History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0169/01697.txt

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$Title{History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Part II.}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Gibbon, Edward}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{tom
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synod
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$Date{1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)}
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Title:       History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Book:        Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.
Author:      Gibbon, Edward
Date:        1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)

Part II.

     The prize was not unworthy of his ambition.  At a distance from the
court, and at the head of an immense capital, the patriarch, as he was now
styled, of Alexandria had gradually usurped the state and authority of a civil
magistrate.  The public and private charities of the city were blindly obeyed
by his numerous and fanatic parabolani, ^24 familiarized in their daily office
with scenes of death; and the praefects of Egypt were awed or provoked by the
temporal power of these Christian pontiffs.  Ardent in the prosecution of
heresy, Cyril auspiciously opened his reign by oppressing the Novatians, the
most innocent and harmless of the sectaries.  The interdiction of their
religious worship appeared in his eyes a just and meritorious act; and he
confiscated their holy vessels, without apprehending the guilt of sacrilege.
The toleration, and even the privileges of the Jews, who had multiplied to the
number of forty thousand, were secured by the laws of the Caesars and
Ptolemies, and a long prescription of seven hundred years since the foundation
of Alexandria.  Without any legal sentence, without any royal mandate, the
patriarch, at the dawn of day, led a seditious multitude to the attack of the
synagogues.  Unarmed and unprepared, the Jews were incapable of resistance;
their houses of prayer were levelled with the ground, and the episcopal
warrior, after-rewarding his troops with the plunder of their goods, expelled
from the city the remnant of the unbelieving nation.  Perhaps he might plead
the insolence of their prosperity, and their deadly hatred of the Christians,
whose blood they had recently shed in a malicious or accidental tumult.  Such
crimes would have deserved the animadversion of the magistrate; but in this
promiscuous outrage, the innocent were confounded with the guilty, and
Alexandria was impoverished by the loss of a wealthy and industrious colony.
The zeal of Cyril exposed him to the penalties of the Julian law; but in a
feeble government and a superstitious age, he was secure of impunity, and even
of praise.  Orestes complained; but his just complaints were too quickly
forgotten by the ministers of Theodosius, and too deeply remembered by a
priest who affected to pardon, and continued to hate, the praefect of Egypt.
As he passed through the streets, his chariot was assaulted by a band of five
hundred of the Nitrian monks his guards fled from the wild beasts of the
desert; his protestations that he was a Christian and a Catholic were answered
by a volley of stones, and the face of Orestes was covered with blood.  The
loyal citizens of Alexandria hastened to his rescue; he instantly satisfied
his justice and revenge against the monk by whose hand he had been wounded,
and Ammonius expired under the rod of the lictor.  At the command of Cyril his
body was raised from the ground, and transported, in solemn procession, to the
cathedral; the name of Ammonius was changed to that of Thaumasius the
wonderful; his tomb was decorated with the trophies of martyrdom, and the
patriarch ascended the pulpit to celebrate the magnanimity of an assassin and
a rebel.  Such honors might incite the faithful to combat and die under the
banners of the saint; and he soon prompted, or accepted, the sacrifice of a
virgin, who professed the religion of the Greeks, and cultivated the
friendship of Orestes.  Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the mathematician, ^25
was initiated in her father's studies; her learned comments have elucidated
the geometry of Apollonius and Diophantus, and she publicly taught, both at
Athens and Alexandria, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle.  In the bloom of
beauty, and in the maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused her lovers and
instructed her disciples; the persons most illustrious for their rank or merit
were impatient to visit the female philosopher; and Cyril beheld, with a
jealous eye, the gorgeous train of horses and slaves who crowded the door of
her academy.  A rumor was spread among the Christians, that the daughter of
Theon was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of the praefect and the
archbishop; and that obstacle was speedily removed.  On a fatal day, in the
holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her chariot, stripped naked,
dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the
reader, and a troop of savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped
from her bones with sharp cyster shells, ^26 and her quivering limbs were
delivered to the flames.  The just progress of inquiry and punishment was
stopped by seasonable gifts; but the murder of Hypatia has imprinted an
indelible stain on the character and religion of Cyril of Alexandria. ^27

[Footnote 24: The Parabolani of Alexandria were a charitable corporation,
instituted during the plague of Gallienus, to visit the sick and to bury the
dead.  They gradually enlarged, abused, and sold the privileges of their
order.  Their outrageous conduct during the reign of Cyril provoked the
emperor to deprive the patriarch of their nomination, and to restrain their
number to five or six hundred.  But these restraints were transient and
ineffectual.  See the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit. ii. and Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 276 - 278.]

