St. Alphonsus Liguori: The History of Heresies and Their Refutation

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CHAPTER V. HERESIES OF THE FIFTH CENTURY

ARTICLE III. THE NESTORIAN HERESY

20. Errors of Nestorius, and his elevation to the Episcopacy.
21. He approves of the Errors preached by his Priest, Anastasius; his Cruelty.
22. He is contradicted, and other acts of Cruelty.
23. St. Cyril’s Letter to him, and his Answer.
24. The Catholics separate from him.
25. Letters to St. Celestine, and his Answer.
26. He is admonished; Anathemas of St. Cyril.
27. The Sentence of the Pope is intimated to him.
28. He is cited to the Council.
29. He is condemned.
30. The Sentence of the Council is intimated to him.
31. Cabal of John of Antioch.
32. Confirmation of the Council by the Legates, in the name of the Pope.
33. The Pelagians are condemned.
34. Disagreeable Affair with the Emperor Theodosius.
35. Theodosius approves of the condemnation of Nestorius, and sends him into Banishment, where he dies.
36. Laws against the Nestorians.
37. Efforts of the Nestorians.
38. The same subject continued.
39. It is condemned as heretical to assert that Jesus Christ is the adopted Son of God.
40 – 43. Answer to Basnage, who has unjustly undertaken the Defence of Nestorius.

20. The heresy of Pelagius was scarcely condemned by the African Councils, when the Church had to assemble again to oppose the heresy of Nestorius, who had the temerity to impugn the maternity of the Mother of God, calling her the Mother, not of God, but of Christ, who, he blasphemously taught, was a mere man, as, with a similar impiety, Ebion, Paul of Samosata, and Photinus, had done before, by asserting that the Word was not hypostatically united with Christ, but only extrinsically, so that God dwelled in Christ, as in his temple. Nestorius was born in Germanicia, a small city of Syria, and, as Suidas, quoted by Baronius, informs us, was a nephew to Paul of Samosata, and was brought up in the monastery of St. Euprepius, in the suburbs of Antioch (1). He was ordained priest by Theodotus (2), and appointed his catechist, to explain the faith to the catechumens, and defend it against heretics; and, in fact, he was most zealous in combating the heretics who then disturbed the Eastern Church the Arians, the Apollinarists, and the Origenists and professed himself a great admirer and imitator of St. John Chrysostom.

He was so distinguished for his eloquence, though it was only of a vain and popularity-hunting sort, and his apparent piety, for he was worn, pale, and always poorly clad, that he was placed in the See of Constantinople, in place of Sissinnius, in the year 427, according to Noel Alexander, or 428, according to Hermant and Cardinal Orsi. His elevation, however, was not only legitimate, but highly creditable to him, for after the death of the Patriarch Sisinnius, the Church of Constantinople was split into factions about who should succeed him, which induced the Emperor Theodosius the Younger to put an end to it all, by selecting a Bishop himself; and, that no one should complain of his choice, he summoned Nestorius from Antioch, and had him consecrated Bishop, and his choice was highly pleasing to the people (3). It is said, also, that, at the first sermon he preached (4), he turned round to the Emperor, and thus addressed him: ” Give me, my Lord, the earth purged from heretics, and I will give you heaven; exterminate the heretics with me, and I will exterminate the Persians with you.”


21. Theodosius hoped that his new Patriarch would in all things follow in the steps of his predecessor, Chrysostom; but he was deceived in his hopes. His virtue was altogether Pharasaical, for, under an exterior of mortification, he concealed a great fund of pride. In the beginning of his reign, it is true, he was a most ardent persecutor of the Arians, the Novatians, and the Quartodecimans; but, as St. Vincent of Lerins tells us, his chief aim in this was only to prepare the way for teaching his own errors (5). ” He declared war against all heresies, to make way for his own.” He brought a priest from Antioch with him, of the name of Anastasius, and he, at the instigation of the Bishop; preached one day the blasphemous doctrine that no one should call Mary the Mother of God, because she was only a creature, and it was impossible that a human creature could be the Mother of God.

The people ran to Nestorius, to call on him to punish the temerity of the preacher; but he not only approved of what was said, but unblushingly went into the pulpit himself, and publicly defended the doctrine preached by Anastasius. In that sermon, called afterwards by St. Cyril (6), the Compendium of all Blasphemy, he called those Catholics blind and ignorant, who were scandalized by Anastasius preaching, that the Holy Virgin should not be called the Mother of God. The people were most anxiously waiting to hear what the Bishop would say in the pulpit, when, to their astonishment, he cried out: ” How can God have a mother? The Gentiles then ought to be excused, who bring forward on the stage the mothers of their Gods; and the Apostle is a liar, when, speaking of the Divinity of Christ, he says that he is without father, without mother, without generation: no, Mary has not brought forth a God. What is born of the flesh is nothing but flesh; what is born of the spirit is spiritual. The creature does not bring forth the Creator, but only a man, the instrument of the Divinity.”

22. It has always been the plan with heretics, to sustain this error, by accusing the Catholics of heresy. Arius called the Catholics Sabellians, because they professed that the Son was God, like unto the Father. Pelagius called them Manicheans, because they insisted on the necessity of Grace. Eutyches called them Nestorians, because they believed that there were two distinct natures in Christ the Divine and the human nature; and so, in like manner, Nestorius called them Arians and Apollinarists, because they confessed in Christ one Person, true God and true man. When Nestorius thus continued to preach, not alone once, but frequently, and when the whole burthen of his sermons was nothing but a blasphemous attack on the doctrine of the Church, the people of Constantinople became so excited, that, beholding their shepherd turned into a wolf, they threatened to tear him in pieces, and throw him into the sea. He was not, however, without partisans, and although these were but very few, they had, for all that, the support of the Court and the Magistracy, and the contests even in the church became so violent, that there was frequently danger of blood being spilled there (7).

