Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/56

pope this must be true. But Cyril may have had his confidents also in Rome;—I believe him to have been capable of the most reckless intrigues. Indeed he says in the conclusion of his above-discussed supplementletter to his agents: The necessary letters will soon be written to the necessary persons^[1]. However it may have been, at any rate it must be charged to Cyril that Celestine of Rome came to the firm conviction that Nestorius was a heretic. And in an astonishing degree the pope's actions followed the advice of Cyril. In a synod at Rome he condemned Nestorius and notified this, the 11th of August 430, to Cyril, to Nestorius, to John of Antioch and others, to whom he had been advised to write by Cyril^[2]. The letter to Nestorius was sent to Cyril for forwarding; it declared that Nestorius was to be regarded as excommunicated, if he did not recant within 10 days^[3]. It is well known that Cyril made the best of the success he had had at Rome: he held a synod in Alexandria and wrote in its name his third letter to Nestorius, the so-called epistola synodica, which ends in the famous 12 anathematisms which Nestorius was to accept within 10 days on penalty of excommunication^[4]. It was Sunday, the 6th of December 430, when this letter of

1. ep. 10, Migne, 77, p. 69 a.
2. Mansi, iv, 1018 ff.; comp. the marginal note, p. 1050 d and Cyril, ep. 11, 7 (ad Caelest.), Migne, 77, 85 a.
3. Mansi, iv, 1035 a b.
4. ep. 17, Migne, 77, 105–121.