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Exile of

A. D. 435

The rash and obstinate Nestorius, before the CHA P. end of the synod, was oppressed by Cyril, betrayed XLVII. by the court, and faintly supported by his Eastern friends. A sentiment of fear or indignation Nestorius prompted him, while it was yet time, to affect the glory of a voluntary abdication *: his wish, or at least his request, was readily granted; he was conducted with honour from Ephesus to his old mo nastery of Antioch; and, after a short pause, his successors, Maximian and Proclus, were acknowledged as the lawful bishops of Constantinople. But in the silence of his cell, the degraded patriarch could no longer resume the innocence and security of a private monk. The past he regretted, he was discontented with the present, and the future he had reason to dread: the Oriental bishops successively disengaged their cause from his unpopular name, and each day decreased the number of the schismatics who revered Nestorius as the confessor of the faith. After a residence at Antioch of four years, the hand of Theodosius subscribed an edict +, which ranked him with Simon the magician, proscribed his opinions and followers, condemned

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* Αυτό το αυδεηθέντος, επετράπη κατά το οικείον επαναζευσαι μοναςηgoy. Evagrius, 1. i. c. 7. The original letters in the Synodi. con (c. 15. 24, 25, 26.) justify the appearance of a voluntary resignation, which is asserted by Ebed-Jesu, a Nestorian writer, apud Asseman, Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 299. 302.

See the Imperial letters in the Acts of the Synod of Ephesus (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1730-1735.). The odious name of Simonians, which was affixed to the disciples of this τερα τώδες διδασκαλίας, was designed ὡς αν ονείδεσι προβληθέντες αιωνιος ὑπομενειεν τιμωρίαν τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων, και μητε ζωντας τιμωρίας, μητε βάνοντας ατιμίας εκτος ὑπαρχειν. Yet these were Christians ! who differed only in names and in shadows.

CHA P. demned his writings to the flames, and banished XLVII. his person first to Petra in Arabia, and at length.

to Oasis, one of the islands of the Lybian desert *. Secluded from the church and from the world, the exile was still pursued by the rage of bigotry and war. A wandering tribe of the Blemmyes or Nubians, invaded his solitary prison: in their retreat they dismissed a crowd of useless captives; but no sooner had Nestorius reached the banks of the Nile, than he would gladly have escaped from a Roman and orthodox city to the milder servitude of the savages. His flight was punished as a new crime; the soul of the patriarch inspired the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Egypt; the magistrates, the soldiers, the monks, devoutly tortured the enemy of Christ and St. Cyril; and as far as the confines of Æthiopia, the heretic was alternately dragged and recalled, till his aged body was broken by the hardships and accidents of these reiterated journies. Yet his mind was still independent and erect; the president of Thebais was awed by his pastoral letters; he survived the Catholic tyrant of Alexandria, and, after sixteen years' banishment, the synod of Chalcedon would perhaps have restored him to the honours, or at least to the

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* The metaphor of islands is applied by the grave civilians (Pandect. 1. xlviii. tit. 22. leg. 7.) to those happy spots which are discriminated by water and verdure from the Lybian sands. Three of thèse under the common name of Oasis, or Alvahat: 1. The temple of Jupiter Ammon. 2. The middle Oasis three days journey to the west of Lycopolis. 3. The southern, where Nestorius was banished, in the first climate and only three days' journey from the confines of Nubia. See ȧ learned Note of Michaelis (ad Descript. Egypt. Abulfedæ, p. 21. 34.),

communion, of the church. The death of Nes- Ĉ H A P. torius prevented his obedience to their welcome XLVII. summons *; and his disease might afford some colour to the scandalous report, that his tongue, the organ of blasphemy, had been eaten by the worms. He was buried in a city of Upper Egypt, known by the names of Chemnis, or Panopolis, or Akmim f; but the immortal malice of the Jacobites has persevered for ages to cast stones against his sepulchre, and to propagate the foolish tradition, that it was never watered by the rain of heaven, which equally descends on the righteous and the ungodly. Humanity may drop a tear on the { fate of Nestorius; yet justice must observe, that he suffered the persecution which he had approved and inflicted §.

The

*The invitation of Nestorius to the Synod of Chalcedon, is related by Zacharias, bishop of Militene (Evagrius, 1. ii. c. 2. Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 55.), and the famous Xenaias or Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 40, &c.), denied by Evagrius and Asseman, and stoutly maintained by La Croze (Thesaur. Epistol. tom. iii. p. 181, &c.). The fact is not improbable; yet it was the interest of the Monophosites to spread the invidious report; and Eutychius (tom. ii. p. 12.) affirms, that Nestorius died after an exile of seven years, and consequently ten years before the synod of Chalcedon.

