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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 39
If S. Cyril had any intimation of this mind of the Antiochenes, it accounts for his sudden resolve not to wait for them, but to accede to the wishes of the other Bishops and open the Council without them. The mind of the Church had been expressed in the previous year. The Council itself was only a device of Nestorius to ward off his condemnation. He had already been severed from the Communion of the greater part of Christendom. The Council represented the whole West, North Africa, Egypt, Jerusalem, Macedonia, Illyricum, Pontus, Cappadocia, Armenia. The 15 or 17 [181] Bishops of John of Antioch, even if united with the 10 or 15 [182] Bishops of Nestorius, were but a fraction of the Church. No injustice was done to Nestorius. But grave confusion and scandal might have ensued upon John's arrival. If John had brought into the Council the charge of heresy, which his Conciliabulum alleged so perseveringly against S. Cyril and Memnon, it would have rested with Candidian, the friend of Nestorius, to rule in what order the charges should be taken. Candidian threw himself so entirely into John's side (even in intercepting the Relation of the Council to the Emperor), that he would, without doubt, have preferred the charge of heresy against S. Cyril. What the result would have been, He only can know, Who sees the things which have not been, as if they had been. We cannot write the things which have not been, since God Alone knows the hearts which He made, and how they would have developed under trials which He spared. But Nestorius had shewn himself practised in inflicting violence, as Dioscorus up to the eve of the Latrocinium had not. Soldiers of Theodosius had not much respect for Bishops. Those who carried the news of the deposition of Nestorius to Count Irenaeus brought back to the Council the marks of their ill-treatment [183]. Nestorius had brought his own guard of soldiers and a great number of peasants and others from the worst parts of Constantinople. Candidian had drawn troops from the garrison at Tripoli in Lydia. It has been noticed that the seamen who brought S. Cyril were ready to support him, and the peasantry of the lands of the see of Ephesus to support Memnon. The whole population of Ephesus were enthusiastic in behalf of the ancient doctrine, as they shewed by their exuberant joy [184], when the sentence, for which they had waited from morning to evening, was announced.
It would be mere matter of imagination to picture anything further. But the second Council of Ephesus, which became the Latrocinium under the guidance of Dioscorus, was called just as legitimately as the first.
However this may have been, it does not require much humility to think that S. Cyril, in the midst of the events, knew more than we, who see them only through some fragmentary records of the past. Even apart from the menace of Candidian, one so long-sighted as S. Cyril must have known that he would incur the grave displeasure of Theodosius, by superseding his orders; that there was a strong prima-facie case of contravening them against him; and that the Emperor, who had written to him as he had, was not one to be trifled with. Yet he braved it all. It was of moment to the Church, that the heresy of Nestorius should be condemned. The sentence once passed could not be reversed; because the whole Church except the Antiochenes agreed in it.
So S. Cyril assented to the wish of the Council not to delay, and braved the Emperor's displeasure, expecting it to fall on himself alone.
181. [q] See Tillemont, S. Cyrille, Note 43.
183. [s] Epist. Memnon. ad Cler. Const. Conc. Eph. Act. vi. n. 14.
184. [t] S. Cyr. Ep. ad Cler. Const. Conc. Eph. Act. 1. n. 9.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius.asp?pg=39
