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 |xc to the Emperor , 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,
' Hold fast, most beloved brother, what has been done by the Council, and what has been defined by us. For a brother dismisses contumelies which benefit him before the Lord of all. For such contumely is victory. |xci Whence he has borne meekly all the sharp blows, nor did those things grieve him, wherein he now rejoices; for he strove for a crown. For he knows what prizes are in store for the victors in such conflicts.'
S. Sixtus coincided altogether with S. Cyril, but spoke strongly; 'let him [John] know that he shall be one of the Catholic body, if, undoing all undone by the Synod, he shew himself a Catholic priest.'
S. Cyril required nothing for himself. The Bishops, whom the Emperor assembled at Constantinople, propounded the terms, at which the Emperor was 'exceedingly pleased.'
' The Bishop, full of piety, John of Antioch, must anathematise the doctrine of Nestorius, and acknowledge in writing his deposition; and this being done, the Bishop of Alexandria will, out of love, forget altogether and regard as nothing the contumelies which he endured at Ephesus, very grievous as they were, and hard to endure.'
John's party would not accept them. The first conditions of peace on John's side, which Aristolaus, the Emperor's deputy, selected as the mildest , were in fact, of unconditional submission.
The terms were,
' We acknowledge the Nicene Creed as sufficient, but the letter of S. Athanasius to Epictetus explains its meaning. We abide therefore therein, and cast off all |xcii doctrines recently superinduced, either by Epistles or Chapters, as disturbing the common faith:'
i. e. he was to acknowledge that he, not Nestorius, had been the disturber of the Church. S. Cyril most gladly received the Epistle to Epictetus , but shewed them that their own copies had been corrupted by heretics . For the rest, he said that to withdraw what he had written would be to unsay all which had been said against the heresy of Nestorius. He was, in fact, to withdraw by his single act Epistles, of which one had been accepted by the Council of Ephesus, individually and as a body, the other, with the anathemas, had been placed among its Acts (no one excepting), and undo his whole work at the dictum of John and five other Bishops.
The Orientals then selected a wiser envoy, Paul of Emesa. Yet even him they burthened with complaints, 'as if some things had been said and done wrongly' in the Synod. This occasioned the only reminiscence of the past ill-treatment, ' They who ought to seek pardon for the past, how do they add fresh contumelies?' When these were withdrawn, S. Cyril says, 'we were filled with gladness of heart;' and 'contrary perhaps to his expectations,' Paul found him fully disposed for peace . S. Cyril's relation shews how deeply he felt the rent as a work of Satan. He accepted at once a Confession, written (John said in his letter to S. Cyril) 'by us |xciii in harmony .' He gave to Paul a statement of faith, which John accepted. Paul preached in the great Church of Alexandria . 'The people cried out, This is the Faith, the gift of God, orthodox Cyril. This we sought to hear.' S. Cyril wrote to John the exulting letter, beginning with the words of the Psalm, 'Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad. For the middle-wall of partition is dissolved; what saddened has ceased; all manner of discord is removed. For Christ, the Saviour of us all, has bestowed peace upon all His Churches.'
He says, in a sort of under-tone to Maximian who had succeeded Nestorius,
'Strife and contention reign not among us, but we have all one mark, looking to peace. And if those who from the first have differed in opinion from us and cut themselves off from us, had willed, there would have been no strife or difference among the Churches. But blessed be the Saviour, Who hath lulled the storm &c.'
It was S. Cyril's lot, then as now, to be misunderstood. He was blamed as to the peace, as, before, for the conflict. Theodoret could not but acquiesce in the acceptance of his own Synodal letter, but held it to be directly contradictory of the twelve Chapters . To his lord and truly God-loving and venerable holy father Nestorius' he apologises for the peace, and assures him, that he holds Cyril in abhorrence, as being the author of all the disturbance of the whole world . The |xciv Nestorianizers were of course very angry; but he had to explain himself, even to his old friend Acacius of Melitene as also to others . He whom the Orientals had so unrelentingly persecuted was now their defender, shewing that they were not Nestorians, and trying patiently to win back to the Communion of the Church individuals still alienated.
He had to bear what was still harder, the reproaches of S. Isidore, to whom he had a filial affection . S. Isidore had told him before of 'the jeers of many at Ephesus, as if thou wert wreaking thine own enmity, and not seeking, as one orthodox, the things of Jesus Christ. For, say they, he is a nephew of Theophilus.'
