Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/133

OF THE HUMAN EMPIRE 111 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,^ a native of Germanicia and a monk of Antioch, was recommended by the austerity of his Hfe and the eloquence of his sermons ; but the first homily which he preached before the devout Theodosius betrayed the acrimony and iinpatience of his zeal. " Give me, O Caesar ! " he exclaimed, " give me the earth purgecl 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 incendian/. On either side ^f 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. "^1 But the sword of persecution, which Nestorius so furiously wielded, was soon turned against his own bi'east. Religion was the pretence ; but, in the judgment of a con- temporary saint, ambition was the genuine motive of episcopal warfare."-"' 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."^^ The Blessed Virgin he revered as the mother of Christ, but his ears were offended with the rash and recent •"' His elevation and conduct are described by Socrates (1. vii. c. 29, 31); and Marcellinus seems to have applied the loquentise satis, sapientiae parum, of Salhist. -'^ Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. v. leg. 65, with the illustrations of Baronius (a.d. 428, No. 25, &c. ), GodetVoy (ad locum), and Pagi (Critica, tom. ii. p. 208). "- Isidore of Pelusium (1. iv. epist. 57). His words are strong and scandalous — Tt ^ai/jLLcccet^, et Kai vvu TrepX iTpay^a Qtiov K'). Adyou KfitiiTTQv hiix(l:u}i't:'iu —pocmoioui'Ttu vrro (|)iA«pxias- eK^a/c^euo/xifi'oi. 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. ■'•' La Croze (C'iiristianisme des Indes, torn. i. p. 44-53; Thesaurus Epistolicus La Crozianus, lorn. iii. p. 276-280) has detected the use of o Seo-TroTrjs and 6 Kiipios 'lr)croiJ{, which in the ivth, vth, and vith centuries discriminates the school of Diodorus of Tarsus and his Nestorian disciples.