(XIX.) THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. [1]

Three questions arise as to the relation of the Council of Ephesus to the Roman see.

(1) What was the nature of the authority exercised by Celestine I. when he commissioned Cyril to act for him in the case of Nestorius? (2) When the Council was summoned, did this commission "devolve" (as Mr. Rivington maintains) upon it? (3) When it met, did it (as Mr. Rivington holds) act as Celestine's instrument and minister?

(1) It was in the summer of 430 that Cyril wrote a synodical letter to Celestine, giving an account of the Nestorian controversy up to that date. "Long-standing usages of the Church,"

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he says, "induce him to communicate the facts to Celestine;" he feels that he "must needs" do so, although heretofore he has not written on the subject either to Celestine or to any other of their "fellow-ministers" - a phrase which shows that in this connection he regards the bishop of Rome as a primns inter pares, and, having resolved to warn the episcopate at large, begins naturally with him. He will not separate himself from the communion of Nestorius until he has thus informed Celestine, whom, therefore, he requests tupwsai to dokoun. [2] Mr. Rivington understands this as an application for a final judicial decision which "the Pope alone" could give. The Latin translation of Cyril's letter simply renders, "quid hic sentias praescribere " [3] and this is supported by what follows, for Cyril tells Celestine that he ought to make known his mind (skopon) to the Macedonian and the Oriental bishops. We shall presently see that the Oriental bishops did not regard Celestine as the one supreme judge of

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such a question. Celestine summons a Council at Rome, and in its behalf replies to Cyril; he calls it "a great triumph for his belief that Cyril adduces such strong proof in support of it." Is this the language of a Pope who, as Mr. Rivington words it, "at once assumes his infallibility"? He desires Cyril to take a certain line of action as his representative. But here Mr. Rivington objects to the rendering of an important clause as "join the authority of our see to your own" (p. 313). He substitutes "assuming the authority of our see" (p. 309). But a man who had no official authority might "assume the authority" of one who appoints him a plenipotentiary, as a Pope might make a mere deacon his legate; and the words, as read by Cyril in Greek, are "the authority of our see having been combined (sunafqeishs) with yours," so as to recognise in Cyril an authority with which Celestine's was to be linked. [4] Cyril is told to "act authoritatively as taking Celestine's place." [5] But Celestine proceeds to say that

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unless Nestorius, "within ten days after receiving his admonition," gives written assurance of agreement with the faith of the Roman and Alexandrian Churches, and of all Christians in general, Cyril is to "provide for" the Church of Constantinople, and Nestorius is to know that he is separated from "our body." Nestorius is similarly warned that in that case he must regard himself as "ejected from all communion with the Catholic Church." [6] Celestine writes in a like sense to the orthodox at Constantinople; [7] and to John, patriarch of Antioch, he writes that this sentence had been uttered by himself "or rather by Christ" (a phrase used also in the letter to Cyril), and that Nestorius, on failing to give satisfaction, will be in the position of one "removed from the assembly of bishops." Mr. Rivington treats this language as expressing a fully Papal "assumption of infallibility." [8] But Celestine here lays stress on the complete doctrinal accord between Cyril and himself; he is certain that what they

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thus hold is the very truth revealed in Christ he confidently assumes that it is this, and nothing else, which all Churches hold; and he infers that all Churches will agree with Rome and Alexandria in excommunicating a bishop who denies it. This is further illustrated by Cyril's letter to John of Antioch, written after he had received the commission of Celestine. [9] On Mr. Rivington's showing, Cyril knew that he and any other bishop must absolutely bow to Celestine's judgment as being, because his, the judgment of Christ delivered through His vicar. If he held this, we know how he must have written to John. How, then, does he write? Does he say, in effect "You and I, of course, must obey the bishop of Rome as our sovereign ruler and our infallible guide"? Nothing like it. He says: "A clear direction has been given" (using the word tetupwke) "by the holy synod of the Romans" (so above, "the pious bishops who were found in the great city of Rome"), "whom it is necessary for those to follow (peiqesqai) who cling to communion with the whole West." He adds that "they have written to Rufus of Thessalonica, and to some other Macedonian bishops, who always concur