He had again set forth to him the faith of the Incarnation as something which 'thou thyself wouldest not deny,' and now, when S. Cyril had himself accepted the same statement as propounded by him, he wrote,
' Wondrous man, thou oughtest to remain ever unchanged, not betraying the things of heaven, nor appearing contradictory to thyself. For if thou comparest what thou hast now written with thy former writings, thou wilt seem chargeable with flattery, or the minister of off-handed ness, yielding to vain-glory, instead of imitating the strivings of all those great holy |xcv combatants, who endured to be ill-treated all their life in a foreign land, rather than even hear a thought of evil doctrine.'
S. Isidore, in his zeal for S. Cyril's perfecting, seems to have written to him according to the sayings of others. It must have been hard to be so unjustly blamed by a saint, but S. Cyril seems to have received the undeserved censure in silence.
* * *
One more occasion is recorded in which a public expression of opinion was asked of him, as to the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia.
The Council, while sparing his name, had already condemned a Creed of his, which had been presented by some Nestorians to many Quartodecimans and Novatians who wished to return to the Church . S. Proclus sent to John of Antioch a Tome containing Nestorian passages of Theodore (equally sparing his name), requesting him to have them condemned. Maximus, the bearer, contrary to his instructions, inserted the name. The Antiochenes, after this, would not condemn the passages, even without the name . Maximus , an Archimandrite, came to Alexandria, 'speaking much and strongly' against the Easterns, the 'orthodox have no room there nor freedom to speak the faith.' ' A noble officer of the Palace presented to S. Cyril, when at Jerusalem, a long Epistle of many Clergy and monks and laity, accusing the Eastern Bishops, that they, suppressing the name of Nestorius, professed to be |xcvi averse to him, and bounded down to the books of Theodore on the Incarnation, in which lie many more grievous blasphemies than those of Nestorius. For he was the father of the ill-doctrines of Nestorius, and by speaking his words, the ungodly man is in his present condition.' The Alexandrians, having refused to sign the Tome of S. Proclus, appealed to S. Cyril . S. Cyril indignantly set aside any likeness of 'the ill-reputed doctrine of Diodore and Theodore' to that of the great fathers whom John alleged . To John of Antioch he wrote , that no one should utter in Church the ungodly doctrines of Theodore; but he dwelt on the tenderness, with which those returning should be received, and not be reproached for the past: to Proclus , that Theodore had died in the communion of the Church; that in rejecting his Creed the Council had purposely spared his name, lest some should separate from the Church; that in rejecting the blasphemies of Nestorius they had virtually condemned what was like them; that if it could be done without disturbance, it would be best for the sake of others; but that since John of Antioch wrote, that 'they would rather be burned with fire than do anything of that sort, why should we fan the stilled flame?' that those who wished the writings to be condemned might be persuaded to be quiet rather than give occasion of scandal to the Church. To Maximus, who would not communicate with John because of |xcvii some suspected of Nestorianism, he wrote urging the reception of those willing to return to communion, even though ashamed to own their fall.
Everywhere he is the peace-maker. The veteran pilot, who, under God, had guided the ship through the storm, sat, watching each cloud, as it arose. His one thought was, 'Peace has been restored; take we heed that it be not again broken.'
S. Cyril thought it indeed right to correct in writing the errors of Theodore; but this disturbed no peace, since Theodore was gone. Theodoret, as usual, wrote against him, but Theodoret had not S. Cyril's accurate Theological mind. S. Cyril, in his 9th Anathematism, called God the Holy Ghost, 'the Very own Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ' adopting the language of S. Athanasius, that ' the Holy Spirit was the Very own Spirit of the Son.' Theodoret declaimed chiefly, as if S. Cyril had said this of the Humanity of our Lord, not of His Godhead; but adds, at the end, the sad words, 'If he so calls Him as One in Nature and proceeding from the Father, we will receive it; but if, as having His existence from the Son or through the Son, we will fling it away as blasphemous and ungodly.' Theodoret could not have been, at that time, acquainted with the great writers before him, S. Dionysius of Alexandria, S. Athanasius, S. Basil, S. Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus, S. Epiphanius, S. Cyril of Jerusalem , who used the 'from' or the 'through' which he 'flings' from him. S. Cyril's well-weighed and |xcviii full language has continued to teach man until now. The impetuous language of Theodoret, if it had had any lasting weight, would have fostered the disbelief of any relation between God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, contrary to our Baptismal Creed.