Withal, there was one person who, while Nestorius was publicly preaching one day in the church (8), and denying the two generations of the Word, the Eternal and the Temporal, boldly stood forward, and said to his face: ” It is so, nevertheless; it is the same Word, who, before all ages was born of the Father, and was afterwards born anew of a virgin, according to the flesh.” Nestorius was irritated at the interruption, and called the speaker a miserable ribald wretch; but as he could not take vengeance as he wished on him, for, though but then a layman (he was afterwards made Bishop of Dorileum, and was a most strenuous opponent of Eutyches, as we shall see in the next chapter), he was an advocate of great learning, and one of the agents for the affairs of his Sovereign, he discharged all the venom of his rage on some good Archimandrites of monks, who came to enquire of him whether what was said of his teaching was true that he preached that Mary brought forth only a man that nothing could be born of the flesh but flesh alone and suggested to him that such doctrine was opposed to Faith. Nestorius, without giving them any reply, had them confined in the ecclesiastical prison, and his myrmidons, after stripping them of their habits, and kicking and beating them, tied them to a post, and lacerated their backs with the greatest cruelty, and then, stretching them on the ground, beat them on the belly.


23. The sermons of Nestorius were scattered through all the provinces of the East and West, and through the monasteries of Egypt, likewise, where they excited great disputes. St. Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, hearing of this, and fearing lest the heresy should take root, wrote a letter to all the monks of Egypt (9), in which he instructs them not to intermeddle in such questions at all, and, at the same time, gives them excellent instructions in the true Faith. This letter was taken to Constantinople, and St. Cyril was thanked by several of the magistrates; but Nestorius was highly indignant, and got a person named Photius to answer it, and sought every means to be revenged on St. Cyril.

When this came to the knowledge of the Saint, he wrote to Nestorius (10) : ” This disturbance,” he says,” did not commence on account of my letter, but on account of writings scattered abroad (whether they are yours or not is another thing), and which have been the cause of so many disorders, that I was obliged to provide a remedy. You have, therefore, no reason to complain of me. You, rather, who have occasioned this disturbance, amend your discourses, and put an end to this universal scandal, and call the Holy Virgin the Mother of God. Be assured, in the meantime, that I am prepared to suffer every thing, even imprisonment and death, for the Faith of Jesus Christ.” Nestorius answered, but his reply was only a threatening tirade (11): ” Experience,” said he, ” will shew what fruit this will produce; for my part, I am full of patience and charity, though you have not practised either towards me, not to speak more harshly to you.” This letter proved to St. Cyril, that nothing more was to be expected from Nestorius, and what followed proved the truth of his conjecture.

24. There was a Bishop of the name of Dorotheas in Constantinople, who was such a sycophant to Nestorius, that while the Patriarch was one day in full assembly, seated on his throne, he rose up and cried out: ” If any one says that Mary is the Mother of God, let him be excommunicated.” When the people heard this blasphemy so openly proclaimed, they set up a loud shout, and left the church (12), determined to hold no more communion with the proclaimers of such an impious heresy (13); for, in fact, to excommunicate all those who said that Mary was the Mother of God, would be to excommunicate the whole Church all the Bishops, and all the departed Saints, who professed the Catholic doctrine. There is not the least doubt but that Nestorius approved of the excommunication announced by Dorotheus, for he not only held his peace on the occasion, but admitted him to the participation of the Sacred Mysteries. Some of his priests, on the contrary, after having publicly given him notice in the assembly, and seeing that he still persisted in not calling the Holy Virgin the Mother of God, and Jesus Christ, by his nature, true God (14), now openly forsook his communion; but he prohibited not only those, but all who previously had preached against his opinion, from preaching; so that the people, deprived of their usual instructions, said : ” We have an Emperor, but we have not a Bishop.”

A monk, burning with zeal, stepped forward while Nestorius was going into the church, and thought to prevent him, calling him a heretic, but the poor man was immediately knocked down, and given into the hands of the Prefect, who first caused him publicly to be flogged, and then sent him into exile (15).

25. St. Cyril wrote again to Nestorius, but seeing his obstinacy, and that the heresy was spreading in Constantinople, through favour of the Court, he wrote several letters, or, rather, treatises, to the Emperor Theodosius, and to the Princesses, his sisters, concerning the true Faith (16). He wrote, likewise, to Pope Celestine, giving him an account of all that took place, and explaining to him the necessity there was that he should oppose the errors of Nestorius (17). Nestorius himself, at the same time, had the boldness to write a letter to St. Celestine, likewise, in which he exaggerates his great labours against the heretics, and requires also to know why some Bishops of the Pelagian party were deprived of their Sees; he thus wrote, because he had kindly received those Bishops in Constantinople, and the Pelagians were not included in an edict he procured from Theodosius against the heretics; for, as Cardinal Orsi remarks, he adhered to the Pelagian opinion, that Grace is given to us by God, according to our own merits. He also wrote that some called the Blessed Virgin the Mother of God, when she should only be called the Mother of Christ, and on that account he sent him some of his books; this letter is quoted by Baronius (18). St. Celestine having read both letters, summoned a Council in Rome, in the month of August, 430, for the examination of the writings of Nestorius, and not only were his blasphemies condemned, but he was even deposed from his bishopric, if, ten days after the publication of his sentence, he did not retract his errors, and the Pope charged St. Cyril with the execution of the sentence (19).