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tais par' autou yhfois and also to Juvenal of Aelia [Jerusalem]. It is then for your Piety to consider what is expedient; for we shall follow the decisions given" ... [here Mr. Rivington proceeds] "by him," meaning Celestine, and the Greek text has par' autou; but this is clearly an iteration, by oversight, of the previous par' autou, for the context requires par' autwn, and so the Latin version has "quae illi judicaverunt," and Cyril adds, "fearing to fall away from the communion," not (as Mr. Rivington renders) "'of such'"(i.e. "the whole West")' but "of so many." It is necessary to insist on this, because Mr. Rivington (p. 315) misrepresents the passage as recognising an "ex cathedra judgment on a matter of faith" in the sense of the Vatican decree. Now let us ask whether it is conceivable that a patriarch of Alexandria (that is, of a Church very closely associated with Rome), if he held what that decree affirms to be of faith, could sink the obligation of obeying Christ's Vicar in the "expediency" of keeping on good terms with "the whole West;" [10] or whether, if he

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thought the "Roman synod" the mere "apparatus, machinery, or setting," [11] of one man s sovereign "judgment," he would thus have put the instrument for the causa efficiens. Next, let us look at John's letter to his friend Nestorius. On Vaticanist principles, they both knew that Celestine as Pope had a "plenary, ordinary, and immediate" jurisdiction over them and their Churches; that, in a word, he was their pastor and their sovereign, and that to resist him was sheer rebellion against the Divine "Bishop of souls." Now, when John would persuade Nestorius to accept "Theotocos" within the term (short, he says, but long enough) prescribed by "my lord Celestine" ( o kurios mou being a familiar title of respect), does he appeal to any such relation between the Constantinopolitan see and the Roman? By no means. His argument is: We of the East have just got rid of the trouble caused by dissension with the West; [12] if you stand stiffly out against the adoption of a word which is really orthodox, "the West, and Egypt, and perhaps Macedonia," will again be in formal separation from the East. There

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is not a word in the letter which can be interpreted in the Papalist sense. [13]

(2) There was, we are told, "no limitation in point of time in respect of" the commission given by Celestine to Cyril (p. 322). How can this be, when it expressly specifies "ten days" as the period within which Nestorius is to retract on pain of immediate excommunication? Cyril himself not less expressly refers to the "period" thus assigned; [14] he describes himself as "acting in conjunction with the holy synod assembled at Rome under the presidency of his brother and fellow-minister Celestine" (words which Mr. Rivington neglects) when he gives the third (and evidently the final) warning, "Unless you adopt the right faith" (i.e. within ten days) "know that you have no part with us nor any

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place among God's priests and bishops." Is he not regarding himself as fulfilling the charge contained in Celestine's letter, and announcing the Roman and Alexandrian ultimatum? True, he had also been instructed, in such case, to provide a new bishop for Constantinople. But this was impracticable; and what Cyril could do, that he did. Mr. Rivington struggles to make out that the commission was not "exhausted" by his action (p. 322), but survived to pass on to the Council as summoned by Theodosius. But a commission cannot be at once fulfilled and unfulfilled. If it is fulfilled as far as is possible, it is necessarily "exhausted." If the recipient is to take further action, he must get a new commission. So stood matters at the close of 430; Nestorius had not simply ignored the requirement pressed upon him; he had met Cyril's twelve articles by counter-anathematisms of his own. Ht was therefore, by the very terms of the commission, ipso facto excluded from the communion of Rome and Alexandria. But Theodosius, under his prompting, had summoned a General Council to meet in Ephesus at the ensuing Pentecost. In the letter of invitation, he had ruled

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that "no new steps should in the interim be taken by any individuals," [15] and by this, as Tillemont puts it, he had "arrested, in effect the decrees of the Council of Rome." The action, then, of Celestine in August, and of Cyril about the end of October was suspended by the emperor's act which cut straight across the lines of their policy. Indeed, the very raison d'etre of a General Council was to bring on the stage a fuller authority than that of one or of two patriarchs. Naturally, they were disappointed; naturally, they tried to minimise the effect of the citation, and to think of the arrangements of August as still somehow inchoate. But in such a case facts must outweigh words; and if Celestine, according to Mr. Rivington, "virtually owned the commission originally given as still running," or if Cyril thought that "he was but continuing on the ground of the original commission," we can only say that no one can alter the grammatical scope of his own once published words. The vox missa, in that sense, will not "return" for his convenience. As for Mr. Rivington's assertion that the Council was summoned with Celestine's "consent" (p. 318), he consented