[Footnote 25: For Theon and his daughter Hypatia. see Fabricius, Bibliothec.
tom. viii. p. 210, 211.  Her article in the Lexicon of Suidas is curious and
original.  Hesychius (Meursii Opera, tom. vii. p. 295, 296) observes, that he
was persecuted; and an epigram in the Greek Anthology (l. i. c. 76, p. 159,
edit. Brodaei) celebrates her knowledge and eloquence.  She is honorably
mentioned (Epist. 10, 15 16, 33 - 80, 124, 135, 153) by her friend and
disciple the philosophic bishop Synesius.]

[Footnote 26: Oyster shells were plentifully strewed on the sea-beach before
the Caesareum.  I may therefore prefer the literal sense, without rejecting
the metaphorical version of tegulae, tiles, which is used by M. de Valois
ignorant, and the assassins were probably regardless, whether their victim was
yet alive.]

[Footnote 27: These exploits of St. Cyril are recorded by Socrates, (l. vii.
c. 13, 14, 15;) and the most reluctant bigotry is compelled to copy an
historian who coolly styles the murderers of Hypatia.  At the mention of that
injured name, I am pleased to observe a blush even on the cheek of Baronius,
(A.D. 415, No. 48.)]

     Superstition, perhaps, would more gently expiate the blood of a virgin,
than the banishment of a saint; and Cyril had accompanied his uncle to the
iniquitous synod of the Oak.  When the memory of Chrysostom was restored and
consecrated, the nephew of Theophilus, at the head of a dying faction, still
maintained the justice of his sentence; nor was it till after a tedious delay
and an obstinate resistance, that he yielded to the consent of the Catholic
world. ^28 His enmity to the Byzantine pontiffs ^29 was a sense of interest,
not a sally of passion: he envied their fortunate station in the sunshine of
the Imperial court; and he dreaded their upstart ambition. which oppressed the
metropolitans of Europe and Asia, invaded the provinces of Antioch and
Alexandria, and measured their diocese by the limits of the empire.  The long
moderation of Atticus, the mild usurper of the throne of Chrysostom, suspended
the animosities of the Eastern patriarchs; but Cyril was at length awakened by
the exaltation of a rival more worthy of his esteem and hatred. After the
short and troubled reign of Sisinnius, bishop of Constantinople, the factions
of the clergy and people 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 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 Caesar!" 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 neighboring
houses, and the triumph of Nestorius was clouded by the name of incendiary.
On either side of the Hellespont his episcopal vigor 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-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

[Footnote 28: He was deaf to the entreaties of Atticus of Constantinople, and
of Isidore of Pelusium, and yielded only (if we may believe Nicephorus, l.
xiv. c. 18) to the personal intercession of the Virgin.  Yet in his last years
he still muttered that John Chrysostom had been justly condemned, (Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 278 - 282.  Baronius Annal. Eccles. A.D. 412, No. 46
- 64.)]

[Footnote 29: See their characters in the history of Socrates, (l. vii. c. 25
- 28;) their power and pretensions, in the huge compilation of Thomassin,
(Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 80 - 91.)]

[Footnote 30: His elevation and conduct are described by Socrates, (l. vii. c.
29 31;) and Marcellinus seems to have applied the eloquentiae satis, sapi
entiae parum, of Sallust.]

[Footnote 31: Cod. Theodos. l. 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.)]

[Footnote 32: Isidore of Pelusium, (l. iv. Epist. 57.) His words are strong
and scandalous.  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.]

     In the Syrian school, Nestorius had been taught to abhor the 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 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, unauthorized 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
resentment, 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 clamor; his authority and doctrine were renounced
by separate congregations; every wind scattered round the empire the leaves of
controversy; and the voice of the combatants on a sonorous theatre reechoed 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 favored 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, while 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 colors 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. ^40

[Footnote 33: La Croze (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 44 - 53. Thesaurus
Epistolicus, La Crozianus, tom. iii. p. 276 - 280) has detected the use,
which, in the ivth, vth, and vith centuries, discriminates the school of
Diodorus of Tarsus and his Nestorian disciples.]

[Footnote 34: 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
Caesarea and the Arians.  The orthodox testimonies are produced by Cyril and
Petavius, (Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. l. v. c. 15, p. 254, &c.;) but the
veracity of the saint is questionable, and the epithet so easily slides from
the margin to the text of a Catholic Ms]

[Footnote 35: Basnage, in his Histoire de l'Eglise, a work of controversy,
(tom l. 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.]

[Footnote 36: The Pagans of Egypt already laughed at the new Cybele of the
Christians, (Isidor. l. 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.]

[Footnote 37: The item 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.)]

[Footnote 38: See Ducange, C. P. Christiana, l. i. p. 30, &c.]

