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Translated by P. E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 115 Pages
Page 35
'[154] great humility and holiness, that they were for the more part metropolitans, of such condition and doctrine, that almost all could dispute about matters of faith, and yet they claimed nothing for themselves, but were careful to hand down nothing to those after them, which they had not themselves received from the Fathers.'
S. Cyril in his Apology to the Emperor, calls them '[155] men, very well known to your Mightiness, and exceeding well spoken of for excellence in all things.'
Nestorius came to the Council ' [156] immediately after the Feast of Easter' with 10 or 15 Bishops, his adherents [157]. He was also supported by a few Pelagian Bishops, whom he had admitted to Communion, and who for the time were retained in their office by the requirement of Theodosius, that everything should remain as it was, until the decision of the Council. He is said to have found many Bishops present. If so, they must have been Bishops from the Exarchate of Ephesus. For the rest are related to have arrived later. The Council was the plan of Nestorius, and he naturally came among the first, to guide, as he hoped, its decisions. S. Cyril, on his arrival, found that there had been active, though ineffectual, efforts against the faith. He wrote, '[158][ ]The Evil one, the sleepless beast, is going about, plotting against the faith of Christ, but avails nothing.' The Evil one is, of course, Satan; but Satan acts through human agents. Nestorius says, that he had no intercourse with S. Cyril. He wrote to Scholasticus, an Eunuch of the Emperor and his friend; 'Cyril has both heretofore entirely avoided any converse with us, and until now avoids it, thinking that he shall thereby escape the conviction of the Chapters [the anathemas] because without contradiction they are heretical [159].' If (as has been conjectured) it was at this time that S. Cyril made the extracts from the works of Nestorius, and possibly those from older writers [160], containing the true doctrine, he had enough to do. There is no reason to think that S. Cyril preached at this time against Nestorius [161].
The pure humanitarianism of Nestorius was elicited by the attempts of Theodotus of Ancyra, and his pious friend, Acacius, Bishop of Melitene, to bring him back to the faith. To Theodotus and several others, he repeated the well-known blasphemies about our Lord's sacred Infancy and Childhood, that he would not call Him God, who was two or three months old, or who was nurtured at the breast, or who fled into Egypt [162]. This was stated upon oath to the Council. There was nothing further to investigate. It supplied what was yet wanting, the knowledge that Nestorius had not laid aside the heresy, for which he had been condemned the year before. S. Celestine had given the formal advice to S. Cyril [163], that if Nestorius came to a better mind, he should be received. He had, up to the moment of the opening of the Council, made things worse. He had taken into his own mouth the blasphemies, which before he had sanctioned in his adherent, Dorotheus. If one who nakedly denied the Incarnation was not fit to be Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius had decided against himself. It brought out what lay in his letter to S. Cyril which was formally condemned by the Council, that our Lord's relation to God was the same in kind, although not in degree, as that of any devout Christian.
155. [n] Apol. ad Imp. Conc. Eph. P. 3. n. 13.
157. [p] Ten Bishops signed with him "the relation of Nestorius and the Bishops with him to the Emperor concerning the things done in the holy Synod &c." Conc. Eph. Act. i. n. 6. In Baluzii Conc. nova coll. p. 699. six names are added, one omitted.
158. [q] Ep. ad Alex. Conc. Eph. P. 1. c. 34.
160. [s] S. Cyril has been criticised, because words of Apollinarius were quoted among the authorities as from S. Julius. The words themselves, in their simple meaning, express the truth, and contradict Apollinarianism. Leontius (A.D. 590), who first detected the forgery by use of MSS. says, it contains nothing 'quod nobis adversetur,' i.e. to the Catholic Faith. (de sectis Act. 8.) The words are, 'perfectus Deus in carne et perfectus homo in Spiritu.' Vitalis confessed that 'Christ was a perfect man,' but explained it to mean, 'We say so far that Christ was a perfect man, that we ascribe Divinity to Him instead of a mind.' S. Epiph. Haer. 77. n. 23. See Coustant. Epp. Rom. Pont. App. p. 71. sqq.
161. [t] The language which Mr. Neale censures [Hist. of the Holy-Eastern Church B. ii. s. 2. p. 237.] occurs in a Homily utterly unlike S. Cyril's style, which Aubert admitted among his homilies, [T. v. 2. p. 279] but not the Editors of the Councils. [See further Dr. Bright's Hist. of the Church, p. 330. n. o.] Of the homilies delivered at Ephesus, the οἱ τοῖς ἱεροῖς [Aub. p. 350] is said in the collection of Baluzius [pp. 546-551] to have been delivered after the deposition of Nestorius. So is the 2nd τῆς μὲν τῶν ἁγίων Aub. p. 352. These have no allusion to him, nor has the ὁ μακάριος προφήτης p. 354. The φαιδρόν ὁρῶ τὸ σύστημα [Aub. p. 354 also in the Acta Conc. Eph. Act. 1. n. 13. upon which the homily quoted by Mr. Neale seems to be founded] speaks of the condemnation of Nestorius as past, σεαυτὸν ἐξήλειφας, p. 357. ὁ Θεὸς καθεῖλέ σε καὶ ἐξέτιλε. p. 358. The homily, ἒδει μἐν ἀρκεῖσθαι placed by both after the deposition [Aub. p. 358. Bal. p. 548.] scarcely alludes to Nestorius.
162. [u] Conc. Eph. Act. 1. A Bishop, among his associates, justified the Jews, as having only slain a man.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius.asp?pg=35