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in that he made the best of the situation. But does any one imagine that Theodosius asked his leave before issuing a peremptory citation? [16]

(3) The Council met in June, 431. [17] Cyril presided, partly as bishop of Alexandria, partly as "managing the place of Celcstine," just as Flavian of Philippi "occupied the place" of Rufus. Was he, then, commissioned to represent Celestine at the Council? "It is difficult," as Tillemont tersely remarks (xiv. 393), "to see how the commission of August 430 could extend to enabling him to act for Celestine at the Council which was not summoned until November;" and Celestine, when writing to Cyril on May 7th , had said nothing of any such delegation, nor had he instructed his actual legates to treat Cyril as their chief; but only to take counsel with him. [18] However, Cyril was

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not likely to be punctilious in such a matter, and "might well assume that Celestine would not disavow him on that head." [19] Now let us look at the conduct of the bishops assembled. Did they regard themselves as simply Celestine's agents for the carrying out of his previous sentence against a heretic? This must have been their view if, however erroneously, they had regarded the commission of August as "devolving" upon them. They would then have had one, and only one, question to ask: Had Nestorius, at the expiration of his term of grace, given satisfaction to Cyril, and therefore to

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Celestine? Five minutes would have sufficed for proving that he had done the very contrary; and then the Council would have promulgated the Papal sentence as already "irreversible" and as having de jure taken effect against Nestorius months before, and [would - NF] have proceeded to take measures for the filling up of the Constantinopolitan see as having thus de jure become vacant. Instead of this, the assembled prelates spent a whole midsummer day, even until dark, [20] in going through the whole mass of pertinent evidence, after repeated formal citations calling on "the most religious bishop Nestorius to present himself among them." [21] Even after his third refusal they did not at once condemn him for contumacy: they tested Cyril's second letter to Nestorius, which Celestine had approved, by the Creed of Nicaea; but whereas, on Papalist principles, they should have treated Celestine's letter to Cyril as decisive, they heard it without remark;

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and again, whereas, on that showing, they should have put in the very forefront Cyril's third lettes as conveying the Papal ultimatum, they only listened to it and abstained from giving it an express synodical approval. Instead of simply accepting Cyril's and Celestine's estimate of the language used by Nestorius, and treating it as already proved to be heretical, they professedly inquired whether his letter to Cyril was, like Cyril's own letter, "in accordance with what was put forth by the holy Fathers at Nicaea;" they condemned it as "wholly contrary" to that standard, and to Cyril's second letter; they heard evidence as to his recent reiterations of heresy; they read seventeen extracts from approved theologians; they went through twenty passages from the sermons of Nestorius; and then, at last they pronounced his condemnations. [22] Before we come to it, let

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us notice Mr. Rivington's remark: "It was St. Celestine's expressed desire that they should satisfy themselves as to the heterodoxy of Nestorius," and so "should give to his judgment a rational adhesion." [23] If this was his "desire," it was beyond the scope of the commission on which, according to Mr. Rivington, they were acting; and no "desire" of his was made known to them until the arrival of the legates - that is, nineteen days after the memorable 22nd of June. Mr. Rivington exults over one clause in the Council's sentence against Nestorius, which he renders, "necessarily compelled by the canons and by the letter of our most holy father and fellow-minister, [24] Celestine" (p. 334). It is not

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"necessarily compelled," but "necessarily" or "irresistibly urged" or "impelled;" [25] but let that pass. In the missives to Nestorius himself and to his clergy, the Council mentions the canons and not Celestine. The canons, and Celestine's letter to Nestorius, cannot here be treated as coordinate; for the Council had not rendered literal obedience to that letter; its [the letter's - NF] purport was broadly inconsistent with any laborious examination of the opinions of the man whom he had therein branded as a "wolf." The words, then, cannot be strained into meaning that "the compulsory nature of the" previous "Papal decision was presumed" by the synodical sentence, which "added nothing to its intrinsic authority;" they simply indicate that the