26. St. Cyril, in discharge of the commission to which he was appointed by the Pope, convoked a Council, in Alexandria, of all the Bishops of Egypt, and then, in the name of the Council, wrote a Synodical letter to Nestorius, as the third and last admonition; telling him that, if in the term of ten days after the receipt of that letter, he did not retract what he had preached, those Fathers would have no more communication with him, that they would no longer consider him as a Bishop, and that they would hold communion with all clergymen and laymen deposed or excommunicated by him (20). The Synodical letter also contained the profession of Faith and the anathemas decreed against the Nestorian errors (21). These, in substance, are an anathema against those who deny that the Holy Virgin is Mother of the Incarnate Word, or deny that Jesus Christ is the only Son of God, true God and true Man, not alone according to his dignity, but through the hypostatic union of the Person of the Word with his most Holy Humanity. These anathemas are fully and distinctly expressed in the letter.


27. St. Cyril appointed four Egyptian Bishops to certify to Nestorius the authenticity of this letter, and two others one to the people of Constantinople, and another to the abbots of the monasteries, to give them notice likewise of the letter having been expedited. These Prelates arrived in Constantinople on the 7th of the following month of December, 430 (22), and intimated to Nestorius the sentence of deposition passed by the Pope, if he did not retract in ten days; but the Emperor Theodosius, previous to their arrival, had given orders for the convocation of a General Council, at the solicitation both of the Catholics, induced to ask for it by the monks, so cruelly treated by Nestorius, and of Nestorius himself, who hoped to carry his point by means of the Bishops of his party, and through favour of the Court. St. Cyril, therefore, wrote anew to St. Celestine, asking him (23), whether, in case of the retractation of Nestorius, the Council should receive him, as Bishop, into communion, and pardon his past faults, or put into execution the sentence of deposition already published against him.

St. Celestine answered, that, notwithstanding the prescribed time had passed, he was satisfied that the sentence of deposition should be kept in abeyance, to give time to Nestorius to change his conduct. Nestorius thus remained in possession of his See till the decision of the Council. This condescension of St. Celestine was praised in the Council afterwards, by the Legates, and was contrasted with the irreligious obstinacy of Nestorius (24).


28. As St. Celestine could not personally attend the Council, he sent Arcadius and Projectus, Bishops, and Philip, a priest, to preside in his place, with St. Cyril, appointed President in chief. He gave them positive orders that they should not allow his sentence against Nestorius to be debated in the Council (25), but to endeavour to have it put into execution. He wrote to the Council to the same effect, and notified the directions he had given to his Legates, and that he had no doubt but that the Fathers would adhere to the decision he had given, and not canvass what he already had decided, and, as we shall see, everything turned out most happily, according to his wishes. When the celebration of Easter was concluded, the Bishops all hastened to Ephesus, where the Council was convoked for the 7th of June. Nestorius, accompanied by a great train, was one of the first to arrive, and, soon after, St. Cyril, accompanied by fifty Egyptian Bishops, arrived, and in a little time two hundred Bishops, most of them Metropolitans and men of great learning, were assembled. There was no doubt about St. Cyril presiding as Vicar of Pope Celestine, in the Council of Ephesus; for, in several acts of the Synod itself, he is entitled President, even after the arrival of the Apostolic Legates, as is manifest from the fourth act of the Council, in which the Legates are mentioned by name after St. Cyril, and before all the other Bishops. It appears, even from the opening act of the Council, before the arrival of the Legates, that he presided in place of Celestine, as delegate of his Holiness the Archbishop of Rome. Graveson (26), therefore, justly says: ” That they are far from the truth, who deny that Cyril presided at the Council of Ephesus, as Vicar of Pope Celestine.”

St. Cyril, therefore, as President (27), gave notice that the first Session of the Synod would be held on the 22nd of June, in St. Mary’s Church, the principal one of Ephesus, and, on the day before, four Bishops were appointed to wait on Nestorius, and cite him to appear next day at the Council. He answered, that if his presence was necessary, he would have no objection to present himself; but then, in the course of the same day, he forwarded a protest, signed by sixty-eight Bishops, against the opening of the Council, until the arrival of other Bishops who were expected (28). St. Cyril and his colleagues paid no attention to the remonstrance, but assembled the next day.


29. On the appointed day the Council was opened; the Count Candidianus, sent by Theodosius, endeavoured to put it off, but the Fathers having ascertained that he was sent by the Emperor, solely with authority to keep order and put down disturbance, determined at once to open the Session, and the Count, accordingly, made no further opposition. Before they began, however, they judged it better to cite Nestorius a second and third time, according to the Canons, and sent other Bishops to him in the name of the Council, but they were insulted and maltreated by the soldiers he had with him as a body-guard. The Fathers, therefore, on the day appointed, the 22nd of June, held the first Session, in which, first of all, the second letter of St. Cyril to Nestorius was read, and the answer of Nestorius to St. Cyril, and they all called out immediately, with one accord (29) : ” Whoever does not anathematize Nestorius, let him be anathema. Whoever communicates with Nestorius let him be anathema. The true faith anathematizes him. We anathematize all the letters and dogmas of Nestorius.” St. Celestine’s letter was next read, in which he fulminates a sentence of deposition against Nestorius, unless he retracts in ten days (30).

