city of the Virgin, was defiled with rage and clamour, with CHAP.

XLVII. 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 me

. thod, 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 æcumenical council.47 “God is “ my witness,” said the pious prince, “that I am not the auuthor 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.

The Byzantine pontiff had instilled into the royalearabale- Victory of ful prejudice against the characterand conductof his Egyptian

Cyril, rival. An epistle of menace and invective, 48 which accompa- 431...435.

A.D.

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 Sy

. nodicon adversus Tragædiam Irenæi, tom. iv. p. 235...497), the Ecclesiastical Histories of Socrates (1. vii.c. 34.) and Evagrius (1. i. c. 3, 4, 5), and the Breviary of Liberatus (in Concil. tom. vi. p. 419...459. c. 5,6), and the Memcires' Eccles. of Tillemont (tom. xiv. p. 377...487).

48 Ταραχης (says the emperor in pointed language) το γε επι σαυτω, και χωρισμου ταις εκκλησιαις εμβεβληκας • ως θρασυτερας ορμης

CHAP, nied the summons, accused him as a busy, insolent, and envi.
XLVII.

ous priest, who perplexed the simplicity of the faith, violated
the peace of the church and state, and by his artful and sepa-
rate 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 independ-
ence. But his artful emissaries, both in the court and city,
successfully laboured to appease the resentment, and to con-
ciliate the favour, of the emperor. The feeble son of Arca-
dius 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 as-
siduous in their endeavours to alarm the former, and to gra-
tify the latter. Constantinople and the suburbs were sancti-
fied with frequent monasteries, and the holy abbots, Dalma-
tius 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 in-
dispensable duty. At the head of a long order of monks and
hermits, who carried burning tapers in their hands, and
chaunted 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,
πρεπ8σης μαλλον η ακριβειας • και ποικιλιας μαλλον τ8των ημίν
αρκ8σης η ερ απλοτητος παντος μαλλον η ιερεας .
των εκκλησιων, τα τε των βασιλεων μελλειν χωριζειν βελεσθαι, ως εκ
εσης αφορμης ετερ ας ευδοκιμησεως. 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.

a

who boldly pronounced, that none could hope for salvation, CHAP. unless they embraced the person and the creed of the ortho

XLVII. dox 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.s0 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 twofold nature of Christ, before he was permitted to satiate his revenge against the unfortunate Nestorius.si

The rash and obstinate Nestorius, before the end of the Exile of synod, was oppressed by Cyril, betrayed by the court, and A. D. 435.

Nestorius, 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 abdication:52 his wish, or at

50 Clerici qui hic sunt contristantur, quod ecclesia Alexandrina nudata sit bujus causâ turbelæ: et debet præter illa quæ hinc transmissa sint auri libras mille quingintas. Et nunc ei scriptum est ut præstet; sed de tuâ 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 unaccount. ably 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 lan. guage 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 (l. 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 Αυτ8 τε αυδεηθεντος, επετραση κατα το οικειον επαναζεσαι μου verzpier. 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 assertVOL. VI.

E

a

a

CHAP. least his request, was readily granted; he was conducted with XLVII. honour 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 desart.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 Æthiopia, the heretic was alternately dragged and recalled, till his aged body was broken

He was

by the hardships and accidents of these reiterated journies. CHAP. Yet his mind was still independent and erect; the president

XLVII. 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 honours, 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 colour to the scandalous report, that his tongue the organ of blasphemy, had been eaten by the worms. buried in a city of Upper Egypt, known by the names of Chemnis, or Panopolis, or Akmim ;56 but the immortal ma. lice 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 The death of the Alexandrian primate, after a reign of Heresy of

Eutyches, thirty-two years, abandoned the Catholics to the intemper-A. D. 443. ance of zeal and the abuse of victory.59 The monophysite doctrine (one incarnate nature) was rigorously preached in