CLIV. Report of the Same to the Senate of Constantinople.
CLV. Letter of John, Bishop of Antioch and His Supporters, to the Clergy of Constantinople.
CLVI. Letter of the Same to the People of Constantinople.
CLVII. Report of the Council of (the Bishops Of) the East to the Victorious Emperor, Announcing a Second Time the Deposition of Cyril and of Memnon.
Your piety, which shines forth for the good of the empire and of the churches of God, has commanded us to assemble at Ephesus, in order to bring about peace and gain for the Church, rather than to confuse and disturb it. And the commands of your majesty plainly and distinctly indicate your pious and peaceful intentions for the churches of Christ. But Cyril of Alexandria, a man, it would seem, born and bred for the bane of the churches, after taking into partnership the audacity of Memnon of Ephesus, has first of all transgressed against your quieting and pious decree, and has so shewed his general depravity. Your majesty had ordered an investigation and careful testing to be made concerning the faith, and that with the consent and concord of all. Cyril, challenged, or rather himself convicting himself, on the count of the Apollinarian doctrines, by means of the letter which he lately sent to the imperial city, with anathematisms, whereby he is convicted of sharing the views of the impious and heretic Apollinarius, pays no heed to this condition of things, and, as though we were living with no emperor to govern us, is proceeding to every kind of lawlessness. He ought himself to be called to account for his unsound opinion about our Lord Jesus Christ; but, usurping an authority given him neither by the canons, nor by your edicts, he is hurrying headlong into every kind of disorder and illegality.
Moved by these things the holy Synod, which has refused to accept his devices for the damage of the faith, for the aforesaid reasons deposes him. It deposes Memnon also, who has been his counsellor and abettor through all, who has kept up constant agitation against the very holy bishops for refusing to assent to his pernicious heterodoxy; who has shut the churches and every place of prayer, as if we were living among the heathen and the enemies of God; who has brought in the Ephesian mob, so that every day we are in supreme danger, while we look not to defence, but heed the right doctrines of true religion. For the destruction of these men is identical with the establishment of orthodoxy.
From his own Chapters your majesty can have no difficulty in perceiving his impious mind. He is convicted of trying, so to say, to raise from Hades the impious Apollinarius, who died in his heresy, and of attacking the churches and the orthodox faith. He is shewn in his publications to anathematize at once evangelists and apostles and them that succeeded them as forefathers of the Church, who, moved not by their own imaginations, but by the holy Spirit, have preached the true faith, and proclaimed the gospel; a faith and gospel indeed opposed to what this man holds and teaches and by inculcating which he wishes to give his own private iniquity the mastery of the world. Since this is intolerable to us we have followed the proper course, relying at once on the divine grace and on your majesty's good will.
We know that you give to nothing higher honour than to the sacred faith in which both you and your thrice blessed forefathers have been brought up. From them you have received the perpetual sceptre of empire, ever putting down the opponents of the apostolic doctrines. Such an opponent is the aforesaid Cyril, who, with the aid of Memnon, has captured Ephesus as he might some fortress, and justly shares with his ally the sentence of deposition. Justly: for, besides all that has been said, they have boldly tried every means of assault and every violence against us, who, to come together in council in ratification of your edict, have disregarded every claim of home and country and self.
We are now the prey of tyranny, unless your piety intervene and order us to assemble in some other place, near at hand, where we shall be able, from the scriptures, and from the writings of the Fathers, to refute beyond contradiction both Cyril and the victims of his ingenuity. We have mercifully expelled these men from communion with the suggested hope of salvation in case they should repent; although, as if on some campaign of uncivilized soldiery, they have up to this moment furnished him with the means of his illegality. Some were deposed long ago, and have been restored by Cyril. Some have been excommunicated by their own metropolitans, and admitted by him again into communion. Others have been impaled on various accusations, and have been promoted by him to honour. All through, the main motive of his action has been the endeavour to achieve his heretical purpose by the force of numbers, for he does not reckon as he ought that in what relates to true religion, it is not numbers that are required, but rather correctness of doctrine and the truth of the doctrine of the apostles. Men are needed who are competent to establish these points not by audacity and masterful self-assertion but by pious use of apostolic testimony and example.
For all these reasons we beseech and implore your majesty to bear prompt aid to assaulted truth, and to remedy without delay these men's masterful readiness; for, like a hurricane, it is sweeping the less moderate among us into pernicious heresy. Your piety has had care for the churches in Persia and among the barbarians; it is only right that you should not neglect those which are tossed by the storm within the boundaries of the Roman empire.
CLVIII. Report of (the Bishops Of) the East to the Very Pious Emperor, Which Delivered with the Preceding. Report to the Right Honourable Count Irenaeus.
