Tag Archives: Ephesus

Ephesus: the aftermath

09 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith, Marian devotion, st cyril of alexandria

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It took sixty years after Nicaea before its results could be said to have been accepted by a majority of Christians; even then, it took an expansion of the Creed agreed there before anything resembling a consensus was reached. In the case of Ephesus, there was a more ready consensus – but also a resistance to the doctrine. This is not the place to go into the history of the so-called ‘Nestorian’ Church, but for those interested there is a good short series on it on this blog starting with this introduction. The whole dispute had been one about the nature of Christ, and it was that subject, and especially the issue of the legitimacy of confessing two natures in Christ after the Incarnation, which occupied the next three Councils: Ephesus II in 449, Chalcedon in 451 and Constantinople II in 553.

It is worth dwelling a little more on the reconciliation with Antioch, because it is one of the few examples we have of such a major potential schism being healed.

The reconciliation with John of Antioch had been an act of great courage on Cyril’s part. Right through the year after Ephesus, most of Syria had been in the rejectionist camp; Theodosius’ instructions that they should accept what had been decided had been ignored, and the Syrians had made a rejection of Cyril’s Twelve Anathemas a condition of reconciliation. Had Cyril been the man portrayed by Gibbon he would not have acted as he did, and there would have been no reunion.

Cyril gave no ground on what he had said, but did make it plain that his condemnations had been of Nestorius, not of the whole Antiochene school. John of Antioch offered an explanation of his position which Cyril found orthodox; Cyril insisted that they accept the deposition and condemnation of Nestorius. With good will on both sides, the way to substantial reunion was found. Once orthodoxy had been established, Cyril worked hard to make the yoke easier on those whose pride had been assailed. If only some later Popes had behaved in such a manner. It is terribly unfair that Cyril has been stigmatised in the way he has been; in practice, once the central theological orthodoxy was established, he was flexible on other matters.

It was, as the Pope told Cyril, his triumph. But within his own Church, and within the Syrian one, there were those who wanted a different sort of triumph – one more akin to that won by Rome against Carthage. Nestorius never accepted his fate, and even in exile in the prison colony of the Great Oasis in Egypt, continued to protest his case; his Bazaar of Heraclides was rediscovered in the nineteenth century, and for those with a taste for such things, stands as a monument to human vanity. Theodoret of Cyrrhus  continued to agitate against Cyril, and would help cause the next great crisis.

As for Cyril, his victory won, he continued to write on Christological issues. His three great Christological works: That the Christ is One; The Exposition of the Creed; The Three Books to the Monks, as well as the monumental Against Julian the Apostate all belong to this last period of his life. He died on 27 June 444, just short of his 70th birthday. He was the greatest theologian of his time; one the the greatest of all time. It was fitting that he should have been called ‘The Seal of all the Fathers’. Had his successor, Dioscorus, possessed a fraction of either his genius in theology of diplomacy, much ill might have been averted.

It remains only to comment on what Cyril achieved – from his own point of view.

Ephesus: the triumph of the Theotokos

08 Monday May 2017

Posted by in Faith, st cyril of alexandria

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To return to the Council. We left it with St Cyril in the ascendant and the definition of Our Lady as ‘Theotokos’ as agreed. But things were far from over. The Antiochene delegation, led by Bishop John, turned up on 26 June, convoked another synod and announced that Cyril was deposed. That created a deadlock: two Councils, two decisions. The emperor originally agreed with both groups – so all the leading bishops were deposed. Here is where the charge comes that Cyril bribed his way to victory.

It must be said up front that Cyril did indeed send a considerable number of very expensive gifts to Constantinople, but to attribute his victory to this is to ignore two things; that the partisans of Nestorius did likewise, as this was how these things were done; it is also to ignore the theological dimension.

The people of Constantinople were behind the Cyrilline council and there were demonstrations and riots when it became known that Theodosius had deposed him. Theodosius was in even more trouble when, on 10 July, the Roman delegation turned up and supported Cyril. Rome and the population of Constantinople were united with Cyril in defence of the Theotokos, as were the people of Ephesus, who  refused to abandon him even when he was placed under house arrest. The ‘gifts’ were part of Cyril’s tactics to secure allies in Constantinople where the partisans of Nestorius still had influence. As McGuckin puts it:

‘Cyril’s payments to court officials undoubtedly smoothed the way for his cause … Nonetheless the key factor which swayed Theodosius was without question the solid determination of the Cyrilline party not to abandon their president whom they identified as synonymous with their cause.’ (p. 106).

Cyril and Memnon were restored, Nestorius deposed; what remained to be done was to reconcile Christendom. Here it helped that the majority of the Antiochenes had accepted the orthodoxy of the declaration that St. Mary was, indeed Theotokos.