+ Consult d'Anville (Memoire sur l'Egypte, p. 191.), Po cock (Description of the East, vol. i. p. 76.) Abulfeda (Descript. Egypt. p. 14.) and his commentator Michaelis (Not. p. 78-83.), and the Nubian Geographer (p. 42.), who mentions, in the xiith century, the ruins and the sugar-canes of Akmim. Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 12.) and Gregory Bar-Hebræus, or Abulpharagius (Asseman. tom. ii. p. 316.), represent the credulity of the xth and xiiith centuries.

§ We e are obliged to Evagrius (1.i. c. 7.) for some extracts from the letters of Nestorius; but the lively picture of his sufferings is treated with insult by the hard and stupid fanatic.

СНАР.

Heresy of

A. D. 448.

The death of the Alexandrian primate after a XLVII. reign of thirty-two years, abandoned the Catholics to the intemperance of zeal and the abuse of vicEutyches, tory*. The monophosite doctrine (one incarnate nature) was rigorously preached in the churches of Egypt and the monasteries of the East; the primitive creed of Apollinaris was protected by the sanctity of Cyril; and the name of EUTYCHES, his venerable friend, has been applied to the sect most adverse to the Syrian heresy of Nestorius. His rival Eutyches was the abbot, or archimandrite, or superior of three hundred monks, but the opinions of a simple and illiterate recluse might have expired in the cell, where he had slept above seventy years, if the resentment or indiscretion of Flavian, the Byzantine pontiff, had not exposed the scandal to the eyes of the Christian world. His domestic synod was instantly convened, their proceedings were sullied with clamour and artifice, and the aged heretic was surprised into a seeming confession, that Christ had not derived his body from the substance of the Virgin Mary. From their partial decree, Eutyches appealed to a general council; and his cause was vigorously asserted by his godson Chrysaphius, the reigning eunuch of the palace, and his accomplice Dioscorus, who had succeeded

Dixi Cyrillum dum viveret, auctoritate sua effecisse, ne Eutychianismus et Monophysitarum error in nervum erumperet: idque verum puto... aliquo. aliquo...honesta modo radias παλινωδίας cecinerat. The learned but cautious Jablonski did not always speak the whole truth. Cum Cyrillo lénius omnino egi, quam si tecum aut cum aliis rei hujus probe gnaris et æquis rerum estimatoribus sermones privatos conferrem. (Thesaur. Epistol. La Crozian, tom. p. 197, 198.), an excellent key to his dis◄ sertations on the Nestorian controversy!

Second

II.

succeeded to the throne, the creed, the talents, and c h a p. the vices of the nephew of Theophilus. By the XLVII. special summons of Theodosius, the second synod of Ephesus was judiciously composed of ten metro. council of Ephesus, politans and ten bishops from each of the six dio- A D. 449. ceses of the Eastern empire: some exceptions of Aug. 8.favour or merit enlarged the number to one hundred and thirty-five; and the Syrian Barsumas, as the chief and representative of the monks, was invited to sit and vote with the successors of the apostles. But the despotism of the Alexandrian patriarch again oppressed the freedom of debate: the same spiritual and carnal weapons were again drawn from the arsenals of Egypt; the Asiatic veterans, a band of archers, served under the orders of Dioscorus; and the more formidable monks, whose minds were inaccessible to reason or mercy, besieged the doors of the cathedral. The general, and, as it should seem, the unconstrained voice of the fathers, accepted the faith and even the anathemas of Cyril; and the heresy of the two natures was formerly condemned in the persons and writings of the most learned Orientals, May those "who divide Christ, be divided with the sword,

may they be hewn in pieces, may they be burnt "alive!" were the charitable wishes of a Christian synod *. The innocence and sanctity of Eutyches,

were

* Η άγια συνοδος ειπεν άρον, καυσον Ευσέβιον, έτος ζων και ετός εις δυο γενηται, ως εμέρισε μερισθη . . . . . εί τις λεγει δυο αναθεμα. At the request of Dioscorus, tuose who were not able to roar (Boneal,) stretched out their hands. At Chalcedon, the Orientals disclaimed these exclamations; but Fyptians more consistentiy declare. ταυτα και. τοτε είπομεν και νυν λεγομεν (Concil. tom iv. p. 1012.)..

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