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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 42
The Emperor tried in vain to reconcile the Antiochenes with S. Cyril.
The Antiochenes, in their third indignant protest [203], reproached the Emperor with their obedience, reminded him that the East was no small part of his Empire, that he needed the true faith to prevail in the war which then encircled Africa, that God would fight for him, if he would defend the holy faith, and would not allow the body of the Church to be cut of, but it would be cut off, if the meaning superinduced on the faith by Cyril and confirmed by others should stand; that persons intermixed with the Churches taught the doctrine of Apollinarius and Arius and Eunomius, and unlawfully and irregularly exercised the office of the priesthood. They conclude with the prayer that he would not allow any thing to be stealthily introduced against the faith of the holy fathers who met at Nice. If after this admonition before God the Emperor did not acquiesce, they 'with S. Paul shook off the dust from their feet against them, saying, "We are clean from the blood of all men." "We have not ceased night and day, from the time we came to the holy Synod to protest to the Emperor, Judges, soldiers, priests, and laymen, not to be the betrayers of the faith delivered by the fathers.'
It was an internecine war, continued even after the return of the Eastern Bishops to their sees; the Easterns still absolutely demanded the deposition of S. Cyril Memnon and all their adherents, and that their teaching should be proscribed.
* * *
S. Cyril shewed his peace-loving disposition on his return to Egypt. The Orientals had brought upon him his imprisonment, its privations and indignities, and the prospect of banishment. This they had done by aping a Council, yet without the formalities of a Council, without enquiring into anything which the real Council had done, assuming that they had done what they had not done----formally sanctioned the Anathematisms which S. Cyril had framed, not as a rule of faith but to cut off the evasions of Nestorius, and that these Anathemas were heretical. They had persuaded the Emperor, that their 40 Bishops, who represented one Patriarchate, were the Council of the whole world, which he had convoked. Until they found it useless to mention the name of Nestorius to the Emperor [204], they urged his restoration and the deposition of S. Cyril. He had escaped in despite of them. They would not be persuaded that Nestorius was the heretic which he was; and they would repeat that S. Cyril was an Arian, Eunomian, Apollinarian, although they must have known that at the least he was neither Eunomian nor Arian.
There was nothing then for S. Cyril to do in regard to them. They had fallen into the trap which Nestorius had laid for them by sending the Anathemas meant to test his own sincerity, without the Epistle which would have explained them. It became an axiom with Theodoret that they were heretical. S. Cyril then could but wait. S. Sixtus iii., a peace-loving Bishop who had succeeded S. Celestine, bears him witness that he had shewed at once how mindful he was of the faith and how regardless of contumelies, which he suffered gloriously, according to the Apostle, wishing that the Churches should be well-ordered, rather than that he should be righted himself; that one [Nestorius] having wrecked himself, he was anxious that all the rest should be saved out of the waves. 'The same mind is in us also; to act tenderly towards them, when they cease to be impious towards God. Let those then, who will to return to the right way, be received.' He addresses S. Cyril himself,
204. [q] Ep. Theodoret. ad Alex. Hierap. Acta 2. Conciliab. n. 13.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius.asp?pg=42
