous transaction was crowded into the compass of a rius June 22 summer's day; the bishops delivered their separate opinions; but the uniformity of style reveals the influence or the hand of a master, who had been accused of corrupting the public evidence of their acts and subscriptions.45 Without a dissenting voice, they recognised 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 43 The Acts of Chalcedon (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1405, 1408) exhibit a lively picture of the blind, obstinate servitude of the bishops of Egypt to their patriarch. 44 Civil or ecclesiastical business detained the bishops at Antioch till the 18th of May. Ephesus was at the distance of thirty days' journey; and ten days more may be fairly allowed for accidents and repose. The march of Xenophon over the same ground enumerates above 260 parasangs or leagues; and this measure might be illustrated from ancient and modern itineraries, if I knew how to compare the speed of an army, a synod, and a caravan. John of Antioch is reluctantly acquitted by Tillemont himself (Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiv. p. 386-389). 45 Μεμφόμενον μὴ κατὰ τὸ δέον τὰ ἐν Ἐφέσῳ συντεθῆναι ὑπομνήματα, πανουργίᾳ δὲ καί τινι ἀθέσμῳ καινοτομία 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. tion of Nesto. |