[Footnote 39: Concil. tom. iii. p. 943.  They have never been directly
approved by the church, (Tillemont. Mem. Eccles. 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]

[Footnote 40: Such as the rational Basnage (ad tom. i. Variar. Lection.
Canisine in Praefat. c. 2, p. 11 - 23) and La Croze, the universal scholar,
(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 16 - 20. De l'Ethiopie, p. 26, 27.  The
saur. Epist. p. 176, &c., 283, 285.) His 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 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.]

     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; be 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 succors 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 clamors a metaphysical argument; and the people zealously
asserted the honor 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, 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, but 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, ^44 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 councils 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 momentous transaction was crowded into the
compass of a summer's day: the bishops delivered their separate opinions; but
the uniformity of style reveals the influence or the hand of a master, who has
been accused of corrupting the public evidence of their acts and
subscriptions. ^45 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.

[Footnote 41: The origin and progress of the Nestorian controversy, till the
synod of Ephesus, may be found in Socrates, (l. vii. c. 32,) Evagrius, (l. i.
c. 1, 2,) Liberatus, (Brev. c. 1 - 4,) the original Acts, (Concil. tom. iii.
p. 551 - 991, edit. Venice, 1728,) the Annals of Baronius and Pagi, and the
faithful collections of Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv p. 283 - 377.)]

[Footnote 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,
(Concil. tom. iii. p. 1102;) yet it has been superseded by the claim of
Jerusalem; and her empty sepulchre, as it was shown 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.)]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 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.)]

[Footnote 45: Evagrius, l. i. c. 7.  The same imputation was urged by Count
Irenaeus, (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.]

     On the fifth day, the triumph was clouded by the arrival and indignation
of the Eastern bishops.  In a 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 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 honors,
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. ^46 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 their soldiers were dangerously wounded with clubs
and stones.  Ephesus, the city of the Virgin, was defiled with rage and
clamor, 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.  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
neighborhood 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 oecumenical council. ^47 "God is my witness,"
said the pious prince, "that I am not the author of this confusion.  His
providence will discern and punish the guilty.  Return to your provinces, and
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 reunion must be imputed
rather to prudence than to reason, to the mutual lassitude rather than to the
Christian charity of the patriarchs.

[Footnote 46: 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.)]

[Footnote 47: 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 Tragoediam Irenaei, tom. iv. p. 235 - 497,) the
Ecclesiastical Histories of Socrates (l. vii. c. 34) and Evagrius, (l 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.)]

     The Byzantine pontiff had instilled into the royal ear a baleful
prejudice against the character and conduct of his Egyptian rival.  An epistle
of menace and invective, ^48 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
license, 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 labored to appease the resentment, and to conciliate the favor,
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
endeavors 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, ^49 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 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 favor 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. ^51

[Footnote 48: I should be curious to know how much Nestorius paid for these
expressions, so mortifying to his rival.]

[Footnote 49: Eutyches, the heresiarch Eutyches, is honorably named by Cyril
as a friend, a saint, and the strenuous defender of the faith.  His brother,
the abbot Dalmatus, is likewise employed to bind the emperor and all his
chamberlains terribili conjuratione.  Synodicon. c. 203, in Concil. tom. iv p.
467.]

[Footnote 50: Clerici qui hic sunt contristantur, quod ecclesia Alexandrina
nudata sit hujus causa turbelae: et debet praeter illa quae hinc transmissa
sint auri libras mille quingentas.  Et nunc ei scriptum est ut praestet; sed
de tua ecclesia praesta avaritiae 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.]

[Footnote 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, (l. vii. c. 28, 35, 40,
41,) Evagrius, (l. i. c. 6, 7, 8, 12,) Liberatus, (c. 7 - 10, 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.]