Finally, the sentence of the Council was pronounced against him: It begins, by quoting the examination, by the Fathers, of his impious doctrines, extracted from his own writings and sermons, and then proceeds: “Obliged by the Sacred Canons, and the Epistle of our Holy Father and Colleague, Celestine, Bishop of the Roman Church, we have been necessarily driven, not without tears, to pronounce this melancholy sentence against him. Therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has insulted by his blasphemies, deprives him, through this Holy Council, of the Episcopal dignity, and declares him excluded from every Assembly and College of Priests (31).” This sentence was subscribed by one hundred and eighty-eight Bishops. The Session lasted from the morning till dark night (32), though the days were long at that season, the 22nd of June, and the sun did not set in the latitude of Ephesus, till seven o clock in the evening. The people of the city were waiting from morning till night, expecting the decision of the Council, and when they heard that Nestorius was condemned and deposed, and his doctrine prohibited, and that the Holy Virgin was declared to be the Mother of God in reality, they all, with one voice, began to bless the Council and praise God, who cast down the enemy of the Faith, and of his Holy Mother. When the Bishops left the church, they were accompanied to their lodgings by the people with lighted torches. Women went before them, bearing vases of burning perfume, and a general illumination of the whole city manifested the universal joy (33).


30. The following day, the foregoing sentence was intimated to Nestorius, and a letter sent to him as follows: ” The Holy Synod, assembled in the Metropolis of Ephesus, to Nestorius, the new Judas. Know that you, on account of your many discourses, and your obstinate contumacy against the Sacred Canons, have been deprived, on the 22nd of this month, of all Ecclesiastical dignity, according to the Ecclesiastical Decrees sanctioned by the Holy Synod” (34). The sentence was published the same day through the streets of Ephesus, by sound of trumpet, and was posted up in the public places; but Candidianus ordered it to be taken down, and published an edict, declaring the Session of the Council celebrated null and void. He also wrote to the Emperor, that the decision of the Council was obtained by sedition and violence; and the perfidious Nestorius wrote another letter to Theodosius to the same effect, complaining of the injustice done to him in the Council, and requiring that another General Council should be convened, and all the Bishops inimical to him excluded (35).


31. Several Bishops of the Nestorian party, who had signed the protest, were even shocked at his impiety, and convinced of the justice of the sentence passed against him, joined the Council (36). But when everything appeared to be about to settle down peaceably, John, Bishop of Antioch, raised another storm (37), in conjunction with other schismatical Bishops, to the number of forty; and, either to please Chrisaphius, Prime Minister of the Emperor, and a great friend of Nestorius, or because it went to his heart to see his friend and fellow-citizen (Nestorius was a native of Antioch) condemned, he had the hardihood to summon a Cabal in the very city of Ephesus, and then to depose St. Cyril, and St. Mennon, Bishop of Ephesus, and to excommunicate all the other Bishops of the Synod, because, as they said, they trampled on and despised the orders of the Emperor. St. Cyril and the other Bishops took no notice of such rash attempts, but, on the contrary, the Council put forth its authority, and deputed three Bishops to cite John, as chief of the Cabal, to account for his insolence, and after being twice more cited, and not appearing, the Council, in the fifth Session, declared John and his colleagues suspended from Ecclesiastical Communion, till such time as they would repent of their fault, and that, if they obstinately persevered, that they would be proceeded against, according to the Canons, to the last extremity (38). Finally, in the year 433, John, and the other Bishops of his party, subscribed the condemnation of Nestorius, and St. Cyril received him to his communion, and thus peace was re-established between the Metropolitans of Alexandria and Antioch (39).


32. We will, however, return to the Council, and see what was decided on in the subsequent Sessions, and, which we have postponed, to see the end of the Cabal of John of Antioch. Shortly after the first Session, the three Legates of St. Celestine arrived at Ephesus Philip, Arcadius, and Projectus and they came not alone in the Pope’s name, but also of all the Bishops of the West. The second Session was then held in the palace of St. Mennon, Bishop of the See, and the Legates took the first place (40). First of all, they wished that the letter of St. Celestine, sent by them to the Council, should be read. And when the Fathers heard it, they all agreed to the sentiments expressed in it by the Pope. Philip then thanked the Council, and said: ” You, by these acclamations, have united yourselves as holy members with your head, and have manifested that you well know that the Blessed Apostle, Peter, is the head of all the faithful, and chief of the Apostles.” Projectus then moved that the Council would put into execution what was mentioned in the letter of the Pope. Fermus, Bishop of Cesarea, in Cappadocia, answered, that the holy Synod, guided by the antecedent letters of the Pope, to St. Cyril, and to the Churches of Constantinople and Antioch, had already put it into execution, and pronounced a Canonical judgment against the contumacious Nestorius. The next day, therefore, all the acts of the Council, and the sentence of the deposition of Nestorius were read, and then the Priest Philip thus spoke : “No one doubts that St. Peter is the chief of the Apostles, the column of the Faith, and the foundation of the Catholic Church, and that he received the keys of the kingdom from Jesus Christ, and He lives even to-day, and exercises, in his successor, this judgment. Therefore, his Holiness Pope Celestine, who holds the place of St. Peter, having sent us to this Council to supply his place, we, in his name, confirm the Decree pronounced by the Synod against the impious Nestorius; and we declare him deposed from the priesthood and the communion of the Catholic Church; and, as he has contemned correction, let his part be with him, of whom it is written,”another shall receive his Bishopric. ” The Bishops Arcadius and Projectus then did the same, and the Council expressing a wish that all the acts of the two Sessions should be joined with those of the first preceding one, that the assent of all the Fathers might be shown to all the acts of the Council, it was done so, and the Legates subscribed the whole (41).


