I pass over the details of this quarrel. The Emperor tried to reconcile the parties; then affected to depose John, Nestorius, Cyril and Memnon of Ephesus. Eventually he was persuaded that Cyril was right, he let him go back to Egypt, and allowed a new Bishop of Constantinople, Maximian (431–434), to be ordained in place of the deposed Nestorius.[1] This means the triumph of St. Cyril's theology in the great Church. From now Nestorianism is a heresy condemned by a general council,[2] soon to become the teaching of a schismatical sect.
2. The End of Nestorius. Was he a Heretic?
After his deposition Nestorius practically disappears from history. In 435 he was banished to a distant monastery at the bottom of the Libyan desert. Here he spent his last years writing his defence under a pseudonym; and he died on the eve of the Council of Chalcedon.[3]
Among Protestant writers there is often a tendency to rehabilitate people whom the Church has condemned, to declare that an alleged heretic was grossly misrepresented, was really a person of irreproachable views falsely accused of heresy because of some political intrigue. Of no one has this been said so persistently as of Nestorius. His defence is not a new idea. For many years it has been the fashion either to ridicule the whole controversy or to say that he and Cyril really agreed entirely—the question was only one of words; or that what Cyril taught was
- ↑ There were altogether seven sessions of Cyril's council at Ephesus. In the second the Roman legates appeared and made the famous declaration about the primacy which was accepted by the council (Orth. Eastern Church, p. 77). All the details of the Council of Ephesus will be found at length in Hefele-Leclercq: Hist. des Conciles, ii. i. pp. 295–377. The story of Nestorius is summarized by Mgr. Duchesne: Hist. ancienne de l'Église, iii. chap. x. pp. 313–388.
- ↑ Whatever one may think about the absence of John of Antioch when Nestorius was condemned, taking all bishops at Ephesus together, there was an overwhelming majority for St. Cyril—198 against 43. Even if John had come to Cyril's council and had done all he could, he could not have saved Nestorius.
- ↑ The date and place of his death are uncertain—perhaps June 451, at Panopolis. His place of exile was changed several times. For the last years of Nestorius see M. Jugie: Nestorius, 56–62.
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