     The rash and obstinate Nestorius, before the end of the synod, was
oppressed by Cyril, betrayed by the court, and faintly supported by his
Eastern friends.  A sentiment or fear or indignation prompted him, while it
was yet time, to affect the glory of a voluntary abdication: ^52 his wish, or
at least his request, was readily granted; he was conducted with honor from
Ephesus to his old monastery of Antioch; and, after a short pause, his
successors, Maximian and Proclus, were acknowledged as the lawful bishops of
Constantinople.  But in the silence of his cell, the degraded patriarch could
no longer resume the innocence and security of a private monk.  The past he
regretted, he was discontented with the present, and the future he had reason
to dread: the Oriental bishops successively disengaged their cause from his
unpopular name, and each day decreased the number of the schismatics who
revered Nestorius as the confessor of the faith.  After a residence at Antioch
of four years, the hand of Theodosius subscribed an edict, ^53 which ranked
him with Simon the magician, proscribed his opinions and followers, condemned
his writings to the flames, and banished his person first to Petra, in Arabia,
and at length to Oasis, one of the islands of the Libyan desert. ^54 Secluded
from the church and from the world, the exile was still pursued by the rage of
bigotry and war.  A wandering tribe of the Blemmyes or Nubians invaded his
solitary prison: in their retreat they dismissed a crowd of useless captives:
but no sooner had Nestorius reached the banks of the Nile, than he would
gladly have escaped from a Roman and orthodox city, to the milder servitude of
the savages.  His flight was punished as a new crime: the soul of the
patriarch inspired the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Egypt; the
magistrates, the soldiers, the monks, devoutly tortured the enemy of Christ
and St. Cyril; and, as far as the confines of Aethiopia, the heretic was
alternately dragged and recalled, till his aged body was broken by the
hardships and accidents of these reiterated journeys.  Yet his mind was still
independent and erect; the president of Thebais was awed by his pastoral
letters; he survived the Catholic tyrant of Alexandria, and, after sixteen
years' banishment, the synod of Chalcedon would perhaps have restored him to
the honors, or at least to the communion, of the church.  The death of
Nestorius prevented his obedience to their welcome summons; ^55 and his
disease might afford some color to the scandalous report, that his tongue, the
organ of blasphemy, had been eaten by the worms.  He was buried in a city of
Upper Egypt, known by the names of Chemnis, or Panopolis, or Akmim; ^56 but
the immortal malice of the Jacobites has persevered for ages to cast stones
against his sepulchre, and to propagate the foolish tradition, that it was
never watered by the rain of heaven, which equally descends on the righteous
and the ungodly. ^57 Humanity may drop a tear on the fate of Nestorius; yet
justice must observe, that he suffered the persecution which he had approved
and inflicted. ^58

[Footnote 52: Evagrius, l. 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.]

[Footnote 53: See the Imperial letters in the Acts of the Synod of Ephesus,
(Concil. tom. iii. p. 1730 - 1735.) The odious name of Simonians, which was
affixed to the disciples of this.  Yet these were Christians! who differed
only in names and in shadows.]

[Footnote 54: The metaphor of islands is applied by the grave civilians
(Pandect. l. xlviii. tit. 22, leg. 7) to those happy spots which are
discriminated by water and verdure from the Libyan sands.  Three of these
under the common name of Oasis, or Alvahat: 1. The temple of Jupiter Ammon. 2.
The middle Oasis, three days' journey to the west of Lycopolis.  3. The
southern, where Nestorius was banished in the first climate, and only three
days' journey from the confines of Nubia.  See a learned note of Michaelis,
(ad Descript. Aegypt. Abulfedae, p. 21-34.)

     Note: 1. The Oasis of Sivah has been visited by Mons. Drovetti and Mr.
Browne.  2. The little Oasis, that of El Kassar, was visited and described by
Belzoni.  3. The great Oasis, and its splendid ruins, have been well described
in the travels of Sir A. Edmonstone.  To these must be added another Western
Oasis also visited by Sir A. Edmonstone. - M.]

[Footnote 55: The invitation of Nestorius to the synod of Chalcedon, is
related by Zacharias, bishop of Melitene (Evagrius, l. ii. c. 2.  Asseman.
Biblioth. Orient. tom. ii. p. 55,) and the famous Xenaias or Philoxenus,
bishop of Hierapolis, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 40, &c.,) denied
by Evagrius and Asseman, and stoutly maintained by La Croze, (Thesaur.
Epistol. tom. iii. p. 181, &c.) The fact is not improbable; yet it was the
interest of the Monophysites to spread the invidious report, and Eutychius
(tom. ii. p. 12) affirms, that Nestorius died after an exile of seven years,
and consequently ten years before the synod of Chalcedon.]

[Footnote 56: Consult D'Anville, (Memoire sur l'Egypte, p. 191,) Pocock.
(Description of the East, vol. i. p. 76,) Abulfeda, Descript. Aegypt, p. 14,)
and his commentator Michaelis, (Not. p. 78 - 83,) and the Nubian Geographer,
(p. 42,) who mentions, in the xiith century, the ruins and the sugar-canes of
Akmim.]

[Footnote 57: Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 12) and Gregory Bar-Hebraeus, of
Abulpharagius, (Asseman, tom. ii. p. 316,) represent the credulity of the xth
and xiith centuries.]

[Footnote 58: We are obliged to Evagrius (l. i. c. 7) for some extracts from
the letters of Nestorius; but the lively picture of his sufferings is treated
with insult by the hard and stupid fanatic.]