33. This being done, the Fathers of the Council wrote a Synodical Epistle to the Emperor, giving him an account of the sentence fulminated against Nestorius and his adherents, as the Pope, St. Celestine, had already decided, and charged his Legates with the execution of it in their name. They then subjoined the confirmation of the sentence by the Papal Legates, both in their own name, and the name of the Council of the Western Bishops, held in Home (42). The Council, besides, wrote another letter to St. Celestine, giving him an account of all that had been done, both against Nestorius, and against John, Patriarch of Antioch. They also notified to him the condemnation of the Pelagians and Celestians, and explained to him how the Pelagians disturbed the East, looking for a General Council to examine their cause; but that, as the Fathers had read in the Synod the Commentaries of the Acts of the deposition of these Bishops, they considered that the Pontifical Decrees passed against them should retain all their force. Cardinal Orsi (43) writes, that there is a great deal of confusion regarding the Synod of Ephesus, but there is no doubt but that the Pelagians were condemned in this Council as heretics, by the assembled Bishops of the world. The symbol composed by Theodore of Mopsuestia was also condemned in this Council, and every other formula, except that of the Council of Nice, was prohibited (44). Here, however, Cardinal Orsi justly remarks (45), that that does not prohibit the Church, when she condemns any heresy not formally condemned by the Council of Nice, from making additions necessary for clearing up the truth, as the Council of Constantinople had done already, and other Councils did since that of Ephesus. The heresy of the Messalians (Art. 3, chap. 4, n. 80), was also condemned in this Council, and a book, entitled The Ascetic, was anathematized at the same time (46).


34. When all was concluded, the Fathers wrote to Theodosius, requesting leave to return to their Churches; but the letter containing this request, as well as all the former ones they wrote to Constantinople, was intercepted by Count Candinianus, who placed guards on the roads for that purpose (47); while, at the same time, the letters of John of Antioch, and the schismatical Bishops of his party, stuffed with lies and calumnies regarding the proceedings of the Council, had already arrived some time at Constantinople; and thus it happened, that the Emperor, poisoned, on the one side, by the false accounts furnished him, and vexed, on the other, with the Fathers of the Council, for, as he believed, not having written to him, and informed him of what they had done in the affair of Nestorius, wrote to them that all the acts of the Synod, as done against his orders, were to be considered invalid, and that everything should be examined anew; and therefore, Palladius, the bearer of the Emperor’s letter to Ephesus, commanded, on his arrival, that none of the Fathers should be permitted to leave the city (48). The Fathers were confounded when they discovered how they were calumniated, and prevented from giving the Emperor a faithful account of all that had been done in the case of Nestorius, and the Patriarch of Antioch; they, therefore, devised a plan to send a trusty messenger (49), disguised as a beggar, with copies of all the letters they had already written, but which were intercepted, enclosed in a hollow cane, such as poor pilgrims usually carried. They wrote, likewise to several other persons in Constantinople, so that when the good people of that city discovered the intrigues of the enemies of the Council, they went in a crowd along with the Monk St. Dalmatius, who, for forty-eight years previously, had never left his monastery (50), and all the Archimandrites, singing hymns and psalms, to address the Emperor in favour of the Catholics. Theodosius gave them audience in the Church of St. Mocius, and St. Dalmatius, ascending the pulpit, said: “O Cæsar, put an end, at length, to the miserable imposture of heresy; let the just cause of the Catholics prevail for ever.” He then proceeded to explain the rectitude of the acts of the Council, and the insolence of the schismatics. Theodosius, moved by the reasons adduced, revoked his orders (51), and, concerning the dispute between St. Cyril and the Patriarch of Antioch, he said he wished to try the cause himself, and commanded, therefore, that each of them should send some of his Bishops to Constantinople.


35. The Legates had now left the Council for Constantinople, but, when matters were just settling down, another storm arose, for the Count Ireneus, a great patron of the schismatics, came to Ephesus, and informed the Emperor that Nestorius was no more a heretic than Cyril and Mennon, and that the only way to pacify the Church of the East, was to depose the whole three of them together. At the same time, Acacius, Bishop of Berea, an honest and righteous man, but who, deceived by Paul, Bishop of Emisenum, joined the party of John of Antioch, wrote to the Emperor, likewise, against St. Cyril and St. Mennon; so Theodosius thought it better to send (52) his almoner, the Count John, to Ephesus, to pacify both parties. When the Count came to Ephesus, he ordered that Nestorius, Cyril, and Mennon, should be put into prison; but the Catholic Bishops immediately wrote to the Emperor, praying him to liberate the Catholic Bishops, and protesting that nothing would induce them ever to communicate with the schismatics. In the meanwhile, the concerns of the Empire all went wrong; the Roman army was cut to pieces by the Goths, in Africa, and the few survivors were reduced to slavery. The clergy of Constantinople clamoured in favour of the Catholics, and they were assisted in their zealous exertions by St. Pulcheria, who opened the eyes of her brother to the impositions of the Nestorians (53). The Emperor, at length, assured of the wickedness of the schismatics, and the virtue of the Catholics, ordered St. Cyril and St. Mennon to be liberated, and gave leave to the bishops to return home to their Sees; he confirmed the deposition of Nestorius, and ordered him to shut himself up once more in his old monastery of St. Euprepius, and there learn to repent; but as he, instead of exhibiting any symptoms of sorrow for his past conduct, only continued to infect the monks of the monastery with his heretical opinions, he was banished to the Oasis between Egypt and Lybia (54), and soon after, as Fleury informs us, was transferred to Panapolis, and from Panopolis to Elephantina, and, from thence, back again to another place near Panopolis, where, at last, he died in misery, worn out by years and infirmities. Some say that, through desperation, he dashed his brains out; others, that the ground opened under him and swallowed him, and others, again, that he died of a cancer, which rotted his tongue, and that it was consumed by worms engendered by the disease a fit punishment for that tongue which had uttered so many blasphemies against Jesus Christ and his Holy Mother (55).


