transported Cyril from Alexandria was laden with the CHAP. riches of Egypt; and he disembarked a numerous body XLVII. of mariners, slaves, and fanatics, inlisted 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, 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 bishops43. 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 journies from the distant capital of the East. Impatient of a delay which he stigmatised 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 Condemthis momentous transaction was crowded into the compass of a summer's day; the bishops delivered their sepa- June 22. rate opinions; but the uniformity of style reveals the in p. 1102); yet it has been superseded by the claim of Jerusalem; and her empty sepulchre, as it was shewn to the pilgrims, produced the fable of her resurrection and assumption, in which the Greek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 Mem. Eccles. tom. i. p. 467-477). 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. Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 386-389. nation of Nestorius, XLVII. CHAP. fluence or the hand of a master, who has been accused of corrupting the public evidence of their acts and subscriptions". 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 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. Opposi Orientals, &c. In a On the fifth day, the triumph was clouded by the artion of the rival and indignation of the Eastern bishops. June 27, chamber of the inn, before he had wiped the dust from his shoes, John of Antioch gave audience to Candidian the Imperial minister; who related his ineffectual ef forts 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 church46. 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 garrison 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 the soldiers were dangerously wounded with clubs and stones. Ephesus, the city 45 Μεμφόμενον μη κατα το δέον τα εν Εφέσω συντεθηναι υπομνήματα πανεργια δε και τινι αθέσμω καινοτομια Κυριλλα 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. 46 Ο δε επ ολέθρω των εκκλησιων 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. of the Virgin, was defiled with rage and clamour, with se- CHAP. dition 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. He 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 pro"vidence will discern and punish the guilty. Return "to your provinces, and may your private virtues re"pair 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 reunion must be imputed rather to prudence than to reason, to the mutual lassitude rather than to the Christian charity of the patriarchs. The Byzantine pontiff had instilled into the royal ear Victory of a baleful prejudice against the character and conduct of Cyril, his Egyptian rival. An epistle of menace and invective48, 431-435. 47 See the Acts of the Synod of Ephesus, in the original Greek, and a Latín version almost contemporary (Concil. tom. iii. p. 991-1339. with the Synodicon adversus Tragediam Irenæi, tom. iv. p. 235-497), the Ecclesiastical Histories of Socrates (1. vii. c. 34.) and Evagrius (1. i. c. S, 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). 48 Ταραχην (says the emperor in pointed language) το γε επί σαυτω, και χωρισμού τους εκκλησίαις εμβεβληκας ως θρασυτερας ορμής πρέπισης μαλλιν A. D. XLVII. CHAP. Which accompanied the summons, accused him as a bu 'sy, 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 conciliate 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 adjuΗ ακρίβειας και ποικιλίας μάλλον τό των ημίν αρκέσης ήπερ απλότητος παντος μαλλον η ιερέως . . . τα τε των εκκλησιων τα τε των βασιλέων μελλειν χωρίζειν βέλεσθαι, ως εκ ὅσης αφορμης ετέρας ευδοκιμήσεως. I should be curious to know how much Nestorius paid for these expressions, so mortifying to his rival. 49 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. XLVII. rations of the saints, who boldly pronounced, that none CHAP. 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 of this scandalous corruption 50. Pulcheria, who relieved 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 two-fold nature of Christ, before he was permitted to satiate his revenge against the unfortunate Nestorius11. Nestorius, The rash and obstinate Nestorius, before the end of Exile of the synod, was oppressed by Cyril, betrayed by the court, A. D. 435. and faintly supported by his Eastern friends. A sentiment of fear or indignation prompted him, while it was yet time, to effect the glory of a voluntary abdications2 : 50 Clerici qui hic sunt contristantur, quod ecclesia Alexandrina nudata sit hujus causâ turbelæ: et debet præter illa quæ hinc transmissa sint auri libras mille quingintas. Et nunc ei scriptum est ut præstet; sed de tuå 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. 51 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. 52 Αυτό τε αυδεηθέντος, επετράπη κατα το οικείον επαναξεύσαι μοναςήριον. Evagrius, I. 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 VOL. VI. E |