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bishops desired to utilise to the utmost the fact that the greatest see in the Church [26] was on their side, as against the bishop of the Eastern capital, who was understood to be patronised by the court, and to have many sympathisers in the Antiochene patriarchate - the "Orient" technically so called. They would be the more disposed to do this because they had been obliged to act without waiting for Celestine's envoys. And when, on July 11th, these "legates" appeared in the Council, they brought a letter from Celestine [27] which requires rather more comment than is given in Mr. Rivington's text; but in one of his Appendices he returns to it, and urges that, although the Pope speaks of the Apostolic teachership as having "descended in common to all bishops" ("haec ad omnes in commune Domini sacerdotes mandatae praedicationis cura pervenit"), he does not say that it has descended to them "equally" (p. 480). We ask in reply: Where does he say that it has come to him in a unique sense, as

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the teacher of the Church Universal? Where does he differentiate his own share of the "teachership" from that of other successors of the Twelve? Where does he distinguish his own position from theirs, as the "priest's" is distinguished from the "people's" in "common prayer"? (p. 482). Mr. Rivington, indeed, pretends that Celestine identifies his relation to the bishops with that of St. Paul to Timothy (p. 339). [28] This is a peculiarly audacious gloss. What Celestine says is: "We must act by labouring in common, that we may preserve what has been entrusted [to us], and hitherto retained per apostolicam successionem [29] For this is now required of us, to

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walk according to the Apostle. ... We must take up spiritual arms. ... The blessed Apostle Paul admonishes all who are now stationed in the place where he ordered Timothy to remain. ... The same place, then, the same cause, even now requires that very duty. ... Let us, also, now do and aim at that which Timothy undertook as incumbent on him, 'ne quis aliter sentiat' [referring to 1. Tim. i.3,4]. [30] Let us be of one mind, ... since the faith which is one is being struck at," etc.

Is not Fleury warranted in saying that Celestine here "places himself in the rank of the bishops"? It is true that he refers at the end

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to what he had "previously ordained" as to be "carried out" by his three legates; and there is also a difficulty as to the text of the final clause, where the Latin "Id quod agitur" is not in accordance with the Greek oper an gnwte. [31]

Let us now see what follows. The successor of St. Basil acknowledges that Celestine's "Apostolical see had previously given a direction, [32] and that they had followed and carried it out;" but he immediately adds, "by pronouncing against Nestorius a canonical and Apostolical judgment." [33] The bishop of Ancyra then said that Celestine's letter was a divinely given proof of the justness of their decision. But why? Because it showed his "zeal for the divine faith." [34] In the next session, one of

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the legates, more Romano, refers to our Lord's words to St. Peter, and affirms that the Apostle "up to this time and always lives and exercises judgment in his successors; [35] another speaks of himself and his brethren as sent by Celestine to "execute" his resolves. But what says Cyril himself? He takes care (a) to describe the legates as representing, not only "the Apostolical see," but "all the holy synod of the bishops of the West," [36] and (b) to distinguish their action, as Celestine's real "agents," from the sentence already pronounced by the synod to which he requests their "assent" in writing. But does he, then, recognise them as giving the supreme sanction without which the act would not be properly valid? Not a word like this appears in his speech. But Mr. Rivington fastens on the subsequent declaration of the bishops that the legates had spoken akolouqws (Lat. consentanea). "It is enough," he exclaims; "we ought ... to hear no such accusations as to Rome's disregard for history as are indulged

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in by some writers, whose position is absolutely excluded by the history of the Council of Ephesus. ... The teaching of the Vatican decree on this subject [the Church's government] was the teaching of the Fathers of Ephesus, and it was the rule of their conduct" (p. 347). Was it so, indeed? We need not repeat the terms of the decree; but does this declaration commit the Council to everything which a Roman envoy might say about the dignity of his master? Does not the context show that the Council was referring to the legates' agreement with its decisions? If we render the word "suitably," this would be the ground of the "suitableness" or consistency. One of them had just said that they were "bound to affirm [or "confirm"] the council's teaching, [37] according to what had been done in it" (that is, in view of its recorded proceedings): then comes the remark, "Since they have spoken akolouqws, it follows that they should make good their own promise, and affirm [or "confirm"] what has been done by their signatures;" whereupon they sign the minutes, one of them as "entirely assenting to