36. Nestorius was succeeded in the See of Constantinople, by Maximinian, a monk untainted in the Faith, and Theodosius deprived Count Ireneus of his dignity (56). The Emperor next, in the year 435, made a most rigorous law against the Nestorians. He ordered that they should be called Simonians, and prohibited them from having any conventicle, either within or without the city; that if any one gave them a place of meeting, all his property should be confiscated, and he prohibited all the books of Nestorius treating of Religion. Danæus (57) says, that the heresy of Nestorius did not end with his life; it was spread over various regions of the East, and, even in our own days, there are whole congregations of Nestorians on the Malabar Coast, in India.


37. When the Nestorians saw their chief rejected by all the world, and his works condemned by the Council of Ephesus and the Emperor, they set about disseminating the writings of the Bishops Theodore and Diodorus, who died in communion with the Church, and left a great character after them in the East (58). The Nestorians endeavoured to turn the writings of those prelates to their own advantage, and pretended to prove that Nestorius had taught nothing new, but only followed the teaching of the ancients, and they translated those works into various languages (59); but many zealous Catholic Bishops, as Theodosia of Ancyra, Acacius of Meretina, and Rabbola of Edessa, bestirred themselves against the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia. When St. Cyril heard of the matter, he also wrote against those books, and purposely composed a declaration of the Symbol of Nice, in which, with great particularity and diifuseness, he explains the doctrine of the Incarnation (60).


38. We should also remark, that Theodoret being soon after re-established in his See, by the Council of Chalcedon, after subscribing the condemnation of Nestorius and of his errors; and Ibas, being, likewise, reinstated, after retracting the errors imputed to him, and anathematized Nestorius, the Nestorians made a handle of that, to insinuate that their doctrines were approved of by the Council of Chalcedon, and thus they seduced a great many persons, and formed a numerous party. God sent them, however, a powerful opponent, in the person of Theodore, Bishop of Cesarea, who prevailed on the Emperor Justinian to cause the writings of Theodore against St. Cyril, and the letter of Ibas, on the same subject, to be condemned. Justinian, in fact, condemned the works of these Bishops, and of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and requested Pope Vigilius to condemn them also, which he did, after mature examination in his Constitution, and approved of all that was decided in the fifth General Council, the second of Constantinople, held in the year 533 (61), as we shall see in the next chapter. The condemnation of these works, afterwards called The Three Chapters, put an effectual stop to the progress of Nestorianism (62); but still there were, ever since, many, both in the East and West, who endeavoured to uphold this impious heresy.


39. The most remarkable among the supporters of Nestorianism were two Spanish Bishops Felix, Bishop of Urgel, and Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo; these maintained that Jesus Christ, according to his human nature, was not the natural, but only the adopted, Son of God, or, as they said, the nuncupative, or Son in name alone. This heresy had its origin about the year 780.

Elipandus preached this heresy in the Asturias and Galicia, and Felex in Septimania, a part of Narbonic Gaul, called, at a later period, Languedoc. Elipandus brought over to his side Ascarieus, Archbishop of Braga, and some persons from Cordova (63). This error had many opponents, the principal were Paulinus, Patriarch of Aquilea; Beatus, a priest and monk in the mountains of Asturias; Etherius, his disciple, and afterwards Bishop of Osma; but its chief impugner was Alcuinus, who wrote seven books against Felix, and four against Elipandus. Felix was first condemned in Narbonne, in the year 788, next in Ratisbon, in 792, and in 794, in a Synod held at Frankfort, by the Bishops of France, who, as Noel Alexander tells us, condemned him with this reservation (64) : ” Reservato per omnia juris privilegio Summi Pontificis Domini & Patris nostri Adriani Primæ Ssedis Beatissimi Papæ.” This error was finally twice condemned in 799, in Rome, under Adrian and Leo III (65). Felix abjured his errors in the Council of Ratisbon, in 792; but it appears he was not sincere, as he taught the same doctrine afterwards. In the year 799, he was charged with relapsing by Alcuinus, in a Synod held at Aix-la-Chapelle, he confessed his error, and gave every sign of having truly returned to the Church, but some writings of his, discovered after his death, leave us in doubt of the sincerity of his conversion, and of his eternal happiness. This was not the case with Elipandus, for though he resisted the truth a long time, he at length bowed to the decision of the Roman Church, and died in her communion, as many authors, quoted by Noel Alexander, testify (66).


40. Who would believe that after seeing Nestorius condemned by a General Council, celebrated by such a multitude of Bishops, conducted with such solemnity and accuracy, and afterwards accepted by the whole Catholic Church, that persons would be found to defend him, as innocent, and charge his condemnation as invalid and unjust. Those who do this are surely heretics, whose chief study has always been to reject the authority of Councils and the Pope, and thus sustain their own errors. The history of Nestorianism would be incomplete without a knowledge of the modern defenders of the heresy, and the arguments made use of by them.

Calvin was the first to raise the standard, and he was followed by his disciples, Albertin, Giles Gaillard, John Croye, and David de Roden. This band was joined by another Calvinistic writer, in 1645, who printed a work, but did not put his name to it, in which he endeavours to show that Nestorius should not be ranked with the heretics, but with the doctors of the Church, and venerated as a martyr, and that the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus ought to be considered Eutychians, as well as St. Cyril, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. Dionisius of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Hilary, who give it such praise. This book was refuted by the learned Petavius, in the year 1646, in the sixth book of his work on Theological Dogmas. Finally, Samuel Basnage, in his Annals (67), has joined with Calvin and the other authors above-named, and has taken up the defence of Nestorius; he has even the hardihood to declare, that the Council of Ephesus had filled the world with tears.


