126 THE DECLINE AND FALL
term most offensive to the ears of the Egyptians, that Christ existed in two natures; and this momentous particle[1] (which the memory, rather than the understanding, must retain) had almost produced a schism among the Catholic bishops. The tome of" Leo had been respectfully, perhaps sincerely, subscribed; but they protested, in two successive debates, that it was neither expedient nor lawful to transgress the sacred landmarks which had been fixed at Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, according to the rule of scripture and tradition. At length they yielded to the importunities of their masters, but their infallible decree, after it had been ratified with deliberate votes and vehement acclamations, was overturned in the next session by the opposition of the legates and their Oriental friends. It was in vain that a multitude of episcopal voices repeated in chorus, "The definition of the fathers is orthodox and immutable! The heretics are now discovered! Anathema to the Nestorians! Let them depart from the synod! Let them repair to Rome!"[2] The legates threatened, the emperor was absolute, and a committee of eighteen bishops prepared a new decree, which was imposed on the reluctant assembly. In the name of the fourth general council, the Christ in one person, but in two natures, was announced to the catholic world; an invisible line was drawn between the heresy of Apollinaris and the faith of St. Cyril; and the road to paradise, a bridge as sharp as a razor, was suspended over the abyss by the master-hand of the theological artist. During ten centuries of blindness and servitude, Europe received her religious opinions from the oracle of the Vatican; and the same doctrine, already varnished with the rust of antiquity, was admitted without dispute into the creed of the reformers, who disclaimed the supremacy of the Roman pontiff. The synod of Chalcedon still triumphs in the protestant churches; but the ferment of controversy has subsided, and the most pious Christians of the present day are ignorant or careless of their own belief concerning the mystery of the incarnation.
Discord of the East. A.D. 451-482.
Far different was the temper of the Greeks and Egyptians
66 It is darkly represented in the microscope of Petavius (tom. v. 1. iii. c. 5); yet the subtle theologian is himself afraid — ne quis fortasse supervacaneam et nimis anxiam putet hujusmodi vocularum inquisitionem, et ab instituti theologici gravitate alienam (p. 124).
67 Ἐβόησαν ἢ ὁ ὄρος κρατείτω ἢ ἀπερχόμεθα . . . οἱ ἀντιλέγοντες φανεροὶ γένωνται οἱ ἀντιλέγοντες Νεστοριανοί εἰσιν, οἱ ἀντιλέγοντες εἰς Ῥώμην ἀπέλθωσιν (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1449). Evagrius and Liberatus present only the placid face of the synod, and discreetly slide over these embers suppositos cineri doloso.