On receiving the letter of your piety we entertained hopes that the Egyptian storm which has lately struck the churches of God would be driven away. But we have been disappointed. Those men have been made even yet more daring by their madness; they have given no heed to the sentence of deposition justly and in due forth passed upon them, nor have become any more moderate in consequence of the rebuke of your majesty. They have trampled down alike the laws of your piety, and the canons of the holy Fathers, and, some of them being deposed and some excommunicated, keep festivals, and celebrate communion, in Houses of Prayer. And we, as we have already informed your Christ-loving majesty, on the receipt of your clemency's kindly letter, though our only desire was to pray in the church of the Apostles, have not only been prevented, but actually stoned, and chased for a considerable distance, so that we were compelled to effect our safety by flight at full speed. Our opponents on the contrary think that they may act just as they please. They have declined to make investigation of the questions at issue, and to undertake the defence of Cyril's heretical Chapters, rejecting the plain proofs of the impiety which they contain. They are impudent from mere impudence, while the examination of the questions before us requires not impudence, but calmness, knowledge, and skill in matters of doctrine.
Under these circumstances we have been under the necessity of sending forward the most honourable Count Irenaeus, to approach your piety, and to explain the position of affairs. He has accurate information concerning all that has occurred, and has learned from us many modes of cure, whereby it may be possible to bring about the restoration of tranquillity to the holy churches of God. We beseech your clemency to grant him patient audience, and to give orders for the prompt carrying out of whatever measures may seem good to your piety, that we be not here crushed beyond all endurance.
CLIX. Letter of the Same to the Praefect and to the Master.
CLX. Letter of the Same to the Governor and Scholasticus.
CLXI. Report Presented to the Emperor by John, Archbishop of Antioch and His Supporters Through Palladius Magistrianus.
CLXII. Letter of Theodoretus to Andreas, Bishop of Samosata, Written from Ephesus.
Writing from Ephesus I salute your holiness, I congratulate you on your infirmity, and deem you dear to God, in that you have known what evil deeds have been going on here by report, and not by personal experience. Evil indeed! They transcend all imagination and all incidents of history; they compel a continual downpour of tears. The body of the Church is in peril of dismemberment;-nay, rather I may say it has received the first incision;-unless the wise Healer restore and re-connect the unsoundand severed limbs. Once again the Egyptian is raging against God, and warring with Moses and Aaron His servants, and the more part of Israel are on the side of the foe; for all too few are the sound who willingly suffer for true religion's sake. Ancient principles are trodden under foot. Deposed men perform priestly functions, and they who have deposed them sit sighing at home. Men excommunicated by the same sentence as the deposed have relieved the deposed of their deposition of their own free will. Such is the mockery of a synod held by Egyptians, by Palestinians, by men from the Pontic and Asian dioceses, and by the West in their company.
What players in a pantomime, in the days of paganism, even in any farce so held up religion to ridicule? Indeed what farce-writer ever performed such a play? What dramatist ever wrote so sad a tragedy? Such and so great are the troubles that have beset God's Church, whereof I have narrated but a very small part.
CLXIII. First Letter of the Commissioners of the East, Sent to Chalcedon, Among Whom Was Theodoretus.
On our arrival at Chalcedon, for neither we ourselves nor our opponents were permitted to enter Constantinople, on account of the seditions of the excellent monks, we heard that eight days before we had appeared (behold the glory of the most pious prince) the lord Nestorius was dismissed from Ephesus, free to go where he would; whereat we are much distressed, since verily deeds done illegally and informally now seem to have some force. Let your holiness however be assured that we shall eagerly join the battle for the Faith, and are willing to fight even unto death. To-day, the 11th of the month Gorpiaeum, we are expecting our very pious Emperor to cross over to the Rufinianum, and there to hear the trial.
We therefore beg your holiness to pray the Lord Christ to help us to be able to con firm the faith of the holy Fathers, and to pluck up by the roots these Chapters which have sprouted to the damage of the Church. We implore your holiness to think and act with us, and to abide in your ready devotion to the orthodox faith. When this letter was written the lord Himerius had not yet met us, being peradventure hindered on the road. But do not let this trouble you. Only let your piety strenuously support us, and we trust that gloom will disappear, and the truth shine forth.
CLXIV. Second Epistle of the Same to the Same, Expressing Premature Triumph in Victory.
Through the prayers of your holiness our most pious prince has granted us an audience, anti by God's grace we have got the better of our opponents, as all our views have beenaccepted by the most Christ-loving emperor. The reports of others were read, and what seemed unfit to be received, and had no further importance, he rejected. They were full of Cyril, and petitioned that he might be summoned to give an account of himself. So far they have not prevailed, but have heard discourses on true religion, that is on the system of the Faith, and that the faith of the blessed Fathers was confirmed. We further refuted Acacius who had laid down in his Commentaries that the Godhead is possible. At this our pious emperor was so shocked at the enormity of the blasphemy that he flung off his mantle, and stepped back. We know that the whole assembly welcomed us as champions of true religion.
It has seemed good to our most pious emperor that anyone should explain his own views, and report them to his piety. We have replied that it is impossible for us to make any other exposition than that made by the blessed Fathers at Nicaea, and so it has pleased his majesty. We therefore offered the form subscribed by your holiness. Moreover, the whole population of Constantinople is continually coming out to us to implore us to fight manfully for the Faith. We do our best to restrain them, to avoid giving offence to our opponents. We have sent a copy of the expositing, that two copies may be made, and you may subscribe them both.