41. We shall let Basnage speak for himself. He says, first, the Council of Ephesus was not a General one, but only a particular Synod, as the bishops refused to wait either for the Pope’s Legates, or for the other Bishops of the East. As far as the Legates are concerned, we see (No. 28.) that St. Cyril assisted at the Council, from the beginning, and that he had been already nominated by the Pope as President; that a few days after, the other Legates arrived, and that they confirmed the Council. It is true all the Bishops of the East did not attend it, for eighty- nine Bishops seceded, and formed a Cabal apart, in the very city of Ephesus, in which they deposed St. Cyril; but a few days after, the eighty-nine were reduced to thirtyseven, among whom, were the Pelagian Bishops, and several others already deposed; and the rest, when their eyes were opened to the truth, united themselves to the Fathers of the Council, so that Theodoret, who at first adhered to the party of John of Antioch, wrote to Andrew of Samosata: ” Pars maxima Isrælis consentit inimicis, pauci vero valde sunt salvi, ac sustinent pro pietate certamen :” but John himself, afterwards, together with Theodoret and the rest who repented, subscribed to the Council, which then was recognized as Ecumenical by the whole Church. With what face, then, can Basnage say that it was a particular, and not a General Council?


42. Basnage says next (68), that it is a false supposition of Noel Alexander, that Nestorius taught that there were two Persons in Christ, or denied that Mary was the true Mother of God, and he was condemned, he says, only because he was not well understood; but how does he prove this as to the maternity of the Blessed Virgin?

By saying that Nestorius, in a certain letter he wrote to John of Antioch, admits, that as far as the words of the Gospel go, he has no objection that the Virgin should be piously called the Mother of God, but these words he afterwards interpreted in his own way. But why should we lose time in trying to interpret these obscure and equivocal expressions of his, when he expressly declares more than once, that Mary was not the Mother of God, otherwise the Gentiles ought to be excused for adoring the mothers of their gods. “Has God,” he says, ” a Mother? therefore Paganism is excusable. Mary brought not forth God, but she brought forth a man, the instrument of the Divinity.” These are his own words, quoted by Basnage himself, and he also relates that the monks of the Archimandrite, Basil, in their petition to the Emperor Theodosius, stated that Nestorius (69) said, that Mary only brought forth a man, and that nothing but flesh could be born of the flesh, and, therefore they required, that in a General Council, the foundation of the Faith should be left intact, that is, that the Word with the flesh, taken from Mary, suffered and died for the Redemption of mankind. We have, besides, a letter written by Nestorius to the Pope St. Celestine (70), in which he complains that the clergy, “aperte blasphemant, Deum Verbum tamquam originis initium de Christotocho Virgine sumsisse. Sed hanc Virginem Christotochon ausi sunt cum modo quodam Theotocon dicere, cum Ss. illi Patres per Nicæam nihil amplius de S. Virgine dixissent, nisi quia Jesus Christus incarnatus est ex Spiritu Sancto de Maria Virgine;” and he adds, “Verbum Theotocon ferri potest propter inseparabile Templum Dei Verbi ex ipsa, non quia ipsa Mater sit Verbi Dei, nemo enim antiquiorem se parit :” thus, he denies in the plainest terms, that the Blessed Virgin is Theotocon, the Mother of the Word of God, but only allows her to be Christotocon, the Mother of Christ; but St. Celestine answers him (71): “We have received your letters containing open blasphemy,” and he adds that this truth, that the only Son of God was born of Mary, is the promise to us of life and salvation.


43. Let us now see what Nestorius says of Jesus Christ. No nature, he says, can subsist without its proper subsistence, and this is the origin of his error, for he therefore gives two Persons to Christ, Divine and human, as he had two natures, and he therefore said that the Divine Word was united to Christ after he was formed a perfect man with appropriate human subsistence and personality. He says: ” Si Christus perfectus Deus, idemque perfectus homo intelligitur, ubi nature est perfectio, si hominis natura non subsistit” (72)? He also said that the union of the two natures was according to grace, or by the dignity or honour of Filiation given to the Person of Christ, and he, therefore, in general, did not call the union of the two natures a union at all, but propinquity, or inhabitation; he thus admits two united, or more properly speaking, conjoined natures, but not a true unity of person, and by two natures understands two personalities, and therefore could not bear to hear it said in speaking of Jesus Christ, that God was born, or suffered, or died. In his letter to St. Cyril, quoted by Basnage, he says : ” My brother, to ascribe birth, or suffering, or death, to the Divine Word by reason of this appropriation, is to follow the Pagans or the insane Apollinares.” These expressions prove that he did not believe that the two Natures were united in one Person. When his priest, Anastasius, preaching to the people, said : ” Let no one call Mary the Mother of God, it is not possible that God should be born of man,” and the people horrified with the blasphemy, called on Nestorius to remove the scandal given by Anastatius, he went up into the pulpit, and said: ” I never would call him God, who has been formed only two or three months,” and he never called Jesus Christ, God, but only the temple or habitation of God, as he wrote to St. Cyril. It is proper, he said, and conformable to Ecclesiastical Tradition, to confess that the body of Christ is the temple of the Divinity, and that it is joined by so sublime a connexion to his Divine self, that we may say his Divine nature appropriates to itself something which otherwise would belong to the body alone.



