§ 138. THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF El'HESUS. 723
that is to say, condemnation of [t^estorianism. Tlie positive and ecumenical character of the council was really secured only by the subsequent transactions, and the union of the dominant party of the council with the protesting minority of Oriental bishops.'
Nestorius came first to Ephesus with sixteen bishops, and with an armed escort, as if he were going into battle. He had the imperial influence on his side, but the majority of the bishops and the prevailing voice of the people in Ephesus, and also in Constantinople, w^ere against him. The emperor himself could not be present in person, but sent the captain of his body-guard, the comes Candidian. Cyril appeared with a numerous retinue of fifty Egyptian bishops, besides monks, parabolani, slaves, and seamen, under the banner of St. Mark and of the holy Mother of God, On his side was the archbishop
' It is with reference to this council mainly that Dean Milman (Latin Christianity, i. 227) passes the following harsh and sweeping judgment on the ecumenical councils of the ancient church : " Nowhere is Christianity less attractive, and, if we look to the ordinary tone and character of the proceedings, less authoritative, than in the councils of the church. It is in general a fierce collision of two rival factions, neither of which will yield, each of which is solemnly pledged against conviction. Intrigue, injustice, violence, decisions on authority alone, and that the authority of a turbulent majority, decisions by wild acclamation rather than after sober inquiry, detract from the reverence, and impugn the judgments, at least of the later councils. The close is almost invariably a terrible anathema, in which it is impossible not to discern the tones of human hatred, of arrogant triumph, of rejoicing at the damnation imprecated against the humiUated adversary. Even the venerable council of Nicsea commenced with mutual accusals and recriminations, which were suppressed by the moderation of the emperor ; and throughout the account of Eusebius there is an adulation of the imperial convert, with something of the intoxication, it might be of pardonable vanity, at finding themselves the objects of royal favor, and par taking in royal banquets. But the more fatal error of that council was the solicitation, at least the acquiescence in the infliction, of a civil penalty, that of exile, against the recusant prelates. The degeneracy is rapid from the council of Nicaea to that of Ephesus, where each party came determined to use every means of haste, manoeuvre, court influence, bribery, to crush his adversary ; where there was an encouragement of, if not an appeal to, the violence of the populace, to anticipate the decrees of the council ; where each had his own tumultuous foreign rabble to back his quai^rel; and neither would scruple at any means to obtain the ratification of their anathemas through persecution by the civil government." This is but the dark side of the picture. In spite of all human passions and imperfections truth triumphed at last, and this alone accounts for the extraordinary eSect of these ecumenicul coun^ eils, and the authority they still enjoy in the whole Christian world.
724 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Meiimon of Eplicsus, with forty of his Asiatic suffragaus and twelve bishops from Pampliilia; and the clergy, the monks and the people of Asia Minor were of the same sentiment. The pope of Rome — for the first time at an ecumenical council— was represented by two bishops and a priest, who held with Cyril, but did not mix in the debates, as they aftected to judge between the contending parties, and thus maintain the papal authority. This deputation, however, did not come in at the beginning,' The patriarch John of Antioch, a friend of Nestorius, was detained on the long journey with liis bishops. Cyril refused to wait, and opened the council in the church of St. Mary with a hundred and sixty bishops ' sixteen days after Pentecost, on the 22d of June, in spite of the protest of the imperial commissioner. Nestorius was thrice cited to appear, but refused to come until all the bishops should be assembled. Tlie council then proceeded without him to the examination of the point in dis])ute, and to the condemnation of Nestorius. The bishops unanimously cried : " Whosoever does not anathematize Nestorius, let himself be anathema; the true faith anathematizes him ; the holy council anathematizes him. Whosoever holds fellowship with Nestorius, let him be anathema. We all anathematize the letter and the doctrines of Nestorius. We all anathematize Nestorius and his followers, and his ungodly faith, and his ungodly doctrine. We all anathematize Nestorius," &c.' Then a multitude of Christological expressions of the earlier fathers and several passages from the writings of Nestorius were read, and at the close of the first session, which histed till late in the night, the following sentence of deposition was adopted and subscribed by about two hundred
' St. Augustine also was one of the Western bishops who were summoned, the emperor having sent a special ofBcer to him; but he had died shortly before, on tha •28th of August, 430.
' Before the sentence of deposition came to be subscribed, the number liad increased to a hundred and ninety-eight. Acconliug to the Roman accounts Cyril presided in the name and under the commission of the pope; but in this cise h< should have viclded the presidency in the second and subsequent sessions, at which -he pupal legates were present ; wliich he did not do.
• In Mansi, tov\. iv. p. 1170 sq. ; Ilefe'e, iL lt)9.