Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—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 præfects 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 præfect 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 præfect 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

24 (return) [ 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.]

25 (return) [ 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.]

26 (return) [ 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.]

27 (return) [ 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

28 (return) [ 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.)]

29 (return) [ 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.)]

30 (return) [ 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.]

31 (return) [ 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.)]

32 (return) [ 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
misled 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

33 (return) [ 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.]

34 (return) [ 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]

35 (return) [ 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.]

36 (return) [ 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.]

37 (return) [ 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.)]

38 (return) [ See Ducange, C. P. Christiana, l. i. p. 30, &c.]

39 (return) [ 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]

40 (return) [ 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; he 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.

41 (return) [ 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.)]

42 (return) [ 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.)]

43 (return) [ 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.]

44 (return) [ 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.)]

45 (return) [ 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.

46 (return) [ 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.)]

47 (return) [ 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

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

49 (return) [ 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.]

50 (return) [ 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.]

51 (return) [ 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 of 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

52 (return) [ 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.]

53 (return) [ 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.]

54 (return) [ 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.]

55 (return) [ 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.]

56 (return) [ 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.]

57 (return) [ 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.]

58 (return) [ 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.]