(1) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, a. 12, s. 1; Baron. Ann. 428, n. 1, & seq.; Orsi, t. 12, 7. 28. ex n. 1, & Floury, t. 4, l. 24, n. 54.
(2) Evagr. Hist. l, 1, c. 5.
(3) Orsi, t. 12, I 28, n. 1.
(4) Fleury, t. 4, L 24, n. 54; Nat.. loc. cit.
(5) Apud. Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, art. 12
(6) Orsi, loc. cit. n. 8; Serm. 1, ap. More.
(7) Orsi, l. 28, n. 9.
(8) Orsi, n. 10; Fleury, t. 4, l. 25, n.6.
(9) St. Cyril, Ep. adMon. n. 3, apud.; Fleury, t. 4, t. 25, n. 3; Orsi, l. 28, n. 14.
(10) Epis. ad Nestor, c. 6, ap.; Fleury, ibid.
(11) Fleury, ibid. 
(12) St. Cyril, Ep. ad Nest. c. 10, ap.; Fleury, I 25.
(13) St. Cyril, ad. Acac. c. 22.
(14) Libell. Basil, c. 30, n. 2.
(15) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, a. 12, s. 2; Fleury, l. 25, n. 3; Orsi, t. 12, l, 28, n. 37, and seq.
(16) Con. Ephes.p. 1, c. 3, n. 6.
(17) Conc. Ephes. p. I, c. 14.
(18) Baron. An. 430, n. 7.
(19) Fleury, t. 4, l. 25, n. 10, & seq; Nat. Alex. cit. ar. 12 & 3
(20) Conc. Ephes. p. 1, c. 26
(21) Apud, Bernini, t. 1, sec. 5, c. 4, p. 452, & Orsi, t. 12, l. 28, n. 48.
(22) Orsi, t. 13, l. 29, n. 1, ar. 2.
(23) Celest. Ep. 161.
(24) Orsi, loc. cit. n. 1, in fin.
(25) Celest Epis. 17, apud; Orsi, ibid. n. 2.
(26) Graveson, t. 3, sec. 5, col 4.
(27) Orsi, l. 29, n. 12.
(28) Orsi, loc. cit. n. 12.
(29) In actis Con. Ephes. ap. Bernin. sec. 4, c. 4, p. 458.
(30) Orsi, t. 13, l. 29, n. 18.
(31) Orsi, n. 21; Fleury, t. 4, 1. 25, n. 42.
(32) Epis. Cyr. l. 3, Conc.
(33) Floury and Orsi, loc. cit.
(34) Apud, Bcrnin. sec. 5, c. 4,; Nat, Alex. t. 10, c. 3, err. 12, s. 6.
(35) Orsi, 1. 29, n. 23, and seq.
(36) Orsi, n. 25.
(37) Cabassu. not. Con. sec. 5, n. 17, and Orsi, n. 33.
(38) Orsi, l. cit. n. 49.
(39) Orsi, t. 13, l. 30, n. 28.
(40) Orsi, n. 42.
(41) Orsi, l. 29, n. 42, & seq.
(42) Orsi, loc. cit.
(43) Orsi, l. 29, n. 52.
(44) Baron. Ann. 431, n. 98 & 99.
(45) Orsi, n. 58.
(46) Baron, n. 101; Orsi, n. 61.
(47) Baron. Ann. 451, n. 104.
(48) Baron, n. 105 & 107.
(49) Baron. Ann. 451, n. 108; Cabass. sec. v, 17; Fleury, t. 4, l. 26, n. 6.
(50) Orsi, t. 13, l.30, n. 28.
(51) Baron. Ann. 431, n. 113.
(52) Baron, n. 126 & 127.
(53) Baron, n. 159.
(54) Fleury, t. 4, L 26, n. 34.
(55) Baron. Ann. 520, n, 67; Cabass. sec. 5, n. 18; Orsi, t.l8, 1. 30, n. 74; Nat. t. 10, c. 3, ar. 12, n. 18, s. 10, Hermant, t. l. c. 148.
(53) Lupus Not. ad conc. 1 Rom.; Berti, Theol. l. 6, c. 14, prop. 3, & Hist. s. 9, c. 4; Contens. Theol. l. 8; De Prædest. app. 1, .s. 3; Ron caglia, Animad. ap. N. Alex. t. 13, 8; De Prædest. app. 1, .s. 3; Ron
(54) Sirmund. Tract, de Præd. Har. Card, de Noris, l. 2; Hist. Pelag. c. 15; Mabillon, ad sec. IV. Bened. Tournelly, Theol. t. 5, loo. cit. p. 142; Gotti, loc. sopra cit. c. 84, s. diss. 5. 2; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. t. 13, diss. 5.
(56) Baron, n. 177 & 181.
(57) Dan. temp. not. p. 241.
(58) Liberat. Brev. c. 10.
(59) Coll. Sup. c. 199.
(60) Fleury, t. 4, 1. 26, n. 36.
(61) Berti, t. 1, sec. vi. c. 2.
(62) Hermant. t. 1, c. 202.
(63) Fleury, t. 6. l. 44, n. 50.
(64) N. Alex, t . 12, s. 8, c. 2, a. 3, f. 2.
(65) Graves, f. 3; Colloq.3, p. 55.
(66) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. c. 2, a. 3, f. 1 .
(67) Basnage, ad. an. 444, n. 13.
(68) Basnage, I. cit. ad an. 430.
(69)Habetur, in Sess. 4; Con. Col.
(70) Sess. 4; Cone. Col. 1021.
(71) Tom. 4; Con. Col. 1023
(72) Tom. 5; Con. Col. 1004.