It took two more years before Cyril and the church at Antioch could be reconciled, but the former knew how to be magnanimous in victory. John, bishop of Antioch, had no wish to continue to quarrel with the powerful Patriarch. In 433 Cyril marked their reunion with his famous epistle which began “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad”. It contained the credal statement about Our Lady we hold to this day:

Concerning the Virgin Mother of God, we thus think and speak; and of the manner of the Incarnation of the Only Begotten Son of God, necessarily, not by way of addition but for the sake of certainty, as we have received from the beginning from the divine Scriptures and from the tradition of the holy fathers, we will speak briefly, adding nothing whatever to the Faith set forth by the holy Fathers in Nice.  For, as we said before, it suffices for all knowledge of piety and the refutation of all false doctrine of heretics.  But we speak, not presuming on the impossible; but with the confession of our own weakness, excluding those who wish us to cling to those things which transcend human consideration.

We confess, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, perfect God, and perfect Man of a reasonable soul and flesh consisting; begotten before the ages of the Father according to his Divinity, and in the last days, for us and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin according to his humanity, of the same substance with his Father according to his Divinity, and of the same substance with us according to his humanity; for there became a union of two natures.  Wherefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord.

According to this understanding of this unmixed union, we confess the holy Virgin to be Mother of God; because God the Word was incarnate and became Man, and from this conception he united the temple taken from her with himself.

Peace was restored. Some of the more partisan Alexandrians criticised Cyril for giving way to some of the phraseology of the Antiochenes, but he had won his point – and the harshness of the Twelve Anathema was to be buried in the love of brothers reunited; some sacrifice is always necessary. The unwisdom of his critics would be shown six years after his death in 444. But what had Cyril won?

Fighting the beasts at Ephesus

06 Saturday May 2017

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith, Marian devotion, st cyril of alexandria

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Three main charges are commonly levelled against St. Cyril by his denigrators:
– that he turned up at Ephesus with what amounted to his own private army and stirred up opposition to Nestorius
– that he intemperately started the Council early
– that he bribed the emperor into accepting his version of events

There is a level at which each of these criticisms is extracted from the truth, but done so in a manner which leaves it an empty shell. An understanding of this requires a resort to narrative history for a while.

Nestorius was the first bishop to arrive (he only had to cross the Bosphorus). He turned up with his ecclesiastical supporters, his own armed guard, and that of the prefect, Count Candidian, who was the emperor’s representative. In these circumstances it was wise of Cyril to turn up with his ecclesiastical supporters and their ‘attendants’. McGuckin (p. 56) quotes a letter extant now only in Coptic in which St. Cyril denies the charge of bringing an army, and he says there ‘is no hard evidence’ to suggest Cyril did so. The ease with which Count Irenaeus and Candidian were able to cut off Cyril’s supply lines later supports such a conclusion. Cyril turned up, as Nestorius did, with supporters; what he lacked was the armed support enjoyed by the latter. So yes, it is true to say he turned with with a large entourage; to represent that as an attempt to overawe the Imperial Power is too simplistic.

There  was a good deal of anti-Nestorian sentiment in Ephesus. Memnon, its archbishop, barred Nestorius from communion, and aligned himself with Cyril. To blame Cyril for the unpopularity of Nestorius is to misunderstand the context of the Council. Ephesus was the city where Our Blessed Lady had lived with St. John, and had long been the centre of Marian devotion; that its people would have been hostile to Nestorius was natural – Cyril needed to do nothing save proclaim orthodox belief to receive support.

The Council was due to convene on 7 June 431. Cyril delayed it for two weeks as many delegates, including those from Rome and Antioch, had failed to meet that deadline. The hot weather and the strain on the food resources of Ephesus took its toll on those delegates who had arrived. When Cyril received information that the Antiochenes would be delayed a while longer, he summoned the Council together. He suspected, and not without cause, that John of Antioch did not want to be there when Nestorius was deposed; the evidence is sifted at McGuckin pp. 66-68.

Should Cyril have waited longer? Perhaps, but since he had no idea when, if ever, the other delegates might arrive, he decided a fortnight was sufficient.

The First Session began on Monday morning, June 22nd, at Saint Mary’s Cathedral, with Cyril presiding; Peter, an Alexandrian priest, was appointed as the chief legal notary. There were 155 bishops present, of whom 68, led by Theodoret of Cyrus, came to protest against the decision to open the Council. Count Candidian came with them and declared the meeting illegal. St. Cyril asked him to read the letter of the Emperor. This had a double purpose. It revealed a clear instruction to the Count from the Emperor to refrain from interfering in theological discussion. By reading the letter, the Count had, in Cyril’s opinion, opened the Council in a formal sense. After hearing the letter, the bishops asked the Count to leave the meeting and not to interfere in the work of the Council. Count Candidian then left, followed by Theodoret and 26 of the 68 dissident bishops. The remaining 42 bishops stayed.  The meeting went on to summon Nestorius, something repeated the following day, and when he refused to attend, he was deposed.

St. Cyril’s description of the reaction of the great crowd outside to this event is worth repeating:

“When they heard that the wretched men were deposed, they all began with one voice to cry out in praise of the Holy Council, glorifying God because the enemy of the Faith had fallen.”

The people had spoken; the bishops had spoken; but would that be enough for orthodoxy to prevail?

Before turning to that, I want to take a moment to look at how Cyril opened the Council, as it will help us understand how he saw Our Lady in the economy of salvation.