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CHA P. quivering limbs were delivered to the flames. The XLVII. just progress of inquiry and punishment was stopped by seasonable gifts; but the murder of Hypatia has imprinted an indelible stain on the character and religion of Cyril of Alexandria *.

Nestorius,

patriarch

tinople.

A. D. 428,
April 10.

Superstition, perhaps, would more gently exof Constan- piate the blood of a virgin, than the banishment of a saint; and Cyril had accompanied his uncle to the iniquitous synod of the Oak. When the memory of Chrysostom was restored and consecrated, the nephew of Theophilus, at the head of a dying faction, still maintained the justice of his sentence; nor was it till after a tedious delay and an obstinate resistance, that he yielded to the consent of the Catholic world t. His enmity to the Byzantine pontiffs was a sense of interest, not a sally of passion: he envied their fortunate station in the sunshine

I may therefore prefer the literal sense, without rejecting the metaphorical version of tegulæ, tiles, which is used by M. de Valois. I am ignorant, and the assassins were probably regardless, whether their victim was yet alive.

These exploits of St. Cyril are recorded by Socrates (1. vii. c. 13, 14, 15.); and the most reluctant bigotry is compel led to copy an historian who coolly stiles the murderers of Hypatia άνδρες το φρονημα θερμος. At the mention of that injured name, I am pleased to observe a blush even on the cheek of Baronius (A. D. 415. No. 48.).

+ He was deaf to the entreaties of Atticus of Constantinople, and of Isidore of Pelusium, and yielded only (if we may believe Nicephorus, 1. 14. c. 18.) to the personal intercession of the Virgin. Yet in his last years he still muttered that John Chrysostom had been justly condemned (Tillemont. Mem. Eccles, tom. xiv. p. 278-282. Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A. D.

412. No. 46-64.).

See their characters in the history of Socrates (1. vii. c. 2528.); their power and pretensions, in the huge compilation of Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 80-91.).

sunshine of the Imperial court; and he dreaded c HA P. their upstart ambition, which oppressed the me- XLVII. tropolitans of Europe and Asia, invaded the provinces of Antioch and Alexandria, and measured their diocese by the limits of the empire. The long moderation of Atticus, the mild usurper of the throne of Chrysostom, suspended the animosities of the eastern patriarchs; but Cyril was at length awakened by the exaltation of a rival more worthy of his esteem and hatred. After the short and troubled reign of Sisinnius bishop of Constantinople, the factions of the clergy and people were appeased by the choice of the emperor, who, on this occasion, consulted the voice of fame, and invited the merit of a stranger. Nestorius*, a native of Germanicia, and a monk of Antioch, was recommended by the austerity of his life, and the eloquence of his sermons; but the first homily which he preached before the devout Theodosius betrayed the acrimony and impatience of his zeal. "Give me, O Cæsar!" he exclaimed, "give me the earth purged of heretics, and I will give

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you in exchange the kingdom of heaven. Ex"terminate with me, the heretics; and with you, "I will exterminate the Persians." On the fifth day, as if the treaty had been already signed, the patriarch of Constantinople discovered, surprised, and attacked, a secret conventicle of the Arians; they preferred death to submission; the flames that

were

*His elevation and conduct are described by Socrates (1.) vii. c. 29. 31.); and Marcellinus seems to have applied the loquentiæ satis, sapientiæ parum, of Sallust.

CHA P. were kindled by their despair, soon spread to the XLVII. neighbouring houses, and the triumph of Nestorius

His heresy,

A. D. 429-431.

was clouded by the name of incendiary. On either side of the Hellespont, his episcopal vigour imposed a rigid formulary of faith and discipline; a chronological error concerning the festival of Easter was punished as an offence against the church and state. Lydia and Caria, Sardes and Miletus, were purified with the blood of the obstinate Quartodecimans; and the edict of the emperor, or rather of the pa triarch, enumerates three and twenty degrees and denominations in the guilt and punishment of heresy. But the sword of persecution, which Nestorius so furiously wielded, was soon turned against his own breast. Religion was the pretence; but, in the judgment of a contemporary saint, ambition was the genuine motive of episcopal warfaret.

In the Syrian school, Nestorius had been taught to abhor the confusion of the two natures, and nicely to discriminate the humanity of his master. Christ from the divinity of the Lord Jesus ‡. The Blessed

Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. v. leg. 65. with the illustrations of Baronius (A. D. 428. No. 25, &c.), Godefroy (ad locum), and Pagi (Critica. tom. ii. p. 208.).