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(ecakolouqwn) the last judgment of this holy and oecumenical synod." Their language would thus be "appropriate as emphasising" their "solidarity" with the synod on the one great question which it had to decide. The word bebaiow is somewhat elastic; its sense in any particular passage must be settled by the context; and we learn by Cyril's phrase, "canonical assent," in what sense the legates were expected to "confirm" the council's proceedings. We need only add that in the synodical letters to Theodosius, Celestine is "commended for having condemned the heresy before our sentence" (yhfou), and the legates are said to represent both him and "the whole synod of the West." [38] As to any notion of obedience in the Papalist sense being due to Celestine from the "ecumenical Council," there is not a single word. We may well say with Bossuet that at the outset, "Ipsa synodus intellexit omnia ipso jure in suspenso esse, atque ex synodi pendere sententia;" and that, in the proceedings, the Council so acted as to show that Celestine's judgment was not regarded as "ultimum atque irreformabile."

But this, which Bossuet denies, is what his

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Church now affirms to have been acknowledged from the first. Mr. Rivington placidly assumes that when Cyril in the fourth session spoke of the Council as having had the task of "confirming the right definition of the Apostolic faith," he meant, "of course, the orisqenta tupon of" Celestine. But Celestine's "direction" was not a definition of the faith; and a little more acquaintance with ancient dogmatic phraseology would have saved Mr. Rivington from this blunder. Just before the Creed was read, in the first session, the purpose in hand was stated by Juvenal - "to establish the right faith," [39] i.e. as formulated by the Nicene Council. This faith, or rather Creed, was to be confirmed, not as any bishop's teaching could be confirmed, but in the sense of being synodically reaffirmed; and so, when the African primate's letter [40] had been read, it was summarised by Cyril as aiming at the "confirmation of the ancient doctrines of the faith;" and in his great letter to John he writes, "We cannot allow

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the Nicene Creed to be unsettled." [41] The Council, too, in its letter to Celestine, speaks of Nestorius' error as "dislodging from its basis the economy of the mystery." Mr. Rivington cites this letter for the sake of two remarks in it, that the Council felt it a matter of "necessary duty to report to Celestine all its proceedings" - which, considering his eminent position, was natural enough - and that although it might "justly and lawfully" have deposed John, it had "reserved his case for Celestine's judgment" (p. 353). And here is an illustration of Mr. Rivington's "ways." He makes the Council give as its reason for this reservation, that "the matter concerned one of the 'greater thrones,'" a phrase taken from a subsequent paragraph relating (as he himself intimates) to a different point; [42] he glosses the assertion of a right to depose John, as if it depended

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on the presence of Roman legates; and he omits the reason actually assigned for not doing so - "that by forbearance we might overcome his temerity." Once more, he assumes that three Cyprian bishops spoke untruly when they claimed a traditional independence of Antioch; [43] and he affirms this with a positiveness which contrasts with the language of such great scholars as Tillemont and Le Quien. His reason is, that Innocent I. had pronounced "that the Cyprians ought to return to their obedience." But Innocent's letter avowedly proceeds upon an ex parte statement; [44] and how, on Vatican principles, could a General Council, even provisionally, reverse the alleged "decision" of a Pope? He pours scorn on the suggestion that there may have been some connection between the African bishops' deprecation - in that previous letter to Celestine which he wishes to represent as spurious - of acts which would introduce into the Church "the smoky arrogance of the world," and the Ephesine resolution re Cyprus, forbidding

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bishops to usurp jurisdiction beyond their own bounds, "lest under the guise of episcopal action there should creep in the arrogance of [worldly] authority." The resemblance is almost a verbal identity; it seems to demand some explanation. Eastern bishops, about ninety years before, had shown some jealousy of Roman self-assertion; is it incredible that Eastern bishops in 431 should have thought the words opportune in case of its recurrence? [45] The greatest Asiatic bishop of the fourth century had complained of the "haughty bearing" of that same Roman bishop [Damasus - NF] whose accession, compromised by sanguinary conflicts, had given occasion to a Pagan historian to dwell sarcastically on the pomp and wealth which made his

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see an object of ambition. [46] Eastern prelates were often shrewd and acute men, and certainly not simple enough to think the occupants of "the first see," as such, inaccessible to the temptation of domineering; and such of them as were alive some fourteen years later would probably feel that their words had been unconsciously prophetic of Leo I's attempt to subjugate the Church of Gaul by the aid of an imperial rescript, containing language which, as Tillemont says, "does little honour" to his memory. [47]

Notes