CYRIL
593
CYRIL
till she died. This brought great disgrace, says
Socrates, on the Church of Alexandria and on its
bishop; but a lector at Alexandria was not a cleric
(Socr., V, xxii), and Socrates does not suggest that
Cyril was himself to blame. Damascius, indeed,
accuses hiin, but he is a late authority and a hater
of Christians.
Theophilus, the persecutor of Chrysostom, had not the privilege of communion with Rome from that saint's death, in 40(), imtil his own. For some years CjTil also refused to insert the name of St. Chrysostom in the diptychs of his Church, in .spite of the requests of Chrysostom's sujiplanter, Atticus. Later he seems to have yielded to the representations of his spiritual father, Isidore of Pelusium (Isid., Ep. I, 370). Yet even after the Council of Ephesus that saint still found something to rebuke in him on this matter (Ep. I, 310). But at that date C^'ril seems to have been long since trusted by Rome.
It was in the winter of 427-28 that the Antiochene Nestorius became Patriarch of Constantinople. His heretical teaching soon became known to Cyril. Against him Cyril taught the use of the term Theotokos in his Paschal letter for 429 and in a letter to the monks of Egypt. A correspondence with Nestorius followed, in a more moderate tone than might have been expected. Nestorius sent his sermons to Pope Celestine, but he received no reply, for the latter wrote to St. Cyril for further information. Rome had taken the side of St. John Chrysostom against Theo- philus, but had neither censured the orthodoxy of the latter, nor consented to the patriarchal powers exer- cised by the bishops of Constantinople. To St. Celestine Cyril was not only the first prelate of the East, he was also the inheritor of the traditions of Athanasius and Peter. The pope's confidence was not misplaced. Cyril had learnt prudence. Peter had attempted unsuccessfully to appoint a Bishop of Constantinople; Theophilus had deposed another. Cyril, though in this case Alexandria was in the right, does not act in his own name, but denounces Nestorius to St. Celestine, since ancient custom, he says, per- suaded him to bring the matter before the pope. He relates all that had occurred, and begs Celestine to decree what he thinks fit (rvnuaai ri SIkovv — a phrase which Dr. W. Bright chooses to weaken into "formu- late his opinion"), and communicate it also to the bishops of Macedonia and of the East (i. e. the Antio- chene Patriarchate).
The pope's reply was of astonishing severity. He had already commissioned Cassian to write his well- known treatise on the Incarnation. He now sum- moned a council (such Roman councils had somewhat the office of the modern Roman Congregations), and despatched a letter to Alexandria with enclosures to Constantinople, Philippi, Jerusalem, and Antioch. Cyril is to take to himself the authority of the Roman See, and to admonLsh Nestorius that unless he recants within ten days from the receipt of this ultimatum, he is separated from "our body" (the popes of the day have the habit of speaking of other churches as the members, of which they are the head; the body is, of course, the Catholic Church). If Nestorius does not submit, Cyril is to "provide for" the Church of Con- stantinople. Such a sentence of excommunication and deposition is not to be confounded with the mere withdrawal of actual communion by the popes from Cyril himself at an earlier date, from Theophilus, or, at Antioch, from Flavian or Melctius. It was the decree Cyril had asked for. As Cyril had twice writ- ten to Nestorius, his citation in the name of the pope is to be counted as a third warning, after which no grace is to be given.
St. Cyril summoned a covmcil of his suffragans, and
composed a letter to which were appended twelve
propositions for Nestorius to anathematize. The
epistle was not conciliatory, and Nestorius may well
IV.— 38
have been taken aback. The twelve propositions did
not emanate from Rome, and were not at all equally
clear; one or two of them were later among the au-
thorities invoked by the Monophysite heretics in their
own favour. Cyril was the head of the rival theologi-
cal school to that of Antioch, where Nestorius had
studied, and was the hereditary rival of the Constanti-
nopolitan would-be patriarch. Cyril wrote also to
John, Patriarch of Antioch, informing him of the facts,
and insinuating that if John should support his old
friend Nestorius, he would find himself isolated over
against Rome, Macedonia, and Egypt. John took the
hint, and urged Nestorius to yield. Meanwhile, in
Constantinople itself large numbers of the people held
aloof from Nestorius, and the Emperor Theodosius II
had been persuaded to svunmon a general council to
meet at Ephesus. The imperial letters were dis-
patched 19 November, whereas the bishops sent by
Cyril arrived at Constantinople^^only on 7 December.
Nestorius, somewhat naturally, refused to accept the
message sent by his rival, and on the 13th or 14th of
December preached publicly against Cyril as a calum-
niator, and as having used l>ribes (which was probably
as true as it was usual) ; but he declared himself will-
ing to use the word Theotokos. These sermons he sent
to John of Antioch, who preferred them to the
anathematizations of Cyril. Nestorius, however, is-
sued twelve propositions with appended anathemas.
If Cyril's propositions might be taken to deny the two
natures in Christ, those of Nestorius hardly veiled his
belief in two distinct persons. Theodoret urged John
yet further, and wrote a treatise against Cyril, to
which the latter replied with some warmth. He also
wrote an "Answer" in five books to the sermons of
Nestorius.
As the fifteenth-century idea of an ceeumenical council superior to the poj^e had yet to be invented, and there was but one precedent for such an assembly, we need not be surprised that St. Celestine welcomed the initiative of the emperor, and hoped for peace through the assembly. (See Ephesu.s, Council of.) Nestorius found the churches of Ephesus closed to him, when he arrived with the imperial commissioner, Count Candidian, and his own friend, Coimt Irenseus. Cyril came with fifty of his bishops. Palestine, Crete, Asia Minor, and Greece added their quotient. But John of Antioch and his suffragans were delayed. Cyril may have believed, rightly or wrongly, that John did not wish to be present at the trial of his friend Nestorius, or that he wished to gain time for him, and he opened the council without John, on 22 Jime, in spite of the request of sixty-eight bishops for a de- lay. This was an initial error, which had disastrous results.
The legates from Rome had not arrived, so that Cyril had no answer to the letter he had written to Celestine asking "whether the holy synod should receive a man who condemned what it preached, or, because the tinie of delay had elapsed, whether the sentence was still in force". Cyril might have pre- sumed that the pope, in agreeing to send legates to the council, intended Nestorius to have a complete trial, but it was more convenient to assume that the Roman ultimatum had not been suspeiulod, and that the council was bound by it. He therefore took the place of president, not only as the highest in rank, but also as still holding the place of Celestine, though he camiot have received any fresh commission from the pope. Nestorius was summoned, in order that he might explain his neglect of Cyril's former monition in the name of the pope. He refused to receive the four bishops whom the coimcil sent to him. Conse- quently nothing remained but formal procedure. For the comicil was bound /)// llic rmxtns to depose Nesto- rius for contumacy, as he would not appear, and br/ the letter uj Cclextine to condemn him for heresy, as he had not recanted. Tlie correspondence between