+ Isidore of Pelusium (1. iv. epist. 57.). His words are strong and scandalous-τι θαυμαζεις, ει και τον περί πραγμα OSLOV και λόγες κρείττον διαφωνείν προσποιωνται υπο φιλαρχίας εκβακχευομένοι. Isidore is a saint, but he never became a bishop; and I half suspect that the pride of Diogenes trampled on the pride of Plato.

La Croze (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 44-53. Thesaurus Epistolicus La Crozianus, tom. iii. p. 276-280.) has detected the use of ὁ δεσποτης, and ὁ κυριος Ιησές, which in the ivth, vth, and vith centuries, discriminate the school of Diodorus of Tarsus and his Nestorian disciples.

XLVII.

Blessed Virgin he revered as the mother of Christ, c H A P. but his ears were offended with the rash and recent title of mother of God *, which had been insensibly adopted since the origin of the Arian controversy. From the pulpit of Constantinople, a friend of the patriarch, and afterwards the patriarch himself, repeatedly preached against the use, or the abuse, of a word † unknown to the apostles, unauthorised by the church, and which could only tend to alarm the timorous, to mislead the simple, to amuse the profane, and to justify, by a seeming resemblance, the old genealogy of Olympus ‡. In his calmer moments Nestorius confessed, that it might be tolerated or excused by the union of the two natures, and the communication of their idioms:

Outoxes-Deipara: as in zoology we familiarly speak of oviparous and viviparous animals. It is not easy to fix the in. vention of this word, which La Croze (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 16.) ascribes to Eusebius of Cæsarea and the Arians. The orthodox testimonies are produced by Cyril and Petavius Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. 1. v. c. 15. p. 254, &c.); but the veracity of the saint is questionable, and the epithet of Toxos so easily slides from the margin to the text of a Catholic MS.

Basnage, in his Histoire de l'Eglaise, a work of controversy (tom. i. p. 505.), justifies the mother, by the blood of God (Acts, xx. 28. with Mill's various readings). But the Greek MSS. are far from unanimous; and the primitive style of the blood of Christ is preserved in the Syriac version, even in those copies which were used by the Christians of St. Tho mas on the coast of Malabar (La Croze Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 347.). The jealousy of the Nestorians and Monophysites has guarded the purity of their text.

The Pagans of Egypt already laughed at the new Cybele of the Christians (Isidor. 1. i. epist. 54.: a letter was forged in the name of Hypatia, to ridicule the theology of her assassin (Synodicon, c. 216. in iv. tom. Concil. p. 484.). In the ar ticle of NESTORIUS, Bayle has scattered some loose philosophy on the worship of the Virgin Mary.

X

1

CHA P. idioms*: but he was exasperated, by contradic tion, to disclaim the worship of a new born, an infant Deity, to draw his inadequate similes from the conjugal or civil partnerships of life, and to describe the manhood of Christ as the robe, the instrument, the tabernacle of his Godhead. At these blasphemous sounds, the pillars of the sanctuary were shaken. The unsuccessful competitors of Nestorius indulged their pious or personal resentment, the Byzantine clergy was secretly displeased with the intrusion of a stranger; whatever is superstitious or absurd, might claim the protection of the monks; and the people was interested in the glory of their virgin patroness †. The sermons of the archbishop, and the service of the altar, were disturbed by seditious clamour; his authority and doctrine were renounced by separate congregations; every wind scattered round the empire the leaves of controversy; and the voice of the combatants on a sonorous theatre re-echoed in the cells of Palestine and Egypt. It was the duty of Cyril tó enlighten the zeal and ignorance of his innumerable monks: in the school of Alexandria, he had imbibed and professed the incarnation of one nature; and the successor of Athanasius consulted his pride and ambition when he rose in arms against another Arius, more formidable and more

guilty,

* The avridoris of the Greeks, a mutual loan or transfer of the idioms or properties of each nature to the other-of infinity to man, passibility to God, &c. Twelve rules on this nicest of subjects compose the Theological Grammar of Petavius (Dogmata Theolog. tom. v. 1. iv. c. 14, 15. p. 209, &c.). + See Ducange C. P. Christiana, 1. i. p. 30, &c.

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